I was going to start by talking about this past month but I can’t…yet.
I’m too excited! I told you that Rule of Reason would be out in July. And I’ve worked my socks off to stick to the deadline. I’ve kind of made it. Kind of…
THE EBOOK IS OUT !
To be honest, I’m the most surprised as I only got the final file from my wonderful formatter on the afternoon of the 30th. I checked it (yet again) and then did all the tech shenanigans. I didn’t expect it to be available till the end of the weekend, but by 21,00 I had sold the first book to ! So yes, people, go and meet Raf!
The print versions will be coming in the next couple of weeks. They’ll take a little longer because of the widows and orphans. If you’re like the crowd here, you’ll wonder why I’m suddenly so concerned about grieving women and motherless waifs. But if you were trained as a lawyer, you’ll know that you CAN’T have a single line of text from a paragraph or dialogue at the top of a page (that’s a widow) or at the bottom of a page (that’s an orphan). Nobody much cares about them these days. Or, they tend to take care of widows but let orphans go (there’s a metaphor there somewhere). But being me, once seen, I can’t unsee them, and definitely can’t ignore them. So my sainted formatter will be doing her thing to keep them at bay!
So other than GETTING RULE OF REASON OUT, what’s been going on?
It’s been a busy month.
I’ve been mostly editing and making sure dates are correct and consistent across the five books in the series and the related novellas. It’s a slow exercise, but very satisfying to know that everything slots into place properly. It has meant updating and changing my incredibly long table of dates and events. I’m currently finishing with book 4 and will be starting book 5 soon. These two are a little trickier as their timelines overlap… as you’ll eventually see. Hence the use of different highlighter colour on the table!
But before I start with book 5’s dates, I need to buckle down and choose what I’m sending to Milford. In September, I’m going back to Wales to the Gladstone Library for Milford’s Critique Week. It’s a daunting prospect. I need to submit 10,000 words of something to be critiqued by the fifteen attendants. I will be critiquing their work too. I’ll have a lot to read in the month before and a lot of thinking over what I’ll have read.
When I mention that I’m doing this, I generally get looks of horror, but I’m actually excited about it. As a writer, it’s very easy to stop seeing your mistakes, to become too close to your characters, and even miss very obvious plot holes. Fresh pairs of eyes in the form of beta readers and an editor are essential, but another 15 pairs of eyes is a luxury.
I have a few novellas that I’m preparing for what I’m very boringly calling Tales of Ankisua, five of which you’ll receive in the form of ebooks for being subscribed to my newsletter, but others that nobody has yet seen. One, A Flaming Rage, is about the origin of the Hand of Reason. Another, simultaneously light-hearted and very dark, is the story of a day in the life of Golfen Nimbleknees, a friend of Peryst’s in Touched by Light. And yet another is the tale of the Bussars, the guardians of the monarchs of Genai. Maybe I’ll take one of those…
In other news, the audio recording for Touched by Light is done! The narrator has done a brilliant job in bringing the story to life. They’re tidying up the files at the moment so I don’t yet have a release date, but I’ll be sure to let you know when it’s available. Dan, the narrator, is now gearing up to start recording Rule of Reason.
So what else has been going on?
I was on a panel for an incredible event organised by the British Fantasy Society. The all-day online event was on Power in Science Fiction and Fantasy and gathered a host of incredible authors talking about one of my favourite subjects. I was on a panel titled Power Crushes. It was moderated by the amazing Adrian Fletcher who came up with fantastic questions on rebellions and evil empires. Sadly, we ran out of time and couldn’t get to them all, but the conversation we had was very interesting.
My favourite question was ‘Where do you finish your story of rebellion – is the fall of the evil empire the end?’ I’ll leave it to you to decide on your own view on the matter and won’t give any spoilers, but will say that like I’m writing a novella on the origin of the Hand of Reason, in the hypothetical case that the Hand of Reason were some day defeated by the rebels, I’d want to know what happens next. But that’s me. Yes, I know. Now you get why I have a 70-page timeline outline and can’t deal with widows and orphans… Ok, I’ll admit it. I also have a treatise written on the different gods in Ankisua and Glannafel and the origin myth of every nation…
And next, fittingly, given the cover of Rule of Reason, I’ll talk about fire.
July has been a month of flames, and I’m not being flippant.
My daughter’s flat burnt down a couple of weeks ago. She facetimed on Friday night while six fire engines battled the blaze from which she had fled with her boyfriend and their puppy, the lovely Luthien. They were all safe and most of their belongings ended up being saved as well, but it was a frightening event. The main damage was in the kitchen and bathroom, where little survived. BUT, in the bathroom, one thing did. I take it as a win… and a good omen is there ever is one! Check out the photo below.
And if you’ve been looking at the news, you’ll know that the wildfires in Spain have been terrible. Thousands of people have been displaced and many hectares burnt. Echo and I were safe as we were in the centre of Madrid, so in no danger from the fire itself, but suffering the smoke. The day it got really bad, we decamped south to the coast, where we are at the moment. The trip had been planned ages ago and the timing worked perfectly. The Cadiz area, on the Atlantic, is smoke-free and stunning, and while very hot during the day, it cools down nicely in the evenings.
I was proofreading Book 3 – Shadow of the Hand – and reached a section when Peryst and Maia are in a desert city. Kalvech is a city that sleeps during the day under the scorching sun but wakes at night to revels and colour. I’ve always thought that Madrid is a little like that in the summer. In the hot nights of July and August there are concerts, outdoor cinemas, and bars with tables on every pavement. And conversation, music, and laughter. Like Kalvech. Write of what you know, they say. And so again, like many times in these books, I only recognised that Madrid was the inspiration for the nights of Kalvech the other day when I was at one of said evening concerts, a glass of wine in hand, and happy noise and music all round. I had a huge ‘aha’ moment.
A friend invited me to the concert on the grounds of the public university’s botanical gardens. It was an Italian pop group I’d never heard of but the venue was great and we had a good time.
While there, I discovered that Biffy Clyro was playing on the 21st. For those who don’t know them, Biffy Clyro are a Scottish indie rock group I love. I always work with music playing. If editing or proofreading, it’ll be something mellow, but if I’m on a creative streak, it’ll be rock. Usually it’s classics of the genre, but sometimes an indie sneaks in. That’s how I discovered Biffy Clyro a few years ago.
I got last minute tickets and dragged a friend and my youngest daughter to the concert. When I said ‘indie’ my friend understood ‘Indian’. She showed up expecting either sitars or a Bollywood theme. My daughter knew one of their better-known songs. Both came with the intention of being supportive and open-minded. The concert was spectacular. Both the band and the public jumped and sang for a solid two hours at 38C. I had a blast on the night and had no voice the next day. It was a huge success as I came away with two new fans in my converted companions!
In terms of reading, I’ve carried on my theme of reading horror, but detoured to science fiction for a bit, and will now return to fantasy.
Witchcraft for Wayward Girls, by Grady Hendrix, was chilling, and How to Sell a Haunted House, also by him, is even more so. It involves puppets and I’ve always been terrified of puppets.
Buffalo Hunter Hunter, by Stephen Graham Jones is proving very disturbing and also quite sad. I think that after I finish that, it’ll be the end of my foray into horror for a bit. In fact, I did take a break and went back to Jitterbug, by Gareth Powell, which is interesting in the science aspect and super fun. The ending was unexpected. While reading, I couldn’t help seeing the crew of Firefly as its characters in my mind (it has that space western feel to it), so I enjoyed it even more.
Next on my list is something I’ve been meaning to read for years. It’s ironic that I’ve never done so as my younger brothers read them as they came out. At the time, they were in the States and I was in London. The books always came out over here first so I’d get them and post them to the boys. I never got round to reading them myself, but I now feel I have to as many have pointed out that Touched by Light reminded them of Robert Jordan’s Wheel of Time, something that my developmental editor also said. I’m going to have to gear myself up for the fourteen books and see if I can spot the difference in style when Brandon Sanderson took over after Jordan’s death…
What else?
Yoga is still going strong. Inner Dimension Yoga do something I love and that works very well for me. Every three months they arrange a seasonal calendar with a class per day. And I simply follow the calendar and do what it tells me. It saves me agonising over their huge library to choose a lesson every morning. If I had to do that, I’d probably do nothing at all as huge selections make my mind freeze (and that’s why I take so long to order in restuarants). The summer programme is proving super challenging, with a mix of yoga types and difficulties, but I’m enjoying the different instructors and styles. And also not knowing what I’ll get till I’m in the middle of the class. I’ve learnt that the names they give to the classes can be very misleading… a bit like book titles, I guess.
And finally, Echo!
Her trip south was an adventure. It was the day the smoke got bad and also the day of my British Fantasy Society panel, so she came down by car with two intrepid and devoted volunteers, to which I’ll be eternally grateful. It was a long eight hours for the three of them in a car that wasn’t quite big enough on a day of infernal heat, but they made it safely and by the time I arrived late that same day, they’d all settled well into our Airbnb.
She’s enjoying the outdoors and lying in the sun, but can’t deal with any fooling in the pool. The pool isn’t very big or very deep but she’s absolutely convinced that those in it are in dire danger of death by drowning. She races round when anyone goes underwater and I keep fearing that she’ll jump in to save them as she hovers over trying to grab them and pull them out to the safety of dry land.
In the evenings, once it cools down, we amble to the beachfront to watch the sunset. There, she gets mobbed by children asking to pet her and stands stoically as they stroke and chat to her. I think she secretly likes it and only appears so arrogant to match their expectations of her as the biggest dog in the world!
So there we are, July is gone and we’ll see what August brings. Enjoy your summer if you’re up here in the north, and stay warm if you’re down south. Keep reading, keep learning, keep doubting, and stay curious.
And please, when you get round to reading Rule of Reason, leave me a review on Amazon, Goodreads, Waterstones, Barnes and Noble, or wherever you get books!
Stay safe.