DRAGONS
And this is the last item on the list of “What I’m Working On Now” (or have just finished working on, since both “The Custom of the Army” and “Dirty Scottsdale” are done, though not yet published.
OK, follow me carefully here (because I think, from comments on other entries, that some of y’all are perhaps becoming confused by the plethora of information here):
1. “DRAGONS” is the title of a proposed anthology.
A. An anthology is a collection of short pieces, contributed by lots of different authors.
B. This particular anthology is meant to include short pieces on the subject of….well, dragons.
2. I was invited to contribute a piece to this anthology. All clear so far? Good.
3. I told the editors of the anthology that I have Way Too Much work to do, to write a short story or novella for this anthology myself—BUT that my son, who is also a writer, would be willing to coauthor a story with me.
A. He’s a fantasy writer, and thus more qualified to handle dragons in the first place.
B. We’ve coauthored a couple of fantasy short stories before, with good results:
i. Mirror Image , in an anthology titled MOTHERS AND SONS, edited by Jill Morgan, and
ii. The Castellan, in OUT OF AVALON, edited by Jennifer Roberson.
4. The editors said that would be cool, and so did my son, so we accepted.
5. My son is doing the major writing on this piece, with me providing brainstorming and editing.
6. No, we don’t have a projected publication date for this one yet, but most likely sometime in 2009.
7. Here (in the next blog entry) is a selected snippet of this (so far untitled) short piece.
8. And that’s what-all I’m doing/have done these days! Hope y’all will enjoy the various bits and pieces as they come available!
Ok, so give us the dirt. Is it more fun writing with your son or going it alone? I would think equal parts of fun and frustration and maybe freedom. I enjoy simply reading books with my (15 y.o) son, but writing (and more esp. editing) could be a little touchy.
Bedelia
Dear Bedelia–
Oh, it’s a completely different thing to write with someone (I’ve done stories with all three of my kids–just when an anthology would invite me to do a short story; “short” is sort of not my natural form [g]) than alone. (I’ve also done a chapter in a collaborative novel with a bunch of other authors, but that’s a different thing.)
As far as writing, I much prefer to work alone. Collaborating with someone is interesting and occasionally fun, but it’s not at all the same process or feeling as being plugged into what’s happening Over There, and struggling to bring that through on the page.
So, since you clearly aren’t at all busy working on anything…
(I really really wish there was a “sarcasm” font – those “geniuses” at Apple need to work on that).
Really can’t wait for Echo in the Bone – since reading Breath of Snow and Ashes, I’ve listened to all of the books from the beginning again (and accumulated the associated library late fees because, seriously, who can listen to 48 disks in 3 weeks?? Honestly, I’ve started to consider them donations to a good cause.). Thank you for the updates on everything!
LOVE the various bits and pieces!!! thanks so much!
Thank you so much for taking the time to share all these various excerpts with us. I can’t wait for Echo. That excerpt has me wanting more!!!
I really, really wish you would set aside all other writing projects and focus on Echo in the Bone. It’s been way too long, esp after I made a trip to Scotland recently and saw some of the Outlander sights and sites. Please, please focus!!!!
Dear jel–
Believe it or not, this is the way I always work. It’s nothing to do with focus or not-focus; I work on ECHO pretty much every day. But I normally _do_ work on multiple other projects at the same time. It keeps me fresh, and I never have writer’s block. [g]
The only thing that’s different here is that most of the other things I’ve been working on have been _short_ pieces, which are therefore going to be published within the next year or so. I wouldn’t normally talk about all the longer-term stuff I work on, because it would be so long before any of it became actually visible to you.
I’ve said six million times that you’ll get ECHO in the fall of next year. Nothing’s changed, nor would it if I dropped everything else I do on the spot.
It isn’t that other things eat into time I _could_ be spending on ECHO. It’s that there’s a rhythm to a book, and for most of its construction, there’s a definite limit to how much time _can_ productively be spent on it in one day–then the mind has to kind of recharge itself for the next day’s work, and one way of doing that while keeping the flow going is to work on other things.
P.S. Besides, like i said, my son’s writing this one. I’ll just tweak and edit as needed, when he’s done.