Magical Words

I had one of those rare moments this morning where I realized how much I love my job. Actually, that’s not so rare. It’s just that it doesn’t often hit when I’m sitting down to do revisions.

I’d cleared off my desk of the last set of manuscript papers so I could spread the new ones around. For about two seconds everything was tidy, and then I put a 717 page manuscript on the left side of the keyboard tray, fifty pages of editorial cuts on the right side, and the revision letter on the desk itself.

And I thought something very much like, “This is gonna be great.”

Some time ago I ran a “What would people like to hear about writing?” poll on my LJ. One of the choices was the nuts and bolts of line edits, copy edits, and revisions. As a result of that combined with my extraordinary good cheer about tackling these revisions today, I’m going to subject you to running commentary of the first few chapters/several pages/however long my attention span holds of edits.

I’ll be nice, though, and put it behind the cut.

[Read more →]

Tags: C E Murphy by cemurphy
5 Comments »

A Different kind of post this week:

For those of you who somehow missed it in the news this weekend, actor and activist Paul Newman died on Friday at the age of eighty-three.  Newman has always been one of my favorite actors, and even knowing that he had been sick, I was saddened by the news of his death.  Over the last few days, I’ve been trying to think of what made him so good at what he did, what it was I loved about his work and admired about him as an artist.

The realization I’ve come to is both simply and profound:  Paul Newman was the kind of artist I’d like to be.

My favorite Paul Newman movies include Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid, The Sting, The Verdict, Absence of Malice, The Hustler, Cat on a Hot Tin Roof, The Color of Money, The Road to Perdition.  I could go on — I’ve enjoyed so much of his work.  But that’s probably a good enough list for now.  So, what do these movies have in common aside from Newman’s involvement?  Well, all of them were great movies, but all of them were also accessible.  Newman didn’t do high cinema; he didn’t do movies that were longer on symbolism and art than they were on plot and character.

What else do we know about Newman?  He was a humanitarian who donated in the neighborhood of a $100 million from the sales of his organic food products to various charities, without taking a penny for himself.  He sponsored a camp designed for child cancer patients.  He was also deeply political, and made no effort to hide his progressive leanings from the public.  Indeed, he was proud of his political work.  He was a devoted family man, who remained married to Joanne Woodward for fifty years despite living and working in Hollywood, a place not known for being kind to celebrity marriages.  And finally, he liked to have fun — his idea of having fun happened to involve racing cars, but hey, he enjoyed it and that’s what mattered.

From an artistic perspective, I also strive for that balance between excellence and accessibility.  Every time I begin a new project I set out to write the best book I can.  I want it to be as great as possible in every way, naturally.  I also look to address important issues — race, ethnic identity, prejudice, environmental degradation, among others.  But mostly I try to remember that what I write is entertainment.  I want people to think when they read my books, but first and foremost, I want them to have fun.

I try to give back to my community and my country through volunteer work and charitable contributions (though I don’t have the resources at my disposal to do very much).  And no one who has read my personal blog will be surprised to learn that I’m an active progressive.

Finally, I have always tried to find a balance in my life between my work on the one hand and my family and happiness on the other.  I love what I do, but I love my wife and daughters more.  And I have many hobbies — photography and birdwatching, to name just two — that I enjoy and pursue whenever I have the chance.

Look, I’m not trying to compare myself to Paul Newman.  Far from it.  Nancy will be the first person to tell you that I’m not nearly that good-looking.  I haven’t been nearly as successful, the quality of my work can’t compare to the quality of his, and my impact on the world is tiny by comparison.  But I think that Newman set a terrific example for artists everywhere, and as I contemplate his life and his achievements, I see that he gave those of us who are pursuing our passions as he pursued his, much for which to strive.  This isn’t to say that an artist has to emulate Newman.  Not at all.  But for me he was, and will continue to be, a wonderful role model.

Tags: David B. Coe by DavidBCoe
5 Comments »

Once upon a time, just for the laugh of it, I wrote a story in which the main characters of all the works-in-progress in my writing group all went on strike.  Some of the characters were demanding more “screen time”.  One character insisted he should have a scene with two bikini-clad ladies in a hot tub.  Another wanted a different boyfriend, and one more wanted to be able to paint her toenails.  I made fun of myself as well - my striking character, Lyristus, was complaining that he’d been beaten up several times but hadn’t had any lovin’ to balance it out.  As I said, when I began, I thought I was writing it for the fun of it, but along the way I realized my character was trying to tell me something.  He’d been harboring a secret love of an unattainable woman for nearly the whole book, and that love needed to be a central focus of the story.  Lyristus wasn’t a secondary character - he was a protagonist, and I hadn’t noticed until I let him go on strike.

I’m sure you’ve all heard writers say that they had a perfectly clear idea of what would happen in their novels, until the characters got going and changed everything.  It’s true, at least for me.  Once the characters are created and the story gets going, they will cry and get drunk and spend too much money and dance like fools in front of the Duke of Burgundy, all the things real people do.  And sometimes when they take that sudden left turn, it may drive the author nuts, but it makes for a more brilliant story.

So here’s your homework, kids.  Tell me about a character you’ve written that turned your story upside-down.  (Readers, you can play, too - tell me about a character you read that you think might have done something like that to his author.)

Tags: Nothing To See Here by Misty Massey
7 Comments »

Catie couldn’t think of a thing to say and here I am posting a day early. But I have Internet access, and it may be gone by morning….Soooo….

David started me off on Monday thinking about how I build a new main character. And…I don’t really know. I’m feeling my way through this one.

Like David, it’s not just a character I build, but a world, and in the case of fantasy, a magic system. All of it has to blend together, fit like the chinks in the logs of a log home. Some of it I want to be totally new, never done, and fresh as a new penny. Some I want to be almost trite, close to what Misty called a trope. Like David pointed out when we spent time on tropes earlier this summer, it’s the way a tried and true subject is presented that makes it work or not, not how tried or true it is. Also, the expected makes us comfortable with a character, and the quirky parts make us interested.

Take House—Dr. Gregory House. The things we all want in a diagnostician are there: intelligence, never giving up, driving fascination with a patient and his problem. This is expected and desired. But…let’s face it. House is an SOB. I’ve known uncompassionate MDs like him and they are little more than medical-torturer henchmen. I actually heard one such guy say, “Oh it hurts? How about that? Or this? Does *this* hurt?” And laugh and shake his head. Yet, House is an interesting character. He works in the storylines presented.

But back to character building. David’s creative method is much like the way my hubby used to build a home, thoughtful, linear, almost painstakingly careful, and elegant. For me, it all comes together oddly. A little slapdash. Okay, a lot slapdash. Here’s how Jane Yellowrock worked.

I had just discovered that I have a lot of Cherokee in my lineage. A *lot*. The first Prater (my family name) came to this country in the 1600s as a bond slave, worked 20 years for his freedom and then took off for the hills, where he bought himself a Cherokee wife. His sons followed daddy’s lead and also bought wives from the Cherokee. This went on for a lot of generations. On mama’s side, I had just found out that I was Nansemond and Choctaw. American Indian themes were on my mind.

Because of this, I had been reading Cherokee legends and stories and was especially attentive to the skinwalker myths. That’s the background.

I was having tea with…I think it was Kim, and I said, “I have this idea for a character, a Cherokee skinwalker. And there’s this phrase I can’t get out of my mind. Katie’s Ladies.” And suddenly I knew… It all fell into place. I said, “Like in a house of ill repute.”

Kim (Arrg. Was it Kim?) said something like, “You want to write about a whore?”

I said, “No. But Katie owns the whore house and her Ladies need protection from a vampire. Maybe a rogue vamp. And my character is a skinwalker, who kills rogue vamps.”

“I like,” saith she. “What’s her name?”

“Jane. Vamp killer and muscle for hire. Have stakes will travel.” (You saw it first here.)

At which point we both giggled.

And with that I had Jane’s ethnicity, age range (must have advantage of youth to kill vamps,) magical nature, moxie, physical description (American Indian Cherokee but with something extra) no family or pets (how else can she travel, but fast, light, and alone) and all the building blocks just fell into place. I had probably been working it out in my subconscious mind for days, though the conscious creative parts took about a minute. After one and a fourth books in her series, I am still discovering who the character is. Am still being surprised by her, and taking pleasure in uncovering her backstory. It is a job of discovery as much as one of building or creating. It is also the lazy way to build a character. I don’t recommend it to anyone else. I’d never tell someone to try it my way. David’s is much more sensible and teachable and elegant. But it has worked for me for the last 17 books. Will I change my method? I could. I might. I probably even should. My way is haphazard, and such things tend to fall apart after a while. But I haven’t changed my method-less method yet. I am enjoying the journey too much to try something different right now.

Faith

Tags: Faith Hunter by faithhunter
7 Comments »

I have spent more or less the whole day trying to come up with a good solid writing topic to discuss on Magical Words today. Mostly what I’ve come up with is a backache, because I’ve also spent a significant chunk of time hunched over a laptop and a printer while I turned a 700+ page manuscript from pixels to paper.

Man. Sorry, guys. Today I’ve just got nothing. I’ll try to be extra-brilliant next week to make up for it. :/

-Catie

Tags: C E Murphy by cemurphy
No Comments »

Today, I begin a two part discussion of character development.  Tomorrow, I’ll post the second part at www.sfnovelists.com, and I hope that after you check in here at magicalwords to read Catie’s post, you’ll come over to sfnovelists and read part two of this discussion.

Whenever I’m on panels or in workshops talking about writing fantasy, I try to convey the same basic point:  No matter how terrific a world you’ve created for your story, no matter how complex and clever your plot twists, no matter how gorgeous your prose, successful fantasy, like successful fiction in all genres, comes down to character.  If you create compelling, fascinating, multi-dimensional characters who fascinate your readers, your book or story will be successful.  If your characters are flat, boring, or unbelievable, or if they don’t captivate your readers, your book will fail.  That may seem like an extreme statement, but I believe it’s true.  A book with a flawed world can work if the characters and plot make up for the world’s shortcomings.  A fascinating world and terrific characters can carry a less-than-stellar plot. But if the characters don’t work, the world and plot won’t save you.

So, if you want to write a book that works, just create great characters.  It’s that easy, right?  Right.  Except that creating those believable, fascinating characters isn’t easy at all.  And while I’d love to be able to give you the ABCs of character creation there is no such thing.  Creating characters is as individual as . . . well . . . as any other endeavor in writing.  We each have to find our own way.  But I can at least tell you some of the things that I do when I’m working out characters.

Ideas for new projects come to me in a variety of forms.  Sometimes they begin with a character or group of characters, but other times they begin with magic systems, or plot points, or some other aspect of the worlds I’ve begun to imagine.  In all cases though, my new ideas quickly become character-driven, much like my books.  Not surprisingly, I will begin by focusing on the character who I envision as my main protagonist.  My approach to developing this character goes through several phases.

First, there’s the “Introduction” stage.  I start with a name.  Yeah, I know that sounds pretty basic, but finding a name I like for a main character can take me days.  This is a person with whom I plan to spend a great deal of time.  I’ll probably type his or her name thousands of times.  I’d better like it.  I then start to work on this person’s physical appearance.  This may sound shallow to some, but think about how important physical appearance is in most human interaction.  It’s usually the first thing we notice about a person, and it can often have a profound impact on the way someone interacts with the world.  (For a dramatic example of this, I offer Lois McMaster Bujold’s Miles Vorkosigan books.)  I jot down how I envision the character — face, build, hair, eye color, distinguishing marks.  If I see the character having scars, I give some indication of the source.  I then think about secondary characteristics — voice quality, manner of speaking (clipped, verbose, nervous, confident), physical tics or habits.  Does this person move or carry him/herself a certain way?  IN short, I focus on all the things you might notice the first time you meet someone.

From here I move on to the “Getting to Know You” stage.  I begin to fill in background information:  What do I know about the character’s family history?  What were his/her parents like?  What did they do with their lives — were they soldiers, farmers, nobles?  What were they like as parents and what was the main character’s relationship with them like?  Does/did the character have siblings?  How many?  What were they like and what kind of relationship did the character have with them?  Did the character have a happy childhood or a difficult one (or both)?  Where did the character grow up?  Yes, this is going to be dependent on some worldbuilding, but even if the information is limited to “a small fishing village on an island far removed from the great event of the character’s time” or, conversely, “the largest wealthiest city in the most powerful realm in the land” that is significant information.  And of course, I need to know what this character does for a living, or what role he/she plays in society.  Usually that’s a pretty simple piece of information to fill in, since it’s often central to the plot I’m planning and the character’s role in that plot.  But still, it is important.

Finally, I move on to the “Psychoanalysis” stage.  What is this character like?  What kind of personality traits does this person have?  Is he/she confident or insecure?  Friendly or standoffish?  Arrogant or humble?  Quick tempered or unflappable?  What kind of relationships does he/she have with the people around him or her?  And (this is very important) what personal traits and faults will this person have to overcome in order to deal with the problems I plan to throw at him/her during the course of the book?

I can go on and on, but I figure you get the picture.  Is all of this background work necessary?  Maybe not.  But I like to know as much as possible about a character from the outset.  Sometimes I’ll even write out a character sketch incorporating all of the information that I’ve listed here.  The important thing is that I know a great deal about this person before I begin to outline the plot in a serious way and before I start working on the people around him/her.  This is not to say that I neglect other characters in favor of this one, or that I don’t take as much time and effort with other characters.  (All right, with some characters I take far less time — bit characters need depth and substance, too, but not nearly as much.  But major secondary characters — the supporting cast, if you will, need to be complex and well thought-out, or else the relationships they have with the lead character won’t work.)  But the main character is the one that matters most, the one who has the greatest potential to make or break the book and/or series.

So start with these tips, and tomorrow I’ll talk a bit more about where I like to go from here.  Check out tomorrow’s post at www.sfnovelists.com.

Tags: David B. Coe by DavidBCoe
2 Comments »

I’m working in a testing lab for the next two weeks, overseeing the testing computers and resetting them when they go wrong (which they do several times each hour.) For example, a student called me over a few minutes ago to look at his screen. There was an equation to solve, and the five possible answers he could choose were:

a. 1 2/3
b. 1 2/3
c. 1 2/3
d. 1 2/3
e. 4

After we stopped laughing, I reset the computer and returned to my desk to try and post to Magical Words. I’d been working on a jaunty rant about fanfiction and my thoughts on it…and then I decided it might be a bit reactionary and I didn’t want to upset anyone. At least, not today. (It’s been one of those weeks, and I’m not equipped to argue a point with the sink sponge, much less a real person.) I started to write about how authors sometimes force characters into behaviors that don’t make sense, and how the story will falter. I even had an amusing anecdote to go along with that one. Until I wrote myself into a corner and couldn’t see any other way to finish except by deleting the whole thing. Which I did.  I moved on to why I read a wide variety of genres, except even I got bored with that idea. Delete, delete, delete.

When I first started writing, I used an ancient device known as a typewriter. For you young whippersnappers, this was a machine that looked like a computer keyboard that had eaten too much. You had to roll a single piece of paper onto a roller that held it steady, then hit each key with fervor so that the letter would be firmly printed onto the paper.  It took forever.  When composing a story on a typewriter, I was slow and methodical, because mistakes were the kiss of death.  If I misspelled a word, I had to use White-Out to remove the offending letter, then type the correct one over it.  If I didn’t notice a mistake until the paper had been removed from the machine, you’d have thought the world ended, the way I reacted.  Writing on a word processor is a dream compared to the olden days of typewriters, because you can delete things.

Deleting what you’ve written can be hard.  Sometimes painful, especially if you’ve written something brilliant that still doesn’t fit into the piece you’re constructing. You can always file it away for some future composition, and hope the opportunity to use it arises. But now and then it’s just best to block and delete the whole mess, and start over. The words haven’t gone anywhere. They’re still in your head, waiting to be rearranged into a better order than they were in before. And it wasn’t wasted time, because you learned what wasn’t working and improved the story as a result. Maybe you saved yourself from an argument. Who knows?

My best friend emailed a minute ago, to ask how my day was going. I told her I was trying to come up with something to write about, and she suggested, “Is math a religion?” Well, heck, as well as I understand it, math very well could be the One Great and Sacred Truth. Maybe 1 2/3 is the path to damnation, and 4 the road to enlightenment.

For me, salvation came along with the delete key. 

Tags: Misty Massey by Misty Massey
9 Comments »

I have writer friends who are still working toward that first big publication. Some are people I mentor and some just ask questions when they get stumped. Once such question-asking writer-pal recently said she couldn’t make herself write the *big battle scene.* For some of us that might translate to the *big sex scene* or the *big murder scene.* The scene had her stumped.

For weeks, her brain would veer away from it and, instead of writing the scene, she would do *other stuff*. She would go back and write in needed info in previous scenes or write new scenes in the previous manuscript pages, but her brain wouldn’t let her actually write the climactic fight scene that would pull all her work together and tie up the conflict.

I remember that feeling, of a scene my creative self wouldn’t start on. Kept running from. Literally gave me panic attacks over. I tried several things back then, in the early part of my career, and some worked, and some didn’t. Today, I just jump in and force myself to start writing, and know that, somehow, I’ll pull myself through it. But back then…well, it was scary as heck. And fear is a great motivator – to run away.

With her full knowledge, here is what I said to my writer friend, though changed and played with a bit to make it fit the parameters of this blog.

Yes, dear writer pal, I agree, your mind is shying away from the battle scene, from something you have never done before. Your brain is happier finding other things to do, claiming that those things will make writing the scene easier than it is trying to write the scene itself.

Bad brain. Down. Be still.

May I suggest an intermediate writing technique. A cluster (grape/bubble, other names too, etc.) outline in *extra large format*. What this does is take your brain out of gear and shove it in to neutral, then let it come up through the creative process via a different path, a safe-feeling, early-childhood-level, picture pathway. It is something we have talked about before on this blog, but expanded a bit.

You may have to go to the store for some of this stuff. I used to keep it all on hand. Really. My hubby used to come in from work to our first home, a small apartment, and find the (very, very tiny, miniscule) living room floor totally covered with this stuff. And the dog (back then the dog was Bear) sitting in the corner, puzzled and bored.

Acquire the following items:
a pen
2 large sheets of poster board
2 highlighters (I used blue and gold)
multicolored sticky notes, or just sticky notes (because you may want to do the color part with the pencils or crayons)

colored pencils or crayons (if you want to skip the multicolored sticky notes)

Now sit down on the floor with it all. Just like when you were a kid and were ready to *color*.

I used to first create a legend so I wouldn’t forget what each color was for.

Assign each color of sticky notes (or pencils or crayons) a job, for instance:
red — general battle items (weapons/miscl.soldiers/spells/knowledge)
blue — important characters and the things they need on hand
teal — stuff I need to go back and add in to existing scenes later on
yellow — location of each person as it changes during the scene

Also, perhaps a color for each of the main characters.

You will have to make the legend fit your scene, so be creative. Let your mind have fun with this.

On one poster board sketch out the lay of the land so you can visualize it. Put all the characters and battle stuff (weapons, war machines, horses, jets) in place where they start out in the battle. This is for topography too, so draw in the map (castles, mountains, creeks, lakes, etc.) Now your brain has a picture (literally) of the beginning of the battle. If this is a sex scene you are working on…um…this part may be a lot easier. Or a lot harder.

On the other piece of poster board circle the word BATTLE in the center. Then draw a second circle and write in it the first thing that happens. Connect circle one and two with an arrow. Then draw a third circle for the next thing that happens. If it is a direct result of the second circle, then draw an arrow from circle two to circle three. If it happens independently, (like the other side acting) then draw the arrow from the first circle and the word BATTLE to the third circle. You are now on your way to a cluster outline.

Keep tracing the actions with arrows connecting it all. Use the colored pencils, crayons, highlighters, and sticky notes. .You are doing *anything* to keep your brain from seeing this as writing. As additional things happen in the scene, draw little connecting circles and jot in what happens with the appropriate color.

As you fill in the above cluster circles, write in the progression of events onto the other poster board. Use the highlighters and sticky notes to track things that change, things you need, scenes to add in, and stuff that just pops into your mind. If a particular progression is important then number it to keep track of it all. You will imprint a lovely vision of the battle (sex scene, whatever) on your brain, and engage your creativity on a different, more primitive, childhood level. When you conclude the battle, your brain will be at peace and ready to write.

At that point, I used to translate all the info onto an outline, which I then expanded into the actual written scene. Now, I just dive in and write. Back then my mind truly didn’t believe I could do it. This fooled it and me in to believing I could write the scene. And it worked.

Then BIC and write it.

(BIC = butt in chair)

Anyone got other ideas and methods that work for them? Things you have tried that break through the fear barrier?
Faith

Tags: Faith Hunter by cemurphy
8 Comments »

(That subject line makes me think of huddling in a Dirt Devil, dust and muck and bits of cat fur whizzing by me as I try desperately to drown out the noise and type witty things. My mother says I have a weird mind. :))

People are forever saying to writers, “Where do you get your ideas?” My friend Lilith Saintcrow has just made an absolutely wonderful post about this sort of thing, although it’s not what inspired me to write about it today.

What inspired me was trying to finish up my last short story for Fiction Week over on my blog. I was chatting with my mom and said I was stuck, explained where I was in the story and what I needed, and she helped me come up with an idea that worked. I’d been *almost* there, but I hadn’t quite gotten far enough, and she gave me that extra push.

It is true that writers get their ideas everywhere: from watching strangers at the restaurant, as Lili did; from applying what if? to a scene or situation; from dreams and from mash-ups and from looking out airplane windows. I think that gets talked about a lot.

I think what gets talked about less is being 3/4ths done with a book, say, HANDS OF FLAME, and knowing what the final scene is, which you’ve known since you wrote the original synopsis for the series five years ago, but suddenly realizing you don’t know how or why it happens.

It is at this moment when, filled with panic and despair, you turn to your friend Trent and say, “I need a question that the vampire wouldn’t want answered,” and Trent, without missing a beat, says, “Where are the bodies buried?”

Then the miracle occurs. Trent is still mumbling about how he doesn’t know why he said that, and he doesn’t know what it would mean, but in *your* mind everything is tumbling in to place. The conversation you had (with Trent) three months ago about aspects of the Old Races–a conversation that was really cool but seemed to have no practical application to the story–weds itself to this question, and the story unfolds in such obvious continuity that you can’t imagine how you didn’t think of that yourself.

It’s brainstorming, obviously, and that *does* get talked about, but it’s so often talked about in terms of workshopping or critique groups. I don’t workshop my books or have a critique group. I have a handful of beta readers (Trent included, so he had a pretty clear idea of what was going on when he asked that question), and I spend a surprising amount of time wandering away from my keyboard to find my husband and say, “I need your brain.”

I honestly have no idea what I’d do without people to bounce ideas off of. Write different endings to the trilogy, probably, and perhaps be less satisfied with the results. For me, having these people to talk to is vital. Not always: my husband knew the general plot of THE QUEEN’S BASTARD because he lives with me and I talk about what I’m doing, but as he said, “That one was all yours.” Some of the books are. Others, not so much. For the not-so-much ones, those Q&A sessions are critical.

Yeah. Even when I think that writing is a solitary occupation–and it is–there are moments that make me realize just how much I’m *not* writing in a vacuum.

And that’s good. Getting that grit out of my teeth is just a pain.

Tags: C E Murphy by cemurphy
5 Comments »

Is it my imagination, or are the weeks just flying by right now?  It seems like every time I turn around it’s time for me to write my Monday MagicalWords post.

As I mentioned a couple of weeks ago, I’m finishing up my current book, the third and final volume of my Blood of the Southlands series.  Right now I’m writing the last big action scene.  You know, the one where all the main characters are killed in a massive (not to mention anachronistic) nuclear explosion.  Oh, oops!  Did I give too much away…?

But even after that big climactic scene, I’ll still have a few chapters left to write.  I’ll need to tie up some loose ends and give my readers some sense of the fates of my surviving characters (yeah, okay, I was just kidding about the nuclear explosion thing).  I can’t just end a book, particularly the last book of a series, with the big climax.  I need to give some resolution to the various subplots.

These last chapters in the final book of a long project give both reader and writer an opportunity to say goodbye.  I know that probably sounds strange, but it’s true.  By the time Blood of the Southlands is finished, my readers will have invested a good deal of time in the Forelands/Southlands universe.  Eight books worth.  I’d like to think that they’ve come to care about the world and the people living in it.  I don’t want to yank them out of it too abruptly.  These resolution chapters ease the exit from this world.  Put another way, the closing chapters in a concluding book are like the coda of a symphony.  They give a sense of closure, a chance to process both the triumph and the tragedy of the ending.

And those chapters give me a chance to say goodbye, too.  I’ve been writing in this world for eight years now.  That’s way more than half of my career; hell it’s more than one sixth of my entire life!  I love this world.  I love the characters I’ll be leaving here.  In the end, I need to convince myself that they’ll be all right without me, that the world will be able to live on in some small corner of my mind.

So I’m doing more than finishing a book this month.  I’m putting the finishing touches on an important chapter in my creative life.  (No, fans of the Forelands/Southlands, this doesn’t mean that I’m never planning to write in this world again.  But I do need a break from it.)  As much as I’m looking forward to starting my next project (my Shiny New Toy) I’m also a bit melancholy about this ending.  I want to make certain that I get it right.

Tags: David B. Coe by DavidBCoe
12 Comments »