The rewrite has begun. We’re a couple of days in and it has its tentacles firmly wrapped around my free time, such as it was. On other days I might have posted about how kittens on Capstar are like ninjas on a really strong acid/amphetamine mix, or how to get over being terrified of rewrites by scaring the crap out of yourself in an entirely different way. But no time for that this week. Instead, I give you my first editorial sacrifice. I was loathe to let it go, but two prologues is one prologue too many. So – the first of many sweepings from the cutting room floor, some good, some…. not so good. This is a good one: The alternate prologue for The King of the Crags.

Well I got my editor’s comments back on King of the Crags last week. And I’m about to go on holiday, so what’s the point in getting started only to stop again… (but then again, how can I leave it be for two weeks… ah, the tension, the trauma…). I’ve been looking forward to ranting on about the iniquities of the editing process, how all my cool and exciting ideas are being crushed or something like that, but the plain fact is that’s not how it works. What you actually get are some nice congratulatory words on a job well done and a few hints on how to make it even better. Like make sure you don’t lose track of who is related to who (meh… can’t really argue with that), and put a bit more effort into describing the eyries and the mountain scenery (which is fine with me – in a perfect world, I’d live in the mountains. I’d walk in the mountains. I’d write in the mountains. I’d buy one of those indestructible kitten-proof laptops I mentioned last time so that I could write in the mountains in the rain and the snow. I breathe mountains, dammit. In fact, in a perfect world, I’d probably be a mountain). The only thing I can find to really even start to try and raise a head of steam about is the complaint that the book has too many prologues. Is two prologues too many? Really?

Sadly yes. One of the nice things about being able to leave the story alone for six months, you get to see stuff like that a lot more clearly. Unless you go the whole hog, maybe. Yeah, a fantasy consisting of forty-seven prologues and three short chapters entitled ‘beginning’, ‘middle’ and ‘end’. Yeah, actually, maybe…

OK, OK, not King of the Crags, though. I’ll put the spare one up here when I’m done with the edit so you can see what you’re missing. It’s a good chapter. Pity it has to go.

<sigh>

So no, being edited isn’t really that traumatic. What’s traumatic is the terrifying realisation that this is it. This is the last chance, realistically, to make it right. To make it perfect. For some reason, that never really struck me with The Adamantine Palace, but the terror’s got me good this time. In a way The Adamantine Palace was easy. Kick in the door, make a big fuss. Yes, a lot got sacrificed for sheer pace. Right or wrong, that was the intent. It’s pretty clear from the reviews and the other feedback that I’ve had that for a lot of people, this really really works. For others, it really really doesn’t. For those the former, I offer more. For the latter… sorry, but it ain’t going to happen. Maybe next time.

And then there’s the middle ground. The ‘yes, but…’ camp. There’s quite a lot of you, too. Well, Yesbuts, in a way this one was always for you (because let’s face it, we all know I’m going to let rip again in book three). So what am I trying to do? As I sit down and start what will be the final set of re-writes to King of the Crags, what am I trying to achieve?

A long time ago, I read The Secret Agent by Joseph Conrad. For most of the book I was a bit bored. The characters struck me as two-dimensional and cartoonish. And then something happened. Just as the horror of the denouement was about to descend, the characters suddenly somehow flipped into three dimensions. The cardboard cut-outs I’d sneered and laughed at suddenly became people with souls. As I watched their world fall apart, I felt guilty and ashamed. That’s just how one book happened to work for me, but it’s haunted me ever since.

So that’s what I’m trying to achieve. I’m trying to recapture that feeling of guilt when a person you took for granted as being horrible crept under your skin while you weren’t looking and turned out to be human after all.

King of the Crags may be slower (not a lot slower, but it will be slower) than The Adamantine Palace. If I’m doing my job right, it will give the world and the characters some more depth. It’ll move events forward, but it’ll also put add a layer underneath everything that happened before. Book three will do the same – another step forward and yet another layer underneath. There will be action, adventure, terror and war. There will be dragons, and I promise they’re not going to go all soft and philosophical on you. You can even, just for those of you who need one, have a character with a strong moral compass. Maybe even two. Not sure why you want them – they’ll probably just get their asses eaten by some dragon and then you’ll get all pissy with me again. But you can have them anyway.

But for those who get to the end and if I’ve done my job really right, the shallow selfish bastard that is Jehal will haunt you long after you put book three down.

So that’s the challenge I set myself, and I don’t know whether or not I can do it and it’s probably true to say that I’m as scared witless about launching into this edit as I’ve been about anything.

And at the same time, I can’t wait. Just in case I can get it right.

Squeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee!!!!!!!!!

Oh yeah, and a full draft of book three is written. Needs months of polishing, but it’s all there. Mwah ha ha…

Today’s handy writing tips, one do, one don’t. DO listen to music while you write. I Have the unusual luxury of a house to myself[1] for the first time in a long time and as I write this, the music is cranked up LOUD. House-consuming, brain-swallowing chords fill the world, cascades of notes do battle with warlike flights of arpeggios and give life to the symphony of mayhem in my head waiting to be writ as space and time rip and swirl and fall apart…

Er. Or something like that. Music good. Let’s leave it at that. It doesn’t *have* to be Wagner after all. It could be… Rammstein. Anything at all. Anything as long as it’s loud and German, apparently.

Today’s DONT. DONT write with a kitten on your lap. Don’t even try. Don’t write with a kitten in the same room as you, looking up at you with its big mournful eyes, chirruping it’s heart away at the merciless cruelty of an owner who won’t let it have the lap it so clearly deserves. Don’t do this, because this will inevitably turn into a kitten-on-lap situation. Don’t write with a  kitten in the same house, because that soon becomes a kitten in the same room. And don’t think you can fob them off with food, because yeah, sure, off they go and being the little balls of accelerated space-time that they are, they’ll simply inhale whatever you’ve given them and be back before you can remember what a paragraph is. And then they’ll be back you’re right where you started except with cat-breath and the occasional cat-fart now.

Now I love my kittens to bits, but there are limits, and those limits include being having one kitten walk all over the keyboard while I’m in the middle of the last chapter of something while the other one gets a bit playful and starts batting at the USB stick in the hope that it’ll somehow grow legs and fur and a tail, jump off the desk and run squeaking in terror for the nearest sofa. Polite notice to my feline friends: Miaow rawwwaram prrrrrupmiaw! [2]

So yes, feline readers, there are limits and you’d best beware, for while a kitten is tradi – GET OFF THE FRIGGING USB STICK FOR PITY’S SAKE – traditional friend, there are certain necessities to m – OH FOR THE LOVE OF GOD DON’T CHEW THAT – maintaining the supply of catfood.

It’s possible that the first draft of The Thief-Taker’s – GET OFF THE FUCKING MOUSE BUTTONS –  Apprentice is finished. I have to go now. Cat fart. Bad one <sounds of choking> <transmission ends>

[1] Except for kittens, as will become clear.

[2] No, this is not a new and interesting species of mouse that you have discovered. It is in fact my work. My life’s work.  Possibly the sole repository for my life’s work, given what your litter-mate appears to have done to my laptop.

Three weeks ago I said something about how following your synopsis was a good thing and that I might have made a wee little cock-up on this front but that it was easily fixed…

Jeez. Well it’s fixed now. Three weeks later, which means three weeks of words, which means there was a 15,000 word hole in the middle of what I was writing. <furrows brow> No wonder it seemed a bit off. Well it’s done now. Thief-Taker is now on the home straight and should still finish by the end of next week. Just about. Which means I can finally turn my attention to… T-shirts? Signings? the Absurd Movie-Trailer Project? Sollos and Kemir short stories? Ah, the choice, the choice, the CHOICE!

Except it’ll be none of that because then I rather hope I’ll be straight into the re-writing of King of the Crags.
<sigh> No rest for the wicked. At least I got the map done, eh?

I get a bit of fanmail these days. Not a lot, but a bit. Latest example:

“Just a short note to let you know this was one of the best bits of fantasy i’ve read in a long time. A book with a proper villian and more plotting than Guy Fawkes. Hope there’s plenty more to come.”

Short and sweet, and you know what, it’s made my evening. Thanks Chris, wherever you are. The rest of you, next time you read a book you really like, why not tell whoever wrote it. You could make their day too.

The thing with doing a weekly sort of journal update thing is this: Sometimes weeks go by and absolutely nothing happens. Then authors feel unloved and whinge that their editors never respond to their e-mails, their requests for “publicity” freebies or their need to for a public signing session in Buckingham Palace.

Other weeks are like this week. On Friday and Saturday, I’d have liked to rant at great length about Torchwood, and how it was an object lesson in how to make something that had 90% of everything absolutely right to be AWESOME and make it incredibly LAME by being pointlessly LAZY with the plot. Which is a real pity. Could have had a place in the Hall of Fame of modern TV Science Fiction, but won’t. But now I’ve done most of my ranting all over various people’s Facebook pages instead, and repeating myself here feels vaguely hollow.

On Sunday I had in mind to say something about movie trailers. Monday was going to be Swine Flu. Let’s face it, on the book front, the only news is that there is no news, everything is proceeding nicely to plan and the website’s have a bit of a refresh and<yawn> zzz….. Yeah, I know. Today was still going to be a Swine Flu rant too, but then I accidentally read SFX.

Fellow Gollancz fantasy author Joe Abercrombie is in the the SFX hot top 50 list. Actually, several authors and screen writers are up in there. Well, after that, nothing else matters that much. I’m rendered speechless and so I’m off to bathe in some very dimly reflected glory.

OK, OK. Here’s a map dammit. When some bloke clocks you round the back of the head and says ‘nice book but where’s the map,’ when the issue of maps converges with actual physical abuse, it’s time to act. So here it is. A draft map of the dragon-realms. Now enough with the hitting me.

Actually, this is only the tip of the iceberg to keep those of you who need a map RIGHT NOW from further acts of violence. In the background, there’s a slightly nicer version of this map that I’m not going to publish just yet that’s being turned into a much nicer map courtesy of those nice folks at Gollancz who are going to pay for someone who can, y’know, actually draw and stuff.

And that’s just the tip of the iceberg. Over the next few months, the <cue dramatic music. No, more dramatic than that. Bit more… bit more… Here we go…> Dahn dan daaaaaa…. Gazeteer Project will be going online. Over the rest of the year, an online gazetteer of the dragon-realms will be going up, with some two hundred entries. Off-line work is about half complete now and the whole project will be up by the end of the year. I’ll be putting it up in pieces, starting with the Adamatine Palace and its environs later this month. Want to know how the realms ended up the way they are? Want to know the secrets of the dragons? Read the damn books then! Ha! Because the gazetteer won’t tell you any of that. But if you want to know why, say, how the Silver City got its name, well then the gazetteer is for you (what do you mean, what Silver City? You mean you haven’t read book three yet…? Oh, that’s right, you haven’t. Ha Ha.)

Since all of this gazetteer work has happened since King of the Crags was submitted for edit, I think we can all expect the wordcount to go up a bit there too. Ho hum.

Oh, and what that means is if you’re taking an RSS feed off here is that you’re going to get shedloads of posts…

Finally a word on copyright. I mean for the gazetteer to be available under a creative commons license, which means you can use it for anything you feel like provided you a) give credit, b) it’s not for commercial purposes and c) if you modify it, you have to allow others to use what you make under the same conditions. Role-players, I’m talking to you…

(The same applies to the map here. Whether it can apply to the much nicer map from Gollancz is another matter).

Gazetteer of the dragon-realms by Stephen Deas is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Non-Commercial-Share Alike 2.0 UK: England & Wales License.
Based on a work at www.stephendeas.com.

And finally… I saw the first draft cover of King of the Crags to day and it is most excellent and I can’t wait to share it!

Copies of the french edition arrived through the post today. Tres jolie, not that I can really read them. Always interesting to see how certain turns of phrase get translated, though. Four copies is a bit much for the library, though so I reckon there’s one going begging. Anyone want it? First come, first served.

What’s the point of a synopsis? I suppose you might think that’s pretty simple, really, that the synopsis is there to, you know, summarise the story and stuff like that. Actually that’s quite a hard thing to do; to be blunt, I find writing a synopsis a lot more challenging than writing a novel (although it is a bit quicker). What a synopsis is NOT is a summary of the plot. A synopsis is also not a dramatis personae. It is not a chapter-by-chapter summary of your story. You might think it’s one of those things, but it isn’t, even if it cunningly disguises itself as one. What a synopsis isn’t is a summary of what you want to say and nothing more. It needs to be a summary of how you mean to say it too. Remember, after all, what your synopsis is for, after all. It’s for making your agent, editor, other editors, preferably everyone in the whole world, be so convinced that the thing your synopsis is a synopsis of is so damn good that they salivate at the thought of being able to read it one day. It’s a marketing tool. In fact, when it comes down it, your synopsis doesn’t need to bear any actual resemblance to what you end up writing. By the time a manuscript finally arrives, it’s long done its job. Hasn’t it?

Well I think the answer is yes to the above. All of the above. Even the bits of the above that directly contradict each other. And while I certainly do worry about making sure my synopses are marketing tools (you have to bear in mind here that everything I’m under contract to produce has been on the basis of a synopsis and a few chapters being all there is to show) and that they reflect the tone and the style of what I plan to write, they do still, you know, summarise the story and stuff like that. Things might change a bit here and there, but quite a bit of thought goes into the story design at this stage. It’s all mapped out, at least as a sketch, and that’s what the synopsis is supposed to show – that you know the way. A map, that’s what a synopsis is to me. A really cool map that tells you how you’ll get from the start of the story to the end, and shows you just how irresistibly cool the journey is going to be. A map that always reminds you where you’re going and how to get there.

So, having extolled the virtues of the synopsis, can I know extol the virtues of actually following the damn thing. Just like I didn’t recently. Don’t look at your word count and think Hmmm… going a bit long here… Can recover that if I just skip a bit. That was just character development, after all.

No. Bad Steve. BAD Steve. Several tens of thousands of words later, Syannis the Thief-Taker does something that’s unexpectedly out of character. It needs to seem a bit off-kilter. Except it doesn’t. Why? Because Syannis the Thief-Taker hasn’t had the attention he needs to make an outburst of [spoiler deleted] seem a bit odd. Which means that the reaction of Berren, his apprentice, doesn’t work. Which makes what he was about to do next seem a bit odd. And thus the whole rest of my novel unravels before my eyes.

Bah. But like every boy scout knows, maps don’t work if you don’t follow them.

Well it’s spotted now, it’s easily fixed on this occasion and if I overrun, well then it won’t be by much and it won’t be the end of the world. It’s cost me a couple of days and a slight headache from too much brow-furrowing. It could have been a lot, lot worse. Still – note to self for the future: Write the story you set out to write, dammit.

Lots of other stuff bubbling about at the moment. Some signings, some world-building, a map (yes, you heard, a MAP!) of the dragon-realms and maybe some new stories. All on hold for now while I finish the first draft of The Thief-Taker’s Apprentice, but watch this space about a month from now.

Bon chance, mes amis. J’espere que vous ce trouvez c’est merveilleux!

So allegedly it’s out. And allegedly I learned some french once, too. Fortunately the book was translated by a nice woman called Flo rather than me.

Also a new review. The usual split of opinions, only this time packed into a single review. “I swear that to read this book, is probably the closest you will ever get to being inside say, the Borgia’s inner circle.” and “…the plot in this book is utterly fascinating…” but “I am, essentially a character-driven reader who missed someone to connect with and to truly root for (or even against).”

I’ve added some commentary over there.

I am not, by birth, German. However, important parts of me may well be. My wife is German, for example, and that’s about as important a part as it gets. I can’t narrow down my German-ness to anything else specific (my left knee, right elbow and pancreas, for example, might or might not be German). But I can give you some generalities. You can tell what traits a country is particularly good at by looking at what words we nick off them[1]. Angst, for example. Schadenfreude. Schlepping[2]. What I have is Ordnung.

Ordnung. We haven’t really nicked Ordnung, but we should. I used to think this was a place where someone called Alice lived, but now I know better. It means having everything in its proper place. it means being rather a bit anal and having a touch of  OCD about you, which, I’m afraid, is me. I am going to introduce everyone to Ordnung. Why? So I can batter the publishing industry around the head with it. Why? Because there’s one thing no one warns you about in this authoring malarkey, and that’s just how slowly some things happen. Now traditionally, the image here is of authors swanning around, missing deadlines left right and centre while gaunt twitching editors with an increasing array of nervous ticks run around trying to persuade them to, you know, write words. Yeah, bash some authors with some Ordnung, that should improve matters, shouldn’t it? George RR, he could do with some Ordnung, right? Well no, I’m not going to advocate that, because creative genius has to trump Ordnung and I’m on the author side of the fence and if it takes a lifetime to write a masterpiece than it takes a lifetime, right? (Although the Ordnung gremlins can’t help but mutter amongst themselves that the occasional status report at least wouldn’t go amiss).

So here I was, fresh-faced author, newly minted, freshly ordained, keen and eager and desperate to impress (yes, this was a long time ago – I’m starting on the path to bitter and twisted now), determined not to fall into this trap. Write hard, I thought to myself. Write long and hard and your Ordnung shall save you… What no one bothers to mention, until you find it out for yourself, is that it-takes-as-long-as-it-takes cuts both ways.

So in the spirit of keeping a diary of how this whole process works, let me be the first to say that sometimes it does. Now deals can be done very quickly and frequently are. But man, sometimes it seems to take forever to ratify things. Months and months and months. And then just when you’ve given up, BOOM! A cheque arrives for no apparent reason[3].

This is no real complaint – I’m not successful enough to actually need the money yet – but while I have a shrewd idea what to expect, I really still don’t have a clue when to expect it. Maybe I’m just dim, but if you’re financially dependent on advance cheques and royalties, I imagine it’s a total nightmare

Ordnung. Wir muessen mehr Ordnung haben, bitte.

[1] Yes, yes, the French probably did have a weekend of their own. They probably even went out for picnics too.

[2] Believe it or not, the Germans schlepp very well.

[3] Talk to your agent. Your agent knows everything. Your agent will, for example, know that this cheque is in fact for the polish audio rights that you sold back in the seventies for something you forgot you even wrote. Or something like that.

I signed a book for an engineer at work yesterday. Sometimes little things like that mean as much as big reviews.

King of the Crags still hasn’t come back from my editor (Oi! Simon! This means you!). I Can’t decide whether this is a good thing or a bad thing. Or maybe it’s a don’t-submit-so-bloody-early thing. Anyway, The Thief-Taker’s Apprentice is half written now so I’ll probably finish that first anyway. And then I’ll submit that AND Order of the Scales AND The Warlock’ Shadow AND The King’s Assassin. All at once. And some other stuff too! Ha HAAA!

<sigh> Yes, it seems that dieting CAN trigger delusions.

Just when there wasn’t anything happening… French edition coming out on 16th June. The city in the background could easily by Furymouth. Dragon’s not quite how I saw them (no front feet), but suitably large and muscular I reckon. No rider either. Would have made a good cover for book three but that’s starting to give things away…

I’m signed up to go to Fantasycon. OK, OK, it’s not very exciting. It’s a slow news week, right? Go read the Critical Failures post instead.

OK, I’ll admit to a double-take when I saw this. I suspect the contents on the end of this link changes. Never mind – trust me that in New Zealand, Womans Weekly was offering TAP as a competition prize. Got the right idea these antipodeans. No messin’.

If you read fantasy, you’ll almost certainly have heard of The Name of the Wind. If you don’t then it’s either

a) The back-story of a high-level AD&D bard and the inspiration for my current AD&D character.

b) The fantasy equivalent of ‘The Secret History’ by Donna Tartt

Hmmm. b) is probably rather more convincing. Anyway, it’s a very fine book, extremely engaging (more so than any other fantasy I’ve read for a long time, including my own). The author, the very likeable Patrick Rothfuss, is in town for what will probably be the first and last time for some while, doing a signing in Forbidden Planet and a reading, for some lucky winners, at a mystery location afterwards.

In far less interesting news, my own lowly efforts are proceeding to plan. Have been a bit distracted by Facebook and Twitterness of late <insert assorted vague promises to blog more substantially at some point in the future>

If you’re really interested, you can check out an early taster for The Thief-Taker’s Apprentice

Laters

(Post-Script: Have now removed the plethora of errors from the taster. Clearly need to read own work a little more carefully before sending samples off to editor (who has very kindly not taken the piss for this rather shameful effort. Either that or TGM intervened en-route and quietly got rid of them all. Still… Glarg!))

“John Jarrold has concluded a three-book World Rights deal with Simon Spanton of Gollancz, for a YA fantasy series by novelist Stephen Deas, for a good, five-figure sum in pounds sterling. Deas’ debut novel, a dragon fantasy titled THE ADAMANTINE PALACE, was published by Gollancz in March 2009 to plaudits and a fast reprint. There are two forthcoming sequels.

This new series will be interleaved with the adult dragon fantasies. The first volume, THE THIEF-TAKER’S APPRENTICE, will be delivered in December 2009, for publication in early autumn 2010. Deas is presently completing final editorial work on the sequel to his debut, KING OF THE CRAGS, which is due for publication in April 2010.” (Full press release)

Yes, I can now officially announce that I’ll be signing a second contract with Gollancz for a series of books to be written and published in parallel with the current dragons series. The new books will be YA fantasy and will have almost nothing to do with the existing dragons series. Almost.

Rar!

The series will be based around an adult novel I wrote a few years ago. So since this is intended as YA, I will be a) making the protagonist somewhat older, b) adding more sex and gory violence. More later, including a snippet of the work in progress in a few weeks time, perhaps.

The first draft of dragon book three is finished.

Well kind of finished.

Finished as in I’ve reached the end. Not finished as in there’s a fair bit of work to be done before I’ll be sending it in for edit. Like sorting out the plotline that started off in King of the Crags and tripped over its own cleverness halfway through. I can hear my editor telling me to get rid of it already. But still, I get to dance my little victory jig and have a week off and slap myself on the back and stuff like that.

Um. Now what? I suddenly have nothing to do.

There’s a very fine new review up on the net here. My new best friend, I think…

“…sledgehammering the dragon mythos into fragments, in his awesome new novel The Adamantine Palace”

or how about “…a novel where the dragons finally get pissed off, and do something violent about it.” Yes, yes, the man understands… “The Adamantine Palace is about power. And those who struggle for it. Who lie for it. Who kill for it.” Yes yes yes yes!

“These are the dragons your mom warned you about, the ones lurking in the shadows, doing bad things. Horrible things. These are the predators; the ones that floss with velociraptors. Unapologetic. Vicious. Intelligent. Unstoppable. And they might not even be the biggest monsters on the block. That distinction may be reserved for the people that ride them.

One of the best fantasy books of the year.”

OK, OK, I’ll stop before I end up copying the whole review. I guess you can see by now why I’d want to…

A less good review from Lisa Tuttle writing for The Times who is firmly in the ‘want more world-building’ camp (see, it’s become such an even split of views that you can’t get a review from one side without one coming in from the other…)

“It finally begins to come to life on page 135, when we get up close and personal with a wonderfully unusual dragon … If Deas can improve his world-building skills … [spoiler deleted] … future books in this series will certainly be worth reading.” The Times online.

And, following the reprint and making the good news come in threes: Today is publication day for the Adamantine Palace down under. So come on Australia, make a decision that my Brit readers can’t: Better for being skeletal, fast and focussed in on dragons, or better to have had more world-building. The first salvo has already been fired…

(We went to Australia for our honeymoon, so please buy lots of books so we have an excuse to come back and visit again, like, very very soon).

‘Nuff said.

OK, so they still might all come back again and hang out in a big pile in a warehouse somewhere in unwanted-ville, but…

Reprinted. Hee hee

So I’m going to be at the Sci-Fi London festival next weekend pretending to know stuff about contemporary fantasy. I have two free tickets to give away for my panel at 11am on the Sunday. Anyone interested should say so. I’ll put names in a hat and make a draw and notify the winner on Friday evening. Tickets can be picked up on the day from the door.

Possibly slightly more useful: Anyone who buys tickets for any of the literary panels over the weekend can have two for the price of one if they use the words AUTHOR BLOG when they book by telephone on 020 7451 9944. This offer is good until Friday 1st May.

So there. If you haven’t got anything better to do this weekend, come to London and do Sci-Fi stuff.

Before I started this blog, I spent a good long time sitting around, drinking tea and scratching my head, wondering what the point was. Not, like, The Point, otherwise I’d still be sitting here scratching, but the point of this journal. Do I need to do this? Do I want to do this? Doesn’t everyone want to wax lyrical about everything that ticks them off and imagine they have an audience of millions?

Well maybe or maybe not, but that’s not the point.

So I had a look at some other blogs, and picked out what I liked and worked out what I liked about them and decided to be like that (naturally assuming that everyone in the world and space probably liked exactly the same stuff I do). One of the things I wanted was to see if I could get any idea of what to expect from being a “proper” (i.e. lucky) author. I wanted to know everything that happened, step by step, and so that’s partly what I’ve set out to do here (although I know I’m not the first).  I wanted to be amused and entertained, but most of all I wanted to be informed. There are plenty of author blogs out there already that chart the progress from concept to publication. There’s not too many that go on at length about how it all feels, though.

So here’s how it goes:

1. Get offered book deal. Massive exhilaration for a week or two followed by weeks of anxiety about ability to deliver something that’s good and on time.

2. Submit manuscript to editor. Massive exhilaration for a week or two followed by weeks of anxiety about what he’s going to say and why he hasn’t dropped everything to deal with my manuscript ahead of everything else.

3. Finish revising manuscript. Months of anticipation waiting for publication day mixed with a steady mounting anxiety about having to write a second book. Flashpoints of panic and terror at the prospect of reviews. If you’re me, you can be up for days over a good review and down for weeks over a bad one (or even a bland one). I imagine I’m not unique. Reviews can be a real roller-coaster and you still have to do the day-job, remember.

4. Publication day. OK, that’s pretty cool. Solid weeks of being tanked up on adrenaline. Might be a bit wearing for everyone else. Better than getting that first deal? I’d say about the same but lasts longer.

5. And then the come-down. Pointless fretting about sales figures. Wondering about what the future holds. Wondering why you’re not the centre of attention any more. Life goes on, the day-job goes on. You still have to do everything you used to have to do, only now you have to write another book and sit around worrying a lot.

Worrying about books two and beyond probably sucks too.

So overall how does it feel? It feels like I’ve gone to war and just about won. It feels mostly good but it’s hard work and the rest of life doesn’t stop to watch in admiration, far from it. And like everything, even the good things in life, too much without a break can wear you down. I’ve met lots of new people and I wish I could spend more time getting to know nearly all of them. Spare time, rest and having enough sleep are things that happen to other people. Am I pleased? Absolutely. Has it changed my life? Well a bit, but not really a lot, not yet and not anytime soon. There’s probably still an edge of smugness that didn’t used to be there. I’m sure it’ll go away soon enough.

The Order of the Scales (or whatever book three gets called) is probably about a week away from first draft completion. And then, I think, a little bit of a break. Lounging in the garden in the sun with a steady supply of Caipirinhas for a few days. That should do nicely.

Oh. Wait. I have a day-job and a family. Crap.

Eastercon was a lot of fun. A lot of lot of fun. Stuff happened. Excellent stuff. Lots of excellent people too. Ranted about dragons some. I might post more about some bits some other day. Maybe.  About David Gemmel Legend Awards. And how you should all vote for either The Last Argument of Kings or The Blood of Elves. Or existential claptrap about why this blog exists at all.

Appear to be blogging like Rorschach now. Not sure why. Will stop.

But never mind Eastercon. Instead, after what I’ve just watched, I’m going to beg, against the grain, that Chelsea play as well against Barcelona next month as they did just now and that you all put down your books for an evening and watch two excellent teams on the top of their game kick a ball about. Last week Chelsea were at the top of their game too and that time  we weren’t. This week we both were and I’ve not seen anything like it since the UEFA Cup final in 2001 (you might argue about Istanbul. Be my guest). Obviously the wrong side came out on top, but if you have to go out of a cup, that was the way to do it. So go, Chelsea and let’s see a 5-3 aggregate win over Barcelona followed by a 3-0 destruction of Manchester United in the final while we nick the league out from behind them. Keep playing like that and I might admit you’re not too bad actually. One day.

<cough>

It occurs to me at this point that most of the people reading this might just about have formed the idea that I’m talking about that Association Football malarkey and are now wondering why. So let me re-phrase: Steve spent the evening doing something other than writing and made no useful progress on any on-going projects. There’s a significant risk that other similar evenings may occur. Elsewhere, to keep you happy, the crosshairs of completion are slowly drawing a bead on the end of the third dragon book and The Adamantine Palace has quietly made the national press in the form of The Daily Telegraph:

“[Dragons] …restored to all their scaly fire-breathing glory.”

You can also now read the Falcatta Times review on-line, should you so wish: “Roll over McCaffrey, there’s a new Dragon Lord in town.”

There. Better?

Oh, and thank-you to those of you who’ve been putting up Amazon reviews. If I’d managed to do the T-shirt printing thing and had any left over, I’d have sent you one…

Now most likely you’re already either already going to Eastercon or not going to Eastercon, and if you are, then you’re certainly not going to see me. However, if you have nothing better to do first thing on a Saturday morning while the Friday hangover is wearing off, come and listen to me and others be opinionated about stuff about which we’re no more qualified than anyone else:

Saturday 10am: Do/should the opinions that authors display on their blogs affect whether you want to read them or not (and then for fun you can come back here afterwards to see whether I suddenly change the way I post).

Saturday 5pm: “Don’t trust a book with a dragon on the cover.” But wait – my book has a dragon on the cover. What am I doing on this panel…?

There are probably lots of much more interesting panels, but I do intend to try and make the dragon one a bit fun, at least. Much more importantly, there will be a bar full of Gollancz authors on all three nights. Thirsty Gollancz authors. Sadly some of us shall be missing on the Sunday, so I’ll we’ll be extra thirsty on the Friday and Saturday. As the T-shirts that I haven’t managed to get printed might have said, will sign books for food beer.

Yes, no T-shirts. Boo! Hiss! I know. Fantasycon it will have to be.

Order of the Scales is a little over a hundred thousand words and we’re talking about covers for King of the Crags, but just at the moment I’m a little distracted by something else… heh heh…

The Adamantine Palace has gone to Sweden for April, where, in one corner of Scandanavia, it has become book of the month. Apparently it’s got “Alkemister, drakpräster, blodsmagiker och en mystisk främmande makt frÃ¥n andra sidan have…”

Now, speaking English quite fluently as with reasonably passable German, I reckon you can have a go at Swedish. What have we got here? Alchemists, dragon-priests, blood-mages and, er… a mysterious folk from across the sea…? Well the alchemists, dragon-priests, blood-mages was easy enough, wasn’t it? Apparently not. Not if you’re an automatic translation service. “Dr. Machine-gun priests?!” There are none of those in The Adamantine Palace. Although it has got me thinking for the sequels…

There’s also a little interview there, if you care to look for it. In English.

Tricky one this. Authors write books, bookshops sell them. If bookshops started writing books, I’d get miffed, so I don’t really want to start selling them. But I do plan to keep a small stock for conventions, promotions, freebies etc. and I’ve been convinced that there should be exceptions. Please bear in mind that this sort of malarky takes up valuable writing time and is what bookshops are for – it’s really meant to be the exception rather than the rule.

To buy copies of my books direct from me, this is what you do:

1) You get a Paypal account set up.

2) If we haven’t already been in touch personally, please  mail me to see whether I’ve actually got any copies of what you want kicking about and going spare. We’ll agree a price for what you want and I’ll tell you what the mail account to use for Paypal.

3) Make purchase via Paypal.

4) Wait patiently for your book to arrive.

Publication day has been and gone. The earth continues to rotate about its axis. There has been no spontaneous outbreak of world peace and the queen has not phoned in her congratulations. Little, in fact, has changed save for a large transference of alcohol and other miscellaneous goods and services in exchange for what was left of The Adamantine Palace’s advance.

Yet I am strangely content.

There isn’t much news. Warehouse stock levels are pleasingly low although an early reprint is unlikely to be in the offing. There has been movement on the US and French editions (the translator has been in touch) but nothing from Germany and no new hints of dates for any of them as yet. Possible appearances at a couple of conventions but nothing confirmed. Done a couple of interviews. Blah blah blah. I have signed a wall of books (I’m not kidding about that either. It was a wall).

I’ll post the interviews up on a slow news week later in the year. Same with an expanded version of an article on dragons that appears in the latest Sci Fi Now. Order Of The Scales (if that’s the title it keeps) is up to 91k words and Eastercon looms large. I have a stinking cold coming on.

Oh, and I might print some T-shirts just for the hell of it. Adamantine Palace T-shirt anyone?

It’s been in waterstones since the weekend, amazon copies arrived yesterday or the day before, but today is officially Publication Day. Twenty five years in the making. The last couple of weeks have been a roller coaster and I don’t imagine it’s going to calm down for another month, but just for today I’m going to stop caring what anyone thinks and revel in it.

Don’t worry – tomorrow I’ll go back to fretting about how to make sure King of the Crags is EVEN BETTER than The Adamantine Palace and still every bit as much FUN.

<David Attenborough> “And here, in the wild, a rare picture of a new novel freshly released onto the shelves. These first few days can be a difficult time for a novel so recently separated from its author. Sometimes, unfamiliar with their proper place on the shelves, they can be seen to seek out company and companionship from others of their kind, as we see here. Moving in to another’s territory like this can be dangerous, as once out on the shelves, competition for readers can be intense.” </David Attenborough>

It’s become clear over the last few weeks that critical opinion on The Adamantine Palace is split cleanly down the middle between those who don’t mind that the background setting is pretty skeletal and those who think it would be better if it wasn’t. Deathray falls in the latter camp with: “…and when have as potentially a fascinating one [world] as this, we’d like to know how it works.” OK Deathray and the rest of you, if you’ll put up with me kicking down the door and being all sturm und drang in book one, I’ll see if I can show you a little more of my world in books two and three. They do also observe that: “The story runs like a whippet.” Which is nice. Something on which we can all agree. As long as we all understand that it’s a really fast whippet we’re talking about. With a rocket up its…

Moving swiftly on, there’s finally someone at Strange Horizons who really, really doesn’t get on with The Adamantine Palace, concluding that: “The dragonocalypse will be happening without me.” That’s how it goes. One week you’re Oscar Wilde, the next you’re as shallow and vapid as an oil slick. Well, sorry, Strange Horizons, but in your case I don’t think you’ve got much to look forward to. I’m afraid it’s very possible that Zafir might say the ‘F-word’ for a second time, and it’s quite likely that Jehal won’t have undergone some monastic transformation and given up sex just yet. And it’s not dragonocalypse, it’s drapocalypse.

Although you might be right that one’s coming…

After work today I walked into Used-to-be-Ottakars in Chelmsford for a coffee and to write another few lines of Order of the Scales (80k words now for anyone who’s keeping track, but don’t get too excited that it’s going to be finished for Eastercon because it’s going to need at least one major revision and a stern talking to before I can let it out of the house. But I digress). I walk into the shop, and there, standing right in front of me and with a slightly surprised (guilty?) look on his face is the nice man who runs the fantasy & science fiction section. He’s holding my book.

Stop there for a moment to savour… He’s holding my book. Squeee!

So I sign them and we chat and I’m all Mr-Calm-And-Collected, and I go for my coffee, and then when no one’s looking I sneak back down again to stare at them on the shelf in the fantasy section.

Stop there for a moment to savour… They’re on the shelf. Of a real bookshop. Squeee!

I thought about taking a picture of them and then thought how sad is that and now I wish I had. And I would have posted it too. And you could all have called me King Sad of Sadland and I’d still be grinning. I might go back tomorrow and sneak a snap.

Apparently someone had already bought one. So: Anyone who bought a copy of The Adamantine Palace in Chelmsford on Friday 13th and it wasn’t signed, you were too eager. And eagerness is good and shall be rewarded. So, if it was you and you’re reading this, and you want it signed, and since by definition you must be local, get in touch and we’ll sort something out.

Stop there for a moment to savour… Someone bought one. Squeee!

Friday the 13th. What a fine day. Fly, my beauties, fly…