Blake Charlton's Blog, page 12
December 27, 2009
Turning 30 on the 30th!
NOTA BENE: THE FOLLOWING POST IS A SHAMELESS PLEA FOR COMMERCIAL GAIN & BIRTHDAY ATTENTION. THOSE WHO ARE NOT A) CLOSE FRIENDS, B) FAMILY MEMBERS, C) PEOPLE WHO OWE ME MONEY OR A FAVOR, OR D) BARFLIES IN THE BAY AREA, MAY NOT WANT TO READ THIS.
Dearly Beloved You People:
It's hard to get people to notice a late December birthday. When you're facing off against New Year's Eve and Jesus' Birthday, you lose. Rightly so. But for all of us in the end-of-the-year birthday invisibility zone, we have t...
December 19, 2009
A First Publication in an Academic Medical Journal
Last spring, before the grueling process of studying for the first part of the US medical licensing exam, I had the privilege to discuss literature and medicine with Abraham Verghese, one of the physicians and novelists I admire most in this world. Out of that discussion came an article that examined Tolstoy's The Death of Ivan Ilych. It was accepted for publication in the Journal for General Internal Medicine and has recently been published online. As academia is like to do, the article is h...
December 18, 2009
SPELLWRIGHT's Beautiful World Map!
Likely any fan of fantasy literature can relate to poring over the maps of foreign worlds, imagination afire with images of what each city or spectacle might look like and what adventures might be had between them. Of particular importance to me were the beautiful illuminated map of Robert Jordan's world, Robin Hobb's Six Dutches, Terry Brook's Four Lands, and Raymond Feist's Midkemia. Over at Tor.com, Jason Denzel wrote a wonderful blog post with images of fantasy maps.
SPELLWRIGHT is not a ...
December 15, 2009
Early Review Love for Spellwright: Realms of Fantasy & A Dribble of Ink
One of the most nail-biting times for an author is the period after a manuscript has been finalized (and therefore can no longer be improved) but before reader reactions start to come in. We're still a ways away from that the deluge, but some early reviews have come in.
The first is from Matt Staggs at the excellent print publication "Realms of Fantasy." The review will be in the April 2010 issue, hitting newsstands and subscribers in early February. Here's a quick blurb:
Spellwright is a...
December 11, 2009
SPELLWRIGHT UK & Australia Cover Rethink
Just got word from my UK editor that they have been pondering their cover for SPELLWRIGHT and looking for a way to work the academy of Starhaven (a magical academy based loosely on a university in New Haven) onto the art. I hadn't been aware that cover art might change, so don't take this as final, but here's a peek. What do you think?
December 10, 2009
Belated End of Year Updatery
Dearly Beloved YOU PEOPLE:
Apologies for the dearth of blog posts. After my publicity blitz for the interview I wrote up for A Dribble of Ink, I was pretty tired of the-business-of-writing and wanted to get back to actual writing. Progress on SPELLBOUND is moving along. I hit the 36,000 word mark last night and feel good about the movement so far. Also, in a three day flash of inspiration, I knocked off a 12,000 words of a Secrete Project that is currently sitting in some alpha readers...
November 12, 2009
An Interview about Spellwright & my Contemplations Fantastic
Check out my first interview as a debut author!
Aidan Moher and his uber-slick SFF blog, A Dribble of Ink, showed up on my radar last summer and since then ADoI has become one of my favorite blogs. It's got all the current genre news, great presentation of the latest cover art, thoughtful reviews, and wonderful interviews (a recent one such with Jesse Bullington was laugh-out-loud funny). Aidan's criticisms are always well-informed and thoughtful (even when they're directed at, say, one of my...
November 9, 2009
Why Adolescent Medicine is Awesome
(The following dialog is the amalgamation of several patient encounters and represents no actual patient encounter. All identifying information has been removed to avoid an authorial HIPAA violation and a teen OMGWTFHOLLA violation.)
Girl-who-thinks-she-got-a-higher-verbal-SAT-score-than-I-did: Look I just need you to sign my physical form so I can play volleyball. And I've been waiting for like…ever.
Blake Charlton: You came to a free clinic for a sports physical?
...
November 2, 2009
World Fantasy Convention 2009 Report
My second WFC. The first was Austin 2006, right after I signed with Tor. This year WFC felt different–not only in the physical details of city, hotel, programming, but also in the spirit of the convention. I must have had five different conversations about the "present state of publishing and the economy." Some of this was the familiar game-of-publishing-houses gossip: who's the authorial darling of what house, which houses are rising, which setting, and so on. But there was a new tone. A...
Hype No More
Back in August, someone in the industry was good enough to talk up SPELLWRIGHT to Pat of his mighty Fantasy Hotlist. Pat remained cautious but reported that his source thought the book would "be in contention for best first fantasy novel ever." This sparked more than a few understandably skeptical comments. For a few weeks after, some casual internet snooping revealed a spreading sentiment that SPELLWRIGHT is being hyped.
Hype is a frightening four letter word. I don't think there's anything m...
