Archive | How and why I write RSS feed for this section

Oh, the places you’ll go!

29 Jul

TWSH-coverOne of the most fun things in this series has been creating new places to take readers to, and Book 5, The White-Silver House, continues that trend.

From the discovery of the house in the Old Wood, it’s been a wild ride.

We went through the marsh – something I had no clue about before spending years in Florida. If you look closely at the marsh, you’ll see some resemblance to the swamps in the state I call home.

We spent time in the castle, then the Hall of the Prophetess. The market scene in that book came directly from my experience in the chaotic, crowded Sunday Night Market in Chiang Mai, Thailand.

Winter was easy to write about after spending time in the Chicago area, but the mountains are based those in Southern California, which I used to call home, because there’s a distinct shortage of mountains in Chicago.

And speaking of Southern California, the deserts of Anarka were built on my memories of living and working California’s high desert for a couple of years, as well as a particularly memorable family vacation in the low desert when I was a teenager.

It’s in the desert that The White-Silver House picks up.

We go directly from the sands to the Forest of Bones within the desert of Anarka. I don’t want to tell you too much about that – you’ll have to read the book – but the Forest of Bones contains a surprise.

From there, we head north again, and you finally get to see the rugged home of the wild Teneka Dhu. Their home is based on an area of North Carolina where I’ve gone backpacking, the Wilson Creek area. It’s a rocky, hill place where, a century ago, a strong, free people farmed and harvested timber and scraped out a living for themselves.

Then … well, it’s off to someplace I can’t reveal without giving away part of the story.

And after that, you’ll get to discover Jurakhahazhi’ina, Jura’s Harbor, the home of one our key characters, a city that you could say was built on white silver. It’s an ancient capital, the capital of a kingdom that predated the sundering. This is where I come back to Chiang Mai, the ancient capital of kingdom that once ruled what is now northern Thailand.

Shortly after that, our entire story wraps up.

I think you’ll enjoy the journey.

Tags: , , ,

Why I think fans should lighten up on George RR Martin

11 Jul

So it seems some fans got under George RR Martin’s skin with their self-centered concerns about his health: “What if he dies and I don’t get to read how A Song of Ice and Fire ends?” (Those are the books Game of Thrones is based on, if you were wondering …)

And George fired back with an expletive and a hand gesture. (I call him George because of the nature of our relationship: Someone close to me met him once.)

While I hope I never react like that to people who want to read what I write (or anyone, for that matter), I’ve learned some things in writing my series, The Day Magic Died, that make me want to cut George some slack.

Writers have one speed. Someone who writes slowly, as George does, writes slowly. Someone who writes quickly, as I do, writes quickly. You really can’t change that.

I already knew that. Even way back in high school, I was that annoying kid who always got done with the test first. I usually scored in the high 90s, but never 100 percent. Teachers tried to get me to slow down. “You should be able to get 100 if you slow down,” they’d say. And being the kind of annoying kid who thought scoring 100 was a good thing, I tried. And tried. And I always did worse.

While I already knew that I had just one speed, the process of writing a book series has made it all that much more apparent. I write quickly … and I need a good editing team to make sure I didn’t miss anything. Which is especially important because …

A big book series takes a massive amount of focus. Sometimes I find the scope of my series – all the things I have to keep track of – overwhelming. I am on the fifth of five books, all told from the perspective of one character, and the series covers less than one year of her life in about a half-million words.

I cannot imagine the focus required by the complexity of A Song of Ice and Fire.

I can tell you that as I am working on Book Five, The White-Silver House, I have a set of notes I keep coming back to. Yet as recently as two weeks ago one of my critical readers/editing team members asked what happened to one particular character, and I had to admit: “Oh. I forgot about that.” (Not to worry, it was a minor character and a minor incident, but it bears wrapping up.)

But as much as you want to just buckle down and focus …

A writer cannot simply focus on the books. Come on, you know this if you’ve followed me. I got bogged down in Book Four, The Dwarf’s Legacy so I stopped for a bit and made my wife an Elizabethan doublet gown. It meant Book Four took longer to finish, but it also meant it was a better book.

George said something similar himself. The Independent quoted him as saying, “I found out long ago that when you look at the overall task, the cathedral you have to build, it looks so daunting that you just give up and sit down and play a video game.”

Now, as I am wrapping up the series, I am finding it even more important to step back from Book Five. Frequently. The intensive focus it takes to pull this together is not something I can maintain for long. Maybe it’s time for me to make that Viking outfit I’ve been thinking about.

So, fans of George RR Martin, please lighten up. He’s going at his speed, and working through his process. If you get the books any other way, they won’t be the same.

Shameless plug alert: While you’re waiting, you can check out my series. Four books are out, and the fifth and final one is due out this year. Start with The House in the Old Wood

Tags: , , , , ,

How about I just stop here?

23 Jun

The House in the Old Wood coverLook, I’m having some trouble wrapping this series up. Anyone mind if I just stop here, at four books?

It’s been a pretty good series, right? And I’ve heard from a number of folks that they really like Book 4, The Dwarf’s Legacy. So maybe I should stop while I’m ahead.

No? You wouldn’t like that?

OK, so seriously, there’s no way I’d ever do that to you. At the same time, I’m struggling with two specific plot points that need to be wrapped up in the fifth and final book, The White-Silver House. And wrapped up well. I really don’t want to give you a contrived, forced or unsatisfying ending.

There are two authors whose work I will never read again because of their lousy endings. Both create these endlessly complex plots that leave readers wondering how they’re going to wrap it all up.

One resolves every single stinking story with a huge battle where the hero and his friends come out unscathed, but all the bad guys die.

The other is even worse. It was a dream, or an alternate reality, and look, now everything is fine!

Yuck!

So I will keep working to find a good, convincing way to wrap up not only the main story, but these two niggling little plot points.

Oh, and by the way … I hate it when I’m reading a book and I can see an ending coming from Tuscaloosa. So maybe you think you know how this series is going to end. After all, I’ve been foreshadowing the ending since Book 1, The House in the Old Wood.

But the story has already taken a number of twists and turns, right? And perhaps you’ve missed some of the foreshadowing. Or you’re taking something for foreshadowing, when it isn’t.

Bwahahaha!

I have to finish this series, if only to see the look on your face.

So please tell your friends they can enjoy the journey too, and the ending will not disappoint.

Here’s where they can start: The House in the Old Wood.

Tags: , , ,

Music to write by

20 Jun

The House in the Old Wood coverOne musical group has been playing in the background more than any other as I have written the series, The Day Magic Died.

As I began writing The House in the Old Wood, I would often put on music by Cantiga, usually their album Martha’s Dragon. It seemed like the perfect background music as I created Karia’s world; in fact, I came to almost see it as her soundtrack, and frequently played it throughout the creation of the series.

You can find out more about Cantiga at their website: http://www.cantigamusic.com/home.html

The other artist whose music was frequently playing as I wrote the series is harpist Sarah Marie Mullen. Though there is no particular album or song I associated with any of the characters, it helped set the scene and create the mood for me. I could imagine much of what she plays on the harp being played on Tika’s jiriliyika.

Sarah Marie Mullen has a website as well: http://www.sarahtheharpist.com/

I have also discovered something interesting. I usually like it quiet when I read. But when I am reading my books (yes, I read my own books – how else do you think I can keep this story straight?), I like to listen to Cantiga and Sarah Marie Mullen.

Are there particular artists you like to listen to – or perhaps better, to have on in the background – while you read?

Tags: ,

Your dad is not stupid

11 Jun
My mom and dad

My mom and dad in New York in 1946, after their return from India

I seriously doubt that your dad is or was stupid. My dad sure wasn’t. And three out of my four children don’t think I’m stupid. (Now they’re all thinking, “Which one of us thinks he’s stupid?” What fun!)

So with Father’s Day approaching, that got me wondering: Why are insipid, or absent, or malevolent dads a staple of young adult literature?

Look, I’m not claiming to be a perfect dad. My dad wasn’t perfect either. But stupid? No. Not clueless, either. Or missing. And certainly not evil. (Unless you consider it evil to make your kids wonder which of them thinks you’re stupid.)

I’d say the same thing about most of the dads I know.

So instead of embracing the cliché – instead of taking the easy way out – I tried to write a story in which the main character’s dad is more true-to-life. I wanted to model a healthy relationship as I wrote about Karia and her dad, Reva, in The House in the Old Wood. And I think I did it without coming across as preachy or moralizing.

This Father’s Day, if you’re looking for a book that has a little respect for dads, please take a look at The House in the Old Wood. I thank you, and I think your dad will thank you too.

The House in the Old Wood, the first of five books that tell the story of The Day Magic Died, is available from Amazon.

Tags: , , , ,

← Older Entries
Newer Entries →