Tag Archives: The War God’s Son

Another Quick Update

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Yamada_DH_FinalCover_smlAccording to Locus, the hard cover limited edition of To Break the Demon Gate from PS Publishing is now scheduled for March of next year. The trade paper reprint should follow next December from Prime Books. That is, of course, if PS keeps that schedule. Otherwise Prime may wind up doing the original and the ltd edition becomes the reprint. Publishing is funny like that.

A story of mine, “Cherry Blossoms on the River of Souls,” (Beneath Ceaseless Skies #131, Fifth Anniversary Issue) has scored a “Recommended” rating from both Lois Tilton and Rich Horton. First time that’s ever happened. Wonder if I can do it again…

The rewrite on The War God’s Son has been delayed slightly by domestic issues, but I still expect it to be finished before the end of the year. I was shooting for the end of November, but obviously didn’t make it. As it stands, it’s pretty much eaten all my writing time for the entire year of 2013. Novels are a huge commitment, and a huge gamble. The potential of course is that one which is well-received can advance your readership by leaps and bounds because there is a large category of readers who never touch short stories. The potential for losing ground is there also, simply because it takes just as long to write an unsuccessful book as it does to write a successful one, and in the meantime you’re not writing anything else. You’re both out of sight and possibly out of mind with your readers during that period.

I think I’ve written a good book, a worthy follow-up for To Break the Demon Gate that continues Yamada’s journey and shows the inevitable changes in the character. It was worth doing. How well it does or doesn’t do is almost beside the point. Yes, I know, but I did say “almost.” Yamada Monogatari: Demon Hunter sold better than anyone expected (me not least of all), and that was nice, but I need To Break the Demon Gate to do well also so that the publisher will want The War God’s Son. I need it to do well so that…well, you get the idea.

But I promise to get back to Power’s Shadow (sequel to Black Kath’s Daughter) next, whatever happens. I’ve been telling Marta’s story for a long time. I think she’s a little tired of waiting, too.

PS: An update to the update–First Reader finished the final section of the book last night and pronounced it Good. Which for First Reader is like fireworks and party hats. I took care of the last revisions this morning so, short of any editorial revision requests, I’m calling The War God’s Son done. So I wrote a page of Power’s Shadow to celebrate.

Yamada’s Saga – Timeline

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Japanese Mask

It occurs to me, with the mixing of short fiction and novel-length stories that make up the Yamada timeline, that it might not be a bad idea to set this all out now, at least to the degree I understand it (and if you think the writer knows everything about what they’ve done, think again). Most of the stories occur in the timeline/continuity in the order that they were written, but the novels do throw one or two curves into the mix, so here goes:

 

“Fox Tails” – First Yamada story written. Knew it was a series then, didn’t know where it was going.

“Moon Viewing at Shijo Bridge” – Second Yamada story. Yamada’s sad history with Princess Teiko is revealed. This was the story where I think I first got a good handle on who Yamada was and what he was about.

YAMADA MONOGATARI: DEMON HUNTER.  First Yamada collection. The stories contained therein were usually a reader’s first introduction to the series and were published over a span of years and appear in the order they were written, but the continuity is not complete in them because….

Here’s where it gets a little complicated:

TO BREAK THE DEMON GATE.  First actual Yamada novel. TBTDG incorporates “Moon Viewing at Shijo Bridge” which forms the first section of the book, and no, I didn’t know that it was the first section of a novel when I wrote it. I figured that out later. The balance of the novel concerns the events leading up to Yamada’s final confrontation with Lord Sentaro. This was written after several of the stories appearing in YM:DH but before “The Ghost of Shinoda Forest,” which ends the collection, but in the continuity of the series, they all, except “Fox Tails” and “Moon Viewing at Shijo Bridge,” occur after the events of the novel. At the end of TO BREAK THE DEMON GATE, Yamada has still not made peace with the memory of Princess Teiko. That comes later (see “The Ghost of Shinoda Forest.”) I’m not sure when the PS Publishing limited edition is coming out, but Prime Books has the trade reprint scheduled for December 2014.

“The Sorrow of Rain” – If you have no idea what this story is, that is because it hasn’t been published yet. But it falls in the timeline before “The Ghost of Shinoda Forest” but after TO BREAK THE DEMON GATE.(Edited to note: Oops. It falls after “The Ghost of Shinoda Forest.”  I misremembered.)

THE WAR GOD’S SON – complete but under revision. The events of this book occur about seven years after “The Ghost of Shinoda Forest,” and take place after all the short stories written to date in the continuity. The novel is set during what is usually referred to as The Nine Years’ War in Japanese history (though, with delays and truces, it was more like twelve). The tearing of the social fabric that will eventually bring about the end of the Heian Period and the rise of the samurai is already evident, but won’t manifest completely for another hundred and twenty years. We also get to meet Yamada’s elder sister. There is no current publication date scheduled.

And that’s where it stands. Confused? I would be. I often am.

Muse and Writer Dialogues #10

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Chapter4FADE IN

 A room that passes for an office. There are bookshelves on one wall, a motley assortment of carvings, signed storyboards, and framed magazine covers on the free wall space. On the far wall is a medieval-style heraldic wall display of a cockatrice and a banner in bad Latin “Pullus non Est.”  Horizontal files sit beneath the window , and on top of those  there used to be a free-standing rack holding Japanese swords, only they had to be removed because of the cats. The computer desk is on the wall nearest the door, facing away from the window. Beside that is a printer on a stand. In the base of that is a PC and a PS3. The PS3 is not currently in use.

Enter the  MUSE, currently in her Greek goddess mode. Writer is sitting at the desk, watching an instructional video on the computer.

MUSE: What are you doing?

WRITER: Taking a music lesson. I’m learning to play “Bad Moon Rising.”

MUSE: You are not a musician. You are a writer, and you’ve got writing to do.

WRITER: First, I’m not a musician YET.

MUSE: Stop kidding yourself. You don’t have the knack. You know it and I know it. Continue reading →

Good Literature Should Taste Good, Too

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Chapter4Apparently First Reader is not the only resident who gets to have a say in regards to The War God’s Son. Sheffield the Cat had some incisive (incisors?) commentary on the lead to Chapter 4. You can see his commentary expressed with his usual directness. The green marks are from First Reader. There’s precedent, of course. The late great Early the Cat used to sit in my manuscript boxes, back when hardcopy was everything and I always printed out the day’s progress. I imagine to this day in some of my papers there are manuscripts with calico cat hair between the pages….

Oh right. Present day, if not present tense. As is pretty typical at this stage of the process, for my own part I have an alternating love/hate relationship with the text. Sometimes I just zip through revisions, and at others I can’t stand to look at it. Sometimes I think it’s among the best things I’ve ever done, at others, not so much.  As I said, typical. The jury’s still out with First Reader, though she is quick to point out that my punctuation is atrocious (her word, not mine). I beg to differ. My punctuation is not atrocious. It’s commas, mostly. I think commas should do what I want them to do, and I put them where I darn well want. She says commas do what they are grammatically required to do, belong only where they are required to belong. I think this is a philosophical divide that we may never manage to bridge.

As for Sheffield, he pronounces Chapter 4 “chewy.” Something he can really get his teeth into.

Time Considered as a Helix of Semi-Precious Interludes

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WRITING 02Time for a blog post in which a lot is going on but almost nothing is, you know, actually happening. First Reader still has the manuscript for The War God’s Son and probably will for another week or two. Once she’s done I’ll be ready to look at the book again and possibly get the submission draft together. I would really like to get that done before the end of November, though realistically even if I do, that’s very close to the time that publishing shuts down for December, so it’s unlikely I’ll get a decision on the book until January at the earliest. The only reason I think it may be that soon is that the publisher knows the book’s on its way and might be able to expedite things. We’ll see.

Since it turns out my brain is still too fried from TWGS to write anything else for a bit, I’ve used the time to try and get the print version files of All the Gates of Hell ready instead, though I’ve hit a couple of snags with the formatting. That is, the template I’ve used twice before with no issues is now getting reported with errors that I don’t believe are errors. Computers are great, except when they aren’t. I’ll get it sorted out and put up a notice when the physical book is available, since I know not everyone is a big fan of ebooks. I am, but I also acknowledge that there’s just something special about a “real” book, and I don’t think they’re going away anytime soon, if ever. Provided the coming apocalypse leaves us with at least a Gutenberg-era level of technology. If we’re back to the stone age, all bets are off.

 

P.S. Yes, I know I misspelled “lama” in my last post. Or rather used the homonym rather than the proper word. Or was confusing the Dalai Lama with Wally Llama. My mind works that way sometimes.