I’m currently in the editing process for Best Foot Forward, and thought you might find a glimpse into the process interesting. I do most of my writing on the desktop that lives in my bedroom. However, I do most of my editing on the laptop that lives in the living room, which has fewer distractions. Here’s a shot of what that looks like. Read on for a description of both the image and the process.
Mistress of Birds is the final book in the Mysterious Powers series, exploring the impact of the Great War on the people and institutions of Albion. Thalia has had a certain small success with her literary writing. But her inspiration is gone, and no one is buying her stories. When her family volunteers her to stay at her great-aunt’s house on the edge of Dartmoor, she figures at least she’ll be fed. Adam had a bad War. Ten years after he was invalided out of the Army with shell shock, he still hasn’t recovered. His family have lost patience, and when his uncle breaks his leg badly, they ship him off to lend a hand. Adam isn’t sure he’s able to do anything useful. When his uncle wants a report on the apple orchard, though, Adam realises something isn’t quite right. The mysteries of the house and the apple orchard bring Adam and Thalia together, in search for answers. Together, they might just be able to figure out what’s going on, what’s making the eerie noises in the house, and why the apples ripen so late. Mistress of Birds is my take on a Gothic romance (spooky house and all). All of my books can be read in any order, but this one stands alone particularly well. One particular content note on this one (also on my content notes page). The book does deal with long-standing PTSD (what we’d now call CPTSD). If you’re sensitive to discussions of it, chapter
I had a fabulous time working with the map designer who did my previous two maps to do a map of Schola.
Today in our ongoing tour of the authorial wiki, a bit about some other topics. Today, we’re taking a look at the topical pages, which come in two groups, Magic and Topics.
Welcome to the next stop on the tour of the authorial wiki. Last time we talked about characters, so now it’s time to take a look at groups and organisations. Groups There are a number of common group connections in Albion – notably related to the Five Schools, but also secret societies and professions. Read more about the professional and social organisations in general over here.
We’ve talked about extras, maps, and timelines in our tour of my authorial wiki. Now it’s time to talk about characters. Every point of view character has a page. (That means everyone who’s been the point of view in a novel, novella, or extra…)
Time for stop 3 on our tour of the authorial wiki, maps! Today we’re going to look at two sets of maps, one for Albion as a whole, and one for Trellech, the main magical city. My maps are by Michael MB, who did a fantastic job taking my sketches and making them usefully informative.
Welcome to the next stop on our tour of my authorial wiki (public version). Today, I want to talk about timelines and finding out when particular events happened. One of the reasons I like WorldAnvil (the software I use for the public wiki) is the chance to create maps and timelines. With books ranging across the 1920s, a few Edwardian titles, and a couple during or just after the Great War, being able to put the books in order is key. I’ve currently got five different ways to get timeline information, read on to learn more about them!
What’s an extra? Now and again, I write something extra. It can be a few thousand words, or thirty thousand. It can be a bit of backstory I need to write out to keep going in the book. Or something that happens after the book ends that affects future events. Sometimes, I just want to spend a little more time with those characters. Other times, it’s a chance to get a bit of a story from someone else’s perspective. I share these extras with my newsletter subscribers. And now I’ve got an easy way to let you know what extras there are (and what they cover). Check out the Extras page on my authorial wiki for a short summary of each available extra. Click through on the title for each one to learn more about it. Scenes from the extras are also on my books and extras timeline. Getting copies for yourself If you’re already getting my newsletter, starting on June 3rd, 2022, there’s a link at the top of every newsletter that will let you download whichever extras you like without putting in an email address. If you’re not already on my newsletter list, you can get all the extras here. You’ll need to enter your email address for each one (or sign up for one, get the first newsletter email, and then use the link there to get the rest. Up to you!) I hope you’ll stay around on my newsletter for news about what’s coming soon, more
Last Saturday, I went on an adventure with Kiya, my long-time friend and editor. We drove out to western Massachusetts (about a two hour drive from where I live) for a session with New England Falconry. Why? Writing research, of course! Falconry, Carillon, and upcoming delights Lord Geoffrey Carillon is a great many things, but among them, he is a falconer. As mentioned in On The Bias, he used to fly a Eurasian eagle-owl, named Theodora (who also appears in that book). However, the sniper wound he got during the Great War (in his left shoulder joint) means that he can’t hold that much weight on his extended left hand for very long. (Eurasian eagle-owls are about 8 pounds for females. Extremely sizeable birds.) Since the early 1920s, he’s instead flown a merlin named Helena. Merlins are a vastly smaller bird – about 8 ounces or half a pound. (They also carry a number of different social implications.) Then I wrote the draft of Best Foot Forward (out in November 2022) and – there is more falconry. It’s set in 1935, when Carillon is fully settled into his current life, but collaboration with Alexander Landry brings about a new set of challenges. Alexander also has a certain number of opinions about hawks and falcons, as it turns out, though largely on a more metaphorical level. Or at least less immediately physical. There’s also a scene set in the mews at Ytene. And then there’s Ancient Trust, which is about Carillon
Welcome to Point By Point! It’s a story of immersive journalism, 1920s style (with more than a bit of magic), old friends and new romances, with horse racing and two secret societies with very different goals in the mix. Lydia’s been working as a journalist for years, but it’s past time make her name and get herself more steady assignments. Galen – last seen in In The Cards – has been trying to sort his life out. His brother’s doing well and Galen’s been working hard and keeping very busy learning to turn the family import business around. But when Lydia asks for a favour, Galen finds himself saying yes. Of course, Galen isn’t on his own. Martin and the other Dwellers at the Forge are intrigued by any project that might take down those reaching for power that isn’t theirs. Since Lydia’s interested in exploring what happened in the aftermath of Magician’s Hoard, they’re entirely eager to help. Get your copy of Point By Point for a frolic full of racing, a house party, and more than a bit of ritual magic along with the romance. (As with all my books, you can read this one without having read any of the others, though In The Cards introduces Galen, Martin, Julius, and Blythe, and takes place about a year earlier.)
I got an email from a reader (hi!) asking a couple of questions, including this one: “In your romantic couples, the women seem to be consistently a little older (or a lot older) than the men. Was this a conscious choice, and if so, is there a reason for it?”
Pastiche is my first Edwardian book, mostly set in 1906. That year turns out to be interesting for medical history reasons, but it’s also in the middle of a period rich in artistic and creative activity. Living well with chronic illness Alysoun, the heroine of this book, lives with what we’d call fibromyalgia today. At the time of the book, they don’t quite have a name for it: fibrositis (the earlier name) shows up in the medical literature for the first time late in 1906. What she knows is that her body aches – often and also unpredictably. She struggles with fatigue and brain fog, wanting to have an engaged and active life, and yet also not wanting to spend her limited time and energy on social events she doesn’t enjoy. The trick is that she is Lady Alysoun, married to Lord Richard, who not only has those obligations to the land magic, but who is also a member of the Guard (Albion’s equivalent to the police, more on that in the next section), and who is asked to become a magistrate in the course of the book. Being a magistrate comes with a number of additional social obligations for both of them, as well. My chronic health stuff is not exactly the same as Alysoun’s – though at points in my life, I have had a lot more of all of her main symptoms than I do at the moment (if sometimes in slightly different modes.) Writing that experience,
Seven Sisters is simultaneously an outgrowth of some of the larger worldbuilding and my (somewhat odd) Classical education. It’s also about the density of history, the role of time, and the question of how much of other people we can begin to understand, anyway. Also a touch of sign language and magic. The Fatae First and foremost, this was a chance to explore the Cousins, those who descended from the more human of the Fatae, in this case the seven Grandmothers. (There may be others out in the world, for the record, even in Britain.) The Grandmothers have a sizeable number of opinionated and very busy descendants, who refer to each other as Cousins. Some look entirely like other humans, others have features that are a little less so – particularly odd eye colours, sometimes hair. They work closely with a number of the non-human shaped Cousins, everything from the custos dragons (see Fool’s Gold for one) to the Belin (see Goblin Fruit), to the trees we see in this book. (There’s more about Robin in Fool’s Gold, as well, and his particular Aunts. And a bit of Vivian.) One of the things I wanted, as I wrote about the Cousins, was the sense that they are a large sprawling clan. They know of each other, but they may not know individuals very well. They have interconnections, they end up at the same rites and festivals every so often. But they also have their own individual preferences and priorities, and
