October 1, 2009 – finished the first draft of Blight of Muirwood. Right now, it’s around 450 pages, so longer than the first book and I’m heaving a sigh of relief for being done. Last weekend my wife read it all and we’ve had some good discussions about it. I need to read it again for continuity (I know there are some inconsistencies in there), but after that, it will be ready for some proofreaders.

It’s funny how writing can meld into reality sometimes, so here is a funny story. One of the ongoing elements of this series is Lia’s fascination with Muirwood apples (Fuji apples in our world). I’ve found that certain kinds taste the sweetest and showed my kids how to spot the tell-tale signs. Well, my wife told me this week that the kids will stare at the apple bin with the fridge door open for *way too long* trying to find the ‘best’ apple to put in their lunch. I admit I’m pretty picky myself. At Intel, our Corporate Services group provides free fruit to employees in the cafe and so I pick one up every day and always linger over the apples to find the best one. This week, I found an especially promising one and brought it home and my daughter’s eyes widened with delight. She would have picked that one too.

Glad to be done with book 2 of the series. After doing some proofreading over the next month or two, I’ll probably start on the final book in January.

I am almost finished writing BLIGHT. Only a few chapters left. It’s always an exciting thing to finish a novel. My guess is I’ll be done before Halloween and then will be looking for some readers to help critique and edit it (you know who you are…Mike Loos). This novel has definitely taken some unexpected twists and turns, but I am really pleased with how it has turned out so far.

Also, because of the massive spambots that visit this website every month, I’ve deactivated all subscribers. Instead, I’ve created a facebook page for Muirwood so that comments and questions can be directed there instead:

http://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=155152605655&ref=mf

I also have a friend who has a printing business in Rancho Cordova who said he did a paperback version of WRETCHED for me from his POD printer. I’m interested in seeing how it turned out.

With school about to start, we took the kids up to my parents cabin in the Sierras last week. On the way, we stopped by Big Trees national forest and enjoyed the giant sequoias there. It was in the morning, a little bit of rain to make things interesting, and ask we walked the north grove road, the clouds descended and hung like mist over the towering trees. It was an awesome sight and definitely inspiring. Some of these trees are 24-30 feet in diameter and some have fallen and been burned through, leaving shells big enough to fit our family, or hollowed-out tunnels that the little ones crawled through.

The setting will definitely come into play in a future chapter of BLIGHT. I’m nearly 300 pages into the book and ready to kick up the tension even more. With everything on my plate right now, I’ve decided to focus my energy on finishing the trilogy. When the series is completed, I’ll make the decision to either look for agents again or try the self-publising route again, maybe through Amazon’s service. I think over the next few years, the industry will have changed significantly. More and more authors will leverage the technology available to publish their own works, build up their readership, before the big publishers will look at them.

Had a neat surprise this morning when I checked my e-mail. My sister Emily, an artist in the Boise area, did a little sketch of a scene from WRETCHED. She’s also been giving great advise on the sequel, BLIGHT, which I appreciate. It was neat seeing the scene through her eyes so I thought I would share her work. She’s really talented: http://emilybradshaw.googlepages.com/

 

Finished with Chapter 17 of Blight last week and I’m going through the whole manuscript again to gauge the flow. I finally wrote a pivotal chapter that I’ve been anxious to do since the beginning of the novel. Writing a book is a little like laying tile – sometimes you focus on the squares and then look back and see the whole. Even though I do a rough outline of my novels in advance, it still surprises me how much the story weaves itself and bumps me away from the original plans. I especially had fun writing the Earl of Dieyre’s character. He’s the antithesis of Colvin and it is fun playing them off against each other.

Back to the squares again…

As part of the Amazon entry, they promised to write reviews. These just arrived last night.

ABNA Expert Reviewer

The concept of the dead being reanimated and then a knight in trouble in some kind of fantasy world are hardly new ideas. In many ways, the injured and mysterious warrior being treated by a young lady has been heavily overused. At this time, I do not see how the two main plot devices introduced in this excerpt can be combined. I did not find the story of great interest as it would take a greater expression of these old ideas to engage my interest.

And the other one:

ABNA Expert Reviewer

It is not yet clear whether this is a medieval novel or a fantasy. There are elements of both. 
 
There is good tension being built. In the first chapter the cemetery has flooded and there are no bodies, only wedding rings. It is speculated that the bones of the dead have joined the flesh and are again living. THe abbey’s master halts the storm with a wave of his hand, evidently invoking the “Medium”. This is all observed by the nine year “wretched” – the help. 
 
The next chapter is four years later and the wretched is awakened in the night by a man she learns is a “knight-maston” who has brought a wounded young man with him. As she works to heal the young man, the knight leaves telling her to take care of the youth and to keep him hidden while he gets the sherriff off his trail. 
 
The girl is bright and denied the chance to learn to read, which is her biggest dream. One gets the feeling that someone will be her white knight and educate her. The terminology and the floating rock in the cemetery makes me think there will be a fantasy element to this book. If it were straight dark ages, I would be interested. Since I am not a fantasy fan, I would not be interested if it goes in that direction. That, however, is a matter of taste, not a judgment on quality, for the writing is good, and the early bits have good tension to hook the reader.

I thought it a little strange that they weren’t expecting the novel to be fantasy, since that is what it was categorized as in the submission. The comparison to the injured warrior archetype is fair – though it wasn’t a common theme in many of the fantasy novels I’ve read. Still, feedback is useful.

 

 

 

I was disappointed not to have Wretched selected as a Amazon breakthrough novel finalist, but I remained determined. I’ve submitted the manuscript to a publisher (Shadow Mountain) and learned that they received it, so it’s a 6-8 week wait now to learn more.

I’ve made some good progress writing the sequel to Wretched. It’s The Blight of Muirwood and I’ve made substantial progress and had some good feedback on it so far. I still think it is a 3-book story arc, but probably longer than the first. During the last week, the oak trees in this area are gorgeous with new leaves. I love this time of year.

Here is the ninth chapter of The Wretched of Muirwood. This contains up to the first 75 pages of the novel (out of 284) and the usual sample size that agents have been asking to read to evaluate the flow of the story.

muirwood-chapter09

Some cool news – my first book LANDMOOR is now available for the Kindle through Amazon. It will be interesting to see how many people will find it that way.

http://www.amazon.com/dp/B001U3YFP2

The link it here above. If anyone who has read it before wants to post a review, I would appreciate it. 

Here is the eight chapter of The Wretched of Muirwood.

muirwood-chapter08