Tag Archives: editing

Bell Bridge Books, Belle Books, Blogging, D.B. Jackson, David B. Coe, editing, The Chalice War, Winds of the Forelands, Writing, Zombies Need Brains

Professional Wednesday: 2023 Is 1/4 Gone — What Have You Done?

March 29, 2023 David B. Coe

Spring is here. April is knocking on the door. 2023 is just about one quarter gone (a thought that sends me into a frenzied panic) and with the first three months of the year nearly over, I felt this would be a good time to pause and take stock of my goals and accomplishments so far. Care to join me?

The end of March is significant for me, because my convention season is about to begin. Yes, I sometimes have an event or two early in the year, but most years my professional travel begins in earnest with the onset of spring. 2023 promises to be no different in this regard, and the truth is I feel like I have been stuck in second gear since the beginning of the calendar year.

I keep a day book, a sort of diary, using my Sierra Club Engagement Calendar. I write down key events of each day, important conversations I might have had, and, most notably for the purposes of this post, an accounting of the work I have gotten done daily. I do this for myself (although it is also helpful occasionally in settling arguments about the timing of certain things . . . .) for moments like the one I’m having right now, when I wonder if I have actually accomplished anything at all.

I HAVE gotten work done this year. A lot of it has involved editing — the Artifice and Craft anthology I’m editing for Zombies Need Brains, edits on my upcoming Celtic urban fantasy series, and editing I do for clients. This is all important work, but it doesn’t leave me much to show for my efforts. When I’m writing a book, I can point to my page count or word count. With editing . . . my track-changes count? It just isn’t as satisfying.

Add to that the week-plus that I lost to Covid, and some travel I’ve done, and I can account for all the time that has passed since New Year’s. But aside from my short story for another ZNB anthology, Dragonesque, and a couple of dozen blog posts, I haven’t written much of anything this year. I think that is what’s bothering me. I get grumpy when I don’t write enough, and I’m feeling grumpy.

I also know that what has been a quiet year thus far is about to get very, very busy. Starting in May, we (Bell Bridge Books and I) will be releasing The Chalice War trilogy, the aforementioned Celtic urban fantasy. The first book, The Chalice War: Stone, will be out that month, followed closely by The Chalice War: Cauldron, and, sometime in the summer, The Chalice War: Sword. I can’t wait. Sword will be my thirtieth (yes, 30th) published book.

Also this summer, Zombies Need Brains will release Artifice and Craft, my 5th edited anthology, and Dragonesque, which will include “Reenactment,” my 30th published short story.

In April, I will attend JordanCon (Atlanta). In early June, I will attend ConCarolinas (Charlotte), and later that same month I will be at LibertyCon (Chattanooga).

I have recently been accepted into the Launch Pad Astronomy Workshop, which is taught in late May at the University of Wyoming in Laramie. Launch Pad is a week-long workshop on all things related to space and space travel taught specifically for writers and editors. It offers an amazing opportunity to learn about these fascinating topics from professional scholars who also happen to have backgrounds in SF. I have been considering a new science fiction project, one that would be a dramatic departure from anything I’ve written before. Launch Pad will be invaluable in preparing me to write those stories.

We have family travel on the schedule for July, following an important professional transition for Nancy at the end of June. And then I will be attending DragonCon (Atlanta) in late August/early September.

I have two other projects underway as well. A nonfiction thing that I am not ready to discuss in detail, and, at long last, the editing of the Winds of the Forelands books for re-release in late 2023 or early 2024. And I have another writing project — a collaborative undertaking — that I also cannot describe in detail, simply because I am not the organizing force behind the project, so it is not mine to reveal. But I am excited about it.

And I have a possible tie-in project looming, which is not certain enough to reveal at this time.

I know: There’s a lot of secrecy in this post. My apologies. There is also a mixed message. On the one hand, I feel a bit stuck and dissatisfied with what I have done so far this year. But I am also excited about what is about to come and a bit overwhelmed with all that looms on my professional calendar.

At the beginning of the year, I had a sense of things I wanted to get done in 2023. My life has been filled with enough uncertainty over the past few years, that I knew better than to fill out a work schedule in ink. But I had goals; I still do, and they remain much the same. The busier calendar on my work horizon won’t make it any easier to get work done. Or will it? I work better when my deadlines are immutable, and once I have revised the third Chalice War book, I will be finished with most of my editing duties for the year. More time for writing — yay!!

So, that’s where I am at the 1/4 mark. Where are you?

Keep writing!

Bell Bridge Books, Blogging, D.B. Jackson, David B. Coe, editing, The Chalice War, Writing

Creative Friday: About That Celtic Urban Fantasy . . .

February 24, 2023 David B. Coe

The Chalice War-Stone, by David B. Coe Right around the holidays, I was shouting from the virtual rooftops about my new Celtic urban fantasy trilogy, The Chalice War, which would be coming out early in 2023. The first book, I bellowed (virtually), would be coming out in February, and it would be called The Chalice War: Stone. It would be followed, a month or so later, by The Chalice War: Cauldron, and then a couple of months after that by the finale, The Chalice War: Sword.

So, about all that . . . .

Life happens. Lately it’s been happening to me. A lot. In this case, though, it happened to my editor/publisher at Bell Bridge Books, through no fault of hers, or really anyone’s.

The books are still coming. Really. Stone will be out in May. That’s the current plan. It will be followed a month or so later by Cauldron. Sword should be out by midsummer. The first book is ready to go. We have art; the manuscript has been revised, copy edited, polished to a high shine. We’re just scheduling it in a way that allows us to follow it quickly with Book II, which has now been through revisions and will soon be copy edited.

I apologize for the delay, but I assure you the books are on their way. And, as a way of thanking you for your patience, I offer another teaser from Book I. Enjoy!!

*****
While the woman’s heels still clicked on her walkway, Marti sensed a second source of power. The energy from this one was as turbid as the woman’s was clear, as tied to darkness as hers was wild. It took Marti several moments to spot this second presence, and when she did, she had to bite back a shouted warning.

A large animal—a cat of some sort from the look of it—crouched by the side of the woman’s house, partially concealed by the bushes growing there. It followed the woman with its eyes and the gentle swivel of its massive head, but it made no move to attack her.

Marti watched them both, motionless, holding her breath. The cat had to be a conduit, bound to a Fomhoire sorcerer. She swept the street with her eyes, not daring to turn her head, wondering if the sorcerer was close by or had sent the cat to scout. Or to hunt. If that last, was it after the woman or Marti herself?

After watching the cat for another few seconds, Marti convinced herself the creature was intent on her neighbor, not her.

For now, Marti had no access to her magic, and the stone was shielded. Power called to power, Alistar used to say. That cat—a panther by the look of it—would be drawn to a conduit as potent as itself, not to an unbound Sidhe sorcerer.

Marti stood smoothly, taking care not to make any sharp movements. She picked up the bottle and cup, tiptoed into the house, and locked and bolted the door. She lingered by the window, eyes on the cat. Her neighbor had made it inside; lights went on downstairs and, minutes later, on the second floor. Marti didn’t think the woman was in danger, at least not this night. But she had drawn someone’s interest, which promised to make Marti’s life even more complicated than it was.

After some time, the panther emerged from the bushes, padded out into the street, and with one last backward glance at the house next door, prowled off into the night. Marti remained at the window until the creature had reached the corner and trotted off of Fairlea.

Then she retrieved her protective herbs and stones, and went after it.

She understood the risks, but she wanted to find out who the cat belonged to. Having no conduit herself, and carrying the sachet and crystals, she didn’t think another sorcerer, even a Fomhoire, would sense her. Of course, having no conduit, if she was wrong about this, she would die.

She slipped back outside, locked the door behind her, and eased down the road. She made not a sound, kept to shadows, avoided the light that pooled beneath streetlamps the way she would patches of quicksand. At the corner, she caught a glimpse of the panther loping off the road into what appeared to be another yard.

Marti followed, and soon realized the cat had led her to the community playground she’d passed when driving in earlier. It was darker here; there were no streetlights or houses near the play area. But by the light of a half moon, she spotted two figures standing near the swings, one a good deal taller than the other.

The panther trotted to the shorter of the two, lay down at this person’s feet, and began to lick one of its paws. Marti crept closer, hoping to overhear something of value. She placed each foot with care, eyeing the ground in front of her for dry leaves, twigs, children’s toys—anything that might give her away. With fewer shadows here, she had to follow a line of trees—a less direct route than she would have liked. At one point, the cat raised its massive head and stared in her direction. She froze, deciding she had gotten close enough.

She couldn’t hear their conversation, but as her eyes adjusted to the darkness, she was able to see the two figures in greater detail. The cat had lain at the feet of a man. He had dark hair and wore dark slacks and a pale dress shirt. The other figure was murkier, as if obscured by a black veil. She couldn’t imagine why, at least not until it raised an elongated arm to point at something above them. Marti suppressed a cry.

The moonlight revealed a translucent membrane of flesh underneath its arm, broadest at the shoulder, tapering to the wrist. No wonder it appeared to swallow light; no wonder it was so freaking tall. A Sluagh.

With nightfall, the air had grown stagnant, but in that moment, the smell reached her and her stomach heaved. Decay, disease, death. Smells, she’d read somewhere, could kindle memories that transported a person to different times, different places. This stench carried her to the old house, to Alistar’s brutalized corpse in the garden, to Burl’s blood-matted carcass in the kitchen.

Marti searched the sky and street for more of the demons—they rarely traveled alone. She saw none, but that did nothing to put her mind at ease. She resisted the urge to run—if the demon didn’t hear her, the cat would. Either would kill her.

Indeed, if not for the Fomhoire and his cat, the demon would have found her already. The panther couldn’t sense her talent for magic because she didn’t have a conduit, but the Sluagh could. It hadn’t because—only because—the Fomhoire stood beside it, no doubt reeking of magic. She shuddered.

A moment later, matters grew far, far worse. The Sluagh pointed skyward again and let out a rasping screech that made Marti flinch. From above came two answering cries, as harsh and chilling as the first. Two more Sluagh circled over the playground, their wings luminous with moon glow, the webbing between their long legs making them look like huge swallows. They wheeled, swooped toward the ground, and pulled out of the dive at the last instant, cupping their wings like billowing sails and landing near the other Sluagh.

The cat scrambled to its feet and bared its teeth. The Fomhoire caressed his conduit’s head and said something to the creature. The panther nuzzled the side of his leg, but it kept its bright eyes on the Sluagh and remained standing. For his part, the sorcerer had shifted his stance so that he could watch all three of the demons. He had also edged away from them; he would be no more immune to the fetor than Marti was. Likely he had a spell at the ready, just in case. Sluagh might serve the Fomhoire, but they would prey on any magical creature.

She almost hoped they would turn on the man and his conduit. Almost. The problem was, when they finished with him, they would sense her magic, and have her for dessert.

The Sluagh didn’t linger for long. The Fomhoire and the first demon spoke for another few seconds before the three demons leapt skyward and soared off.

The sorcerer watched them go, absently petting the panther’s head. When the Sluagh had vanished from sight, he glanced around and left the playground.

He headed straight toward Marti.

Bell Bridge Books, Blogging, D.B. Jackson, David B. Coe, editing, Invasives, LonTobyn Chronicle, Tor Books, Writing

Professional Wednesday (On Thursday): About Deadlines

February 2, 2023 David B. Coe

Yes, this is a Professional Wednesday post, going up on a Thursday morning. And it’s about dealing with deadlines and professional obligations, which should give you some hint as to where this essay is going . . . .

I apologize for not getting my Wednesday post up on Wednesday. I would say it won’t happen again, but that would be dishonest. It’s rather likely to happen again at some point. Read on . . . .

Deadlines and obligations are part of any profession, but they seem to loom larger in the literary world than in most others. We writers tend to work in isolation. We don’t go to offices to ply our trade. We have few meetings. We don’t wind up on committees or task forces or action groups or anything of the sort. We have, essentially, one professional duty: We are expected to turn shit in on time. That’s a slight oversimplification. Yes, we have to compose lovely prose. We have to construct narratives, develop characters, create settings, tease out themes and moods and emotions and the like.

But in presenting our work to the outside world, in moving from the creative process to the marketing of our work, our responsibilities come down, largely, to deadlines. Deadlines for submission, for revisions, for copyedits, for proofs. And I don’t mean to downplay the challenges deadlines can present. Being able to create on demand is THE defining attribute of a professional artist. We don’t wait for the muse. We don’t create when the mood strikes us. We produce regularly, and often we do so on someone else’s schedule.

I have been on both sides of deadlines: I have written to them, and I have imposed them on writers sending material to me for editing. And so, I feel confident in discussing how to manage them and how to handle the conversation when we know we’re going to miss them.

The Outlanders, by David B. Coe (jacket art by Romas Kukalis) The first deadline I missed was on my second novel, The Outlanders, the middle book of the LonTobyn Chronicles trilogy. And I had good excuses. Between the time I started writing the book, and the day the first draft of the manuscript was due to Tor, our first child was born, my mother died, my father died, and my siblings and I had to settle my father’s estate.

Being a first-time parent was glorious, but it consumed my days and disrupted my nights. Losing both my parents in quick succession was brutal, and the loss of my father hit me particularly hard. HIS father was still alive (my grandfather was over 100 at the time), and his mother had died in her nineties. We thought he would live forever. His death devastated us all.

With the deadline for The Outlanders approaching, I reached out to my editor at Tor Books and told him the book would be late. How late? I had no idea. I was stuck, an emotional wreck, and I didn’t know how to get unstuck. But I promised him I would get it done, if he could just be patient with me. He was, and I did.

That conversation was hard, but it was the right one to have. Looking back, however, I realize I should have initiated it months earlier. The first lesson of dealing with deadlines is this: As soon as we understand that we are going to miss a deadline, we need to alert our editors (and our agents, if we have representation). Missed deadlines impact our publishers as well as the other authors in the publishing queue with us and behind us. A deadline is an obligation with consequences beyond our own lives, and we owe it to the people doing business with us to be as honest and forward-looking as possible.

INVASIVES, by David B. Coe (Jacket art courtesy of Belle Books) Yes, sometimes we think we’re going to miss a deadline, and then we make it. And if we alert our publisher prematurely, we could lose our spot in the queue. So be it. That’s the price of acting professionally. When our older daughter first was diagnosed with cancer, I told my editor and my agent what had happened, and let them know I was probably going to be late with the novel I was writing. As it turned out, writing that book — Invasives, the second Radiants novel — was a wonderful escape, and I met my deadline. But I had given up my publishing spot and so the book was released later than I had hoped. It wasn’t that big a deal. As I say, the most important thing is be up front about the situation with those who need to know.

Sometimes, we fall behind on our writing not because of life events, but simply because we’re struggling with the story, with the writing itself. Again, communication is the key. In that case, we should reach out to our editor. Let them know we’re having trouble. It may be that a conversation with someone who knows the story, who understands what we’re trying to do with the characters, who might even have already published previous books in the series, will help us clarify our thinking and get us back on track and on schedule. At the very least, it will alert our editor to a potential problem with the upcoming deadline.

And sometimes we just bump up against the realities of the creative process: It doesn’t always conform to our scheduling and planning. Art can be messy and inefficient. In making our commitments, in accepting deadlines in the first place — and usually we have the opportunity to agree to a deadline or to ask for more (or less) time — we have to keep this reality in mind. We have to plan well. We have to avoid setting ourselves up for failure by agreeing to a more ambitious timeline than we are capable of meeting. Once we have have made our commitment, we have to budget our time and then stick to the calendar we’ve set.

In the end, there is really no secret or magic formula to any of this. We must be honest — with ourselves and with our colleagues. We have to do the work. And we have to anticipate problems before they arise.

Easy-peasy. Usually. Every once a while, missing a deadline can’t be helped. And then a Wednesday post goes up on a Thursday.

Keep writing.

D.B. Jackson, David B. Coe, editing, Writing

Professional Wednesday: What Matters Professionally, part II

January 11, 2023 David B. Coe

If you follow my blog at all, you know that in this month’s posts I have been asking the question “What matters?” in a number of personal and professional contexts. Last week, in my first Professional Wednesday post of the year, I focused on the big things that matter to us as professionals and aspiring professionals — our ambitions, our favorite projects, our goals, both immediate and longer term. This week, I would like to address the question from a different perspective.

When we’re working on a project, we tend to concern ourselves with different things at different times. Some of those things matter more than others, and I have noticed when working with new writers, that those with somewhat less experience often wind up worrying unnecessarily about issues that really don’t matter all that much in the greater scheme of things. And at the same time, they will often not give much thought to things that really ought to be foremost in their minds.

So I thought I would look at a few common issues and give some sense of how much, in my opinion, these things matter.

For instance . . . .

New writers tend to worry a great deal about being “scooped,” about having someone — in the worst instance, someone more famous and accomplished than they are — come up with the same concept for a story or novel, rendering their idea unmarketable. Does this sound familiar?

Stop worrying. This is, to my mind, a definite “doesn’t matter.” You will not be scooped. Some thirty-plus years ago, when I was in graduate school, my dissertation advisor told me something that has stuck with me ever since. I expressed to him my fear that someone else would publish a dissertation on my topic before I had a chance to finish. (This is a fear that plagues grad students even more than it does fiction writers.) And he said to me, “If you think you can be scooped, you’re thinking of your dissertation topic too narrowly,” meaning, essentially, that all good dissertations operate on multiple levels. They are works of complexity and personal creativity and thus cannot be duplicated by someone else.

Stories are the same. I edit themed anthologies. For our latest collection, Artifice and Craft, Edmund Schubert and I have received over 530 submissions, all of them born of the same prompt. And no two are the same. You and I could start with the exact same story premise, and within ten pages our books would diverge, because we all write from personal experience, from idiosyncratic emotions, from unique imaginations. You will not be scooped.

New writers also tend to worry a lot about genre and marketing, and I understand why. Certainly I have been guilty of telling young writers to come up with elevator pitches for their projects. “Know how to sell it,” I often say. “Know who your audience is going to be.” And I believe this is sound advice as one is revising their novel and getting ready to send it off to publishers and/or agents. Early on, though, as we are conceiving the novel and diving into that first draft, I would argue that marketing and audience identification are secondary to the creative process. Write your book. Write the story that makes your heart sing, that stirs your creative passion. The marketing stuff will wait — and ultimately will be easier if you write the book or story you love. Commercial imperatives should not guide your imagination. You’ll have plenty of time later to figure out how to sell the thing to readers. At the start, our greatest concerns should be character, plotting, setting, pacing, prose. Those are what matter.

What about those things that DO matter, but that tend to get short shrift from too many authors? I would encourage every author, regardless of experience level, to think about a few questions as they begin work on their novels and short stories. First, we should consider who we ought to use as our point of view characters. I like to ask myself, “Whose story is this?” and base my choice of POV character on the answer to that question. If I decide to use multiple points of view — a question closely related to “Who?” is “How many?” — I will ask myself at the beginning of each new chapter or section, “Who is the key person in this scene?” More often than not, that person will be my POV character for the passage. I have run across many scenes that are written from the perspective of someone who is, in my opinion, the wrong character to tell that part of the story. As a result, I, as a reader, don’t have access to the thoughts and emotions I want to read at a particular moment, which can be incredibly frustrating.

We should also ask ourselves,“Are we starting our story in the right place?” So often, I read manuscripts that open way too early in the narrative. For page after page, we get background information and little-to-no important action or emotional content. Or, less commonly, I see manuscripts that begin too late, AFTER what really ought to be the inciting event. Be sure you know where to begin your story — and consider the possibility that what SEEMS like the right spot early in the writing process, might ultimately prove to be less than optimal once you have a better sense of your story. Be willing and prepared to revise accordingly

Finally, we should constantly ask ourselves if the scene we’re writing — if every scene we write — serves the larger narrative. It’s not that we can’t pursue subplots and secondary narratives. Of course we can. They enrich and deepen our stories. But they should also serve the whole. We should strive for coherence, for interconnection among our various plot threads. A secondary story for its own sake will only confuse and annoy our readers, distracting them from the narratives that are most important.

Professional Wednesday: Three Ways To Help Your Short Fiction Submission, and Three Ways To Doom It

December 21, 2022 David B. Coe

The deadline for submissions to Artifice and Craft, the anthology I’m co-editing with Edmund Schubert for Zombies Need Brains, is ten days away. December 31. As of this writing, we are closing in on 400 submissions. The anthology will have a total of fourteen stories, seven of them from anchor authors. Meaning we can accept seven stories from all those submissions. We will likely wind up with about 500 subs — maybe more. They just pour in during the last week.

Noir, edited by David B. Coe and John Zakour, an anthology from Zombies Need Brains So far, we have received some very good stories. We have also received far, far more that won’t make the first cut. And so I thought I would go over again, briefly, the things that can make or break a story submission, at least for this editor.

To start, here are three things an author can do that might well doom their chances of having their story accepted.

1) Fail to follow the guidelines. I have said this before and will continue to say it until I’m blue in the face, because it sometimes seems I’m shouting into the wind. Every market for stories (and novels, too) has guidelines — GLs for short — that they want authors to follow. These are basics: acceptable fonts, line spacing, margins, etc., as well as presentation instructions, such as what information should appear on the first page and what a cover letter ought to say. Following GLs could not be easier. All one has to do is read them and then follow them. That’s it. And yet, you would be amazed at the number of submissions that don’t do this.

GALACTIC STEW, edited by David B. Coe and Joshua Palmatier Will I reject a story simply because it is single-spaced instead of double-spaced? No, I’m not quite that mean. But when reading a story, knowing I have literally dozens more waiting in the queue, I will only tolerate so many flaws before I reject it. Remember, I have 500 stories to choose from. I can and will find what I’m looking for. No story is ever perfect, so ask yourself, do you want to expend one of your flaws on formatting? Or do you want to present your story correctly so that I can judge it on its artistic merits? The answer seems self-evident to me.

2) Fail to write a story that’s on theme. Again, this would seem so obvious as to be silly. And yet . . . . ZNB anthologies are themed. All of them. And those themes are not suggestions, they’re requirements. The anthology’s theme is written out plainly in the call for submissions (along with the GLs). And yes, if a story isn’t right on theme I WILL reject it. It can be the best story ever, but if it’s not on theme, it will not be in the anthology. Period. Full stop.

3) Fail to write a full story. This one is a little less self-evident. The word limit for each submission is 7,500 words. The GLs don’t give a word minimum. But this is my fifth time editing an anthology and never have I given a top rating to any story that was shorter than, say, 2,500 to 3,000 words. It’s not that I’m imposing a minimum of my own. It’s just that these anthologies are not venues for flash fiction. That upper word limit of 7,500 words is sort of a hint telling you that we want to see story depth, character development and arc, narrative complexity. We want to see excellent ideas that are fully realized, and it is very hard to do that with flash fiction. Over the past couple of months, I have read too many pieces of fiction that offered great ideas, but didn’t do nearly enough with them.

Okay, so what three things can authors do to give themselves the best chance of having a story accepted?

1) I abhor the cliché, but think outside the box. As Joshua Palmatier, owner and publisher of Zombies Need Brains, has said, don’t assume your first idea is your best idea. The most obvious ideas often come to us first, and if they’re obvious to us, they’re likely to be obvious to everyone. Make your story stand out by exploring the second or third idea, by looking for an idea that isn’t obvious but is rich with narrative possibility.

2) Write with emotion and passion. Too many of the stories I’ve read consist of dialogue and almost nothing else. Others take a kind of epistolary approach, by telling the story in the form of documents — court transcripts or product descriptions or something similar. Clever, but devoid of character development, and, as such, often devoid of emotion and tension as well. Stories need to touch our hearts. Clever is fun, but in the absence of passion, it’s probably not enough to gain acceptance to such a selective anthology. Delve into the emotions of your characters, because that is how you will reach the emotions of your readers.

3) Give us a twist or two. Just as your first idea might not be the most original, your most obvious narrative path might not be the most fruitful. Beware writing the pat ending, the contrived plot, the convenient “surprise.” Take your story in directions that make sense without being predictable. Yes, that can take work, but no one ever said this was going to be easy.

Best of luck with your submissions! And keep writing!

Bell Bridge Books, Blogging, D.B. Jackson, David B. Coe, Invasives, Islevale Cycle, Radiants, The Chalice War, Thieftaker Chronicles, Time's Demon, Writing, Zombies Need Brains

Professional Wednesday: Planning For Next Year — Try Something New!

December 14, 2022 David B. Coe

The Chalice War-Stone, by David B. Coe As you know, early in 2023 I will be coming out with a new urban fantasy series that is steeped in Celtic mythology. Before working on this series, I hadn’t known much about Celtic lore. But I did my research, learned all I could, and then started to imagine ways in which I might blend those Celtic traditions with my vision for the stories I wanted to write. I tried to be respectful of traditions that are not my own, while also having fun and writing something I hoped would be fun for my readers.

INVASIVES, by David B. Coe (Jacket art courtesy of Belle Books) Two years ago at this time, I was revising Radiants and starting to organize my plans for Invasives, the second book in the sequence. I had never written a supernatural thriller before, but I had the idea and wanted to give it a go.

Two years before that I had just released the second Islevale book and was working on Time’s Demon, the second book in the trilogy. These were my first forays into writing time travel and while I knew there were tremendous pitfalls to writing in that particular subgenre, I wanted to give it a try. Plotting a time travel series is probably the most challenging thing I’ve ever attempted as a professional writer; I doubt I will ever try it again, but I’m glad I did it once.

TIME'S DEMON, by D.B. Jackson (Art by Jan Weßbecher) Around that same time, I was also reading submissions for the Temporally Deactivated anthology, my first co-editing venture. Last year I opened my freelance editing business, and a year ago at this time, I was editing a manuscript for a client.

Back in 2015-2016, again at this time of year, I was working on the Author’s Edit of the LonTobyn Chronicle, my first series. Up until then, I had never re-released any of my old work, but I had the rights back, and I knew I could improve the books with a deep edit of the original manuscripts.

Yes, there is a point to all of this.

Temporally Deactivated, edited by David B. Coe and Joshua B. Palmatier Last week, I wrote about planning out my professional activities for the coming year. This week, I want to discuss a different element of professional planning. My point in starting off with a list of those projects from past years is that just about every year, I try to take on a new challenge, something I’ve never attempted before. I didn’t start off doing this consciously — I didn’t say to myself, “I’m going to start doing something new each year, just to shake things up.” It just sort of happened.

Children of Amarid, by David B. Coe (jacket art by Romas Kukalis) As it turns out, these new challenges have brought me to a place where I can say, in all candor, that I have never been happier in my work than I am now. Each time I try something new, I reinvigorate myself as a creator. I force myself out of the tried-and-true, the comfortable. With each of the new projects I mentioned above I had a moment of doubt. I wondered if I was capable of accomplishing what I set out to do. Now, I’m a pretty confident guy when it comes to my writing chops and my ability to help others improve their writing, so those doubts didn’t last long. But they were there each time.

Indeed, part of the joy of taking on the projects lay in pushing myself, in overcoming the doubts and getting the work done. As I’ve written before, writing is hard in any number of ways. We help ourselves when we can self-define our successes, rather than relying on a fickle, difficult marketplace to define them for us. Each of the aforementioned projects boosted my sense of self worth.

The Loyalist Witch, by D.B. Jackson (Jacket art by Chris McGrath) But those new challenges did more than that. They kept my professional routine fresh. I am a creature of habit. I try to write/edit/work every day, so in a general sense, my work days and work weeks don’t change all that much. By varying the content of my job — by writing new kinds of stories and expanding my professional portfolio to include editing as well as writing — I made the routine feel new and shiny and exciting. And at the same time, these new projects made it possible to return to some old favorites, notably the Thieftaker series, with renewed enthusiasm.

I also made myself better at my craft and deepened my understanding of and appreciation for the nuances of storytelling. I learned a ton by revising my first books. I saw old mistakes that I was still making, and also gained a fresh appreciation for the ways I had improved as a writer. Writing time travel strengthened my plotting by forcing me to look for the loose ends that might have escaped my notice had my characters not possessed the ability to go back in time and undo my choices! Editing has taught me a ton about my own writing by showing me, in unfamiliar narrative contexts, what story elements work best (and worst).

My point is this: As you begin to plan your professional activities and ambitions for 2023, try to put in your calendar something new and different. It is fine to set as a goal the completion of that novel you’ve been working on for a long time, or the publication of a series you’ve had written for a little while now but haven’t yet sent out into the world. Those are laudable aims, and I wish you every success with them.

But maybe you’ve never tried writing short fiction, or you’ve written stories but never submitted any of them. Maybe you’ve written fantasy but never tried science fiction, or thrillers, or romance. Set as a goal for 2023 taking on one of those new tasks. Allow yourself to accomplish something unfamiliar. At the very least, doing so will force you to grow as an artist, which is always a good thing. And perhaps you will discover a previously unexplored talent and passion for something you hadn’t even considered trying.

Best of luck, and keep writing!

Bell Bridge Books, Blogging, D.B. Jackson, David B. Coe, editing, The Chalice War, Writing, Zombies Need Brains

Professional Wednesday: Preparing For the Coming Year

December 7, 2022 David B. Coe

December has come to my little corner of the Cumberland Plateau. The trees are bare, days of gray skies and cold winds outnumber the blue, chickadees and nuthatches, titmice and woodpeckers and cardinals flock to my feeders. Yes, we still have nearly a month left in 2022, but already these remaining weeks feel foreshortened. The holidays will gobble up much of our time and energy in the closing days of the month, and we will be distracted by all the preparations for family get-togethers and the like.

Which is as it should be. The past two years have seen our holidays strained and, for some, ruined by the pandemic. We deserve a holiday season.

Already, though, my professional thinking has turned to 2023. In past years, I have written about my penchant for mapping out my professional year, trying to plan for the many projects I intend to take on in the months to come. I didn’t write a post of this sort last year, because of the uncertainty surrounding our daughter’s health, and the fresh memory of how so many of my plans were upended in 2020 and 2021 by the pandemic, by family issues, by emotional strain, etc. The fact is, my professional plans are always just that: plans, intentions, hopes even. Nothing more.

And so I approach the coming year with a bit more humility than I did in the years before Covid and before my family’s health crisis. Any work calendar I create will be written in pencil, not pen.

But I also understand that planning out my work calendar helps me, and I believe you might find it helpful to create a similar plan for your coming year.

Right now, I am struggling to decide what major writing project I will take on next. I have posted about this before, and have asked for input from followers of my work and this blog. Yet, still I haven’t been able to decide on a path forward. That’s fine for now. I have stories to read for the Artifice and Craft anthology. I have a story to write for the Dragonesque anthology. I have a couple of editing clients interested in engaging me for some work. In short, I have no shortage of things to keep me busy.

I’d be lying, though, if I said I wasn’t missing the allure of the new shiny. One of the things a work calendar does is keep me looking forward. Often a project supplies its own momentum. The desire to see it through to the end, to complete the damn thing, is usually enough to keep me on task. Now and then, though, I need the carrot of the next project to pull me through. “When I finish this, I get to work on X.”

Put another way, I don’t have to decide right now what major writing project to take on in 2023. I am certain, however, that if I can decide and hold that next project out as the prize I get for completing other things, it will make reading anthology slush a little easier.

I also find a work calendar helpful as I seek to manage my own professional expectations. It’s easy to look at a blank calendar and think, “I have all year to get X,Y, and Z finished.” As it happens, this is rarely the case. Already I know that I’ll be editing short stories for much of January and preparing for the releases of The Chalace War books starting in February and continuing through the spring. (Oh, and here’s the art for book I again, just because I love it so much . . . .) Plus, non-writing stuff is bound to impinge on my writing time. We need to do some work on our house, and that will also probably come in the spring. The work promises to be disruptive. There is no way I’ll be as productive as usual while it’s going on.

I need to take all of this into account while planning my schedule. Because even if some of my deadlines are self-imposed (rather than coming from a publisher) I know that missing them can disrupt the work to follow. It can also have an impact on my mood, on my self-confidence as an artist. We should always keep our expectations for ourselves realistic. The last thing we want to do is set ourselves up for repeated failures by expecting too much from ourselves and not taking into account time commitments we have to make to other parts of our lives. This is not to say that we should budget too much time for projects. There is a balance to be found. We want to push ourselves to accomplish tasks that matter to us, without expecting so much that we can’t help but fail. A work calendar helps me with that.

So as the year winds down, and as I sit in front of a fire, or in front of yet another World Cup soccer match, I will be working on my work calendar, mapping out a strategy for getting done all I hope to accomplish, and also for managing the inevitable disruptions that life — both professional and private — tends to throw in our path. It’s easy to do. I receive calendars in the mail all the time from the various charities we give to each year. I always reserve one of those calendars for this.

Best of luck with your 2023, whether or not you map it out ahead of time.

And, of course, keep writing.

Belle Books, Blogging, D.B. Jackson, David B. Coe, Radiants, The Chalice War, Writing

Wednesday Musings: Thanksgiving and Some People To Thank

November 23, 2022 David B. Coe

The past couple of years, usually on the Monday of this calendar week, I have written about Thanksgiving — last year a catalogue of all the things for which I’m thankful (the list still holds), and the year before, ahead of the country’s first Covid Thanksgiving, a rambling remembrance of holidays past that still makes me laugh when I read it over. For obvious reasons, I didn’t feel like writing such a post for this past Monday. But with the holiday upon, I thought I would try again.

I don’t know how to approach a Thanksgiving post this year without repeating myself from those previous posts, and yet here I am making the attempt. And maybe repetition in this context isn’t the worst thing in the world. The things for which I am thankful year in and year out remain remarkably consistent — boring for a blog, but gratifying in every other way. My marriage, my children, my extended family and friends and fans, my career, and, of course, the good fortune of having a home, food in our pantry, health care access, and so many other blessings that too many people lack.

As I have said before, Thanksgiving is my favorite holiday, in part because it forces me to take stock, to set aside the petty grievances that too often cloud my mood, and recognize that in the important ways, despite real and serious problems in our lives, my loved ones and I are doing okay. We live, it often seems, at 75 mph, the world blurring past as we try to complete our work, take care of our chores, see to our obligations. Even when we are “on vacation” or taking a bit of time off, we try to squeeze in so much that the relaxed times feel rushed.

To me, Thanksgiving is a time to slow down, to focus on the now, on those things that matter most. It is a time to inhale deeply and say, “Right now, in this moment, I am grateful for _______.” The things we fret about, the things that inconvenience and nettle and worse — they’ll still be there the day after Thanksgiving (in fact, they’ll probably be on special…). They’re not going anywhere. So why not push them away for a while and accentuate the positive? This from a confirmed, life-long pessimist.

In any case, I will hop down off the soapbox now. And I will share with you a brief list of very important people, outside my circle of friends and family, who have made an enormous difference in my life this year. Their mention here is small thanks for all they have done for me and my family.

1. I am thankful for my therapist, a woman named Rebecca, who has been absolutely incredible to work with. She is insightful, gentle, funny. Best of all she gets me and understands when to push me and when to let me stumble into truths on my own. I have learned so much from our time working together, and feel better equipped than I have ever been to deal with the uncertainties of this crazy world.

2. I am thankful for my editor, the marvelous Debra Dixon, who has been an amazing creative partner, mentor, critic, and booster. She is terrific with artwork. She did the gorgeous covers for the Radiants books, and she has done a fabulous job with the first book of the The Chalice War, the Celtic urban fantasy about which I’ve told you all so much. You’ll see a reveal of the cover not too long from now.

3. My older daughter’s oncologist, who shall remain nameless so as to protect my daughter’s privacy, is just terrific. He is compassionate, honest, brilliant, devoted to our child and her battle with cancer, and willing to communicate with us whenever we have the need (so long as our daughter has given her okay, of course). We know he can’t perform miracles, but he has our daughter’s complete trust, respect, and affection, and that is all we can ask.

I wish these three a glorious Thanksgiving, and I wish the same to all of you. May your day be filled with laughter, joy, and the companionship of people you love. And may the year to come be filled with blessings large and small.

Happy Thanksgiving.

Blogging, Case Files of Justis Fearsson, D.B. Jackson, David B. Coe, editing, Radiants, Thieftaker Chronicles, Winds of the Forelands, Writing

Professional Wednesday: An Alternative to NaNoWriMo

October 26, 2022 David B. Coe

First off, many thanks to those who offered feedback on last week’s post, in which I asked for input regarding what I might work on next. I appreciate your thoughts. The general consensus appears to be that there is no general consensus. Several people did express enthusiasm for more Thieftaker and more Justis Fearsson. A number were also interested in reading more in the Radiants supernatural thriller series, and a few fans from way back were excited to see an edited reissue of the Winds of the Forelands books. Others liked the idea of a new writing How-To as well as the space opera concept. Which is to say, there was at least some support for pretty much everything I’m currently considering, and that’s reassuring.

We are nearing the end of October, which means Halloween is almost here, elections are right around the corner, and NaNoWriMo is about to start. For those unfamiliar with the term, National Novel Writing Month began in November 1999 as a challenge to writers to write 50,000 words in thirty days. The challenge has grown in popularity each year, and now engages literally hundreds of thousands of writers, including kids, in creative writing. NaNoWriMo is also a non-profit that promotes literacy and creativity.

In many ways, NaNo is a positive force in our industry. It fosters community, by bringing together writers of different backgrounds and abilities in a simultaneous effort to be creative on demand. And as I have said in this space again and again, part of being a professional writer is learning how to produce on demand, without “waiting for the muse,” or some such. I have heard many stories of people finally being motivated to write by NaNo, by the communal aspect of the challenge. Knowing others are making the effort at the same time enables some people to write the story that has been burning inside them for so, so long. I think that’s great.

And yet . . . . From the time NaNo first began, I have had some qualms about the concept and the structure. I have written 50,000 words in a month; I’ve done it a couple of times. I know some professionals who write far more than that in 30 days. It can be done, no doubt. And if the challenge and group dynamics of NaNo get your creative juices flowing, more power to you.

But what I remember about those occasional months during which I churned out 50,000 words is that I was unable to sustain the effort. Each time, during the month that followed, I struggled to write half as much. I was burnt out. I know some people have gone on to publish novels they began during a NaNo November. But I wonder how many NaNo participants still have novel fragments of 50,000 words (or 40,000, or 30,000) on their computers, gathering virtual dust. I wonder how many did NaNo only to find themselves unable to sustain the effort beyond the month in question.

As I said, professionals, myself included, can and do write half a novel in a month’s time, but most of us write slower than that. My brother is a visual artist, a painter. And he will occasionally engage in exercises that force him to paint quickly. There is something freeing about turning off the inner critic and just painting fast, to see how an image turns out. Just as there is something freeing about blocking out our inner editor and writing swiftly and in volume. Most of the time, though, my brother’s process looks nothing like that. And I can promise you my writing process — and that of most of my professional colleagues — bears little or no resemblance to NaNo.

Yes, NaNo can jumpstart the creative process for some people, but I would offer this: If instead of trying to write 50,000 words in thirty days, an aspiring writer were to try to write 500 words a day for 100 days, that writer would wind up with the same volume. Yes, it would take more time, but in the snail’s-pace world of publishing the difference between one month and three isn’t so great. Plus, I guarantee you, the 50,000 word manuscript produced over three months will be far, far cleaner than the NaNo manuscript and will require a good deal less editing, thus narrowing the time gap.

Most importantly, while NaNo will leave many writers exhausted and unprepared to follow up and finish the manuscript in question, the 500-word-a-day writer will have developed a habit, a creative routine that is both manageable and sustainable. More than likely, that writer will be able to increase their production over those three months and beyond.

I’m not looking for a fight here, and again, if NaNo works for you, go for it. Enjoy yourself. But if you have considered NaNo, wondering if you might finally kick off a writing career by trying it, I would encourage you to try the slow-and-steady approach instead. As a model, it is much closer to the professional experience than NaNo will ever be and, to my mind, it is more likely to produce a) clean prose, b) a coherent narrative, and c) a completed manuscript.

Whatever you decide, keep writing!

Blogging, Blood of the Southlands, Case Files of Justis Fearsson, D.B. Jackson, David B. Coe, editing, Invasives, LonTobyn Chronicle, Lore Seekers Press, Radiants, The Chalice Wars, Thieftaker Chronicles, Winds of the Forelands, Writing, Zombies Need Brains

Professional Wednesday: In Which I Ask You, What Should I Write Next?

October 19, 2022 David B. Coe

As I discussed at length in last week’s Professional Wednesday post, I have recently completed a first draft of the third book in my contemporary Celtic urban fantasy, The Chalice Wars. The novel needs to sit for a while before I can do a final revise-and-polish and send it off to my editor — six weeks or so, I would think. And since the first book has not yet been copyedited and proofed, since the second book still needs to go through a round of revisions and then the entire production process, and since the third book is still wet behind the ears, I have plenty of work left to do on this series.

Thanks to the successful Kickstarter campaign Zombies Need Brains ran late in the summer, I also have a new anthology, Artifice and Craft, to co-edit with my good friend Edmund Schubert. We already have more than 150 submissions for the anthology, so that work is bound to keep me busy through the end of the year and well into 2023. I also have a short story to write for one of the other anthologies, and I have editing clients in my free-lance business queue.

But beyond the short story, which should only take me a week or two to complete, I have no idea what I am going to write next. None.

Yes, I have ideas. Many.

What are they? Funny you should ask.

The Loyalist Witch, by D.B. Jackson (Jacket art by Chris McGrath) One idea is to write my next Thieftaker novel, either in the form of a trio of novellas, like I did with The Loyalist Witch, or as a simple novel. In the Thieftaker novel timeline, the Revolutionary War hasn’t even started yet. There is lots and lots more I can do with Ethan and Kannice and Sephira.

I have also considered going back to the Case Files of Justis Fearsson series, another contemporary urban fantasy that I began in the mid 2010s with Spell Blind, His Father’s Eyes, and Shadow’s Blade. I LOVE these books and have missed writing in Justis Fearsson’s world. I have several ideas brewing for that world. His Father's Eyes, by David B. Coe

I have long wanted to return to my five book Winds of the Forelands series and the Blood of the Southlands trilogy, to revise and re-release those eight novels. They are among my best stories, and they have been out of print for far too long. I envision an “Author’s Edit” re-issue, along the lines of what I did with the LonTobyn Chronicle back in 2016.

INVASIVES, by David B. Coe (Jacket art courtesy of Belle Books) I want to write at least one more Radiants book. Actually, I would like to write several more. Radiants and Invasives are, to my mind, the two best books I’ve written to date, and I still would love to see these books gain come commercial traction so that I can justify writing more of them.

And then there are the new ideas . . .

I have one idea for a space opera series (yes, you read that right), set on a pair of terraformed planets. The plot involves intrigue, mystery, romance, and vengeance, and it is actually based on the work of a well-known, much-beloved, and for-now-secret 19th century novelist. I’m excited about this one. (Actually, I’m excited about all these ideas, which is why I’m considering them in the first place.)

I have a middle grade novel that I first wrote back in 2010 or so, when my kids were much younger. The idea still sings to me, though I know the book needs a good deal of work. But I love the concept and I adore the characters. And I think I would enjoy writing for kids.

My good friend A.J. Hartley has been trying for years to get me to write a non-fantasy, non-supernatural, straight-ahead thriller. He thinks I’d enjoy it. He thinks I’d be good at it. And I will admit I have some ideas percolating along these lines as well. Of all the projects I’m thinking about, this one probably has the most commercial potential, which is not the only consideration, but I do this for a living, so . . . .

And finally, I have considered taking all the Professional Wednesday and Writing Wednesday posts I have written since 2020 and collecting the best of them in a new writing how-to book. I have more than enough material, and I think some people would like to see the advice I have offered gathered in a single, convenient volume.

So there we are. Those are the things I’m thinking about right now. (I should add that I can’t guarantee I won’t have five more ideas tomorrow.)

What ideas appeal to you? Feel free to Tweet at me, or to comment in my Facebook Group! I look forward to hearing your thoughts.

In the meantime, keep writing!

David B. Coe, Author of Fantasy