C.E. Murphy's Blog, page 53

atlantis fallen on the verge

So it turns out that in a lot of ways the ATLANTIS FALLEN revisions instigated by my cover artist weren’t as overwhelming as I thought they would be. I revised two chapters completely, retaining necessary information but basically presenting it almost entirely differently, and a third chapter…almost that significantly. Not quite. But almost.

Another 5-7 chapters had much less significant revisions, although in fact the last thing I did tonight was flag five of those chapters in a project note...

To-Done, Q1 2016

My To-Done 2016 (Work Version) thus far includes finishing the REDEEMER rough draft, revising ATLANTIS FALLEN (twice, and am partway through a third), launching MAGIC & MANNERS, writing 3 short stories, and revising one short story.

Somehow it doesn’t seem like very much when I write it down like that, and that just seems unfair. It’s felt like a huge amount of work. It’s BEEN a huge amount of work. It just doesn’t…look very impressive.

Anyway, that really is quite a lot to have gotten done,...

an unlikely knitting conviction

I apparently have some kind of conviction that I’m going to knit something, because I keep stopping and staring avariciously at yarn. I don’t knit. I mean, I knitted something once. A scarf. It turned out well! But…I don’t knit.

Despite that, today I came across this really pretty inexpensive dark blue sparkly yarn and…folded. I bought four skeins and two of black sparkly yarn and I have vague thoughts of a matching hat and scarf. And then since I was on the road to hell anyway I got some ch...

a terrible thing happened on the way to the revisions

I’d quite deliberately handed ATLANTIS FALLEN over to beta readers who didn’t know the world the serial numbers had been scraped off, in order to see if the worldbuilding held up! Because that was my big concern!

Except I also sent it my cover artist, who did know the old world, and she emailed me in the middle of reading it and said “So how come you didn’t do X with this instead of sticking with the Y you had in place?”

…well, because I didn’t think of that. God damn it.

She said, “You can...

Kit’s Busy Day Out

I went out to write today, and wrote an entire Old Races short story, 5700 words, which…pretty nearly did my brain in. I’m going to have to take a revision pass at it in a few days, because I’m not sure how coherent it is. At about 5K my brain dried up and I went to ask Twitter to cheer me on so I could finish it, and cheer they did. Good peeps, are Tweeps. :)

I dropped by Chapters Bookstore, too, to see if they had MAGIC & MANNERS in yet, and look what I found on the shelves, pretty as can b...

The Magic & Manners Project: Publication Process

Part two of my series on all-out self publishing, a project I’ve taken on with MAGIC & MANNERS, a Jane Austen pastiche in which I wondered what would happen if the Bennet sisters had too much magic rather than too little cash. Part One, which focuses on finding and working with a production team as well as developing a work flow (including a Helpful Check List) is here.

This week I’m going to look at the actual publication process. I’ve been working through Amazon and Ingram, who are both doi...

thinks to do, easter break edition

maybe if i write it all down i’ll get it done.

housecleaning
– living room
» vacuum
» perhaps wash windows ahahahah
» put laundry away
» deal with random trash
– kitchen
» vacuum
» windows
» put laundry away
» deal with random trash
» wash floors
– library
» vacuum
» windows
» deal with random trash
» deal with random *stuff*
– vacuum stairs
– our bedroom
» vacuum
» clear off dresser
» change sheets
– guest room
» vacuum
» change sheets
» put shoes away
– office
» vacuum
» put things away/tid...

beta readers

I did something very unusual this weekend, which was send a book out to beta readers. Normally I…don’t do that. Broadly speaking I feel writing a book is largely a closed loop between myself and my editor: she’s the source of feedback that I need, and I generally find adding more people in to that cycle to be very stressful.

I am, in fact, finding it very stressful, which is totally on me, not the readers: they’re providing feedback in exactly the way a writer wants them to, which is clearly,...

life’s a show…

We’re watching a tv show where one of the storylines is set in India. In the second episode there was a spontaneous song and dance routine. Ted said, “I’m pretty sure people in India don’t actually spontaneously burst into song and dance all the time, but if they do, we’re really living in the wrong country.”

I then got into a discussion on Twitter about how movies from America in the 1950s also suggest that Americans drop into song and dance at the drop of a hat. A friend said when he was a...

family, food, funny

Nephew: Excuse me? I have an important question. How powerful is Captain Britain? Could he beat Superman?

Me, having already described the “the one who serves the story best” aspect of this kind of question and delighted to be asked: I *believe* CB’s power is drawn from the spirit of the British people, so potentially yes but probably only under certain circumstances.

Nephew: Right, great, okay. How about Captain Britain against Juggernaut?

Me: They’d go toe to toe.

Nephew departs, totally ha...