Finally.

After a wild few weeks of doing some traveling and meeting with friends and family, I have finally finished the research reading I had set out to accomplish! It took about a week longer than I had hoped but I also had several online signings to cater to and then hundreds of books to ship out so it was not time wasted. In fact, more people than ever read my Prologue after discovering it, so there was a benefit to not writing I guess.

I read four books on Arthurian legend and Celtic mythology, along with part of a fifth, and used Google numerous times to flesh out ideas I had while knee-deep in the reading. The story itself did not change—I just looked over the rest of my outline and it remains solid—but I am much more confident that I have a firm grasp on the details of it. Details, if not handled right, can take a reader right out of a good story and I didn't want that to happen with this one.

The history of the Plantagenet family and how they figure into the story is now set, and Philip has become a very real King to me. Ruthless and powerful, he wants more than he should, and even though he gains power to protect the world it will be that same power that causes grief for Bran and Richard. The Interlude I will start writing today is about Philip; the reader will finally know what is going on in its entirety in this story.

All the while I did research, however, this book's sequels grew as well. I have a far firmer grasp of this storyarc than I did before and that will help me down the road if given an opportunity to write more than one book.

So, I am back. Look for updates again. The middle of this book is going to be great fun to write because it is more directly fantasy-based than the first 1/3; I hope I can pull off those fantasy elements to the readers' liking.

Labels: The Dagda King

I just finished going over the copy edits for The World of Shannara reissue that will be released later this fall. Since Terry is on vacation at the moment, Random House offered to pay me to go over the copy edits and make any changes that I deem pertinent. Pay me? Are you kidding me? Of course I'd do it for free! Since I continuity edit for Terry anyway, it wasn't a stretch.

It was great fun. They sent me the manuscript with copy edits from two different copy editors, and I got to see an aspect of the editorial process that Del Rey goes through. I went over it, checking to make sure the integrity of the continuity survived the copy edits, and I'm pleased to say they did a great job. I only found two major things that needed to be fixed throughout, and I had to rewrite a two page portion of the book that dealt with the Forbidding.

If it makes it through the next round of edits, it's conceivable my first published writing will be in The World of Shannara, in a two-page spread where I won't even be credited. But that's all right. I can say I wrote in a bestselling series!

For fun, I am reading the manuscript for Greg Bear's forthcoming book, City at the End of Time. It is fantastic so far, the best thing he's written since his Nebula-winning Darwin's Radio. I highly recommend that book, as well as this forthcoming one!

Labels: Craft