David Guymer's Blog - Posts Tagged "mark-lawrence"
Fantasycon 2016
It's been a while since I last wrote something for my blog. I've been pretty busy the last couple months, finishing up on my current (month overdue...) novel, EYE OF MEDUSA, and, of course, the Fantasycon weekend just passed.
I'm happy to say that as of yesterday Eye of Medusa is consigned to Laurie Goulding's inbox, and I'm finally free to turn a little love this way.
I've been itching to put down a few words on Fantasycon. It's the first big event of this sort that I've been to, despite promising myself to go to at least two a year for several years, and I took the plunge at the deep, carnivore-infested end by getting myself involved in numerous events throughout the weekend.
This is what editors are for
Alongside my cooler and more grizzled Black Library battle-brothers Gav Thorpe, Guy Haley, and Laurie Goulding I participated in the first live reading I've ever done. Unless you count reading Peepo! to my daughter, which really wasn't as great preparation as I thought it was.
I read the first scene from Eye of the Medusa, which was doubly nerve-wracking as my editor, Laurie, sat right there next to me, hadn't even seen it himself. It went ok, considering, but nothing exposes waffle and filler like reading your work out to an audience. Much chopping and scribbling out was carried out later that evening!
Gav Thorpe, Guy Haley, me, and Laurie Goulding
This is clearly what writing groups are for, and if the one I'm nominally a member of didn't meet on a day when I have parenting duty then I might actually start attending. Maybe I should set up my own?
Any Howden-based writers out there?
I also learned a lot from my fellow readers to take with me for next time, Guy, Laurie and Gav (Reading fromShadowsword, Slaughter at Giant's Coffin, and Corax, respectively) all used brilliant action-packed scenes. It didn't take me long after the session to realise which scene I SHOULD have used.
The Michael Bay of the short story
I also took part in my first ever panel, titled A Little's Enough, discussing the art of short story writing.
Emma Cosh, Lynda Clark, George Sandison (Chair), Ruth Booth, and me
Now I've written a lot of short stories, I know how to write a short story, but it's fair to say that I've never given great thought to the exact mechanisms of the process. It was a bit of culture shock then to find myself sat alongside three incredibly articulate, literate, and broadly read women (all women, as if to properly hammer home my neanderthal thinking) talking about stories I didn't know by writers I'd never heard of who do clever things like tell stories from the point of view of the protagonist's favourite hat. And then there was me, at the end, trying to decide whether bronze really is better than stone and thinking, I write about people that stuff happens to, preferably with a car chase and an explosion.
Let's say I grew into it. I started to find my groove after about fifteen minutes. I mean I do make a living from this, I can't be THAT bad at it.
Let's also say that I learned a lot, and I'll definitely be tuning into Emma's Storylogical podcast. She was dazzlingly insightful, and you could tell that she has a real enthusiasm for talking about short stories.
How many people can say they've lost the Gemmell Award twice?
Obviously the main event for me, and the only reason I was there at all despite that promise I was talking about earlier, was the Gemmell Award ceremony on the Saturday night.
I was the only Legend finalist present for the night, but I got to meet three of the Morningstar finalists, Peter Newman, Stephen Aryan and Lucy Hounsom. They were all lovely people and Lucy gets extra credit for driving all the way from the south-west coast to Scarborough and for coming dressed as Daenerys Targaryen. It's no surprise that these sort of awards matter so much more to the debutants that the Morningstar was set up to celebrate (I did consider attending as Felix Jaeger, briefly, but bottled it...). The Legend, alas, went to Mark Lawrence and The Liar's Key, which also took the Ravenheart for best cover, and which I will now forever remember alongside Brian McClellan and Promise of Blood who took the Morningstar overHeadtaker in 2014.
Being great books doesn't make it ok!
But it wasn't all bad
So I was a bit disappointed that night, I'm very proud of Gotrek & Felix: Slayer and Black Library did everything they could have done to mobilise the vote. But, I met Black Library newcomer Justin Hill for the first, Laurie and I had a good chat about upcoming projects and, bolstered by free wine, I managed to exchange a handful of awkward words with one of my absolute favourite authors, Scott Lynch.
Why are successful authors so charismatic in person? Tell me this!
But the highlight of the weekend for me was a chance meeting with Marie O'Regan, who I hadn't realised was going to be there beforehand. I've written before about how I took a correspondence writing course with Writers' News before I got published, for which Marie was my mentor, and sold my first story to Black Library shortly after. I've wanted to thank her for a long time and finally got the chance, which completely erased any Gemmell Award disappointment from my mind when I went to bed that night. As I said to her, I already knew most of what she told me, but I needed someone else to say it, and I doubt I'd be where I am now without her.
In Summary
Exhausting. I caught a horrible cold. It was good to get back to writing my book and be reminded of my place in the Great Author Hierarchy.
But I'll definitely do it again.
Nineworlds perhaps? EdgeLit? Or maybe Novacon, Birmingham?
I'm happy to say that as of yesterday Eye of Medusa is consigned to Laurie Goulding's inbox, and I'm finally free to turn a little love this way.
I've been itching to put down a few words on Fantasycon. It's the first big event of this sort that I've been to, despite promising myself to go to at least two a year for several years, and I took the plunge at the deep, carnivore-infested end by getting myself involved in numerous events throughout the weekend.
This is what editors are for
Alongside my cooler and more grizzled Black Library battle-brothers Gav Thorpe, Guy Haley, and Laurie Goulding I participated in the first live reading I've ever done. Unless you count reading Peepo! to my daughter, which really wasn't as great preparation as I thought it was.
I read the first scene from Eye of the Medusa, which was doubly nerve-wracking as my editor, Laurie, sat right there next to me, hadn't even seen it himself. It went ok, considering, but nothing exposes waffle and filler like reading your work out to an audience. Much chopping and scribbling out was carried out later that evening!
Gav Thorpe, Guy Haley, me, and Laurie Goulding
This is clearly what writing groups are for, and if the one I'm nominally a member of didn't meet on a day when I have parenting duty then I might actually start attending. Maybe I should set up my own?
Any Howden-based writers out there?
I also learned a lot from my fellow readers to take with me for next time, Guy, Laurie and Gav (Reading fromShadowsword, Slaughter at Giant's Coffin, and Corax, respectively) all used brilliant action-packed scenes. It didn't take me long after the session to realise which scene I SHOULD have used.
The Michael Bay of the short story
I also took part in my first ever panel, titled A Little's Enough, discussing the art of short story writing.
Emma Cosh, Lynda Clark, George Sandison (Chair), Ruth Booth, and me
Now I've written a lot of short stories, I know how to write a short story, but it's fair to say that I've never given great thought to the exact mechanisms of the process. It was a bit of culture shock then to find myself sat alongside three incredibly articulate, literate, and broadly read women (all women, as if to properly hammer home my neanderthal thinking) talking about stories I didn't know by writers I'd never heard of who do clever things like tell stories from the point of view of the protagonist's favourite hat. And then there was me, at the end, trying to decide whether bronze really is better than stone and thinking, I write about people that stuff happens to, preferably with a car chase and an explosion.
Let's say I grew into it. I started to find my groove after about fifteen minutes. I mean I do make a living from this, I can't be THAT bad at it.
Let's also say that I learned a lot, and I'll definitely be tuning into Emma's Storylogical podcast. She was dazzlingly insightful, and you could tell that she has a real enthusiasm for talking about short stories.
How many people can say they've lost the Gemmell Award twice?
Obviously the main event for me, and the only reason I was there at all despite that promise I was talking about earlier, was the Gemmell Award ceremony on the Saturday night.
I was the only Legend finalist present for the night, but I got to meet three of the Morningstar finalists, Peter Newman, Stephen Aryan and Lucy Hounsom. They were all lovely people and Lucy gets extra credit for driving all the way from the south-west coast to Scarborough and for coming dressed as Daenerys Targaryen. It's no surprise that these sort of awards matter so much more to the debutants that the Morningstar was set up to celebrate (I did consider attending as Felix Jaeger, briefly, but bottled it...). The Legend, alas, went to Mark Lawrence and The Liar's Key, which also took the Ravenheart for best cover, and which I will now forever remember alongside Brian McClellan and Promise of Blood who took the Morningstar overHeadtaker in 2014.
Being great books doesn't make it ok!
But it wasn't all bad
So I was a bit disappointed that night, I'm very proud of Gotrek & Felix: Slayer and Black Library did everything they could have done to mobilise the vote. But, I met Black Library newcomer Justin Hill for the first, Laurie and I had a good chat about upcoming projects and, bolstered by free wine, I managed to exchange a handful of awkward words with one of my absolute favourite authors, Scott Lynch.
Why are successful authors so charismatic in person? Tell me this!
But the highlight of the weekend for me was a chance meeting with Marie O'Regan, who I hadn't realised was going to be there beforehand. I've written before about how I took a correspondence writing course with Writers' News before I got published, for which Marie was my mentor, and sold my first story to Black Library shortly after. I've wanted to thank her for a long time and finally got the chance, which completely erased any Gemmell Award disappointment from my mind when I went to bed that night. As I said to her, I already knew most of what she told me, but I needed someone else to say it, and I doubt I'd be where I am now without her.
In Summary
Exhausting. I caught a horrible cold. It was good to get back to writing my book and be reminded of my place in the Great Author Hierarchy.
But I'll definitely do it again.
Nineworlds perhaps? EdgeLit? Or maybe Novacon, Birmingham?
