the Author

Category Archives: life

September
9
21 Comments

State of the Author, September 2023 edition

Posted in Audio books, Cast, Essalieyan, self-publishing, writing, life.

I’m writing to you all from Australia, where I have come on my writing retreat, which used to be an annual thing until Covid. I have an unfor­tu­nately tight dead­line, and I’m neck deep into Cast in Atone­ment, which is not yet done. I hope to be finished before I leave Bris­bane. And when I say finished, I mean: finished first draft. After which I will revise for submis­sion, and then submit. Shards of Glass is due out at the end of November, so I’m fielding a few ques­tions about that — but my head is fully entan­gled in the Cast novel, so Shards feels like it was written years ago (it wasn’t). My toe has improved enough it doesn’t bother me much, but according to X‑rays taken a week before I left, … Continue reading →

August
2
25 Comments

State of the Author, August 2023 edition

Posted in Cast, Elantra, Essalieyan, Jody Lee, life.

As those of you who follow my Patreon know, at the begin­ning of July, I had a drive-by argu­ment with a chair in the living room, and lost. I managed to break not one, but two, toes. I have been off work at the book­store, but in theory will return on the 10th of August, the day on which I can take off the boot on my foot. Previous toe breakage did not require a boot. But I could stand on the foot in both prior cases. By the end of the day of the 2‑toe breakage, I was reduced to crawling because I couldn’t actu­ally put any weight on the foot at all. Which meant, when we went to the hospital, I went in bare feet; I couldn’t put even a sandal on. … Continue reading →

June
26
22 Comments

For Canadians: Indigo is having a summer pre-order sale

Posted in life, promotions.

First, the good news: Indigo books, our major book­store chain, is having a summer preorder sale. Shards of Glass is included in that most-antic­i­­pated books sale. I wanted to mention it here — the sale goes to July 2nd. *** I have had a trying month. I am still working on glasses, which has been iter­a­tive and ongoing since December. I am working on copy-edits for the West novel, and have just received page proofs for the above mentioned Shards of Glass. And I managed, while running to inter­cept the phone, to break not one, but two, toes — and at the joint below the knuckle in both cases =/. I’ve broken toes before, but never this close to foot and oddly enough, it kind of hurts. I have a boot, which, unlike a cast, … Continue reading →

January
3
12 Comments

State of the Author: January 2023 edition

Posted in writing, life.

First: December. I finished the first draft of Hunter’s Redoubt on the 24th of December – in time to panic about Christmas tree & presents & Christmas eve dinner. It’s 303k words long, so… the longest first book in any series I’ve written T_T. It has gone off to the editor. Hope­fully, it will go off to artist, too. I did not finish Shards of Glass, but I’m working on that now, in the lull between submit­ting a draft and getting edito­rial feed­back. My hope was to work on both books at the same time – as I do for most of a book’s life. But usually when I hit the end of a book, I put the other on pause. I even­tu­ally had to do that with this one, because the end of a book eats all … Continue reading →