Yearly Archives: 2018

Holiday Update

I hope all my visitors have been having a good holiday weekend. It’s been (mostly) relaxing here.

First though, here are two links you might find of interest. Andrea over at Little Red Reviewer was kind enough to interview me about my upcoming books, and you can find the link right here. And if you’re unfamiliar with her site, you ought to look around because it’s loaded with interesting, entertaining content.

Second, here’s a link to The Skull’s holiday card.

Here in our tower by The Sea of Monsters all of our minions returned in time for holidays, and they were celebrated with great abandon. First this required a great deal of cleaning, and then my enchantress concocted some delicious food.

For ourselves, our biggest present this year was the basement. As I think I mentioned, with the basement finished, I can now leave my games set up for long stretches. So while I did receive two new boardgames, with the basement what I really received was an entire cabinet full of games, for I can finally play all those that I own. I must have played seven games of Falling Sky in the last week, and I’ve finally got a handle on the rules. It’s much more fun to conquer Gaul this way than I’m sure it was in real life.

The Skull Will Return

You probably already knew that, but I’ll reiterate the fact that a new Kickstarter will launch early next year for the next two issues. Contents for issue 3 are already set and heading into layout. Man, I love working for the Skull. I’d really like to take the magazine quarterly, but I still haven’t seen much feedback on the second issue, so I’m starting to believe if people haven’t had time to read TWO sword-and-sorcery issues in a year that four might be a real glut. It’s a shame, because I know we could keep readers supplied with some great stuff. There’d be even more authors, and more continuing characters.

In other news, I’ve finally wrestled the outline of the third book of the new trilogy into decent enough shape that I’ve begun drafting. So far it’s just a few pages long, but it will grow from there. My goal was to get all of the major plot arcs figured out before my editor got back to me about book 2. Perhaps you know what it’s like to step away from a really complicated project for a long while — it can be really hard to remember what you were planning to do.

Right now all of the big points are worked out. The book’s divided roughly into three acts. Act I is the most solid, and I know how I write well enough at this point to not sweat the little stuff in Act II yet. Act I is likely to change on me as I work through it, and it would have a ripple effect if I had everything in Act II set in stone. I think I really am growing more efficient with this whole book drafting process…

Ask Me Anything

All day today I’ll be over at Reddit Fantasy, ready, willing, and able to talk about the writing craft, editing, or just about anything else writing related you want to chat about. You can find me at this link. Hope to “see” some of you there!

Brood of the Witch Queen

Are there any Sax Rohmer fans among my regular visitors?

I’m finally reading one of his novels, although it’s not a Fu Manchu title. I’m about halfway through a supernatural menace novel titled Brood of the Witch Queen. Rohmer can turn up the dial on the menace really well, and is really strong on the description — sometimes I stop and re-read paragraphs because they’re so nicely composed. The heroes are a little wooden and pulpy but the rest of the prose definitely has enough strengths that it’s worth a look, if you’re at all curious.

I’ll have to try some Fu-Manchu now, although I might first finally get around to reading Calgaich The Swordsman, the famed Gordon Shireffs historical that’s supposed to very good and quite Howardian.

Behind-the-Scenes

You wouldn’t know it by looking at the site, but life’s pretty busy here. Nearly every day I’m doing editorial work for Perilous Worlds. Several times a week I’m editing things for Tales From the Magician’s Skull. And every day I’m working on either the promotion of book 1 of the Ring-Sworn trilogy, or working on the first draft of book 3. This morning it’s that draft I’m contemplating. Wrapping all the threads up by the end of the book is proving a little challenging, and so I’m still tinkering with the outline.

I’m also managing some wargaming to relax, courtesy of the dedicated spot in our new remodeled basement. In the last couple of weeks I’ve played four scenarios of one of my favorite games, Ambush!. (While I do enjoy playing, that exclamation point is part of the game’s title.)

I hope to share details about all of the publishing stuff as everything gets closer to release…

In the meantime, here’s a snapshot at the end of a recent Ambush! scenario. And here’s a link back to my thoughts after a first few plays, as well as a description of the game for the curious.

Marvin Albert Westerns

I got a grab bag of duplicate paperbacks from Chris Hocking a few years ago and discovered a lot of gold. One of the standouts was a detective novel from “Nick Quarry,” which turned out to be one of the pseudonyms of Marvin Albert. Albert also wrote under Al Conroy, and Anthony (or Tony) Rome, Ian MacAlister, and J.D. Christilian. Mysteries, westerns, “men’s adventure;” Albert could do it all, and he always delivered. I’ve read over a dozen paperbacks by the man at this point, and I’ve yet to read a bad one. Now maybe I’ve read only one that comes close to being a true classic, but they’re always good books. The plots make sense, the characters are compelling, the action scenes are crisp and clear, and the pace never flags.

Over the last few years I’ve been trying out a number of “new-to-me” authors of old westerns and mystery fiction. A lot of it is uncharted territory for me. So if I’ve tried a few authors who’ve left me cold, I know I can always retreat to another old Albert novel and be entertained. He’s dependably good.

Notecards

In the last few years I’ve spent a lot of time talking about outlining stories because I’ve been trying to find a way to write without getting lost down paths that yield moments that don’t work. I’ve gotten better and better at getting it right earlier on, in part due to outlines, but admittedly in part just due to practice.

The sequel to the upcoming novel, For the Killing of Kings, was much easier to write than its predecessor. One reason is that by the time I started work on book 2 I had a good handle on the world and the characters. I believe it’s always going to be a challenge starting a new work when you’re writing of an invented place because you need to get familiar with the world and the characters moving through it. 

But another reason it went well is because of the outline permutation I developed. I don’t know if it would have helped me in the past, but I know it helped me in the composition of the second book, and it’s helping me outline book 3.

First Reviews

As the book promotion gets fully under way more and more blurbs are coming in, along with the first major review. Publisher’s Weekly just awarded For the Killing of Kings one of it’s highly desirable stars! This is great news and I hope it’s a sign of good things to come.

I had the opportunity to read from the book at the World Fantasy Convention in Baltimore last month and I was pleased by its reception. I had HOPED that Kyrkenall’s little one-liners were funny, and judging by the lively crowd, he came off pretty well.

World Fantasy Con itself was a blast. It had been most of a year since I’d hung out with my good friend John O’Neill, Black Gate mastermind, and eight long years since I’d been in the same place with the talented Bill Ward, frequent blog guest here.The first night I was invited to dinner with Arin Komins, Rich Warren, L.E. Modessit, John O’Neill, Doug Ellis and his wife Deborah, among others. Soon after, I met Tales From the Magician’s Skull alumnus Setsu Uzume, and made many new friends, like Lancelot Schaubert, Jennifer Brinn, Marie Bilodeau, and Clarence Young, who I joined for an expedition for Baltimore seafood only to discover a Trekker cut from the same cloth as myself. I got to reconnect with talented friends I only ever see at conventions, like Al Bogdan and Ilana C. Myer and Tom Doyle and Chris Cevasco and Patty Templeton and Claire Cooney, and finally met brilliant Claire’s brilliant husband Carlos Hernandez. I met up with Ilana and a number of her friends for a tasty dinner outside the convention then spent most of that meal nerding out about The Beatles with Michael Damian Thomas.

Leaves

This morning the leaves outside the kitchen window are gorgeous. I seem to appreciate autumn more and more as I age. Or maybe Im learning to better appreciate the things around me. Click to enlarge, and you’ll see the colors really pop.

I was traveling all of last week, and the way my phone has been glitching it just made Internet access a challenge. So I’m a little late getting this Black Gate link to you. My friend Myke Cole was interviewed by yours truly about his new book, the second in his new series. We also make casual reference to a really nifty sounding military history book he wrote. You should check out his work, and the interview.

Remodeling for the Future

While my long planned site remodel is still delayed (owing to the influx of work stuff) the actual physical space of our home has changed over the last few months.

Here’s a pic of what our basement has looked like for the last sixteen years or so. Concrete floor. Waterproofed walls. A bunch of junk — although here it is looking a little more organized because we were setting up for a high school graduation party.

Months later, the same space looks much, much nicer. And this next photo was taken before the carpet went in!