The final draft of Cold Steel is done & sent to Orbit Books.
It now goes into production, the lengthy (many months long) process by which it gets turned into a book. More on that later, and I hope to resume posts about things other than progress reports when I have time to think and breathe.
Right now it is 1 am, and I’m going to bed.
COLD FIRE has just released in the mass market (less expensive) paperback format in all English language markets. The ebook has also dropped in price.
I have completed major revisions for COLD STEEL and have now embarked on a close line edit to trim, polish, and make sure all the details are consistent. The book will go into production at Orbit Books next week. Production is a bit of a long process, but I plan to write a post next week describing how it works. Thank you for your patience.
Here is the first page, after the cut:
I’m basically on hiatus (although you can find me on Twitter, tumblr, and Facebook where I keep up some connection to the rest of the world) until I finish revisions for COLD STEEL.
I’m almost done, at which point my editor reads again and decides if there is anything else she wants me to do. Then the long process of putting the book through production begins.
Semi-regularly posting will resume at the end of the month, when the mass market (small format) paperback of COLD FIRE is released. If you’ve been waiting for the less expensive edition of book two, it will be available then — the ebook has already dropped in price.
I leave you with fanart of Cat and Rory (if you follow me on the above social networks, you’ll already have seen this link). I only link to fanart if the artist has themself brought it to my attention.
1) Thank you to all who offered recommendations for light, humorous reading material. It is much appreciated. I’m going to get a selection of things and then see what sticks. Should be fun.
2) The winner of the copy of THE SHADOWED SUN by N.K. Jemisin was Kate P from the UK. Congrats!
3) There is a map of Europa in Cold Magic, and a map of North Amerike and the Antilles in Cold Fire. There may be a slightly more detailed map of Europa (or at least a part of it) in Cold Steel. Here’s your chance to request other map subjects, if indeed you have any. Is anyone interested in a map of the cities of Adurnam or Expedition?
I know that some love maps, some are indifferent, and some dislike them. That’s as it should be.
I personally like maps, because I’m geeky that way but also because I process information both visually and kinesthetically, and thus maps make it easier for me to negotiate certain kinds of plots. Yet with other stories, I don’t even think of wanting a map. I wonder if there is a kind of story that seems more to benefit by a map while others just don’t have any call for them.
There are narratives in which there are things about the world you can’t learn from the story but which you can glimpse if the book includes a map, so in that sense a map can add a bit of extra dimension to a world. One of the challenges of writing the Spiritwalker books in first person is that there is a lot of information about the world that can never get into the narrative because it isn’t something a) the narrator would reflect on much less know &/or b) that is necessary to the plot.
In world building as it happens on the page, I believe there is another way at looking at “mapping.” By this I don’t necessarily mean an actual drawn graphic map as a representation of a place, but a map of geography and society and history that is created in the mind of the reader as s/he walks through the story.
Secondary world stories (a term commonly used to describe stories that are set in worlds that are not this world) have to walk a fine balance. If you pile in too much detail, then it slows down the pace and drive of the story (I’m not immune to this writing flaw). However, if you put in too little detail, then the danger becomes that readers will mentally fall back to a “standard.” That is, they may read onto the world a kind of generic medieval-Europe (or British Victorian or whatever) setting regardless if that is the one there. If a story is set in a Europe-inspired setting, then this is not a problem. But if the story is not meant to be set in that landscape, the writer (I think) has to invest a little more detail and explanation to differentiate their world from the sort of world people so often expect to see in, say, fantasy novels. Of course, again, too much detail and the narrative bogs down. The endless cycle thereby continues: What to show? What to leave out?
How do you write or read through this balance?
I’ll post this twice more as the time grows closer, but I want to announce that I will be doing a book signing together with the wonderful fantasy writer Lynn Flewelling on
SATURDAY JULY 28 at 2:30 pm
at Mysterious Galaxy Redondo Beach (Los Angeles)
I will read from COLD STEEL. I might even let the audience vote on which of several short excerpts they want me to read from . . . Rory getting naked? Bee telling off powerful men? Cat punching, well, anything?
Also, I will have hard copy pamphlets of the bonus chapter 31.5 from COLD FIRE available (I’m not charging for them).
As always with this kind of signing, you can bring your books from home for me to sign, and that is perfectly fine, but it is also courteous (and useful!) to make a purchase (of some kind, not necessarily my books) from Mysterious Galaxy, the hosting indie bookstore, because they have to sell books to stay in business in order to host signings and readings like this one.
Also, if you cannot attend the signing, you can place an order beforehand and get a signed (and personalized, if you wish) copy of any of my books which they have in stock, which they will then ship to you afterward.
I would love to see you all there.
Just as an FYI: I plan to attend the Sirens Conference in mid October (near Portland, Oregon), and may do a signing at Powells at that time. I also plan to attend World Fantasy Convention in Toronto, Canada in early November.
Herewith a photo of the unrevised manuscript of Cold Steel. I printed it out because I received my editorial letter from my editor today . . . a mere ten pages. While I do revise on screen as well, I like to do an editing pass on paper; it just looks different and the visual change highlights things I might not notice on the computer.
I expect to take about six weeks to do revisions, including a tight line edit, but overall nothing substantial, just a lot of careful close-up work, some trimming, and clarification of various elements and some scenes that need to have a little more heft and clarity.
Pen for size comparison. That’s 690 pages, double spaced, 12 pt, Garamond (I prefer to compose in Garamond rather than Courier or Times Roman because I like the look of it better.)
On April 17 I finished a draft of COLD STEEL. I just spent the last month revising that extremely imperfect draft and sent a revised draft to my editor last night (May 10). She will read through it and beat me over the head until I revise it more (that’s her job).
If she accepts the revisions I make to her direction, then I’ll be able to announce a confirmed publication date. However, due to how long it has taken me to write the novel, I can sadly say that it will not be out in 2012.
My apologies for the delay. Partly the book was simply very hard to write, and partly we had a death in my extended family in 2011 that took a toll. Finally, I want this book to be the best it can possibly be.
This is how it goes from here:
Editor reads it and makes revision suggestions. I revise.
Editor reads it one more time and makes final revision suggestions. I revise again to her suggestions and also usually with some things of my own (and from beta readers) that I want to fix and/or change.
It goes to copy editing, in which a copy editor goes through the manuscript looking for grammatical and punctuation and continuity errors. After the copy edit, the manuscript is essentially in its final form.
It is then typeset into the printed form it will have in the book. This typeset manuscript has to be proofread for mistakes and errors.
Meanwhile, the art department will be working on a cover.
All these things take time, and once they are complete, the book will go to the printer, for paper books, and converted to ebook form for the various ebook versions.
If a book is a bestseller the time it takes for this process can be accelerated, but as (sadly!) the Spiritwalker Trilogy is not a bestseller (it could still happen, she said optimistically!), it will go through the production process at the ordinary speed.
That is my report for the week ending May 11. I’ll keep you posted on the next set of developments as soon as I have any. For now, I’m going to dig out my desk and clear out my inbox, and think about what I will be doing next.
Next week I will have two guest posts, one from Australian writer Tansy Raynor Roberts and one from Philippines writer Rochita Loenen-Ruiz.
Thanks — I have to say, my readers have been, as always, wonderful, encouraging, and perspicacious. Thank you for your patience.
Today I completed a provisional, conditional draft of COLD STEEL.
It completes the Spiritwalker Trilogy.
It’s a first draft in the sense that this is the first complete draft of the book. Many sections are not first draft as they have been written, rewritten, and revised multiple times, but the full shape of the book is now “laid down” — rather, I suppose, as one might set up the frame of a house. Of course, I have a huge amount of revisions and cutting to do, but I cannot express how relieved I am to have gotten this complete draft done and the frame of the plot finally fully in place.
This has been an immensely difficult book to write. In fact, I can now safely place it with THE LAW OF BECOMING in the category of “most difficult first draft” books I’ve ever written.
I’m probably going to write a post about the process & difficulties later, but for the moment I want to thank you guys for the support you have given me (a lot of this went on in email, both my writing friends and my readers). I know you have been cheering for me through a grueling process, and it really has made all the difference.
I don’t make this stuff up, people.
From the Honolulu Star-Advertiser:
Joshua Holley says he’s not upset that a tiger shark bit him while he surfed Tuesday off the North Shore, and plans to get back int the water as soon as doctors say it’s OK . . .
[He} was paddling back out through a channel to a surf spot called Alligator Rock . . . when he felt an ‘unreal push on the left side of my body. Its whole weight came at me,’ he said of the 8- to 10-foot shark. ‘I could feel the body on me pretty much.’ . . .
After the initial bite the shark came around to the front of [his] board, and in a moment of panic [he] grabbed the shark’s gills with his left hand and punched the shark’s snout twice with his right. Then the shark ‘submerged like a submarine and just disappeared.’
He got 42 stitches in his left foot. The article is here, but you have to sign up to read it.
(Yes, I know where that surf spot is, and yes, we sometimes paddle down that way and even at times jump in the water thereabouts to cool off. It’s their ocean.)
(I originally posted this on Tumblr.)
