Posting has been erratic lately due to the necessity of playing Dragon Age until the small hours of the night. It’s a dirty job, but someone has to take the fight to those pesky darkspawn. You all are lucky to have me and my plucky band of heroes out there fighting the good fight on your behalf. Consider that.
In the few moments I’ve had in between struggling against the forces of evil, disciplining my wayward children, and trying to exert control on my as yet unstarted building project, I’ve finished my first draft of the third of five parts of my latest book, The Heroes. Ah, it hardly feels as if I’ve even begun and already over half way through. 140,000 words so far, or coming up on three Great Gatsbys. I really should write some shorter books one of these days.
Still, I think it’s starting to come together. Central characters are taking shape, some themes and threads are becoming more important while others fade into the shadows to be brutally murdered and dragged away to unmarked graves during the editing process. With any luck I’ll plan out the final two parts over the next month and have them drafted out by spring, largely edited by summer, and therefore ready for publication Feb 2011 as previously promised with fingers well crossed behind my back. Naturally neither I nor anyone else even faintly connected with me takes any responibility for possible failures to meet this deadline. I suggest you read the small print on the contract with the reader. Those things aren’t worth the paper they aren’t printed on.
In other news – The Fool Jobs, my story for the Anders/Strahan edited Swords and Dark Magic, is now copy edited and done, and ready to proudly take its place as the rearguard to a fantastic collection of writers. The anthology should be along June 2010, and I’m very excited to read it myself. Well, not my story so much, I’ve read that one. But the other stories, definitely.
In other, other news Chris McGrath has turned in artwork for the alternative UK Mass Market edition of Before They are Hanged, and it is GREAT. Seriously, I was a little surprised by the chequered response to the alternative Blade Itself, but if anyone doesn’t like this one I will turn up at your house and BURN YOU. I’ll post a copy as soon as design sorceress Laura Brett has worked her evil-but-oh-so-good magic upon it, then you can all whoop and snap your outrage like the pack of mangey curs you are.
Right. Back to Dragon Age.
17 comments so far
I hope you're marking your Dragon Age time down as 'research'
Man, I loved that game so much. It is actually not easy to get ANYTHING done before you see it through.
Absolutely LOVED your books, keep it up 🙂
Wow, that sounds awesome! a new book already! and 140k pages… Just out of curiosity, does it take place in the same world as the others? Or are you not yet at liberty to say…
Well I look forward to reading your blog more and more now, as I am new to it. We have emailed a couple times though 🙂 Thank you for that.
As one of the mangey curs that BUYS YOUR BOOKS, I growl. Whooping and snapping is so out-of-control.
I hope you chose the mage class for your DAO character, so powerful and fun to play!
I must say, Dragon Age sucks balls. I quit playing after about 15 minutes. Terrible graphics, boxes filled with swords laying in the woods, lame story and of course Bioware's famous shoulder pad pauldrons of mighty force.
Now Oblivion, that's a game. . .
Glad to hear your new book is coming on well.
Mayponce
Sucking balls must then be a very good thing because this game is the best i've played for a long long time,especially on a pc.
Oblivion ?..pah
It IS research.
Vae,
If you look a few posts back to the one called The Heroes you'll see a bit more about it.
Phil,
I started with fighter. Might do a blood mage on a rerun.
Mayponce,
Got to go with Derek there. Dragon Age kicks ass. Oblivion, in the last analysis, sucks it.
I'm nearly at the endgame for my first play through! So much to play through…so many deadlines whizzing by me…
Did you find Morrigan as much of a touchy tramp as I did? Because, holy crap, who takes offense at "I don't want you to leave?" to lower approval by TEN GODDAMN POINTS?!
Why there aren't physical responses to go along with the verbal, I'll never know. In the future, "slap in the face"/"choke a bitch" will be standard replies.
Ah… Dragon Age…
I only scrambled from its tight embrace for a breather when my computer was briefly broken. Now that it is fixed… right back into it.
Thinking on the er… world-building and plot of Dragon Age – Joe, have you ever considered trying to do writing for video games? DA is at its best when it's doing the political, Game of Thrones-y kind of thing, and at its worst when it trudgingly re-treads all the Fantasy tropes we've seen done to death.
Hmmm… back to work until I can get back to Dragon Age.
Hm…I don't play computer games much, but for some reason am hooked on Dragon age and L4D2.
I agree that Morrigan is a bit touchy, I'm working on the priest girl, she seems to find my Dwarf noble very appealing 🙂
Tramp !!..She said i was her only one last night , and i'm a female warrior.
Just treated myself to a re-read of Last Argument.
And, frankly, the longer the better… that book was a brick and a half, and still felt too short.
february 2011…ok,but what about the italian translation of the other books? any news?? I wanted to buy some as Christmas gifts for my friends this year,but….!!!!!