the Author
May
29
33 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 work into home­work T_T. Yes, there is whining in this house­hold. It is not pretty).

These two books will occupy the next several months of my writing life.

War outside of NAI have added pre-order links to the War book page. Or rather, I have added the non-North Amer­ican pre-order links for the ebook of War. There are no audio book links at the moment because, while I assume the audio book is coming by the publi­ca­tion date, I haven’t found it on audible​.com yet.

(The design of this cover is done by Jenn Reese of Tiger Bright Studios.)

33 Responses to State of the Writer, May 2019

  1. S.M.F. says:
    May 29, 2019 at 11:24 am

    /salutes/
    Congrats on the anniversary!

    And here’s to the whining not stop­ping you from working. ;)

  2. Darbie says:
    May 29, 2019 at 11:58 am

    Wait I thought the cover was jewel with her orb done by Jody lee

  3. Stephen says:
    May 29, 2019 at 12:24 pm

    Congrat­u­la­tions on 30 years, that is great!!!
    I will have all the House War books re-read by the time War comes out. I am very excited as I look forward to that date. :)

  4. Kim says:
    May 29, 2019 at 12:38 pm

    Happy anniver­sary!!! I just finished First­born and am anxiously awaiting War! Thank you for all you do!!!

  5. Mike Nelson Pedde says:
    May 29, 2019 at 12:56 pm

    Congrats indeed!! And thank you for what you do… 🙂

  6. Andrea says:
    May 29, 2019 at 1:27 pm

    Congrat­u­la­tions on your anniver­sary! As I’m maturing, I’m learning to prior­i­tize me time for myself and we time as a couple. It’s easy to get lost in our busy life and kids stuff.
    I’m looking forward to Cast in Wisdom and the Severn noval. Is there a punish date for either? Glad to hear from you and sounds like you are doing well… Less stressed.

  7. Carol Duffy says:
    May 29, 2019 at 1:57 pm

    Happy happy anniversary!

  8. Jo-Ann says:
    May 29, 2019 at 2:20 pm

    West words (and Sagara words) Always welcome. So excited and Cannot Wait for War — though as I write that, I realize that’s prob­ably the Only time I will Ever say That…
    Trying myself to get all of what-has-come-before read before mid-ish June and just won’t. I find I’m reading your words even more slowly than usual, just savouring the complex­i­ties and letting myself ponder about this-and-that concept or char­ac­ter­i­za­tion and enjoying myself thor­oughly. So much that I have once enjoyed reading doesn’t stand up so well to re-reads and I can say with resounding delight that every­thing you’ve written does for me.
    One ques­tion — that I may have asked before? or perhaps just thought repeat­edly, but if I have forgive my spotty memory — have you consid­ered putting all the novellas together into a paper-published version…Omnibus?…thingy? I ask because you’ve quite a few that I haven’t read simply because I just don’t read fiction in tech­no­log­ical format. Just don’t find it conducive to the sort of plea­sure I get from my reading habits (which are in bed if I risk getting too personal and) in paper-book format. I know that I would purchase — and appreciate.
    Congrat­u­la­tions on your anniver­sary and a produc­tive period and your ‘series’ on writing tech­ni­cal­i­ties and publishing year that given me more joy than I can adequately describe.

  9. Lee and Tracy says:
    May 29, 2019 at 2:43 pm

    Congrat­u­la­tions on your anniver­sary. We hit our 30th back in February this year and it both felt like quite an accom­plish­ment and was a run of the mill day. Very excited about all your upcoming projects. You keep writing and we will keep reading 😄

  10. LaraB says:
    May 29, 2019 at 8:32 pm

    Happy anniver­sary to you! 

    I am very much looking forward to War, and also to “what comes next”.

    Rather than do my usual “read them all before starting the new book” habit, I have decided to read War when it arrives, and *then* go back and read all the way through. That way I am less likely to suddenly feel bereft when I finish the last page of War.

  11. Kari says:
    May 29, 2019 at 9:26 pm

    Happy anniver­sary!

    I’m so looking forward to *War.* Other projects too, but espe­cially that book. Thank you for the many hours of joy I have expe­ri­enced exploring West Worlds.

  12. Kerry aka Trouble says:
    May 29, 2019 at 9:56 pm

    Happy Anniver­sary!
    Is that the e‑book cover? I thought you had already shown us a Jody Lee cover for War. Have already pre-ordered War and looking forward to Cast in Wisdom as well as the Severn “novella” LOL

  13. chibipoe says:
    May 29, 2019 at 10:11 pm

    That cover is for the non US cover, it looks like.

  14. Estara Swanberg says:
    May 30, 2019 at 2:33 am

    Happy Anniver­sary, thank you for all the years of enjoyment !

  15. Donna says:
    May 30, 2019 at 7:10 am

    Happy Anniver­sary. And best wishes for editing things!
    Thanks for writing more books for us.

  16. michelle says:
    May 30, 2019 at 10:36 am

    @SMF: Whining is prob­ably one of my “skills”. If whining stopped me from working I would … never have finished a book. I *try* to keep most of it on the inside of my head, but some­times it spills — and my long suffering husband was well aware of my inner whiner before he married me. And yet, still did.

    @Darbie: the North Amer­ican cover is possibly my favorite cover by Jody Lee :D. But… it’s the North Amer­ican cover. I can’t just use it on the ebooks for the rest of the English speaking world — so the UK/AU/NZ cover is entirely different for those.

    @Andrea: I believe Cast in Wisdom will be out at the end of January 2020, which is one year from the publi­ca­tion of Oblivion. I don’t have a date for the Severn book — it’s not finished yet. 

    @Jo-Ann: All of the Essalieyan short stories are avail­able in a print version — that would be the six story collec­tion that is avail­able now, Memory of Stone.

    If you mean: the new 49k word novella, yes, it’s being consid­ered. I admit that when writing it, I wasn’t consid­ering external markets — or markets — at all.

  17. Joyce Ronquillo says:
    May 30, 2019 at 12:29 pm

    Congrat­u­la­tions of the anniver­sary! May you retain your balance forever. 

    I am so looking forward to Cast in Wisdom, which is already pre-ordered. Are we nearing the end? It occurs to me that there hasn’t really been a human-centric book yet or am I mistaken. I know Kaylin keeps things human but her stories mostly involve her rela­tions with the other races. That is not a complaint, just an observation.

  18. Denise says:
    June 1, 2019 at 11:22 am

    Happy belated Anniver­sary! Home­work at my age would make me whine too.

  19. Darbie Mathys says:
    June 1, 2019 at 8:26 pm

    also many congrat­u­la­tions on your anniver­sary, very excited for War I am a terrible fan I read the ending first and then start the book, cant take the suspense. thanks for writing

  20. michelle says:
    June 3, 2019 at 10:16 am

    @Darbie: I don’t think this is terrible at all. But… I might have been known to do this as a reader as well. 

    (My very first editor said, “Michelle, don’t you think if you were meant to read that FIRST, it would have been called Chapter One?” with some disapproval.)

  21. Tchula says:
    June 4, 2019 at 12:28 am

    Don’t know how I missed this email, but congrat­u­la­tions on cele­brating 30 years! Dave and I just cele­brated our 20th. It sure goes by fast! (Which is much better than feeling like it’s drag­ging on and on, I suppose) ;-P

  22. Peter Moore says:
    June 5, 2019 at 8:28 am

    Yea and Hooray for your anniver­sary! Massively looking forward to War. One week 6 days and 15.5 hrs. But who’s counting? Do you have any idea when the short story will be published?

  23. michelle says:
    June 5, 2019 at 10:56 am

    @Tchula: the hours can drag, but the days fly.

    @Peter: I have no idea at this point when the story will be published. It’s exactly the wrong length at 49k+ — too long for novella programs, too short for novels. I wanted to get it done for the person who donated for that partic­ular prompt — Augus­tine story — but as that was the driving force, I wasn’t really thinking about what I would do with the story once it was finished T_T.

    I have it out to editor now as part of a possible collec­tion of the 3 Augus­tine stories, but publishing is always slow in that regard.

  24. Peter Moore says:
    June 5, 2019 at 12:37 pm

    Didn’t there used to be a cate­gory called novel­ette? I remember reading novel­ettes back in the day when Ace publishing was putting out a signif­i­cant number of short(er) spec­u­la­tive fiction antholo­gies. I remember seeing both novellas and novel­ettes being mentioned.
    One ques­tion: did the Augus­tine stories come first or did the oracles in the Elantran novels come first? I haven’t read either of the Augus­tine Painter stories, just the reviews by Amelie on the “Fans of Michelle West” site hosted by word­press. I’m now in the process of trying to find them. BTW I’m also a BIG fan of Julie Czerneda, editor of the “Summoned to Destiny” anthology.

  25. michelle says:
    June 5, 2019 at 12:41 pm

    @Peter: The cate­gories are, from SFWA, as follows:

    <7,500: Short story
    <17,500: Novelette
    <40,000: Novella
    40k+: Novel

    But no one publishes 40k novels, much. 

    The first Augus­tine story was before any of the Cast novels. The second might have been around the Cast novels, early. The Oracles in Elantra are very different from the Augus­tine Painters, though.

    Ummm, I think the first story is long out of print — it was in a DAW anthology. I am not sure about the avail­ability of the Czerneda anthology.

  26. Peter Moore says:
    June 5, 2019 at 1:21 pm

    Thanks for the break­down of the various cate­gories. I had vaguely remem­bered novel­ettes being longer, but it’s been since forever that I remember reading anything described as a novelette.
    I found both antholo­gies on Amazon. I came up blank until I added the editor names. The “Summoned in Destiny” anthology was actu­ally included in my prime acct so I didn’t even have to pay ship­ping. The other anthology “Appren­tice Fantastic” wasn’t prime so I had to pay for ship­ping, and according to Amazon it was the last copy. Both antholo­gies were basi­cally $5 USD, plus tax and a $4 ship­ping charge for the Appren­tice Fantastic anthology. I’m a happy camper! Stuff to read, in fact some of it even Michelle West stuff to read before War comes.

  27. Tracy in Texas says:
    June 5, 2019 at 11:07 pm

    Very exciting! Congrats on the engage­ment, comple­tion and new stories. We’re so blessed to have you! :)

  28. Mira says:
    June 6, 2019 at 2:51 pm

    So very excited for all of the upcoming books!!! Is there any chance you’ll be on the road to promote any of them?

  29. michelle says:
    June 7, 2019 at 10:14 am

    @Mira: I am going to the Dublin worldcon — which is middle of August, in Dublin. That will be some months after WAR is published, though. 

    I’m the type of person who is rela­tively content to live under a rock, though. I used to go to a conven­tion in Pitts­burgh which I really liked, but I admit that I have avoided crossing the border since the last US federal election =/.

  30. Tchula says:
    June 7, 2019 at 10:33 am

    Don’t blame you for that, one bit. Nov. 2020 can’t come soon enough imo.

  31. Taen says:
    June 18, 2019 at 8:47 am

    This isn’t exactly a reply to your post, but I’ve just finished reading War, which Is the ending I’ve waited for ever since I first started with Jewel’s story so many years ago. It was perfect. I think I cried through half of it. Thank you so much, Michelle, for your incred­ible work.

  32. michelle says:
    June 20, 2019 at 12:30 pm

    @Taen: Thank you <3.

  33. Marie Roberts says:
    September 9, 2019 at 3:33 pm

    Not sure how I got to this page, I’m sure I won’t be that lucky again. So here goes. Finally get to read War. Just finish Cast in Oblivion. This one I enjoyed as I was able to follow, a small time with my favorite char­acter Nighshade. Really appriceated the time, he really gets to me. . Thank you for all your work. Third read of the Sun Sword series. Enjoyed them each time. Please keep writing, your work is so easy to read

Leave a Reply