Rachel Neumeier's Blog, page 450

First Reviews Are Good Times

Or at least, we sure hope so.

Orbit just sent me Booklist's review of LAW OF THE BROKEN EARTH — the very first review of the third Griffin Mage book.  What a relief when the first review is a good one!

Booklist says:

"This vivid, satisfying conclusion to Neumeier's Griffin Mage trilogy introduces Mienthe, a neglected girl raised by a gardener and indifferent relatives until she's rescued by her cousin Lord Bertaud. . . . Then Bertaud's griffin mage friend Kairaithin brings bad news:  the Wall between the fiery griffin lands and the human kingdoms is cracking.  The engaging spy Tan is kidnapped . . . Mienthe must discover her own talents and inner strength. . . . most of the conflicting characters are sympathetic.  Most compelling is the world and its magical laws, which invite further related stories."

See?  Vivid!  Satisfying!  You go, Booklist!

Tan is "engaging", Mienthe is "well drawn", and most everybody else is at least "sympathetic."    Whew!    Glad to hear it.

And it''s nice that Booklist would like further related stories, but I have to say, I don't have any more planned.

In other news!

I've got my current Work-in-Progress finished!  There's a fair bit of revision to do, but honestly that won't take too long.  I really look forward to finishing the revision, settling down, and re-reading the whole thing from the top to see how it flows.  I'm in the stage right now of thinking it's pretty good!

I'd like to have the ms. ready to go to Caitlin by, say, Nov 1st . . . but I also optimistically entered four dogs in a show Nov 6th and 7th, and three of them are entered in obedience as well as in the breed ring.  Those three are all puppies!  Two of them are still at the stage of learning about "sit" and "down"!

Can I train bouncy puppies in all the novice exercises in three weeks?  We will find out shortly!  Can I train the puppies AND revise a manuscript simultaneously?  I think I can . . . I think I can . . .

Good news from all sides –

Lots of great writerly stuff has been happening lately!

First, Book 1 of the Griffin Mage trilogy went to an additional printing almost as soon as it hit the shelves, which is very cool!

Second, nearly everybody turned out to like Book 2 even better than Book 1 (which makes me nervous about Book 3:  can I have a smooth upward curve right through the whole series, please?  Can't wait to read the reviews in January . . .).

Then more cool stuff!  Tantor Media bought rights to do an audio version.  Very nice!  I listen to lots of audio books when I'm driving to dog shows and things.  There's a serious, serious dearth of good fantasy novels to choose from in audio, people, at least at the library closest to me.  Or else, for a happier scenario, the SF / F novels are always checked out.  That'd suit me.

Also!  Even better!  The Science Fiction Book Club ALSO bought rights to the trilogy, too.  They're going to bring it out as a three-in-one omnibus edition.  I'm looking forward to the thrill of seeing the Griffin Mage trilogy in an SFBC mailing — and yes, it will be a thrill.  I've been a member off-and-on for decades, and now use the SFBC to keep tabs on what's going on in SF and F.  Plus, yes, I do spend more money buying from them than I usually actually meant to . . .

And one more Very Nice news item –  The Floating Islands, coming out next February, has been chosen by the Junior Library Guild as one of their selections!  This is a really nice feather in my cap, because being selected by the JLG is quite prestigious.  Go, ISLANDS!  I hope everybody agrees with the JLG (and me!) that ISLANDS is a great book!

And thanks to Michelle Frey, my editor at Knopf, who is such a perfectionist and helped ISLANDS be just as good as it could possibly be!

Important tips

Important tip about summer gardening:  When you get an inch and a half of rain in late August in Missouri, that is God's way of telling you it is time to weed.  Especially when it is  relatively cool and pleasant.

Besides the nice weather, the other interesting thing about this week is that I'm babysitting my brother's two Cavalier King Charles Spaniels.  Along with *my* Cavaliers, counting the puppies that are for sale and also counting my 'old man' Papillon, that gives me . . . let's see ...

Mockingjay!

I wasn't EXACTLY counting down the days to Mockingjay.  But on the other hand, I was pretty consistently paying attention to blogs that WERE counting down the days, so I knew I should arrive home after work yesterday to find my preordered copy waiting for me.  And there it was!

Did I bathe dogs, pick apples, cook anything fancy for dinner, review the exercises Bree and Adora will need to know if I enter them in Rally Excellent at that show in two weeks?  Did I work on my very own current...

What's your book about?

You know how the most common question a writer is supposed to get is:  Where do you get your ideas?

I actually don't mind this question because I can usually answer it, more or less.  Pretty often I actually do know what image sparked a book, what secondary plotline in somebody else's book I borrowed to create a major plot in mine, what minor character in ditto led to a protagonist of mine. I don't even have to refer to Schenectady, usually. 

But in fact, this question is not at all as common a...

Romance!

So, I'm reading a Nora Roberts romance.  First one I've ever read.  BORN IN FIRE.  It's a perfect book!

By which I mean, perfect for my purposes:  I can read a few pages and then put it down without a twinge to work on my own current project.  It just isn't at all compelling, and I have concluded that this is because nothing at all is happening in the book.  Other than the romance, I mean.

By which you can conclude, accurately, that I'm not used to romances.

Here's the plot of BORN IN FIRE: ...

And . . . changing directions

So . . . last week, I finally sent Caitlin, my fabulous agent, seventy pages each of two new works in progress and basically said: Pick one.

I thought it was about time, since when you're seventy pages in, it's about time to fish or cut bait — or in this case, press ahead or set the WIP aside.  I wanted to press ahead with one or the other, but which?

Naturally Caitlin picked the one I was afraid she wouldn't like. That was fine by me!  I sort of thought she might say, "Okay, yes, I know it's t...

Recent reading

So, recently I lost a three-week-old puppy that I thought was going to make it, the only living puppy in his litter and a puppy for whom I had great hopes.  I probably don't need to explain that this was a depressing and upsetting event.  My response, of course, was to reach for a Really Good Book I'd been looking forward to reading and some Extremely Good Very Dark Chocolate to go with it.

The Chocolate was Callebaut, which I mail order in large quantities, and the book was The Hunger Games b...

Starting to write

So, I've been writing!

Well . . . pretty much.  More or less.  The puppies are distracting (though extraordinarily cute), but even MORE distracting is the sudden need to pick TEN MILLION plums, rinse and slice each one individually, and cook the resulting gallons and gallons of plum slices into pie filling to can.

And before the yellow plum (Shiro) is done, the purple Fortune and red Ozark Premier will be ready.  And the peaches!  I can't even think how many peaches we'll be picking this year! ...

New Book Cover!

So, this is exciting! Just got the final proofs for The Floating Islands, which is coming out next year, which is fine and good because I have plenty of time right now to work on this and I always kind of enjoy doing it and I can feel virtuously occupied without having to do, you know, real work.

But also! The cover proofs for the paperback edition of The City in the Lake arrived!

Now, the hardback cover sort of grew on me and I really do like it — here it is:

City in the Lake Hardcover

See? ...