Brilliant. (Thanks, Poorly Drawn Lines!)
Category: Writing
The Bonfire of the Straw Men
I missed this post when it came out on the 6th as we were on holiday, but it’s more solid argument from David refuting the ‘self-pub is dying/non-viable/killing writing’ noise that keeps popping up.
Guess Who’s Back-back-back. Back Again-gain-gain.
Hi, everybody!
(“Hi, Dr. Nick!“)
So I’m back. Successfully married, finger be-ringed, and lovely fiancee has seamlessly morphed into lovely wife. And after a week in scorching 35C/100F degree sunshine on our honeymoon, I am… slightly tanned!
(Nothing makes me more obviously Welsh than my skin. We… we don’t tan. As a race.)
What does this mean? Well, it means we’re on the home straight to the release of my first novel, the book I’ve been rambling about for months, ASCENSION POINT. And – like Usain Bolt crushing the anchor leg of the 4x100m relay to complete his double-triple goldmedalathon – I’m going to make it a good one.
Penguin’s New Business Model: Exploiting Writers
Oh, Penguin. How could you. After all those books I enjoyed so much when I was a child.
‘Big E-Reader Is Watching You’
Folks, I’m in the UK at the moment, mainly doing wedding preparation stuff in advance of the big day on the 27th. Just so you know, posts are going to be pretty thin on the ground for the next few weeks.
So I’ll just leave this here.
Scrivener Quirkery and Kindle Fire
(Warning: This post is techie. It’s also only relevant to you if you want to use Scrivener to create Kindle-ready MOBI files ready for upload to KDP. If you do not meet this description, here is a link to a page of amusing animal GIFs instead.)
Sharing this in case anyone else hits the same problem.
I’ve been periodically using Scrivener to compile ASCENSION POINT into MOBI format, to see how it looks on my Kindle. I’ve also been using the Kindle Previewer, which cleverly emulates different types of Kindle (DX, Fire, iPhone, etc), and happily my book always looked great.
That is, until lovely fiancée came back from D.C. with a brand new Kindle Fire for realsies. Read more…
Freaky Solar System
Wow.
“This newly discovered system is called Kepler-36, and it’s about 1,200 light years away. One of its planets is a rocky super-Earth about 1.5 times the size of our planet and 4.5 times the mass. Its companion, a Neptune-like gaseous planet, is 3.7 times the size of Earth and eight times the mass. And they’re very close to each other – about 30 times closer than any pair of planets in our solar system.
Because their orbital distance varies by only 10%, the view of the Neptune-like planet from the rocky planet must at times be pretty spectacular.”
This could dramatically change how I create solar systems in my books; it simply never occurred to me to have very different planets that close to each other. Thanks, science!
Full article on io9 here.
Plotting on the Fly
With the final, professional edit of ASCENSION POINT on hold until August (lovely fiancée and I getting married in late July, so I’ve not got the time to properly engage with that just yet), I’m cracking on with drafting my second book, ROGUE.
It’s going pretty well – I’ve got a solid outline, a punchy main plot with lots of action, and an ending I’m hoping will come as a bit of a surprise. I’ve drafted the prologue and the first couple of chapters, and everything’s ticking along nicely.
However.
It’s too short.
Or rather it will be, as the outline currently stands. I’ve roughly estimated word count to draft the remaining chapters, and I don’t think it’s going to break 70,000 words. Now, don’t get me wrong, it’ll still meet the technical definition of ‘a novel’, but I feel like it’ll need another 5-10,000 words to flesh it out, and give it a bit of depth. I don’t think the main plotline needs extending, so I’d like to weave in an interesting side/sub-plot.
Problem is I can’t think of anything right now. Hence the title of the post – I’m hoping that somewhere around chapter three or four the story, or the characters, will tell me what it should be. One of those satisfying ‘a-ha!’ moments we all so love.
I’m sure it’ll Take On… come to… Hmm. There’s a pun in there somewhere.
Why Magic Doesn’t Have To Make Sense
I found this article through Tor.com, but I’ll link to the original on N. K. Jemisin’s own site here. It’s a superb argument against the dogmatic need for a magic ‘system’ in fantasy worlds – well worth a read.
I couldn’t agree with her more. My favourite fantasy of all time is Steven Erikson’s Malazan books, and the magic in that is absolutely batshit insane – almost every race has their own particular kind of magic, and they clash in utterly unpredictable ways, any of which might end up destroying the surrounding area (or entire world in some cases). Which means when there’s a conflict every forty pages you can rarely guess how it’s going to pan out. Who wins in a fight between a Jaghut and a T’lan Imass? (No-one, basically, but that’s another story.)
I should really get around to reading Jemisin’s The Hundred Thousand Kingdoms soon, as well. And how good is this cover?!
Always Judge My Book By Its Cover
I’m very excited – I just received the final version of my cover! Stephanie Mooney (http://mooneydesigns.net/) did a fabulous job, and I’m really pleased with the result. So without further ado…
DAN HARRIS: 10% SCI, 90% FI 