Getting Old

 Not too long ago, I was out on my front lawn smelling an old fence post and thinking what an odd job I have. I wasn’t limiting my sniffing to the fence. I also went about the property putting my nose to the bark of trees, and even a bush. Luckily, this was when I was still in Shenandoah where my neighbors are too far away to see my odd behavior. The reason I was imitating the typical dog out on a walk, was entirely due to a scene I was writing. A character was scaling a wall, their face pressed to the surface. No chance the character wasn’t getting a nose full of old wood. Only, what does old dry wood smell like? 

If you’ve ever seen the movie Stranger Than Fiction where the author Karen Eiffel (played by Emma Thompson) goes to great lengths to understand how her characters feel in order write about them, then what you just read might make more sense or merely increase your bewilderment. Most of the time I can imagine sights, sounds, and smells, but I was stumped on wood. This wasn’t old musty attic, nor mushroom laden decaying wood. The best description I had was “earthy.” This would have worked fine if such a word existed in Elan. Only it doesn’t.

One of the annoying drawbacks to writing invented world fantasy is how so many absolutely perfect words, phrases, and common references aren't allowed. Try describing an earthquake without the word earth, afternoon, without the word noon, or the midday meal which used to be called dinner. Some have even questioned the feasibility that people applauded or clapped their hands to show appreciation. What’s worse are words that are legitimate yet they are seen as inappropriate such as shoot, drive, or explode. Incidentally, it is amusing to me that explode comes from the Latin explodere to “drive out or off by clapping or making noise,” as in an audience’s reaction to a theater actor’s performance. I have long chaffed under these and other restraints that hamper my sense of free flowing expression, and force me to backspace over perfectly good sentences and ideas. 

I never wanted to be a fantasy writer. I’d mostly walked away from that section of the bookstore the same time I left high school. I was lured by the vivid relatability of more contemporary stories, the sort where I could simply go to a place and write about what I saw. The hours I spent describing people in coffee shops, or transcribing their conversations into dialog, was thrilling and so much easier than trying to imagine what a princess’s bedroom might look, smell, or feel like. Writing Hollow World had been a blast despite most of it taking place in a distant future. At least the point of view character possessed the same frame of reference as the average American. I didn’t need to explain or omit anything. I could free associate to my heart’s content. And yet, in my grass-is-always-greener mentality I failed to see that despite these limitations and draw backs, the invented world fantasy offers one attribute that all other genre’s lack. It alone possesses the intrinsicly super power of timelessness that bestows at least the chance at on-going relevance for future generations.

Recently, I have been re-reading a few of my favorite Stephen King novels such as The Stand and It. They are still wonderful, filled with inspiring prose and stunningly crafted characters, but they’re getting old. Set in the real-world, and locked in time and place, these grand tales are becoming dated. References are lost, and contemporary terms—like the ones I wasn’t allowed to use in fantasy—are acting as lead weights tied to the legs of a world class swimmer. Given enough time, it is possible these novels will acquire a nostalgic allure, and then perhaps even a historic charm. I recently discovered I owned a first edition of Hemingway’s Farewell to Arms, and found it fascinating to read a book that was both written and printed nearly a hundred years ago. To me the slang, lifestyle, references, and customs were more compelling than the story itself. Hopefully, this, too, will be King’s legacy. 

It was, in fact, Mr. King who first alerted me to this idea of fantasy’s timelessness. I read something he wrote about how mega bestsellers from years ago having been almost entirely forgotten and how only fantasy seems positioned to be resistant to this aging sickness. Nothing is immune.

Given my first book was published in 2008, my works are creeping up on their twentieth birthday and receiving their AARP invitations from readers who post reviews that speak of my stories as established and even enduring. I am forced to acknowledge my accidental good fortune. The world has, and continues to change at such breakneck speeds that not merely references and slang are victims but also fundamental beliefs, attitudes, and ethics. Had I been writing closer to the bone, wading in deeper cultural waters, perhaps I might have made a bigger splash. The cost would have been the ephemeral nature of such fame and the loss of the example my characters appear to have provided to a weary world looking for safe harbor. In another decade, my readers will likely have moved on to greater writers and my books would have been used to steady a table leg or be set out on the curb like a velveteen rabbit. But if I have any chance at all of securing that highly competitive space on the occasionally visited dust-covered top shelf it may well be due to having written fantasy rather than aiming for the great American novel. I think this is important because I suspect people will continue to suffer troubling times in the future, and the next generation may again find a need for refuge from dark skies and turbulent winds.  

THE CYCLE: Preliminary Committee Results

On September 27th, 2024 I posted about the Cycle Project. As it has been a while, allow me to refresh your memory. I never intended to write anymore stories in the world of Elan except the original six novels of the Riyria Revelations. I felt the ending was satisfying for those who like complete endings—not everyone does I discovered. So, when my wife asked for more Royce and Hadrian stories, I created prequels to accommodate her, which I wrote while I worked on the science fiction thriller Hollow World. 

Then everyone wanted another fantasy series. Some hoped I would create a new world entirely, but I didn’t see the point in building a new reality when Elan still held plenty of potential and untouched real estate. The hardest thing about building an invented world is that before you can present a story you first need to educate the reader. In the past, there was the tried and true info dump that graced the start of many fantasy novels. This unpleasant habit was something diehard fantasy fans learned to accept, and which I felt prevented potential converts from joining the fun. Few casual readers appreciate a required course on geopolitical history before even finding out if the story, characters, or even the genre is for them. As the fantasy genre matured, however, writers learned to integrate world building with the story. But making world building entertaining isn’t as easy as some authors make it look. I personally find having to explain too much gets in the way of a good story in the same way that having to explain a joke after the telling kills the humor. For this reason I stuck with Elan as I assumed most of my potential readers would be familiar with it. 

In the creation of Legends of the First Empire, I was forced to flesh out more of the world and in doing so, I discovered the potential for a sequel to Revelations. For more on this read the afore mentioned Cycle Post. 

It has now been four years since the Exploratory Committee of One began their deliberation on the feasibility of a post Revelations series. The Cycle will consist of five novels, and as I have already finished drafts for books 1 through 3 as well as the prerequisite novel Blythin Castle, the committee has finally determined that there is a reasonable chance such a series might work. So, if you think I’ve been sitting in a lawn chair with an umbrella drink for the last four years while Lorian does all the heavy lifting, consider that I now have four unpublished Elan novels (aside from this year's release of Out of the Ashes) waiting in the editing queue. 

My intention at this moment, is to spend the summer editing Blythin Castle, working on the remaining necessary Cycle related short stories, and then prepping Cycle Four (C4), so I can start it in late summer/early fall. In addition, I will be working with Lorian on the second book of her series while fixing up the home we now have here on the island. 

All that said, while I have a high level of confidence in C4, C5 remains the greatest threat to this series seeing the light of day as it still has problems I need to work out. As such, the Exploratory Committee of One (ECO) has officially moved the Likelihood of Release dial from zero to a fifty-one percent chance of sunshine. 

Robin’s estimation may vary.

Literary Sidewalks

In case you were concerned by the cliffhanger ending of my last post…I’m still alive. I successfully reached the island, where Robin gave me a Hollywood reception under sun-bathed palms. Now that I am here, and have a rudimentary office, allow me to explain a bit about why we moved because I’m both optimistic and arrogant enough to assume you want to know.

There are many reasons we have semi-moved to Key West. The motive almost everyone who transplants here gives is the weather. Three hundred days of sunshine and a tropical climate that has never known frost or snow makes it highly desirable, but that's not number one on our list.  For us it's because the people on this island are…well, different - and so are we. 

 The inhabitants of Key West have tried on several occasions throughout its history to secede from its mother country (and actually did so on April 23, 1982).  The short story about that is they (a) officially seceded (b) declared war on the United States (c) surrendered one minute later, and (d) requested foreign aid. That said, they did not secede when Florida left the Union on January 10, 1861. So, yeah, the island has been known to be a magnet for mavericks, eccentrics, pirates, and those that are just plain "odd." But a common thread to all these groups is that they are fiercely independent and free-minded. Those who know me, or have seen the Indie Author movie, understand why I find this appealing.

And yet the instigating reason for choosing Key West was far less philosophical and more practical. It is the farthest south we can get to by car. I’m not a huge fan of air travel, not too keen on driving either, but there is also an auto train that cuts the trip down by more than half, which is quite nice. Just having three options makes me happy since we are keeping the cabin in "the Valley" and plan to migrate. Am I concerned that the island may be literally underwater in forty years? Not particularly because we won’t be alive to see it. 

What I am embarrassed to admit is that there was another reason for me to move here that I only recently discovered—Key West is a literary Mecca. Unbeknownst to me, this is where writers go to work and live, and have for over a hundred years. I’ve long known that Ernest Hemingway had a home here—still does, only now it’s a museum. He, however, was only one of many. The list is ridiculously long, but notables include (in no particular order) the likes of Wallace Stevens, Robert Frost, Elizabeth Bishop, James Merrill, Richard Wilbur, Tennessee Williams, Thomas McGuane, John Hersey, Alison Lurie, Robert Stone, Judy Blume, Jimmy Buffet, Shel Silverstein, and Truman Capote. 

How I came to learn this common bit of knowledge is odd, and therefore typically Key West. Just this last autumn, I was walking out near the lighthouse on the 900 Block of Whitehead Street. Robin and I were returning from a lovely dinner, when I saw something beneath my feet. Written into the concrete of the sidewalk were words. This wasn’t a child’s scrawl, these letters were carefully inscribed. So, I stopped, and in the light of a late night street lamp, I read a poem by David L. Sloan.  

Who goes to the effort to inscribe literature into a nondescript sidewalk? I was impressed enough to snap the above photo and walked on. The following day on the way to brunch, Robin and I happened upon another bit of seemingly random etched graffiti, this one a distinctly appropriate poem by Eden Brown:

At this point I was more than impressed—I was intrigued. The next day, Robin and I swam at the Casa Marina pier where I found Tennessee Williams swam there every morning and was quoted as saying he wrote best in Key West. At this point I had to investigate, and learned the island was drowning in a legacy of writers. 

I quickly discovered David L. Sloan was a local author by virtue of his many books featured at the city’s bookstores. I purchased Quit Your Job And Move To Key West by Christopher Shultz & David L Sloan just in case there were other things I ought to know about before buying a place on the island. Eden Brown is also a local poet. This led me to discover that the concrete verses were the result of The Key West Sidewalk Poetry Project conducted by the city’s Art in Public Places Board. More than 200 Florida Keys writers submitted poetry, prose, lyrics and haiku, in a contest that granted a cash award and a place in the city’s history. 

It would seem this tiny island at the southernmost point of the continental United States, with it’s tropical climate, ocean breezes, roaming roosters, and creative, quirky, and artistically minded residents, attract writers like Reese's Pieces pull in lost and lonely aliens. And the island has embraced this tendency for writers to settle here, by establishing yearly seminars and other organizations and events. It would seem artists, musicians, and writers are the island’s more respectable mascots. 

I suppose if I had the chance at put words to sidewalk, it would be a simple question posed to me by Robin. “What took us so long to get here?”

Fingers Crossed . . .

 

My wife and I are moving to Tur Del Fur. Not entirely, and not exactly, but she’s already there and I’m leaving to join her today. Truth is we bought a house in Old Town Key West, and if my last novel, Drumindor were to be made into a movie, Key West is where they should film it. Truthfully, the architecture would be all wrong, and the time period completely off, but the essence, the spirit, and the feel are a perfect match. To a large degree, Key West was my inspiration for the setting of that novel: independent, artistic, freewheeling, and a culturally diverse city of Tur Del Fur where Ghazel, Dromeians, and Fhrey bumped elbows without a thought – a happy place, a unique watering hole where lions and antelope drink side-by-side in a tranquil paradise. 

I said we aren’t moving entirely because we are keeping the cabin in Shenandoah, and will return to it in the summers. This will make us “snow birds” a term for lucky old people who have the means and the wisdom to understand why birds migrate. 

You see, Robin — she’s my wife, and I feel silly explaining that because most know her by now, and she’s certainly more beloved—suffers from the winter blues. She becomes depressed when the leaves fall, spirals downward when we “close up the pool,”  and it gets worse as days shorten and grow colder. We don’t know if it is a true case of seasonal affective disorder (SAD), or not, but it happens each year and appears to grow more pronounced with age. Even I’ve started to feel it. Short, dark, cold days have a way of making a person focus on that unpleasant topic we all prefer to not think about—how few years you have left. Less years, more focus, greater morbidity in winter. 

Over the years, we’ve traveled to the Keys for at least a week in various winters. I even did a blog post in March of 2019 about how we’d take the auto train down to Orlando, then jump in our Jeep and drive the rest of the way to the islands. The trips clearly helped, so this last November we tried an experiment. Sure, it’s fine for a week, for a vacation, but how would it be to live there? For a test we rented a house for six weeks in the Old Town section of Key West.  

For those of you who don’t know, Key West is the last inhabited island at the end of the overseas highway. A 113-mile stretch of road that connects more than 40 small islands utilizing 42 bridges including one that is 7 miles long. The island itself is quite small just 4.2 square miles (approximately 4 miles long and 1 mile wide). In 1829 it was even smaller than that (just 2.5 square miles but it’s been “added onto” over the years the biggest project of which happened during the 1950’s and 1960’s.  

Key west also has the distinction of being the southernmost point in the contiguous United States. It is closer to Havana than Miami, and it has a tropical climate. The surrounding water tends to mitigate huge temperature swings keeping it mild for most of the year, and it enjoys 300 days a year of sunshine. It really doesn’t get cold there; it’s record low was set in 1886 (41 degrees F), and I have been told it is the only place in the continental United States that you can drive to that has never known frost. 

As you might imagine, the island is quite crowded there are about 3000 buildings many of which date back to the 1800’s; it looks like Main Street Disneyland if Walt had decided on a tropical garden theme. 

After our six weeks, we discovered that we loved it. The bad news (as you might have already guessed) is that we loved it. 

You see, Key West is not cheap. 

A realtor showed us a house with a separate building that was being rented to a ship’s captain. It was one room with a low ceiling, no windows or running water, (there was an outdoor shower and toilet nearby). I think it must have been about 10 feet by 15 feet, and the captain paid $2000 a month in rent! But it’s not just the cost of housing that’s expensive there. Since so much is brought in by the Overseas Highway, or by boat, most things are pricey. Living is Key West these days was a crazy (and we thought) unobtainable dream.

But a funny thing happened over the last two decades. A lot of people bought my books. And because Robin and I grew up poor, we never spent very much of that money. And as the shorter, darker days keep reminding us, we don’t have that many years left. So we bought a little piece of paradise. 

We closed on a little yellow shipwright cottage in “the Meadows” at the start of February. No not the one I described above. The “house hunt” was an adventure in its own right, and maybe Robin will post about it. The plan was for Robin to go down, get things “setup” and then I would follow soon after. Little did we know that Virginia (and a wide swath of the east) was inundated with snow and crippled by seriously cold temperature turned the “white stuff” surrounding our place into “snowcrete (a new Virginia term for really thick and immovable ice).  

In early February, we were like borrowing field mice not peaking our heads out of the cabin at all, but we did have to get the closing papers notarized so we took a trip to do that. While I parked the car, Robin walked toward the cabin and went down hard.  I rushed after to help, and fell as well.  The result was an acute transverse fracture through the surgical neck of the proximal humerus extending into the greater tuberosity. In other word, she fractured her upper arm where the ball of the bone sits in the shoulder.

The prognosis of her arm wasn’t great, but the weather predictions were worse. Temperatures were going to be below freezing for weeks so none of the snow was going to melt.  To make matters worse another huge storm just came through south of us so travel through that area was “dicey.” Now, anyone who knows Robin knows that she is not one to be daunted. If you put obsticles in her way she’s going to go around, over, or under them so she threaded a needle found a few days when setting out might be possible and so I loaded up the Jeep with essentials that had to go by car (including or cat Loki), and she and our daughter Sarah set out.

So, she’s been down there these last five weeks. Winged as she was, there wasn’t a lot that she could do, but Lorian (my co-author for After the Fall), and her husband came down to help. Sarah was able to stay for a few days, and one of our oldest and dearest friends, Cheryl, came to the rescue. So she’s not been alone for the entire time—thank Maribor.

This is the longest the two of us have been apart in forty-six years by a margin of four weeks. It hasn’t been pleasant. We honestly like each other’s company (something our daughter refers to as co-dependency). 

I’ve stayed in the cabin working to finish the third book of the Cycle, because I didn’t have an office at the new place yet, and I didn’t want to stop while I was “on a roll.” Alone in the snowbound Shenandoah Valley, in the short, dark, cold days I thought I could get a lot done, and I have, but it has been miserable. Not nearly as nice as Stephen King made it out to be in The Shining. I didn’t have a helpful ghostly bartender to cheer me up. 

I don’t watch much television, but I started to when night fell as that’s when I noticed Robin’s absence the most. The late lonely hours are especially nasty and get worse as you get older. So, I watched a Ken Burns special on Hemingway, about how he killed himself in a remote cabin. I followed this up with the new Michael Caine movie Bestseller about an aging writer at the end of his life who credits his wife with making his career by her wonderful editing, but who passed away and now everything is bullshiite (an actual word used in the film.) As you might imagine, neither of these helped. No, not at all. 

The phone has been our lifeline. We talk almost every night (exceptions held for when people were visiting). Maybe that’s what denied me my rightful bartender, I don’t know. What made it bearable was how happy she sounded. In some weird way, it was like she was dead, and I was making phone calls to heaven. I was either still alive or in hell. I’m not sure which. These days it’s hard to tell the difference. 

But the book is done. The snow is gone. I have a backpack filled with my notebooks, iPad, a portable hard drive, and a plane ticket. And in 15 minutes my plane will be boarding, so  I’m going to see my wife in paradise. 

If my plane crashes, this post is going to sound weirdly prophetic. But for now my fingers are crossed.

Time to Celebrate!

 Hey all, Robin here. I'm writing today because it's time to . . . 

What do I have to be so happy about?  Well a few things.

First and foremost, I have some important news about the third book in the Cycle series.  When Michael started writing it, he put a "target date" of May 1st, and his computer gave him an estimate of how many words each day he had to write to finish by then. Some may know that we were in Key West from Late November until Early January, and while I thought that would slow him down a lot (and therefore push that date further back), it turns out he was able to keep to his normal writing routine while in paradise, and his required word count per day actually came down rather than going up.

When we got back to Luray, I started hinting that a REALLY nice birthday gift would be if Book #3 could be finished by April 8th. Since there were only a few months until then, I thought it was a lot to ask, but hey, if you don't tell the one you love what present you want more than anything else then there is no hope of getting it.

Well, Michael did a bit better than April 8th.  As of March 10th, the book is officially finished!! I can't wait to get my hands on it - which leads me to the second reason why I'm here to celebrate.

You see, for the last 35 days, Michael and I have been apart from one another -- separated by about 1,200 miles. There has been times when I was in one place and him another, but in more than forty-six years, I can count on one hand the number of times we've not been "attached at the hip" -- and on those occasions it's rarely been more than a week in duration. Well, in about 34 1/2 hours that will be rectified, and we'll be together once more.  And yeah, I'm counting the hours and grinning from ear to ear just thinking about our reunion.

What has caused this separation? Well, I'll leave that to Michael to explain. I asked him to write a blog post about "recent events," and he sent it to me last night. So, stay tuned. There's more on this tomorrow. But suffice to say I have a lot be happy about. 

The Storm - The First Cycle Story now Available to all

As many may be aware I'm currently writing "The Cycle" - a five-book post-Riyria Revelations series which will pull characters and plot points from all 20 books written in Elan including:

• 6 books of the Riyria Revelations
• 5 books of the Riyria Chronicles
• 6 books of the Legends of the First Empire
  
• 3 books of the Rise and Fall

As part of The Cycle, there are a number of "foundational works" that I wrote to provide added context - and to leak clues as to what to expect in my current work in progress. The first of those is "The Storm" - a short story that takes place in the timeline of The Riyria Chronicles, but introduces a character and some "concepts" that will be expanded upon in The Cycle.

This short story was published in an anthology created by Grim Oak Press to spotlight Indie authors. As for availability:

• The physical book is still being printed, but pre-order is available.
• Backers of the Kickstarter received the tale on January 11th,
• But the ebook is now available to everyone: Amazon | Grim Oak Press Site

So if you've been excited about getting into The Cycle - pick up a copy of Unavowed, and read The Storm!

Theft of Swords ebook on Sale - $1.99

 From time to time Orbit, my publisher for the Riyria Revelations, puts the books on a deeply discounted sale. This is one of those times.  The book is currently $1.99 (previously $6.99 originally $12.99) and the price change happened on February 1st. I'm not sure how long it will be at this price, probably for a month, but if you haven't started this series . . . or more importantly if you know someone who has expressed an interest but needed a good reason to start . . . now is the time.

Here are some links from some major retailers:

Amazon | Barnes and Noble | Kobo | Apple | Google Play | Better World Books