June
25
25 Comments

WAR: Spoiler thread

Posted in writing.

This is the thread for discus­sion of War by people who have a) already read it and want to talk about it or b) don’t care about being spoiled. I found parts of the discus­sion thread to First­born a bit diffi­cult — it’s been a while since I’ve had spoiler thread posts on this web-site, and I stayed out of book discus­sion posts on the forum, when they were active. But I have now figured out how to filter things, and I will remain bliss­fully igno­rant while strug­gling with the current books, one of which is giving me minor ulcers, I swear.  

June
18
50 Comments

Publication day: WAR

Posted in DAW.

ETA: It’s come to my atten­tion else­where on-line that some readers think WAR is the final book in the Essalieyan universe. They are… not happy with it because of all the things the book isn’t. I forget, because I live too much inside my own head, that what I’ve known for years – and talked about for the same years – simply isn’t known by everyone who is… not me. War is the final book in the House War series arc. It’s the final book in the arc that belongs to Jewel Markess ATer­afin. WAR is not the final Essalieyan book. I’ve sold the first four books of what will be the final arc in this universe: The Burning Crown. It’s June 18th in North America, which means — as of midnight … Continue reading →

May
29
32 Comments

State of the Writer, May 2019

Posted in DAW, ebooks, Elantra, Essalieyan, Mira.

This month saw my thir­tieth wedding anniver­sary. I finished, and then revised for submis­sion, Cast in Wisdom, and it is, until copy-edits, at Mira. I finished a novella of ques­tion­able length (49k), which was one of two short story prompts for the pixel project charity over two years ago T_T. Speaking of short story prompts that were even less short, ahem. Today, I opened the unti­tled Severn novel, and the unti­tled first book in The Burning Crown arc. Between the two, there’s 100k words, but I had to put them aside to write Cast in Wisdom and reread all the other West words (which, to be honest, I have not quite finished yet. There’s some­thing vaguely like home­work about this, and … I’m not sure I enjoy turning the … Continue reading →

May
15
22 Comments

WAR: preview chapter, plus news.

Posted in Books, Elantra, Short Stories, writing.

I seem to have misplaced April. First: News. I have sold DAW Books the first four novels in the series that is now called The Burning Crown, but which I’ve called The End of Days arc for decades. I have no titles, but do have dead­lines — the first of which is July of 2020. That’s when it’s due to the publisher. It’s not a publi­ca­tion date >.<. This is the last arc of the Essalieyan universe. I expect it to be roughly the same as the Sun Sword in length. (Well, no, I orig­i­nally thought, it’s just these two books, right? I have endings! Greek Chorus: No, Michelle, try to be real­istic for once. You thought the Sun Sword was two books, too — Broken Crown and Sun Sword. But I had key endpoints and the first … Continue reading →

March
24
23 Comments

State of the Author, March 2019 edition

Posted in Books, Cast, DAW, Elantra, Essalieyan, chapters, Mira.

I am, for the moment, done with the Writing Process posts, in part because they were an attempt to answer a ques­tion which has cropped up in different ways over the last few years. They were an enor­mous amount of fun for me. I do have one more post — about the evolu­tion of process — but it’s half-finished, and it has been set aside in favour of taxes. Which is about as much fun as it sounds. Taxes are being done early this year because the annual writing retreat has been moved forward to the end of April. Which would mean I’d be in a different country at about the time Tax Panic sets in. So: early tax filing for me. Writing news: First, the … Continue reading →