Elspeth Cooper's Blog, page 3

Psst, wanna sneak peek at The Dragon House?

You do, don’t you? I can tell. My latest newsletter is about to go out this weekend (Sunday). It will include a subscriber-exclusive extract from the book – a snippet that is available nowhere else. If you subscribe before 12 noon on Sunday, UK time, you’ll go on the list to receive it. Simple. That […]

New stuff on the website

Once upon a time, the common trappings of the fantasy novel included all kinds of end matter like a list of characters and a glossary of all the made-up words. These seem to have fallen out of fashion in recent years, but that doesn’t stop readers from asking for them. Behold, a new section of […]

From the ashes a fire shall be woken

I’ve been on a bit of a writing tear over the last few days. Since New Year’s Day, in fact. I’ve written new scenes, edited a bunch of old ones that I was not happy with, and taken a metaphorical axe to the WIP’s timeline in pursuit of better pace. And what’s more, I’ve enjoyed […]

Frequently Asked Questions, DRAGON HOUSE edition

I’ve been getting a few emails from readers asking what’s happening with THE DRAGON HOUSE, the final volume of the Wild Hunt Quartet. I’m happy to answer these emails individually, as and when they come in, but it occurred to me that it would save a lot of wear and tear on everyone’s typing fingers […]

Quick update: my newsletter and GDPR

Okay, this is just a quick note to bring you all up to speed with what’s going on with my newsletter. I know I haven’t sent one out in absolutely ages (read: years) but I’m hoping to change that. The past Previously I was using a fiddly plugin for the website, and my webhost kept […]

Beyond the Boys’ Club

When I was but a wean, maxing out my library card every week, I never noticed the gender of the authors I read. There were just books, and new friends to be found within their pages who would take me on amazing adventures. Then I grew up, and eventually started my own adventure. Round about […]

Let’s talk about sex

Sex in fantasy books, that is. Settle down at the back. The other day, I was tidying up my notes folder and found some scene fragments I’d written a while ago. One of them featured two of my characters having sex. At the time, I made a funny tweet about it and let it go, […]

New year news

I gave myself some time off over the holidays. As any writer will tell you, the holidays are an opportunity to get so much writing done, have this manuscript knocked into shape in no time. And then, well, The Holidays happen. There’s late nights and lie-ins and family stuff and all that delicious food won’t […]

Under the influence

Baked. Wasted. Paralytic. Bombed. Hammered. Blotto. Three sheets to the wind. There’s countless ways to describe being intoxicated, from the humorous to the obscene. This is probably because human beings, as a species, have invented similarly countless ways in which this state can be achieved – many of them thousands of years old, and still […]

Twenty questions

I had great fun answering these twenty questions on Friday. These 1 like = 1 fact memes circulate on Twitter on an almost daily basis, but this was the first time I’ve taken part in one. Several questions made me think, so I thought the answers deserved a wider audience. Big thanks to @writer_gem for […]