Category Archives: Process

The War God’s Son – Update

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WarGod-600The official publication date is set for October 13th, just a couple months away. Here’s a link to the Prime Books web page for the book, including a description and an excerpt from the book and list of places where it can be pre-ordered. The Audible.com edition should be out at the same time, or close enough for jazz.

As the writer, I remember mostly how much work it was to get it done the way I wanted it done, the way I believed–and now I know I was right–it should have been done. As a reader, I think it’s a lot of fun, and we get much deeper into Yamada’s story. I can’t wait for it to come out.

Hapless Penpusher and the Green-Eyed Monster

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FairyGreenHairIt’ll happen. Doesn’t matter how centered and zen you think you are, or how much you pride yourself on keeping everything about the work and not your ego. Doesn’t matter how proud you are of your accomplishments, or how much time and energy you’ve given to your work. Also doesn’t matter how good you know you are, deep down. Sooner or later, it will happen. Some writer you’ve barely heard of will win a major award in the field and the “best thing I’ve ever written” didn’t even get nominated. The “buzz” will be about someone else. Someone you perceive to be not even at your level will get a movie or TV option, a foreign sale, an interview, a starred review, or whatever, and there it is. Maybe it’s there just for a second, maybe for days, but it’ll be there. “It” being, and say it with me now–jealousy.

Congratulations or condolences, depending on your point of view—you’re human.

So what now? Sulking over the reminder yet again that “life isn’t fair”? Suit yourself, but you do realize that’s a waste of an epic sulk. Would you sulk at the idea that rain is wet? Makes just about as much sense, and is at least as useless.

If you think this is going to be a pep talk about channeling that negative emotion into something positive, nah. There are entire books for that, so go find one if you think you need it. Likely you’ll find motivation to work even harder, to channel your negative feelings into art. To completely miss the point. Jealousy is about your perceived relationship with other writers in your chosen field. If you’re reacting to that, then you’ve made it into a competition. Once that happens you’ll think you’ve transcended your jealousy when all you’ve really done is put it in charge. Jealousy is calling the shots now, informing both your development and outlook. It’s not gone, it’s just gotten so big and ubiquitous that you can’t even see it. If you get to that point, then there will always be someone doing a little better, someone getting a little more attention, and however well you’re doing or whatever wonderful things are happening for you, it’ll never be enough.

So I’m not that big a believer in self-help. I believe in self-awareness. Jealousy is natural. Envy is natural. You’re going to feel those emotions at some point, however mildly or intensely. What matters is what you do about it. For what it’s worth, I’ve only found one thing that always works—you look straight into the eyes of that green-eyed monster, and understand who is looking back at you. Here’s a hint—it’s not someone else. So it’s not really about them, is it? Someone else getting nominated for an award didn’t take that honor from you. Someone having more readers than you do isn’t taking readers away from you. Stare the monster down, and it goes away. For a while. It’ll be back, and so what? There’s nothing it can do to you, unless you let it. Until then, just keep doing your work the best way you know how. Learn from others when you can, but then make what you learn your own. Because, at least where your own work is concerned, it really is all about you.

Jealousy has no place there.

On Receiving Compliments—Plus an Update

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Powers-Shadow-Rough-3I received an actual fan email last week, which is a pretty rare occurrence (You thought we led lives of constant or even regular adulation? Yeah, I know. No one thinks that. Or at least not for long). This was on Yamada Monogatari: To Break the Demon Gate, and came from a nice lady who teaches Japanese, has a grounding in the history and knows the culture, so I was doubly gratified, but even that lovely ego boost had to take second place to the compliment First Reader (Carol) paid me when she finished the first pass edit of Power’s Shadow:

 

 

This is a complete paraphrase, just so you know. My memory’s accuracy is not 100 % guaranteed. But this is the gist:

She: (Looking up from the last page of the manuscript) You know, you’re really evil sometimes.
Me: I’ll take that as a compliment.
She: That’s how I meant it.

That was rather the reaction I was hoping for, so from that standpoint, I think Power’s Shadow (#3 in the Laws of Power series) is a success. I’ve started on the rewrite, so it shouldn’t be too much longer before it’s finally available. I do know it’s taken a while. We have, as I’ve already mentioned, been sprucing up our house to put it on the market, so neither of us has had much time to do much of anything except paint and pack up for the last two months. We can finally see some daylight, and once I’ve got the rewrite finished I’ll turn it into a Kindle and Nook ebook soonest. And then I can finally get back to Yamada Monogatari: The Emperor in Shadow, which is honestly and truly begun, but nowhere near being finished. One thing at a time.

Deja Vu All Over Again

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Faulkner-Wall-NotesSome thoughts triggered by the Nightshade Books edition of the collected letters/correspondence between H.P. Lovecraft and Donald Wandrei, and something aside from HPL’s questionable attitudes for the moment. Rather, this is about something we share as writers.  Now, it’s true that modern sf/f/mystery writers sometimes lament the passing of the old “glory days” of the pulps. We imagine a sort of golden age when people read instead of playing video games or zoning in front of the television, and there were literally hundreds of potential markets. We conjure by those ancient tomes: Weird Tales, Argosy, Amazing Stories, Black Cat, et many a cetera. While the pay wasn’t great except in the slicks, a person with a good work ethic could make a decent living writing short stories and novel serials and little else. And, I admit it, I’ve been guilty of looking backward with rose-tinted glasses myself, even though I know making that living required soul-crushing hackdom and turning out product by the ream. It’s nostalgia for a time I never knew and thus tends to ignore all the horrific truths of living in that time; it’s not supposed to be accurate.

Still, sometimes a little reality is a good thing, and while reading these letters now the thing that strikes me most–at least so far as it concerns the writing life–is how little short story publishing has really changed since 1927. Back then they were wondering why the editor bought this story instead of that one, bemoaning the absence of editorial judgment, bitching about late payments and the lack of good markets, and wondering if that last rejected story really did get all the way to the editor or was bounced by some nameless and clueless summer intern. Heck, I see the same conversation on writers forums every week. If anything is different it’s the ease and ubiquity of self-publishing, and the fact that doing it yourself sometimes even makes sense. Not always, no, but sometimes.  Yet back then there were likewise arguments for it, but it was a lot harder to do and a great deal more expensive. So in that way, perhaps, things really have changed. Everything else? Not so much.

Lost and Found

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Fantastic StoriesContinuing with the purge and pack up, and in the process of cleaning out the closet in the library, I came across an unmarked box. Inside were several things I thought I’d thought gone forever, namely my accumulation (I wouldn’t dignify it as a collection) of digest magazines from the late 1970’s. It was originally much larger, but I’d reluctantly purged it during one lack of space or other. In my faulty memory I thought I’d purged them all. There are several AMAZING STORIES from the period, and even a COVEN 13, but I was especially glad to see the FANTASTIC STORIES from Ted White’s editorship. FANTASTIC was the first fantasy magazine I ever discovered. More to the point, I soon realized that there were such things as writers who sent them stories. I soon became one of them. I never did sell to Ted White, and by the time I sold one to his successor, Elinor Mavor, FANTASTIC had been folded into its sister magazine, AMAZING. Yes, I know. Just a second tier digest back in the days of ANALOG/ASTOUNDING and GALAXY, but there was something about the stories there that appealed to me more.  I still regret that I wasn’t good enough soon enough for FANTASTIC, but I remember what I was shooting for.

No sooner had I turned in the final manuscript of THE WAR GOD’S SON to Paula at Prime than I got an email from Audible.com telling me that the audiobook version is already going into production. I don’t know yet who’s doing the narration, but it should be out at the same time the print and ebook versions are available, still officially set for October. Which should happen on time, since the book is being typeset even as I write this.  Not much longer now, people. If/when there’s a link for pre-orders, I’ll post it here.