Next month I’ll be the keynote speaker at The DeKalb public library’s Big Read.
I’ll be speaking at 7:30 pm, October 6th at the Ellwood House – Visitor Center (Behind Ellwood House Museum), 509 N. 1st St., DeKalb, IL 60115.
I hope to see some of you there!
Further details can be found at this link.
Regular visitors might notice a slightly changed look to the site. I recently updated the Menu bar so that it’s easier to get around.
For instance, all of my most useful essays on writing techniques are now grouped under the Writing Techniques header, with a drop-down list that leads to ALL the articles that discuss writing (technique or otherwise).
I also finalized all the information about my Appearance at GenCon on my Appearances page, so you can now see what the topics of the panels I’m going to be on are really about, as well as the names of my fellow panelists. In another week or so I should be able to provide information about when I’ll be at the Paizo booth during GenCon.
Here’s a trio of nifty things.
First, I just learned that the audio sample from Kaiju Rising: Age of Monsters is from my Dabir and Asim story collected in that anthology (“The Serpent’s Heart”), so if you want to hear a sample of what my favorite characters have been up to lately follow the link and listen to the snippet. And if you haven’t purchased the book yet, now’s your chance! There’s scads more stories in the anthology, some of them by friends whose work I know and love. (Here’s the part where I shamefacedly admit I haven’t yet read the other stories, for I don’t own a Kindle or Nook and am waiting for my hardcopy.)
…or at least a new book. Today I start work on my new Paizo Pathfinder novel. Assuming the editorial team likes the title for the one I turned in last week (Beyond the Pool of Stars) I want to sort of do a related theme and title this one Through the Gate in the Sea.
I’ve got a detailed outline in hand and am really looking forward to starting work. Unlike every other sequel book I’ve written, I’m starting this one just a few days after I finished its predecessor. The characters are still fresh in my head, and the events pick up only a month or two after the conclusion of the last.
I’ve written enough books now to recognize the honeymoon phase, but I don’t care. I’m full of hope that the outline will keep me on course and that it will have all the vibrancy I imagine AND that there won’t be weird problems that leave me scratching my head for weeks at a time (did I REALLY need them to go here OR now that I look at it more closely, that character’s motivation doesn’t make sense…).
Wayne with the complete run of D&D Gazeteers
I’m pleased — nay, super excited — to announce that the first two Dabir and Asim novels, The Desert of Souls and The Bones of the Old Ones, are now available as audio books!
I hope you’ll help spread the word. Both are narrated by the talented Peter Ganim, and you can find them here and here at Audible, or through the other familiar places that distribute Audible books. I’ve only listened to brief excerpts, and I really like how he’s handled Captain Asim. Some day I’ll probably listen to more… but, as an actor often hates to watch his or her performance, I’m not sure how well I can listen to my own words being read aloud. Perhaps if I had a bigger head.
Trunk Bay, on St. John.
Two weeks ago I set a couple of essays to automatically go live on the web site while I was on a tropical adventure with the family. My wife, son, daughter, and I flew down to the American Virgin Islands and met up with my wife’s side of the family, who’d been several times before. They showed us around St. John and St. Thomas and I tried snorkeling for the first time.
Seeing as how I’m writing two Paizo novels set in tropical lands (and waters) the trip couldn’t have come at a better time. I was taking notes every day (relying on my wife to snap the pictures). I’d actually SHARE some of those pictures except that most of them have the family in them, and as regular visitors know, I keep that stuff private.
Normally, it being April first, I’d be pulling some sort of April Fool’s nonsense, but I’m overdue with some announcements so I’m just going to keep this post short and true.
I’d like to announce the winners of my Crossing the Streams contest. The grand prize winner will be announced soon, and some lucky individual will be receiving a free copy of a book from EVERY author in the contest.
Here’s how I described what I wanted to see from my contest entries: “In the body of the e-mail, all you have to do is name your favorite sword-and-sorcery/heroic fiction novel/story that has NOT been made into a movie, and explain why it should happen. You don’t have to go into great detail if you want.”
As promised, I chose one winner at random, and another winner who wrote the most interesting explanation. There were a number of entertaining stories, several interesting sounding books suggested to me that I’d never heard of before, and a number of entries to which I gave a mental fist pump in agreement.
I don’t know that I’ve been so excited about the premiere of a television show since I was a teenager waiting to see the first episode of a new Star Trek. I had such high hopes for The Next Generation… I know it has its adherents, many among them close friends who tell me that if I just watched to maybe the third, or possibly fourth, season, I’d find great stuff. But when The Next Generation premiered all I knew was that I was seeing a level of quality, script wise, that measured up to the dreadful third season of the original. You know, the season with the space hippies and the men who were half white/half black (but on opposite sides).
The anthology Kaiju Rising is now available as an e-book (for $4.99), with physical copies to be made available soon. It’s chock full of stories about giant monsters drafted by some talented writers, many of whom are my friends. But even if you’re not typically interested in giant monsters, this anthology features the newest Dabir and Asim story, “The Serpent’s Heart.” I hope you’ll try it out, and spread the word!
Prehistoric groundhog.
February’s been pretty good to us here at the Jones homestead. I’m finishing up the drafting of the longest book I’ve ever written, and, as I think I’ve mentioned, with it divided into different parts some of them are finely polished and some are still in “stage play” format. (That means that I’ve got dialogue and a couple of descriptive tags dropped in to key scenes.) This new method sure does seem to be working well. I think I’ll use the same method on my Paizo Pathfinder books when I start on them next week.