C.E. Murphy's Blog, page 110

NO DOMINION acknowledgements

Today I'm going to start NO DOMINION revisions, and also doing busywork stuff for the epub like putting the (FOUR PAGE!) acknowledgements list together. o.O

If you are a NO DOMINION subscriber, and have not filled out the survey which asks for addresses, names, and other moderately important things, you should go check the Kickstarter page to see if the survey link is there in your upper left hand corner, because the emails apparently didn't all go through, and some 75 people haven't answered yet.

I can't believe the ebook is due to subscribers in barely more than a week. Where did the time go? (Answer: into writing MOUNTAIN ECHOES.)

It's my hope to finish the other short stories due to subscribers this month. We'll see.

I'm also eyeing the HEAVEN CAN WAIT teaser chapters, and finding myself a little tempted to–well, to essentially offer HEAVEN CAN WAIT to the NO DOMINION subscribers as a proposal package. Write the chapters, write a synopsis, and let subscribers read the whole package as if they were the publisher making a decision on whether to buy the book/series.

The idea is mostly prompted by how much people seemed to enjoy the blog I kept while writing NO DOMINION, and by the supposition that people might therefore find it entertaining to be walked through the *entire* book-creation process, starting from proposal and going all the way through to edits, cover copy, covers, etc, all of it. I mean, I suppose that would mean running a Kickstarter for that project at some point, but the proposition isn't that fully fleshed yet. :)

Anyway. Random meanderings, mostly. But if you're a subscriber and haven't filled out the NO DOMINION survey, please do go do that!

Anthologies: DON'T READ THIS BOOK

*squeaks*!

I am so excited about this book. O.O

It's the anthology tie-in to DON'T REST YOUR HEAD, the award-winning horror RPG (now available on Kindle & Nook!) from Evil Hat Productions. I would be excited about it even if I weren't part of the lineup, because it's really Evil Hat's first foray into fiction, and these guys have been my friends for like, ever, so: yes. I would be excited anyway.

But I am sort of beside myself because I don't normally write horror, and Fred knew he was pushing me outside of my comfort zone when he asked me to be one of the anthology participants. And because once I got my head around what I wanted to do, I wanted to do something really specific, and from Fred and Chuck's commentary I nailed it. So I'm actually really proud of my story in there, which is nice not just because I like to do my job well but because it's *specifically* nice to feel I've done well for something on a friend's project.

Also, the cover rocks. OMG. And the contributer line-up is amazing. I mean, if you'd asked, "Gosh, Catie, think you'll ever be in an anthology with ROBIN D FREAKING LAWS?" the answer would have been "Er, no, I'm just not awesome enough to hang with that crowd." Only it turns out I am. *beams* (Or that I have friends who are, anyway. :)) And also, may I say that I'm really pleased that four of the contributers are women? This is an RPG tie-in. It would have been really, really easy to hit the gender blind spot on that one, although I would not *expect* EHP to do that. And they didn't, and that makes me happy too.

Seriously. DON'T READ THIS BOOK is just full of win, and it is coming to e-pub and shortly thereafter physical manifestation soon! With the next 3 months! And you will want to read it! You WILL! EVEN IF IT SAYS NOT TO! :)

Writing: A Personal Best

Several years ago I had a month where I thought I really hadn't written much of anything, and, depressed, went to look at my wordcount. It turned out I had written 83K in that month, and I still don't know how I'd concluded I'd done no work worth mentioning in that time.

I've just obliterated that record. I've done 91,000 words in 19 days. I have written a book in 19 days: I have just finished MOUNTAIN ECHOES, Book 8 of the Walker Papers. It was 10,500 words long when I sat down to start writing on the morning of March 12. Now it is 101,200 words long, and I…

…am freaking awesome, actually, thank you for asking. :)

It's become increasingly clear to me over the years that the more detailed an outline I have the more quickly I can write a book, and noticing I had no plot in place for MOUNTAIN ECHOES did sort of make it necessary to hammer out a thorough outline. Three weeks is still massively faster than anything else I've ever done–I've done two 70K novels in 4 weeks each, previously, but this is a full-length 100K book. My attention span for a book, as my husband pointed out years ago, is about 6 weeks–after that I want to go do something else. Writing one in 3 weeks is…actually probably kind of ideal, although not practical, as it does become my total and sole focus.

Holy crap. Wow. I was aiming to have this thing done by the 5th, which would still have been Very Fast Indeed, but *damn*, sistah. 19 days. *Damn*!

Excuse me while I go pat myself on the back, okay? :)

and now holy *beans* there is only one book left in the walker papers! eek! eek! EEEEEK!!!!!

Writing Retreat Contest!

Just hit 50K on MOUNTAIN ECHOES, the 8th Walker Papers novel. I'm now heading out for a long weekend writing retreat. Post your guess as to my total wordcount by Monday evening, and I'll send a book to the closest guess!

If you cannot guess here–I can't remember how I've got the darned comments set up right now–you can post your guess at Facebook, at Twitter under the hashtag #WalkerPapers8, and at Livejournal, where you can log in with a variety of different options or comment anonymously.

Spirit of the Century: Watch the Skies!

So loads of you know that my friends, Evil Hat Productions (the good people who brought you the Dresden Files RPG) have also got an award-winning pulp fiction RPG called SPIRIT OF THE CENTURY. They've launched a Kickstarter campaign to support the development of a tie-in fiction line, and have blown past their original goals. Subscribers to DINOCALYPSE NOW will get all three books in the Dinocalypse trilogy by Chuck Wendig delivered to their email boxes!

Now Evil Hat is going for The Big Stretch.

If they hit $15,000, they'll be producing a stand-alone SotC pulp fiction novel by Atomic Robo creator Brian Clevinger. Brian will be writing about Benjamin Hu–think Sherlock Holmes from Hong Kong, running around like Indiana Jones as an olympic-class fencer.

And if they hit $20,000, I get to write the next one.

My character is Amelia Stone, the Spirit of Justice! She's tough as nails, lives by her fists and her wits, and is so full of pulpy goodness I could squee. I've been desperately wanting to try my hand at crazy in-your-face no-holds-barred no-apologies-given pulp since I started reading the ERB Mars books, and this opportunity was too awesome to pass up. I cannot *wait* to give this a shot, and, well you guys aren't going to let me down, right? You're, er, going to go forth and, er, make me write another novel this year, right? You're, um…

…I've done it to myself again, haven't I. :)

No, really, I actually have the time to do this and I'm tremendously excited about the chance, so please! Go forth and help make it happen! There are loads of awesome rewards and exciting potential, and this is a crazy fun chance for me to do something I will probably never have another opportunity to do, so, um, I'm gonna be over here in the corner holding my breath while we wait to see what happens.

Watch the skies!

Writing: The Process of a Writing a Book

So Monday I got started on MOUNTAIN ECHOES, book 8 of the Walker Papers. "Got started" means I re-read the first 3 chapters and the synopsis, and while the chapters were fine, I thought, "Wow, this synopsis *really* sucks. *Really* sucks. There are major problems with it."

And then I started to write. And something happened far earlier in the writing than it happened in the synopsis, and I thought, "That's probably not a bad thing, because the synopsis is so awful," and by that time I was starting to suspect what was wrong with the synopsis. And then I got stuck, because I had neither a functional synopsis nor, as it turned out, a plot, which was the real problem with the synopsis to begin with. *Lots* of emotional stuff to get through, but the thing I'd propped up as a plot…sucked. It was not plot-like. It was flaily and ugly and would not drive the story in any useful or meaningful way.

So I did what I usually do when my plot comes up dry, which is go out to dinner with my husband and say, "Help!" And after a very nice dinner, I have quite a lot more plot than I did–enough to get me far enough into the book that the rest of the plot bits we talked about will probably start falling into place–and I don't even think it requires dumping any of what I've got written…because for the first time in the history of ever, I not only noticed, but accepted, that I was lacking a plot before I was even a fifth of the way into the book, and moved to fix it before I had to throw away thirty thousand or more words.

I am hoping this is a good sign for the future, though I won't know until I get there, of course. It may just be I've got such a short deadline on ME at this juncture that I recognized I was in no position to screw around being Artsy and Not Understanding My Muse or whatever such crap would apply here, and just got on with it. But experience tells me that usually once I've recognized a problem like this early on and dealt with it, doing it again in the future is a lot easier

Last night I posted "have found the missing plot" on Facebook, where among the many people who "liked" the comment was my Walker Papers editor. I thought that was pretty funny. :)

Signature sheets!

One down, 999 to go:

These are the signature sheets for the limited edition Subterranean Press collection of Old Races stories, BABA YAGA'S DAUGHTER. You have no doubt already pre-ordered it, but if not that link there will offer you the opportunity to do so. :)

BABA YAGA'S DAUGHTER collects three Old Races stories previously released into the wild–"From Russia, with Love", "Five Card Draw", and "Hot Time in the Old Town Tonight", and offers up seven new tales that complete an arc of hidden stories within the Old Races universe: you could go on to read future books in the Old Races universe without having read these stories, but believe me, you don't want to.

Ancient rivals, best of friends, best of enemies: dragonlord Janx and master vampire Eliseo Daisani are the threads upon which a tapestry of lives and loves are woven across the centuries. From the coldest Russian nights to the heat of Chicago's greatest fire, nothing brings the immortal adversaries together—or tears them apart—like a woman.

And there is always a woman.

Vanessa Grey has been at Daisani's side for decades, but the secrets borne by a witch may be her undoing. Baba Yaga's daughter has plots that are decades in the hatching, but they may only succeed if Margrit Knight, named "the Negotiator" by Daisani and Janx themselves, will work with her. And there are others: the greatest vampire hunter mankind has ever known, and a woman for whom the Old Races are a wonder to walk away from….

The cover art is by Thomas Canty. (THOMAS. CANTY. *dies of squee* *again*) I am *insanely* excited that SubPress is publishing this collection, and I desperately, desperately want it to do well in order to justify their faith in me and in hopes of, y'know, getting to work with them again. So–because I know you don't want me to sign a thousand signature sheets for nothing–do pre-order if you can, okay? I will love you forever.

not that i don't anyway

Redesign done!

I believe I've now converted all the pages on CEMurphy.Net to WordPress, which means the redesign is more or less done. It's not as done as I want it to be, of course, but if you'd like to go poke at it and see if you can find any pages that don't match, that would be great.

One thing I'd like feedback on–should I reinstate the right column Out Now material? The header banner covers it now, but that only brings up one item at a time, whereas the right column could have all of it. Maybe below the Twitter feed but above the tags?

While converting IMMORTAL BELOVED (the Highlander novel I wrote about 15 years ago, which is now available in PDF, epub, mobi and HTML versions), I also rediscovered CENTENARIAN, the first chapter of a book that doesn't exist.

Guest Blogger: Gabra Zackman!

Over the years I've had lots and lots of people tell me how much they love Gabra Zackman, the reader for most of the Walker Papers audio books. Gabra emailed me around a year ago and we've chatted back and forth in email (and in Skype, recently! SO COOL!) a bit, and I thought, hey! I should ask if she'd do a guest blog sometime!

So I did, and she said yes! And so in honor of the audio version of RAVEN CALLS being released today, I'm posting the blog she sent. I hope you enjoy it as much as I did!

The Life of an Audiobook Narrator

I've had the privilege over the years of recording some extraordinary books, and it occurred to me a few years back to contact some of the people who write them. It was with great excitement and awe that I first contacted Catie to say how much I loved her work, and it was with the same great excitement that I responded to her request for an entry for her newsletter.

I'm currently in the midst of prepping RAVEN CALLS, the seventh book in the Walker Series. I adore it. It's not fair or nice to play favorites, but… this is one of my favorites. The whole series has been an absolute gift to me. But this one has had me laughing even more (if possible!) and has made my imagination and my heart dance around with joy.

I've had three series I've done that have meant a great deal to me, and I've made contact with all of the authors. In the midst of one, I had lunch with the author at a pivotal moment: I had been through a really rough time in life, and wanted to thank her for her work. In that dark stretch, I got to spend days in a booth with her characters, and it brought me such comfort. To my great surprise, she confessed that she had written the first book of the series while going through a divorce… that she had written the characters to bring HER comfort!!! It was amazing to know that a book she had written to bring happiness into her life affected me in the same way, and I hoped it was the same salve to many other women who listened to it. I feel the same with Joanne Walker… she's the inner shaman/ goof/ klutz/ kick ass chick who I wish I were on the inside, and her antics can always make me laugh on a rainy day.

I got into audiobooks through something of a fluke. The well-known reader Jonathan Davis has been a dear friend of mine since we did a play together, and he invited me to send an audition to a company he worked for. This company happened to have an opening—a reader with a similar voice had just left—and I was the lucky recipient of the best job I'd ever had. Here's another way to tell the same story: I have the privilege of working a lot as an actress, but it wasn't always that way. For a long time I waited tables and catered, and I had gotten to the point of no return. So I decided to have a frank conversation with God. "God," I said, while wearing a tuxedo and serving canapés, "I can't imagine this is my greatest good on this earth. If you want me to keep being an actress, you need to give me a way to live. If not, I'm throwing in the towel. You choose." Shortly thereafter I got a call, and my life profoundly changed. Somewhere between God and Jonathan Davis was my salvation.

From the company I initially started with, I made contacts that went off and formed their own companies… and wound up doing this wonderful work in several different studios. I was one of the first people called when Audible started their own production company, and they are still one of my greatest employers today. One of my early books was THUNDERBIRD FALLS, the second in the Walker series, and I fell in love with it immediately. I was so excited for this book… it appealed so deeply to my love of language, folklore, and funny, powerful women. But there was a catch… another reader read the first book, and this is never a fun situation to go into.

Listeners are loyal. It's something I've learned. And to switch horses on them midstream… pisses them off. So it was no surprise that there was much controversy about this. I read the book with great love and passion, but I was a fairly new narrator at the time, and a bit nervous. The listener reviews nearly killed me… there were all these comparisons to the first reader's take on it, and it was really hard for me to deal with that. Besides which, I thought she was wonderful, and couldn't understand the change either… my guess is that she moved or something, because they never switch readers on a series if they can avoid it.

So the whole thing was a source of great paranoia to me at first… and there were a ton of reviews that preferred one or the other of us. To be honest, my terror was selfish… it was less about my work, which I was beginning to be confident about, and more about the series… would they take it away from me? If there were more books, would I get them, or not? I was so relieved when I got the next one, and the next one, and the one after that, five in all for me to read over the years. I feel like these characters have become old friends, and I so look forward to taking them with me into the booth again. At the same time, it's an interesting thing, having read for so long… there are early choices I made, particularly character's voices, which I wouldn't choose now [Catie's note: That's okay, as I told Gabra, 'cause if I'd known where they were going, there are some choices I'd have made differently for characters early on, too!]. But what can I do? I'm sorta stuck with them! I tried in one series to switch the voices mid-way, and that was like cooking a stew then deciding to make a consommé. It's invariably better to stick with the stew.

Reading audiobooks is a strange skill, and a strange experience. I love it, but it's not for everyone. I typically read about 4-6 hours at a stretch, and it is an extraordinary combination of patience (you can't move around a lot), stamina (I call it "strapping my Nikes to my vocal chords") and creativity (we want to hear the characters, but don't do TOO much!) Usually it's just me and an engineer, and at this point, we're all pretty dear friends. It's an intimate situation, reading a book to someone, and we have all worked together for years. So you can imagine that between long takes, and lots of tea, there are wonderful conversations, all of which occur on either side of insulated glass. Pretty strange? Yes. And pretty awesome. Especially for some of the more graphic romances I've read… those tend to be pretty funny nights. Please imagine a bunch of women in their 30s reading graphic romances to mostly male engineers in their 20s! It's wonderfully fun. I think you need a great sense of humor to be an audiobook narrator. You need to be able to laugh at yourself, and intuitively find the humor of the piece you're working on, both in equal measure.

There's often a lot of prep that goes into it as well, depending on the material. For RAVEN CALLS, I'm planning to ask Catie if she knows how to pronounce all the Gaelic words she's put in there, and if she can help me with it! We often have to ask the authors things like that, particularly if you're working on sci-fi. I recently completed a sci-fi book that had something like 5 pages of pronunciations, all of which were directly from the author… when you have an entirely self-created world, it's often like that. But it has cropped up all over the place… I once read a romance that was set in Japan, and had to consult a native speaker about the phrases. And once I read a non-fiction book about an indigenous culture in Alaska and had to make my way through Inuit words. That was a picnic! Again, we all have a good laugh over it, and try our best to do the kind of work we are proud of. At this point, I have recorded over 200 books, so there's very little that can truly surprise me.

So here I sit, about to prep more of RAVEN CALLS, and I get to look forward to some time with Joanne and her adventures in a dark booth. Likely, an attractive young male friend of mine will be sitting across the glass, and in between Joanne's tangles with her past and present, my friend and I will talk about our lives. I'll occasionally say a wrong word, and we'll laugh. I'll have to say the Gaelic phrases several times until I'm happy with how they sound. And we'll drink tea and coffee and listen, together, to all the places this story will go, to all the paths Joanne will walk down, to her irreverent and witty self-effacement. And, frankly, we'll thank God that this is "one of the good ones" and that we can truly enjoy the evening.

So this is for you, the listeners, who will soon have a chance to read or hear this great new installment… I hope you have as much fun listening to it as I plan to have reading it. Cheers to that!

-Gabra Zackman

Recent Reads: THE ISLAND OF DOCTOR MOREAU

I'm afraid that, like with FRANKENSTEIN, my reaction to THE ISLAND OF DOCTOR MOREAU is "Thank God I've read that now, because now I never have to read it again."

The two books have more in common than I expected, which is silly, since I know what they're both about. MOREAU is much more bearable as a read, because the protagonist isn't nearly as sniveling as Frankenstein is, but the descriptions of pain and vivisection did not make me all that happy.

One aspect I did enjoy about both books (and indeed about A PRINCESS OF MARS, which I liked *far* more than either FRANKENSTEIN or MOREAU) is the utter flat-out no-explanation-required pulp science. The categorical statement of This Is How It is (best done in PRINCESS OF MARS, where John Carter absolutely blithely says, "…and over the next weeks I too developed my telepathic abilities," which are then taken as writ), particularly with those statements flying rabidly in the face of science as we know it, and probably science as we knew it then, too.

*That* is the aspect of pulp fiction–that and the outrageous descriptions–that most draws me to it. I would love to be able to tell a pulp fiction story just that way, though I wonder if you could even get away with it in the modern era. I'd love to try. I don't think it would be easy to do. I…well. *Can* it be done in a book written today? What if the book is set in the 1890s/1920s/1940s? Would a modern audience forgive it, in a modern book, or do they demand explanations? This is really a question of some interest to me, even if I'm not certain I've got the skill set to make it work anyway.