Here is my new blog banner for The Outcast Chronicles, taken from one of the covers. You can see why I’m excited. Clint Langley has outdone himself!
To see it in all its glory go here.
Tag Archives: The Outcast Chronicles
Bookmark luvlies!
I have permission from Solaris to use some of the artwork for the new trilogy on bookmarks. I’ll be sending them off to the printer soon, so here they are, sides one and two.
King Rolen’s Kin and The Outcast Chronicles.
Now you can see why I’m so excited about the covers for The Outcast Chronicles. Clint Langley has outdone himself. Again!
Filed under Covers, Fun Stuff, Inspiring Art
King Rolen’s Kin Book 4
I’d like to thank all the people who’ve contacted me about the fourth book in the Chronicles of King Rolen’s Kin. A writer spends years developing the world of a series. They dedicate themselves to the characters. They devote themselves to the plot. And then they send their books out into the world, hoping someone will get as much of a buzz from the stories as they do.
It makes my day, when readers come looking for KRK 4.
The good news is that I have heaps of ideas for another three books. The bad news for KRK readers is that I have to hand in a new fantasy series – The Outcast Chronicles – before I can tackle the new KRK books.
But once I have handed the new series in to my publisher, I’ll be free to take a journey to Rolencia and find out what happens to Byren, Piro and Fyn.
Filed under Characterisation, creativity, Fantasy books, Nourish the Writer
The agony and the ecstacy of writing …
My publishers have asked me to encapsulate my new trilogy, The Outcast Chronicles, in 100 to 150 words for each book. Gahhhh
They need this for the cover artist, for the book stores, or the back cover blurb etc. But these books are 100,ooo to 150,000 words. I know the characters intimately and all the twists and turns of the plots. Encapsulating the books in 150 words is so hard its painful.
This is an amusing irony, because I teach how to write a synopsis and how to pitch your books. When pitching your book you need to do the ‘elevator pitch’ that means you need to encapsulate the core of your book in 25 words or less.
Here goes:
This is a story about a tribe of mystics who are persecuted in their own land and banished. It’s about how they struggle to find a new home.
Terrible, I know. I have to talk about the people. Because we want to hear about someone we can care about. Another try:
Imoshen didn’t want to lead her people into exile. She didn’t want to battle the brotherhood leaders for this dubious honour but she needed to make sure her children were safe.
Not bad, could do better. Sigh.
Will keep trying.
Filed under creativity, Fantasy books, Fun Stuff, Genre, Writing craft
Obssessive moi?
Something Trudi Canavan tweeted about trying to keep track of multiple narrative threads made me look at what I was doing. I’m in the middle of cleaning up The Outcast Chronicles trilogy. They are big FAT fantasy books with multiple narrative threads that weave in and out.
Because I work and have 6 kids, I’m constantly interrupted and the only way I can keep track of the story is to keep a document open on my second screen that covers the book chapter by chapter, scene by scene with a note of whose VP the scene is in and a sentence about each scene. To make sure I’m not neglecting a narrative thread I colour code the narratives.
This way I can see at a glance if a character is getting too much time on centre stage.
The thing is, when I devised this method I caught myself trying to colour code the narratives based on the personality of the characters, because colours have personalities don’t you know. (Synaesthesia, anyone?)
There, proof that writers are weird.
Filed under creativity, Fantasy books, The World in all its Absurdity, Writing craft
Doing the fun stuff…
Much of a writer’s life is spent slogging away over a keyboard, fighting for inspiration and the time to get the story down. But the last couple of days I’ve been doing the fun stuff. My publisher, Solaris, has asked me to come up with ideas for the covers of the new series called:
The Outcast Chronicles
This means I get to pull out my Resonance File and go through it, putting together a page of visuals for the setting, another one for the way people dress and a couple of pages on the main characters. Then I do a brief background on the series and the characters, and finally I do a page on my vision for the series’ covers.
Eventually, I’ll put together an inspiration page on The Outcast Chronicles, as I did for King Rolen’s Kin. For now, this is my collage of images:
I’m very lucky really. Most writers don’t get this much input into their covers. Of course, once I hand the Resonance File over, it is in the lap of the publishers and the cover artist. Clint Langley did a wonderful job on the KRK book covers, so I’m hoping for him again.
Meanwhile, there’s a give away of KRK book one The King’s Bastard on Dave Brendon’s blog.
Filed under Book Giveaway, Covers, creativity, Fun Stuff
