Want a recap of the prior 2 books before diving into Labyrinth of Flame? You're in luck...

So I had this grand plan before The Labyrinth of Flame came out that I was going to put up synopses of The Whitefire Crossing and The Tainted City on my web page, for readers that wanted a recap to refresh their memory before diving into book 3. I see people requesting these types of summaries for series books all the time on various fantasy forums, and I sympathize; when there's a long wait between books, details fade, and if you're not a fast reader, the thought of re-reading can be daunting. 

No problem, I thought. I've got synopses already! One for Whitefire Crossing that I used back when I was first querying the book, and one for Tainted City that I wrote for the cover artist. 

Yeah. Thing is, I forgot just how much the books had changed since I wrote those synopses. (For example, in the version of Whitefire that I first queried, Pello the spy didn't even exist. And in Tainted City's case, I wrote that original synopsis when I was only 1/3 of the way through a serious draft of the book. It's actually quite amusing to look at what I wrote then and compare it to the final product. Broad strokes of the plot are the same, but wow are the details different, including pretty much everything about the ending.)

Anyway, when I realized how much work was needed to update the synopses, right when I was in the throes of book production--I admit it, I chickened out. After all, I reasoned, I'd already done my best to write Labyrinth of Flame such that the reader is reminded of important events/characters when they become relevant (mostly through Dev or Kiran's personal take on the situation). That'd be good enough, right?

For most readers, it has been, or so people have told me. But when I saw someone post on r/Fantasy asking for a summary of Whitefire Crossing and Tainted City, well, I figured it was time to stop cringing from the task. (I find synopsis writing really hard. So hard that back when I'd finished my big revision of Whitefire Crossing and one agent asked for an exclusive, yet I had another agent interested, the tipping point in my decision to grant the exclusive was that agent #2 wanted a revised synopsis. I reasoned that if agent #1 read the revised manuscript & rejected it, THEN I'd go through all the pain of revising the synopsis. But then agent #1 loved it & offered representation, so I was spared! Until now.) 

But synopsis writing is an important skill for an author, and I do feel a tad more comfortable with it now than I did back then. So, behold:

• Synopsis/summary of The Whitefire Crossing
• Synopsis/summary of The Tainted City

Hope this helps out anyone who needs a refresher! At the very least, it was good practice for me. These are a bit longer than I would do if I was writing for an editor/agent and not readers (Tainted City's in particular covers more details than would be necessary in that case), which made the writing a bit easier. (Condensing is the hard part of synopsis writing.) But I admit I am awfully glad to return to plain old story writing--after a synopsis, even first-drafting seems easy and fun!

The Labyrinth of Flame is out in the world!

The Labyrinth of Flame is really, finally, completely, utterly done - and in readers' hands! I sent out ebooks and maps to Kickstarter backers on Sunday night. (This after a week that involved my son getting sick, me getting sick, and then a tree falling on our neighborhood power lines right when I was trying to do final ebook conversions - gaaaah!)

Honestly I still can't quite believe the book is done. I don't think it'll sink in until the physical copies arrive and I hold one in my hands (which should be in another 2 weeks or so). I've been working on the story for so long that my brain hasn't quite adjusted to the idea that not only is The Labyrinth of Flame done, but other people can now READ IT. (Oh gosh. That's somewhat terrifying, but mostly I can't wait to see what people think of the book.)

Of course, I'm not yet done with the Shattered Sigil world and characters. I still have four short stories to write for Kickstarter backers. I'm looking forward to working on those! And I still have plenty of production and Kickstarter-related tasks to handle. But the biggest part of the mountain has been climbed, and once I come out of my hypoxic daze, I'll be jumping about with joy.

For anyone who missed the Kickstarter, fear not! I'll be doing a general release of the book through Amazon, Barnes & Noble, etc in both ebook and print on Dec 1. (I just today set up the Amazon preorder page. I think as a self-pub person, Amazon only allows me to set up a pre-order for ebooks, not print, but rest assured the book will be available in both when the time comes.)

Oh yes, and while I was in my final push to the finish, Grimdark Magazine reviewed The Whitefire Crossing and The Tainted City, and posted an interview with me (in which I share my favorite grimdark author, among other things.)

And now, it is a beautiful day, and I am going to the mountains!

Not dead, just busy

I realized it's been over a month since I last posted here.  Quite a change from the "all posts all the time" frenzy during Labyrinth of Flame's Kickstarter, huh?  But I swear, my silence has been for good reason. I've been working like crazy on structural edits for the book.  18 chapters edited, 16 to go!  Plus I've been sending ebooks of the first two novels out to the (rather large) number of people who chose the "ebook trilogy" reward for the Kickstarter, and setting up contracts with editors and illustrators, and critiquing pages for people who chose the "writer's special" reward, and about a million other tasks.

(On tonight's task list: prepare list of scenes to be illustrated and send the artist the first half of the book.  Speaking of tasks, if you're curious what a typical "workday" looks like for me as an author, I wrote up a short description for this German blog - in English, not Deutsch.)

Once I'm done with structural edits, the next big step along the production path is line editing.  Labyrinth of Flame's line editor will be Marty Halpern (who came highly recommended to me by several author-friends).  He's got a post on his blog about the Shattered Sigil books - he's currently reading the The Whitefire Crossing and The Tainted City in preparation for me sending him The Labyrinth of Flame.  

Heh, and in other news, I turned 40 this month (something I was amused to see celebrated on this German SFF blog).  Some of my non-Colorado friends seem to think a 40th birthday requires some kind of despairing freak-out.  I just laugh; here in Boulder, people still run marathons when they're 90.  Granted, not everyone is so lucky to have their health and bodies hold out.  But so long as mine does, I'm gonna keep right on playing as hard as I ever have in the mountains.  Warren Miller may say, "Anyone who says they're a better skier in their 40s than they were in their 20s...wasn't a very good skier in their 20s."  But I say that's the beauty of coming to skiing late. :)

Oh, and just in case you're saying, "Gosh, I wish I had another fantasy featuring lots of magic and a young blood mage with a mysterious past to read while I wait for The Labyrinth of Flame..."  - I've got the perfect rec for you!  While suffering from a horrible cold a few weeks back, I read V.E. Schwab's A Darker Shade of Magic and LOVED it.  One of those books that hit all my personal buttons just right as a reader.  Nifty magic, a great use of a parallel world concept, some great characters I thoroughly enjoyed spending time with (including the aforementioned young blood mage!), and a well-crafted story that kept me zipping through the pages (or hitting "next" on my Kindle, anyway).  The story works pretty well as a standalone but leaves enough threads open that I cannot wait for the sequel, A Gathering of Shadows.  (It releases next year. Thankfully I am so busy I know the time will go fast.)


     

Draft 2 of The Labyrinth of Flame is DONE

I have a complete draft! That is 1000x better than the first draft! Which feels like:

And like:

Though after this week's revising marathon, also like:

But mostly like:

End of the trail 

I love this book so much, you all.  I hope you will love it too.  But even if you don't, I love this story so much that I can forever bask in the happy, satisfied glow of knowing I've written the tale I wanted so much to read, all those years ago when I first began The Whitefire Crossing.  It's been a hell of a ride with Dev and Kiran and I don't regret a single minute of the time I've spent at the keyboard.  

Granted, the book's not quite ready for you yet.  This 2nd draft is sitting at a whopping 194,301 words (yikes!).  For comparison, The Whitefire Crossing was ~135K as published and The Tainted City was ~176K.  The Labyrinth of Flame's first draft was actually only 126,277.  If you're wondering why the massive difference between drafts 1 and 2, it's because Labyrinth's first draft was pretty skeletal.  The 2nd draft is where I deepen character interaction & emotion and add all the really good stuff.  But sometimes I get a little carried away! There's gonna need to be some pruning and polishing as I incorporate editorial and critique group comments.  

But that's why I'm running a Kickstarter: I want to make this book the absolute best it can be.  I've already got some talented editorial and production folks lined up.  If the Kickstarter funds, I'll be able to hire them.  I'm hoping to launch the Kickstarter next week - just gotta finish the project video.  And thanks a million to everyone who took my Kickstarter survey! Got some really great suggestions I plan to incorporate.  But for tonight, I'm gonna kick back with my family and revel in the bittersweet joy of a long journey's completion.  

Read the first chapter of The Labyrinth of Flame

Happy November, everyone!  Good luck to those of you doing NaNoWriMo.  On Nov 1, 2007 I sat down to write the very first line of the first draft of The Whitefire  Crossing.  Now here I am, seven years and many, many words later, closing in on the end of Dev and Kiran's story.  (Seven years.  Good God.  Doesn't feel that long at all!  You might think I'd be bored with my characters by now, but nope.  Think I have even more fun writing them these days than I did in book 1.)

In celebration of my writing anniversary - and excitement over nearing the homestretch of my revision! - I'm offering up a first look at The Labyrinth of Flame.  The first chapter is up on my website: hope you enjoy.

The 2nd and 3rd chapters will follow in Dec & Jan.  Hey, and if you're going to World Fantasy, you won't even have to wait for Dec for Ch 2.  I'll likely share the first scene of Ch 2 at my reading, which is at 10am on Sun the 9th.

And now, back to picking out which books I'll get to read while traveling to WFC (yay for airports and reading time!)...

The Whitefire Crossing is on sale for $1.99 today!

Super quick post to share that The Whitefire Crossing's ebook is on sale today for $1.99 on US Amazon, Barnes and Noble, and Kobo (plus you can get Audible audiobook for only $3.99 more through Amazon's Whispersync program).  Sale is one day only, ends at midnight (eastern time, I assume!).  Regular ebook price is $9.99 (set by publisher, not me) so it's a pretty significant discount.  I figure most of you who see this post have already read the book, but if you've friends who might be interested, spread the word!  I'm guessing this is the one chance this year to get the book for a sale price.

And just in case your friends need convincing, check out this terrific blurb I recently got from New York Times bestselling author Jason M. Hough (unsolicited, because he is just that awesome): "Enthralling from the very first page, Schafer's novel lavishes rich characters and refined narrative on to a story of intensely personal scope. Refreshing and brilliant."  When my agent forwarded me Jason's email with the blurb, I was walking on the air for the rest of the day. Thanks, Jason!

Best of all, today I look forward to 6 whole hours of writing time on The Labyrinth of Flame - the longest chunk I've had in months.  I signed my son up for an extra day in preschool thinking it was necessary for my day job, but then it turned out I didn't need to come into work: WRITING TIME AHOY!!!  As someone used to writing in snatches of time here and there, usually while exhausted, the idea of an entire day to focus on the book is pretty much the Best Thing Ever.  Now I just need to unplug my internet cable.

Happy Holidays (and a revision update)

Happy Holidays to all! No white Christmas for us in Boulder this year - it's 50 degrees and last week's snow is long gone - but we've still been having a lovely (if busy!) time with family.  Plus, every night after everyone else goes to bed, I get to settle down with my Labyrinth of Flame draft and enjoy some quality revision time.  (I say "enjoy" without any sarcasm whatsoever.  I love the part where I take a raw mess of a scene and shape it into something that's actually good.  I am having so much fun with the book right now.)

More for myself than anyone else, I thought it'd be interesting to keep track of the revision process.  As of today (12/27) I have the first three chapters (about 56 manuscript pages) of The Labyrinth of Flame revised, and I'm working on a synopsis of the book for my agent's use.  (I haaaaaaaate writing synopses.  I confess I asked my agent, "Can't I just finish revising the entire book instead so you can submit the whole thing instead of a proposal package?"  Agent: "No.")  Looking forward to finishing the synopsis so I can get back to the fun writing.

I also took a quick break from revising to participate in a Mind Meld over at SF Signal talking about our favorite dragons in fantasy.  Check it out to find out what dragon books have influenced me as a fantasy reader (and why I think dragons have such enduring appeal in the genre).

Next week I plan on doing a year end wrap-up post that'll cover my favorite books read in 2013.  As an author I get a huge warm fuzzy every time I see a book of mine show up on that type of list.  I've been delighted and honored to see Whitefire Crossing and Tainted City get a few mentions this year:

• Whitefire Crossing made Fantasy Review Barn's list of "5 Books I Read in 2013 That Lived Up to the Hype" (haha, I didn't even know there was any "hype" about Whitefire!)
• Whitefire also made Coffee, Cookies, and Chili Pepper's "Best Debuts of 2013" 
• The Tainted City made two lists on Bibliotropic: "Top 5 Fantasy Novels Read in 2013" and "Top 10 Novels of all Genres Read in 2013"
• The Tainted City is in great company on fellow author Mark Lawrence's "Books I Read in 2013"  

Looking forward to sharing my own favorite reads of the year with you all!  In the meantime, back to that pesky synopsis...

          

Good luck to my fellow NaNoWriMo-ers!

Six years ago today (six?! holy crap...) I sat down to write the very first words of The Whitefire Crossing as an eager but nervous first-time NaNoWriMo participant. (That first line actually remains exactly the same as I first wrote it Nov 1 2007, oddly enough. Practically all the other words got rewritten before publication, but not the opening sentence.)  Now, six years later, I'm embarking on NaNoWriMo once more - this time hoping to close in on the end of the first draft of The Labyrinth of Flame, the final chapter in Dev and Kiran's story.

I've even signed up for NaNo officially.  (I didn't in 2007; my friends and I just aimed for 50K on our own).  This time I figure the camaraderie of the full NaNo experience could be fun - so if you're one of the dedicated souls trying to pump out 50K this month, you can find me there as ColoradoGirl.

As a published author, the first day of NaNo this time just feels like any other writing day.  I'd already upped my pace to 2,000 words a day over this last week of October, so if I can keep that pace up, I'll be in fine shape.  And 50K is likely to be less than a third of the novel, since I write long-ish books!  (The Tainted City was 176K as published.)  But that said, I can't help but be carried along on the excitement of everyone participating, both newbies and long-time veterans.  The real point of NaNo is to make your book a priority; to put aside distractions and all the criticism of your inner editor and let the story flow.  It's a wonderful experience, whatever your goals.  So good luck to everyone participating this year - may we all reach 50K and beyond!

Boulder's Aquapocalypse, and other news

The rain rain rain came down down down, in rushing rising rivulets... That's exactly what we got in Boulder this last week. Nonstop rain, much of it heavy, oversaturating the soil and raising the creeks to gargantuan levels until on Wednesday night into Thursday we got the infamous "100-year flood" that Boulder officials have been muttering dark warnings about for years.

Boulder Creek in flood.  I took this pic on Friday, so water levels are already far less than they were at the height of the flood!

Thankfully, when we bought our house in Boulder we made sure to buy out of the city's multiple flood plains, so Casa Schafer was spared serious flooding. That said, thanks to a leaky foundation and supersaturated soil, we did get water trickling (and sometimes pouring!) into our underground storage area through various cracks. The sump pump kept it more or less under control, though, so we never suffered more than a few inches.  We did get a nice lake in our backyard:

My husband and son standing in the newly-created Lake Schafer

But nothing like the neighborhoods near the various creeks, some of which got slammed:

Parking lot of Boulder's main library on Friday: check out the mostly-submerged bench on the right!

Looking down from a bridge at a flooded bike path on Friday

Really, Boulder was fortunate: the damage here was nothing like the devastation in Lyons and some of the mountain towns, where roads and gas lines got completely ripped out, leaving people stranded without heat and power.  But watching the creek roar past from the surviving bridges is yet another stark reminder of how fragile we are in comparison to nature.

In happier news, look what showed up on my doorstep mere hours before the flood sirens went off:

Author copies of the German edition of The Whitefire Crossing (a.k.a. Die Chroniken von Ninavel: Die Blutmagier)! 

Holding a foreign edition of The Whitefire Crossing in my hands is definitely another mindblowingly cool authorial moment.  Hooray for my German publisher, Bastei Lübbe!  

A few other authorial bits of news:

• Want to see a back-cover-copy style summary of The Labyrinth of Flame?  Then check out Fantastical Imaginations's "Upcoming Fantasy Novels in 2014, Part 2" in which I and a bunch of other authors discuss our upcoming releases.  (But beware spoilers if you haven't read the earlier books in the series; the summary does have spoilers for both Whitefire Crossing and Tainted City.)
• Whitefire Crossing got used as a (good!) example in author Violette Malan's post at Black Gate about how to gracefully handle exposition. How cool is that?

Oh yes, and since this came up on Twitter - for anyone interested in getting signed copies of The Whitefire Crossing and/or The Tainted City, I bought up a bunch of the books back when I thought Night Shade might go to bankruptcy court (I figured better safe than sorry!).  I'm happy to sell signed copies direct to readers until I run out.  Email me (courtney (at) courtneyschafer (dot) com) for details.

My WorldCon in Pictures

Oh gosh, I had such a great time at WorldCon.  Since the con, I've seen a lot of thought-provoking discussion about the aging of WorldCon.  I've heard many authors say that other cons offer better promotional opportunities and chances to connect with newer/younger readers.  But I don't actually go to cons to sell my books.  I go to cons to get inspired and meet awesome people, and in that respect WorldCon kicks ass.  (Though I do very much believe the lack of diversity at WorldCon is a bad thing, and one I hope the con will address.  Just think of how many *more* awesome people there'd be to meet if a greater variety of people came.)

I had countless great conversations with friends, met a whole host of fascinating new folks, and came back all fired up to work even harder on Labyrinth of Flame.  (Which is why this post is so late.  As I dig my way out from the mountain of day-job and real-life tasks that piled up while I was gone, when I do get spare time, all I want to do is write more of Dev and Kiran's story, not blog posts!)

I'm not even going to try and name all the wonderful people I met and hung out with, or give you a detailed day-to-day con report.  After all, Labyrinth of Flame calls!  But I do have some fun pictures and links to share from my various unofficial events.

First up: the BookSworn open suite party, which I co-hosted along with a whole gang of author-friends on the first night of the con.  SO MUCH FUN.  

The BookSworn & Friends party gang.  Front row: Zack Jernigan, Martha Wells, Doug Hulick.  Middle row: Stina Leicht, Betsy Dornbusch, me, Katy Stauber.  Back row: John Hornor Jacobs, Brad Beaulieu, and a photo-bombing Sam Morgon of JABberwocky Lit agency.

I put up a post on the BookSworn website that has a lot more pictures and commentary about the party - head on over and check it out!  

I also had a wonderful time at the group signing that fellow author Mike Martinez organized at The Twig bookstore.  We ended up with 9 authors: Kevin Hearne, Drew Karpyshyn, Mike Martinez, Betsy Dornbusch, me, Brian McClellan, Kay Kenyon, Scott Lynch, and Myke Cole.  I sold & signed some books - met some wonderful fans who came all the way out to the signing specially for me (wow!).  Though my favorite was the young girl walking past with her family who stopped and begged her dad to buy Whitefire Crossing for her - it seems she'd read Tainted City but not book 1 in the series.  Of course I also had fun chatting with my fellow authors; it was a particular thrill to meet Kay Kenyon and Scott Lynch, whose books I've loved for years.  Kay has a new book out (A Thousand Perfect Things) that I'm really excited to read, and of course I'm counting down the days until Scott's release of The Republic of Thieves.

At our table outside the bookstore (which was right beside a popular farmer's market): Mike Martinez, Betsy Dornbusch, me, Brian McClellan.  

Looking down the table: Betsy, Mike, Kevin Hearne, Drew Karpyshyn

Kay Kenyon and Scott Lynch talking to readers

Signing books for Cheryl, an absolutely lovely reader I'd corresponded with on Twitter

Back at the con, I had some particularly great conversations at the Reddit r/Fantasy fan table, and even did a "live" AMA (Ask Me Anything) - click here to read it!  r/Fantasy moderator Steve Drew and the rest of the Redditors who came to WorldCon did a spectacular job on short notice; the fan table was THE place to hang out in the dealer's room, and Steve & the gang came up with a bunch of neat ideas to involve fans unable to attend the con.  (If you've never checked out the r/Fantasy forum, I highly recommend it.  Lots of author-reader interaction & interesting discussion.)  

r/Fantasy moderator Steve Drew and author Stina Leicht at the r/Fantasy fan table.  (Author Wesley Chu sitting behind the table, frantically typing away for his live AMA.)  Sorry for the light flares - all I had was my cell phone camera!

Stina tries on the Helm - a piece that Steve Drew brought & had authors sign, which will be auctioned for charity.

Steve Drew was also one of the co-organizers of the con's biggest unofficial event: the Drinks With Authors party, along with the ever-awesome Justin Landon of Staffer's Book Review and author Myke Cole.  Talk about a great party!  Tons of people came - and since they were smart enough to hold it off-site in a bar with far more space than any hotel suite could provide, we even had room to breathe while talking. :)  Steve's got the best pics of the event, but here are a few I snapped:

Redditors Dave Wohlreich and Ian Everett guard the books.  So many were donated by publishers & authors they had to give them away in lots.  

The party's back room. (The front area by the bar was even more packed.)

Reviewer Justin Landon and author Wesley Chu hold an impromptu handstand competition.  (Wes won.)

Last but very definitely not least, WorldCon was awesome because I got to hang out with my brother Matt.  (He reviews SFF books both on his own site and for Strange Horizons, and there's nobody better at detailed, thoughtful analysis.)  We don't get to see each other that often, and since we both love SFF, what better venue for some quality sibling interaction?

Matt by a seriously huge prickly pear cactus during our visit to the Alamo. 

So, yeah.  Good times. Next year WorldCon is in London, and alas, I cannot go.  (Aside from the expense, my son starts kindergarten right around the time of the con.)  I may give Dragon*Con a try instead - I've been a little leery of attending the bigger media cons, thinking it might be a bit too overwhelming for an introvert like me - but hey, always good to step outside your comfort zone.  Still, I'm pretty sure that when WorldCon returns to the US in 2015 (Spokane won the bid), I'll be back.  

Alles Gute zum Geburtstag zu den Chroniken von Ninavel!

I may not have a book releasing this year in the US, but I've got a "book birthday" coming up tomorrow in Germany!  August 16 is the official release day for The Whitefire Crossing's German edition, a.k.a. Die Chroniken von Ninavel: Die Blutmagier.  My fingers are crossed that German  fantasy readers will enjoy Dev and Kiran's adventures!  Just yesterday I officially signed and sent back the contract for the German edition of The Tainted City, and I hear the publisher also wants to see The Labyrinth of Flame as soon as I finish it, so I have every hope the entire trilogy will be available auf Deutsch before too long.

Haha, and for any readers who wince at Dev's profanity in the Shattered Sigil books - you can always give the German versions a try!  When I took a peek at the preview my German publisher made available through Google books, I discovered to my combined surprise and amusement that all of Dev's f-bombs have been carefully translated out.  ("You've got to be fucking kidding me" => "Boy, you've got to be kidding me"; "Fuck you, Cara" => "Don't you talk, Cara"; etc.)  I've no idea of the publisher's reasons - maybe they want to aim for a younger readership, or maybe German fantasy readers are more bothered by profanity?  While it's true Dev's foul mouth was a deliberate choice on my part, I'm not upset over the change, since I figure the Germans know their market best.  (Besides, the English versions of the books are still exactly as I wrote them.  No harm, no foul...so to speak. :)  It does make me wonder if other foul-mouthed fantasies (e.g. Joe Abercrombie's) have been cleaned up in translation.  Perhaps I will dust off my rusty German and go read some to find out!

Telluride fun, and my new Goodreads policy

Hope everyone had a terrific weekend!  My husband, son, and I had a wonderful 4th of July in our favorite town in Colorado: Telluride.  It's our favorite for good reason.  In winter, the skiing is incredible (assuming there's enough of a snow base to properly cover the steeps), and in summer, the valley remains utterly gorgeous - the town is deep in a box canyon surrounded by towering peaks whose slopes are covered in aspen and wildflowers.

Town of Telluride beneath the San Sophia ridge - you can't see it very well in this pic (our good camera died so this was taken with my cell phone!) but the ridgeline is gloriously jagged.  

Telluride is so small you don't need a car, the houses are cute brightly painted Victorian things (as opposed to Colorado's usual "squat, ugly box" mining-heritage architecture), the locals are both friendly and hugely outdoorsy, and scads of amazing hiking and scrambling awaits right outside your front door.  I have this wistful dream of one day renting one of those cute little Victorian houses and spending a year living in Telluride, exploring all the San Juan Mountains have to offer.  (Sadly, first I'd have to win the lottery.  Telluride's housing prices make Boulder's seem like a bargain.)  We didn't get to enjoy any fireworks this year - the San Juan Mountains are tinder-dry right now, so Telluride and all the other towns in the region had to cancel their planned displays.  But my son thoroughly enjoyed the parade and town barbeque, and I thoroughly enjoyed the chance for some hikes with spectacular views.

Waiting on main street for the parade to start.

Anyway, while I was off enjoying some quality family time in the mountains, The Whitefire Crossing was also having a good start to the month: the brand-new r/Fantasy Goodreads discussion group voted to make Whitefire their inaugural Book of the Month group read.  It's not the first time Whitefire's been nominated for "book of the month" in a Goodreads discussion group, but it's the first time it's ever won out in the decision poll, so I can't help but grin in delight.  My fingers are crossed that people have fun reading and discussing!  And hey, that's not all - Whitefire also picked up a nice new review from the Coffee, Cookies, and Chili Peppers blog.  Hooray!

Speaking of Goodreads, I'm trying out a new approach to using the site. I adore Goodreads as an author, but after an initial flurry of rating/reviewing books back when I first joined, I quickly found that I felt pretty uncomfortable as a reader about rating books on a 5-star scale.  Part of it was that I felt really awkward about rating fellow SFF authors' novels, period.  But most of it was that I found it so hard to rate books on such a compressed scale.  I mean, how do you rate a novel which you LOVED in spite of some hiccups of craft, compared to a book that you were deeply impressed with craft-wise but didn't actually enjoy?  I kept wishing there were multiple categories to rate, like theme/craft/character/plot, and agonizing over the rating decision.  For a long time I stopped rating/reviewing, or even adding books to my library on Goodreads at all.  But darn it, I really like the idea of having a detailed record of what I've read...so now I'm trying a new policy.  I'm still not going to rate books, but I'll mark what I'm currently reading, and when I finish, I'll leave a few sentences with my impressions of the book.  I've started already with the books I read over the holiday weekend; so far, I'm feeling good about my new approach, but we'll see how it goes.            

Wednesday Update: In Which I Am In My Happy Place

Man, this has been a great week so far for me.  Finally declared victory over a troublesome chapter of Labyrinth (well, okay, not total victory, but I feel it's in decent enough shape I can move on to the next chapter!), landed all my double jumps at skating practice (my coach, throwing up her hands to heaven: "My God, I thought I would never live to see such a miracle!")...and I got word from my agent that I have indeed been paid for The Tainted City, at long last.  (The best words you ever hear in authorhood are "Wow, I loved your book!", but I won't lie...the words "Your check just arrived" are pretty sweet also.)

In addition, the magic of google alerts has shown me The Whitefire Crossing and The Tainted City getting a little love, lately:

• Review of The Whitefire Crossing at Fantasy Review Barn (always lovely to hear that someone enjoyed the book despite having no interest in climbing!)
• The Tainted City is one of Bibliotropic's top 10 books read in the first half of 2013 (woot!).  The others on the list I haven't already read look pretty interesting - I've been happily adding to my TBR pile.
• The Whitefire Crossing showed up as one of Renay of Lady Business's top 10 reads so far this year - haha, it totally made my day to see that my story has inspired someone to want to write fic. (I know some authors detest the idea of other people playing with their creations.  While I certainly would be annoyed if someone tried to actually profit off my work without permission, 99.99% of fanfic is written solely for the love of it - and to me, fic is a sign that something about your story/characters spoke so deeply to a reader that they felt compelled to explore it further.  Personally, I find that awesome.)

Last but not at all least, I'm looking forward to some serious fun in the mountains over the next few days.  Hope those of you in the US have a wonderful 4th of July holiday, and for everyone else, may you have a generally terrific first week of July!  I leave you with a picture from where I'll be spending 4th of July tomorrow (bonus points to anyone who can identify the location!).

Mmmmm, mountains....

The Tainted City heads to Germany!

So I finally get to share some good news!  (I hate the part of publishing where you hear something exciting and then have to sit on it for weeks until everything's official.)  From Publisher's Marketplace deal announcements:

"German rights to Courtney Schafer's THE TAINTED CITY, to Lübbe, by Whitney Lee of The Fielding Agency, on behalf of Becca Stumpf of Prospect Agency."

Bastei Lübbe is the German-language publisher of The Whitefire Crossing, which releases there on August 16 (coming up soon! woo hoo!).  I'm delighted they've now bought The Tainted City too - not the least because I'd hate for German readers to reach the end of Whitefire and be left hanging!  (There's no official publication date yet for the German edition of Tainted City, but it's my hope there won't be too long of a gap between books.)  I confess I'm also very curious to see what Bastei Lübbe does for Tainted City's cover, since I quite liked what they did for Whitefire.  

In case anyone's curious how the author-publisher relationship works for a foreign deal...doubtless it's different depending on country and publisher, but in my case, I've been amused to see how hands-off the whole experience is (and how laid back I am about it, in contrast to my dealings with my US publisher).  Communication is like a game of telephone - if Bastei Lübbe needs something, they ask the foreign rights agent, who then asks my agent, who asks me.  I've heard that sometimes translators will contact authors directly to ask questions, but I've had no contact with the German translator.  Basically, I send Bastei Lübbe (via agent & foreign rights agent) the final version of the book, and then, poof!  One day it shows up on Amazon.de with a new title and cover.  And I just nod and go, "Cool."  Without ever looking at preorder rankings or worrying over publicity or sales.  I only wish I was this blase' about the US version.  Here's an example of the difference:

Night Shade: *puts up descriptive blurb for Whitefire on Amazon that contains something I consider a fairly significant spoiler (the exact nature of Kiran's identity and his reasons for leaving Ninavel)*

Me: AUGH!!!!  NOT OKAY!!!  Frantically contacts agent, brainstorms new cover copy with her help, begs Night Shade to take down and replace old copy.  Agent demands NS run future blurbs past us first.

Bastei Lübbe: *does exactly the same thing as Night Shade*

Me: *shrugs* Oh well.

I rather suspect the second relationship is the more healthy one.  Maybe one day when I'm a jaded veteran of the industry I'll be all zen about US versions of my books, too.  (Everyone who knows me: HAHAHAHA not likely.)      

Anyway, I'm thrilled The Tainted City will join The Whitefire Crossing auf Deutsch.  To celebrate, I shall leave you with a picture taken on a lovely dayhike my husband and I did in the Austrian Alps:

My husband enjoying a rest break on a trail near Hintertux, Austria.

One day I will climb in the Alps again.  And who knows, maybe I'll even be able to spot the German editions of my books in a shop!

Publication update for the Shattered Sigil books

The news is out: Start and Skyhorse Publishing have closed a deal to acquire Night Shade Books.  Or rather, to acquire the contracts of those NS authors who agreed to sign them over and accept new terms.  And yes, I'm one of the folks that signed.  It wasn't an easy decision for me, for a variety of reasons specific to my personal situation.  But I'm hopeful going forward that I've made the right choice.  It's definitely a relief to know that The Whitefire Crossing and The Tainted City will remain easily available to readers.  Plus, I will actually get paid for Tainted City.  (That's right: the book has been out & selling for 9 months now, and I haven't yet seen a cent for it.  This is why it's good to have a day job.)

So far, Start and Skyhorse only own the rights to the first two books in the Shattered Sigil series, since that's all that was contracted to Night Shade.  The fate of the final book, The Labyrinth of Flame, is still up in the air - but as I've said before, if things don't work out with a publisher, I'll suck it up and put out Labyrinth myself.  Right now, I'm just concentrating on finishing the story (and having fun doing it!  Yesterday, I had one of those wonderful moments that make all the hard work of writing worthwhile: after ages fiddling with a troublesome chapter, I figured out how to make it work.  Not just work, but really shine: and oh, how amazing it feels when you read a scene back over and know you've made it a thousand times more awesome than it was before!  Did I mention that I love to revise?)

Anyway, now that the whole Night Shade mess has been resolved (more or less!), I want to thank some people for their help in negotiating it.  First and foremost, thanks go to Mary Robinette Kowal of the SFWA,  who spent countless hours answering questions by phone and email and worked tirelessly to advocate for all of Night Shade's authors (whether SFWA members or not).  Due to confidentiality issues, her efforts over the last few months have been very much behind-the-scenes, but she deserves a ton of public credit.  Thanks also to fellow NS author Kameron Hurley, who organized a safe online space for all of us to discuss the offer, share information, vent our frustrations, and maintain our sanity.  And thanks to all the NS authors who participated in that forum, for being so generous with advice and support.  Publishing might be a crazy, crazy business, but it's full of awesome people.    

One final thing I'd like to say: while the ride with Night Shade was pretty bumpy, I do remain eternally grateful to them for taking a chance on The Whitefire Crossing in the first place.  You could have self-published, some people say.  But you know what?  Back then, I didn't have the confidence (or desire) to self-pub.  And after the painful experience of having Whitefire get so-close-and-yet-so-far at bigger publishers - to have editor after editor say, I love your book! and all the marketing departments say, This will not sell, I wasn't so sure I had the mental fortitude to write a whole different series and try again.  Thankfully, I didn't have to agonize.  Night Shade was willing to take the risk; and they gave Whitefire a great cover, and got it into readers' hands, and I got to share my story with people who loved it, just as I'd dreamed of doing.  Sometimes I still can't believe how lucky I am.  So it's my firm hope that the new Night Shade imprint at Start/Skyhorse will take the best part of the old Night Shade (their excellent taste in books!) and combine it with better business practices, and all of us, readers and authors alike, will win.

An Illustrated Guide to The Whitefire Crossing

You know how some people like to play the "casting game" with a book's characters?  As a mountaineer, I can never resist playing it with my books' landscapes.  I've shared some pics here in the past of mountain spots that inspired me for the Shattered Sigil series; but today over at BookSworn I went whole-hog and provided an illustrated guide to the journey that Dev and Kiran take across the mountains in The Whitefire Crossing.  Hope you enjoy the pics as much as I did picking them out.

I've also got a guest post over at Bibliotropic, talking about Pamela Dean's Tam Lin and the ways in which re-reading a book can surprise us.

And in not-related-to-me-or-my-books news, Fantasy Book Cafe's Women in SFF Month might have concluded, but Bookworm Blues is still hosting another series of "Special Needs in Strange Worlds" guest posts.  There've been some really excellent ones so far, both new posts and re-runs of the best of last year's series - I highly recommend you check them out.

Women in SFF Month

A quickie post while traveling, because I realized I hadn't yet highlighted something I find really cool: Fantasy Book Cafe is celebrating "Women in SFF" all this month with a whole slew of guest posts from authors and bloggers (including such luminaries as Patricia McKillip, Lois McMaster Bujold, Jacqueline Carey).  I contributed a post talking about some of my favorite female-authored SFF novels from the 1980s and 1990s - books that influenced me deeply and that I'd love for more people to discover and enjoy, so please, head on over and check them out.  Oh, and as part of the fun, Renay of LadyBusiness blog is asking for everyone's top 10 female-authored SFF novels - at the end of the month, she'll collate them all and share the list.  I've gotta say, it's pretty darn hard for me to narrow it down to 10 books...I might have to cheat and go for my top 10 series rather than top 10 novels!  

A few more tidbits of news:

• The Tainted City got a wonderful review from Bibliotropic - reminding me that I don't care how crazy the business side of publishing gets; so long as people out there are enjoying my books, it's all worth it!
• The Whitefire Crossing got a review recently from Elitist Book Reviews that I found very interesting, because it shows just how deeply an audiobook narrator can affect a listener's experience of a story.
• Another review for Whitefire from Obligated to Exaggerate
• If you haven't checked out all the cool posts over at BookSworn by my fellow authors on objects that reveal their worlds, you should! Lots of fascinating stuff there.

And because it's Thursday where I am, here's a wilderness picture to finish things off:

The "Devil's Coach House", in Jenolan Caves

Update on The Labyrinth of Flame (Shattered Sigil, #3)

Last week some dismaying news hit the interwebs: Night Shade Books (publisher of The Whitefire Crossing and The Tainted City) is imploding.  There's the possibility of a deal that could allow two other publishers to buy out the contracts of Night Shade authors that agree to the transfer, but if that falls through, bankruptcy filing and the resultant legal mess is a likely outcome.  (For a thorough analysis of how and why NS is imploding, see this excellent article by Justin Landon over at Staffer's Book Review.)  Ever since the news went public, I've been getting concerned emails and DMs and the like from people wanting to know: what will happen to The Labyrinth of Flame?

I've got good news: this won't affect Labyrinth.  Night Shade doesn't own the rights to the book; my original contract was only for 2 books plus an option on a third.  (For those not familiar with publishing lingo, an option just means they have right of first refusal: I'm supposed to give them a contractually-specified number of days to make an offer on the book, and then if they do offer in that time, say yes or no to that offer before I (or rather, my agent) could shop the book elsewhere.)  So it doesn't matter what happens - if NS files bankruptcy, Labyrinth will not be part of the ensuing mess.  (Unlike the first two Shattered Sigil books, alas.)  Likely in that situation I would just do a kickstarter to try and cover production costs, and put Labyrinth out myself (in both print and ebook form).  A hell of a lot of work, but I'm certainly willing to tackle it if that's the only way to get the book into reader's hands.  So fear not! Dev and Kiran's story will have a proper ending.

As for what's going to happen to the first 2 books: that, I don't know yet.  But thank God for my wonderful agent.  Instead of freaking out from stress, I got to dump this entire mess into her capable hands and have an awesome day teaching my son how to boogie board:

Here comes a wave! Ready...set....

GOOOOOOOO!!!

      

   

Want to read a deleted scene from The Whitefire Crossing?

Then head on over to BookSworn, where I talk about an outrider's most vital possession, and share a deleted scene from and early draft of The Whitefire Crossing to illustrate its use.

(The scene originally took place right after Kiran's near-disastrous encounter with the drover-who-would-in-later-drafts-become-Pello, at Ice Lake.  I'm sure you'll be able to tell why I cut the scene: it's all about the mountaineering, and not about the tension. :)  But I did later use a reworked version of it in The Tainted City - yet another reason why it's good to always, always keep a "cut scenes" file and never truly delete words!)

And to further illustrate the glissade in yon deleted scene, I offer these photos:

Ascending a snow slope near Navajo Peak with my trusty ice axe

Preparing to glissade! (My hiking partner's glissade track is visible as the long furrow in the snow.)

Zooming down, using the ice axe's base spike as a rudder

Wheeeeee!!!

Interesting Things on the Internet

I'm laying low this week and next due to massive day job deadlines. Love the day job, but there are occasionally weeks that put all the stress of the publishing industry to shame.  To survive, I slouch about muttering NIN lyrics and reminding myself that this is why they pay engineers the big bucks.  So, no deep thoughts or even cool pictures this week.  (Haha, I know, as if I ever have the time and/or brainpower to write deep thinky blog posts.  But you know.  Hope springs eternal.)  Instead, I shall share a few interesting things I've stumbled over in the past week while procrastinating taking brain breaks.  Because other people *do* have time to write deep thinky blog posts, thank goodness!

• Joe Abercrombie on the value of grit in fantasy
• Foz Meadows responds, digging into some problematic aspects of the current "grimdark" trend in fantasy: On Grittiness and Grimdark
• Chuck Wendig tackles the plethora of misinformation on publishing by asking writers to share their personal experiences: Writers and Misinformation, or "How Did You Publish?"
• Teresa Frohock shares her top 10 tips for the debut author
• There's a pretty neat "Fantasy gift exchange" about to happen at Reddit: I and a bunch of other authors have all signed up, along with many other fantasy fans, artists, etc.  

Oh, and The Whitefire Crossing has gotten a few new reviews lately - nice to see people are still discovering the book!

• A review at Worlds Without End for their Women in Genre Fiction Month (check out all the other reviews of female-authored fantasy! Loads of excellent new books to discover.)
• A review at the blog Adventures in Vanaheim
• I'd rather have a detailed, thought-provoking mixed review than a super-short glowing one any day of the week. (Unless the super-short one is from an editor saying, "I want to buy your next 10 books," haha!)  As proof, I offer you this review at Ladybusiness, which is probably the longest and most conflicted review that Whitefire will ever get.  Also, it has hilarious gifs. Seriously, I love this reviewer for taking the time to discuss the book in such detail, both good and bad!