Howard Andrew Jones's Blog, page 15

Clean Slate?

Ready or not, 2018 is upon us. It’s not so much a clean slate as a continuation of what’s come before, but the end of the year is a good time for reflection.

After that long gauntlet of deadlines I took a lot of time over the last four weeks and did house work, spent time with family, readied for the holidays, read for fun, and wrote some short stories. This morning I stepped back to the long suffering novel and think I’ve finally tweaked an argument at a turning point in the book so it works. It was the last sticking place, I think. I hope to know my editor’s take in just a couple of days.

2017 was a strange beast. There was a lot of personal stress that I won’t go into, but there were a lot of achievements as well, the first being the successful launch of Tales From the Magician’s Skull. I’m delighted to be the magazine’s editor. I spent the majority of the year thoroughly revising one novel — and that entailed rewriting vast portions of it — and then finished writing a second one. I was invited to write for and assemble a collection of World War II stories for a secret project that will shortly be announced, and I did that, and it was a blast. I’d never have thought I could pull that off, much less that I’d have an opportunity to try, but I’m pretty pleased with the result.

That project interfered with my goal of writing a slew of Dabir and Asim stories, but I just managed to write a new one two days before the end of the year. Prior to that I wrote another featuring my sword-and-sorcery character Hanuvar. Hopefully soon more readers will know about him. I’ve a bunch of story outlines and fragments for both Dabir and Asim AND Hanuvar, and it’s my plan eventually to have e-book collections of their adventures. Dabir and Asim short stories, I believe, can be read in any order, but I think the Hanuvar tales are even stronger if they’re read chronologically. I’m planning them like individual episodes of a TV season.

I keep returning to the idea of finishing the third Dabir and Asim novel. Asim’s voice is just so easy for me to hear. It’s not QUITE like the stories write themselves, because I have to put in a lot of effort up front to outline. But once I sit down, they simply flow. I probably shouldn’t spend so much time thinking about that third novel, since the characters aren’t a big money earner, and it’s not as though legions of readers are clamoring for them… but I love writing about them. A strange thing’s happened to me. As I’ve aged I’ve been thinking that the years are finite and that I ought to make sure that whatever I’m writing is the stuff that matters the most to me. And I guess Dabir and Asim do, and that I need to make more time, market be damned. The thought is that if I can get a little ahead with the new series and whatever follows that I can write Dabir and Asim novels on the side and finish out their epic 8-10 novels as I originally planned, self-pubbing them. That’s a big dream and will take a lot of effort and time, and I’m not sure how I’ll fit it in, but I’d sure like to do so.

My son’s been running a fantasy campaign for me and my wife over the holidays, and she’s been playing Dabir and I’ve been playing Asim, and it’s been the most fun I’ve had playing in a tabletop role-playing game in years. It feels an awful lot like a Dabir and Asim adventure and who knows, I might end up writing it up as a novella, with my first born credited as co-plotter. Certainly some of the banter between heroes sounds like it’s right out of one of the tales, and I love how he’s handled the villains and challenges. I can’t tell you how grateful I am that both my wife and son love the characters so much that they want to invest time in their world like this. I’m a fortunate man.

This year my reading’s taken turns I could never have anticipated five or even just two years ago. I think I could count on one hand the number of fantasy novels I read this year. Wait, I think I can count on two fingers. Everything else was either a hardboiled detective novel or a western. Not just any detective novels or westerns, though — lean, fast-paced ones with compelling characters and great twists. Over the holidays I’ve been reading through a library copy of the Big Book of Locked Room mysteries and enjoying it an awful lot. But it’s the westerns that have been getting more and more of my time, and through talking with others and a little exploring I’ve been finding great authors and wonderful tales. I’ve been reading so much lean prose that I have less and less patience for anything that feels bloated or slow paced.

Here on the home front my wife just earned her black belt in Shotokan Karate, so that’s all four of us with one, and I’m very proud of her. But then I’m very proud of her in general and would mention her far more often if I weren’t concerned about her privacy. I’ve been working my up towards my third degree black belt, though it’s still almost three years away. In my twenties, heck, even in my early thirties, I’d never have imagined that martial arts would be an important part of my life, but it sure is now. It helps keep me healthy and fit. Part of the fitness regimen after we do the pre-class stretches is  some calisthenics. When I first started karate, all those years ago, the required 25 pushups could be a challenge. They got to be easy, so this year I’ve upped the number of them. My goal was to get to 50, but I can now regularly do 60 in a single session. A couple of times I got as high as 72, but never made it to 75. That’ll be my goal for 2018. As I learned when I set out to be able to do 50 regularly, you really have to be able to manage ten higher than your goal. So, to regularly hit 75 pushups, I’ll probably have to be able to do 80 – something. I don’t know if I can manage it, but I’ll try!

We’ve added a puppy to the household, and he’s in that awkward stage of dog adolescence where he mostly knows the rules but is testing them all the time… and he still isn’t entirely clear on what he can and cannot destroy. While typing this post I heard some alarming noises from the other room and discovered he was ripping up the edge of the brand new carpet we had over the kitchen tiles. I don’t know if it can be repaired. Ugh. It probably can’t. I’m not looking forward to showing this to my wife…

This year I don’t recall going out of my way to watch any television shows, in particular, and I wasn’t especially excited about any movies, although I know there were some I enjoyed. I’ve continued to enjoy my Sunday solitaire gaming, when I’m not so busy I can’t take the time for it. I quite like the Lock ‘n Load: Tactical games and will probably try to snag all the different parts of the series, because every single one of the scenarios is fun. Each can be played in an hour or so now that I know the rules, and, much like Benedict of Amber, I like seeing how the battle changes with different tactics, so I play each scenario multiple times.

I’ll probably slow down with my war game acquisition in the coming year otherwise, though. There are some that just gather dust, and while I think I’ll get to them eventually, if I add many more that won’t seem feasible. I don’t think I’m on the cusp of becoming a game hoarder, but I see the cusp looming on the horizon, if you see the difference. There are several companies and designers and systems I like, and I’ll probably just stick with them for the future, but mostly play with I’ve already got.

Looking at what lies ahead in 2018, well, my son may not be coming home in the summer if he gets an internship, which will be very strange. I find myself wishing hard for that internship so that he can get the foot in the door in his chosen field of animation, but I find that I’m very sad thinking about him not even being here at all during the summer months. With his junior year of college halfway over I’m coming face-to-face with the realization he’s just about moved out completely and we don’t have much time left for long days of him about the house, brightening the place with his terrible puns and constant piano playing. And of course I have to reconcile myself to the fact that come fall my daughter will probably be heading outside the city for her first semester of college, so that I won’t hear her voice raised in song as she plays the ukulele or be able to joke with her about politics. Both birds will be away from the nest most of the time. I was always told that it happened fast, and I thought that with me working primarily from home I wouldn’t feel it, because I’d see so much of them as they grew.

But it still happened too fast. I’m so very proud of them both and would be talking about them all the time, too, but I always meant for this blog to mostly be about my writing and interests, not private stuff.

The first book of the new series will launch in July, and I’ll be heavily promoting it before that and sitting on pins and needles hoping it succeeds far better than poor Dabir and Asim did. Through the first part of the year I’ll be making minor changes to book one and revising book two, and hopefully have a draft of book three long before 2019. Then I need to choose from several other ideas as to what I’ll write next, and maybe get to finishing the third Dabir and Asim novel, depending upon how far ahead of schedule I feel.

Both issues of Tales From the Magician’s Skull will be out by the middle of the year and with any luck I’ll be reading for future issues.

Hopefully I’ll finally be able to write some more blog posts with my friend Bill Ward, and maybe Chris Hocking and I can resume some Hardboiled Monday posts. There are still a lot of great writers we wanted to cover. It’s me who was the holdup in both instances — I just got too busy with deadlines.

Well, I offer you a tip of the hat if you’ve made it to the end of this rambling post. Thanks for being here. I’ll try to keep you updated with anything interesting as the year wanders on. I hope we all have a good year.

Twenty-two

Here we are twenty-two days into December and as I look back on the first day of December things around here have changed a little.

My first-born’s back from his first semester as a junior in college, which is mind-blowing. He’s been re-reading the Dabir and Asim novels and short stories with an eye towards running some role-playing adventures for my wife and I — with her playing Dabir and me playing Asim. That just sounds like a whole lot of fun, and he may try running the first one tonight.

That’s assuming that we’re not working late on dinner prep, because we’re hosting the extended family Christmas dinner at our place this year, for the first time. That’s meant that a LOT Of my spare time over the last three weeks has been dedicated to some deep cleaning. The house needed it, even if I didn’t, so much. After that really long run towards deadlines through both October and November I was hoping for more downtime.

That’s not to say that I haven’t been relaxing; in the evenings I’ve been reading quite a lot. Of all that I’ve read, I think fantasy fans would most be interested in  Ilana C. Myer’s  Last Song Before Night, which I found one of the finest modern fantasy novels I’ve read in ages. It’s not sword-and-sorcery, but it’s not high fantasy. It’s more of a character-driven fantasy with a great sense of pace, lots of mystery and intrigue and surprises, and some great prose. It moves at a strong clip, and I found myself interested in every single viewpoint character. No mean feat, that. Most of the central protagonists are bards, and there’s lots of musical knowledge and old secrets and lost magics, but we’re not subjected to tons of poetry. Trust me, it’s a good one. A lot of you would like it. And here’s an added bonus — the story wraps up by the end of the book! There are to be other books in the same setting, but the character arcs introduced at the beginning of this book are concluded at its, wait for it, conclusion!

I had this crazy idea that I’d get at least one short story written, maybe two, for every week I took off from novel writing. Well, it’s been two weeks since I started writing again after about five days away, and I’m not quite done with ONE story. Now, granted, I’ve also had lots of cleaning and errands to run, and it’s a trickier tale than I originally thought. Still, I’m a little disappointed. I aim to bang my way through to the end of this first draft today.

I’ve also been reading a slew of other books. I finished off the third of four “Al Conroy” (Marvin Albert) novels starring his gambler/gunman, Clayburn, and found it a tasty read. I’ve heard a lot of good things about Luke Short’s western work and started his Raiders of the Rimrock. So far it’s good, but I’m not captivated. I’ll probably keep going. It is, at the least, surprising. In the middle of that I started a book Id’ found misfiled in the western section of the used book store and picked up on a whim. It’s titled A Boy Ten Feet Tall, by W. H. Canaway, and it’s the tale of one boy’s trek across Africa. It has a hard-boiled storytelling style and great details about the country and people and environment, and I quite enjoyed it.

Finally, I’ve started a historical that’s been on my shelf for years at this point, a Simon Scarrow novel titled The Eagle’s Conquest. I’m only a few dozen pages in, but so far, so good. Roman historical fiction, set in the legion.

Over the coming weeks I hope to have some great time for family, some time for gaming, some time for reading, and to increase the pace of some short story writing. I’ve got to write at least ONE Dabir and Asim short story before year’s end! I had wanted to write ten! I did succeed in outlining a bunch of them; I’ve just been so busy with other stuff that I haven’t gotten much further than the plotting stages.

I hope you’re all experienced happy holidays, or will be heading into a Merry Christmas.

 

 

Treasures

All kinds of cool treasures are rolling in these days. It’s nice to have friends.

I’ll save more detailed descriptions for a day when I have a little more time (I’m determined to finish most of my new short story today).

First, though, the new Astonishing Swordsmen and Sorcerers of Hyperborea is a thing of beauty, a work of art. I spent thirty minutes last night just flipping through and soaking up all the artwork. If it’s not THE go-to sword-and-sorcery rpg at this point, it’s tied for first place. It just oozes the right vibe. In the next little bit I’ll post some pics.

Second, DVG’s Sherman Leader, where you’re playing a solitaire game commanding American units in WWII, looks darned awesome. I look forward to trying it out soon. Today I simply cracked the shrink and looked over the components… then read the example of play. I’ll post pics when I really break it out.

Third, I’m about a hundred and thirty pages in to Ilana Myer’s Last Song Before Night. It’s full of bards and intrigue and mystery and cool characters, not to mention lovely prose. It’s longer than anything I’ve been reading for a while, but it sure doesn’t feel padded yet. And so far there haven’t been any spell or sword duels, but I’m completely caught up.

I’m glad I like it, because I liked Ilana when we met at GenCon last year. She’s a smart lady, and that intelligence shines through on every page.

Fourth, I went to the local used bookstore the other day and man, did I find some treasures, albeit beat-up treasure that a lot of bookstores might simply have thrown out. I’m glad the local one holds onto these, though, because I came away with an absurd supply of western paperbacks from back in the day for absurdly low prices. And I came one step closer to having a complete run of Louis L’Amour.

L’Amour’s not even my favorite western writer, but thanks to my wife’s aunt, and a local gentleman giving his collection away, I have only five more books to find. Now if L’Amour was a favorite, I’d go ahead and order those five via a used book search service. But he’s a little repetitive in theme, can sometimes be sloppy, I have dozens and dozens I haven’t read yet, and his books are EVERYWHERE because so many copies were printed, so I’m just waiting until they fall into my hands. That’s the way I used to have to do it when haunting used bookstores. I’m sure some of those other used books I took a chance on were dogs, but the prices were so cheap, I just snagged them anyway. For the curious, I’ll post some snapshots some time soon.

Another interesting thing about that used bookstore run is that the supply regenerated, although most of them looked as beat to hell as they did the last time. By that I mean that someone besides me must be reading these westerns, or at least selling off their old ones, because there were some there that weren’t around last time. I think I’m going to head back every couple of months and see what cycles through.

Return to Normalcy

It may be beginning to look a lot like Christmas, but after a week simply doing some house cleaning/fixing, reading, and some board gaming, it’s more important to me that I’m beginning to feel a little more human. I was driving at a lot of deadlines all at approximately the same time. I knew I was stressed, but I didn’t realize HOW stressed until the last week, when I started to feel normal.

Next up, well, there will be revisions to make. I’ve been editing issue 2 of Tales From the Magician’s Skull. I need to re-plot novel 3 of this sequence, and see if I can cook up a nifty standalone short story to help promote it…

But I might step away from all that until the New Year, and finally sit down with some short stories about Dabir and Asim and Hanuvar that I’ve been meaning to write. I’ve accumulated a pile of outlines, and I’d like to take them for a spin.

I also intend to so some more board gaming, particularly with Lock ‘n Load: Tactical, and Panzer. This weekend I actually got in three scenarios of the former. You can see a screenshot of a game I lost, right there. Eager to try again.

 

 

Great Western Reads Part 2

It’s not just that I want a western. I want them with lean prose and a lot of action; with characters deep enough to care about, with believable motivations and sharp plots that read quickly. No bloat. No padding. No digressions. In other words, pretty hard-boiled. Believe it or not, those simple requirements are hard to meet.

Today I thought I’d share some writers that my site visitors may not have heard of and who I think are worth a serious look. I’ve read some others now who might be in the running, but have seen enough from those listed here to recommend more than just one book.

Regular site visitors have seen me mention the excellence of the Ben Haas westerns (usually he wrote as John Benteen, but not everyone writing as John Benteen was Ben Haas, so it’s a little confusing). My earlier confusion doesn’t have to be yours because now Picadilly Press has made them all those by Haas available as e-books, here.

The other day I mentioned how much I was enjoying the Jeremy Six westerns. Turns out that there are eight of those, not six. This pic shows only seven, but I’ve got ’em all — the eighth is on the flip side of one of those Ace doubles. Right now they’re only available used, but right now they’re still pretty cheap to pick up used because only a few seem to realize how good they are.

Donald Hamilton, famed creator of Matt Helm, wrote five westerns, and at least four of them are great. Thanks to the kindness of Paul Bishop I now have the rare fifth novel and am very much looking forward to reading it — it’s cited as pretty excellent in the 52 Westerns book. The other four are fairly easy to come by. The Two Shoot Gun was also published as The Man from Santa Clara.

Merle Constiner ranges from good to great. No series characters for him, but like L’Amour and a number of others, he has certain types he likes to write about — typically men who walk softly and carry a big stick, who are clever and resourceful and don’t really care what you think about them. His heroes are clever, resourceful, and thoughtful, and side characters can be quirky and entertaining. I recommend starting with The Fourth Gunman or Death Waits at Dawkins Station.

Dang but Harry Whittington can be good. I read several of his later novels which were good, but not great, and didn’t know JUST how excellent he could really be. After reading three that blew me out of my boots I’ve actively sought him out. Try Desert Stake Out or Trouble Rides Tall, but don’t look for it in beat up old paperback form unless you’re a collector — you can find it much more easily along with two other strong ones in a new release from Stark House. Like Constiner, so far as I know he didn’t create a series character.

 

For The Killing of Kings

So here’s the official cover copy being used to promote the new book on B&N and Amazon and numerous other places. I have several months yet and can still ask for it to be tweaked. What do you think? 

A cross between Zelazny’s Chronicles of Amber and The Three Musketeers, For the Killing of Kings is the first in a new fantasy trilogy

Their peace was a fragile thing, but it had endured for seven years, mostly because the people of Darassus and the king of the Naor hordes believed his doom was foretold upon the edge of the great sword hung in the hall of champions. Unruly Naor clans might raid across the border, but the king himself would never lead his people to war so long as the blade remained in the hands of his enemies.

But when squire Elenai’s aging mentor uncovers evidence that the sword in their hall is a forgery she’s forced to flee Darassus for her life, her only ally the reckless, disillusioned Kyrkenall the archer. Framed for murder and treason, pursued by the greatest heroes of the realm, they race to recover the real sword, only to stumble into a conspiracy that leads all the way back to the Darassan queen and her secretive advisors. They must find a way to clear their names and set things right, all while dodging friends determined to kill them – and the Naor hordes, invading at last with a new and deadly weapon.

Howard Andrew Jones’ powerful world-building brings this epic fantasy to life in this first book of his new adventure-filled trilogy.

Victory!

I did it. I got to the end of the first draft of the second novel of my new series. Approximately half of it is in near final shape already, which will certainly save me time later.

Not only that, but I wrapped up the second secret project of the year, which suddenly came back to life right in the final week of writing madly to make today’s deadline. No matter — I got THAT done as well, and hope to reveal details about it soon.

I was writing thousands and thousands of pages a day, and I have some thoughts about that and on writing techniques, but I’ll share those with you later. For now, here’s the cover of my new book, brought to stunning life by Lesley Worrell. You should be able to click to enlarge.

The book will launch a few days before my 50th birthday next year. Hopefully there will be fabulous blurbs to come.

Now I must away. I had originally planned to spend a few days reading for fun and wargaming, to celebrate getting through the hurdles, but I was informed of a honey-do list, alas. So, no rest for the weary. Maybe I’ll get a shake and fries today, or something.

I should be back to bi or tri-weekly posting again, now that I’ve jumped some hurdles. Before the end of the year I plan to get some short stories written. Maybe not quite enough to fill a collection, but maybe PART of a collection.

 

 

Gasping Apologies

Man, it’s just crazy busy here. I feel like someone wrote  a terrible script and insisted I perform in it. Or maybe like I’m gasping for air because the same crazy women who stole my best friend’s brain put some kind of electronic overacting collar on me.

In any case, I’m likely to have posts few and far between. I have a lot of work to do.

I’m also ashamed to say that I’ve lost track of the address of some kind fellows who wanted me on their podcast for some time in December. The last time we exchanged a note I was in the middle of the deadline for book 1 and the Kickstarter for Tales From the Magician’s Skull. I just spent a half hour digging for their e-mail and couldn’t find it. If that sounds like you, I’m sorry, and I hope you’ll write me again.

 

Deadlines

I heard from Joseph Hoopman yesterday that there was an essay that mentioned The Desert of Souls over on Tor.com, and lo and behold, there was. It pleased me mightily to hear nice things said about my book, both in the main article and in the comments section. It also saddens me a little, because on some shadow Earth Howard is hard at work on the fifth or sixth novel in the sequence. There were going to be nine, and multiple short stories in between.

There will definitely be more short stories, and perhaps, if the fates are kind, I can publish a few more on my own in between the books I’m writing for my publishers.

The essay was written by S.A. Chakraborty, whose own Arabian historical fantasy, The City of Brass, debuted just yesterday. I’ll be adding that to the TBR pile and wishing her far better luck than my own brave Arabians had in the publishing world.

In other news, I’m still working my way towards that December deadline for the first draft of book 2 of the new series. I’m at that point in composition where things are starting to click into place and where you can seize hold of things you weren’t sure about earlier and then tighten the thread into something better. It’s a good place to be. I wish writing always felt this good, where you’re sort of bubbling over with ideas and you can’t wait to sit down.

Before the book deals and all that I used to feel like this a lot more often. Sort of excited and hopeful and inspired and confident all at once. I’d like to be in this mindset more frequently. I’m not sure how to get there, but I’m going to be grateful I’m here, now.

 

Great Western Reads Part 1

Everyone’s heard of Louis L’Amour. It seems like most “best western” conversations begin and end with him, although you might hear a mention of Max Brand or Riders of the Purple Sage. But there are scads of additional western writers, and there’s lots of great stuff out there hidden amongst the dreck. The trick is finding a guide to it.

A good place to start might be the new book by Scott Harris and Paul Bishop, 52 Weeks 52 Western Novels: Old Favorites and New Discoveries. In it, Harris and Bishop and a handful of other contributors discuss overlooked westerns of excellence. They don’t waste your time by giving a two-page spread to stuff you know about, like Lonesome Dove. They do dig deep into the L’Amour catalog to point out a couple of strong ones, but mostly they present things you probably aren’t aware of. It’s the kind of list Chris Hocking and I have been looking for.