Gillian Polack's Blog, page 18

More bits and bobs

If I lose friends and acquaintances over the next few months, my WIP will be to blame. Right now I'm channeling a character (which I have been known to do at other times, unintentionally) and the intellect of this character is weighed down by emotions and most of those emotions are variants of snark. I have this character under restraint in public, but it's still already caused me trouble on Facebook. Check out my today's comment on FB (concerning TV) and the reactions to it if you feel like being amused. What interests me is one particular reaction. I still don't get it. I've seen it many, many times from many people and I still don't get it. I was unintentionally in character when I argued back and so things are a bit confusing and alas, I am still amused. In fact, I'm more amused.

I've decided that this novel will have one wildly unreliable snarkish strand. It's going to echo things in the plot and show them from a different angle. And finally, I've worked out how I can tackle gender (one of the ways, there will be other ways for other novels). And menopause. I am being very, very evil in this novel. Aliens, menopause, silencing, gender. And that's before I even start on the plotting and most of the characters! I'm focussing on Ms Snark for a little, and getting the echo and inner bits done. Then I'll write the book. Or I'll leave it for a while until I finish the other and write the main strands later. My timing depends on money. I'll do this one character, though, and about 30,000 words of the novel alongside it.

I like the idea of a reliable narrator who is painfully honest who is seen as unreliable the minute the novel moves from first to third person and that the unreliablity isn't anything to do with personality but is everything to do with gendering and menopause. And that the deep reason for not trusting this person is only really visible (at least for a while) in the parts of the narrative where the character is a reliable narrator.

It's confusing to explain, but not that hard to write. This is because it's normal experience for a whole segment of our society. Evil, I tell you. That's what I am.

None of this is where the novel will end up. It's just where it begins, for me. What a fun place for it to begin, though.

In other almost-news I've done some walking. Yesterday it was miles (not many, but at least it was in the plural) and today it was a single mile. My left foot now doesn't like me and I got a lift home and will be getting some help with messages tomorrow. Yesterday and today, however, I achieved my 6000 minimum steps (yesterday with many above that) and I am tired but can feel the difference. This means I am improving and will be able to walk normally again, sooner or later.

How is this possible? My chiropractor sorted the spine. Or is sorting it. I can catch buses and do messages and, most importantly, I can now actually sleep at night. My body is learning about rest and recuperation and focussed attention all over again. The immediate result is fatigue, because obviously I'm using more energy, but it will all work out well. Already I'm less anxious, even though I am still a bit plagued by overwork.

I have to remind myself that when I think it's overwork I am not being a drama queen. Before dinner I have 3 blogposts to write and an interview to answer. I will finish Chapter Eight of the NF tonight, I hope, and then will be up to the last run-through before I rewrite the intro and write the conclusion. I will also do some work with Katrin on the shared blogging for our small tour.

I need to finish the critical apparatus for the current NF. I'm edging closer and closer, but life happens and it isn't quite there yet. A full day at the desk would do it, if I could find the full day. I need to have finished it all around the end of the month. That includes editing and formatting - the lot. This is not something, therefore, that is on the list for today.

My blog tour spots for October are going to add up to nearly 2 dozen posts that I write, between one book and another. I'm having a lot of fun with them and would do more if more were needed, but also thinking thank goodness for Katrin. She's very organised and keeps track and writers her share: these things are all important. A batch of posts are due tomorrow, and after that thing will be a bit easier.

I've got two sets of teaching proposals (complex ones) to do by the end of the month. One really should be done earlier. I've got a brand new course (with brand new handouts!) that starts on Tuesday. It's the Heroes one and there are places still available. I don't have to have everything done for that until Monday morning. I shall laze my days away.

And I have a booklaunch! Next week. All welcome. Tea and 15th century coffee provided. I'm getting a nice feeling from the early reactions to The Time of the Ghosts. No-one has reacted negatively to me having elderly characters who are central and have agency and some readers are wildly enthusiastic about it.

And my Wednesday students are lovely, as ever. Twelve of them this morning. It's perfectly possible to teach creative writing in groups of twelve with wildly different abilities and interests in the group, if the class is as lovely as mine.

Bits of this and that

A few years ago, a friend gave me an aloe vera plant. I kill plants. I do not intend to - it just happens. This does not stop other friends having me take care of their gardens while they're away. Apparently I don't kill other peoples' gardens. I did, however, kill that aloe vera, or so I thought. The roots rotted. I couldn't face throwing it out, so I put it and the pot on the wall, next to each other. The wind blew them over, but I didn't know, for I don't go out that way, or have the curtains open, because it's on a major road and I got tired of people looking in at me on their daily walk. (There used to be bushes protecting me from such intrusions, but that's another story). Anyhow, just now, I looked out and noticed that, over a year after I thought it was dead, the aloe vera is thriving. It's planted itself next to the wall, on the pile of leaf trash that accumulated there. The rotted roots are in the pot, next door to it. I shall continue to leave it alone, for it obviously thrives far better without me than with me. I'll admire it from a distance from time to time.

I'm slowly getting through the nightmare workload of this month. The number of blogposts I need to write for others is growing. This is good. It means news about my books will get out there. And Katrin is writing some of them, which is even better. The total is now 27, though, which is an impressive number. I've decided to make up for this by having more guest posts here. The next one is from Ian Sales, and will appear when I have my next breather (probably late tomorrow).

I'm partway through editing chapter 8 of the research book. If all goes well, this is the next to last edit. If all doesn't go well I shall rent my clothes and don sackcloth and ashes.

Teaching starts tomorrow, and I have an evening course (just the one, due to date confusion) that lasts most of the term as well as my Wednesday class. I start tomorrow, then from next week I have two classes a week until the final week of term when I only have a Wednesday class. This works. And the Tuesday class is one heroes and magic and stuff - very medieval, but all the sexiest elements of the Middle Ages. The moment I finish this edit I get to do my course handbook. There are still vacancies in the class, if you know anyone who wants to have fun-filled Tuesdays.

It's not a lot of teaching, but it is enough to keep the wolf from the door. Any other paid work I get will see me safely through summer. For the first time in years I won't have a big NF project for summer, for the Beast is out and the other project is about to be. This means I can focus on fiction. It's going to be a hot summer, probably full of bushfires, but no summer is entirely miserable when I have novel to write. I have novel to write and novel to research, for somehow I'm working on two at once. This is a lovely thing. I do not know why I suddenly have two novels to write, when one is not one I had planned. But I do, and that's that. If I do well enough on everything else, I might try Nanowrimoing half the novel, for there is one element that can be written quickly and I've never played nanowrimo before. The rest will take a lot longer. I'm not sure I'm ready for the quick writing stage. I'll see.

This is a novel about being alien and about the effects of gendering and age on everyday life. When I looked at my three novels on different parts of women's lives, I realised I'd missed one and that it's an important one and that it gives me an excuse to play with questions of gender. I have the sneaking suspicion it's going to be terribly snarky. If I can just exorcise the snark demon, then i can write a much more serious historical novel. We'll see. I know at least two exorcism techniques (I know the theory, not the practice) but I'm honestly not sure if snark demons respond to either.

For my next trick, I shall get dressed for a meeting. I got through a chapter and a half by refusing to get dressed until I finished. Only half a chapter to go today, I think and all the rest is guest posts for interesting blogs. When they're all up, I'll do a guide to where to find them. It's fine to say "Look, a blogpost!" for a few guest posts, but if I did one for each and the number will probably be 30 by the time everything's done and dusted, it would be really annoying.

Clothes. Cuppa. Blogpost. Blogpost. Meeting. This list will take me until 4 pm.

The Time of the Ghosts - some old thoughts on the new novel

I was chronicling political changes that were leading bad places (that we’re experiencing far more fully right now) and I was thinking about how much this links to the personal. This is where The Time of the Ghosts came from. It became an intimate novel, but the politics is still there. The need to not give in to despair and hate. I found a blog post I wrote at that time, when the novel was but a whisper of an idea and some clever notions about translating worlds onto maps to make them easier to be lived. Maybe it explains things more clearly. I knew I was going to write about ghosts. Ghosts had invaded my blog for a year or so, which is usually a clear indication that I’m to be haunted. It was at this moment, however that I crystallised what sort of novel I was entering into.

(2008-02-23 19:10)
My mind is dwelling in deep places today. I'm thinking about issues of trust and how far you can let someone into your life before expecting them to take some responsibility for their actions in relation to you. It struck me that this is something I need to write about and it might belong with my ghosts. This is either going to be a very funny novel or a deeply pensive one. It might end up both.

I've been on the verge of writing it for over a year. I've done most of my worldbuilding (all those map-thoughts for Canberra, exploring cinema food in the 40s - all that stuff) but even when I had a good idea of my characters' lives, they hadn't come alive for me. When that happens I sit back and I wait.

The first thing that happened when I sat back this time was that I changed one of the main point of view characters. I need someone with ghosts for a whole part of the narrative stream, otherwise the ghosts my characters meet are only interesting supernatural beings and are in danger of being plot devices. I need ghosts to resonate more deeply than that.

We all carry particular burdens and some people carry the burdens of the deaths of others. I don't mean that these people are murderers, I mean that they live with a constant feeling of work unfinished, or of missing someone, or of not having done something when the time was right, or of being observers at a time when distance hurt. I think the only ghost I carry of someone who I was able to say a proper goodbye to is that of my father. This is why I want to write about ghosts, to be honest: I need to understand my own.

The trust thing is a different matter, but it is most definitely related to the fears that bring forth ghosts for some people. As you have probably realised, I've been thinking for a long time about racism and sexism and how the disabled can be victimised or made helpless, and how people with mental health conditions are often excluded from perfectly normal decision-making and activities. One of the big barriers for any of these groups (and for a bunch of others) is trust. How much can they tell people about who they are, and still be treated as themselves and as full human beings? Think of Showboat, and the complete change to a couple's existence when the woman has to admit to being of mixed race.

Trust honoured and used well is one of the biggest gifts a human being can give another, and trust abused is one of the most frightening.

That trust abused doesn't have to be on a grand scale to be frightening. It can be someone making a decision for someone else because of an unexamined assumption that the person isn't capable because they're in a wheelchair or on medication. I see that a lot in my work. I get it a bit from my health conditions. At the heart of it is an assumption about what society is and how people ought to work together. When societies become scared, this type of trust is one of the first victims.

One of the reasons I have done the activism thing is, in fact, because of the biggest cause of fear and hurt in society usually being trust abused. I feel very strongly that it's the responsibility of each and every one of us to find out where we're going wrong and to deal fairly with others. A higher level of trust in a society means a lower level of fear and hatred. It's that simple.

There are ways in which abuse can be minimised - through education, through legislation, through enough money to provide neutral assistance for people with physical disabilities so they're not dependent on friends or neighbours for everyday needs. I know I retired from all this because of my health, but I keep thinking that the issues are too important and that one day I'm going to have to go back. Maybe this novel is the beginning of me going back.

Right now, though, I want to examine those issues at a very personal level. Not my personal: My characters'. What happens after divorce, or instance? Do the changes in life you experience when you retire mean you have to learn how to defend yourself against well-meaning invaders of your quiet places? What happens to a 12 year old girl when she is thrust out of the family circle of caring? When can you admit to being different without friends thrusting you away or making decisions for you or reading the life you've always led as suddenly unstable?

Trust issues at a personal level lead to judgements. We all make judgements. How far do we let people into our lives? How far can an individual abuse that acceptance into our lives without doing anything they feel is wrong? I don't want to go down the heavy racism path. I want to think about less well-trodden ground. I won't go into it here - I need to work out just how far any character will let anyone else into their life and what the effects are. I feel incredibly mean, because this is going to hurt them. The ghosts are going to be fun and delight by comparison with death by a thousand needling doubts.

So I have my stable of ghosts. And I have some very big issues for my main characters to deal with. Now I have to be patient and let it all come together.

I can't write until it has all come together. If I do, then the book will be all about issues and not about telling a story. Waiting - for me - is what shines enough light in the deep places so I can find the stories there.

gillpolack @ 2015-10-07T13:07:00

I had an hour without significant pain this morning. I'm afraid I didn't use it to solve the problems of the world: I went back to bed and rested. Now I am in pain again and solving the problems of the world, but I feel quite defiant about having got 7 hours sleep and one hour additional and entirely unexpected rest.

Today is a day for problems, so I'm glad I did that. The issues with my electricity bill have been solved (someone put my address instead of theirs when they moved house) and I've been given til December to pay an enormous electricity bill. And the threat to have my electricity cut off has been rescinded (for the bills were sent to the wrong place and it wasn't my fault) and I've had all the fines waived (for the bills were sent to the wrong place and it wasn't my fault).

I have one last editing task to do, and then my focus will be on the nightmare task. I have a nightmare task. If I can de-nightmare it by next Monday or Tuesday, everything will be OK. If I can't. It won't. I have to clear everything else and sort things out and if I can clear my decks for the day by 3 pm, then I can spend 8 hours working intensely on problem-solving.

gillpolack @ 2015-10-06T12:58:00

I think it's a day for a list of ten.

1. My new novel is out. The Time of the Ghosts. (We tried to avoid that title because of Diana Wynne Jones, but when you read the book you'll see why three different people found it impossible. It has nothing in common with Wynne Jones' book apart from the title and being a fantasy novel written in English.)

2. Conflux was wonderful. Seeing Yaritji was wonderful. The committee did a very nice job and we all benefited.

3. The timing of Conflux was not good for me and I suddenly have an editing backlog, despite taking the Saturday off so that I'd be OK.

4. Because I had several hours back-to-back on Saturday and Sunday, my eye has had a bit of a relapse. Only a bit. my eyesight is still 60% of what it should be, so it's still on the mend.

5. If you use my words and my ideas, please mention that I'm the one who taught them to you (in class, or in a briefing, or elsewhere - whichever I taught you) especially if I'm sitting in the audience or on the same panel. When you don't, it doesn't affect my professional credibility: it affects my respect for you. The worst case was someone who gave a whole plenary session speech at a conference, using my words, looking at me the whole while. The one this weekend was less egregious, but it was still wrong. With committee people it means you'll never get my help again. With writers it mans that you'll never be invited to be a guest on my blog, get a cover comment from me, get advice on things, or be in a volume I edit. The moment you claim that my research is your casual thought (implicitly or explicitly) this happens and I can't think of any way of making it unhappen.

6. So much, so much talent in Aussie spec fic. I took pictures of all the publishers in the dealers' room and realised: so many amazing writers there who are not seen overseas. If anyone wants a blogpost on this small group of publishers (which isn't everyone - only those who were in one room for one con) I will illustrate them with pictures of publishers and writers carrying Little My. (see #7).

7. Around midnight on Friday, one of the chairs of the Helsinki 2017 worldcon asked me to take pictures of Little My with fans. Because Conflux attracts many writers, some of those fans are writers. I need to put up the last set of pictures. Later today you'll find the set on my Facebook page. It's generally available and you're welcome to re-use my pictures and yaritji's if I've taken one of your favourite author, but you'll have to ask Cat Sparks for permission to use the one of me.

8. Little My has vanished! For a little while there were pictures of her on a plane and then she was spotted in Adelaide. I suspect there will be more photos adventures in a month or so. Travel safely, Little My! (And yes, WorldCon 75 mob, I blame you. I especially blame you for what she got up to on Sunday. I will post those pictures when I finish here.

9. This is the place where I sneak in the next big news so that no-one will see it: my next novel will be Secret Jewish Women's Business. For those who liked my short story "Impractical Magic" in ASIM this is the same people and etc, but the two stories don't overlap. We don't have a date for it yet - some time in the first half of next year, though. I checked with ASIM and the edition with my story in is completely sold out, so if anyone wants a reprint of the story (which was honourably mentioned in a year's best) I'm very happy to talk. I also have an audio version of it, which needs to find a home. I so don't know what to do with audio short stories! (There's an interesting tale in why I have a professional actor reading my story and have the rights to it, but that's for another day.)

10. People keep on saying to me "What a brilliant idea, making elderly women the centre of a story. I don't know why it hasn't been done to death - it's such a good thing to do." At Conflux I took the time and talked with people to find out why it's so sensible. For some people it's because if the same reasons I wrote it (which I will be taking about ad infinitum during the publicity for the book) but one very clever person pointed out the demographics of readers and said "This is a novel that's written with me in mind, it has people I can relate to."

gillpolack @ 2015-10-04T04:31:00

I'm paying for a fabulous weekend and doing much work by having insomnia. It gives me a chance to blog, which is something. The insomnia is pain-legacy. My chiro is a miracle worker and I've seen him twice and my shoulder has started unfreezing and my back has started straightening, but it will take some weeks and so the pain recurs at the most nuisanscial times. Like tonight. I'm not in high pain - just enough to keep me awake. And I have to wake up in 3 hours anyway.

I wrote my six pieces on Thursday and started my week's worth of editing. I taught my workshop (8 students is pretty good for first thing on a weekday when people have to get time off work for it and it was not free - I did a lot better than some whose workshops were free, in fact - and had a bunch of good writers who enjoyed learning) and was interviewed by a student journalist and started giving Little My her next bit of Australian visit. I didn't know there was going to be a next bit, but people are enjoying her at Conflux and one of the chairs of WorldCon 75 told me that she was the Official Australian Ambassador to Confux and that I was needed to escort her around and take pictures. Which I have been, though Yaritji Green took over today and got Little My captured by stormtroopers.

The Little My thing means I'm not giving away photos of locations that I used in my fiction after all, though, and they will have to wait or another time, for offering people food and taking their photo with Little My is quite confusing enough. I went to the chiro and spent time with the friend who's visiting for Conflux and we did much shopping and we went to dinner with a squillion other Conflux attendees. And then I got a good night's sleep (for it was only today that the chiro's adjustments snuck up). And that was Friday.

On Saturday I did nearly 3/4 of the editing I have to do by early afternoon on Tuesday, which means I may well achieve that particular deadline, even if the next two days mean that I spend Tuesday morning asleep. I also did a rather fun interview for Amanda Bridgeman.

I doubt I'll blog again until after Conflux, so let me tell you what you're missing (so that you will know why you're missing it). I have my booklaunch, There's the fan auction. I am on 2 panels in rapid succession, then I have a break (not a long break) and then I give my one hour's worth of talk. I don't know who will know that they need to come to that, for the title got reworded and I didn't pick it up, but if you know anyone attending Conflux, tell them that it's a digest of totally crucial stuff that won't make my book and that is specifically for writers. I think my duties finish at 5.30, but I'm not 100% certain.

On Monday I have a panel, then 2 hours on the CSFG table. I have more panels in the afternoon. I have loads of chocolate and sweets to give to people if I get too tired to talk. I should be OK, for my wonderful visitor has a car and so I can get back on Sunday night safely, even if I can't stand straight. She leaves on Monday morning alas - and I shall miss her, but it's been lovely having Yaritji here.

I didn't think about this when I did my "avoid Gillian" post, but I'm doing almost as much here as at Loncon. More panels, only about 2 1/2 hours of volunteering all up, so it falls short of my average daily total at Loncon, but not by much. I'm not nearly as tired yet, despite insomnia, because I stayed at home today and edited. I saw friends this evening (I said I'd feed anyone who needed - not many needed, but it was a lovely, quiet way of catching up) but I wasn't on show at all. Anyhow, my total for 2 1/2 days of Conflux is 12 hours (not counting the fan auction, for I am not the auctioneer, nor counting Little My), of which an astonishing amount is panels and many of them are back to back.

Sometimes I like numbers too much. I hope I can catch up with my friends in between all that. I enjoy being busy at cons, and I'm on some fun panels. It will all be well. Although I'm going to see if I can get a couple of hours sleep before daylight savings rudely denies me my Sunday.

gillpolack @ 2015-10-01T14:03:00

This afternoon's task is to write six pieces. I have until my houseguest arrives tonight to finish them. Two are done, one is part done (maybe) and I have heaps of ideas for the others. I need them finished by 6 pm, in reality, for I still haven't finished my prep for tomorrow's workshop and have barely started prep for my talk.

This is not a problem, for today is one of those days when I am so full of ideas that I could have five more guest posts in front of me and still say something new and interesting for each of them. My next blogpost was going to be about my personal hauntings, but instead I think it should be about historical food. This is because someone just emailed me about the Conflux cook book and my novel is full of foodstuff. I organised it as 12 dinner parties, originally, and devised the menus around the characters of the cooks. And I'm dreaming of some of those dishes, right now, so it will be fun to post about the hsitory behind fictional food.

gillpolack @ 2015-09-30T12:42:00

Today I look like a Star Trek alien. Almost human, but with odd skin. It's annual. We have pollens. It's also badly timed, for I was going to visit Floriade today. Instead, I'm staying indoors and dealing, for there are more symptoms than simply the bizarre skin. It's not serious. It's what happens when a person of tremendous allergies meets a certain time of month meets a certain time of year. Anyhow, I have much work to do and shall plod away at it, mourning the loss of an afternoon spent with flowers with a friend.

Normally it only lasts 2-3 days and it was well=begun yesterday, so I should be fine for Conflux.

My consolation is reading Naomi Novik's Uprooted. There are s many recent rewritings of fairy tales and everyone tells me "This is good" that I was worried. It's not that original, but it's amazingly good. Her fairy tale book and mine are very, very different, however, and I'm wondering about cultural identity again.

KEEPING THE WARLOCK ON SCHEDULE - Sean McMullen

I have two special guests in one: Sean McMullen and Paul Collins. They've both been forces for good (and for good writing) in the Australian speculative fiction scene for a long time, so it makes me very happy to share Sean's thoughts on their collaboration.

The Warlock's Child series is approaching the first anniversary of its birth as a collaboration, so this is a good time to look at how it went from Paul Collins's partial draft to a published, six book series in just eleven months.

I resigned from my day job to become a full-time author in October 2014, when I discovered that I was paying the government to go to work. At that time Paul had a draft novel called Broken Magic which had been on hold for quite a while, so when he heard that I was about to have way more spare time, he suggested collaborating to get it moving again.

Paul and I had collaborated before, so we already had our roles sorted. I had helped Paul with the technical side of a short story published as Deathlight some years earlier, and he had started to expand it into Broken Magic. We spent half a day workshopping what was going to be written and establishing a story arc. This was the key to getting six high quality books written and launched in eleven months: we sorted out exactly what we were doing right up front.

The language had to be easily accessible to engage the reluctant readers, yet we needed a strong story arc so that accomplished readers did not feel patronized. Both of us had written for this age group before, so no problem.

Dragons are always popular, and I had some dragon themes that I’ve wanted to work on, so dragons became the driving force behind the expanded plot. Paul soon had the Deltora Quest artist Marc McBride lined up to do the covers. Marc does wonderful dragons, so the covers were sure to be winners.

Dantar, the fourteen year old cabin boy at the centre of the action, presented a problem. He was just a cabin boy, and we needed the view from the top as well as from the lower deck. I expanded the role of Dantar’s older sister, Velza, quite considerably. Velza became an officer on Dantar’s ship, and got to mingle with the leaders, so we see the big picture through her.

Any magical story needs rules for the magic: no rules means boring book. In The Warlock’s Child, humans can only ever use one of the four types of magic, which are earth, air, fire or water. Dragons have the lot, so they have the edge on humans. However, while the dragons are immortal, they have become sterile. Even immortals have accidents, like in Book 2 when a dragon hits a mountain and becomes a very large crater, so this is an issue.
When a human warlock, Calbaras, discovers the cure for dragon infertility, he trades this secret with the dragons for power over all four magics. The dragons are less than enthusiastic about this. So is his son, Dantar, who is being used in his father’s experiments. Only in Book 6 do we learn the truth about Dantar, Velza and the broken magic.

Plot sorted, but another problem remained. We were looking at a 100,000 word book. Give that to a ten year old reluctant reader, and count how many seconds it takes for him (they generally are boys) to grab a football and run. Paul’s solution was to break the story into six novellas of about 15,000 words. The books would not be confrontingly large, and would end on cliffhangers which encouraged the young readers to read on.

I started writing on 2nd October. Paul had expanded Deathlight to around 35,000 words, so I was not starting from scratch. So far so good, but Marc McBride needed scenarios for the six covers, and I only had firm ideas about one of them. This meant that I had to spend time roughing out the plots for the later books and sketching dragons doing interesting things.

This caused another problem. Paul needed the finalized drafts of the first book within weeks. In any series the characters and world building get done in the first book, so it needs a lot of care. Thus I was writing rough outlines at the same time as writing highly polished text that would become pallets of Book 1 by January. This also involved rewriting Paul’s draft, to fit in with the expanded plot in the later books.

Anyone who does a lot of rewriting will know that you end up with things in your head that are not in the text. Vital conversations and incidents get swapped around or even deleted, so you know what is happening, but the reader does not. When the Ford Street editors saw the drafts of the first book they found lots of loose ends to tie off, so I had to address these - while working on cover ideas, titles and the plots for the later books. This was quite a strain.

Book 1, The Burning Sea, was released on 1st April, and launched on 18th April in Ford Street Publishing’s auditorium. The reviews were great, and the kids were highly enthusiastic when we visited schools for signings. One book came out on the first of every month for six months, and the publisher ran a competition for best related story and dragon picture after Book 3. Book 1 is into its third print run, and the other books are selling better than expected, so the series is a winner commercially.

There are three main lessons in scheduling for authors in the hyper-fast creation of The Warlock’s Child.
• If you are on a tight schedule you must plan carefully up front and stick to your plan.
• If we had been learning about how to write for reluctant readers, we would still be writing Book 1, so write for the audience you know.
• Minimise the research. I have done some sailing, have spent time in historical re-enactment groups, and have a pretty solid background in karate and fencing. Thus I can write that sort of detail straight out of my head, without having to do a Google search.

As the Duke of Wellington said about the Battle of Waterloo, it was a close run thing. Paul and I coped by establishing the rules early, avoiding paths where there were speed humps, and keeping the research to a minimum. That said, I am now writing a bit slower, and really enjoying it.

gillpolack @ 2015-09-28T13:53:00

Today is a bit wayward: things not quite working. I have four hours to get so many things done, and life keeps intervening. It did that yesterday, too, but yesterday I had two days to play with, so I caught up on DVD viewing when things went awry. At this point, i don't have that option. The thousand words I wrote yesterday will be laughable in four hours, for I have to write five thousand before then. Or edit three chapters. Preferably both. SO if the world would kindly get into line...

I promised you a guest post, too. This is one of the things the world ran interference on. It's sitting in my in-box, being more patient than I am.