Craig Schaefer's Blog, page 17

The White Gold Score is Live!

Or living dead. Either-or. You can grab it here.

There's a new Faust novella, but don't buy it yet. Here's why.

I mentioned a while back that I hated making my Faust series readers wait an entire year between books, due to the way my 2016 publishing schedule ended up. So I got the idea to do a shorter piece in the meantime, a side-story to tide folks over until then.

Managing the time to get it done, that was harder, but I'm pleased to say that final edits on the novella -- The White Gold Score -- are complete. It runs about 46,000 words and takes place between The Long Way Down and Redemption Song, telling the story of one of Daniel's side-jobs: how the exorcism of a ghost from a casino penthouse leads to a tangled web of music moguls, murder, and a whole lot of cocaine.  Oh, and Daniel teaches Caitlin his rules for the perfect burglary.

As a side story it pretty much stands alone and doesn't tie in with the overarching plot or connect to the Harmony Black series (though a couple of new characters are introduced, at least one of whom will be coming back in the next full-size book at the end of the year). Speaking of that full-size book, it has a title -- The Castle Doctrine -- and I'm hard at work on it right now. Let's face it, I know a few folks were "meh" about The Killing Floor Blues (either not liking the setting, or how the supporting cast was absent for most of the story), so believe me, I'm gonna do everything I can to knock the next book out of the park and put a smile on your face.

Now as for this novella...here's the thing. I was working the other day, thinking about the amazing outpouring of support I've received from you all, and all the new readers who have found me since the new year (and all the ones who've hung in there from day one), and just feeling incredibly grateful. And I said to myself, "Self? How do I thank them?"

And I replied -- because when you live alone with a cat, talking to yourself is a thing that just happens all the time -- "Well, obviously, you give this new release to 'em for free. Duh."

And that's the deal. The White Gold Score goes live on Amazon on Monday (you can check it out here), but you can grab it right now, totally free, at this link (that's a Dropbox -- click it, then choose "download"). There is a catch: you'll need to know how to load that .MOBI file onto your reader or reading app of choice, and that's something I can't help with (too many devices and too many apps to even count at this point), but if you can do that, you're ready to rock. That Dropbox link will stay live until late Sunday night (Central US time); I've got a 200-gig download cap per day, which should be plenty, but if the link dies we'll figure something out.

And that's the deal! Some fast, fun, free weekend reading for you. If you like it, maybe consider buying a copy later or leaving a review (the better my numbers, the better the chance one of the producers who are considering optioning the film/TV rights for the series actually puts a deal on the table), or baking me cookies*.

(* do not do this. I'm trying to lose a couple of pounds before a research trip in April. Cookies are my enemy right now.)

Oh: there won't be a print version of The White Gold Score, since it clocks in under 200 pages, but there will be an audio version, and Adam Verner's starting work on it shortly.

That's it for me. I'll talk to you at the end of April, just in time for the second Harmony Black release! In the meantime, I'm taking this weekend off. Just the weekend, though.

(UPDATE: If the link gives you issues, give it an hour and try again -- apparently Dropbox gets overwhelmed when a lot of people click a public link at once, and a lot of people are currently clicking at once. I'm learning new things today!)

Winter's Reach is Free All Weekend!

Hey, everybody. Just letting you know that until the end of Sunday, Winter's Reach -- the first book in the Revanche Cycle -- is free on Amazon. Why? Because it's Superb Owl Weekend.

...that'll make sense if you read the book.

And don't forget that the book is Whispersynced which means that if you have the e-book, you can grab the audiobook version (narrated by the incomparable Susannah Jones) on Audible at a massive discount. Not a bad way to spend a weekend!

Alternately, you could watch the Super Bowl, but the Chicago Bears aren't playing so I don't know why you'd wanna do that.

Saying Goodbye to a Friend

We had two days between the diagnosis and the needle. We'd been working on Rio's various aliments -- a seventeen-year-old cat can rack up quite a few -- but in the end there wasn't any helping the monster at the bottom of it all, the cancer in his stomach. He faded, fast, and this morning I saw him out.

I won't talk about his last couple of days. I don't want to write it, you don't want to read it, and while cats are essentially all seven deadly sins packed inside a furry body, their foremost is Pride. So I'll remember Rio the way he'd want to be, the tiny and mistreated shelter cat who grew into my constant companion. He was a Russian Blue, small and sleek and fast and handsome, and even in his elderly years he could jump all across the greatroom and the kitchen from furniture to furniture, never touching the floor. The carpet was for clumsier, less graceful creatures like the rest of us.

He had behavioral issues, from his kittenhood, that left him hostile to the world. It would take, on average, a year of regular visits before he'd stop seeing any new face as a threat, perhaps allowing them to come near -- but not too near. He was like that for everyone except me. He latched onto me, literally climbing my leg the day I met him at the shelter and nestling on my shoulder. Soon he'd appointed himself my protector, racing to hiss and take a swipe at anyone who came near me until I'd assured him it was all right, spending every night curled up at my side in bed and keeping careful watch.

I couldn't ask for a better protector. Who ever could?

And now I'm sitting at my desk, without Rio for the first day in seventeen years, and just trying to figure out what that feels like. I suppose I'll clean up a little and then throw myself into my art like I always do in dark hours, trying to take some of this hollow pain and turn it into a story so that it doesn't go to waste.

A Special Kind of Mourning

Today I wrote the last word on on the last page of the last book of the Revanche Cycle. Queen of the Night is complete at 95,017 words, and...

And that's it. It's done. The series is over. I just finished saying goodbye to people who have lived in my head for years, whose stories played out over four novels and a lot of long, sleepless nights. I always knew what the last line of the series would be, even before I started writing book one; that didn't prepare me for the gut-punch of typing it, or for hitting the enter key twice and adding: THE END.

I won't tell you what happens in book four, save that it's decisively the end of the saga. Some characters make it out alive. Some don't. Some find redemption. Some don't. And as for the title, well...not everything is as it seems.

I can only describe what I'm feeling right now as a special kind of mourning. Saying goodbye to all of these people who are, in my heart, so very real to me. It's not like the Faust or Harmony books when I know, at the end, that soon I'll be ready to bring the gang back together for another adventure. This adventure is over.

At the same time, it doesn't have that same coffin-lid finality as real mourning. For one thing, I'm not done with the work. Now it goes in a drawer so I can take a few days and refresh my brain, finding some distance from the words. Next, I'll go at it with a couple of rounds of heavy self-edits, fixing and tweaking it from top to bottom. Then it goes to Kira, my editor, who does the real work of making my stories worthy of you. Then back to me, another round of last-minute reviews, and finally -- sometime in early July, it looks like -- I'll be able to bring it to you.

And you'll meet those same people I just said goodbye to, and you'll walk with them just like I did, and they'll live all over again.

Nothing's ever over, in stories. Someone, somewhere, is taking their very first look at a book you remember from your chidhood. For someone, the adventure is just beginning.

And I may have a sneaky plan or two for later down the line, something I can't talk about now, but you know me: there's always something brewing behind the scenes. A few sharp-eyed readers have caught what might have been a subtle connection between The Killing Floor Blues and Terms of Surrender. When Red Knight Falling, the second Harmony Black novel, comes out in April you might just catch another one if you look close. What does it all mean? Oh, you'll see. Eventually.

(Chekhov's Gun? I prefer using Chekhov's Artillery. It has range.)

The Revanche Cycle is complete. Tonight I'll sit down, mix myself a Dark and Stormy, and raise my glass in salute to the victorious and the fallen. The story may be done but the characters are still in my heart, alive and kicking. As they always will be.

Death - The High Cost of Living

For obvious reasons, I’ve lifted my blog title from a Sandman book of the same name. Neil Gaiman is an inspiration in many ways, but this week, that line seems entirely appropriate. 

2016 is less than three weeks old, and we’ve already seen too many heroes leave. David Bowie, Alan Rickman, David Margulies, Brian Bedford. Dozens of others in the public eye and in government. I think this particular year, it hits so hard because of where it has struck. Fandom and neediness and queerness have taken losses. Austen fans mourn, Ziggy Stardust is headed back to space, and the voice of Robin Hood from Disney is gone. 

It’s enough to make a person introspective. I’m tired of saying goodbye to heroes, but I’m also glad that I’m doing what I love. If there’s anything I learned from the last few weeks, it’s that sharing a creative gift is important. I'm not sure how much of a gift I have and I don’t think the tally will be done until after I’m dead, but I’m sure as hell going to try my best. 

I probably won’t be that kind of icon before I go, but I’m pretty happy to know I’ll be someone’s favorite. I don’t really write to be the center of things. I write because the stories are there and I need to tell them.

I can’t promise to be the best writer ever, though I can promise that when I make mistakes I'll try to learn from them. I’ll improve, and look back and laugh, and enjoy where life takes me. I can’t say when my stories will end, but I can say this:

“I’ll put the chairs on the tables, turn out the lights, and lock the universe behind me when I leave.” 
-Death, Sandman

Comments are Now Enabled

So, we haven't shaken all the bugs out from this new website transition. Apparently I didn't have comments enabled on the blog. That is to say, they were enabled, but the button to actually let you comment was missing, which is basically the same thing.

That's fixed now. Sorry about that! Somebody should have left a comment to let me know they couldn't leave a comment...

Can You Hear Me, Major Tom?

The phone on the pillow next to me chimed in the dark. A text from a friend, letting me know David Bowie was gone. I hoped, for a second, that I was still dreaming. A moment of desperate denial before the pang of deep loss set in. We talked for a while and I went to brush my teeth, take a shower, go through the motions of every ordinary morning, keenly aware that the world is less today. I was just listening to Blackstar, his new album, last night; couldn’t have imagined I’d start the next day finding out it was his last album, too.

I’ve had a few hours to process now, and what I’m left with is the overwhelming feeling of a debt that can never be repaid. As a man and as an artist, Bowie meant so much to me. I remember being a confused kid, out of place and weird, and discovering Ziggy Stardust and the Spiders from Mars. Bowie didn’t make it okay to be weird. He did better than that: he made it cool. And other performers who tried to ride his style didn’t get the point: he was cool because he was effortlessly, truly himself.

That authenticity is a powerful lesson for any artist. I remember the start of my publishing career, when a friend had read the drafts of the first two Faust novels. “Don’t you think you might want to…tone it down, some?” he’d asked. “I mean, between the violence and the sex and the darkness, this isn’t for everybody. You could make it a lot more marketable. Don’t you at least want to use a pen name?”

I thought about that. And I listened to some Bowie. That’s when I decided, no, I didn’t want to be “marketable” – I wanted to tell true stories. And I put my name on them, because my books are who I am. Know what? Things turned out just fine.

Bowie’s work shaped mine in so many ways I can barely begin to count. There’s Ziggy, of course, and the Let’s Dance album both shaped my memory of the eighties and my concept of cool. Labyrinth and The Hunger sparked my budding writer’s imagination, and The Man Who Fell to Earth taught me how a work of fiction can leave you devastated. David Bowie’s music and his filmography have left their fingerprints across my life and my work, and I can’t find the words to say how grateful I am.

But when Prince Sitri finally makes a personal appearance in my books, you know he’ll have Bowie’s eyes.

A Word of Thanks

Wow, what a week.

It's been seven days since Harmony Black launched, and it's been a hell of a roller-coaster ride. Going into any book launch -- I can only speak for myself but I know other authors who would agree -- means confronting a cauldron of fears. Will your fans like it? Will new readers give it a try? Will the book be a flash in the pan or worse, not even a spark?

As it turns out, a lot of you really like Harmony. Enough so that the other day, well, this happened:

This thing right here. This is the thing that happened.

This happened because of you. And I am so deeply, utterly grateful, I can barely find the words to express it. I am so thankful to each and every one of you for your support, your kind words and your reviews, and more than anything I'm just so happy that my books make you happy. I've got one job, and that means I'm doing it right.

(As opposed to back when my one job was running the Godzilla Early Warning System. Sorry about that, Tokyo. I was binge-watching Netflix and got distracted.)

I always try to end my books with a shout-out to the people who made it happen, like my editors, cover designers, and voice actors. This shout-out is for you. Go team!

And as always, you've got my promise: that I'll keep working to improve my craft, up my game, and bring you the most deviously exciting stories I can concoct. I'm here for the long haul (and so are Harmony and Daniel, for that matter). And now, I have to get back to work on the final book of the Revanche Cycle, in which I must do some terrible things to dear friends.

And by "dear friends," of course, I mean the characters in the story and the people who'll be reading it. Talk to you soon!

The Harmony Black Launch FAQ!

Good morning, world! Harmony Black is off to a great launch, and as a result I’ve gotten a number of questions from readers and maybe-readers. I figured I’d share my answers here, in case you’re wondering about any of this. First, let’s start with the biggie:

Do I need to read the Faust books before I read Harmony Black?

Nope! Not at all. The book was designed to stand alone. While there are a couple of references to the Faust series here and there, there’s nothing you need to know before diving right in. The only advantage for Faust readers is a couple of “guest stars” they’ll notice and the surprise will work just as well in the other direction if you read the Faust books later (discovering who that sleazy guy at the Field Museum really was, for instance, or why Nyx is so obsessed with winning at all costs. Hint: Nyx isn’t in the Faust series…but her mom is.)

Wait a second, I read the sample – did you just totally spoil the ending of the Faust series?

Nope again! Bear in mind that Harmony is a secondary antagonist in the Faust books, and what she thinks happened is rarely the truth. Also, the Faust series isn’t over. To quote the great Douglas Adams, Faust is just spending a year dead for tax reasons.

On that note—

More Faust stories are coming. The hope is that – if enough people jump on the Harmony train – I can start putting them out on an alternating basis. The idea is to have two series running in parallel, each totally stand-alone from the other, but with occasional overlaps and crossover characters/events to make it a fun ride for people who read both lines.

I’m a new reader. If I liked Harmony, will I like Faust?

I honestly can’t say. Both series are pretty dark but I consciously went with a different tone for Harmony, and she’s probably a more relatable heroine than Faust (a con-man and a thief with a damned soul). More to the point, she’s an actual heroine, while he’s a villain protagonist. She saves the world out of duty and compassion, he saves the world because it’s where he keeps his stuff. I’d suggest dipping your toes in with the first Faust book and seeing if you like it. If not, that’s cool! More Harmony is coming.

Oh, and to make it easier for said toe-dipping to occur, The Long Way Down is on sale for 99 cents all through the month of January. And so is Winter’s Reach, the first book in my third series, the political fantasy Revanche Cycle. Just because.

So how can you have the same characters and the same world with two different publishers?

I’m a dual-class author/businessperson with a +1 Quill of Negotiation.

How are you writing these things so dang fast? Are you a cyborg?

Part of that you can chalk up to behind-the-scenes scheduling shenanigans; for instance, Terms of Surrender (the third book in the Revanche Cycle) just came out a couple of months ago, but the manuscript was finished well after Harmony Black, which was actually written back in 2014. At any given time I have multiple manuscripts in outlining, active writing, and various stages of editing/cover design/layout.

As far as the actual writing goes, I think I’m much like any successful novelist in that writing isn’t just my art and my passion: it’s also my job, and I’m showered, shaved, and sitting in front of the keyboard by six AM, six days a week. It’s not magic, it’s just a lot of hard work. I know, I’m ruining the mystique – writers are supposed to be delicate ethereal creatures who can only put words to the page when the Muse descends, or spill prose from their aching hearts one blood-drop at a time as they suffer a storm of alcoholic angst – but it’s really all about discipline, discovering your ideal work flow, and getting the job done. Also, I don’t have kids, and those of you who do have kids know what a difference that makes when it comes to time management…

My reward for the work? Well, besides paying the mortgage, it’s all about the happy readers. Nothing’s better than finding out my stories gave somebody a good time, a laugh or a shiver, gave them something to think about, or lifted them up when they really needed an escape. That's what keeps me going.

So…Harmony’s team versus Faust’s crew?

Oh, you know that’s gonna happen. Not soon, but it’s eventually gonna happen. And for the Faust fans, here’s a little Easter egg for reading this far: there’s already a connection between cast members, though they themselves aren’t aware of it. Early in Harmony Black, when Kevin is reaching out to his hacker buddies for info, check the area code that his guild-buddy “Tomoe Gozen” says she wants to escape for a while.

Yep, she’ll be your Google.