An Update On What I’m Working On
So in the last couple of weeks I’ve had a number of people ask me what I’m working on and when the next book is out. So I thought I’d give an update.
For all my jokes, Leg-gedon lost me a lot of time. I really had to focus on so many things – building the strength of the leg back up, ultra restrictive diet, etc. – that I lost a lot of creative energy. I realise that sounds a bit wanky but sitting at a desk with one leg outstretched and elevated really isn’t the most comfortable position to write. And when you’re in a ridiculous amount of pain and genuinely worried whether you’re still going to have a leg weeks down the road, you just can’t absorb yourself in your writing as much as you want. Whilst I managed to get a lot of work done all things considered, my productivity was in areas where I did not need to be sat over a computer for hours, such as improving my process to increase my productivity, working on plotting out a few novels, etc. It’s probably taken 8 months to get back to the level I was at before the event but I feel I’ve come back stronger, quicker as well as more creative and productive.
The Four Realms Location Map
Today I launch a bonus feature for readers of The Four Realms – the location map. I’ll admit to stealing this idea from Ben Aaronovitch who does the same for his truly excellent Peter Grant books. It’s a google map with all the locations, both real and imaginary, from The Four Realms. Obviously when I say ‘all’ I mean the Realm of Men(i.e. our world) as I don’t think Google has got around to doing satellite photography or Street View of Venefasia yet.
Hopefully this will be a treat for fans of the book. I’ve tried to include some notes about the locations to give you all a bit more background information. And as an extra special bonus, I’ve included one new location scheduled to appear in Book 2!
Enjoy! You can find the location map from the main menu or at http://adrianfaulkner.com/novels/the-four-realms/the-four-realms-locations/
Becoming Sir Christopher Wren
As a writer I’ve always had the sort of relationship with process that if it were a Facebook status would read “it’s complicated”.
You see, I honestly believe that any writer who doesn’t analyse what they do and try and understand with a view to improvement is never going to get anywhere. Arrogance is the quickest way to kill any career. But like many unpublished writers I spent a long time delving into “how to write” books and never felt like I got much out of them. I don’t think I was looking for a magic button but perhaps sometimes I needed to be told that the answer to my problem was “a lot of bloody hard work”. I think if I am honest I was trying to discover who I was as a writer. I’m not sure I entirely know now.
Writing Violence
One of the nice things about being a writer is that I sometimes get to be a bit of a bastard. In every day life I’d like to think I’m fairly nice and kind, but when it comes to writing, I pretty much torture my characters, and in some cases actually do so. Because they are fictional there’s no real come back. Thank God, because if they were real, then after the stuff I do to them in Book 2…
Barnibus – Ninja Dwarf (MMO Edition)
Not all my characters lend themselves to MMO characters. Just trying to think of the character classes that suit them is enough to make my head explode. But sometimes it’s a lot clearer than it is for others, and you think to yourself… I really ought to go and make that character now!
Progress Update
So I’m not fun to be around, I’m a bit distant (and a bit grumpy). I have no social life to speak of, and coupled with working from home for the day job, I’m having to make a conscious effort to leave the house. Yes, this can only mean one thing… I am up to my neck in writing the next book.
R&R
Book promotion is a busy time. It feels like since September I’ve been working my way through a list of things that needed to have been done yesterday, culminating in a couple of months of solid interviews, guest blogs and reviews. It’s been hectic but a lot of fun.
There’s still plenty of things ongoing: blog posts to write, articles that are due in, interview questions that need to be answered. But it’s not so frantic as it once was and inbetween the ongoing items I’ve found time to have a bit of R&R.
Interview At Civilian Reader
So Stefan over at Civilian Reader kindly took the time to interview me about the book. Hopefully I gave some sensible answers that made for an interesting read. Be sure to check it out if you want to find out some details on The Thieving King, you want to hear the Eva Mendez story (surely everyone has heard this one by now), or want to know about the first fantasy story I ever wrote.
Be sure to check it out over at The Civilian Reader
#NaNoWriMo Day 2
Some days you have good days in NaNo, some days you have bad. Yesterday was a bad day for me. I woke up feeling mentally exhausted from day one, more so than I expected. Day 2 is also a day of doubts: did I pick the right project? Do I like these characters? Is this ever going to be any good?
I’m a person who likes to spend time on the first chapter, rewriting and rewriting until I’ve got the tone just so, but with NaNo there’s no time to do that. So I found myself feeling uncomfortable with my prose and fighting an almost primal urge to go back, rewrite and reshape. Also, when it comes to visual description, I drastically under-write. This was acutely obvious to me as I tried to get yesterday’s words done. I need to ignore this and fix it in the second draft, instead worrying about new words. Some days words come easy, some days they are like treacle. Yesterday was a treacle kinda day.
The result was that I barely made the daily target. How rubbish. I see some of my friends have almost caught me up – which is a fantastic spur to push on, not because I want to “beat” them, but because I know other people are going through this as well.
With hindsight, I really should have swapped projects as Thieving King’s NaNo word count sits at 0 (though I do have some chapters written which don’t count).
You live, you learn, you pick yourself up and you carry on. Busy day today so it too could be a challenge to get words done.
#NaNoWriMo Day 1
So the first day of NaNo went pretty well, with a 4000 word start. That’s less than I would have liked but I started on Gods which I’m less familiar with and so was finding my way a little. I even found time to spend the evening raiding with my Warcraft guild. That’s one thing NaNo has taught me… you need to sometimes take breaks, and I’m glad I did as I was pretty frazzled by the time I got to game.