2020: There Can Be No Purpose In This

In trying to figure out this post, my mind kept drifting to the early Neil Gaiman graphic novel Signal to Noise.  Excepting a couple of volumes of The Sandman, it's my favourite thing Gaiman's written, and it's always stuck with me, but I'd rather hoped that its tale of a dying writer pressing on with a final project he knows he'll never complete wouldn't ever feel as relevant as it does now.  Not that I'm dying - I mean, not that I know of - but I'm three months into a book it's unlikely I'll even be able to finish, let alone attempt to sell.  Right now, I'm writing because, with months of near-total isolation behind me and many more ahead, I've no idea what else to do with myself.  Though I've effectively been out of paying work for half a year, I have underlying health problems that make hunting a new job in the middle of a pandemic a particularly dicey move.

And so I find my brain coming back to Signal to Noise, and especially to that one quote: "Today I did something strange.  I started to write.  There can be no purpose in this.  Still, I am writing."

2020 wiped me out in pretty much every conceivable way.  But specifically for the purposes of this post, it's left my career in tatters and killed off any real possibility that I can keep writing full time, with a large percentage of my output in limbo or languishing in other ways.  No doubt that has a lot to do with the pandemic that's wrecked so much for so many, so it's not like I feel singled out, but it's hard to know to what extent the year wouldn't have still gone disastrously if it had only thrown up the usual share of mishaps and complications.

I was supposed to have six and possibly seven books out in 2020.  Only one made it, my SF novel To End All Wars, and so far the sales figures for that - a book I poured more of myself into than anything I've written and, for me, definitely among the best I've produced - have been the lowest of any I've released.  Truth be told, I've had other books not do so great, and of course it's never fun, but those didn't break my heart so hard as this one.  I feel like there's a parallel universe somewhere where To End All Wars must have found its audience and connected with a bunch of people as something pretty unique, First World War-set science fiction mysteries with gay protagonists not exactly being ten a penny.  Hopefully publisher Aethon might yet figure out how to reach that readership, but in the meantime, if you've enjoyed any of my work and not yet picked it up, maybe now's a good time to?

As for those other five books, they were all with Michael Wills and his outfit Digital Fiction, which has been my principle publisher for the last four years.  One, of course, was the fourth and final entry in the Black River series, Graduate or Die, and another was my novella Graveyard of Titans; both are finished and have been ready to go since early summer.  The other three were my debut Tales of Easie Damasco series, which Michael persuaded me to withdraw from their original publisher Angry Robot so that he could give them a fresh lick of paint and an exciting re-release.  Clearly, none of that's happened, and I'd be lying if I claimed I know why.  Michael has mostly ignored my emails since the back end of 2019, but what he has said is that he's had a tough time in the pandemic and that he's seriously considering closing Digital Fiction, which already appears to be largely shuttered.  He's also, in fairness, said he still intends to put out these five books, but won't tell me when or discuss details.  With 2020 over and not a ghost of a release date, there doesn't seem much room for optimism.

All of that bad news would have been easier to suck up if there'd been any good news to counter it.  I guess the one book I haven't mentioned, the mysterious novella I'd hoped to have announced by now, falls into that category, except that here we are and I still can't, so the best to be said on that front is that it'll hopefully be a positive note in the very near future.  As for the short fiction side of things, the year got off to a fantastic start, with Ghost Drive in new market Hybrid Fiction and Not Us going to Nightmare, along with reprint sales of Casualty of Peace to The Dark and Parasite Art being picked up for this year's NewCon Press SF best-of.  Had it gone on in that vein, I'd have been more than happy, but the last nine months have been a wasteland: there's one sale I can't reveal yet and, fingers crossed, another coming soon, but given the staggering number of hours I've put in to revising and submitting short fiction, the results are effectively a disaster.

If all of this sounds as if I'm giving up, it's not like I've much of a choice at present.  I've no writing income and no particular hope of more coming along in sufficient quantity to save me from ruin.  But I have a couple of novels finished and a couple more at first draft stage, and I've spent a lot of the last six months readying a second short story collection, compiling and polishing a bunch of work I'm especially proud of, so I guess the time will come when I make moves in those directions.  It just won't be my priority if an alternative should come along.  Even were it not for the financial pressures, I don't have the heart for it right now.  Frankly, the publishing world hasn't treated me too kindly for the most part, and that's been particularly true of the last few months.  I am, at the very least, ready for a sizable break in which I try to figure out what the hell it is I'm doing.

Fortunately, there was some good that come out of 2020 - I've finally learned some slightly more than basic cooking skills, thanks to the rather brilliant Simplycook, my oldest friend has moved to the right end of the country, and at the very least I've enjoyed writing an absurd number of anime reviews - but my professional life has mostly been one long kick to the face, and I could do without twelve more months of that.  Up until recently, the plan was to wrap up the first draft of a book no one would read and then, assuming I could do so without major risk of death, look for whatever jobs people do who've gone from being self-employed in a profession nobody respects into an employment market ravaged by months of plague and government incompetence - but given the present vaccination schedules, even that's starting to look optimistic.  So who knows, maybe this new book will end up getting finished after all, whether I want it to or not?

How To Make a Black River Cover (Part 2)

So last time we'd settled on a direction, and our fantastic artist Kim Van Deun was about to embark on the real work of making what would eventually be the cover of the third Black River novel, Eye of the Observer.  That direction wasn't much besides a crude black and white sketch, but it was enough to give us both a sense of what the final image would entail, especially given that Kim and I had already gone over in detail what needed to be on there.

Now, the immediate purpose of a cover is obviously to offer the prospective reader a sense of what the book behind it is going to entail.  But for me, the fun of a cover lies in tailoring it to the reader who's already spent their hard-earned cash and is looking at that same image over and over, trying to relate it back to the story they've developed whatever amount of familiarity with.  In the first case, I figured that you if you were the sort of person who'd enjoy The Black River Chronicles, there was a good chance you'd be grabbed by a party of teenage heroes facing off against a giant floating eyeball.  But I really wanted there to be a definite setting that drew from the narrative, and to include a couple of direct nods to specific plot points: hence the mysterious city cut from the cavern walls in the background, and the fact that the gang have some brand new gear, and especially the fact that, if you look really carefully at the final image below, there's a carving on the stonework that happens to look an awful lot like the head of Arein's staff and also like a certain mythological monster.  All of that was in the pitch I initially sent over to Kim.

However, we weren't quite at the stage where that was going to be relevant yet.  As such, the next versions I saw were the ones to the right, and the process was still very much about ensuring that everything was in the correct place.  Which it mostly was; it was clear that the basic composition was coming together, and that foregrounding Arein and Pootle was going to work just fine.  Already it was really only a case of tweaking details, and you can see what changed between those two versions: Pootle's design is becoming more specific, but the crucial difference is one of shuffling everything around so that we can fit four main characters plus a giant eyeball on the limited real estate of a single cover.


By their nature, the Black River books have busy covers.  Look at the fronts of most fantasy novels and you'll notice that we're somewhat unusual in that respect.  The current trend is much more in the direction of abstract images - oh look, it's a sword! - or single figures of the hot guy with a sword / hot girl in a cloak variety.  Whereas it's pretty much essential that we have four characters right there, and that they're all fully visible.  (It broke my heart a little that we couldn't also get Caille and Pootle on the front of The Ursvaal Exchange, but you can only push things so far!)

At any rate, this was the aspect we worked to get right by degrees through the final stages.  In the images to the right, it's clear that Tia's getting short shrift, and as much as everything else is nearly there in the very-nearly-finished version above, the problem is kind of the opposite: Tia's taking up too much space, and also looks like she's balanced on the tip of Arein's staff!  On the other hand, that was pretty much the only thing wrong by then, and on the whole, I think it's safe to say that we had a stunning image on our hands.  Aside from Tia, the subsequent tweaks were extremely minor: to the colour of Pootle's eye, to the buildings in the background, which didn't quite match their description in the book, and to Hule's outfit, which was drifting a little too far from his usual look.  In general, though, it was obvious that the final result was going to be stupendous ... and sure enough, it was!

How To Make a Black River Cover (Part 1)

I've said half-jokingly that working with artists is my favourite part of being an author, and though obviously I enjoy all that writing stuff too - at least on the good days! - it's not a million miles from the truth;  I never quite get used to the privilege of having someone incredibly talented produce something totally amazing on my behalf.  And while I'm sure not everyone is as emotionally involved in my book covers as I am, still, I reckon there are a few people out there who are curious about how this stuff works, right?  So I thought it might be interesting, with the permission of our terrific Black River cover artist Kim Van Deun, to reveal a little of how these stunning images come to be.  Unfortunately, that's inevitably going to mean a few SPOILERS, so be warned, and maybe don't read this until you've read Eye of the Observer - yet another excuse to grab a copy if you haven't already!

Of course, by the time we got to this third book, I'd already worked with Kim twice before.  I didn't have so much input on the cover of Level One, my co-creator and editor Michael Wills handled that one, but I got to see the work in progress, and so I had an idea of Kim's process by the time we got to The Ursvaal Exchange.  There, Mike and I swapped roles altogether, and I even had strict instructions to surprise him with the finished image, which is a lovely position of trust to be placed in as a writer, but would have been kind of intimidating if I hadn't known I could rely on Kim to deliver!

With that behind us, I had no worries when Mike said much the same about Eye of the Observer; the process had been a pleasure and I felt I knew how to play to Kim's considerable strengths.  However, I wasn't quite so certain about what ought to grace the front of this one as I'd been with the last.  There's a definite balance, especially once you're midway into a series: on the one hand, you want to give enough information to a prospective reader that they'll have a fair idea of why they should pick up your book, but on the other, you don't want reveal anything that might ruin crucial plot points.  This was straightforward enough with Level One, in that we were really just trying to convey the core concept, and The Ursvaal Exchange had a relatively early scene that was an ideal fit.  This time around, the balancing act wasn't so straightforward, and the scene I had in mind occurred relatively late on.

Being the sort of person who tends to think out loud, I'd said all this in my initial pitch to Kim.  There was a lot I was definite on: the underground setting that's basically the whole second half of the book, the ruins, the nod to the Dwarven city and the idea of subtly hinting at what it's hiding.  But the question we started out grappling with was, do we explicitly show Pootle or don't we?  Both approaches had their advantages and disadvantages.  However, initially I found myself leaning toward keeping an air of mystery - and the result was the image up there at the top.  Even at the thumbnail stage, there was a lot that I liked; this is still perhaps my favourite take on Arein, with a perfect balance of yearning and trepidation in the way she's reaching toward Pootle, and the rest of the party look great too.  But it was immediately apparent that, from the back, it was awfully hard to tell what Pootle was.  Are they looking at a big rock?  A beach ball?  The moon?  Hiding a giant eyeball's one distinguishing feature might not be the best way to go!

That discussion left us with four thumbnail sketches, one of them the image here and the remainder variations on these two.  In the alternative designs, there was no ambiguity: Pootle was front and centre.  The result was more immediately striking, but it brought its own share of issues, the most obvious of which being that Arein, effectively our protagonist for this third book, had her back to us.  (You'll probably have noticed that, for obvious reasons, covers don't generally show characters with their backs to the reader!)  And since I couldn't choose between the two, I did what I always do: pester friends, family, and anyone else who'd listen for their opinions.  The result was an ever-so-slight preference toward the second design, one that basically came down to the fact that there was something very cool about Pootle looming there dead centre with that glowing light behind it.  So, after much discussion, we had a direction, and now the real hard work could begin - well, for Kim, at least!

To be continued...

Back in Black (River)

First the good news: the third novel in the Black River Chronicles series, Eye of the Observer, is about to head off for copy-editing, and I wouldn't be at all surprised if we have a cover to show off in the near future.  The release date isn't set yet, but I don't think it's going to be too far off.  Maybe start saving your pennies for the end of spring, early summer at the latest?  As I've mentioned elsewhere, there have been some delays along the way, but they're all sorted now, the wheels are turning, and I'm so, so pleased with how this one worked out.  In many ways, it feels like a book I've been itching to write for an age; the basic concept has been nagging at me for a long, long time.  And it gave me an opportunity to push four characters I really do care about harder than I ever have before.  Because that's how you show you care about your characters, right?  By putting them through the worst sort of torments you can come up with?

(Okay, yeah, it's probably a good thing I chose to write fiction instead of having kids.)

Second, the other good news: I just now returned the signed contracts for the fourth and final book in the series.  Yes, final ... this one's going to wrap up the story Mike and I began way back at the end of 2015, and I promise you, it's going to be all sorts of epic.  We're going to be leaving Durren, Tia, Arein, and Hule - and let's not forget Pootle, given what a major player he is in book 3! - a heck of a distance from where we met them way back in Level One.  As you'll see in Eye of the Observer, graduating is rapidly becoming the least of their worries, and there's no guarantee that everyone's going to reach the end in one piece, or even in roughly the same shape.  In fact, after the events of that third book, there's not much guarantee of anything!

Thirdly, the other other good news: if all goes to plan, Eye of the Observer won't be the only book I have out from Digital Fiction Publishing this year.  That's all somewhat up in the air at the moment, but there's a meaningful chance that a few long-gestating projects will see the light of day before 2019 is out.  Any one of them will be exciting; if we somehow pull off the lot then that's going to be pretty damn amazing.

But in the immediate future, it's all about the Black River Chronicles, and I wouldn't have it any other way.  I'm thrilled at the notion of finally cracking into the last book, and I'm equally thrilled at the prospect of putting book three together once and for all and having my words behind another cover by the astonishing Kim Van Deun and getting this things into the hands of those folks who've been good enough to follow us this far.

The Bad Neighbour Available to Pre-Order

September seems like a long way off, but it really isn't, is it?  In fact, in about four months' time my sixth novel - and my crime debut - The Bad Neighbour will be out to buy as part of Flame Tree Press's exciting opening line-up, which also features a whole host of impressive fantasy, SF, and horror names, including Tim Waggoner, Ramsey Campbell, and John Everson.

Fortunately, Flame Tree are a bit more aware of the calendar than I am, as I recently discovered via Michael Wills, my editor over at Digital Fiction Publishing.  Probably that's not how these things are meant to work, but hey, the important point is that The Bad Neighbour is available for pre-order in a whole host of exciting places.

I will, of course, be going into greatly more detail on the book the closer we get to the release date, and about why I think it's great and you really ought to read it, but for the moment, here's the blurb:

When part-time teacher Ollie Clay panic-buys a rundown house in the outskirts of Leeds, he soon recognises his mistake. His new neighbour, Chas Walker, is an antisocial thug, and Ollie's suspicions raise links to a local hate group. With Ollie's life unravelling rapidly, he feels his choices dwindling: his situation is intolerable and only standing up to Chas can change it. But Ollie has his own history of violence, and increasingly, his own secrets to hide; and Chas may be more than the mindless yob he appears to be. As their conflict spills over into the wider world, Ollie will come to learn that there are worse problems in life than one bad neighbour.

Needless to say, pre-orders are a huge deal in publishing, and it will do the book no end of good to get a few - so if you're planning to grab a copy then now would be a terrific time to do so.  You can find The Bad Neighbour on Amazon UK and Amazon US, at Waterstones, and very likely at any other online bookseller of your choice as well.

Black River 3: The First Post

Is it too early to start discussing a book that I only began writing five weeks ago today?  Well, maybe, but I'm over halfway through, I have it planned out to the finish, and anyway, what the heck, right?  I want to talk about the next Black River novel.  I'm already excited about it, and there's no reason I shouldn't try and share some of that excitement!

So here are a few small teasers that I think it's okay for you to know at this early stage.  Rest assured that nothing here will meaningfully spoil your enjoyment of the third book (or even the first or second, if you haven't read those.)  But of course if you really want to come to this second sequel blind then you should probably stop reading right now.

For everyone who's left, here are six insights into what will be coming at the end of 2018:

- This One is Arein's Story

Astute readers may have spotted the fact that, while each of the two books so far has been about Durren, Tia, Hule, and Arein as a party, they did tend to focus in on one character in particular.  In Level One it was Durren; in The Ursvaal Exchange it was Tia.  Well, this time around it's Arein's turn.  And she's in for a rough ride.  You know how Arein's always been a bit scared of her own magic?  Now imagine how she'd feel if a spell ever got really, wildly, disastrously out of control.

- But it's also Pootle's Story, Kind Of

Where Arein goes, Pootle is sure to be following close behind.  And Pootle's a little mysterious; we've never really delved into just what's going on there.  How do observers work?  Why do they work?  Everyone's favourite floating eyeball may not have done much but hang around so far, but it's about to make its presence felt in a major way.

- It's a Dungeon Crawl

At least in part.  I've been intrigued for a long time with the notion of what a dungeon crawl would really be like; in D&D campaigns and video games, you spend days or even weeks underground, and not once does anyone get claustrophobic, or trapped by a cave-in, or stress about lugging a tent around or the practicalities of starting a campfire when you've been under the earth for so long that you barely remember what sunlight looks like.  And since I'm the kind of person who worries unduly about those sorts of practicalities - and since this series could hardly go on forever without some serious time spent in a proper dungeon! - that's a little of what we'll be delving into.

- There's a Scene That's (Loosely!) Based on My D&D Campaign

A small confession: before I began writing the Black River Chronicles, my hands-on experience with D&D extended to one afternoon at the house of a friend of a friend.  And since I insisted on playing as an alcoholic dwarf bodyguard who wouldn't lift a finger unless his client was in danger, it didn't go tremendously well.  But finding myself writing a series that draws from the game so heavily, I felt it was time I gave it a proper go, and I've been with my current group, under the not-so-tender ministrations of dungeon master Jimi Jibodu, for a few months now.  The scene in question was not, however, from Jimi's campaign but from a fill-in session DM'd by another member of the group.  I've modified it heavily, of course, to make sure that it slots comfortably into the book (and to not be a big plagiarist!)  Nevertheless, it's my first instance of D&D life influencing D&D art, and that warrants a place on this list.

- Book Three is Going to be a Bit Longer

Of these points, this is perhaps the one I'm least certain about right now; but midway through the chapter plan, the wordage was already at nearly two thirds of The Ursvaal Exchange's final count.  That doesn't necessarily mean a great deal, since I tend to write verbose first drafts and then hack them up heavily when I return.  Still, I've a feeling that this one might come in around the one hundred thousand words mark, which equates to a couple more chapters than the last.  It's a big, ambitious story, with an awful lot to cover.

- It Actually Already Has a Title

Last but certainly not least ... the third Black River book has a working title, which may or may not end up being the final title.  Currently it's called Eye of the Observer - which might raise some interesting questions for readers who've followed the series so far!

-oOo-

So there we are: a tiny glimpse into what's coming in, oh, about eight months time now.  There's a great deal still to be written, and a vast amount of editing to come once the writing's done, but for all that, it's safe to say that The Black River Chronicles: (maybe!) Eye of the Observer is beginning to come together.  I'm certainly having a ton of fun writing it, which always tends to be a good sign!

The Black River Chronicles: Who Would You Be?

I was once asked in an interview, "If you could live in the world of a fantasy novel, which one would it be?" and again, "If you could be any one of your characters, who would you choose?"  The answer to both questions was the same: I wouldn't want to live in any fantasy world, thank you very much, and certainly not one of my own.  Those places are dangerous!  I mean, real life is dangerous, but fantasy lands are seriously dangerous.  I might stub my toe, or slip on an icy pavement, or get a funny tummy from eating shrimp that's been in the fridge for too long, but I don't expect to ever have to stare down a dragon.

But if I was going to be a character in a fantasy novel, especially one of my own, I wouldn't pick anyone at the Black River Academy; even by relative standards, it seems severely hazardous.  And if I had kids, I wouldn't let my kids go there either.  Oh, that head tutor Borgnin might make a big show of having safety measures in place, but have you ever seen them in action?  Have they once teleported out a party that were about to be splatted by trolls or devoured by giants?  Well, maybe; I mean, I don't want to disparage the educational establishment in my own books.  Still, I'd be awfully wary if I found myself there, and I wouldn't waste any time buying a ticket on the first stagecoach to Luntharbor, which frankly sounds like a far nicer spot.

Now, I realise that I'm a grump with no sense of adventure and perhaps too healthy a sense of self-preservation, and not everyone's like me.  Some people enjoy imagining themselves as characters in even the most dangerous of stories, and no doubt there's at least someone out there who's thought "Boy, I'd sure like to be one of the students in those Black River Chronicles, they seem to be having plenty of fun, what with the murderous shapeshifters and the savage unicorns and the poisonous giant toads and the walking corpses."

For those people: congratulations on being much braver than I am.  And I've made you a little quiz.  Because there's no use imagining yourself as a character in the Black River Chronicles without knowing which of the party you're most suited to be, right?  I mean, maybe you're envisaging yourself as Hule when you'd be much better off as Arein; maybe you like the idea of firing off the odd arrow and running away a lot the way Durren does, but you'd be far better off slinking around in the shadows and generally being all Tia-like?  Or, you know, perhaps you're be best off as a floating eyeball that really doesn't contribute all that much.  Because that's an option, too!

The point being: there's now a Black River Chronicles quiz.  And you can find it here.  Have fun!  And don't come complaining to me if you don't get the answer you want, it was created using rigorous science and is totally infallible!

2017: Achievement Unlocked

It occurred to me when I started planning this year-just-gone's concluding post that there's a bias inherent in the system: I always write these things at Christmas and Christmas is my least favourite time of year.  I mean, not Christmas itself, exactly, but the dark depths of winter are perhaps not the best vantage point from which to try and objectively summarize twelve months of one's life.  And usually when I look back a few months later, I'm surprised by how pessimistic I've been.

Which is to say, it feels like 2017 was a but rubbish right at this minute; but it's probably safe to assume that a large part of that is the dark and the cold and the fact that I've done next to nothing except line editing for what feels like a decade and is easily five whole months.  Argh, I'm so sick of editing!  And seriously, I'm never going to blunder into a situation where I have to deliver two manuscripts in immediate succession again, because doing so is an incredible, soul-sucking nightmare.  I swear, I've spent maybe two months of 2017 in the business of actually making up stories, and it hasn't been anywhere like enough.  Creatively speaking, I've had my ass kicked.  And that's not even to mention the unusually dreadful year I've had on the short fiction front, with a grand total of one new story sold in the entire twelve month period, a fact made all the worse by the weirdly disproportionate number of editors who just never bothered to get back to me or lost my story down the back of the sofa or whatever.

So, yeah, some stuff sucked.  But a lot didn't.  For a start, I got to try a couple of intriguing new sidelines: somehow I began a tangential career as an interviewer, and got to talk to Joanne Harris and Adrian Tchaikovsky in front of live audiences, both of which were amazing experiences; and thanks to Michael Wills and Digital Fiction Publishing, I got my teeth into slush-reading, which led me to some stunning authors I'd never have encountered otherwise and gave me the chance to help more people get to read their work.  Most importantly, for me at least, The Black River Chronicles are out there in a major way and finding readers: Level One is already proving popular, and with The Ursvaal Exchange released as of late November, we now have a fledgling series for readers to get their teeth into.  It's a book that I'm really excited for, the first I've had out that I felt went mostly right from the beginning and ended up being more or less exactly what I'd intended, and I'm eager to see what people make of it.  Especially since I'm really close to beginning the third book, which is another step up in ambition and another broadening of the world that Mike and I have concocted.  I love this series, and that there are increasingly other people out there who love it is reassuring to know.

And actually, on a personal level, 2017 has been a mostly solid year, too.  There were some crappy moments, sure - I could happily never end up in A&E with an eye infection again ever - and maybe a bit more work than I could reasonably cope with.  But I finally feel like I'm settled back in the north after my years of IT contracting in the wilderness, and that I have stuff going on here, whether it's pub-crawling around Sheffield with that Ian Sales bloke or board-gaming or my D&D campaign (and yay for my D&D campaign, the most fun that I could possibly have while pretending I'm researching for The Black River Chronicles!)  In fact, my birthday celebration, which somehow managed to drag together people from all across the spectrum of my life, was perhaps the nicest birthday I've had - and huge thanks to everyone who made it, your presence meant a lot.

Here's the really exciting thing, though, and the thing that definitively tips 2017 from an okay to a basically good year: this was the first year since I walked away from my regular job that I didn't have to dip into my savings even slightly.  While I didn't exactly manage to live off my writing income, I came considerably closer than on any previous occasion.  I have no idea if this is sustainable, let alone if a level of success where I get to write full time and not be majorly hard up is ever going to be on the cards, but I've already done a little better than I seriously expected to when I walked the plank out of my safe, well-paid IT career.

Oh, and a big part of the reason why is that I've sold another novel, which is due out next year.  I knew there was something else!  But that's kind of a secret right now, so I can't tell you which book it is or who the publisher is or anything at all useful.  The proper announcement should be along sooner rather than later, and it's probably enough to say that this is something wholly, wildly different from anything I've had out before, and that the publisher is one I'm thrilled to be working with, having seen the sort of extraordinary work they've released in the past.

So that was 2017.  I had a new novel out and sold a couple more, both of which are due for 2018.  I managed to keep my head above water; I get to keep doing the job that I (mostly!) love for another twelve months, at the very least.  And whether I end up looking back at this past year as a turning point or a lucky fluke, I feel as though I've proved to myself that the decision I made four and a bit years ago wasn't wholly idiotic, and that alone is enough to make 2017 a win.

The Ursvaal Exchange Begins

It's out!  The second of the Black River Chronicles, The Ursvaal Exchange, is available to buy in print and e-book as of the end of last week.  If you enjoyed Level One, I genuinely think you'll love this one; it builds in so many fun ways on the groundwork Mike and I laid there, and develops the gang and the world they inhabit in some directions that I for one find really interesting.  And if you're new to the series, I'm confident that this second book stands well on its own - though it would probably make more sense to just grab them both and begin from the beginning!

I've talked so much about this novel by now that I think, right here, I'll back off to touch on an aspect I've never officially addressed.  Eagle-eyed readers might notice that there's one name rather than two on the cover this time, and that it's mine.  This is because my co-creator and publisher, Mike Wills, decided that his input into the series doesn't warrant taking a full author co-credit.  And while there's perhaps no easy answer as to what does or doesn't constitute co-authoring a novel, I didn't want to let that pass without taking an opportunity to point out how, regardless of what names go where, this series has been Mike's baby from the beginning.  In truth, the initial concept was all his, and there are countless moments and details that were either direct suggestions or that spun out of me musing on his suggestions and off-hand comments.  (Just as an example, Hule's entire arc this time around comes from a detail that I felt bad about not being able to work into Level One!)

The point being, though I'm now listed as the sole author of these books and will be going forward, in my heart The Black River Chronicles will always be Mike's playground: one he built the foundations of and then, effectively, paid me to run around in.  Writing professionally isn't always the easiest of jobs, despite what you may have heard, but there's such a thing as a dream writing gig, and for me, this is it; I'm utterly in love with this world and this concept and these characters, and it's a joy to be spinning these tales.  Had Mike never pondered where fighters, wizards, rogues and rangers learn the basic skills to do the things they do, I'd never have met Hule, Arein, Tia and Durren; had he never left me trying to figure out how the four of them could go on multiple quests in one novel without spending half the book wandering the countryside, there would be no Pootle.

And I have big, big plans for Pootle!  But perhaps I'd do better not to spoiler the third book - because, yes, there's going to be a third book, which I'm plotting out now and will be starting early in the new year.  Which, come to think of it, is also pretty major news, right?

In the meantime, there's The Ursvaal Exchange - which you can buy is print and e-book in the US here and in the UK here.  And for those who haven't seen the blurb yet, here's a little insight into what our second chronicle is about:

Student ranger Durren Flintrand had thought he was settling in at the Black River Academy for Swordcraft and Spellcraft. But when rebellious rogue Tia Locke uncovers a horrifying secret in the dungeons beneath the school, Durren quickly realises that the challenges he's faced so far were scant preparation for what lies ahead.  Along with magic-averse wizard Arein and blunt but good-hearted fighter Hule, he and Tia find themselves on Black River's first student exchange program: they're being sent to the Shadow Mountain Academy in the dank and dismal land of Ursvaal, and they're going whether they like it or not. 

At Shadow Mountain, things are done differently. No longer is Durren a ranger but a bard, despite his lacking the slightest notion of what being a bard involves. And not only that but Tia is acting even more strangely than usual, Hule is taking being a paladin awfully seriously, and Arein has a new party member with ideas very different to her own to contend with, in the shape of irascible cleric Cailliper Ancrux - who wants nothing less than to be involved with Shadow Mountain's unpopular newcomers. 

The four Black River students will have to relearn everything they thought they knew; but the threats surrounding them aren't about to wait. Can they hope to survive an uprising of the dead, the winged horror that haunts this desolate land, and an ancient plot risen from the blackest depths of Ursvaal's history? And even if the somehow should, can Durren possibly overcome his tone deafness and learn to play the lute?

A Taste of The Ursvaal Exchange

It occurred to Mike and I that, with the release of The Black River Chronicles: The Ursvaal Exchange just around the corner, people out there might be interesting in reading a little sample of it beforehand.  It's still a day or two off being handed in, but basically I'm just proof-reading and the book's finished; so if you're reading this post then you're one of the very first people to get a look at it!  Without further ado, here's the opening scene...

So far, Durren thought - as he dodged to avoid a wad of saliva that splashed with a hiss against the trunk of the tree beside him - level two was turning out to be an awful lot like level one.

"Watch out for their spit!" he yelled to no-one in particular. "It burns."

"We wouldn't have to watch out if someone hadn't picked a campsite near a swamp," snapped back Tia.

Durren withdrew a hasty pace. The thing before him was monstrous: its slit eyes were yellow and bulbous, its mouth was a gash almost too wide for its head, its pale throat beat with a hypnotic pulse, and its skin was a crust of mottled purple. Nevertheless, despite the fact that what he was looking at was big as a large dog, he knew that the creature was basically a toad. And he was struggling to feel really intimidated by a giant toad.

Then the monster opened its mouth - the sight of that gaping cavity was almost paralyzing - and Durren barely had a moment to react as its tongue flicked out. He threw himself left, and the cord of pink flesh whipped past his ear, speckling him with stinging dribbles of saliva.

All right, he admitted to himself, that was intimidating.

Durren just kept to his feet. Nevertheless, he managed to free his bow from his shoulder and nock an arrow to the string, almost in the same smooth motion. That done, he spared a glance to make sure the others were all intact.

Hule was over to his right, and the big fighter already had his sword in hand. His expression was dour, though; he didn't look half as pleased as he normally did at the prospect of putting the weapon to use.

Arein was close to Hule, and the dwarfish wizard was conspicuously not casting any spells. Durren had hoped she was finally getting over her resistance to using magic, but apparently not today.

Tia, meanwhile, was to his left, the black of her cloak camouflaging her amid the shade of the trees. That she was still here at all surprised him; her first instinct as a rogue tended to be to vanish and attend to matters on her own.

All three of them were retreating towards the center of the clearing where they'd made their fire and raised their two tents, and Durren did the same - if only to get out of range of that hideous tongue. He dared one more glance, this time seeking their observer: the leathery, one-eyed entity that Arein, for reasons that made sense solely to her, had chosen to name Pootle. He spotted the little orb hovering near the treetops, staring down at them with grave attention.

In theory, someone back at the academy was watching them via the spell attuned to Pootle, and in theory they'd send help if the situation should grow too dangerous. But the five of them had been in some exceedingly dangerous situations before now and help had been conspicuous by its absence, so Durren wasn't holding his breath.

After a half-dozen steps, there was nowhere left to retreat to. Durren could feel the canvas of the nearest tent pressing against his ankle. He didn't like the idea of killing these dumb beasts, which were only being hostile because they knew no better. Do no harm unless harm be done was one of the Black River Academy's many cryptic mantras, and they'd been taught from the outset that their weapons were a final recourse, to be used when options such as talking and running were thoroughly exhausted.

Well, they were surrounded on all sides, so they wouldn't be running, and while Durren was no expert on giant toads, he was confident that their unusual properties didn't extend to making conversation.

Then the choice was out of his hands. As though with one mind, the toads were advancing from the shade of the clearing's outer edge. They moved in flabby hops that made their entire bodies quiver and covered a distance Durren could hardly believe. The one that had picked him out closed half the gap between them in a single leap. Barely had it touched the ground before it was in the air again and sailing towards him, its cavernous maw stretched wide.

Durren threw himself lengthwise and loosed his arrow. He heard the slap of the toad's landing, but didn't get to see whether his shot had flown true until he rolled back to his feet. The toad had come to rest on the nearer tent, the one that was his and Hule's. Its impact had collapsed the canvas wall, tearing the guy ropes loose. Durren's arrow had entered through the creature's throat and exited above its right eye; he could see where the metal head jutted, dripping violet ichor. Sprawled with arms and legs protruding, the toad's body practically covered the deflated tent.

Durren's first thought was, Now where am I meant to sleep? His second was the realization that the animal was dead and that he had killed it.

To his right, Hule was hacking at a cluster of three toads, all of which were managing to dodge aside with startling agility. Arein was waving her staff in the face of another, which seemed to Durren a singular waste of the most powerful tool at their disposal.

He considered telling her so, but by then a second toad had him in its goggle-eyed sights; he was alerted by a sizzle and a wet splatter, which he recognized for the sound of acid saliva striking the surviving tent. The culprit was glaring at him, in as much as an oversized amphibian was capable of glaring. Its mouth hung open, ready to unleash more spit or perhaps to unfurl its bullwhip tongue.

Durren cursed beneath his breath. Their actual quest had gone so smoothly - too smoothly, it seemed now. They'd been sent to sweep and clear some old mine workings supposedly infested with goblins, but they'd soon realized that the goblins had departed long ago, leaving only foulness and clutter to testify to their residence. Nevertheless, they'd explored from top to bottom, and Hule had insisted on drawing a map, even though Tia was adamant that the mining company would certainly have more accurate maps of their own.

But reaching level two, they'd been told, meant new challenges, and one of those was that they could no longer simply have Pootle transport them back to the academy once their quest was complete. Now they were to camp the night in the wilderness and travel the next day to a given extraction point.

All of which should have been straightforward - except that barely had they raised their tents and set a fire when the toads had found them.

Nearby, Arein yelped. Durren's initial impulse was to run and help her; the moment's distraction was enough that, when the toad spat again, he almost failed to duck aside in time. Immediately it seized upon the opportunity to hop closer - so that its mouth was suddenly right in front of him, like a fleshy passage into some awful netherworld. Durren's shock sent the arrow he loosed wide, grazing the creature's warty head and leaving a streak of violet, but otherwise merely making the beast angrier than it already was.

There was something unreasonably menacing about an enraged giant toad. Though Durren knew he should grasp for another arrow or for his short sword, he chose instead to stumble backwards, until a wash of heat alerted him to the fact that there was nowhere left to go - not with their campfire directly behind him. To right and left he was conscious of the others fighting, and instinct assured him that they too were being driven back. Hemmed in and encircled, they'd be in serious trouble.

Durren expected the toad to press its advantage; one good hop and it would be on him. Rather, it shifted sideways, keeping the same distance, its springy limbs unsuited to such careful maneuvering. Durren wouldn't have known where to begin in reading toad physiognomy, yet something in the way its eyes flickered told him it was troubled. Maybe his arrow had deterred the purple monstrosity after all, or maybe - 

"Fire!" Durren cried. Realizing that word alone wasn't useful, he added, "They don't like the fire ... that's why they're not coming any closer."

With his free hand, he snatched a brand from the flames, choosing a branch that blazed fiercely at one end and was untouched at the other. Still, the heat was intense. Durren ignored the discomfort and, not daring to give too much consideration to what he was about to do, charged towards the nearby toad. He bellowed incoherently - did toads even have ears? - and flailed with his improvised weapon, drawing stripes of fire across the air.

For a second he thought that he was wrong and that he was charging straight into the toad's yawning mouth: no animal, he felt, should be able to open its jaw so wide. Then the toad let out a raucous trill and took a rapid rearwards hop. Somehow it managed to flop around in midair, and its second bound carried it beyond the edge of the clearing, this time heading in the right direction.

By then Durren's torch was beginning to waver, and the licking flames threatened his fingers. He threw the brand after the retreating toad, wrapped his hand in his sleeve, and dashed back to the fire to claim another. He saw that both Hule and Tia had followed his example, and Arein had belatedly recalled that she was capable of casting spells: a ball of flickering orange burned about the tip of her outstretched staff.

Durren snatched up a second branch, but by that time there was really no need. Hule and Tia had both managed to dissuade their respective foes, and Arein was having even more success. The toads evidently weren't at all happy with this being not a great deal taller than themselves who could conjure fire out of thin air. Everywhere they were backing off or turning and fleeing, accompanied by a chorus of panicked croaking.

Seconds later and the battle was over. Nothing was to be seen of the toads except for a few scattered bodies and the desolation they'd left in their wake. Durren and Hule's tent might be ruined, and Arein and Tia's had three holes in its flank, seared by acid spittle; it wouldn't be offering much in the way of shelter if the gray skies overhead should unleash their burden of rain.

"Is everyone all right?" Durren asked.

Remembering how Arein had cried out, he realized that a gash had been burned in her left sleeve and that the red of singed skin was visible through the tear. Like the tent, she had evidently fallen foul of the toads' spit. Thankfully, the burn appeared slight, and Hule already had his water flask in one hand and a roll of bandage in the other. The fighter himself was unscathed, though his boots and trousers were filthy with mud; the ground of the clearing had been churned up by feet both humanoid and toad.

Durren looked to Tia, content in the knowledge that out of all of them she was certain to have escaped harm: uncommon dexterity was only one of the traits that made her wholly unsuited to being a mere level two student. Sure enough, she wasn't even out of breath. At that moment, having plucked a throwing knife from between the bulging eyes of a dead toad, she was wiping off the violet gunk that passed for their blood in the long grass.

Tia slipped the knife back into the bandolier she wore inside her cloak. "They won't stay away for long," she said. "We need to get packed up and away from here." She turned on Durren then, and her dark gray skin was darker still for the frown she wore. "And I don't care whether you're the ranger; I'm choosing where we spend the night."

"Look," Durren said, "this wasn't my fault. I mean, it was my fault, but it could have happened to anyone."

Tia's pale eyes were bright amid the shadows of her hood. "Oh ... really?"

Her tone sent a shiver through Durren's spine, but he wasn't willing to back down. "They just - you know - wandered here. Sometimes monsters do that. I mean, wherever you camp there's always a chance of that happening."

Tia's glare somehow intensified. "Durren, this wasn't some random encounter. This happened because you picked the wrong campsite. Now are you going to stand here arguing, or are you actually going to be some help?"

He gave up. She was right. If he concentrated, he could catch the acrid odor of unclean water that should have alerted him; there was a swamp nearby, and even a brand-new first level student should have the brains to appreciate that where there was a swamp there would be something unpleasant making its home. The fact was, the tiredness of a long day trudging through the mines had made him sloppy, as the stench of goblin refuse had muted his sense of smell.

He knew he should apologize. He would have done but for Tia's manner. He wasn't the only person who'd ever made a mistake, and her inability to be pleasant or even basically well-mannered hardly counted as good teamwork. Worse, he suspected she had let him go wrong to make a point; if she'd known the spot was no good, why couldn't she simply have told him so? Her attitude was just as much a liability to their party as his own act of carelessness.

Well, maybe not just as much. Still, he had no intention of saying sorry until she did. Except that Tia never would - Durren wasn't persuaded that dun-elves understood the concept - and that meant the rest of the quest was likely to be awkward at best.

With a sigh, he plodded over to make a start on the task of hauling the toad he'd killed off the remains of his and Hule's tent. This had already been a long day, and he had a hunch that he might not have seen the worst of it yet. Bloodthirsty giant amphibians were one thing, but he'd rather face those than Tia's bad temper.

Have they seen the last of those toads?  Does Durren stand a chance against an enraged Tia?  Does giant purple toad blood wash out?  The only way you'll find the answers to these and many other questions is to grab a copy of The Black River Chronicles: The Ursvaal Exchange in a couple of week's time!

The Ursvaal Exchange Cover Reveal

There's going to be a lot happening on the Ursvaal Exchange front in the coming weeks - we're awfully close to our mid-November release date, after all - but let's start with what's, for me, the most exciting part of the whole process.  We have a cover!  And it's glorious!

That's by Kim Van Deun, who painted the second cover for Level One and who I sincerely hope will be staying with us as we move forward with this series, because he's an astounding talent and it was a real pleasure putting this together with him - or rather, making a few vague suggestions and then getting out of the way while he sprinted off into the distance.  And as much as I like seeing my name written on things, it's even more impressive in full and without all that text cluttering things up:

Cool, right?  And since I know that we live in a world of fake news and misleading book covers, let me just say here, Hule really is going to get to wield that sledgehammer!

It's Nearly Time For The Ursvaal Exchange

It's in the nature of publishing that things move very slowly until suddenly they're moving very quickly indeed.  It seems only a couple of weeks ago that I was working to finish off the third draft of The Black River Chronicles: Level One sequel The Ursvaal Exchange, while Mike and I back-and-forthed about getting our star copy editor Anne Zanoni and our genius cover artist Kim Van Deun booked in.

And the reason for that is that it actually was only a couple of weeks ago.  But now the third draft is in Anne's more than capable hands, and now Kim and I have discussed where we'd like to go with this second cover, and basically it's all happening, with the finish line still a little way off but definitely in sight.  Having given my all to the third draft for the last couple of months, I'm rather glad that the book will be Anne's problem for the next few weeks, and that my main job now is just geeking out with Kim over how cool we can make this thing look.  Even based on the rough sketches I've seen, I can say that the answer is going to be, very damn cool indeed.  I sort of wish I could share them, but I can't, and not only for the obvious, publishing-secretiveness type reasons either.  Nope, I have to keep quiet because Mike's told me to sort out all that cover-related stuff myself this time around, and he doesn't want to see anything until it's done.  No pressure right?  Well, not really, as it turns out, since all I have to do is prod Kim in the general direction of ideas for an awesome image and then let him knock it out of the park.  Basically, covers are by far the most fun part of making books, and anyone who says differently is a liar.

(Though, hey, audiobooks are pretty fun too.  And I just reminded myself that the Level One audiobook that was recorded a while back has finally made its way through whatever labyrinthine process it takes to get an audiobook on Amazon.  It's also really astonishingly cheap - $1.66 at time of writing - and since it's not likely to stay that way forever, this might be the ideal time to nab a copy, yes?  And because I can't stop thinking or talking about covers right now, can I just say that this is my favourite version of Level One's: it's just so satisfyingly square, and I like the logo down there in the corner too.  Digital has cool logos, and they don't get showcased enough.)

Anyway, we were talking about The Ursvaal Exchange, right?  We don't have a release date locked down yet. at least not to the day, but I can say with confidence that it'll be out before Christmas, and hopefully by a comfortable margin.  There'll be more news, of course, as we have it; and who knows, perhaps a bit of a sample too?  That certainly seems like the sort of thing we could rustle up.

Level One Recovered

I remember writing a while back about how I've always been insanely lucky with audio adaptations.  If anything, I've been even luckier with covers.  To have seven books (and a comic) out and not have a single one I wasn't totally happy with is quite the thing.  Heck, even the covers to the German editions of Giant Thief, which had barely a thing to do with the actual book, were still pretty cool.  And really, who's to say that Easie Damasco doesn't look like a sexy ninja guy?  Not me.

I was thrilled with the original cover to The Black River Chronicles: Level One.  That's probably the one the most discussion went into, as Mike and I worked with Xerx to figure out exactly how these characters would look, even down to the sorts of little details that probably only we would ever notice.  It was a cool image, and it got right so much that was crucial to the book.  More than anything, I liked how nervous the gang looked: these weren't hardened fantasy heroes, they were basically a bunch of kids, and while they were trying to act tough, they weren't altogether succeeding.

But like I said, I'm insanely lucky with covers.  And now Level One has a new one, by the magnificently talented Kim Van Deun, and it's really a thing of beauty.  I mean, it's right there, I don't need to tell you!  I can guarantee it won't get any less great, too, because I've been staring at it off and on for the last two weeks and it's still really great.

I love how Tia's being all too cool for school there in the background.  I love how Hule's looking off in just the wrong direction, like that kid in the school photo who got distracted by a bee.  I love how Pootle looks like a crazy flying eyeball!  But maybe the biggest difference is that this time we get to see the gang out in the wilds, and somehow that feels exactly right to me.

To close, here's a look at the full image in all its glory.  And as ever you can purchase The Black River Chronicles: Level One from Amazon UK here and Amazon US here.

The Black River Chronicles 2 Levels Up

As of the start of this week, I've now more or less finished the second draft of Level One sequel and number two Black River Chronicle, the book tentatively titled The Ursvaal Exchange.  I say 'more or less' because I plan to do a bit of tweaking and polishing over the next couple of weeks, and to work through some minor issues flagged up by my ever-brilliant and almost too reliable friend and beta-reader Mr. Tom Rice, who agreed to help out at awfully short notice.

(I don't know that I've written a book that Tom hasn't had at least some influence over, and I probably don't thank him enough.  Thanks again, Tom!)

The second draft has been, I have to admit, kind of an uphill slog - which is strange given what a breeze the first was.  Or maybe that's so strange?  Looking back, that first run through was such a pleasure because I was caught up in the story I was telling and enjoying being back with this cast of characters that I'm more than a little in love with.  Perhaps it's no wonder I ended up waxing a bit too lyrical!  But all of that lyrical wax needed to be boiled down to serviceable prose at some point, and the last few weeks have seen a lot of boiling.

Then there's the fact that this second chronicle, as befits a sequel, is operating on a rather grander scale.  It's a good bit longer, it juggles more characters and digs more deeply into all of them, and - I think the biggest change - it has some seriously involved action sequences.  The thing is, Mike and I were determined that the challenges our heroes met were going to scale to match the fact that they're now level two adventurers, and that meant stacking the odds against them in a way we'd never have dreamed of in Level One.  And that means some serious threats, the sort that make a few angry rat-people or the odd murderous unicorn pale into insignificance - which in turn requires the sort of elaborate action that spreads across multiple chapters and locations.

Thinking about it, that might be the real reason this second draft has been so tough.  Maybe because I find it easy to get caught up in the excitement when I'm writing it, action tends to be the most difficult challenge at the editing stage.  The result, though, is a couple of sequences I'm seriously pleased with, and that feel so much bigger than anything that happened in Level One - a book that was, after all, always intended to be more intimate than epic.

So what happens next?  Well, after those two weeks of tweaking I'll be taking a month away to let my brain reset.  Then August will be given over to the third and final major draft, to be followed in close succession by copy-edits and proofreading and by the book actually coming out in October or thereabouts - which actually seems awfully close now that I come to think of it!

We Want Your Dragons

Wait, you wanted dragon STORIES?

We're about halfway through the submissions period for Hic Sunt Dracones, the Digital Fiction Publishing dragon-themed anthology that I'm slush-reading for, and we've had a more than solid response so far, one that's included some pretty terrific stories.  But we don't have near the material for a full book yet, so I thought now might be a good time to spread the word a little.

Hic Sunt Dracones is reprint-only, with payment being one cent a word and enrollment into the Digital Fiction Publishing League, which would take way too much explaining here but basically means that there's a realistic chance you might see some royalties at some point; you can find the full details and the submissions form here.

And here's what editor Michael Wills has to say about what he's after:

Dragons - bad-ass dragons. Dragons that destroy things and eat people, and the people/robots/aliens/time lords that fight them or out-smart them - or get eaten by them. No story book dragons that live in forests helping orphans or peddling psychedelics. My dragons eat orphans for breakfast. Timeline and setting is wide open. Your dragons aren't necessarily getting stabbed by swords - but swords are welcome too. I want dragons - awe inspiring fear provoking monsters. They can be mechanical, mystical, steam-powered, alien, aquatic, from another dimension, or from outer space - but they must be terrifying beasts of destruction. Here be dragons.

For my part, I'd add that I could live with a dragon that wasn't wholly bad-ass, so long as it was contained in a story that was really splendid.  I mean, I think that in a pinch we might be flexible on that one; so don't let the fact that your dragon is only quite terrifying or destructive be too much of a decider.  For me, what we haven't seen enough of yet are those other kinds of dragon: the mechanical, mystical, steam-powered, alien, aquatic, from another dimension, or from outer space ones.  Lots of trad fantasy, absolutely; lots of comic fantasy, too, though not all of it terribly comic.  But I'm itching for some really good dragon sci-fi, or dragon horror for that matter.  It feels to me that there's more scope here than we've yet seen.  (And it's worth noting that those stories that have bucked the trends have frequently been among the best; or maybe that's just my tastes talking.)

Anyway.  The point is, we want your dragon stories.  And despite what I've said, they can be traditional as all get-out so long as they're good; believe me, I've put forward stories as old-school as anything, where they were genuinely excellent.  So give us your fantasy dragons.  Give us your science-fiction dragons.  Give us your tired dragons, your poor dragons, your huddled masses of dragons yearning to breathe fire freely.  Based on what we've seen already, this promises to be one hell of an anthology; wouldn't you like to be part of it?

Black Rivers, White Thornes, and Other Novel News

I sure do seem to have a lot of works-in-progress!  But, at least until we get towards the back end of the year, 2017 is very much about just two of the however-many books I have at one stage or another, and about getting that pair finished and out the door.

First up, and the obvious one, there's the sequel to last year's The Black River Chronicles: Level One.  And the good news is, the first draft was basically a delight: I doubt there's ever going to come a point where writing a novel in under two months is less than a challenge, but this was as close as I expect to get, and a pleasure to boot.  There were so, so many things I wanted to accomplish with this book, and so many ideas that Mike and I kicked about, and I'm stunned to find that I feel like all of them are at least within reach: maybe not entirely there on the page just yet, but definitely waiting to be uncovered.

Sequels, I'm finding, are easier than beginnings, but that's not to say they're easy.  In this case, I had a whole laundry list of ways in which I wanted to move the groundwork of Level One forward: fresh arcs for Durren, Arein, Tia and Hule, and challenges that would really push them beyond their comfort zones; a new setting, complete with new characters; a greater sense of the Black River Chronicles world; more depth as to how magic works; and, of course, a ton of D&D jokes, because I can't imagine a day when D&D jokes aren't the lifeblood of this series.  The result is, I hope, a book that will follow on in exciting ways for anyone who's read the first but works just fine on its own - which, again, isn't exactly all that easy to pull off.  Anyway, there are a couple of drafts to go yet, and who knows what will change in the process?  Still, there's a great deal to be said for a successful first draft, given how, with the smallest of mistakes, they can go so horribly wrong.  Getting things more or less right on the first try always feels to me a little like avoiding a twenty car pile-up by the skin of my teeth.

White Thorne, my (in retrospect, stupidly overambitious) medieval, magical realist crime thriller, has been an altogether different prospect - but the news, somehow, is still rosy.  The first draft was soul-crushing and heartbreaking, as I tried to juggle too many balls and had to watch helplessly as half of them went flying about the room, smashing valuable ornaments and causing a few nasty concussions.  But, you know, one of the brilliant things about writing under your own steam is that you can keep at your work until you get it right.  In this case, that meant a long break, advice from some wise and trusted friends and then digging away over a six month period: really, digging is the absolutely best word.  That first draft felt like I'd managed to bury the intriguing plot and distinctive characters and months of historical research in my head beneath an inordinate amount of crud.  And the second became an exercise in aggressive archeology, sometimes with a trowel but frequently with an excavator.  By the end, I'd cut an entire novella's worth of wordage.

Over the summer I'll be returning for a third and (I hope) final draft, in which I'll mostly be trying to restore the polish to a book that's no doubt pretty raw and beaten-up from the brutality of our last go around.  And then, I guess, I'll have to starting thinking about trying to sell the thing.  Which, fortunately, isn't a worry with The Black River Chronicles: Mysterious Secret Title That I Can't Announce Yet But That Definitely Isn't Level Two, which I guess is yet another advantage of sequels.  You can expect that one before the end of the year - by which time I'm hopeful that all the stuff that's good right now will be really, really good.

10 Reasons You Should be Submitting to Digital Fiction Publishing

Anyone who's been paying any attention to my work over the last couple of years will notice that I've become rather attached to Canadian small press Digital Fiction Publishing: Digital salvaged my collection The Sign in the Moonlight and Other Stories last year after Spectral Press went belly up, and the back end of 2016 saw the release of The Black River Chronicles: Level One, which I co-created with DFP head honcho Mike Wills; a sequel will be arriving before the year is out.  On top of that, I've lost track of just how many Digital anthologies I've been in.  (I mean, not because it's that many, just because my memory's rubbish.  But it's definitely more than a few.)

Obviously I consider Digital worth sending my work to; I wouldn't keep doing it otherwise.  And, in the wake of a bit of terrifically good news from them, I thought now might be the time to explain why, and to list some reasons that all genre writers should be jumping at the opportunity to push work their way.

1) They Pay For Reprint Rights

A cent a word, to be exact, which seems to be about the market rate - though the actual deal is rather better than that, as we'll come to in a minute.  But, right here, let's just acknowledge that there are very few markets that even accept reprints, let alone who trade in them exclusively.

2) Their Terms Are (More Than) Reasonable

Having been in since the beginning, I've seen a few iterations of the DFP contract, and it's only got better for writers with each version.  You don't often see a publisher bending over this far backwards to be honest and fair.

3) They Make Your Work Feel Special

There's a fair chance your story will be released as a baby e-book all of its own, as well as part of an anthology, and these are reliably gorgeous, as the examples scattered about hopefully illustrate.  Failing that, DFP is now edging into hardback releases, which are looking downright stunning.

4) They Publish Good Books

I'm a little biased on this front, for various reasons, but Digital have been putting out some very good product since the beginning.  I'm up to date with nearly all of the DFP collections I've had stories in, and I've definitely enjoyed the bulk of what I've read.  (The one novel I've found time for, Terry Madden's Three Wells of the Sea, was terrific too.) 

5) I'm Slush-Reading For Them

Okay, so maybe not a reason to submit as such, but if you send in a story for the Digital fantasy imprint once it reopens, or for the currently open Hic Sunt Dracones anthology of dragon stories, then there's a fair chance I'll be reading it.  And, if it's really good, I'll most likely recommend it for publication.

6) They Have Fast Response Times

Like, really fast for fantasy submissions, because I'm too obsessive-compulsive to let subs sit for long.  But averages across the various imprints range from a couple of weeks to at worst a couple of months, which is pretty damn good in my experience.

7) Their Books Get Attention

First Contact, for example, the original Digital Fiction Publishing collection, is up to fifty-seven reviews on Amazon US; I've been in a fair few anthologies, and not many get that kind of notice.  But then, that's at least in part because...

8) They Promote

 Right from the beginning, Digital has been pushing its books hard, with copious amounts of both time and money.  So if your works ends up in one of them, the odds are good that people will actually get to read it. 

9) They Pay Royalties

Nearly last up, the biggie, and the reason I decided to put this article together in the first place: have work published by Digital and you'll get a share in the profits from every single
  Digital book.  Once those shares exceed your initial payment, you get more money - and keep getting more money.  I know this because I just got my first royalty payment, and it was for a solid chunk of cash.  As far as I can tell, this basically makes Digital a co-op, and how marvelously insane is the notion of a co-op publisher?  If the list consisted of this one reason alone then that should be enough.

10) I don't have a point 10

Though I'm sure I could think of one if I really tried.  Um.  Their website is really shiny?  But, okay, not a reason to submit, as such.  Okay, how's this?  Digital even have the decency to pay their slush-readers, so the more submissions, the more money I make, and just maybe if you and I run into each other I'll have sufficient pennies saved up to buy you a drink.

Or, more likely, I'll buy more nineties anime to review here on the blog.  So hey, win, win.

So, look, Digital is open right now for that Hic Sunt Dracones anthology I mentioned, as well as for a second volume of horror stories by female authors, Killing it Softly 2.  You can find the guidelines for both of those here.  And most likely the regular fantasy, horror, science-fiction and flash fiction imprints will be opening for submissions soon.  Keep an eye out!