A Writer's Journal

"He's dead, Jim." or, "It's only a flesh wound."

2009-10-12T09:02:00.003-05:00

This blog has been unofficially dead for some time. Now it's time to make it official. This is the last post I'll be adding to this blog.

However, I'll still be writing about various and sundry things, only at a different location. I've incorporated WordPress into my website as a content management system. This gives me the advantage of having (a) a more flexible website when it comes to updates, and (b) a blog capability built right in. So the main news page will be for announcements, updates, and random postings. I'm hoping that the new format will make it easier for me to provide more regular content.

Cheers!

Go here for the new, improved, lemon-fresh-scent website.

Cover art sketch for THE COMMANDING STONE

2008-10-14T18:30:00.002-05:00

I received this last night from my editor. I think it looks pretty cool. The artist is a guy named Brian Birdsong. Tristan Schane, the wonderfully talented artist who did the covers for my first two novels, was unfortunately unavailable to do the third. I'm happy with the concept, and hope the final rendition looks just as good.

A political rant on the bailout and Republican racist propaganda

2008-10-02T05:41:00.002-05:00

My fiance received an email from a relative with a link to this YouTube clip that claims the melt down on Wall Street is really the fault of a 30-year-old housing program called the Community Reinvestment Act.

See the YouTube clip here.

Ooh, ooh! Republican racist propaganda! The exploding economy is the fault of poor minority people!

I was going to let this go, but I lost sleep Sunday night because I was so angry over this offensively stupid YouTube clip, so I'm going to set the record straight. There are so many things factually wrong about it I hardly know where to start (which is what the Republican bullshit machine does best -- spit out so much nonsense one feels overwhelmed and thinks, "They can't really lie about all of that, can they?" Surprise! Yes, they can! And they have! And they will continue to do so!).

Time for a little education. Yes, this is long. Yes, I hope you will read it and follow the links to the supporting documentation.

First of all, I've worked in banking for the past sixteen years, and I spent five years working closely with my old bank's CRA officer and the woman in Marketing who analyzed the data for our government reporting. So I have a little first-hand knowledge about this topic.

CRA has been around for 31 years, with nary a problem with the "subprime" mortgages lent during all that time until the last few years. Now why would that be? Is it because of a flaw within the CRA law itself, which was substantially changed by Clinton in the late '90s and again by Bush in 2005? Why weren't banks melting down before then?

Here’s a hint: Because CRA isn't the problem! Neither were the minority borrowers who have been taking out mortgages and small business loans these past 31 years.

A few opinions on the subject here and here.

The problem was that many of the more recent subprime loans -- loans given out by unregulated mortgage companies with no requirements to follow CRA regulations -- were packaged into "credit default securities" (more on these later) and sold on the secondary market to investment banks, who made a killing off the returns until borrowers actually started to default.

And what made these kinds of securities possible? A law famous in the banking world called "Gramm-Leach-Bliley." This law gutted the Glass-Steagal Act that was passed after the Great Depression to regulate banks, prohibit too much consolidation of various businesses (banking and insurance and securities, for example) and prevent another massive collapse of the financial system like the one in 1929. Gramm-Leach-Bliley (GLB) paved the way for the waves of massive bank mergers we've seen for most of the past decade as the barriers preventing such mergers were stripped away.

Seems to have worked out great so far! I mean, the markets today have…oh. Oops.

Guess who the "Gramm" is of GLB? None other than Phil Gramm, ex-senator, master deregulator, and John McCain's economic advisor! (At least until he was shuttled off into a back room after publicly stating we are in a "mental recession" and Americans have become a "nation of whiners." Thanks, Phil! I guess things look pretty good when you're a multimillionaire retired senator sitting on the board of international banking giant UBS and helping your BFF McCain run for President.)

Slight digression: I also love how Republicans are always telling us, "Let the market work things out. You want government sponsored health care? Screw that! Let the free markets compete to get the best price! Who cares if 40 million Americans are uninsured? Wait, they're really not uninsured because they can all go to the emergency room if they're sick! Problem solved!"

And here's another Republican on health care:

[John Goodman, president of the National Center for Policy Analysis, a right-leaning Dallas-based think tank] who helped craft Sen. John McCain's health care policy, said anyone with access to an emergency room effectively has insurance, albeit the government acts as the payer of last resort. (Hospital emergency rooms by law cannot turn away a patient in need of immediate care.)

"So I have a solution. And it will cost not one thin dime," Mr. Goodman said. "The next president of the United States should sign an executive order requiring the Census Bureau to cease and desist from describing any American -- even illegal aliens -- as uninsured. Instead, the bureau should categorize people according to the likely source of payment should they need care.

"So, there you have it. Voila! Problem solved."

Genius! Health care crisis solved with the waive of a pen! Just go to the emergency room! Except if you need a mammogram, or cancer treatments, or medications, or...whoops.

Digression over. Back to the financial meltdown!

Let's look at little more closely at the financial sector meltdown and what really caused it, shall we? Phil Gramm, back in 1999-2000, got GLB passed with some bi-partisan support, and yes, Clinton signed it into law. But guess what? Crafty old Phil wasn't done yet!

Here is some background on Gramm's role in GLB, but I'll excerpt the salient point:

"Shortly after George W. Bush was elected president, Congress and President Clinton were trying to pass a $384 billion omnibus spending bill, and while the debates swirled around the passage of this bill, Senator Phil Gramm clandestinely slipped a 262-page amendment into the omnibus appropriations bill titled: Commodity Futures Modernization Act. It is likely that few senators read this bill, if any. The essence of the act was the deregulation of derivatives trading (financial instruments whose value changes in response to the changes in underlying variables; the main use of derivatives is to reduce risk for one party). The legislation contained a provision -- lobbied for by Enron, a major campaign contributor to Gramm -- that exempted energy trading from regulatory oversight. Basically, it gave way to the Enron debacle and ushered in the new era of unregulated securities. Interestingly enough, Gramm's wife, Wendy, had been part of the Enron board, and her salary and stock income brought in between $900,000 and $1.8 million to the Gramm household, prior to the passage of the Commodity Futures Modernization Act."

I don't even give a shit about Enron and Phil's near-criminal conflict-of-interest at this point. The big deal is the Commodity Futures Modernization Act.

You want to know what caused the mortgage meltdown and the crisis on Wall Street? The Commodity Futures Modernization Act.

So what did this act do? It deregulated certain banking securities -- "futures contracts" -- so that there was no oversight or control from any regulatory body in regard to the buying and selling of futures.

Why did the so-called geniuses on Wall Street think buying these things by the bucket load (and by bucket load I mean hundreds of billions of dollars worth) was a good thing? They're supposed to be smart, right?

Here's what they thought would happen, and what really did happen.

Smart Wall Street Dude: "Hey, housing values always go up! Up up and up! We can wrap up all of these no-money-down, 110% loan-to-value and adjustable-rate mortgages into securities and buy and sell them! Who cares if they're shitty loans? We'll make a profit at some point because even if the homebuyers default, the value of their homes will still increase and can be sold to pay off the debt we'll owe! We can't lose!"

These futures contracts were the "credit default securities" I mentioned earlier. Note the word "default" in the name. These clowns fully expected a majority of these loans to default. They knew they were risky, but they thought the value of the collateral – people’s houses – would always rise and be greater than the loss on the loan if the borrower defaulted. And because these things were risky, they paid big returns.

Then the housing boom crashed, home values plummeted, and suddenly homes were valued at less -- sometimes far less -- than what the homeowner owed. All at once, people were stuck in homes they couldn't afford as their adjustable rates mortgages skyrocketed, and they couldn't sell or refinance to a fixed rate because no one would lend them the money because they owed more than the house was worth. Hello, foreclosures!

So how did this melt down Wall Street?

Because not only were those securities now worthless -- there was no way to recoup the losses, because even when the banks foreclosed, they couldn't recover enough to pay back the loans -- the Wall Street firms were obligated to pay them off. That was part of the contract.

Now, these Wall Street guys aren't entirely stupid. They could buy insurance to cover them in case of these defaults, so that, in return for their premiums, the insurance company would cover their loses. Not everyone bought insurance, but a lot did.

Guess who they bought insurance through? AIG! Oops! Now the world's largest insurer suddenly owes hundreds of billions of dollars to investment banks to pay off their bad debts. Hundreds of billions of dollars that if they had to pay out, would bankrupt the company.

So the Fed -- in the form of Republican appointees, those who value a free market above all else -- ride in to rescue AIG and nationalize it. Surprise! All of us taxpaying Americans now own an insurance company!

So where did all of these bad loans come from to begin with? The Republican bullshit machine would like you to believe they came from CRA loans, because, well, you know you can't trust minorities with money. Which is why all of the Republican tax breaks are for rich white people.

But that's simply not the case, A majority of the defaulted loan were made since the year 2000, and many since 2004. That's when the mortgage business cycle really heated up. Third-party mortgage companies -- not CRA lenders, please note! -- were awash with cheap money to lend and loosened credit so that pretty much anyone who wanted a mortgage could get one. That's why you had people who made $50,000 buying $500,000 homes. Could they afford it? Hell no. But the lender got his fees, shoved the borrower into a low-rate ARM that he could afford now, and when the rate adjusted up in a couple of years he could just refinance or sell the house. By then, the loan would have long-since been sold in the secondary market, mostly to Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac.

Oops again! Now Freddie and Fannie were stuck with hundreds of billions in bad mortgage backed securities! What to do, what to do? I know! Feds to the rescue again! Hey, American taxpayer! Now we all own two enormous mortgage companies! Thank you Republican free market gurus! You just presided over the largest socialization endeavor in the history of the country!

Back to the question: Where did all of these bad mortgages come from? Who do you think was funding the speculative real estate growth of places like Miami and Las Vegas? Not CRA borrowers! These were speculators and flippers who bought homes and condos they couldn't afford, but since real estate values were zooming through the stratosphere, they could turn around and sell them for a tidy profit, sometimes before new construction one some of them was even finished. Sometimes before they made their first payment, at least when times were booming.

But when everything went south, they got stuck. No way to pay, no way to sell. Now we're paying for it.

I won't even get into John McCain's Trickle-Down Economics nonsense, or how he was against Bush's tax cuts for the rich ("You don't cut taxes in a time of war," he said) before he flip-flopped and said he was for them. And now, if he becomes president, he wants to make them permanent.

Lessons learned: CRA has very little, if anything, to do with the Wall Street bust. It was the fault of both Republicans and Democrats to some degree, but mostly it was a result of the Republican conservative idea of deregulation. And that we can lay firmly on the shoulders of Phil Gramm and John McCain, who just a few months ago said, "I'm mostly a deregulator.”

I know this is long, but there is some BS I'm just not going to tolerate. Blaming government and Wall Street greed and short-sightedness on the poor is one of those things.

I'm David Forbes and I approved this message.

What I've been reading

2008-08-24T11:34:00.003-05:00

I just finished NO COUNTRY FOR OLD MEN by Cormac McCarthy this morning. Brilliant novel. I loved the movie and felt the need to read the source material. Not for those who like things tied into neat packages, always want to see the hero win the day or the bad guys punished, this is a meditation on how a simple decision to be merciful can lead to total ruin, how some forms of evil are simply stronger than most of us. Chilling, brutal, stark, unforgettable.

Before that, I read Michael Chabon's wonderful THE YIDDISH POLICEMEN'S UNION. His mastery of the English language is unrivaled, and I found myself highlighting dozens of inventive phrasings.

What if the attempt to settle Palestine by the Jews after WWII had failed? Where would they go? In this inventive novel, they ended up in Sitka, Alaska (apparently based on a real plan developed but later rejected by the U.S. State Department). But the land grant came with an expiration date (called the Reversion), which is fast approaching at the opening of the novel.

The story is an often hilarious romp through the Federal District of Sitka,. The main character is a divorced detective, Meier Landsman, investigating the murder of a man at the very hotel where the detective was living. The investigation methodically uncovers a conspiracy involving the return of the Jewish Messiah, "Black Hat" Jewish Mafia, Landsman's dead sister, and a host of other off-the-wall characters. Highly recommended.

Getting behind...again.

2008-08-18T21:14:00.002-05:00

I know I promised I would provide more regular updates, but, as usual, life intercedes. I'm really enjoying working on LIFE LINE, the fictionalized version of my main post-divorce relationship that came to an abrupt and incredibly painful end last October. It's really humming along, and I'm loathe to pull away from it to blog here about my current relationship (which is better in almost all respects than the one that ended, as good as that was. So for that small mercy I'm grateful, though I would say I'm still emotionally scarred from the experience).

Anyway, this is my way of saying this is the only update for a couple of days. I'll try to get some pics up of our vacation to Key West soon, but I'm not going to promise a deadline since I'll more than likely miss it!

Next book...?

2008-08-13T19:14:00.013-05:00

Turning in THE COMMANDING STONE fulfills my three-novel contract with HarperCollins. Well, technically it's not fulfilled until my editor reads and is happy with the manuscript, no matter how many edits from me that takes. Once she's happy with it -- called "delivery and acceptance" -- I get paid the final portion of my advance (yay!) and the book goes into the pre-publication process.

Right now, however, I'm done with the book until Diana, my editor, gets back to me with whatever changes she would like.

So what's next?

A couple of things.

Once the book is accepted, I'll need to talk to my agent about what my next proposal will look like. There's one more book to finish out the series, so that's a given. But if they want a three-book deal like the last time, what are the other two?

I have a proposal for another novel set in the same universe as my other fantasy novels but with a totally separate group of characters. It tangentially relates to THE AMBER WIZARD, but just barely. It's a cool idea and I already have the first and last line of the book completed!

I have a young adult novel called FOREVERNESS (if you're up for it, you can read the entire manuscript here) with my agent that I'd like to package in as part of a multi-book proposal. It's my favorite book of all that I've written so far. I also have a sort of weird supernatural/horror story about what really happened when Adam and Eve were kicked out of the Garden of Eden!

At the moment I'm working on a mainstream novel called LIFE LINE. I'm about 45 pages into it and enjoying it immensely. No outline for this one, just pages of notes. I'm flying by the seat of my pants on this one, though I again have the very last line all done. It's based very loosely on the relationship I was in last year that crashed and burned in October. I have no feel for it at all right now and can't tell if it will even be publishable, but it's one of those books I need to write.

So for I'm going to keep plugging away at LIFE LINE and wait for my editor to get back to me with changes for THE COMMANDING STONE.

The 411 on THE COMMANDING STONE

2008-08-13T17:21:00.003-05:00

The third book in the series is done and with my editor. I sent it to my wonderful agent Matt Bialer first, who (to my complete surprise) suggested no changes! He said there were one or two minor things to consider, but he didn't want me to bother with them before sending it to my editor at HarperCollins to get her feedback.

This book was easier to write than the others in a lot of ways. For one thing, I'm more comfortable with the characters. They're like old friends, and it was fun to catch up with them for the third time. I still had to stretch them and make them grow as people, but it's just easier now.

And I'm more comfortable with writing in general. I've toned down some of the descriptions compared to the first two. I'm more at ease in sketching in the world rather than painting everything in excruciating detail. I like this book a lot, and hope my editor does too!

THE AMBER WIZARD just published in Germany

2008-08-12T16:27:00.005-05:00

My first novel has just been published in Germany by a division of Random House. For some reason I just think this is so cool! (Yes, I'm a complete geek about this.)

Here's the cover. I have no idea what it's supposed to represent! It looks a little like how I described Castle Ailethon, but since I had nothing to do with the translation or the cover that's only a wild guess.

THE WORDS OF MAKING is due out next April. I have absolutely no idea about this cover! (But I kinda like it!)

Yes, I'm still alive!

2008-08-12T14:54:00.004-05:00

I know it's been forever and a day (and then some), since I last updated this sorry little blog! My sincerest apologies! I plan to provide a couple of updates over the next few days. Some will pertain to my writing, others will be of a more personal nature, since I've received feedback that some of you really liked that (or at least liked reading about how my life fell apart for a while after my girlfriend broke up with me last October).

I have no idea if anyone will ever read this since it's been abandoned for so long!

I need to get my son to his first practice for fall baseball. I'll provide at least one more update later tonight.

Prologue to THE COMMANDING STONE is now online

2008-01-22T17:43:00.000-05:00

I just posted the Prologue to Book Three over at my website. For those of you who've slogged through the first two books and want to get a peek at where things are going, head on over and check it out!

Direct link to the page is here.

Ballroom dancing

2008-01-07T06:20:00.000-05:00

This past Saturday I took a beginners' class in ballroom dancing. The three dances were the Rumba, Foxtrot, and Tango. To my great surprise, I really enjoyed myself! I expected to have fun simply because of the company I was with, but the dancing itself was more enjoyable than I expected it to be. After two and a half hours I was pretty tired, and some of the steps were getting away from me -- I completely forgot the Foxtrot steps during our end-of-session recap! But that is pretty common, from what I gather. I didn't look down at my feet once -- something many of the other men had trouble with -- and only once or twice came close to stepping on my partner's feet. She's much more experienced at this than I am, and seemed pretty pleased by how I did.

Now I'm looking forward to attending an actual dance where we can put these to some use. I liked the Rumba the best, and even went so far as to practice it on my own the following morning, before I blew out my back. (More on that in another post.)

Flu shot

2007-12-20T12:03:00.000-05:00

I got a free flu shot at work yesterday and I'm glad I did, but today I have to admit I'm not feeling so great. I had a mildly scratchy throat last night when I went to bed. Today I'm feeling rather achy in my joints and my skin has that ultra-sensitive feel to it where any pressure at all flirts in that netherland between annoyance and mild pain.

I have no idea if this is related to the flu shot (I threw out my paper that had the list of side effects on it -- Doh!). I know you can't get the flu from the shot itself because the bacteria is dead, but there are some other mild symptoms you can acquire. I would classify my symptoms as "mild" and am certainly glad I got the shot, but I'm so astoundingly busy the next few days that I hope these effects pass soon and don't get any worse.

I do owe a writing update, and some info on how I prepare my novels (by request), but I won't have time to get to that until after Christmas at the earliest. Sorry! Just keep checking back.

I hope everyone has a safe and happy holiday.

Christmas Party

2007-12-04T18:47:00.001-05:00

My company's Christmas party was this past Saturday, held at the Radisson Penn Harris Hotel in Camp Hill. A light dinner was followed by a few hours of (fake) gambling. We really had a wonderful time. We played blackjack all night, parlaying our $10,000 voucher into about $18,000 before crashing and burning. John, our very friendly and patient dealer, helped us along since we were complete noobs when it came to gambling.

I got another voucher and we were up to about $20,000 and decided to let it ride for the final bet of the night. And don't you know it, the dealer comes up with blackjack! (Curse you, John!)

I guarantee I wouldn't have had nearly as much fun if it had been my own money....

The Devil Wears Prada

2007-12-02T11:29:00.000-05:00

I read this book because I enjoyed the movie a great deal and simply wanted to see how different the source material was, since I'd read that major changes had occurred between page and screen.

Now, I'm all for screenwriters making changes when adapting a pre-existing work for film. Things have to be changed. I have little tolerance for people who claim changes to plot or character "ruined" a book or movie. For one thing, a film adaptation doesn't change the book at all, so it can't be ruined. I believe it was John Updike who, when someone complained to him about an adaptation of his work "ruining" it, pulled the novel in question from his shelf and said, "It still looks perfectly fine to me."

The more beloved a book, the more shrill the cries of outrage when changes are made. While I have some minor issues myself with changes to THE LORD OF THE RINGS films where I thought the changes served no purpose (which should always be the defining criteria for such alterations -- are they needed in order to better tell the same story in a different medium?), I thought that overall the films were brilliant in both concept and execution. But the fans! Oh my! You would have thought that Peter Jackson had eaten their mothers and fathers for breakfast with all the gnashing of teeth that occurred online.

But I digress. I was talking about THE DEVIL WEARS PRADA.

This is one of those rare instances where the movie adaptation is actually better than the book. More streamlined, better narrative flow, characters who are more real than the rather caricature-like novel counterparts. I was rather stunned by how much better the movie was.

The book is about a recent college graduate, Andrea, who lands a job at a fictional magazine called RUNWAY working for the world's most powerful fashion editor, Miranda Priestly, who is a hateful, condescending, manipulative tyrant. In the book she is caricature, a creature so over the top that it's sometimes difficult to believe in her.

The movie's major coup is making Miranda just as much a tyrant, while also allowing us to catch glimpses of her as a human being. I was waiting for some of those moments to appear in the novel, but they never did. They were inventions of the screenwriter, Aline Brosh McKenna, and I applaud her decisions.

Perhaps those who read and enjoyed the novel first prefer it to the movie (that's often the case). But I truly do feel in this instance that the adaptation was more than a simple translations from one medium to another -- it transcended its source material, which, as I said earlier, is a rare thing, and one to be commended when it happens.

Some recent books I've read

2007-12-01T11:34:00.000-05:00

I'm not going to do formal book reviews here. I simply don't have the time, and there are plenty of other websites and blogs that offer nothing but reviews that are far better than what I could write.

By "formal review," I mean an analysis of themes, plot, character arcs, where the book may lie in comparison to others in the genre, etc. etc. I was done with those kinds of reviews/reports when I got out of college. I enjoy reading them, but I'm no longer interested in writing them. And as I said, I really don't have the time.

I did have a "What I'm Reading" section on my website, but the blog is easier to update so I think I'll just migrate that here.

I've read a ton of books since I last updated my website, but one of the more recent books I read was THE ROAD, by Cormack McCarthy. This is a devastating novel, a tale of an unnamed father and son who live on a dying Earth and are simply trying to survive the aftermath of an unknown cataclysm. The world is cold, ashen, gray; literally a corpse across which the father and son journey on their way to the coast. They have no idea what they will find there, no real hope, but the coast is a destination, a goal, and so they flee cold and death for what they hope is something better.

The son is the moral compass for them both, reassuring his father -- and in turn asking for reassurance from the older man -- that they are the "good guys" in a world where men murder others to eat them because there is no food, no power, no civilization.

This is a grim, haunting book. It stayed with me long after I finished it. Recommended.

More later....

Work on THE COMMANDING STONE

2007-11-16T21:20:00.001-05:00

Since this blog was originally started to chart the progress of my novels, I'll get back to that for a bit.

Book three is called THE COMMANDING STONE, and I'm presently a little more than halfway through the first draft. I'm hoping to have it completed early next year, with an anticipated publication date in very early 2009. I will be posting the prologue and perhaps chapter one before the end of this year, assuming I can find time to polish them enough to show them to the world. Right now they're in pretty rough form and I'd rather keep the momentum going with the narrative than go back and revise, but we'll see what my schedule permits.

As a reminder for anyone near Bloomsburg, tomorrow I'm holding a book signing at the Cloak and Dragon bookstore downtown from 1 -3 pm. If you're around, please stop by!

Steelers eek one out over the Browns

2007-11-11T20:59:00.000-05:00

It was something of a nail-biter, but the Steelers pulled out a great come-from-behind victory (down 21-6 at halftime) in the second half of their home game against the hated Cleveland Browns. (It wouldn't have been nearly so close if the Steelers kicking unit knew how to, oh, I don't know, tackle the freakin' kick returner! I mean, come on, two touchdowns on kickoff returns!?)

Ben really came through in this game. With a career-long 30-yard touchdown run, and another scramble to gain a first down on third and long, he really showed his mettle as one of the premier quarterbacks in the league.

What matters in the end is the final score. But Tomlin's got some work to do with special teams. You just can't have gaffes like that in the NFL and keep winning.

"Please don't respond"

2007-11-11T07:52:00.001-05:00

Those were her last words to me in an email I received a few days ago. "Please don't respond." I had sent an email asking if I had ever made her truly happy -- there were reasons for that question that I don't feel like getting into here. She finally broke down and replied. She told me that yes, I had made her happy, very happy, and that she would regret breaking up with me and miss me for a long time, but that this was something she had to do. The other guy is the one for her, and she has to try to make that work and move on.

"Please don't respond."

So it ends. The woman who had been my best friend, my girlfriend, my confidante. Someone I talked to several times a day, who couldn't wait to see me when we were apart. It all comes down to this.

"Please don't respond."

I think this will be my last post on this sad, sorry subject (and I'm sure a lot of you must be cheering about that!). I've never really felt compelled to write about anything the way I am about this topic. This outlet has certainly helped me in some ways. I just wish I could see where I'm going to go from here, because right now, the road is very dark indeed.

Steelers - Ravens

2007-11-06T08:48:00.000-05:00

My team, the Pittsburgh Steelers, routed the hated Ravens in a 38-7 stomping in Pittsburgh last night. Big Ben threw five touchdown passes in the first half alone! Unfortunately, Ben was injured on a seemingly innocuous hit late in the third quarter by Terrell Suggs. Ben looked pretty shaken up at the time, but came back into the game in the fourth quarter, so it appears all is well.

All in all, a very satisfying Monday night game!

Bee Movie

2007-11-06T06:39:00.000-05:00

I took my son to see "Bee Movie" last night. It started off rather slow and unfunny, but built nicely toward a fun and rewarding ending. It wasn't the laugh-out-loud movie I expected, but definitely worth a look.

I'm sure the handful of readers I have here are sick to death of me whining about my recent personal issues. I think I would be sick of it too if I were you. But you need to understand that I'm finding it tremendously helpful to write about what's happening. If you'd rather not read anymore about it, you should probably stop here.

On our way to the movie, my son asked me out of the blue, "Is Miss ---- still our friend?"

His question caught me completely off guard. I took a moment to compose myself, then said, "Well, not really anymore."

He asked why not? Why couldn't she just marry this other guy and be friends with us too? I tried to explain that she still liked us, but that it was hard for her to try to be friends with me and be with someone else. I also made it clear that she liked him -- my son -- very much and had told me to tell him she was sorry about what happened.

He said he missed her, then asked me if I missed her too. I told him yes, very much. He said he felt like crying, and wanted to know if I was sad. Again, I told him yes. We were at the movies by now and when I got out of the car I gave him a huge hug.

At lunch time today I'm going to buy some Unisom and see if that helps with my sleep. Last night I was up again at 4:00; the night before it was 1:30. I was hoping I could just "work through" this sleep problem (whatever the hell that really means) without resorting to medication, but apparently not.

First date

2007-11-04T21:50:00.000-05:00

I had my first new date tonight in more than a year, and it was a complete disaster. Not in some burn-down-the-house, run-screaming-for-the-hills kind of way, but it was still pretty awful. No chemistry, no interest from either of us, awkward silences, and a desire from both of us to just end it and move on. It barely lasted an hour before we were out the door. (At least the sushi was good.)

I am a complete wreck once again. I don't know how I can handle this. The idea of having to date, of trying to find somewhere out there what I so recently lost, is so disheartening that I just want to give up.

For this first time since the breakup, I hated her. Not for very long -- it was a momentary flash, like a solar flare, that burst into life when I walked back into my dark and empty house -- but for that brief moment I despised her for making me have to go through this. For having to start over; for trying to find her, and what we had, in someone else.

Book signing schedule updates

2007-11-03T08:46:00.000-05:00

The book signing at the Cloak and Dragon in Bloomsburg is scheduled for Saturday, November 17, from 1 to 3. Hope to see you there!

The Cloak and Dragon is located at 12 East Main Street, Bloomsburg, PA 17815.

DATE CHANGE FOR THE WYOMISSING BOOK SIGNING! The Wyomissing book signing has been moved to Saturday, December 8, from 1 to 3.

Guest blogging at the HarperCollins site

2007-11-03T07:06:00.000-05:00

My editor asked me if I was interested in writing several guest blogs for my publisher's site, timed to the release of my second novel. My answer: Of course!

You can read them by following the links below.

Part One
Part Two
Part Three

Birthday

2007-11-02T05:18:00.000-05:00

Two nights ago (Halloween), I went to a costume dinner party with some friends and had a very nice time. I need to get out more. I'm a fairly solitary person (writing has that unfortunate side effect), and for the last year most of my social life revolved around my ex, so when that imploded there was very little left for me to do except rattle around the house by myself, which was not helping my mental state. The food was excellent, the company even better, and I appreciated the opportunity to get out and do something with others.

Yesterday was my birthday. I will admit, it sucked. Not because of my birthday itself -- I'm 42, and quite honestly not bothered by my age in the least -- but because I did not hear from her at all. Part of me did not expect to. She is not terribly sentimental in some ways, and very hard in others, and I realize that it's better for her to just have a clean break and not look back.

But another part of me really wanted her to find a way to wish me a happy birthday in spite of everything. It's not as if I was ever a jerk to her, or I did something awful to cause this breakup. So I pathetically spent the day waiting for a message of some kind that never came. I will admit to a moment of severe weakness in which I emailed her some of my thoughts. I wasn't nasty or snide or accusatory, but I was hurt.

I never heard back from her.

My team at work got me a cake and card and balloon, which was great, and a good friend of mine took me to lunch and did a pretty good job of cheering me up for a while. But when I got home later that night, the weight of this came crashing down on me again. Part of why this is so hard right now is that she was planning on taking today off so we could be together. She had a wonderful birthday present planned for me (no, I'm not going to say what it was), and the idea that she might still be planning to go through with it and give it to her new/old boyfriend instead is just killing me. I had another awful, sleepless night, and I think today I need to pick up some Unisom or some other over-the-counter meds to help out.

I'm going to a Caribbean dinner party on Saturday (same group that went to the Halloween dinner), and I'm looking forward to again getting out for a while.

Book signing, Halloween party, and other thoughts

2007-10-28T07:27:00.000-05:00

The book signing went well yesterday. I want to thank everyone that came out, both personal friends and strangers who were interested readers of the book. I think we sold about twenty-five copies, which is a pretty good number for this kind of event (and a still new and fairly unknown writer).

My son played at a friend's house all day while I was at the signing. That family was having a get together that evening, so I went over and hung out for a while. A number of the adults played a card game called "Screw your neighbor" that was very enjoyable. I'm not a card guy -- I can play gin pretty well, but I have no idea about poker, so this card game, which was very simple and took about three minutes to learn, was perfect for me. I even won the first pot!

Woke up at 4:00 again this morning, after going to bed around midnight. I'm worried that if this doesn't correct itself soon, I'm going to have to find some sort of medication to take. I try to clear my mind when I wake up in the dead of night so I can fall back asleep, but I simply can't. I try focusing on my breathing or counting backward from 100, but nothing works. My mind obsesses over my failed relationship and everything I've lost. What is hardest for me is that, over the course of the past year, she became my best friend. I've always had close relationships with women, and this one was no different. We complimented each other perfectly, and I'm still having trouble coping with this sudden, agonizing loss. To be very honest, this has been far worse than my divorce. My marriage was slowly strangled over seven long years, so that when the end came it was almost a relief. There was pain and heartache, to be sure, but nothing like this.

Sleep and scribbles

2007-10-27T09:13:00.001-05:00

I woke up at 4:00 am this morning and could not fall back to sleep. I'm feeling wide awake now (I'm very much a morning person), but if you come out to the book signing and I look a little worn out, you'll understand why.

I've been feverishly scribbling notes over the past two weeks (has it really been that long?). I have seven pages of thoughts and ideas for a novel about this failed relationship. I will write it someday, but I have no idea if it will ever get published. The working title is LIFE LINE. Look for it in a couple of years....

Trick or Treating

2007-10-26T20:06:00.000-05:00

Here's a picture of Alex and his two cousins out Trick or Treating. Alex is on the left, in a Jango Fett costume (a bounty hunter in the Star Wars prequel trilogy, for those of you scratching your heads). His cousin Kallie, in the middle, is a witch (obviously), and her younger brother Brennon is Optimus Prime from the Transformers movie.

A little progress

2007-10-26T05:18:00.000-05:00

I slept until 5:15 this morning, after going to bed around 10:40. So I'm making some progress, at least.

Last night was Trick or Treat (I still have no idea why my township can't have Halloween actually on Halloween!). My son dressed up as Jango Fett (he is absolutely nuts about Star Wars). We went over to my mom's development so he could Trick or Treat with his cousins. We had a great time. It was chilly but not too cold. A local fire department stops by one of the main intersections each year with their fire truck and hands out free pizza and glow sticks, so that was a nice diversion in the middle of the evening.

My son also has an incredibly generous heart. When we got back to my mom's house, she had just about run out of candy to hand out. My son said, "Grandma, you can have some of mine, I got way too much," and proceeded to give her two big handfuls of candy. He didn't sort through to give her candy he didn't like -- he just took some out and handed it over. Now when I was a kid, I guarded my candy the way the government guards Fort Knox.

He's such a great kid. I'll post a few pictures sometime this weekend.

Lack of sleep

2007-10-25T05:12:00.000-05:00

Since the breakup, I haven't been able to sleep past 4:30 am. Most of the time I seem to snap awake around 4:10, and then I simply can't fall back to sleep. It doesn't matter when I go to bed. My usual bedtime is 11:30-ish and I get up around 6:00, which, when things are fine, is plenty of sleep for me.

I was at a conference for work in Connecticut last week, and even on the final night, when a group of us went to dinner and then out for drinks and a dwindling number of hearty souls stayed out until 2:30, I still couldn't sleep past 5:30. And a few hours after that I had the travel day from hell trying to get home.

But four or five hours doesn't cut it. This has been going on for thirteen days, and I'm feeling run down and exhausted. Something needs to change.

Reminder: first Book Signing for THE WORDS OF MAKING is this Saturday!

2007-10-24T12:56:00.000-05:00

For those of you in the Harrisburg area, just a reminder that I'll be at the Borders Express store in the Capital City Mall from 1-4 on Saturday. Please come out and save me from the embarrassment of sitting at a table of my books all by myself!

Random Thoughts

2007-10-23T17:03:00.000-05:00

I have been corresponding with a lovely woman from Italy who posted kind thoughts on the blog entry about my father's birthday. I read through parts of her blog (you can find it here), and something she wrote a few months ago struck me very hard:

It is pointless to love someone who does not love you in return.

I agree with this statement completely. It is a self-evident principle. In theory, it saves countless heartaches. The truth, however, is that it is almost impossible to practice.

Let me explain. Those we do not know we have no need to love. Those who are close to us, however, can become objects of affection or desire. A friend may, in one's heart, grow to become more than a friend, though we know the friend will never see us in the same way. It is pointless to love that friend, but the heart cannot be swayed by logic, by reason. It does what it will, and cannot be persuaded from its course.

This entry is obviously informed by my recent breakup, in which I find myself in the unenviable position of loving someone who does not love me. My mind tells me to let go, to move on and find happiness elsewhere. But my heart, for now, stubbornly refuses to listen.

David and Alex and the Tent of Doom

2007-10-23T16:59:00.000-05:00

As promised, here is the tent we slept in for two days at the Cub Scout camp. You can't really see the mouse holes chewed in the stained and moldy mattresses, or the many daddy longleggers crawling all over the canvas.

Amazingly enough, we both slept fine. I bought a couple of glow sticks to serve as a night light for him, and within a couple of minutes I think both of us were asleep.

Cub Scout Camp

2007-10-22T21:50:00.001-05:00

After the rather moribund posts lately, I thought I'd write about a much happier time. My son and I spent two days at a Cub Scout camp back in August. The tent we slept in was utterly disgusting (I'll post a photo of it a little later), but we enjoyed ourselves immensely.

We arrived Friday evening and spent the evening around a campfire with our fellow scouts. Saturday was a day for crafts and fun. We made rope, learned how to make fire (my son begged me to buy him some flint and steel; I obliged, and he walked around making sparks all day), learned archery, shot BB guns, swam for a while, ate dinner, and then enjoyed an enormous campfire with entertainment provided by the camp counselors. Later, we made a smaller fire back at our campsite and cooked smores.

My son was, of course, absolutely exhausted when we got home on Sunday, and slept until almost 2:00 in the afternoon.

The picture is of the two of us (and his Teddy Bear, Little Friend) on our way to the rope and fire making area.

Dad's birthday

2007-10-19T09:56:00.000-05:00

My dad, to whom I dedicated my first novel, would have been 80 today. He died more than five years ago and never knew that I'd been offered a contract for my books.

It's amazing how often I think about him. For three or four years after he died, I thought about him every single day. Often it was something my son did that I wished my dad could have been there to see. My son remembers Pop Pop Forbes a little bit, but not in any great detail. I find that sad, but at least there's some memory. My father adored Alex, and I know he was bothered by his poor health and inability to really play with him.

I still think about him often, though perhaps not every day. It's amazing how much I still miss him.

I apologize for the two recent downbeat posts, but that's just how it is at the moment. I'll try to be more cheery next time.

Happy birthday, Dad. I love you and wish you were still around.

The fickleness of the human heart

2007-10-13T16:05:00.000-05:00

Those of you who read this know I don't write "confessional" blog entries. I started this thing a few years ago to chronicle the life of a newly-contracted writer and the process a book takes from acceptance to publication. I stated up-front that I'm not much of a diarist and that entries would probably be rather sparse. So far I've kept to my word on all counts, though I've occasionally dropped in interesting or funny stories that happened to me along the way, like the footrace with my brother that ended with me a bloody mess (and losing the race to boot -- grrr).

This is going to be a "confessional" entry, so for those of you who disdain this sort of thing, feel free to take a pass.

I've received a couple of notes asking what happened to the "Bloomsburg Fair" entry that I posted last week. (One person warned me that I might have a virus that was "eating" my posts.) Well, that rather prominently mentioned my girlfriend, who was also somewhat visible in the accompanying photo. We've been dating for almost a year, and always had a great time when we were together. We never had a fight or so much as an argument, so this morning I was caught off guard when she decided to break up with me. I quickly removed photos, emails, and other reminders, both in my house and online.

Now I want to state very clearly that I'm not mad at her, I don't hate her, I don't wish her any ill will. I don't see the point in it. A guy she was involved with before she met me started calling her around her birthday (a few weeks ago), and apparently he talks a pretty good game, because she's decided to go back to him. (Either that, or I was really lacking something that she needed.) I was surprised because she'd told me repeatedly that I didn't have to worry about him. She said she felt like she dodged a bullet by breaking up with him when she did, that she realized he was completely wrong for her, etc.

We also had a damn near perfect year. Every time we were together we were amazed at what a great time we had. It didn't matter if we were going to a wine festival, out to dinner, or just hanging out and watching TV. We always had a good time, and both of us commented on that more than once. We were comfortable and relaxed together, never pressured each other about anything, and just seemed to fit.

(I will say that I've always had a little naggling suspicion that I really wasn't attractive enough for her, but that might just be my own insecurities rearing their ugly heads.)

But this is where the fickleness of the heart comes in.

Sometimes you just can't shake someone even when you want to (and I believe she did want to, at least for a while). I've been there and done the exact same thing, so I have no room to be upset with her. After our third date last November I broke up with her over a woman who turned out to be a complete and total psychopath. Fortunately I came to that realization within a couple of days and we were able to patch things up a little later.

I'm a little sad, but I also realize I may have dodged my own bullet, since this other guy obviously wasn't out of her system. I do believe she was telling the truth when she said she was over him. I'm sure that's what she thought. But a simple phone call can wreck the best laid plans and turn everything on its head. It's a shame, but it happens. Sometimes the memory of the heart is stronger than what it holds in the present.

What's really going to suck is telling my son about it. He really liked her a lot, and I know he's going to be upset.

So that's the long-form answer as to why the Bloomsburg Fair entry is no more. It just seemed kind of stupid to leave that out there in light of recent events.

I'm going to publish this as a bit of catharsis, but I may also yank it down in a couple of days. This may be one of those things that I look back on and realize it's a terrible idea.

On a somewhat brighter note, I received my first royalty check today for THE AMBER WIZARD! Woo hoo!

Robert Jordan has died

2007-09-17T08:55:00.000-05:00

Though I'm sure you've heard the news elsewhere by now, Robert Jordan, the pre-eminent fantasy writer of the last 17 years, has died at the age of 58. He wrote the massive, best-selling series THE WHEEL OF TIME, which included 11 books so far, with a twelfth and final volume, THE MEMORY OF LIGHT, uncompleted. It's not clear what will happen to the final book, but he had been working on it up until his death and had shared notes and story details with his wife, Harriet, and others, in case he did not survive to complete it.

Oddly enough, I just started reading the eleventh volume, KNIFE OF DREAMS, last night, a few hours after his death (though I did not find out about it until this morning).

A memorial discussion is occurring at Making Light.

Rest in peace, Robert.

Book signing in Wyomissing

2007-09-16T16:39:00.000-05:00

I've set up a second signing at the Borders in the Berkshire Mall in Wyomissing, on Saturday, November 10, from 1 to 3 pm. The address of the mall is:

1665 State Hill Road, Wyomissing, PA 19610

I'm also working on a signing in Bloomsburg at a specialty store called the Cloak & Dragon. Again, I'll keep you posted once I have the date set.

Book signing for THE WORDS OF MAKING

2007-09-09T15:47:00.001-05:00

The first book signing for THE WORDS OF MAKING will be at the Borders Bookstore in the Capital City Mall on October 27, from 1 to 4 pm. I hope you can make it, and bring some friends!

I'm working on some other signings within about an hour's drive of Harrisburg and will let you know as soon as I have them set up.

Dave

Mom's heart attack

2007-09-02T14:35:00.000-05:00

Before I begin, my mom is fine. She apparently suffered a mild heart attack very early Friday morning. Unfortunately, like most elderly people, she ignored a number of warning signs. This time she was lucky.

Here's what happened:

She woke up around 1:00 am with what she thought was a very bad case of heartburn. She sipped some soda, took some antacids, but nothing helped. She wondered if she might be having a heart attack but didn't do anything about it. My brother (Bruce, from the now infamous entry A Bad Case of Dumbass-itis) lives two doors down from her. Her one brother is around the corner and her other brother is one neighborhood over. So it's not as if she didn't have a number of people very close by she could have called, in addition to the ever-present 911.

She said she sat up in her rocking chair and at 4:30 she thought, Well, Joe Mike will be up in an hour, so I'll just try to hold out until then. I politely yet firmly pointed out to her the ridiculousness of trying to hold out on a possible heart attack, since cardiac arrest events don't usually wait around until it's convenient for everyone else.

She said, Yes, well, she didn't want to call 911 because she'd be embarrassed by an ambulance roaring through the neighborhood. [thumps forehead in amazement] The next day at the hospital, I reminded her that it's better to be embarrassed than dead. One you will recover from; the other you will not.

She promised to be better if/when it happens again.

The good thing is she's fine, and there doesn't seem to be damage to her heart, though she will be undergoing a stress test next week.

The moral of the story? If you think you're having a heart attack, CALL FREAKIN' 911!

Over and out.

Messageboards have returned from the grave

2007-08-04T09:48:00.001-05:00

Unfortunately, all of the posts made prior to the board crash are still dead and have no chance at a second life through zombie-fication (trust me, I tried). The new board is powered by Simple Machines Forum software that is part of the hosting package I have with GoDaddy (yes, that GoDaddy), well-known for having big-boobed chicks flaunt their assets in Super Bowl ads.

This board should be a bit more stable than my previous php board. You can check it out here.

THE WORDS OF MAKING cover art!

2007-07-27T18:50:00.000-05:00

No. I'm not dead! I know I haven't been here is forever, but as I said when I started this thing, I'm not much of a diarist. I'm in the middle of switching PCs, which is a huge pain in the butt, so I'm going to make this brief.

The cover art for book two is out and it looks really good. Even better than the first book, which I liked a lot. Here's a thumbnail. Click on it for a larger version.

THE WORDS OF MAKING Chapter One now online

2007-02-07T23:04:00.000-05:00

Chapter One has been posted online. You can find it here.

THE WORDS OF MAKING prologue now available online

2007-02-02T20:15:00.000-05:00

My editor accepted the second draft as "final" and has moved the book into the copyedit phase. I still do not have a firm publication date but it will be late in the year, and possibly early 2008.

Go here to read the prologue! Chapter one is coming soon!

Dave

WORDS OF MAKING second draft turned in

2006-12-27T18:19:00.000-05:00

I really do apologize for the lack of updates this year. 2006 was definitely one of those best of times/worst of times for dear old me. I'll try to be better about updates in 2007 but it's a time thing and blogging just really isn't much of a priority for me at the moment.

I keep most of my personal life offline, but for those who are curious, I got divorced at the beginning of the year after twelve years of marriage. This necessitated me moving out of the house that my ex-wife and I had built and also finding a full-time job again, since writing was not and is not yet earning enough to pay the bills (though I hope to get to that point within five years). I moved into temporary housing (thanks, Mom!), where I stayed for five months before buying and moving into a new house. And those of you who are homeowners know that houses are never-ending black holes of projects. Oh, and I was trying to revise THE WORDS OF MAKING at the same time, after receiving my edit letter in early August.

On to book-related news...the leaner, meaner second draft of THE WORDS OF MAKING is now back in New York. Much of the revision was simply cutting out lots of overwriting, but I also changed a few of the characters around a bit, decided to kill off a fairly major player, and added a cool demon-like entity who makes a pretty kick-ass cameo.

I'm taking a break and doing some painting around the house (I finished my son's room last weekend, with two walls blue, two walls green -- very much a little boy's room!), and am going to do the foyer next. Woo hoo!

I hope everyone has a great New Year.

Can you believe it? A new update from Dave!

2006-11-26T16:42:00.000-05:00

Yes, yes, I know, it's been more than forever since I last updated this thing. Life and work have gotten the better of me, and as I said when I first started this thing I'm not a diarist, so I have no compulsion or need to write down my every move. This is to be a chronicle of the writing process, and there are long periods of time where I'm either just writing a first draft or revising and there's just not much to say.

So here's the latest and greatest. I'm about twenty pages from finishing the second draft of THE WORDS OF MAKING. I received my edit letter from my editor at HarperCollins back in early August -- far later than I had expected it. I turned in my draft in January, and I expected to hear from her in four months or so, not eight. But she had an editorial assistant move elsewhere and editors are chronically overworked and understaffed, so things slipped. She told me, quite apologetically, that to keep the publication schedule I needed to get my revisions back to her my September 8, which was a little less than a month away.

Which was utterly impossible, even if I'd been writing full time. Some of her changes were easy to make -- a general tightening of my prose, etc. But some other character-related issues were going to take some thought, and there was no way I was going to figure it all out in a month.

She gave me until November 1 (my 41st birthday). I have missed that deadline, but not by too much I hope. I hope to finish the revisions tonight or tomorrow, then take a week to go over the most heavily revised parts before shipping the manuscript off.

I do not know when this will be published, but I would not expect it until late summer or early fall at this point. Sorry! I will let everyone know the date as soon as I have it.

So that's what I've been up to! I'll try to be a little better at posting going forward.

New HarperCollins/Eos blog site

2006-07-22T12:45:00.000-05:00

My publisher has put out their own blog, with information about who they are and links to their various writers. It looks like it will become a good place to get "insider" information about the publishing biz from the publisher's POV.

You can check it out here.

Our cat died the other day....

2006-07-05T16:37:00.001-05:00

One of our cats, Odie (yes, a cat, and yes, a female, but that's what my ex-wife named them a year or so before we met), died last week. She was fifteen years old, and had been in good health until a month or so ago. She began to lose weight and was having breathing problems, and a visit to the vet confirmed the worst: her kidneys and liver were failing, and her lungs were beginning to fill with fluid. My ex decided to have her put to sleep, which was the vet's recommendation, and I agreed with it. She was ready to let go.

I took my son Alex to see her the night before she died. She was happy to see us but couldn't move around very well. After we left, my ex came over and took her home so she could spend her last night at her house instead of in a cage at the vet.

I was a complete wreck at work all morning. I drove to the vet over my lunch hour and cried and cried while I petted Odie and scratched under her chin. When my ex-wife Connie and I were still married Odie would lie on my right side in bed, stretched out against my hip and leg. It was a very comforting way to fall asleep for me, and it's something I miss.

The vet came in and told us how the procedure would work, then gave us some more time with her after administering a sedative. My ex held Odie's chin in her hand while I softly scratched her back and behind her ears. After ten minutes or so the vet came in and got us prepared, then found a vein in Odie's leg. I cried even harder as I kissed her head and told her what a good cat she had been and how much we had loved her, and how much we were going to miss her.

A minute later, Odie died.

We stayed with her a while, drained emotionally, and then I had to go back to work. We planned to bury her but couldn't that night because of heavy rains, so we decided to bury her the next night.

But that night we still had to tell Alex.

My ex came over and we told him together. She read him a poem about pets who had left us called "The Rainbow Bridge," which you can read here if you're so inclined. Alex was upset but didn't cry.

Later, though, when I was giving him his bath, her started to cry uncontrollably. He wept all night, and couldn't fall asleep because he was so sad. He finally passed out, more or less, about two hours after he'd gone to bed.

He helped me bury Odie beneath three pear trees at my ex-wife's house the next night. I was better until we had to leave, and then it hit me again that she was gone and would never be back, would never come out of that cold and dark hole in the ground.

You were a good cat, Odie. I love you and I miss you, and hope you are waiting for us on the Rainbow Bridge.

My son's first short story

2006-05-04T21:35:00.000-05:00

My son Alex wrote a short story about his teddy bear last fall called "Little Friend Gets Lost." I took the photos and helped a little bit, but most of this is his. I think it's great. When his first grade teacher read it to his class, the students burst into applause at the end. It doesn't get any better than that.

I have it posted on my website as an Adobe Acrobat file. (Thanks are in order to Lori Baker for scanning the file for me.) It's only nine pages, with one or two sentences per page. Check it out, it's guaranteed to put a smile on your face!

Little Friend Gets Lost

A bad case of dumbass-itis

2006-05-04T18:08:00.000-05:00

Oh, my. How stupid we (the royal we) can be sometimes. I was at my brother's house with my son on Monday night, and Alex (my six-year-old son) wanted to race, so I chugged along the sidewalk beside him, holding back but making him think I was really struggling to keep up. Well, my sister-in-law bellows out, "You run funny!" which lead to various degrees of good-humored insults flying back and forth, until finally my brother and I decided (because we're stupid) to have a footrace.

This wasn't a long dash, just two house lengths, with telephone poles to mark the starting and finishing lines. My sister-in-law suggests we run on the street instead of the sidewalk, which again, stupidly, we thought was fine. So we line up, she yells out the start, and we take off.

I used to be pretty fast when I was younger, but back surgery and a lack of running for many years has apparently slowed me the hell down. My brother's a year and a half younger than me and about sixty pounds heavier, so I thought I would kick his big bubble butt handily. Imagine my surprise when the big load pulls ahead! So of course I pour on a little more steam.

And proceed to trip.

I took about two ungainly steps trying madly to prevent the inevitable disaster before gravity took over plowed me into the black top. I landed on the heels of my palms, then quickly tucked and rolled, which may or may not prevent you from being blasted to atoms in case of a nuclear shock wave coming your way, but doesn't do a goddamned thing if you're falling in the middle of the street like a doofus.

I lost most of the skin on the heels of my palms, my left knee, and left elbow. I got up and saw a huge bloody flap of flesh hanging off of my palm and realized I had really fucked myself up. I hobbled inside and my brother and sister-in-law helped by pouring hydrogen peroxide all over my gushing wounds, then bandaged me up. My brother asked, "Can I laugh now?" and I said sure, because if he had fallen the same way I sure as hell would have laughed.

It's too bad no one was videotaping this, because as embarrassing as it was, I think I'd be a shoe-in for a prize for the dorkiest fall.

I'm healing nicely, but it's been a pretty pain-filled week.

(My brother works for Verizon and once was up on a pole and hit his thumb so hard with a hammer that he split the skin from the fleshy part all the way down to the firsts crease, and gave himself permanent nerve damage. If he hadn't been strapped to the pole he would have fallen thirty feet or so to his untimely death. I had to pick him up at the hospital and drive him home because his wife was unavailable and the doctor had given him too many drugs to allow him to drive. So I'm not the only klutz in the Forbes family treehouse.)

Second printing!

2006-04-17T21:58:00.000-05:00

It's barely been three weeks since The Amber Wizard was published, and I just received word today that HarperCollins has gone back for a second printing! It's not as large as the initial print run, but still, I'm incredibly pleased that sales are doing well enough to warrant more copies!

It all finally falls into place

2006-04-12T19:17:00.000-05:00

I've really been struggling with the outline for The Path of Ashes. I had lots of great individual story elements, arcs for existing characters, and ideas for cool and interesting new characters, but I didn't have an overall framework on which to hang it all. I struggled a great deal to get through part one, and then had to start all over again with part two (which is very different from part one), which was even harder even though I had more individual ideas for that section. I just didn't know how they all threaded together.

That (mostly) ended today. It was one of those days where a number of revelatory ideas come to me almost without effort. My subconscious must have been stewing on these questions for a time and decided now was the moment to spit them out. There are a few neat ideas that tie back to a minor scene in The Amber Wizard, and I now have a much better understanding of where all this is headed and how it will end up. Not all of the problems are solved -- not by a long shot -- but most of the major roadblocks just got bypassed.

Kudos to my subconscious!

BOOK SIGNING TOMORROW NIGHT, TUESDAY, APRIL 4

2006-04-03T16:46:00.000-05:00

I know most of you locals are aware of this by now, but in case you forgot, my very first book signing will be at the Barnes & Noble at the Camp Hill Shopping Center tomrrow night, Tuesday, April 4. It starts at 7:00 pm. The book signing is first, then I'll be speaking to and answering questions from a writers' group that meets there once a month. Come on out so I don't end up looking like a goof standing there by myself!

It's official! The book is on the street!

2006-03-29T18:10:00.000-05:00

This is one of the most memorable moments of my life -- walking into a bookstore and seeing my book on the shelves! It's something I've dreamed about since high school, and now it's finally happened.

If you've preordered it from Amazon or other online retailers, you should be receiving your copies soon. And if you haven't bought a copy yet, what are you waiting for??!! :-)

Review, Interview, and Giveaway!

2006-03-22T21:29:00.000-05:00

There's a ton of great stuff that just popped up at SFFWorld.com. There's an interview with me, a review of The Amber Wizard, and a contest to win a free book! Head on over to check it out! (And thanks to Rob and Pat for putting it all together!)

Less than two weeks to go!

2006-03-15T21:30:00.000-05:00

I know, I've been shamefully lax in updating this thing lately. I recently had to start back to work again full time (logged 270 miles in the car today for two meetings where I had to make presentations -- it wasn't a lot of fun, I'm not much of a travel guy). It's a necessary evil for now, but it has completely thrown my schedule out of whack. I'm still reeling from all the recent life changes (and there are others that I'm not going to get into here, this is not a confessional kind of blog). So the first things to go were the blog and updating my website.

However, the final copy of the book came today and it's cool as hell! The matte finish and embossing look incredible, and they changed the map so that it now covers two pages across the spread, so it's much easier to read than the version in the ARC.

Publication date is two weeks from yesterday. Let the countdown begin!

I also need to add a couple of reviews to my website for the second and third books in R. Scott Bakker's Prince of Nothing trilogy. Really good stuff. Not without flaws, but still very top notch fantasy. I will try to get something out there in the next week.

Germany deal update

2006-02-16T14:27:00.000-05:00

It's official! A German division of Random House, Blanvalet, has purchased the first three books of The Osserian Saga. I got the news from my agent Tuesday. I have absolutely no idea when they will be published, but the contract is done and I have given my approval. I have no idea how long a translation will take, if they will commission their own cover art (I assume they will), but I am fairly certain I will have little to nothing to do with it.

Still, cool news! (Next we have to conquer the stubborn Brits and the Aussies....)

First review of THE AMBER WIZARD posted

2006-01-29T15:25:00.000-05:00

Pat over at Pat's Fantasy Hotspot has posted the first review of The Amber Wizard. It's a very positive review, leaving me with a warm and cuddly feeling! My first review, and he didn't hate it! Woo hoo!

Technorati test

2006-01-28T09:38:00.000-05:00

This is a test post. Nothing to see here. Move along, move along.

the amber wizard

Win a free copy of THE AMBER WIZARD

2006-01-27T19:14:00.000-05:00

Pat over at Pat's Fantasy Hotspot has set up a contest to give away a free copy of The Amber Wizard. All you have to do is e-mail him to enter. Head on over and check it out!

Osserian Saga sold in Germany

2006-01-26T13:23:00.000-05:00

I found out that the first three books in The Osserian Saga have been sold in Germany! I don't know the publisher -- my agent wasn't sure, not that I would recognize them anyway -- but I thought it was really interesting that a non-English-speaking country would snap up the rights before a place like the UK. (Though I have heard comments from other writers and readers that there is enough "home grown" fantasy in the UK that publishers don't need to buy as much from overseas).

Steelers on their way to Super Bowl XL!

2006-01-22T20:31:00.000-05:00

Title says it all. The football gods were smiling on the Steel City today. Woo hoo! I am one happy camper!

Plotting out THE PATH OF ASHES

2006-01-18T20:03:00.000-05:00

Now that The Words of Making has been shipped off to my agent and editor, I get to turn my sights to the next book in the series (maybe), The Path of Ashes. I say maybe because, in my contract and in the original synopsis of the series, the next book is The Commanding Stone. What happened was that while writing The Words of Making, I generated lots of new and interesting story ideas, to the point where I realized they wouldn't fit in the other books as outlined but really needed a book of their own.

So I've been re-reading all of the notes I made and am starting to plot out the book. This is where all the heavy lifting is done for me -- I work out all of the plot and character arcs in pretty fine detail before I even write the opening sentence of the novel. Right now I have a number of disconnected ideas that I need to bring together. There is an overarching story, but I don't know how it ends, and that for me is a problem because I always have to know the end before I start writing. I need to write toward something; that's just how I operate.

I also don't have a storyline for the main character, which is a wee bit of a problem. All of the secondary characters have interesting stories going, but the big cahuna's is really lacking.

But I just got started, so these things will work themselves out soon enough. I plan on getting a detailed outline together and sending it to my agent and editor to see what they think. If they want to proceed, then I guess we'll either have to redo the contract or create some kind of addendum to the original.

Steelers v. Colts 2

2006-01-15T16:11:00.000-05:00

Well, despite every effort by the referees to give the damn game to the Colts, the Football gods smiled upon the Steelers today! (Though they gave me a freakin' heart attack when the Bus fumbled the ball on the two yard line with 1:20 left!).

I need to calm down now, my heart is pounding. That was the most exciting finish to a football game I've ever seen....

Steelers v. Colts

2006-01-15T09:39:00.000-05:00

Here's hoping the football gods show some favor to my Steelers and help them crush (or at least squeak by) Peyton Manning's Colts. Some payback for the Monday Night loss would be nice.

More on THE WORDS OF MAKING

2006-01-14T10:09:00.000-05:00

I finished making the line edit corrections to the electronic copy of The Words of Making last night and e-mailed a copy to my agent. My editor will get a hardcopy next week.

The first draft was 230,000 words, which my editor said was far too long. I read through it once on my PC and cut out lots of stuff, then printed a hardcopy and went through it again to do a line edit. The current draft is a svelt 187,800 words, almost exactly the same length as The Amber Wizard.

Next, I'm going to figure out if The Path of Ashes is going to be its own novel or just plot elements incorporated into The Commanding Stone.

Rejection collection

2006-01-06T10:08:00.000-05:00

For every writer who has ever received a rejection slip -- which is every writer who has ever tried to have something published, without exception -- there's a site called rejection collection where you can read the rejections others received and their thoughts about them, and share your own if you're so inclined. Good for some time wasting...

SFNovelists blog site

2005-12-29T13:35:00.000-05:00

For those who just can't get enough of blogs (and you know who you are), there's an interesting site at SFNovelists. It's an aggregate blog site for nineteen (and counting) science fiction and fantasy novelists. These are all people who have either had a novel published by a major publisher (and been paid an advance) or have a novel scheduled to appear within the next year (like me). I'm part of the site, so every post here is fed over there. If you're interested in reading the blogs and journals of some up-and-coming SF and fantasy novelists and don't want the hassle of navigating to a bunch of different sites, this might be for you. Check it out!

First book signing session scheduled

2005-12-29T12:17:00.000-05:00

Hey, say that three times fast! The publicist at HarperCollins has told me that I am scheduled for a book signing/Q&A session at the Barnes & Noble bookstore at the Camp Hill Mall on April 4 at 7:00 pm. For those of you who are local, please stop by and say hello (and buy a book or five while you're there!). :-)

Message boards now live

2005-12-27T14:16:00.000-05:00

The message board is now live over at www.davidforbes.net. Click here to visit them!

I hope everyone had a great holiday! We spent the day at my brother's house and of course ate way too much, but that's what holidays are for. Time to get some exercise back into the schedule somewhere....

I've been spending every spare moment doing a line edit of The Words of Making so I can get it shipped off to my agent and editor, so I haven't had time to read a darn thing. I'm going to get to Neil Gaiman's Anansi Boys and Simon Haynes Hal Spacejock books in the next two weeks or so. I feel like I need a vacation from the holidays!

Merry Christmas (or whatever)!

2005-12-24T14:30:00.000-05:00

I hope everyone has a Merry Christmas or [insert holiday of choice]. I'm not a religious guy myself, but I do like getting goodies! And it's so much fun to watch my six-year-old son get all worked up and expectant. And best of all, he still believes in Santa unconditionally. He makes me feel young, and how great is that?

Chapter One online

2005-12-22T21:07:00.000-05:00

I've posted chapter one of The Amber Wizard here, for anyone interested in a sneak peak.

For those of you who celebrate it, have a Merry Christmas!

Web site now live

2005-12-20T10:16:00.000-05:00

The web site at www.davidforbes.net is now live. I still have some tweaking to do, but I'm open to suggestions for improvements.

A few good movies

2005-12-19T21:28:00.000-05:00

I recently saw Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire, The Chrnoicles of Narnia, and King Kong. All are very good films. I read the first couple of Narnia books at least 20 years ago and remember almost nothing about them (I do have them on the shelf to reread at some point), so I can't comment about the faithfulness of the adaptation, which is something I usually don't worry too much about anyway. Films and books are two different mediums, and changes have to occur if the adaptation is going to have a prayer of succeeding.

I remember only vague details of the Potter books. I enjoy them immensely as I'm reading them, but the minutia and lots of the plot details fade almost at once when I'm done. I don't know why, but it makes it nice to watch the movies because I have only the foggiest recollection of what is supposed to happen.

I thought Goblet of Fire was wonderful. I know that tons of stuff had to be cut out, but the little details left in -- like Neville dancing with himself after having such a wonderful time at the ball, or Hermione sitting on the steps and taking off the dress shoes that are obviously hurting her feet -- worked to make it all grounded and real. And Mad Eye Mooney was just marvelous. The effects work was top notch, and Ralph Fiennes pretty much nailed Voldemort. Highly recommended, but not for younger kids. The ante is definitely raised in this one, and it has some truly terrifying moments.

My son and I really enjoyed Narnia. Tilda Swinton is glorious as the white witch, and all of the child actors are more than adequate for their roles. I had some problems with the kids wandering around in a frigid forest in clothing that would have gotten them frozen to death inside of an hour or two, and what was up with Santa Claus showing up and handing out weapons (!)? But it was an enjoyable film that took the material seriously.

And finally, King Kong. If you love movies, you need to see this in a theater. Yes, it's long. Yes, some of the action is over-the-top ridiculous. Yes, some of the compositing work, especially during the brontosaurus stampede, is almost shockingly bad in a few shots. But you know what? The movie as a whole works. And Kong himself is the most incredibly realized special effect ever put to film. He's worth the price of admission alone. The recreation of 1930s New York City is a marvel, especially considering it was all back-lot work shot in New Zealand. The final scenes atop the Empire State Building are so realistic that I got some severe vertigo in a few instances. It's dizzying and scary and breathtaking. Don't miss it.

To Ash or not -- that is the question

2005-12-04T12:32:00.000-05:00

I've finished the first revision of The Words of Making and cut it down to 195,000 words (about 60 manuscript pages). My editor was very happy to hear the news! I'm going to go through it one more time before I ship it off.

I also need to figure out the fate of A Path of Ashes. While I was writing The Words of Making I got all kinds of new ideas and reached the point where I thought they needed to be in a separate book rather than incorporating them into one of the remaining volumes in the series. I need to decide that soon, because if I go ahead with it, A Path of Ashes will be the next book in the series, before The Commanding Stone. I have a ton of plot and character arcs figured out, but I don't have an ending, which for me is a huge problem. I always need to have an ending before I start, so I know where things end up. I'm not one of these writers who can just slog along and then decide, "Hey, I'm done!"

And while I have some arcs figured out, I still need to decide on the overall narrative engine and work it in such a way that it doesn't completely screw up the plans I have for the last two volumes. Or, if it does screw them up, that it's worth the time and trouble.

So I need to figure out relatively soon what the bones of the story will be. I'll probably be splitting my workdays between the second revision of The Words of Making and hammering out the story outline of A Path of Ashes.

Wish me luck!

THE AMBER WIZARD cover art

2005-11-14T17:32:00.000-05:00

I finally received an electronic copy of the cover art. Check it out!

Proof copy arrives

2005-10-21T11:28:00.000-05:00

I received the printed proof copy of The Amber Wizard yesterday. It's pretty cool to finally see the book in its (almost) final printed form. I was kind of dreading having to read it yet again, but now that it's not in laserprinted manuscript form it's almost like reading something fresh and new.

Two movies you should see -- soon!

2005-10-06T08:34:00.000-05:00

Yes, I'm a little behind in getting out the word, but both Corpse Bride and Serenity are very much worth your time.

Corpse Bride is a brief (only about 70 minutes long) folk tale-inspired story about a young man on the verge of being wed who inadvertently marries a murdered bride while practicing his vows in a dark and spooky forest. The stop-motion animation is superb -- it's worth seeing for the animation alone, but the story, while slight, is still enjoyable, and the voice work from the cast is first rate.

Serenity is the film spinoff of the cancelled Fox television series Firefly. I admit I never saw Firefly when it was on television, and only came to it earlier this year on DVD. Thirteen epidsodes were filmed but only ten aired, and those were done out of order. It's a shame, because this show was first-rate, and I highly recommend you rent or buy it on DVD.

You do not need to have seen the series to understand and enjoy the movie, however. While having seen the series makes some of the character interactions more meaningful, I don't think anyone who missed the show will be confused or feel the movie is playing only to insider geeks.

This is a fun movie, though surprisingly dark in places. It was created by Joss Whedon, the guy who did Buffy the Vampire Slayer and Angel TV series (neither of which I have seen). Think of it as a movie about Han Solo's smuggling days before he met up with Luke Skywalker and that will give you a decent idea of setup.

The small smuggling ship commanded by Malcolm Reynolds is called Serenity, and it travels around a large solar system controlled mostly by an unfriendly Alliance that Mal dislikes immensely since he was once a rebel fighter against them. The rebels lost, and now Mal does what he can to poke a stick in their eye by smuggling various kinds of cargo and people, and pulling the occasional heist. Some of his jobs are legal, some not.

He takes on a doctor and the doctor's sister River as passengers. River is a telepath who was kidnapped by the Alliance and turned into a weapon (though she has been damaged by the events and cannot clearly articulate what happened to her). They are now desperate to get her back because of secrets she may have gleaned while held in captivity. The Alliance has sent a ruthless Operative to hunt them down and recover River, no matter the cost.

This is a smart, well-written, well-acted SF adventure movie. Far more enjoyable than the let down of Revenge of the Sith (and this from a life-long Star Wars fan who's been bitterly disappointed by the prequels).

See them both! You won't be disappointed.

Finished!

2005-09-20T07:49:00.000-05:00

I finished The Words of Making yesterday. It clocked in at 230,000 words. The bummer is that when I told my editor she was vaguely horrified by the length and said I would have to cut a substantial amount. We didn't get into numbers, but I'm pretty sure I'll have to drop it below 200,000 words at least.

Apparently the trend is for shorter books in epic fantasies, the George Martins and Steven Ericksons of the world (and a few others) excepted. I'm guessing that if I sell well I will have more leeway to go longer, but as page length directly affects the price I don't have much negotiating room at the moment. Ah, well. I've already thought of some things I can cut, and I'm sure there's more I'll find as I go through. There are some full-blown scenes that can go, but what I regret is that a lot of the "flavor" of the world-building gets lost. But such is life for the as-yet-unknown novelist.

Disaster averted

2005-09-16T09:47:00.000-05:00

The geniuses at UPS (a wretched company, one I have had no end of problems with) lost the copyedited manuscript of The Amber Wizard when I sent it back to HarperCollins. They had no record of it being scanned into their system even though I confirmed it had been picked up from the shipping center. I was freaking out until it finally showed up in New York a day late. Somehow it made it all the way without ever being scanned.

I had no idea what we would do if it remained lost. I'm thankful I'll never have to figure that out.

Copyedited manuscript

2005-09-12T15:22:00.000-05:00

I just sent the copyedited manuscript back to my publisher today. Ten days ago I received the hardcopy from UPS. I kind of freaked out a bit when I saw how much red pencil was on it from the copyeditor (who is a freelancer and is not an employee of HarperCollins or any other publisher). When I realized a lot of the marks were not changes to the text but proofreader marks for the printers I calmed down a bit. I went through the manuscript and made my comments in blue pencil. I kept most of the changes that were suggested and only reversed a handful. To those unfamiliar with copyediting, you do this by writing "stet" in the margin by the text you wish to keep unchaged. "Stet," according to The Chicago Manual of Style, means "let it stand."

And I bet you didn't think you'd learn anything from reading this blog!

Tomorrow I'll get back to work on The Words of Making. I'm around 226,000 words, and hope to finish in about thirty more pages or so.

Enclyclopedia of Science Fiction

2005-09-03T12:49:00.000-05:00

I have the print editions of both The Encyclopedia of Science Fiction and The Encyclopedia of Fantasy. Both are excellent, masterful works, full of isightful information about writers, their works, trends within the genres, and more.

The latest incarnation of The Encyclopedia of Science Fiction will be online. The entries will be even longer and more comprehensive since the editors won't be limited because of page length (the print copies are enormous books).

It's not available yet, but if you'd like to sign up for an e-mail newsletter about the project, go here.

The silence is deafening

2005-09-01T09:14:00.000-05:00

Yes, I know, the lack of updates here is appalling and pathetic. We've been on vacation (Ocean City, Maryland, where we had a blast), and I've been plugging away at The Words of Making, which is nearly done. Other than that, there hasn't been a whole lot to talk about.

I just got the copyedited manuscript of The Amber Wizard back this morning -- damn, there are a lot of comments in it! And my deadline for getting this back is pretty tight, so I'm going to have to put book two on hold again so I can work on this. Ah, well. Not that I'm complaining. I'm just so focused on book two right now (and thinking constantly about book three, and making lots of notes), that it seems to be a giant backward step to go back to the first book.

And can anyone believe the NFL was even considering having the Saints' season opener in the Superdome? Hello! Have any of you seen the news?!

All is well. You may return to your regularly scheduled programming at this time.

listed at Amazon!

2005-08-03T08:27:00.000-05:00

Okay, for a newbie writer like me, this is really cool. I'm already listed on Amazon.com even though publication is still months and months away. Pre-order now! :)

The cover art isn't up yet, but I would expect that to arrive fairly soon.

Click here to preorder, if you're so inclined. Let's see if you can help me topple Potter! (A fabulous book, by the way, though I'm sure you don't need me to tell you that.)

Book Jacket blurb

2005-07-30T12:38:00.000-05:00

I just got the first pass a the jacket blurb. I fixed a couple of very minor things, but here you go:

Front cover will say above the title:

A legacy of great power...and devastation.

The back cover will read:

For a thousand years, there have been no great wizards in the world--and even longer since a wizard-king reigned.

Now all must welcome and fear the coming of
THE AMBER WIZARD

As Gerin Atreyano takes his place as the Crown Prince of Khedesh after his father ascends to the throne, a stranger appears and proclaims that Gerin may be the amber wizard foretold long ago. Now young Gerin’s training, both as prince and wizard, must begin in earnest. But his enemies place a secret enchantment upon him, pulling him down a path of darkness. As opposing forces mass across the land, arming for bloody war, he inadvertently opens an ancient portal using forbidden magic. And suddenly Gerin Atreyano faces a dual destiny as savior or destroyer of a world in chaos--as he prepares for the dread reemergence of humanity’s most powerful enemy: Asankaru, the vengeful and terrible Storm King.

The inside front cover will have this excerpt:

Hollin withdrew a clear jewel from the leather pack. It was the size of his palm and cut with many facets. He held out the jewel and spoke in a language Gerin thought was Osirin. “Iva trestalkiri paran yi dakhal sethu…”

A spark of light flared at the heart of the jewel. At the same instant Gerin felt warmth ignite in his belly. It quickly worked its way outward into his arms and legs and up through his neck, as if he was being submerged in hot water. He felt the warmth in his skull and on his scalp; when it reached his face a faint amber light filled his vision, as if he were looking through a piece of colored glass like those in the windows of the hall. He looked down and saw that the jewel was glowing brilliantly with the same amber light.

Then the light was gone, both in his vision and in the jewel, as suddenly as it had appeared.

“By the Blessed Hand of Venegreh,” whispered Hollin. “It is you.”

Map for The Amber Wizard

2005-07-26T15:17:00.000-05:00

Those who are fantasy map geeks (like me -- I love to scrutinize maps and follow the action along them) can get a look at the map for The Amber Wizard here.

I drew the image freehand, using a pen I got for free from Sovereign Bank when they took over my old bank. It actually worked better than the other pens I picked up at an arts supply store. Go figure. About the only worthwhile thing I got from that lousy institution (other than a severance check).

After it was drawn, I had a friend of mine who owns a graphic design firm (thanks, Lori!) scan it in as an Adobe Illustrator file, which was the preferred file format I got in the specs from HarperCollins' art department. I then added all the text where needed, scaled it to the proper size, and shipped it off.

I have a map of the city Almaris that will be part of book two partially completed. This one I'm doing completely in Illustrator since I don't need mountains or other features that are much easier to draw by hand.

Battlestar Galactica this Friday

2005-07-11T08:27:00.000-05:00

For those of you who've been watching the best show on television (and for those who haven't, tune in now!), the second season of Battlestar Galactica starts this Friday on the Sci-Fi Channel at 10:00 pm. I wish to hell SCi-Fi broadcast this in high definition. The Universal HD channel has been running the first season in HD and it's glorious to behold. I really hate watching shows in standard definition anymore (yes, I know, I'm an HD snob; sue me). The second season will run on UHD sometime later in the year, but there's no way I can wait that long to start watching.

This is an incredibly well-written and well-acted drama. I find the religious pieces of the show to be highly interesting. The Cylons -- a race of cybernetic beings created by humans who rebelled against them in the past and recently nearly wiped out the human race in a sneak attack -- have a belief in a single god, while the humans worship a pantheon based on the gods of the ancient Greeks. It's fascinating stuff. This is not a show about ray guns and gee-whiz gadgets (and has been criticized by the more fanatical hard-core science fiction crowd because of it). It's a show about people who are dealing with the literal end of the world and it's aftermath, and what it takes to endure such bleak circumstances.

Watch it!

So what the heck have I been doing?

2005-07-09T15:57:00.000-05:00

In late May I received the line-edited copy of the manuscript back from my editor, so I spent a few weeks going through and making those changes, then going through it again to make a few changes I needed (some things have evolved during the writing of book two that needed slight modifications in book one), and then I went through it a third time to create a glossary and pronunciation guide.

When that was all done, it was time to draw the map. I have sketch maps in pencil that I use for reference when writing, but I got the okay from my editor and the art dirctor at HarperCollins to do the actual map that will be in the book. They sent me specifications (size proportions, and their preference for an Adobe Illustrator file), and I set to work, meticulously drawing out the map in ink on very heavy (105#) white art paper. I did not label anything since my handwriting is horrid. I gave the map to a friend of mine who owns her own graphic design company (thanks, Lori!), and she will scan it as an Illustrator file. I'm waiting for her to get that back to me now. Once I have it, I will enter all the land/river/city/miscellaneous labels using Illustrator, since they can then be resized and moved around if need be. And of course I'm still pounding away on book two....

Book two update

2005-07-08T11:02:00.000-05:00

I just passed the 184,000 word mark with The Words of Making, and still have six or seven chapters to go. I figure I'll top out around 230,000 words or so, around 700 manuscript pages (right now I'm on 517). At least the end is in sight, though I'm having a helluva time working on this current sequence that's going to include a naval engagement. I need to do some serious research here to pull that off, since I know next to nothing about how medieval naval warfare was conducted.

Harrisburg Magazine Q&A

2005-07-08T09:43:00.000-05:00

I recently gave a brief Q&A to Harrisburg Magazine, a regional publication that focuses on -- you guessed it! -- people and events of interest in the Harrisburg, Pennsylvania area. It will be in the August issue, so for those of you who are local, be sure to check it out!

Tardy me

2005-07-08T09:24:00.000-05:00

Yes, I know, I know, I've been pitiful in keeping this thing updated. Part of this has to do with simple scheduling. My son's full-day kindergarten wrapped up at the end of May, he was home for two weeks, and now he's going to a half-day outside program at a local park (today they're bowling!). Since my most prolific writing is done in the afternoons, I've been scrambling to fit writing time in whenever I can.

I can't complain too much. He and I have been going to the pool, to the movies, playing outside, etc. I love playing with him, so it's not exactly a hardship. And I already said I'm not much of a diarist (and let's face it, that all blogs are, for all the chest-thumping and self-importance some people make of them -- new journalistic paradigm my shiny metal ass!), so my drive to post here hasn't been exactly overwhelming me.

More a little later on what's been going on with the writing...

Erickson and Clarke

2005-05-25T15:16:00.000-05:00

I just finished reading Jonathan Strange and Mr Norrell by Susanna Clarke. I enjoyed the story but absolutely hated the style. I despise third-person omniscient narrators (where the narrator is a character and can also peer inside the thoughts of any other character at any time). It came close to derailing the book for me in a couple of spots. There's a whimsical, almost young-adult narration style to the book that sometimes is at odds with what's going on, especially toward the end as the events become more serious and take on a more mythic tone. I understand why she made the choice she did -- the novel is set in the early 1800s, and third-person omniscient was a style very much in use back then -- but I don't have to like it. I think Neal Stephenson did a fabulous job of writing about the Sixteenth and Seventeenth Centuries in his Baroque Cycle of novels. He used an ironic tone throughout, but it fit the story and characters and could be both laugh-out-loud funny and deadly serious without ever seeming out of place.

I'm also embroiled in Steven Erickson's Malazan Empire novels. I really didn't care for the first one, Gardens of the Moon, and almost skipped the second one, Deadhouse Gates. I'm glad I didn't. It was leaps and bounds better than the first. I still have problems with Erickson. He creates way too many races that serve no real purpose and aren't differentiated from each other in any way. Can someone please tell me exactly what a Trell is? "Pastoral nomadic warrior society," which is in the glossary, doesn't cut it. But those are minor quibbles. Anyone who can write something as powerful as the "Chain of Dogs" segment of Deadhouse Gates deserves a round of applause. If you like extremely complicated, grim epic fantasy, check out Erikson. Skim Gardens of the Moon because it's necessary for character introductions and plot points, but sink your teeth into the rest. I picked up the third and fourth books in UK paperback editions since they won't be available here in the US for some time yet, and I wasn't willing to wait. So I guess that gives you an idea of how much I like him, despite my quibbles.

Line edits

2005-05-25T12:17:00.000-05:00

I've been terrible about keeping this thing updated. As I said before, I'm not a diarist, I don't have any great urge to post my thoughts on politics or my daily routine, and for a while I've just been grinding away at writing, so there hasn't been much to write about.

I've seen a revised cover sketch in color which looks really good. It's dark and spooky and should do its job, which is to make it stand out on the bookshelves. I'm really happy with it and can't wait to see the final oil or acrylic version.

I just got the line-edited manuscript from my editor. There's not really that much to revise other than a general tightening and some grammar fixes. She only has a handful of plot and/or character comments, most of which make sense and shouldn't be hard at all to fix. I need to get this back by June 29 to keep on schedule for the bound galleys, and I don't think I'll have much of a problem with that.

Writing The Words of Making has given me some ideas for a fifth book in the series, tentatively titled The Path of Ashes. It's still pretty vague and it may be that I'll simply incorporate the ideas for it into one of the other volumes, but right now it looks llike a book-length idea to me. I'm not sure if it will be book three or four chronologically. I expect to plan all of that out once I have a draft done of The Words of Making .

I'll post something soon about a couple of books I recently finished reading.

Cover art and contracts

2005-05-10T10:14:00.000-05:00

It's been a busy couple of days here. Yesterday I finally received the contracts from HarperCollins, and today I got to see a sketch of the cover art. The artist's name is
Tristan Schane and you can see some of his work here:

www.tristanschane.com

Forgiving great evil

2005-04-25T11:06:00.000-05:00

I read a quote the other day from J. Michael Straczynski, creator of Babylon Five (and lots of other things), about forgiving evil. He said he wrote the episode of B5 called "Passing Through Gethsemane" in order to try to understand how someone can forgive a great evil that had been done to them, because it was something he could never do.

It's a question I've pondered a great deal. How exactly do we forgive? I think I'm a mostly forgiving person, to a point. And that is the rub. Where is that line drawn? I'm not a person that holds grudges. Someone can really piss me off, and if they apologize sincerely, five minutes later I'm fine. (This bugs the crap out of my wife.) But these are usually minor disagreements, or someone being rude or thoughtless. Not someone who has done me, or my family, considerable harm.

I could not, under any circumstance that I can envision, forgive someone who harmed my son. I don't believe in sin the way the church (take your pick which one) does, but I think an adult who willfully harms a child is committing the worst sin imaginable. How could a parent forgive a pedophile who molested a son or daughter, or killed them when he finished sating his appetite? Yet what is the alternative?

I worry about my son sometimes. Not in an obssessive, unhealthy way (at least I don't think so), but I imagine in the way most parents do. What would I do if something happened to him? How could I go on? An accident would be devastating enough, but if someone deliberately took him from me...? I could not forgive. That capacity is beyond me in that circumstance. I fear something happening to him not only because of the depth of my love for him, but because of what it would do to me as well. I would be consumed by hatred and guilt. Hatred for the person who took him, and guilt that I could not do what all fathers are to do, and that is protect their children. It's something that's too awful to contemplate.

But there are people who have lost children, or spouses, or parents, who have found the ability to forgive what was done to them. I believe it is a survival mechanism of some sort, a way of dealing with a trauma that otherwise would be as deadly as ebola. But it's also a conscious decision, a choice made to forgo hatred and the desire for vengeance. Do these people feel this way because they are religious and believe what happened was somehow a working out of God's will on Earth? I don't know. I only know that such forgiveness is beyond me, and I hope I never experience it outside a father's late-night wonderings.

Lack of updates

2005-04-25T11:01:00.000-05:00

I apologize for the lack of updates, but not much has been happening book-wise, and I'm not one to take the time to fill up space with a lot of crap about what I'm having for lunch (pizza from the Pizza Grille! Yummy!) or other such inconsequential nonsense.

My work on The Words of Making has been going great. I'm past 150,000 words (out of what will probably be a total of 220,000-250,000), and have been getting more than 2,000 words written every day. But making daily or weekly recaps of my word count would bore me to tears, so I won't inflict that on anyone reading this, either.

My agent is happy with the rewrite of Foreverness, so that is going to market soon. I will, as usual, keep everyone updated if there is interest from a publisher or a sale.

Cover scene decided

2005-04-06T16:04:00.000-05:00

I heard from my editor today, who told me the cover scene had been chosen. It was one of the scenes I suggested, with a slight change to it.

My original thought was that, if they wanted a "minimalist" look, they could use the black door where books of forbidden black magic are kept that the main character steals in an attempt to summon a long-dead wizard from the grave to learn the location of a lost library of knowledge. The door is inscribed in gold with the wizard symbol for death, and protected by powerful spells to keep people out. They loved the scene, but thought it needed the main character in view as well. The symbol of death may be embossed and foiled, which I think would be pretty dramatic and eye-catching.

Meeting postponed

2005-03-28T08:32:00.000-05:00

The cover art meeting was postponed for reasons not revealed to me, so at the moment I still have no idea about what artist they are looking at or which scene they will illustrate. I'll let you know when I have any new info.

Back to work on book two. More soon.

More on cover art

2005-03-22T16:51:00.000-05:00

I was right, I'm not actually included in the cover art meeting, but my editor was kind enough to solicit comments from me regarding my preferences for both artist and scene. I spent some time last night looking through the book for scenes that I thought would work well as cover illustrations, then wrote a brief description of each and the page number in an e-mail back to her. I came up with ten images in all. Some were dynamic "action" scenes, while others showed some of the unique landscapes and "sense of wonder" images from the book. I also threw out some names of a couple of artists I like, such as Gary Ruddell, Steve Stone, Keith Parkinson, and a few others.

My favorite image is one they probably won't use. There is a statue described in the book called "Death of a Son," a symbolic representation of the long lives of wizards that they cannot share with anyone else. They will remain unchanged for several centuries while their loved ones grow old and die. Here's the description of the statue:

---------------------------

The statue rose seven feet above the pedestal and depicted a father carrying the limp corpse of his son, one arm beneath the boy’s back, the other beneath his knees. The father cradled his son gently, lovingly, a boy of five or six, whose head rested against his father’s chest, his eyes closed, his lips slack. The boy’s left arm lay across his abdomen; his right hung limply, the fingers relaxed, and Gerin could imagine it swaying lifelessly as the father carried him away from the place where he had died (for surely that must be what was shown, he thought). The dead child wore a sleeveless tunic and trousers that reached only to mid-calf; his feet were bare. The son had no wound or blight upon him, no visible injury that could have caused his death. Indeed, he could easily have been sleeping except for the expression on his father’s face. It was etched with anguish and pain, a sorrow so deep and penetrating it seemed he must collapse at any moment from the crushing weight of it. His head was tilted back, looking skyward; his eyes were wide and imploring, and looked so close to spilling tears that Gerin half-expected to see water begin to pour down his white cheeks. The father’s lips were parted slightly, as if he were attempting to speak but could not find the strength for his voice. His hair was swept back from his face by an unseen wind, which billowed the cloak that fell from his shoulders.

“It’s both beautiful and terrible,” said Reshel in the same whispery tone.

“This is ‘Death of a Son,’” said Hollin. He too spoke softly, and with a reverence in his voice Gerin had not heard from him before. “It is my favorite sculpture in all of Hethnost. Many find it morbid and avoid it, and in some ways it is, but I find it heart-wrenchingly sad, and beautiful as well, as you said, Reshel. It was made by a wizard named Eredhel Anyakul after his own son drowned in one of the cisterns here. He never sculpted again after this was finished, and in fact went mad a few years later and lived out his days in the uppermost room of the Derasdi Tower.” He pointed to a solitary square spire near the foot of the ramp that led to the Khalabrendis Dhosa. “He allowed food and water to be brought to him, but received no visitors and spoke to no one. They knew he was alive only by the lights in the tower and the empty trays left outside the door each morning.” He looked at the statue and folded his arms. “I’ve always imagined that the father is about to speak the name of his son, but that his grief is simply too great to overcome.”

“It seems to me his is going to ask why?” said Reshel. “Why was my child taken from me? Who will answer for it? He’s looking to the gods, but his question is met only with silence and a voiceless wind.”

“I like that,” said the wizard. “I’ve also thought this was a potent symbol for wizards and our inability to pass our powers and long lives to our children. I think that’s why so many of us are troubled by it; it’s too sad a reminder of what we can never share.”

-------------------

There are some other images that would make good covers, but I think this one captures the melancholy that is at the heart of the book. I'll let you know how things develop.

Cover art

2005-03-21T17:36:00.000-05:00

It appears I spoke out of turn when it comes to cover art. I was certain that authors had no input whatsoever into book covers, but apparently that's not entirely the case. I just got an e-mail from my editor informing me of a cover conference on Wednesday. I'm not sure I'm actually included in the conference, but my editor asked me for my input, so I'm going to put a list together of scenes from the book that should translate into interesting covers.

Henotheism

2005-03-18T10:40:00.000-05:00

One of the central narrative arcs in the story cycle of the novels is the movement from polytheism, to henotheism, to monotheism. Most people recognize the first and last terms, but "henotheism" is not nearly as familiar.

So what the heck is it?

Henotheism is the belief that there is one god for a particular people or tribe, without disbelieving in other gods for other peoples. Moses, contrary to popular opinion, was a henotheist, not a monotheist. He did not disbelief in the gods of Egypt -- he said only that they were not for the Hebrews, who were to worship Yahweh and Yahweh alone. That's why the Egyptian priests are able to transform their staffs into serpents. It was a show of the power of their gods. But Yahweh is stronger, and the transformed staff of Moses devours the other two, "proving" that the god of the Hebrews is stronger than the gods of Egypt. A lesson the Pharaoh ignores to his ruin.

In the second novel, The Words of Making, a henotheistic religion arises that greatly alarms the king and the priesthood because of its popularity with the common folk. The men who are in power see the religion of the One God as a subversive force that must be contained or destroyed. The problem for the king is that his son, Gerin, has become a follower of the new religion, since he has come to believe that the divine presence who has appeared to him several times is a messenger of this new god....