Looking back and looking forward

2016 is not exactly off to the greatest of starts for me. Woke up today with the sort of cold that makes you feel absolutely miserable from the neck up, which means I'm sitting here moping at home while my husband and son are off skiing. For extra fun, I have to leave for Albuquerque for a work trip on Monday, so I'm frantically chugging vitamin C and throat-soothing drops and praying I can get better before then.

On the up side, sitting around a silent house means I've had time to reflect a bit on 2015, which had more than enough high points to lift me right out of moping. First and foremost this one:

The full trilogy, together at last!

My biggest goal for the year was to finish The Labyrinth of Flame and get it out to readers, and no matter how sick I feel at the moment I still want to do a happy dance every time I think: ACHIEVEMENT UNLOCKED. There's still some work left to do on the Kickstarter--I need to mail out art prints, and finish the short stories, and I'm sure there'll be a few packages that forever vanish into the maw of the post office and need to be resent, and I still need to finish working out the arrangement for a general print release of the book...but the vast bulk of the work is done, and that feels awesome. Especially seeing reviews like these:

Bibliotropic: "The ending of The Labyrinth of Flame is quite possibly the most satisfying ending to a series I've ever read."

Nathan Barnhart at the Speculative Herald: "It is truly one of those series with a little something for everyone; a bloody dark setting, world shaking events driving the plot, and a whole lot of heart."

Paul Weimer at SF Signal: "Strong central characters, inventive worldbuilding, satisfying conclusion."

Plus the emails and tweets and such that readers have sent me to tell me how much they enjoyed the book--I can't even tell you how much that kind of thing means after pouring your heart and soul into a series. I know not everybody's going to like it, and that's okay--but it's absolutely wonderful to know that so many people do. Some authors hunger for sales and awards, but I will be dead honest, it's the intangibles that I yearn for--the knowledge that something I wrote gave someone else joy. So to me, in every way that matters, the Shattered Sigil series has been an enormous success, and I thank every one of you that loved the books for making it one.

2015 wasn't ALL about The Labyrinth of Flame, though, even if sometimes it felt that way. I managed to get away from the computer on occasion for some beautiful hikes:

Lake Isabelle in the Indian Peaks Wilderness

Sharkstooth on the Andrews Glacier trail in Rocky Mountain National Park

Negotiating Kelso Ridge on Torreys Peak

My son was finally old enough to come along sometimes:

Hiking the Mt. Sanitas trail 

And we enjoyed some quality ski days together:

Skiing a little fresh powder at Telluride

Our ancient but faithful Subaru Outback died, leaving us awkwardly carless for a while, but then we got our very first real 4WD vehicle, which we promptly used on Utah adventures:

Driving the slickrock

We visited new trailheads:

Having fun at Tusher Tunnel near Moab

And took our son on his first trip to the San Rafael Swell for his first slot canyon adventure:

Little Wild Horse Canyon

Not to mention our first stint of sandboarding (at Great Sand Dunes National Park in southern Colorado):

Boy, it's windy on those sand dunes. We should have brought goggles.

The year wasn't all fun, though. I'd been so excited to start training seriously for figure skating again after finishing The Labyrinth of Flame, but my back had other ideas. After multiple doctor visits and x-rays and even a steroid shot to the piriformis muscle, I am still not sure if I will ever be able to jump again, or if my aging back simply is no longer capable of handling the intense forces of free skating. I have one last hope: I'm currently undergoing a grueling round of physical therapy in hopes I can get my core muscles strong enough to hold my sciatic vertebrae stable while landing. If this doesn't work, it's likely I'll give up skating. I could still ice dance, yes, but it's always the jumps and spins I loved best. I think it'd be too frustrating to be on the ice and unable to do what I truly love.

There were other low points: intensely stressful times at work, arguments at home, all the parts of life that you don't see on a "highlight" reel. But I'm intensely aware of how fortunate I am in so many ways. And going into 2016, my biggest goal is to take more time to appreciate all the little happinesses of life. A moment laughing with my husband, a beautiful flower beside the trail, the intense blue of a Colorado sky, a hug from my son, the pleasure of a good book, all the things I so often take for granted. (Speaking of good books, I read some great ones in December - check out my reading round-up over on tumblr if you're looking for new reads.)

And what lies ahead for me writing-wise in 2016? Well, first I'll finish the four short stories from the Kickstarter. I'm having so much fun with them that I even considered writing a couple more and eventually putting out a Shattered Sigil collection, but we'll see. Depends on how the writing goes, because I also want to start a wholly new book this year. It's both a heady and terrifying thought, to start all over from scratch after so long spent working with familiar characters! But I'm always game for a challenge (that's what keeps life fun).

So I'll take 2016 as it comes, trying to embrace every bit of joy, and I hope you all find many moments to savor in the coming year, too. Wishing you health and happiness and plenty of great reads,

-Courtney

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!

So you think not many women write epic fantasy/sword & sorcery?

I've been busy busy busy with revisions on The Labyrinth of Flame (now approaching the 50K revised mark!), a big day job project, and yes, more than a little skiing.  Yet amid all that, I haven't been ignoring the internet entirely.  So when Teresa Frohock posted on her blog about the challenges she's faced as a female author of SFF, and then Mark Lawrence ran a poll asking his readers whether their decision to buy his book would've been different if it'd said Mary Lawrence on the cover, not Mark, and then on Reddit's r/Fantasy forum a huge discussion sprang up about Mark's poll...I followed the conversation.  And after I saw about the fifth instance of someone saying, "Well, but not many women write epic fantasy..."  I couldn't take it anymore. 

I marched over to my bookshelves and scribbled down 40 books written by 40 different female authors that could be categorized as either epic fantasy or sword and sorcery, and posted the list in a thread on Reddit.  (Note: since people on Reddit appeared to be using a fairly broad definition of  "epic fantasy," so did I.  I included alternate histories with significant magical elements, though I did NOT include sword-and-planet SF, or dark/mythic fantasy, or YA fantasy). 

I was delighted at the response!  Hundreds of commenters added more names and said how excited they were to have new books to try.  I know it's a drop in the bucket of this weird invisibility that female-authored novels seem to have in online fandom, but it's a drop that makes me happy and renews my hope that things are changing. 

And speaking of reviews and visibility, my absolute favorite kind of reviews are long, detailed, thoughtful ones.  Like this one Tainted City recently got from Renay of Lady Business.  (The hilarious GIFs are just the icing on the cake!  Also, I am totally using the pull quote "Courtney Schafer is THE WORST." :D) The best part of all is that the comments continued the discussion.  It is surreal but also 100% awesome to see people analyzing my characters and story and discussing their reactions, no matter whether those reactions are positive or negative.)

And now, back to radio silence and revisions...



 

MileHiCon Schedule

This coming weekend I'll be at MileHiCon, which is a terrific local SF con here in Denver.  Seriously, it's loads of fun: if you're in the Denver area, you should come.  One of the things I like best about it is the engagement of the fans - seems like panels are not only packed, but people are eager to interact and ask questions of the panelists.  The guests of honor are always great, too: this year they've got Catherynne Valente and Seanan McGuire (a.k.a. Mira Grant), plus Ian Tregillis as toastmaster.

I'm doing a signing, two panels, and a reading:

Fri Oct 18, 8pm: "Autograph Alley" signing

Sat Oct 19, 4pm: The What, When, How, and Why of NaNoWriMo, Wind River B

Sun Oct 20, 2pm: Fodor's Guide to Fairyland, Mesa Verde B

Sun Oct 20, 4pm-5pm: Reading (shared slot with Dana Bell)

I'm thinking I may read a short section from my draft of The Labyrinth of Flame at the reading.  Haha, I'm not sure if I'm sad that the reading is in the very last time slot of the convention or not.  On the one hand, always awkward to read to an empty room.  On the other hand, that way there's no reason to be nervous!

Oh yes, and while I'm at it, The Tainted City got two new lovely reviews:

• Fellow author Anne Lyle reviews the book as part of her "Friday Reads" series.  Always extra wonderful to get a good review from someone whose work you've enjoyed!  (If you haven't tried Anne's Night's Masque series (starts with The Alchemist of Souls), you should.  Great alternate-history fantasy with some great characters & an interesting alien/magical race.)
• A review from Shadowhawk at The Founding Fields: "A brilliant sequel to what was a brilliant debut." Sweet!

And last but not least, I just have to say I was ridiculously thrilled to see both Sheri S. Tepper's Grass and Mark Helprin's Winter's Tale on John Scalzi's list of 10 SFF books that meant the most to him.  Both are ciminally under-read by SFF fans (though Winter's Tale at least got huge mainstream sales and acclaim, as Helprin is considered a mainstream literary writer).  What Scalzi says about both books is pretty close to how I feel (except on the subject of Winter's Tale, I could go on for PAGES about how stunning Helprin's prose is).  If you haven't read them, you should.  

My take on author-blogger interaction

Today I'm over at BookSworn, talking about author/blogger interaction, and why it's good for authors to think very very carefully before joining in discussion of their own work:

If you were on Twitter yesterday, likely you saw the firestorm of debate generated by a column at Strange Horizons: “You Got Your Industry In My Fanwork” by SFF blogger Renay of Lady Business.  If you haven’t read the column and its comments, you should; but as a short summary, Renay discusses her discomfort with authors jumping into fannish discussions of their work without an explicit invitation.

My first thought upon reading the article was to remember a conversation I had not long after my first novel The Whitefire Crossing came out in 2011.  One  of my co-workers, a huge SFF fan and active participant on a major SFF forum, came by my cube to chat...

Head on over to BookSworn to read the rest.

The Hardest Lesson in Publishing

Been suffering from a nasty cold these last few days, ugh.  On the up side, my virus-related misery has been mitigated by reading some awesome books: namely, the conclusion to Mark Lawrence's excellent Broken Empire trilogy, Emperor of Thorns (link to my brief goodreads review here) and Catherine Fisher's Obsidian Mirror (my favorite YA read of the year so far! Link to my brief yet gushing goodreads review is here).

I have to say, looking at other people's goodreads reviews of Obsidian Mirror brought home to me once again just how subjective reader taste is.  To me, Fisher's writing is everything I want in a YA novel.  Haunting, tense, dark, compelling, with characters I'm dying to figure out, plenty of adventure and action, and no angsty teen romance - I flat out loved the book, same as I did Fisher's earlier novel Incarceron.  Yet plenty of other readers apparently read the very same pages and go "meh."

Which just goes to illustrate the hardest lesson of all in publishing: you can write the story of your heart, and craft it to near perfection; other people (agents, editors, readers) can love it too - yet unless that story happens to be the story of a LOT of other people's hearts, it's not going to sell in big numbers (no matter how much those readers who adore it wish it would).  Whereas a story that has all kinds of craft flaws yet strikes the right chord with a large number of people will sell like crazy.

The real kicker is that you as an author can only write what's in your own heart; try to write a story that you're not passionate about yourself, and readers will notice the lack.  Plus, for all that publishers try to predict what will speak best to people's hearts, nobody really knows until the book gets into readers' hands.  Every author deals with this uncertainty in their own way.  Me, I like to keep my expectations low.  If my book reaches even one other person's heart, then writing the story was worth every moment at the keyboard.  (I'm well aware this is far easier to say when writing is a well-loved hobby, not a means of putting food on the table. Reason #1,001 why I have no dreams of giving up my day job.)

But really, doesn't matter what your coping strategy is, so long as it lets you a) keep writing and b) have fun along the way.  I'll admit, some of my fun comes from things like this:

• Brett Ellis reviews The Whitefire Crossing as part of Worlds Without End's Women of Genre Fiction Challenge: "I love sword and sorcery. Robert E. Howard, Karl Edward Wagner, Fritz Leiber, Michael Moorcock… well, you get the idea. Based on her debut novel, Courtney Schafer may very well belong in that esteemed pantheon. In other words, I heartily enjoyed The Whitefire Crossing."   
• The r/Fantasy Goodreads Group finished up their discussion of The Whitefire Crossing as July's Book of the Month - and I was hugely delighted to find out that a certain fantasy author who both my husband and I have admired for years read and liked the book.  (Which author?  Go read the discussion thread and find out.) 

But mostly I love the joy and challenge of writing a story unique to my own heart.  In honor of that, I'll finish off with a picture that'd go well with the chapter I'm currently working on for The Labyrinth of Flame:

Near the junction of Buckskin and Paria Canyons.  Picture doesn't do the grandeur and beauty of the slot justice.  Flash flood's a serious risk, but at least (unlike Dev and Kiran!) canyoneers don't have to worry about demons or blood magic.  

   

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

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!  

Thursday Tidbits

Another busy week, so no time for a full adventure post, alas.  (I'm sure you'd rather I was working on Labyrinth of Flame.  Right?)  I do have a few tidbits of news to share:

• The Tainted City made another year's-end list, this one at Fantasy Book Critic: Mihir's top 10 reads of 2012.  Plenty of other awesome books are featured there, and he's got a whole separate list for excellent debuts, so go check it out!  
• The Whitefire Crossing picked up a new review over at Fantasy Opinion: "First off, Ms. Schafer knows what she's doing. Her sentences are beautiful and flowing, sucking you into the story. Dialogue is effortless and the worldbuilding that went into the book brilliant."
• And I was delighted (and honored!) to see Dev used as an example in this article discussing how to write great characters, over at Daily Kos.  

So in honor of all that, I leave you with two pics representing my authorial mood upon seeing links like the above show up via google alerts:

Cartwheeling for joy in the Grand Canyon

And again, in Abel Tasman National Park, New Zealand

Authorial Tidbits

Just a quick post to share some authorial tidbits:

• Want to know how much of my personal mountaineering experiences went into The Whitefire Crossing?  I talk about that and more in an interview at Fantastical Imaginings. 

• Only The Best SciFi reviews The Tainted City: "One of the best reads this year as well as last, Courtney Schafer has delivered again.  Not only with engaging characters and compelling plot, but with something new and diverse that I can't wait to come back to in The Labyrinth of Flame, book three in The Shattered Sigil Trilogy."

• La Biblioteca de Ilium reviews The Whitefire Crossing, both in English and in Spanish: "The Whitefire Crossing is a good debut novel and a good start for an attractive series with some good characters and intriguing elements."

• My Literary Leanings reviews The Whitefire Crossing:  "I wish there was a version of it without the swearing but there isn’t. However, if you think you can tolerate it, by all means pick it up. The story itself definitely does not disappoint."

News Round-up

Today's just going to be a quick news round-up and not any book recs, mostly because I spent all my blog-writing time this weekend working on a guest post sharing a bunch of my favorite books for the Stumptown Book Blog series on "Non-European Fantasy by Women."  The post should go live soon over at Stumptown Books - I'll link when it does, because the books I talk about are all awesome and everyone should read them. :) In the meantime, here's what I've been doing online this last week:

• Want to know which significant character wasn't at all in the original draft of The Whitefire Crossing, and how I took the book from just okay to publishable quality?  Head on over to the Night Bazaar, where I talk about the most valuable feedback I ever received.  

• A transcript of the SF Writers' Chat I did on Twitter is available here, in which I answer questions about my novels, my writing process, and talk about plans for the future.

• All three parts of my interview at Stumptown Books are now live: Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3.  Here I talk about everything from narrative choices for the Shattered Sigil series to my favorite climbs, and even give a sneak peak of what readers can expect from The Labyrinth of Flame.

• Paul Weimer reviewed The Tainted City over at SF Signal, saying: "I truly enjoyed The Whitefire Crossing, and I approached sequel with that peculiar mix of anticipation and dread that I often have when returning to a new author whose first book I enjoyed. Will this second book meet my expectations and response to the first? Has the author grown and developed since their initial effort? Is the magic still there? Happily, for me, The Tainted City lived up to my expectations..."

  

Adventures in Audio

So a few weeks ago when the audiobook of The Whitefire Crossing first came out, I said I'd do a post about what it was like for me as the author to listen to the audio version.  I got a bit overtaken by events as The Tainted City hit bookstore shelves a little earlier than I was expecting, but now at last, the time for that post has come.

But first, allow me the chance to celebrate (because if you can't share your glee on your own blog, then where can you?): the last few days have brought three lovely new reviews for The Tainted City.  (All of them pretty much spoiler-free, assuming you've read The Whitefire Crossing.)

• Mihir Wanchoo of Fantasy Book Critic says, "Courtney Schafer takes her story in a slightly different direction whilst never compromising on the positives that made her debut such a stand out one. This book is another excellent book from this very talented lady and I for one can't wait to see how it all goes down in The Labyrinth of Flame."
• J.R. Vogt of Examiner.com says, "The Tainted City is a fantastic follow-up to The Whitefire Crossing, going deep into the culture of Ninavel, expanding the overall mythology, and giving a sense of breathless adventure on each page."
• Justin Landon of Staffer's Book Review reviewed The Tainted City along with T.C. McCarthy's Chimera (which makes for a very interesting review, since T.C.'s novels and mine are wildly different!).  He called it a "highly successful piece of fiction" and said, "...I never once doubted Dev and Kiran's actions as anything but their own. Schafer doesn't work her characters to fit her plot; she lets them go, to find the solutions for themselves. The result isn't just a fun novel, but a composed and interesting one."

You guys, I can't even tell you how happy it makes me to see people enjoying The Tainted City! I wish I could go back in time and tell my stressed little author self of a few months ago that it was All Going To Be Okay. The book will get done, the story will work, and all the long nights are worth it.

Whew, okay. Back to talking about audiobooks!  I'll be the first to admit I haven't listened to very many.  Mostly because I have a very short commute, and I prefer to exercise outdoors rather than on treadmills and such, so I don't often experience the circumstances that make them so valuable.  Also because I'm a very fast reader, and in comparison, audio narration feels insanely slow in pace.  Though that can be a good thing...I remember listening to the audio version of Dorothy Dunnett's Queen's Play, and catching all kinds of humor that I'd missed during multiple reads of the novel in print.  Part of it was that the narrator did an excellent job at portraying the different accents and imbuing Lymond's dialogue with the perfect lurking edge of sarcasm.  But a significant part was that I couldn't just zip along to the next line; I had all this time as the narrator spoke to think about the multiple layers of the conversation (and realize exactly how cutting Thady Boy's seemingly drunken observations are).