Kickstarter day 4 (25 days left) Mountain Pic & Book Rec

The Labyrinth of Flame's Kickstarter has funded!!!  I am so happy and grateful, I can't even find the words to tell you.  All I want to do is give everyone who's backed the book a huge hug (and likely sob all over your shoulders in a combo of delight and relief, so perhaps it's just as well we have a computer screen between us!).  It's so wonderful to know I can do this book just the way I hoped: with every bit of professional editing and design that went into the first two.  Plus a map!  Maybe even two maps, if the Kickstarter keeps going well.  I'd thought it could be cool to have one larger-scale map of the various countries, and another more detailed map of the areas Dev and Kiran travel in this third book...but we'll see.  Right now I'm just over the moon that the book will be a reality.

Speaking of the Kickstarter, I've heard from some people that they'd like to support it and get copies of The Labyrinth of Flame, but they don't have credit cards (which Kickstarter apparently requires now).  If that's true for you, please contact me at courtney (at) courtneyschafer (dot) com, and we'll work out a way for you to contribute and receive a KS-style reward without having to go through KS itself. 

Anyway! To celebrate such a big milestone, I'm going hog-wild with pictures of some of my favorite places in the Sierra Nevada (my favorite mountains!):

On top of Alpine Col

Deadman Canyon, deep in the Sierra - a great basecamp location for exploring unnamed cirques and scrambling up peaks

Pic from my very first trip to the Sierra, with friends Jason Hollinger and Ken Manatt. This is near the Mosquito Flat trailhead, which at 10,255 ft is the highest major trailhead in the Sierra

Third Recess Lake - the "recesses" (canyons) near Mono Pass are among my favorite spots to camp in the Sierra

My husband Robert on our way up Mt Whitney (visible at top right), tallest peak in the contiguous US

 

For today's book rec, I'll go with another favorite that hasn't gotten nearly as much recognition as I think it should: Martha Wells's City of Bones.  I love books that mix elements of SF and fantasy, and Wells writes a wonderful setting here: a post-apocalyptic stone desert populated by a bioengineered race, and a richly described and dangerous city whose laws are enforced by mages.  The part I love best, though, are Wells's characters.  Protagonist Khat (one of the bioengineered krismen) is smart, dryly sarcastic, and has a fascinating backstory (one I wish Wells would someday return to in a short story, perhaps!).  Co-protagonist Elen (one of the city's Warders) is equally engaging; she's smart, determined, and forthright in a way that plays very nicely off the more reserved Khat.  The story is standalone (though as I said, I sure wish there was more), and a great read, combining archaeological mystery with exciting action and magic.  It was originally published by Tor but has been republished in ebook form by Martha herself; if you like adventure SF/fantasy, you definitely should read it.

Kickstarter Day 3 (26 days left) Mountain Pic & Book Rec

So....close...! As I write this, The Labyrinth of Flame's Kickstarter is only $114 from funding.  Just a few more backers and we're there.  Heh, one reason I promised to share wilderness pics and book recs every day is so I could distract myself from refreshing my Kickstarter dashboard by sighing happily over my old backpacking and climbing trip pictures instead.  So many beautiful mountains and fun memories!

For today's pic, I chose one of Wyoming's Cirque of the Towers, located in the Wind River range.  Okay, two pics, because I can never resist the cirque's awe-inspiring scenery.  As I've said on the blog before, Cirque of the Towers is one of the three mountain places that inspired Tainted City's Cirque of the Knives.  I really, really need to go back and do some real climbing there (as opposed to just backpacking).

Looking through Jackass Pass to the Cirque of the Towers (yes, it really is called Jackass Pass. Perhaps because of mules, but perhaps also because it's a steep enough slog  to the pass that the folks who named it weren't feeling in a charitable mood)

Within the Cirque

And for today's book rec, I chose an old favorite of mine: Patricia McKillip's The Changeling Sea.  I recently read an excellent analysis of the book over at Black Gate by Matthew David Surridge which does the book far more justice than I have time for today.  Suffice it to say this is one of the novels I've re-read so many times I almost have it memorized.  Like much of McKillip's work, The Changeling Sea is beautifully crafted: short and yet satisfying, full of beautiful imagery and mythic magic.  It's also a comfort read in the best sense of the term - a story that never fails to lift my spirits when I'm stressed or upset.  Yet at the same time, it's quietly subversive, turning accepted fantasy tropes on their heads in a way that never feels forced or heavy-handed.  Just a wonderful book, and one I highly recommend.

Kickstarter Day 2 Mountain Pic & Book Rec

24 hours since I hit launch, and Labyrinth of Flame's kickstarter is at $3100: wow!!! Can't believe there's only $900 to go and this book can be a reality.  HUGE thanks to all of you who pledged so far - I am so grateful for your support.  Keep on spreading the word and you'll be sure to have the book in your hands! 

Also, artist Dave Palumbo gave me the okay to offer prints of Whitefire Crossing and Tainted City's cover art along with Labyrinth of Flame's - have I mentioned how awesome Dave is?  Anyway, for $5 each you can add prints onto any reward level and enjoy Dave's excellent art along with the book.

As promised, I'll be posting mountain pics and book recommendations every day until the Kickstarter ends.  For the first installment, I thought it'd be appropriate to choose a pic from the Sierra Nevada (the inspiration for the Whitefire Mountains of my series).  This one was taken during my 3-week backpacking trip doing part of Steve Roper's High Route, which travels along the crest of the range.

Evening light after a thunderstorm on the Sierra crest

For my first book recommendation, I'm doing not just one book but two: Alex Bledsoe's The Hum and the Shiver, and the related novella Hisses and Wings that he and Teresa Frohock wrote together.  I'd loved Teresa's work since I first read her debut Miserere: An Autumn Tale, so when I heard she and Alex had written a novella together I snapped it right up.  But since the novella is a melding of Teresa's Los Nefilim and Alex's Tufa worlds, I decided I first wanted to read one of his Tufa novels.  This isn't necessary - Teresa and Alex assured me the novella was written so it could be read independently, and they are right - but I do think it adds an extra layer of resonance to a shared-world work when you're familiar with the worlds involved. 

In any case, I'm very glad I did read The Hum and the Shiver.  It's a subtle, thoughtful book that explores the aftereffects of war and trauma in a way that few fantasy novels do.  I particularly liked the rural Appalachian setting and the lovely blend of the mundane and the magical.  Reminded me of one of my favorite fantasy series as a teen, Tom Deitz's David Sullivan series (first book Windmaster's Bane), which is set in rural Georgia and also combines faerie lore with modern dilemmas.

Which leads me to Hisses and Wings, which I also thoroughly enjoyed and left me wanting more of Teresa's Los Nefilim in particular.  (There are several Tufa novels out, but not yet a Los Nefilim book!)  The sense of history among her characters is so rich and deep that I am dying to find out more about them.  I also love the use of magic and music, and that the story doesn't end in the way a fantasy reader might be conditioned to expect.  The novella's only 99 cents on the Kindle, so if you've never read either author's work, it's a great way to get started.  Me, I'm looking forward to enjoying more Tufa novels, and hoping for more Los Nefilim stories from Teresa very soon! 



   

The Labyrinth of Flame Kickstarter is live!

Houston, we have go for launch: The Labyrinth of Flame kickstarter is live!  It's been a long and sometimes bumpy road to get here - I can hardly believe the day has come at last. (I feel somewhat like I'm poking my skis over the top of a steep couloir, about to drop in.  Kind of a combination of "WOOHOO!!!" and "YIKES.")

Head on over and check out the rewards and goals and video, and please share the word with anyone and everyone who might enjoy the Shattered Sigil series!  The Kickstarter will run for 28 days, ending at 9pm MST on Tues Mar 17.  I'll be counting down here on my blog with a wilderness picture and a book recommendation every day.  Plus doing various guest spots at other blogs and an AMA ("Ask Me Anything") over at r/Fantasy next Tues, Feb 24.  So, a busy, exciting month.  My fingers are crossed that at the end of it, The Labyrinth of Flame will be heading for publication, thanks to you!


      

Lessons learned from filming Labyrinth of Flame's Kickstarter video (one day until launch!)

T minus one day and counting…The Labyrinth of Flame's Kickstarter goes live tomorrow, Tues Feb 17!

Since I spent the last few days editing and preparing the project video – my first time video editing! – I thought I’d share some of the lessons I learned. 

Screencap from my video - filming made a great excuse to spend a day in the mountains!

1)      Mountains make for impressive background scenery, but it’s really damn hard to talk loud enough to be heard over howling wind.  My husband and I shot a bunch of video up at the ice-covered lake pictured above…and had to throw out half of the footage because of wind noise that couldn’t be filtered out.  I could’ve tried to overdub the audio, but that’s startlingly hard to get right – our brains are excellent at detecting a mismatch between lip movement and audio.

2)      If you ARE filming outdoors and need to have your speech clear, stand CLOSE to the camera.  Way closer than you think necessary or feel comfortable with!   

3)      Shoot LOTS of footage.  Thank God, in the mountains we did at least 3 takes of everything.  That meant I was able to use some of the footage, since the wind wasn’t constant.  We should have shot more, but we were limited on time - we had to get back to Boulder before my son got out of school for the day!

4)      Find video editing software that’s a) not so simple you can’t properly stitch clips together and record voiceover audio, and b) not so complex it’ll take you weeks to learn how to do anything with it.  After a few frustrating attempts with Windows Live Movie Maker, which I found too simple to allow proper editing, and an aborted attempt with Camtasia (which is powerful but designed more for business applications),  I settled on Sony Vegas Movie Studio Platinum, which worked great.   Not so complex that a newbie to video editing like me couldn’t jump in and use it, yet powerful enough to do what I wanted. 

5)      Trial versions of software are your friend.  (Sony Vegas Movie Studio allows a free 30-day trial. YAY.)

6)    Youtube tutorials on how to do specific tasks with software are even more your friend. (I found a great set of tutorials on youtube about how to use Movie Studio, and it was SO helpful.  Bless the tutorial makers, for they shall save you hours of time.)

7)    Check your format!  Your camera probably records in 16:9 aspect ratio.  Kickstarter requires 4:3.  Don’t be like me and edit up an entire draft of the video and ONLY THEN realize that it needs to be in 4:3.  (Changing the aspect ratio itself is no sweat in a video editor, but if you’ve overlaid text or used pan/zoom effects, they’re likely to look different than you wanted after the change.  Which means you’ll have to go back and re-do them all, arrrgh.)         

8)    Don't forget to have some fun!  If you’re a newbie to film editing like me, doesn't matter how good your editing software is, you’re not likely to produce some super-slick video that could’ve been made by a Hollywood pro.  Instead I did my best to show my very real enthusiasm for the Shattered Sigil series and have a good time filming.  That way, regardless of what happens with the Kickstarter, at least my husband and I can look back on an awesome day we spent in the mountains and giggle over the film outtakes.  Ha, and when the kickstarter goes live tomorrow, you can judge for yourself how well I did with my first-ever movie.

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.  

Revision Update: Heading into the Homestretch

So the pesky day job derailed my Labyrinth of Flame revision plan again these last weeks. BUT. I am close to finishing the draft.  Close enough I'm taking this next week off from work for the big push to the end.  Which feels like:

Took this pic heading home from canyoneering in the Robbers Roost area of SE Utah.  The road is long, but the promised land is at last in sight...   

Best of all, my husband - who is once again even more desperate for this book to be done than I am - agreed to let me finish off the week by holing up in a hotel for a writing marathon, just like I did to finish The Tainted City.  (But hopefully without the late-night return home to take the kiddo to the ER.)  It is really amazing how much work I can get done when there's no little voice calling "Mommy!  Mommy, I need you..."

Assuming no illness or other disasters this next week, the kickstarter is still on for mid-Feb, likely Feb 17 or 18.  I've already been working on my project page a bit, and have roped a friend into helping me shoot some video in a nicely mountainous location (because hey, what better excuse for a little adventure?  Of course for Labyrinth I really ought to be be filming in Utah's canyon country, but alas, this is the wrong time of year - the weather is too iffy and the canyons too muddy.)

I've also got a little survey up polling what people would like to see as kickstarter rewards.  Many of you on my mailing list already responded - thanks so much for your time and your comments! Thought I'd toss up the link here too, in case anybody else wants to weigh in before I finalize reward levels.

And now, I go dark until I hit those glorious words THE END.  See you soon!