Went out with the camera today to get some action pictures of M&S:
Scum and Villainy Part II
So here’s part of the scene that I wound up writing to solve the aforementioned villain problem. I think it’s more interesting than chopping someone apart with a machete:
Making the threat had given him back vitality that had ebbed with the long day. He took a bite of goat meat. He traced a pattern on the table with his fingers, then called a rat.
One came. A thin old rat with patches of fur missing and and one ear gone. He directed it onto a table in the center of the room. It sat on its haunches with its tiny pink paws folded together and chirped until everyone in the room was looking at it.
Then Avros made it chase its tail.
Round and round it circled, round and round. The room fell silent. The scratch of the rat’s claws and the whisk of its tail against the wood were loud. No one moved. Avros did not need to watch the rat to control it, and he saw the glances from the rat to him and back, furtive glances, frightened glances. Even if the people in the room did not know he controlled it, they suspected it, some deeper down than others.
Round and round. He drank his beer. A rat could run a long time without dying.
Scum and Villainy
Right now I am a little stuck trying to think of villainous acts my villain can do that don’t consist of just killing more people. That’s not very interesting. (Or at least I can’t make it so.) The problem is that he’s a loner type so he doesn’t interact with many people, which means that it is kind of hard to make him subtly menacing in conversation, especially from his POV. He has to do things that are deeply creepy, but he is a guy with a little more purpose to his acts than just making everyone else uncomfortable, so his behaviors have to be reasonably consistent with his purposes. I’m not writing a guy who is evil because he is insane — this guy may have some sociopathic tendencies but he’s not killing people because of them. It’s more like swatting flies or crushing snails.
However, writing all this just gave me an idea for the next scene, which was the point of my internal deliberations, so I can go to that now. I do think I need to reread a couple of books which have very scary villains — Faulkner’s Sanctuary and McCarthy’s Blood Meridian. Both are good books, but you do have to be willing to read a lot of stomach-turning violence. Not just gruesome and gory stuff, but uber-threatening violence.
New Project
Last week I got a very long e-mail from my agent about the current project, which boiled down to Good stuff here, but where’s your plot? So I chopped a bunch, essentially combining the first half of chapter 1 with the last third of chapter 3, and sent off the new chapter 1. Today’s e-mail started off “Holy crap” and went on to say the new chapter was “tremendously, tremendously good.” Which means I haven’t been wasting the last 6 months. However, I am gearing myself up for a hell of a lot more chopping. I think this time next week I’ll be 25 K words in the hole, or more.
The advantage of having a professional reader who is personally invested in my work is unbelievable.
What’s it about, anyway?
Someone asked me this, and I was prepared to copy the catalog blurb when it became available as an answer, but when the catalog blurb did become available a few days later I realized how much actually got left out.
But, rather than a hokey summary, I am going to provide a non-comprehensive list of what’s in it and what’s not, because lists are always more fun.
What’s in:
- enslaved dragons
- true love (go on, say it in the Princess Bride voice, you know you want to)
- pianos, tea parties, and etiquette
- swordfights!
- magic
- sex (tastefully done)
- murder and betrayal
- the epic fantasy versions of Elizabeth and Darcy and some lines straight out of P&P
- chemical warfare / advanced weapons technology
- formal dancing
- a library
What’s not in:
- dwarves, elves, talking cats, trolls, or anything in the Monster Manual (unless you count the dragons)
- portals or portcullises
- hideous diseases
- stupid women
- children in danger
- drug abuse, midlife crises, or reckless driving
- Mr. Collins (just couldn’t make it work…)
- an escape through rat-infested sewers
- acrimonious divorce
- anyone I know
Perhaps I’ll expound upon some of these elements individually later on.
The cover
The cover. Wow.
Updates
Publication Date: February 20, 2014. Also, there will be an audio book and I get to help choose the narrator.
I also created an author facebook page and will link to this blog.
American vs. British English
A win for the Anglophiles. I get to keep “grey” instead of suffering “gray.” I’ve spelled it that way since I was 9! Everything else is properly American.
Layouts
Got the draft layouts today. With a little tweaking (I removed a border and re-sized the drawing a bit smaller), here is what I think the main title page is going to look like:
It’s coming together
Ooh, got first round of mss from copyeditor, and author pic decided on. Not the most gorgeous but probably the one that most expresses me (photog credit Judith Love Pietromartire): 
