Yearly Archives: 2013

Invocation of the Muses

One of Steven Pressfield’s main topics of focus in The War of Art is the fight against what he calls Resistance — the unrelenting struggle a writer faces to NOT write. Every day a writer has to push forward and make the writing happen. You just can’t wait for inspiration, at least not if you’re going to write professionally.

I’ve found that The War of Art is one of the most useful writing books I’ve ever read because of its description of and advice about  waging the battle against Resistance (note the capital R — you must respect the enemy). To help me do battle, one of my tactics is to recognize that when you sit down to write you’re entering a different kind of mental state. I tell writing students that just as a professional athlete would not simply arrive at the track field and start sprinting, a writer will be poorly served to jump into the seat and immediately start typing.

It’s my thought that you have to acknowledge that change, that transition from one mental state (where you’re worrying about groceries and laundry or that news article) to another where the story is all, in order to do good work.

On the first page of The War of Art, Pressfield describes what he does each day to prepare to write so that he can be in the proper frame. Amongst several other personal rituals, Pressfield says a prayer. His is the Invocation of the Muse from Homer’s Odyssey, translated by T.E. Lawrence (that’s Lawrence of Arabia, incidentally).

I’ve never been much of a praying man myself, but I liked the sound of this, so I looked up the prayer, which I had read as a school boy and probably blipped over:

Plague of Titles

I thought I’d pen a quick note just so everyone knew I was still alive. There’s a lot of activity here at Jones central, and some of it is related to the fact I have a looming deadline.

The final stages of the official The Bones of The Old Ones launch campaign are wrapping up. In just a little while I’ll be promoting The Desert of Soul’s official paperback UK release, but in between now and then I’m working away on my next Paizo Pathfinder book. I’m on the final stages of the first draft of whatever the sequel to Plague of Shadows is going to be called.

The fact that I don’t have a title yet bugs me. Usually the title is one of the first things to reach me. For instance, I knew that The Bones of the Old Ones would be titled that after the first few chapters were written, no matter that the entire text was heavily revised several times. The Desert of Souls had a title almost from the first line. But so far a title for Elyana’s next adventure eludes me. All I know for sure is that it really can’t have anything to do with Plague or Shadows and probably shouldn’t have an “of” construction because A.) I’ve been doing that a lot and B.) Paizo has a lot of “of” titles.

Hopefully something will occur to me as I finish and go back through!

I’ve been revisiting Pressfield’s The War of Art and have a few observations about it I mean to share, but I’ve got to get to some writing.

 

 

 

Dabir and Asim in England

Whew! What a busy January that was.

I’m hoping February will be a little more… forgiving.

I’m just about to head out and look for groundhogs this morning, but I wanted to share something I thought was pretty cool. Head of Zeus, my British publisher, is putting finishing touches on their 2013 catalog, and I absolutely love their write-up of The Chronicles of Sword & Sand (aka the adventures of Dabir and Asim) so I thought I’d reproduce it here for your viewing pleasure.

Ask Me Anything Today

Well, almost anything… I hope the questions will be in good taste. I’m not quite the gentleman that Asim is, but I do try.

My reddit Ask Me Anything thread is live now, and can be found by clicking on this line of text. I hope you’ll drop by, and I hope you’ll help spread the word.

Things have been quiet on the site because I’m caught in a promotional loop, but I do have some interesting things going on I’d like to talk about, once I catch my breath.

 

 

Journeying To Reddit

As I mentioned a few days ago, I’ll be answering all sorts of questions about writing and the publishing word over at Reddit on Thursday night. You’ll be able to drop in and create questions throughout the day, and I’ll be answering them live starting around 7:30 or so.

The actual page isn’t created yet, so I can’t provide a link to it, but here’s the general link, which you can use until Thursday. You can see my name over in the sidebar to the right, and sooner or later by clicking that you’ll be able to access my page and Ask Me Anything.

 

Ask Me Anything

I don’t mean RIGHT NOW, but next Thursday, January 31st, when I’ll be over at Reddit most of the evening. I’ll provide a link and all that as the day comes closer. I hope I can count on interested folks to help spread the word.

In other news, a friendly reader noticed that the FB link on my page wasn’t working. It is now, so if you wish to see what nonsense I’m posting daily, you can now click it, friend me, and find out. I tend to post much more often on FB than I do here, or on Twitter. I’ll confess — I still haven’t really figured out how to use Twitter effectively.

I’ve decided against a big ConFusion recap. Short form is that it was a wonderful convention, and I’ll definitely be returning next year. Not only did I reconnect with author and editor friends and talk with some readers, I met some new people I am pleased now to name friends. I flew up to Detroit Thursday morning to spend most of the day with my good friend the talented John Hocking, then wandered around with him and Steve Haffner for a while until I sat down to watch Salidin Ahmed and a group of folks playing a long game of Talisman. Over the next few days there were any number of highlights — a fantastic chat with Patrick Rothfuss on the subject of pacing (well, mostly he was brilliant, and I was nodding), helping Myke Cole brainstorm some silly questions for a Sunday panel on stupid questions, receiving some sage advice from Peter Orullian, talking story structure with Doug Hulick, and  relaxing, chatting, and dining with fine folk like Saladin Ahmed, Mary Robinette Kowal, Violette Malan, Brad Beaulieu, Brian McClellan, Scott Andrews, Michael Thomas, Michael J. Deluca, Amy Sundberg, Patrick Tomlinson, Mike Underwood, the indefatigable Sam Sykes, and a whole lot of other people… but remember how I said this wasn’t going to be a huge recap? So I’ll stop.

Right — it’s late, so I’m going to sign off so I have lots of time to write come the morning, after a good long rest.

 

Seven Kings

The second book from the talented John Fultz was released in trade paperback just last week, and I wanted to call your attention to it. If you’re used to a sort of Tolkienized fantasy, Fultz’s work, laden with the wine of wizardry and high octane thrills distilled from vats once owned by Lord Dunsany and Clark Ashton Smith, is a rich and different sort of treat. Here’s the official blurb for Seven Kings:

In the jungles of Khyrei, an escaped slave seeks vengeance and finds the key to a savage revolution.

In the drought-stricken Stormlands, the Twin Kings argue the destiny of their kingdom: one walks the path of knowledge, the other treads the road to war.

Beyond the haunted mountains King Vireon confronts a plague of demons bent on destroying his family.

With intrigue, sorcery, and war, Seven Kings continues the towering fantasy epic that began with Seven Princes.

Get thee to a book store and grab a copy! You can try out a sample chapter over at Black Gate.

Evildoers Beware!

I have a spider bite on my hand. It may seem unrelated, but while everyone else in the house has come down with various coughs, colds, and even a stomach virus, I remain in perfect health. Coincidence? I think not. Nay, my conclusion is that I have been bitten by a RADIOACTIVE spider. Already I have developed a superhuman immune system. I expect other amazing powers to manifest very shortly. Frankly, I’m just glad I wasn’t bitten by a radioactive camel. Those things HURT, and besides, I’d only be able to go for days without water and spit incredible distances, which isn’t especially useful for crime fighting.

Guttering Candles

Some years ago I ended up with a book written by Harold Lamb containing a personal dedication to his mother. If you’re new to this site, or to me, you may not know that I spent some ten years or so tracking down Harold Lamb’s work and helping to bring it back to print. I happen to think he’s one of the greatest adventure writers these United States have ever seen, although he happens to remain pretty obscure.

Anyway, so there I was, looking at this dedication, which read something along the lines of “to my mother, who was so supportive of my first book, I present my tenth.” By the time that book came into my hands, Lamb, his mother, his wife, and his children were all dead, leaving none to come after. There were only the books, and me, holding this one, wondering how it had found its way here and thinking about the day he must have penned that note and presented it to her.

Lamb is gone, and so is almost all that mattered to him, and when I remember that moment I feel like I am sitting alone in a very large, dark room, near a single, guttering candle. But maybe that’s how all of us humans should feel a little more often, so we remember how precious is the light.

Authorial Voice, Scheduling, and a New Review

I wrote my most recent post about Guy le Strange’s book on ancient Baghdad in one long sustained burst, and upon revisiting just noticed that I use the phrase “by God” and “God alone knows.”

Those really aren’t regular parts of my speech pattern, but they are pretty common in most of my primary sources. Ibn Athir, for instance, seems to praise God every few sentences.  Apparently you really do begin to absorb the style of the books you read!

When I write Asim I strive to emulate the sound of these ancient writers, like ibn Jubayr and Usamah ibn Muquidh. But I don’t imitate them exactly. To the modern western ear so many mentions of religion distract from the narrative, and I would imagine that if I used them as often as Ibn Jubayr I might even be accused of trying to “force” the tone. Thus, while I mention God with some regularity in the Dabir and Asim stories, and  deliberately simulate the cadence and the fee of these ancient writers — adopting a slightly more formal sound — I keep away from precise duplication.