Correct as of 8th April 2012. I will periodically update this for major changes.

A Memory of Flames series:

The Adamantine Palace (2009), The King of the Crags (2010), The Order of the Scales (2011). All three volumes published in the UK, US and France. German and Polish dates for books 2 & 3 are yet to be confirmed.

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The Thief-Taker’s Apprentice series

The Thief-Taker’s Apprentice (2010) The Warlock’s Shadow (2011), The King’s Assassin (October 2012). Published in the UK only. Polish date for book 1 is yet to be confirmed.

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The Silver Kings series (forthcoming)

The Black Mausoleum (UK August 2012) is a stand-alone sequel to the Memory of Flames series

Dragon Queen (UK May 2013) and Prince of the Storm-Dark (UK May 2014) follow more directly from the Memory of Flames series and also pick up some threads from the Thief-Taker’s Apprentice series.

The Silver King (UK May 2015) is tentatively planned to be a sequel to both The Black Mausoleum and Prince of the Storm-Dark.

The last rewriting for Dragon Queen is now finished and the manuscript will be submitted for editing later this week. A few statistics:

Intended Wordcount: 120k

Actual Wordcount: 204k

Intended hours of effort: 300 hours

Actual hours of effort: more like 500 hours (so about two full months more than it was meant to be)

Number of characters inherited from The Adamantine Palace: 2

Number of  dragons inherited from The Order of the Scales: 1

Number of Adamantine Men: 1

Number of characters inherited from The Warlock’s Shadow: 1

Number of unusually polite assasins: 3

Number of people burned by dragons: lots

Number of times the words lightning and/or rocket appear: 172

Number of times the words flower and/or hippy appears: 4

Number of times I had mis-spelled lightning as lighting before I went through and manually checked every single damned instance: 23

Number of primary human characters: 6

Number of primary human characters who are overtly non-Caucasian: 3

Number of primary human characters who are overtly old: 2

Number of primary human characters who are overtly female: 2

Number of primary human characters who are overtly old, female and non-Caucasian: 1

Number of primary human characters who are revealed as shape-shifting sentient lemons from another world: 0

Number of times the word lemon appears: 2

Number of people disintegrated by the wrath of an angry god: 5

Make of that what you will. I am particularly pleased with this one, but then I think I’ve felt that about every book I’ve finished, so perhaps best not to read too much into that.

Back to working on the edits for The King’s Assassin and the proof of The Black Mausoleum.

Following lengthy negotiations with various publishers on both sides of the Atlantic, I can now announce that I will be writing a new three-book fantasy series to be published by Gollancz in 2013.

The series of heroic/epig fantasy will centre around a the character Porqloyne, a former butcher, now a vegetarian, who is forced out of his retirement when his entire family and home village are gored to death by wild boar. As a prophecy known to every man woman and child unexpectedly starts to come true, as extremely unlikely events begin to unfold throughout the generic northern european medieval kingdom, he is forced on a journey to collect ancient cleaver Sorz-Egde. But this will be just the beginning of what promises to be an epig confrontation between good and evil.

“Following the success of Deas’ dragon-based fantasy series, we felt the market was ready for other fantastical creatures. After dragons, flying pigs were an obvious choice, with a recognisable day-to-day appeal that will transcend the usual genre readership and reach out well to the mass market,” said one industry insider, who has begged to remain anonymous.

Much of the story is inspired by my long-held misunderstanding, only recently disabused, that the Bay of Pigs really was a bay full of pigs, and also a slightly unexpected debate in a role-playing game a while back in which it was observed by one party member that the river we were currently unable to cross would be a lot easier if it was made of pigs instead of water. Or possibly I dreamed that last bit.

Work begins after the Easter holidays.

A couple of things have come together over the last few weeks. Firstly I’ve had some feedback that at least two, possibly even three people were reading my MopNoWriMo posts AND enjoying them, which I think makes it a bigger hit so far than The Warlock’s Shadow. So thanks, Hilde and Matt and Gavin.

Second thing is that Diamond Cascade is set to return. Yes, the game is afoot once more, the defining moment so far probably being the use of a Dragon Orb as an improvised melee weapon with which to hit a dragon (as opposed to using, Oh I don’t know, maybe one of its LEGION OF DRAGON-RELATED POWERS perhaps?). In preparation for the resumption of this illustrious[1] and unforgettable[1] epic narrative, the previous Diamond Cascade posts have been re-vamped, including: Elimination of the nearly ALL of the bizarre character sequences that suddenly rendered the early episodes almost unreadable following some software upgrade or other; Elimination of TWO or THREE of the several thousand spelling mistakes and typos that riddle this un-proofread series; integration of the infamous INTERLUDE ON THE ELVISH BORDER sequence, and best of all, now available in ALL-NEW CHRONOLOGICAL ORDER. Although you can still do it backwards like it used to be if you want.

START HERE >>>>> Diamond Cascade And The Quest For Some Bat Shit

Oh, it’s a bit sweary and Father Christmas gets killed at some point, so best keep away from children.

Yes, Yes, I’ll write something about World Building again soon. I know I promised…

[1] Words do not necessarily mean what you think they mean. Terms and conditions may apply. Occasionally when some words are out of stock, and equivalent word will be offered as an alternative. Check with your local dealer for eligibility in your area. Etc. Etc.

The big bad news, unfortunately, is that the publication date for The Black Mausoleum has slipped from May to August. This is entirely my fault for having done basically all of the work and then sending the wrong draft back to Gollancz and not noticing for a month. This late in the day everything’s on a tight schedule and so now that it has to go back a couple of steps there’s not enough time to have the book ready for May. My bad. Sorry. I will try and make it up to anyone readers here over the next few weeks with some interviews with some of the characters and some free books.

Bad author. BAAD author.

Speaking of publication dates, if anyone (like me) thought that The King’s Assassin was coming out in August, think again. October, and that’s probably what it always was. So far so good on that one, barring any wrong-draft cock-ups :-!

And then Dragon Queen. I’ll let Zafir say some words about that in a few days but it’s on its last spit and polish before submission and still on track for May next year. Beyond that, the first book of the myserious Sodium Hydride project is going through almost its last rewrite, the second book has a good first draft and with a bit of luck all three will be done and dusted by the end of summer and then I’ll be looking for something new to do.

Which is why I’m writing pitches.

On a laptop. In bed. Eating pizza at the same time.

Damn this writing is hard work…

UPDATE: Some new reviews I forgot, all from Pauline’s Fantasy Reviews.

“a whole heap of rip-roaring fun and no mistake.” (The Adamantine Palace)

“the second best opening I’ve ever encountered after ‘Tigana’” (The King of the Crags)

“The dragons are brilliant…” (The Order of the Scales)

Obviously I pick the highlights. Fine, look, it’s already a done deal that the next set of deagon books will have a) more time invested in fewer characters b) a few more sympathetic ones and c) OK, OK, I’ll ease back on killing them.

The mental dust has finally cleared from last month’s effort, and one other little learning experience has cropped up: when driving yourself real hard, do take extra care to make sure you send the right version of your manuscripts to your editor.

*headdesk*

Back to rewrites now and Dragon Queen is coming along very nicely. Very nicely indeed although it does seem to stray into rather a lot of “difficult” areas. Meanwhile I seem to have a lot of jiffy bags and a lot of copies of books lying about. I feel a “competition” coming on.

Day twenty six: Target wordcount: 100000 (finished). Words written: 98750 (finished)

And as expected, a few little bombs go off in the last couple of chapters where two characters I had further plans for have written themselves out of the story by going and getting themselves killed. All very noble but not what I had in mind when I was planning the third book, thanks. One of them dies so well that I don’t think any amount of rewriting is going to resurrect him. The other one might yet get written back to life. It’s a bit of a convenient resolution to a love-triangle that’s likely to get re-written out in the first place. My chief antagonist has also completely stolen this story from my Chief Protagonist. I can see him in his little actor’s chair just off the set at the end, sharing a spliff with the Chief Sidekick who’s also been out steal every scene he’s in, arguing over which one of them will get best award for the Best Supporting Character.

This story is very different in almost every detail to the one I set out to write. It has the same general setting, but a good chunk of it occurs in a place I didn’t even know existed when I started. Characters I thought would be significant have faded into not very much and might yet get written out entirely. Other characters who were supposed to be supporting cast have jumped out of the page. My Chief Protagonist may be the sun around which the other characters orbit like planets, but as with the real world, it turns out that provided that the sun is there, the planets are much more interesting.

Now I’m done, it’s obvious that three things nearly tripped me up. Over-ambitious (and unnecessarily ambitious) planning – I cannot write meaningful chapters while wedged into a small hotel room with talkative small children and CBBC, nor was there any need to try. A day blown by a hangover (but I had a contingency day at the end, so that was OK). And then there’s the “love triangle” (which isn’t quite what it is, but is as good a way as any of trying to describe. You’ll recognise it’s essence: Hero has been missing presumed dead for several years. Best friend falls in love with wife and vice versa. Hero appears all unexpectedly. Which way does everyone jump? No entire movies have been dedicated to this as their entire plot, to stuffing something like that in as a minor sub-plot doesn’t fly. During this draft, I didn’t know which way each character would jump. I wanted to see what they did when they were put on the spot, but unfortunately what they mostly did was dither and wring their hands, and that dithering fed onto the page. It doesn’t work with the rest of this story. There are in fact two instances of something very roughly like this, the first being the falling out I had with the muse around 35000 words. In hindsight, all dithering has to go. I know how those relationships are going to work now and the principle job of the first rewrite will be to sort that out. It would have been an easier ride if I’d done that before I started.

Day twenty five: Target wordcount: 100000. Words written: 94900

Damn characters keep talking to each other instead of getting on with it and fighting. However, all is now set for the climax of the endgame. Will it be finished by the end of tomorrow, as it is supposed to be? Touch and go. It helps that the four-chapter end sequence has now reduced itself to a half-page epilogue around an entirely different character, the planned end sequence having been aborted due to the necessary character managing to be in completely the wrong place by now. In a way it was a sort of post-credits sequence designed to put a character from the climax in peril again for a cliff-hanger ending, and since I’ve already got a character in quite a lot of peril away from the final climax, I think I’ll stick with that.

This is the third time I’ve set out to say something about naming characters and so this time I’m going to do it right before some distracts – oooh! Squirrel!

Names matter a lot to me. Not that I claim to be at all good at them, but names shape the characters that wear them. If there’s one thing I have to get right in the very first draft, it’s the names for all the main characters. I’ve tried all sorts of ways around this, and none of them work. Names are part of what defines a character for me, and one of the very most importantest things of the first draft is to get the characters sorted out so they can all be very clear with me about what they will and won’t do. I’ve tried placeholder names. I’ve called characters Billious Bob and Fractious Frank and maybe it’s not surprise that didn’t work out too well. Other things have come closer to the mark. In one story (still a work in progress), the lead character was called Ezio for a while. Names do get changed in the first draft sometimes as I think of something that works better for a character who’s not yet fully defined. Generally, though, by the end of the first act, the names are what they will be forever. When I’ve thought of a name I like better for a character and tried to change it late in the rewrites, the character’s behaviour starts to change to. Weird but there it is.

Day twenty four: Target wordcount: 95000. Words written: 88400

Fight scenes fought, big revelation about the Chief Antagonist revealed, characters all properly re-united, damsel-in-distress held captive (sort of, except this she’s a he). Calm before storm calmed, navel’s contemplated, loins girded and here it comes. The endgame is here and everything from here on in is a straight ride to the final showdown and the little twist of lemon that comes after. No more bucking and turning the plot now. Final word length is expected to be bang on the nail, and all is fine and good with the world apart from the fact that I was supposed to finish tomorrow and now I’m not at all sure that I’ll even get to the end this week. Oh, I suppose maybe, if I spend the next two days not playing Skyrim at all. I was good today. A half-hour break and then back to work. I do like it how I keep getting in trouble with the town guard for, well, for shouting in a built up area after dark, basically.

I’m often tempted at this point to jack in the first draft and go back to the start and get on with the rewrites. As noted throughout these posts, there’s a list as long as a spiral galaxy’s arm of things that aren’t right and need sorting out or changing or ditching or remoulding and I keep on saying rewrites, that’s what rewrites are for. And the reason I do that and don’t go back and make changes is that there’s a good chance that whatever I rewrite because of what’s happened by the end of act one I’ll have to rewrite again at the end of act 2, and I’m a lazy sod who doesn’t want to rework the same passages more times than he absolutely has to. At this point, though, this great long list of niggles is, indeed, niggling me. I can see the end now. It’s as clear as day. There are no more surprises waiting. There’s no need to finish before going back. Go back NOW and sort it all out while it’s as clear and fresh in my head as it can be and I remember everything!

It’s sorely tempting. A couple of characters and a couple of relationships have morphed between the start of the book and the end, and where they’ve ended up is fine and better than my original plan, but the morphing has to go. Things that should have been stable for a long time need to stably be the way they ended up right from the start. Things that are evolving need to, er… well evolve rather than appear out of nowhere. Bits of world history and culture that have shown up need to have been present from the start. I want to start on this now. NOWWW!!!
I’m not going to though and for two reasons. First one is a morbid fear of finishing that I think some writers have too. It feels much easier to go back and rewrite now than to finish, and it would feel like that on the rewrite too, and this way lies the road to a very polished 85% of a novel, which sod all use to anyone. I shall not allow myself this fear, but push on through it, possibly with the aid of much ice cream. It’ll get better again somewhere around 90-95% complete. Experience tells me this.

And the other reason is that, no matter how obviously clear the passage to the endgame and the end itself may seem, there’s always just a chance that some character or other will let off a bomb in the last few chapters. Experience tells me this one too, and I’d rather only clean up once.

Apparently the paperback of The Order of the Scales has been reprinted. It almost feels like a reward for good behaviour

Day twenty three: Target wordcount: 90000. Words written: 81000

Saga-grade migraine. Epic word-fail. Not going to be making this up by the end of the week.