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Victory is Mine!

I don’t know that I’ve ever been so long away from the ‘ol blog. I’ve been away from social media as well. I haven’t even been seeking out the news as much. Usually I like to remain well informed about current events, but I’m honestly a little tired and disheartened by all that and just focusing on the people around me and the places nearest me. Doing the garden, digging the weeds, seeing my son graduate college, watching documentaries in the evening with my wife — and writing, and editing, and more and more of the same. Honestly, it’s only been in the last two weeks that I’ve watched documentaries with my beloved, because I was working nearly every night on revisions.

State of the Tower

Things go well here in the Tower by the Sea of Monsters. Before I get into my “state of the union” round-up I thought I’d point you to some links.

First, here’s a great review of Roy Thomas’s new remembrance of his years writing Conan, penned by my friend Charles Rutledge. Sounds like I may need to add this to my wish list. Too bad my birthday and Father’s Day are both so far off!

Second, check out this detailed digital reconstruction of the palace of Tiberius!

Third, sad news. Brian Garfield passed away a few weeks ago. I’ve read a number of enjoyable novels by the man in just the last two years, all written in the late 60s. He’s probably most famous for Deathwish, which became a Charles Bronson movie that took some liberties with Garfield’s intentions. I know him for his westerns, which are always quite good. At least one, The Night it Rained Bullets, is great. I expect to find more that are as I explore deeper into his catalog. Here’s where you can find a copy of your own.

For those of you who are interested in such things, I have an Ask Me Anything coming up over at Reddit Fantasy on February 19th. I am likely to give a way a few book copies on or around that same time, so watch this space for more details.

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…

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.

Magician’s Skull 2

I’m pretty much busy night and day these days. I’m not complaining, because I’m having an absolute blast with all this writing and editing. But I haven’t quite figured out how to fit in time to update the blog regularly. My new theory is that I’ll try to prep stuff on the weekends, so we’ll see how that works. I still have a couple of more interviews with writers from Tales From the Magician’s Skull to take live.

Speaking of the skull, issue 2 hasn’t gotten many reviews. I’m not sure what’s up with that. But here’s a glowing one that just went live over at Black Gate, courtesy of Fletcher Vredenburgh.

Here’s the kickstarter for a new game by the talented (and award-winning) Sarah Newton, kind of a Dying Earth sort of thing that looks waaaay cool. I’ve yet to be disappointed by any of Sarah’s work, which is always loaded with clever plot hooks and fascinating backgrounds.

And my old friend, that brilliant essayist and award-winning short story writer Ryan Harvey, has a kindle short story just right for a cool October evening.

Shhh. Don’t tell anyone, especially the Skull, who doesn’t want to spread the news yet, but I’m working away on issue 3 of Tales From the Magician’s Skull.

Now I must away. I have tales to write and tales to edit…

For the Killing of Kings Preorder

I’d like to thank Jennifer Donovan at St. Martin’s for clearing up the issue at Amazon with the pre-order button on my upcoming novel, For the Killing of Kings, and Mick and Troy and others for keeping me informed about that button’s disappearance. You can find both the book and its pre-order button here.

By a curious coincidence, this week I am reading final page proofs of the very same book. Next to me is a huge stack of paper, and a pen, and a little notebook. The stack of paper is the near final version of the text. The pen isn’t red, but maybe it should be. And the little notebook is to make notes of items I probably should have been tracking all along. The color of a character’s horse, for instance, or the character’s age — sorts of things I’ll really need to know going forward.

A few years ago I went so far as to purchase a program named Scrivener that is really supposed to help you track these kinds of details, but I was already working on the book in Word and didn’t switch. Probably I should have used Scrivener when I started work on book 2… but I’m pretty used to Word at this point. Maybe I’ll use it for book 3…

Speaking of book 2, I’ve tentatively titled it Upon the Flight of the Queen, and I’ve just sent it off to my agent. It will be heading out to my editor early next week.

I actually have some really neat things to blog about, and some more interviews from authors I’ve conducted. I’m just so busy with writing and editing that I may not update the site here as often as I like. I’ll still try to post updates a few times a week. I won’t leave it to the tumbleweeds…

Link Day

Copyright Darian Jones

It’s me, Link Man! I’ve returned to assist Howard while he toils away on numerous important and mysterious projects, none of which probably involve mucking the stables!

First, Deuce Richardson’s authored an interesting article over at DMR books you really ought to look at, especially if you’re a fan of sword-and-sorcery, H.P. Lovecraft, and/or the origins of modern fantasy.

Second, the redoubtable S.E. Lindberg has interviewed the talented Richard Lee Byers, and you really ought to check it out.

Third, Inwell Ideas has released two new encounter decks. I’m a big fan of these — they’re adventure outlines on cards, with a location map on one side and an adventure outline on the other. It’s great stuff if you’re an experienced game master. Each outline comes with the situation, possible hooks, possible complications, and conclusions. If you’ve got the books with rules and monsters, but you need a quick plot, these things are awesome, and highly recommended by yours truly.

Link Man away!

GenCon 2018 Part 3

Leonardo da Vinci, apparently caught in a stasis field at my Indianapolis hotel.

Last week I mentioned that I was, in a way, wearing four kinds of hats when I attended GenCon 2018, and spent most of a post talking about looking around at nifty game treasures and working at the Goodman Games booth.

Wearing the ‘ol writer’s hat, I approached various friends and friendly acquaintances and asked if they’d be interested in considering my upcoming novel for a blurb. As I mentioned early last week, it’s much, much simpler to approach people if you already know them, which is why it’s good to begin attending conventions sooner rather than later, although I wasn’t that mercenary or clever. I first started attending conventions to meet the writers and editors of the stories I loved and to try to find a way into the industry. Doors I didn’t even realize  opened for me when I made friends and contacts with like-minded folks.

Tabletop Gaming: Tableside Resources

Some of the resources I’ve talked about in previous articles are actually useful both as adventure/campaign building resources, and as table side resources, meaning that they’re helpful both during prep time and when you’re actually running the game. As I mentioned, these are just the ones I’ve read and liked best. If you’re aware of others, please share.

Tableside resources are the items you keep on hand to help you riff with descriptions, or to add a little detail that can entertain the players or bring the environment to life. I’ve previously mentioned the Raging Swan Press books like 20 Things I, II, and III, and I Loot the Body, and you definitely ought to be familiar with those and have them on hand. Ultimate Toolbox and the D30 books I mentioned last time have some wonderful aids as well.

Tabletop Adventures has some mighty entries in this entire category. If you need some interesting things to see if your players are walking through some caverns, or the plains, or the wilderness, or if you need some extra little incidents or a few extra rooms or curious land features, you can keep these cards on hand. They come in all kinds of flavors, like Bits of Dungeon, Dungeon II, Bits of Darkness: Caverns or Bits of the Boulevard (and more). And then there’s the whole Into series, like Into the Mountains or Into the Swamp or Into the Wildwood or Into the Open. In each supplement you get fantastic details that help bring the particular setting to life – the characteristics of a temperate forest versus a deciduous forest, say, and the kind of flora and fauna typical of each. Sometimes you even get a weird new monster to encounter as well. I’m pleased to have them all.