If there's a particular subject of interest, click one of the tags below and you'll get a list of relevant, irrelevant, and sometimes irreverent postings.

First, Roo doesn't even seem sick. Brought him home from the vet yesterday afternoon. He's on antibiotics and I think we caught the UTI early. He's gained .7 of a pound since the vet last saw him in the fall, so yay Roo!

Second, John finally nailed down the formal offer from Roc about Age of Fire 5-6 and they settled the numbers. I get to see my brainhatchling through to completion, so yay me!

I listened to Howard on Late Night Jenga Jam and he did a fine job, mostly talking about heroic fiction. I was expecting more talk about how you could also tell a sword & sorcery tale through machinima but it didn't come up. Black Gate got some good plugs.

Oh, as you know, whenever I get a book deal I commemorate it with the purchase of a collectible. I really have a lot of dragons lying around the place so I was thinking about this:
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Linky:

http://www.encyclopedia.com/doc/1G1-176904507.html

There's a nice money quote:

As in his previous books, Knight makes his characters unique and appealing. The reader can't help but admire the feisty Copper as he overcomes each trial. Knight incorporates humor into his story, such as the bats that follow the Copper everywhere, ingratiating themselves to him for a sip or two of drake blood. These bats would tug their forelocks, if they had them. Knight's talent for storytelling serves him well, engaging and engrossing the reader immediately. The Copper's trials seem almost unbearable, but his perseverance is remarkable, and the novel ends on a strong note.

I liked the "tug their forelocks" line. :)

Good news: Happy Purim, Equinox, and Easter everybody. We'll be seeing the Wisconsin relatives this weekend.

Extra good news: a French publisher just bought Way of the Wolf and Dragon Champion (they love ya in France, EEK!)

Extra extra good news: I'm being paid in Euros.

I didn't make a stink or anything, I just politely asked if they could do something about the holes in the Copper's wings, what with him being a Tyr and all and guess what...

They did!

Writing's a mixture of good days, great days, bad days, and awful days. Today's just a plain old bad one. DRAGON OUTCAST didn't make the Locus list for December, despite the publisher doing some online advertising to give it a bit of a shove.

I know it did decently at the big chains and it'll earn out its nice, but modest, advance. I just hate to see the publisher spend money advertising me and then have it not pay off. It gives them no reason to advertise the next book. In fact, they have good reason not to, since you'd have to be a pretty foolish businessperson to pour money down the E.E. Knight rathole when they've got authors who get onto both Locus and the major media lists.

I'm starting to feel like I fill a gap in the publishing schedule between more successful authors. I can look in the mirror and proudly say I'm one of the most reliable placeholders out there!

If I'm sounding more discouraged than usual it's because I though OUTCAST a very good book, one of the best things I've done yet. Yet PW, Locus, Booklist -- no reviews from the usual suspects (of course it didn't help that the publisher didn't print advanced review copies). Actually, Locus has yet to review any of my books but I live in hope. You're in desperate straits when your keeping your fingers crossed that another positive Amazon review will pop up.

Anyway, I just have to soldier on, be happy for the good stuff that's happening with my books (my hardcover sales appear to be supporting a continuation of hardcover release, for example) and try to improve. It's kind of like getting first published: you try, you fail, hopefully you learn, you try some more, you fail some more, you learn some more. You work toward the day the try/fail cycle stops and try not to give into the temptation to just hang it up. I'll just tuck in my horns a little and cut back on the travel until I get a better feel for which direction my career his heading.

Oh, and fuck it, I need a drink. Scotch and the cats still like me. Well, the cats don't exactly like me, but I create warm spots to sleep in and keep the kibble coming, so I'm tolerated.

Scalzi's got a very good post on finances. Which I suck at, unless presented to me in easy-to-understand form like The Richest Man In Babylon. My only quibble is I would suggest a SEP-IRA as superior to a Roth for the simple reason that you can put a lot more into it, but it's only available to you if writing or other free-lancy stuff is your income.

Oh, and save and organize your receipts.

In other links, Fresh Fiction reviewed Dragon Outcast. It's more of a "this is what goes on in the story" type review than an "E.E. Knight just made my literary life complete, I'll put my eyes out before I read any other author" that I'm used to on a day-to-day basis from those bottom-kissers at Kirkus.

I seem to have caught a wee bit o' a sniffle. As colds go, this is the mildest I can remember, but then lately I've been reverting to the habits of my ancestors and treating everything with cod liver oil. I think it's a cold that hopped from one of Chats' dance friends to Chats and now to me.

Ah well, excuse to drink a lot of tea and take the afternoon off. I need to do some thinking anyway. Just sitting down and thinking is time well spent.

Dragon Strike is shaping up, but not as fast as I'd like. When I first started it, it seemed the Copper was the only character doing anything interesting on the page, no matter what my outline said. Then I replotted a bit and things are a lot more pell-mell for Wistala now. In fact she's eclipsing the Copper, which takes some doing.

Which leaves AuRon. He's got some nice moments at the end of the book (still not written unless you count the last chapter, which I sometimes do early in the drafting stages so I know my finish line), and the pivotal scene where they all three meet again is pretty good, but I think he needs one more good jolt in the first half of the novel.

Also, I've got a wicked human queen who's just way too much out of Disney central casting.* I tried to write her as sort of a fantasy Catherine the Great empire builder cross between Coco Chanel and Ayn Rand, but she never quite made it. Trying to come up with a new way for her to be scary. This is my first attempt at writing a Bad Girl and I don't want to stumble.

*Not that I'm slamming the Disney villainesses. According to my mom the witch in Snow White blew me away as a toddler. As a ten year old I was pretty scared of Cruella (book version). I loved dogs, and to have this kitten-drowning woman running around screaming for the puppies to be skinned NOW! rather freaked me out.

Ah, Cruella. Owner of the loudest motor horn in England and not afraid to use it, with her Tallulah Bankhead wit, proto-goth fashion sense, and unwillingness to take no for an answer. Of course prim little Mrs. Dearly ended up with the city boy husband and Cruella married a milquetoast, but damn, I bet Cruella would have been a trip to date in college.

Here's the review. The reviewer also read the other two in the series, which you can't always count on when a book's being reviewed.

Best quotes:

All events are colored by their viewers, and the slaughter of the dragon family is no different. While the copper is by no means innocent, his participation takes on a whole different meaning once seen through his eyes and colored by events unknown in the first two books. Now no longer the vile betrayer in the eyes of the reader, the copper outcast becomes, after the fact, a victim of his own desires, and is forced to try and eke out an existence with nothing but what nature gave him. And despite being a dragon, which most people would think is a pretty good starting point, the copper is crippled, still very tiny, bereft of the teachings of his parents, and beholden on the mercy of creatures that have no mercy. His scales and claws are a very poor substitute.

And

And despite everything, the copper is possessed with basically a decent and fair outlook on life. Perhaps he repents for what he's done. Perhaps being a runt and a cripple, he's figured out that only by cooperating can the whole thrive. Whatever the reason, the copper becomes the only dragon that others can trust not to stab them in the back. And so by not seeking power and status, he gradually has them thrust upon him, much to the displeasure of others that now see him as an obstacle to their own advancement.

Hey, check this out.

Roc did a buy on Locus Online! That's never happened before. They've advertised me in Locus, usually with the other books coming out the same month, but this is the first time I've seen an online ad.

(That I didn't pay for or negotiate some exchange of writerly services for, that is)

Of course I took a screenshot...

ETA: Looks like it's up at sffworld.com too (which has a George R.R. Martin interview this month too!)

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A lot of the writing trade is ordinary business. After the first thrill it gets pretty routine. I read my contracts (especially all the bolded addendum in the back) and file my editorial letters and keep my travel receipts and shrug at my reviews -- or lack of reviews. I've even added a new routine: I get to turn in my marked-up "foul matter" to the Special Collections Librarian rarelylynne at my alma mater, so that's a new thrill (want to read unpublished manuscripts, first drafts, and early fiction produced on iffy dot-matrix printers? She's your gal.)

There are still two things that make my heart hammer, though. One is when I first see the cover art for a book. Up until that point it just feels like a project, yet another manuscript. It suddenly becomes a book when you see the art and the lettering with your name. The second is when I see it on a bookstore shelf.

I only visited three nearby bookstores today (I was still on the shelving cart at one). But I still had to catch my breath when I saw Dragon Outcast each time.

That's a wonderful feeling. Wonderful. If I could do a pirouette I would, but I had to settle for feeling the weight of the book, opening a copy and turning the pages, looking at the copyright info, the map, the lettering, the little graphic they used as a divider.

So hurray for me today.

One week until Dragon Outcast comes out. This is always a tough time, waiting for readers to react and more reviews to pop up. And then I wonder what my merchandising will look like. Hopeful for a hit, dreading a flop. My fingernails look like I stuck my hands in a wood chipper.

Comes from all the inner voices screaming "fraud" at you.

Ginjer, perhaps sensing an imminent collapse, told me some good news this week. The other Age of Fire books are being formatted for ebook release just like Outcast.

It's chats_noirs birthday tomorrow. Her sister, though different in age but born on the same day (strange, eh?), is at a loose end so she's up visiting. I got them a gift certificate for girly services at our local Spa Constantine so they can get in some sister time, plus a few miscellaneous items in little gift bags. You can't just give somebody a gift any more, it's got to come in a decorative bag with tissues and streamers. Something else to slap Martha Stewart for. Ah well, Chats is worth it.

She's also getting an apple pie for her birthday, so I need to run to the store.

It appears Penguin is also putting out Dragon Outcast as an eBook for Mobipocket (software that lets you read eBooks on your PC, Palm, PocketPC, Blackberry, and so on).

That's cool. I know several people, like my cousin at Microsoft, who prefer eBooks.

I've got that old psychological hurdle that everything appearing on a computer screen is WORK, whereas tactile little paper pages are PLEASURE so I don't know that I'll ever get truly into them, but I do love the way so much research stuff I need these days is in PDF. I can carry around huge amounts of data on a few discs or my laptop hard drive.

So, Huzzah!

Busy weekend. But we had a couple of really talented writers in the workshop at WindyCon, so I feel as though my time was well spent.

And the Bears won in a really lackluster game.

But back to more important subjects, like my ego...

The first review is in for Dragon Outcast:

...This particular title is the third in his first fantasy series, which gets strong points for not falling into the usual patterns.... My only real complaint about the series is that the dragons are essentially human beings. Jo Walton's Tooth and Claw really stood out because the personality of its characters was shaped in part by the fact that they were dragons and not human. There's not enough of this differentiation in Knight's series, which is otherwise well conceived and written.

Fair played on the "essentially human beings" thing. He's got me dead to rights, but I don't agree that Walton left me in the dust with draconic characterization in Tooth and Claw. Yes, it's a beautiful, imaginative book, but it was essentially dragons in a Jane Austen plot, with Jane Austen motivations. Divisions of property after the death of a patriarch, marriages, alliances, yes the dragons did pretty much everything for very mercenary reasons in that novel, but there's no shortage of marrying for mercenary reasons in Austen. Plus it featured dowries, letters, clergymen, all the tropes of a Austen book.

Maybe we're just both remembering it differently. Sadly, it's out of print now, despite winning a World Fantasy Award for Best Novel (2004).

But apart from that one negative, it's a review that should please the marketing people.

Busy morning.

It appears both Dragon Champion and Dragon Avenger are doing well enough that Roc's going to give me the books I need to properly finish the series (six volumes, in other words). Or the rope I need to truly get bogged down and then hang myself. Time will tell.

I expect I'll know for sure after World Fantasy.

Gotta get back to work on revisions for Fall. The final third of the book needed a lot more work than I thought.

Release date housekeeping:

Fall with Honor (VE #7) will be another hardcover out in July of 2008
Dragon Strike (Age of Fire #4) is slotted for trade paper in December 2008

So there. Chats & I have a roof over our heads and groceries for sixteen more months, anyway.

Or at least everyone has an opinion on Star Wars. It's my most popular poll ever. Wow. Thanks for participating, y'all!

Feeling better, the chest-cold was short-lived. Gotta get back to my various projects.

I'm starting to wonder when the Dragon Outcast ARCs are going to show up. We just lost our PR person, Sarah, and I don't know who her replacement is going to be yet. I hope my copies haven't been lost in the shuffle. I owe people.

I'm leaning toward six books total for Age of Fire. It just seems right: three books throwing the little dragons apart and growing them up, and three getting them back together. Easier for some publisher to do a pair of beautifully illustrated omnibus editions in the future, too.

Right? *crickets chirping* Well, someday.

Wow, that weekend went by in a blur. Monday?

Huh?

When?

Items of note:

• Copyedits for DRAGON OUTCAST are safely in the mostly-reliable hands of UPS. I made deadline, despite the late arrival.


• I sometimes wish my admirers who think I'm such a wonderful writer could see all the screw-ups, crap, nickle-and-dime idiocies and verbal laziness caught by my editor and copyeditor. You'd quit listening to me.


• I don't have a new editor yet. Various personages at Penguin are subbing.


• I worked up a nice little rant about the Wiscon blond bellydancers engaging in cultural appropriation horseshit. I'm entitled, being the husband of a blond bellydancer. But then I decided not to bother. Who needs another thousand words of me in a snit? Anyone who points fingers and does the Invasion of the Body Snatchers shriek at a group of women expressing themselves through something as fun, healthy, and beautiful as bellydance aren't worth more than a tired "fuck you." That sentiment includes mullahs of both the Tehran and Madison variety.


• I'm worn through. For the rest of the day I think I'll drink beer and watch all five hours of the original German miniseries for Peterson's Das Boot. Subtitles off, for the Full Wagnerain. The depth charges will bug the cats, but oh well.