the Author
September
22
8 Comments

State of the Author: September 2021 edition

Posted in Cast, DAW, Elantra, Essalieyan, Queen of the Dead, writing, Severn.

It’s been an eventful behind the scenes September, and it’s not quite finished yet. First: I am going to be doing a library Zoom call. Back in the non-pandemic age, the Friends of the East Gwillim­bury library invited me to speak to library readers. In theory this was going to happen on the 20th of April. This did not happen for obvious reasons. I will be doing a Zoom library call, instead. From their email: This ZOOM  on-line event is limited to 100 people and will feature Friends board member and Sagara fan, Michelle Cowan, as moder­ator in conver­sa­tion with the author. How do I  get a ticket?  If you bought a ticket in 2020, we will honour it and send the link after veri­fi­ca­tion.  Please … Continue reading →

August
4
36 Comments

Michelle’s Patreon, the future of West novels; Also SWORD AND SHADOW front cover

Posted in Essalieyan, writing, Shane Rebenschied, Severn.

Thank you. Thank you so much. The Essalieyan Novel Patreon was way more successful than I thought it would be. It was such a big ask. I didn’t want anyone who has read these books all along to feel pres­sured or guilty or oblig­ated. The author deal has always been: I write a book, the publisher publishes the book, readers buy the book. And this was … not that.  Going forward, I’ll do all Patreon stuff on Patreon, so it’ll disap­pear from this web-site except as a link in the sidebar.  But: I get to write the final arc, the final series, in the Essalieyan universe – and I will. I will write the books at the same general speed I’ve always written them, during the same writing time. The gap between … Continue reading →

July
27
90 Comments

State of the Author July 2021 edition, ending an era

Posted in DAW, Essalieyan, self-publishing.

This might be a bit on the long side. That’s the warning. Some of you may remember a couple of months ago I said things were… stressful (possibly worst month ever) on Twitter. If I had been thinking, I would have made certain to sepa­rate terrible month from pandemic, which has – for my family – remained a large and consis­tent weight in the back­ground. We’ve been lucky; we’ve lost no one. We made sure that the less internet-savvy were signed up and vacci­nated, and we got vacci­nated ourselves; I have no under 12s in my house­hold, and there are none in the house­hold we bubble with when its safe to do so. Mostly, however, what I was thinking was: How do I tell people? And what do I do going forward? So let’s start … Continue reading →

July
7
45 Comments

Cast in Conflict: Spoiler Discussion Thread

Posted in writing.

It goes without saying that a spoiler discus­sion thread is for discussing the events in the book — so people who hate spoilers (I don’t, my long suffering husband does) should prob­ably avoid the comments here.

June
29
37 Comments

Cast in Conflict Release Day

Posted in Cast, Elantra, writing.

Today, 29th June 2021, is Cast in Conflict’s publi­ca­tion day. Cast in Conflict started life as Cast in Isola­tion. My editor(s) liked the title, and I was thinking purely of the book itself. Marketing, however, rightly pointed out that we’d had more than enough isola­tion in the past year, and anything that reminded people of covid shut­downs and quar­an­tines was Not On. This made sense to all of the people who had liked the former title, which is why it’s now called Cast in Conflict, or ‘Conflict’ as it’s called in this house. *** Today is also the day after my 2nd covid-19 vacci­na­tion shot. My reac­tion has been pretty mild so far (with the expected wow it hurts to lift my arm), and a touch of the usual Michelle … Continue reading →