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The Broken Eye Update #3

I promised a while ago that I would give you an update on the progress of The Broken Eye. Then, I broke that promise—by giving you an update early! But, this is epic fantasy, a genre fraught with fan-angst about whether your author is working on the next magnum opus or just tooling around the Caribbean, spending your reading bucks and releasing action figures to fund his or her lavish lifestyle.

So. Here’s another update: I have finished the first, second, third, and fourth drafts of The Broken Eye. Content edits are done. The book is out of my hands and into production. (We still have copy edits and one last look to go, so if you see me posting on social media about “edits” that’s what I mean.) The Broken Eye is slated to release on the week of August 26th in US/UK/AUS. (US releases are on Tuesdays, and if I recall correctly, UK releases are on Thursdays.)

I believe (and my editors and agent agree!) that The Broken Eye is my best work yet. It is also my longest. By far. I promised Orbit—contractually—that this book would be 155-160,000 words. I like to think that I’m good at a fair number of the many skills necessary to be a successful novelist, but one thing I’m apparently not so hot at is “estimating the length of a story.”

Me, two years ago: “Oh yeah, this book’ll be about 150 thousand words. But I might go a little long, so let’s say 155 or 160.”

Actual length: 306,000 words, not counting glossary or appendices.

Word Count

Orbit has been gracious to me in that they are not splitting this book into two books. The length may, however, cause some problems with translations—different languages can add up to 30% to the word count.

Now, we like big books. (And we cannot lie. You other readers can’t deny, a book flops open with an itty-bitty font, and a map that’s in your face, you get—sorry! Sorry!) We all love a big book, but we’ve also all probably read the big book that goes nowhere. I hope you’ll agree that The Broken Eye isn’t THAT book. Despite how long the manuscript already was, when she first read the book two drafts ago, my editor’s first comments were that I needed to add more about X, Y, and Z.

What’s next for me? I’ll take a few days off. (Yeah, only a few. I get depressed if I’m away from writing for long.) Then I’ll work on The Way of Shadows graphic novel for a few days.

And then I’ll dive into the next Lightbringer book. When will that one come out? I don’t know. I will note that in the last ten years, I’ve written a book every two years… and while the time between books has remained the same, I’ve doubled the length of my books. And, I think it fair to say, I’ve added a level of polish and skill I didn’t possess before.

And yet still, you must wait. I know waiting sucks, so I’m doing all I can (hiring an assistant, working six days weeks, working while on vacation) to minimize your wait as much as possible without compromising the finished product. And that last clause is important. I have to live with these books forever. A few years from now, no one will care that it was two years between books rather than 18 months. They—and I!—will care if it’s not as good as it could have been. This tension of wanting to please fans and wanting to get it right is something every author has to negotiate for himself or herself.

I will continue to let you know how things are going every so often with update posts like this for the next book (probably titled The Blood Mirror). I’ll write my next writing update in April.

p.s. Anyone want to buy a few pallets of action figures? Yacht maintenance is expensive!

p.p.s. No, Dinkheisel. There are no action figures.

Join the Reader Map!

In a shameless loving act of theft homage, I’ve stolen started a fun new project for the website: a Reader Map. (Sorry, Brian McClellan! How about, to make up for it, I tell everyone that your book is really great?) Hey everyone, Brian’s book is really great!*

If you’d like to make sure your town/city/county/state/country is represented, fill out the form and we’ll add you to the map! Go HERE to take a look. (Update: these are being manually entered by my assistant, so it may take  up to 24 hours for your town/name/pseudonym to appear.)

Also, new poll! –>

*I even blurbed it. And Promise of Blood is now a finalist for Debut of the Year over at Goodreads — today’s the last day to vote.

German Reader’s Choice/Leserpreis 2013

Screen Shot 2013-11-21 at 8.21.58 AM

The Blinding Knife has been nominated for another book award — or rather, the German translation, Die Blendende Klinge, has been nominated. If you’re a German-language reader and lover of fantasy, please consider voting for my book HERE. The polls close on November 28th, and the winners will be announced on November 29th.

A special thanks to Hans Link and Clemens Brunn, my German translators for their vital work.

Gemmell Award Interview #2

by CAPSLOCK

Brent has a new interview up at the Gemmell Award page. He shares his first reaction when he heard won the award, some of his favorite authors from among the other nominees, and talks a little bit about Kip and Gavin (though not much). Go HERE to read the interview.

NW Sci-Fi Authorfest 7

I will be at the seventh annual Northwest Sci-Fi Authorfest this Sunday, November 10th, from 4:30pm-6pm. Mass author signing goodness will be had.

Powells Books is hosting the event at their Cedar Hills Crossing location (3415 SW Cedar Hills Blvd).

Other authors include:
Camille Alexa, Claude Lalumiere, Alma Alexander, Patricia Briggs, Brenda Cooper, Diana Pharoah Francis, Jay Lake, David Levine, Louise Marley, Andy Mangels, Devon Monk, Mike Moscoe/Shepherd, Phyllis Irene Radford, Kristine Kathryn Rusch, Dean Wesley Smith, Ken Scholes, Daniel H. Wilson, Anne Bishop, J.A. Pitts, Kay Kenyon, Rhiannon Held, Eldon Thompson, Adrian Phoenix, Nina Kiriki Hoffman, Lilith Saintcrow, Ian Doescher, Steve Perry, Bryan Thomas Schmidt, Jason Hough.

PLUS: the Cloud City Garrison of the 501st Imperial Legion will be there again!

Hope to see you there!

 

The winner is…

Wow, do I hate being a judge. CAPSLOCK and I went through all the entries, and I kept saying, “Yeah, that should definitely be one of our winners.” At the end, I realized I’d said it for every competitor. The ‘dual entries’ that we allowed were particularly hard. “Oh, do we give this one to Vi or to Kylar, which Blackguard of this pair, which twin? Crap!” So, thank you for all your hard work and dedication–and forgive me if you were robbed in the prizes.

But as there must be winners, here’s what we chose:

First Place: Red-Yellow Color Wight

Red-Yellow Color Wight #2

Second Place: A Tie!

Blue Monochrome Blackguard

Blue Drafter #1

Kylar with Black Ka’kari

Kylar and Ka'kari

Third Place: Garoth Ursuul

Garoth Ursuul

Fourth Place: Vi Sovari

nightangel

If you disagree with any of our choices, that was probably a case where CAPSLOCK convinced me to go against my better judgment. 😉

And because everyone was so great, we will be giving signed and personalized bookplates to everyone who submitted an entry.

Also, Germany gets a special mention for sending more awesome than any other country. Germany, FTW! (The rest of you are on notice.)

Halloween Costume Contest 2013 Entries

Here are the fantastic entries we received for our 2013 Halloween Costume Contest. Fans went above and beyond this year.

Because we received so many awesome submissions, I’ve decided to post all the entries here today, and tomorrow morning (Pacific Standard Time), we’ll announce the winners. (Don’t worry, I’ll make it up to you contestants.)

You’ll notice there are a few “quadruple” submissions: I gave permission, via comments in the rules post, for “teams” of two characters to submit a total of four costume pictures. I clarified that if they won first place, that just one of the contestants would still win, but if they were a team, I would be willing to send a copy of the first four chapters to each contestant.

(Also, new poll!)

The contestants:

NIGHT ANGEL TRILOGY COSTUMES:

Kylar Stern & Vi Sovari:

Kylar Stern and Vi Sovari

 

Viridiana Sovari

Kylar Stern:

Kylar Stern #1

Kylar Stern #2

Garoth Ursuul:

Garoth Ursuul

Kylar Stern:

Kylar_Stern

 

Momma K:

Momma K #1
Momma K #2

Vi Sovari:

Vi Sovari holding sword
Vi surrendering her sword to Kylar

Jenine Gunder:

Jenine Gunder
Jenine Gunder in traditional green Cenarian wedding gown.

 

Durzo Blint:

Durzos 1st Rule

Too Late To Run

Vi Sovari & Kylar Stern:

nightangel

 

Kylar’s Sword Close-up:

2013-11-01 18.27.07

2013-11-01 18.29.02

2013-11-01 18.29.27

 

The Night Angel:

Night Angel #1

Night Angel #2

 

Kylar with the Black Ka’kari:

Kylar and Ka'kari

 

 

 

LIGHTBRINGER SERIES COSTUMES

 

Red Drafter:

 

 

Red Drafter #1

Green Wight:

Green Wight

Gunner:

Gunner #1

Red-Yellow Color Wight:

Red-Yellow Color Wight #2

Red-Yellow Color Wight

Blue Monochrome Blackguard

Blue Drafter #1

 

Yellow Monochrome Blackguard

costumeSolo

A Blackguard Team:

Two Blackguards
costumeDuo