Yearly Archives: 2016

Getting Better

I’m happy to announce that with some medicinal aid I’ve managed to get three decent nights of sleep in a row. Not great, but decent, and even that feels amazing. I don’t want to become dependent on sleep-aids, so after a week I’m going to taper off and see if I have “reset” into some kind of normalcy.

I knew the sleep dep was having an effect on my writing, but I didn’t quite realize how severe it was. I made some changes to a chapter last week, and when my wife was looking it over Sunday night she was flabbergasted. Almost ever change had made things worse. Sometimes I had actually added two or three instances of word echo to a paragraph rather than, you know, eliminating them. It was sort of like allowing Jethro Bodine to perform brain surgery.

Anyway, on to cheerier things. I hope to announce soon that I’ve signed a contract for a new series. It’s taken a long time for the contract to move through the system. Even though I’m 98% certain everything will go through, I don’t want to prematurely announce what I expect to happen.

To Sleep…

I know I’ve mentioned before that I sometimes suffer from sleep issues, but boy, have they been kicking my butt for almost half the year. Currently it’s easy for me to GET to sleep at least, so I’ve solved ONE problem, but staying that way is an entirely different issue. Right now I’m waking up three or four times every night for no discernible reason. Thankfully I don’t have much trouble getting back to sleep, but it still means I’m not exactly feeling refreshed every morning. Every time I think I’m on the mend I have another series of lousy nights.

Probably what I need to do is take some over the counter meds that will knock me out and see if that gets me back into the habit of a full night’s sleep. The newest trick, going to bed earlier, has helped, but hasn’t solved the issue.

The result of prolonged sleep deprivation means more struggle with finding the right word when writing, less inspiration, a shorter fuse, and less energy. I fade quickly come evening time, and mornings are dreadful. I’ve had to let down some friends. I’d promised to help them with projects and either delivered late or simply had to bail out because I’ve had no extra energy to give. Regular site visitors might note the lack of blog entries, which is another symptom. When I have so little energy, even a couple of quick notes can feel like a challenge.

The darnedest thing is that I’m otherwise in pretty good health for a man my age. I mean, in two weeks I’m testing for my second degree black belt

Anyway, if you happen to see Morpheus, tell him to go easier on me, will you?

 

Surprise!

File this one under “things you never expect.” I received an alert the other day that my first novel, The Desert of Souls, had been mentioned somewhere out there on the interwebs, and lo and behold my name was invoked in a positive way with Salman Rushdie. My friend Saladin Ahmed was mentioned in the very same sentence — the three of us and a few others were singled out as the “best such works published since 2011” in reference to adult fantasy with Middle-Eastern roots.

So, that was cool, and I’m grateful for the mention by writer Samuel Montgomery-Blinn. I’m delighted to hear that somewhere out there folks are still enjoying The Desert of Souls. I hope some day to write more books about my Arabian heroes (beyond The Bones of the Old Ones, I mean). First, though, I have to finish the books I’m currently writing and revising…

Books and Games

Mornings around here have changed. I’ve continued to suffer from sleep issues, which means I drag, and so I’ve been adopting new patterns to try and help. For instance, rather than sitting down and slowly notwriting while I eat breakfast and surf for way more news than even interests me, as soon as my wife leaves I go clean the horse stalls in the morning, then eat breakfast. It gets the blood moving and wakes me up, but it means I’m not plunked in front of the laptop until 10:15 or 10:30, by which time I don’t feel like I’ve got enough time for any kind of lengthy blog post.

I’m allegedly reading War and Peace in the evenings, but I’ve only managed 40 pages. What with the sleep issues, I’m pretty zonked by 8:00 in the evening or so, and a story from The Savage Sword of Conan omnibus collection I own feels much more like my speed.

Later Savage Sword of Conan Volumes

I’m a late comer to The Savage Sword of Conan. You’d probably have figured that, much as I like sword-and-sorcery, I’d have a huge stack of old sword-and-sorcery comics, but I don’t. I missed out on Savage Sword when it was a mag, and I almost missed out on the Dark Horse reprints. There are 22 of the things, which is a heck of an investment. If, like me, you came upon them with little clue but were curious, you’d probably wonder where to start.

I think anyone who’s heard of these has likewise heard that only the first few compilations are good, because those were the ones with Roy Thomas and John Buscema, and only in the first three or four are they adapting actual Robert E. Howard stories. Their work actually continues on into Volume 6, although by that point they’re mostly adapting pastiche tales, and lesser writers are contributing to some comics in the collection. I have to say that sometimes there’s nothing Thomas could do to make the pastiche better, but sometimes he and Buscema really make it more Howardian than the pastichers ever managed, and occasionally they do even better than that.

Jacobson Wins Chesley!

In July I mentioned that the talented Tyler Jacobs0n was nominated for a Chesley award for the cover he drew for Beyond the Pool of Stars.

Well, I’m pleased to announce that he WON that Chesley award! Congratulations, Tyler!

You can find more of his fantastic art right here.

 

 

Five Bloody Heads

Ah, the plans we mortals make. Last night I planned to wake and after my morning calisthenics take a good half hour to write a proper post about an e-book I quite enjoyed.

The sleep gods beat that plan out of me by cursing me with insomnia. Not the productive kind, but the kind where you keep waking up all night long.

But I’ve been talking about a mysterious book for a long time and I want to say something about it even if I feel like someone just kicked the stuffing out of me. By necessity, I’ll keep it short.

Five Blood Heads is a grimdark tale of sword-and-sorcery shot through with veins of heroism and hope. I don’t like my sword-and-sorcery quite as dark as some modern practitioners, and writer Peter Fugazzoto is just on my side of the line. I’m glad, because he knows how to craft an action scene, and how to pace, and how to get you invested in characters you probably shouldn’t be caring that much about. Sometimes they have even more decency in them than they’re willing to admit in their inner dialogues, for they find themselves acting against their own stated philosophies.

Circles

It was a long (4 hour) drive north to drop my first born off at college yesterday and then a long (4 hour) drive back home. I had neglected to swing by the library to grab some books on tape, and with the kid driving separately that left me with no one to talk with. I called a few friends, of course, and I listened to the radio now and then, and I did a lot of plot thinking about three separate projects. Much as I hate long car rides, that kind of time to just sit and think about plot is a real luxury.

I happened to catch the end of a Fresh Air episode where a writer/actor/producer was being interviewed and she mentioned that she had no interest in Game of Thrones; that she drew the line right there at dragons. Apparently if something had dragons it was immediately off the list, and I recall thinking that was a peculair reason to exclude GoT, because for most of its running time there really aren’t many dragons… I remember smirking. What about even the hint of dragons, I wondered, made you immediately turn up your nose? Is it that you think you’re BETTER than that?

Rapiers Ride!

I’d intended to tell you about a nifty new sword-and-sorcery novel I read last week, but I’m away from home and short on time today and won’t be able to give the book the time it deserves. Look for details next week.

Today I wanted to remark upon how enjoyable the pulps can be. I’ve mentioned the wonderful collection I bought off of pulp scholar Alfred Lybeck 15 years ago. There are 14 of these volumes in all, and until recently I’ve just been reading an occasional story. This year I started selecting volumes and reading them, slowly, straight through. They’re more enjoyable that way, because Al knew how to pace a collection. A shame he never got to be a professional anthology editor.

Mightier Than the Sword

Speaking of writers who don’t get their due, I’ve been reading one of Bill Ward’s short story collections over the last few days and really enjoying it. My reading of it is long overdue, given that I’m a fan of Bill’s fiction and non-fiction. Honestly, it was his observations that really brought the a-game to our entire Conan re-read sequence. He’s got a great gift for insight and critical analysis.

But I’m not here to praise his non-fiction, no matter that it’s more than worthy of that praise, I’m hear to talk about his short story collections, starting with Mightier Than the Sword. Bill can have a hard time standing out because there are any number of guys out there with the same name. A couple of artists, more than a handful of additional writers, etcetera.

You’ll know Bill, though, because he writes grim and gritty and exciting sword-and-sorcery stories. They’re grand and vivid and crammed with action. And if you find one that isn’t quite to your taste, well, it will be over soon enough and you’ll be on to reading another you think is grand. Get thee to the kindle or nook and get to reading! His complete catalog can be found here.