Curse update: March 15, 2014

ByJohn Brown

CurseV2FinalV1I’ve been diligently moving forward with CURSE.

However, it’s not been in a straight line. While working on the ending last week, I realized that I no longer had the word limit constraints I had with Tor.

Of course, I knew that, but I hadn’t gone back to my previous draft that had been written to meet Tor’s limits and asked: should I put  back in anything that I was forced to cut?

But while writing the ending last week I realized that in the last revision I had removed an awesome sequence that introduces the villain of the tale. I’d done it to save the word count. I’d written another entrance. It was good given the constraints, but it didn’t have the cool wattage that this one did.

Not even close.

I love great character entrances. Could I put it back it?

The answer was a resounding yes!

So this week was spent rewriting that entrance (and now it’s even better than it was) and fitting it into the story (and slid in so smoothly and made it so much better).

Folks, you will now get to see the naked orange-eyed priest of Mungo.

Share

Similar Posts

  • John and Larry do Phoenix this Thurs & Fri

    ByJohn Brown

    Just a reminder. Larry and I will be in the Phoenix area this week on book tour. If you’re available, we’d love to see you Thursday night at the Poisoned Pen or earlier that day at the informal Barnes & Noble meet-n-greet!

    Thursday,
    November 19
    3 pm – 5 pm    		 Meet public, discuss book, signing. This is informal, just chatting in the cafe–Brown & Correia Mesa, AZ Barnes & Noble
    Dana Park Village Square
    1758 South Val Vista Drive
    Mesa, AZ 85204
    (480) 545-8507
    Thursday,
    November 19
    7 pm – 9 pm    		 Meet public, discuss book, signing–Brown & Correia Scottsdale, AZ The Poisoned Pen
    4014 N Goldwater Blvd. Suite 101
    Scottsdale, AZ 85251
    (480) 947-2974
    Share

  • Interview on Dungeon Crawlers Radio Monday Night, Oct 4!

    ByJohn Brown

    Malak and Revan of Dungeon Crawlers Radio will be doing a live interview with me tonight on UtahFM at 6:20 PM Mountain time tonight, Oct 4th (that’s 5:20 pm Pacific, 7:20 pm Central, and 8:20 pm Eastern). You can access the show by going to www.DungeonCrawlersRadio.com and clicking on the listen live link. This is going to be fun. Here’s your chance to show up and ask questions! Or submit them early by contacting them via their site. Maybe I’ll reveal how I almost became a cult leader. If you have an iPhone with a blue tooth adapter you can stream it through the phone with the UtahFM app. Contact Dungeon Crawlers Radio for more details.

    Share

  • Awful Intent Update: Chapter 23

    ByJohn Brown

    You’ll notice that the progress meter for Awful Intent is slowly rising. I just finished the first draft of chapter 23. The meter says I’m almost 75% of the way done. But I’m thinking I might need an extra six chapters to finish this tale. We’ll see. The number of chapters I estimate I’ll have is always, well, an estimate. But we are moving forward.  The next chapter is where we get the next step in the mystery which leads to the big twist in the chapter after that which ratchets up the stakes.

    And for those of you wondering about the Far-Fetched Fables production of “From The Clay of His Heart,” they usually do two stories in an episode. But my story was too big to be paired with another big story, so they have moved the story “to the June 2nd (the first available spot on our schedule).”

    Share

  • Curse Update: Copy Edits, 2 Books

    ByJohn Brown

    CurseV2FinalV1My copy editor just delivered the marked up manuscript. I will be making the edits over the next few days. Once those are made, it’s time to publish.

    Ah, but publish just one book?

    Nope. It looks like this is going to be two:

    • CURSE: The Dark God Book 2
    • RAVELER: The Dark God Book 3

    Each book would be about 120k words. Novels can range from around 30-50k words like many middle grade novels (or most of the books written by Louis L’Amour) to the 50-70k length of a lot of romance novels to the 70-100k words of many thrillers to the 300-400k epic behemoths that George R.R. Martin and Sanderson have recently written.  I think most adult novels are around 100k.  I think most fantasies are in the 80-130k area, although many epics can be in the 200’s.  The bottom line is that both volumes will be chock full of story.

    This is all part of a strategy to tell the same long, big story as originally planned, but do it in quicker chunks so that the series can become viable financially more quickly, but also so readers aren’t waiting so long between books.  I have tormented those who enjoyed book 1 and wanted more far too long. I want to remedy that in the future, and more frequent installments will allow me to do this. Getting these two volumes out will help set the expectation, I think.

    So a release of CURSE in July seems more than feasible. Then we’ll release RAVELER early August. Why August? Because we need to commission a new cover illustration. The soonest the artist can have it done would be August. Stay tuned. I can’t wait to see what art Victor comes up with next.

    And if you want to get in on the new release sale for both, please sign up for the notification in the left sidebar.

    Happiness.

    Share

  • Curse Update

    ByJohn Brown

    CurseV2FinalV1A number of weeks ago life happened at my day job. I had just started a rewrite of the final battle of CURSE, but life put that on hold. Life got back to normal a few days ago. And a few days ago I began to work on that final battle sequence again. So you’ll notice that delivery targets have changed on the books page. I’m moving under a good head of steam now, and unless life happens again, we should meet those dates 🙂 More than anyone else, I want to get this book into your hands.

    Share

9 Comments

  1. “naked orange-eyed priest of Mungo”

    Sounds vaguely familiar. Was he in one of the sample chapters you posted way back when?

  5. Maybe I am confusing him with another character. I vaguely remember the evil hunter guy, but I do not remember him “naked”. And I remember a naked birdman crazy guy, but he seemed more confused than evil. It has been quite a while since I read it.

  6. John,

    You’ve got an awesome memory. That was so long ago, and yet you’ve still got a lot of it.

  7. Maybe I remember it because it was so well written! 🙂

    Now hurry up and finish! 😉

  8. This is the first and only time I have ever found myself excited to be introduced to a naked priest.

Comments are closed.