Cover art: Richard Pellegrino
Cover art: David Palumbo
Contents of Balefires:
NEWSLETTER 68: May 15, 2012
Dear People,
The third of the Books of the Elements fantasy series for Tor, DEMONS FROM THE EARTH (or another title that has Earth, and probably Demons, in it somewhere), is chunking along happily. More happily than I am as I write it.
The middle of a book (and the middles extend farther in both directions as I gain more experience) is always a miserable time for me. I’m convinced that I’m writing boring crap–well, you know the drill. I’ve been saying the same thing for much longer than I’ve been doing newsletters; and indeed, I felt the same way in the middle of stories and novelettes (It’s boring crap!) before I started writing novels.
My earliest published fiction was fantasy and horror. I stopped writing horror in about 1980 as I started to get my head up from Viet Nam.
The horror boom of the ’80s that followed the success of Stephen King didn’t tempt me back in, despite the urgings of my agent and others. I was writing to stay between the ditches, not to make money. I didn’t want to put my head back in that place (though in truth, the places it was were bleak enough anyway).
Beyond that disinclination, I was by no means sure that I would make money in the horror genre. The problem that I saw was that my horror was really horrible.
Dear People,
In the most recent newsletter I said that I’d just started the rough draft of the next RCN space opera, WHAT DISTANT DEEPS. I now have a hair under 60K in draft. As usual, I’m very depressed about it–though I’ve found an interesting evolution in my thinking over the years. continue reading…
Dear People,
Well, I haven’t completed the rough draft of THE LEGIONS OF FIRE, the start of my new fantasy series for Tor, but I’m close. And I’m darned consistent: two months ago I had about 60K; now I’ve got a bit over 125K, so I’m averaging a hair over a thousand words a day regardless of holidays, crises (the water line froze; on the other hand, about this time last year a drunk in a pickup crossed the road and hit us, so I’m not complaining), birthdays, colds and flu. continue reading…
Dear People,
Baen Books sent me copies of WHEN THE TIDE RISES just before newsletter 43 came out, so by now it’s thoroughly on sale. This is the latest RCN (Leary/Mundy) space opera, and it’s a lovely production.
The splendid Steve Hickman painting is complemented by a transparent foil imprinted with a hologram, here showing the actual holographic display of the story. Steve and the cover designer, my friend Jennie Faries, championed the process, and Toni Weisskopf, the Baen publisher, gave it a shot. continue reading…
My original title for this collection was BALEFIRES. Jim Baen asked me to change it late in the process because a big-budget book of that title was due out shortly. I may use the title on the planned Fedogan & Bremer collection of my early horror stories, but by this point I’m not sure it’s a good title.