A couple of cool moments from this weekend— First, while signing books at the mall yesterday, I had the chance to talk with a family who all read fantasy together. Dad reads the books out loud to all the kids, Mom has to stop herself from reading ahead in secret, and the kids all have a certain degree of enthusiasm for the practice. First of all, it made me decide on the spot that I’m going to read fantasy novels aloud to my children. But the really cool thing was when the fa

A few minutes ago, I completed the final draft of Buk Tu (ie “Book Two” or the sequel to The Tale of Telsharu). Sam and I will submit the manuscript to our publisher tomorrow. After this, we move into final revisions, editing, and…publication! This draft has taken a surprising and incredible amount of work. Last night I tried to describe to a friend what it’s been like, and had difficulty explaining. First of all, no chapter of the book was untouched in this revision. In ever

kismet. noun. fate; destiny. Normally I’m of the school of perseverance. “Just keep writing” is my motto. I do not believe in writing when the mood strikes, but in writing consistently and constantly. But it’s odd how sometimes things just come together. Tonight, the muses descended in my favor. I’ve been revising nonstop all afternoon. I’ve had a number of scenes that I’ve been struggling with for several weeks now, and somehow the answers materialized this evening–not just

I have a great love of epigraphs. With my own work, I am particularly fond of fictional quotations or works from in-world sources. For example, The Tale of Telsharu opens with a poem, which purports itself to be a selection from the epic poem “Hanu Zan” by Fao Duman, who is, in fact, a fictional character, writing about one of the heroes of the Seventh Empire. I first fell in love with the concept of in-world epigraphs as a teenager reading Dune by Frank Herbert. Each chapter

Receiving our editor’s notes is an interesting experience for me. I want to preface this discussion by saying how wonderful our editor is, and how much I appreciate the work he is putting in with our manuscript. It certainly would be a different book without him, and we are much the better for his counsel. With that said…it’s always interesting to have someone else going through your manuscript with a fine-tooth comb. We’ve been through this before with our beta readers (at s