Craig Schaefer's Blog, page 19

New Audio! The Instruments of Control

I'm super-pleased to announce the arrival of The Instruments of Control, book two of the Revanche Cycle, to audible.com! Susannah Jones's narration is nothing less than amazing, and I'm so pleased to be bringing you this one. (It's a double-Revanche release week!)

 

Website 2.0! Shiny and Chrome!

Because it's, um, shiny, and you can access it with the Chrome web browser...okay, maybe I haven't gotten over Mad Max yet. Anyway, I figured it was time to overhaul my original site and polish it up a little. Make it easier to find news and upcoming releases, get all my books right on the front page, just a little sprucing up.

Everything should be functional, including the signup page for my mailing list (hint, hint). The only things missing are the old blog entries, which I'll migrate over as soon as I figure out a clean way to do it. For now, welcome! I just finished final edits on Terms of Surrender, so I'm looking forward to getting that out to you this coming Friday or thereabouts. (But first, formatting. Lots, and lots, of formatting.)

The Killing Floor Blues: Now on Audio!

Happy Saturday, everybody! I'm pleased to announce that The Killing Floor Blues, book five in the Daniel Faust series, is now live on audible.com. Adam Verner's done his usual amazing job of narration, and I think you're gonna dig it. More audio is on the way, too: today I'm finishing my review of the audio files for The Instruments of Control (narrated by the outstanding Susannah Jones), and that should go live in about a month. Have a great weekend!

The Roadmap

Hey, everybody. Haven't updated in a bit so I wanted to give you a heads-up as to what's been going on, and what's on deck for 2016. I've heard it said that buying a new house and moving is one of the most stressful experiences a person can endure. Having just done it myself, take it from me: it's true. Throw in a couple of tight deadlines to manage at the same time, and you have a recipe for temporary insanity.

Fortunately, I'm a professional writer. Temporary insanity is good for me.

I've finished the final draft of the third Revanche Cycle novel, Terms of Surrender, and it should be going to my editor in a couple of days. I can't wait to share this one with you, and I'm hoping for a late November/early December release. Because conspiracies, betrayal, witchcraft and murder are what make the holidays bright.

Then, starting in early 2016, you have a double dose of Harmony Black coming your way. The first book drops on the first of February and the second (tentatively titled Red Knight Falling) will follow on its heels a couple of months later. My team at 47North has done a tremendous job of helping to shape up the series and turn it into something special, and I really hope you dig it. I'm also hoping there will be many, many more books after the second (I certainly have a stack of outlines ready to roll...) but of course, that'll depend entirely on how sales look. So please, buy one for yourself and one for a friend. Or for an enemy. Or for random strangers on the street.

For the rest of 2016, you can look forward to the fourth and final Revanche novel as well as -- of course -- the return of Daniel Faust in The Castle Doctrine. After the plot detour in The Killing Floor Blues, Daniel is back in Vegas with a deck of cards and a pocketful of scores to settle. I know a lot of you have big expectations for this one, and I'm going to do my very best to deliver.

And then there's...well, don't want to spoil it, but if all goes according to plan I should have a pretty neat surprise for you on New Year's Day.

That all for now: time for me to get back to work, ensconced in my new Writing Lair. Be safe, and I'll talk to you soon.

Inspirations Thursday: Imagine Dragons

All right. I know that to a lot of people, Imagine Dragons is the new Nickelback. Life is too short for me to apologize for my music tastes. I learned that a while ago. 

Imagine Dragons has some really fantastic stuff. Granted, they have a lot of stuff that would mix interchangeably, or seems sort of generic… But less so on recent album work. One of my biggest goal marks for a band is actually whether or not they can sing about anything other than romance. This is far more of an issue than I realized when I started thinking of it. So many bands I felt “eh” about generally had no time for anything but “I’m bitter because I’m broken up” “I’m in love!” or “my ex is a @#$%.”

“Gold” from their recent album is on one of my latest mixes. I’ve been working on music sets for each of the demonic choirs, because apparently procrastination is fun. I write it off as seeking inspiration and hope the demons in my basement won’t come get me and tie me to my keyboard. 

Speaking of “Demons”, that song is really rather good too. I’m not always fond of “you’re so important to me” themes, because it feels very much like a romantic standard no one can reach. That said, the climactic bit that goes “unless you show me how” just sends chills up my spine.

See you all next week for another set of Writing Challenges and Inspirations.

Writing Challenge Tuesday: Family Culture

Family is weird. Back when I was fresh and new to the apartment rental world, I had a group of roommates. In the house, we had sovereign territories. The rule was every house rule ended at the door to your room. This got a little hazy when it came to things like smoking (cigarettes and otherwise, in some roommate’s cases) but for the most part, it holds up. We started referring to the various rooms as nations. Julietistan, Christopherburg, Brianica, that sort of thing.

I’m reminded of that because generally speaking, families are like nations unto themselves. Families have their own culture, their own way of being. For some people, some families, that isn’t a healthy culture. I like to think that most of us are just trying to do their best, however. In this case, I’m more thinking about little things, cultural things we pick up.

A friend of mine uses Yiddish words frequently. She says things like “kibbitz” and “schmear” as well as a few choice words for less than intellectually sound persons who have cut ahead of her in line. I had no idea what some of these words meant before I met her. I learned them through association with her, and then made a friend who was from New York. Yiddish is so common in parts of New York, particularly areas like Brooklyn, that both friends have a shared language because both of them have parents from New York. It was sort of strange and amazing, realizing that I knew two totally unrelated people who shared family culture.

So for this week’s writing challenge, I ask you this - what family culture does your protagonist have? This may not even lead to a full scene, but it might help you flesh out some details. Do they leave their shoes at the door? Do they add lots of salt to pasta water (only way to go)? 

What sort of minor handed down details does your protagonist have?

Inspirations Thursday: Wes Craven

I mentioned Wes Craven earlier tonight. We’ve had some rather important losses to the geek community lately, but today I wanted to talk about this one. 

Wes Craven, for all his ups and downs and occasional horror cheesiness, redefined the genre of horror. He was responsible for a lot of the tropes we see out there, for good or ill.

Some of those tropes I’m intentionally avoiding. I try very hard not to make any one “type” into the victim in my stories, because one thing I’ve learned in fiction and in fact is that victimhood isn’t about a type. In reality, serial killers are rarely so kind as to pick a specific tidy group. They’re also rarely so kind as to wear a creepy mask and warn you they’re coming. 

But I can’t deny that Wes Craven’s work was an inspiration. So many things I picture in horror come from him. Vengeful returning villains (Nightmare on Elm Street), preponderance of backstory (Scream 3), and a variety of creepy tropes given new life. The Hills Have Eyes was a phantasmagoria of body horror, even if the very subject matter creeps me the hell out. Other writers have been riffing off that for years, from recent remakes to the X-Files.

I’m sorry to see Wes Craven go. The man was a legend, and I definitely qualify him as an inspiration.

Writing Challenge Tuesday: The Centre Cannot Hold

It’s time for another writing challenge Tuesday. I was pondering what to write for a challenge, and reading through some old poetry quotes. Mind you, I’m not exactly a poetry connoisseur. I know the classics in brief because of old courses in college. Frost, Yeats, Dickenson, Angelou - I’m not exactly super well read in poetry, but I can identify famous poets. Sometimes I can even remember what I read from their work…

In Yeats work, I’ve always loved The Second Coming. I’m not really one for religious revelations or ends of days, but the line, “Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold” has always appealed to me. I think because it’s true. Sooner or later any system will break down into chaos, and then need some rebuilding to make a better system.

Personally, I think that’s fantastic. I know personally I’d prefer revolution to stagnation. Given where I’m living right now and the amount of gentrification in my city driving wedges between the haves and the have nots, I do my share of wishing there could be a change. 

I can’t change my city, and no one person can uproot a corrupt or broken system on a whim. But in your writing, you can. That’s my challenge today. Look in your writing for systems that need fixing; broken systems with unfair or useless demands on the people. Imagine how it could break down. What’s the final straw? Who is the lynchpin that moves it from a problem into a true revolution?

We’re hitting that tipping point in real life. Maybe for all of us (or just for me) understanding how the chaos gets loosed on the world will help me see what we need to do in order to make this world better. Here’s hoping.

The Killing Floor Blues is Here!

Sorry for the relative blog silence lately, just been up to my ears in deadlines, deadlines, and also finishing the new Daniel Faust novel! That's right: The Killing Floor Blues, book five of the series, is here. The e-book version is available right now, and the print version should be available by the end of the weekend. The book starts right where A Plain-Dealing Villain left off, and the unpleasant situation we last saw Daniel in...well, it gets worse. Fast. Getting out of this mess is going to take every trick Daniel's got, and then some. I hope you enjoy it!

New Audiobook Release: Winter's Reach!

Yep, it's another audiobook release -- Winter's Reach, the first part of the four-volume Revanche Cycle, is now on Audible! The book is performed by the stellar Susannah Jones, and I couldn't imagine a better narrator for the part.

(In other news, I'm plugging away at finalizing edits on The Killing Floor Blues, book five of the Daniel Faust series, and I hope to release it this weekend. If not this weekend, then soon. Soooooon.)