Devon Monk's Blog, page 20

No need to read this

This is my Wednesday blog post. It is here because I promised myself I would blog three days a week, M-W-F. You don’t have to read it. I doubt it will contain anything interesting.

Because today I have no brain.

Today I’ve used all my brains on STONE COLD revisions. Here’s a line to prove it:

The sentence before revision: “Egad, old chap. Perhaps a moment of personal grooming is in order.”

The sentence after revision: “Just take a shower, Shame. You look like hell and smell worse.”

Okay, fine. I’m...

Cleaning Cupboards

I have a terrible urge to organize my house.

I guess if I really wanted to get into the reasoning behind this strange urge, it involves the satisfaction of finishing something and seeing the immediate results of achieving a set goal. Instant gratification is a heady thing, and there’s nothing like staring at a clean broom closet to make me feel all…satisfied.

The satisfaction from a good day of writing is a different sort of beast altogether. For one thing, it takes me a lot longer to write a n...

Work In Progress

STONE COLD comes out next spring, but the revisions are due by end of the month.

These are my editor’s comments, printed out single space. I check off each comment when I have addressed it in text. To keep things positive, I make a little smiley face next to it too. Yes, it’s silly and unnecessary, but at the end of a long day I happen to like looking down at a row of happy faces. Sue me.

Today I’m working on chapter 14, which needs to be expanded to about double its current length. I should...

A Cup Of Normal – Ebook

This is my short story collection, A CUP OF NORMAL. It came out in print format in 2010:

Mythopoeic Award. It has received great reviews, one of which was from Publisher’s Weekly and said, “…feels like early Bradbury (but perhaps with more teeth).”

But here’s the thing I love about the collection: each story illus...

Flowers and Giant Robots

This is one of the sunflowers my son and I planted this spring. It’s about nine feet tall, and stands in a row with other sunflowers along the south side of the house. I’m sort of in love with these big, happy flowers, the tallest of which is about ten feet tall (3-ish meters).

The plants are so tall now, they’re beginning to droop a little under the weight of the flowers and they haven’t even seeded yet. To help them not come crashing down, I tied them all back with bright cotton yarn I norma...

Strong Writing, Strong Living

I’m going to make this a quick post since my web server has been down most the day and I’m not sure how long I’ll have access to my page.

I’ve been reading a few posts from authors about how important it is to find your own writing pace that both allows you to enjoy a robust writing career and a robust non-writing life. These posts suggest it’s important to take a day off every once in awhile or to walk away from the computer every day at a set time, work be damned.

That’s something that I’ve b...

Adventures in Blogging

I’m not sure why, but there is something about the end of July that always makes me think about my goals, and the steps toward achieving them. Maybe it’s the knowledge that there is only one month of summer left, one month before the season slowly drifts toward shorter autumn days and longer winter nights. A sense that time is, if not exactly running out, passing by.

So I’ve stuck a note on my monitor listing the current deadlines for the three books I’m working on in various stages, and I’ve...

Good Times

Sorry for the blog silence the last couple weeks. It’s been busy around the old Monkstead. As is our custom, we threw a big family/friend 4th of July barbecue, fireworks, and birthday celebration at our house.

Right after that, I headed up to GEAR Con in Portland. This is a steampunk convention that started out three years ago and is going strong. I first attended GEAR Con their first year, and am amazed at how much it’s grown. I met (or reacquainted with) some great writers there including Al...

Release Day! Cold Copper

COLD COPPER, the third in my Age of Steam series, is out today!

If you haven’t had a chance to read my steampunk books, I’m happy to say the first in the series DEAD IRON is out in (cheaper) paperback format, so you can start there if you’d like.

However, I’ve already seen people reporting that they began the series by reading COLD COPPER and they didn’t feel lost in the storyline. That was nice to know since it was my hope that if anyone picked up any of the books, they’d be able to fall right...

Random Updatery

Good news! I finished the submission draft of STONE COLD (book #2 Broken Magic series) and turned it in to my editor on Monday! *whew*

After a tight deadline, I usually get a little goofy. It’s like I’ve been so hunkered down in this place of otherness that when I pop back out into the real world I am dizzy on the oxygen and noise and brightness of it all. My brain’s like, “Wheeee! Sentences don’t sense have to make! Bird–funny! Spatula–funny! This apple looks disappointed!” And so on. So if t...