Well, I’m losing my Horngate editor. She’s got a fabulous new job and she will be leaving in a couple of weeks. I am so happy for her and so unhappy for me.

What you need to know is that a good editor is worth her weight in gold. And jewels. You want her to be able to see the flaws in your work so you can make the book the best it can be, and you want her to let you have your own storytelling voice and style. You want her to be organized and focused and smart. Mine is all of that and more.

Ironically, this is the second time I’ve lost this very same editor. She was my original editor at Roc with the Path books, and then moved to Pocket. Then she bought my Horngate books.

So I raise a glass to you Jen, and then I’ll drink the entire bottle and eat chocolate cake and wallow in self pity. Then I’ll get back to work. I don’t know who will be replacing her, but I hope they can find someone as good.

I’ve been having a tad bit of trouble with the website and posting, but I’m back! Been doing things with the kids, particularly school supply shopping. The list seems to get longer each year. But they are supplied and the boy does not have new socks because he argued he didn’t need them, and then I saw today how holey most of his socks are and I expect there will sock shopping in the future. Girlie made out when grandma bought her a bunch of dresses (lovely, hugely expensive dressed on %70 off sale, so that was a good thing). Boy made out with books, since he wasn’t into clothes. Girl got books too, just he got more. And I got myself a copy of Elie Wiesel’s Night and Neil Gaiman’s Odd and the Frost Giants.

Right now I’m working on finishing the copy edits for Shadow City. For those of you who don’t know what that means, let me splain. When you turn a book it, your editor reads it and sends it back with an editorial letter. That letter will include a lot of notes on how to improve it. You revise, and if your editor is happy, it goes to copy edit (if not, repeat step one).

The copy editor goes over the manuscript to correct if for grammar, house style, consistency, and anything else she finds. It then comes back to the editor who also goes through it making a few notes, and then it comes back to the writer. I go through it and can still make changes to my work (this is the last chance for substantive revisions), and to see if I agree with the changes of the CE or E. Sometimes I don’t agree. When I don’t, I STET the change, which puts it back to the original. Now I try not to do that too often, but sometimes the changes just don’t sit right.

Here’s a for instance. It’s more grammatically correct to say “it was as if a piece of every place that had ever existed or been thought of had come to Chadare and cropped roots.” (real sentence from manuscript). Only, given that Max is thinking that, she would never say as if. She’d say like. So even though it’s correct, it’s more important to me that the voice is right, so I STET it.

So that’s what I’m doing today. I do like the process, especially when the copy editor is as good as this one is. Now, back to it . . .

I really love some of the summer TV shows. Haven, Leverage, and Eureka are some of my favorites. In fact, I dare say the programming is better in the summer than in the rest of the year for the most part. More creative, more adventurous, more character driven. I wonder why that is.

The copyedits for Shadow City have arrived and I’m diligently working on them. So all is on track for the December release. I’m also working on the fourth Horngate book, though it has no name yet.

Is summer racing as fast for everyone else as it is for me? It’s flying past. Make it go slower!

The third Horngate book is available for preorder. It’s called Shadow City and of course takes off right after Crimson Wind. Here’s a description:

From the moment she was bound by magic and transformed into a deadly warrior, Max dreamed of escape. Instead she went to war. She saved the coven she was enslaved to defend from unearthly destruction, but only at the cost of her own freedom.

But Horngate’s own future is far from certain. The covenstead is threatened by a Fury—a creature that, once it escapes its fragile bonds, will wreak untold destruction. Will Alexander and the other Shadowblades be able to protect Horngate without Max? Or will Max discover that she doesn’t have a home to return to?

This is an awesome book and I think you’re going to love how it plays out. Here’s the shadow city Amazon link, but go ask your bookstore or order from anywhere you like. Spread the word!

I want to talk about writing in different genres. I write traditional fantasy, contemporary fantasy and am playing around with some young adult stuff. It’s really strange in some ways how different these genres can be in style, and yet how similar. Here’s some things I’m noticing. When i write traditional fantasy, it can be slower to build and have more complexity to the overall plot. By that, I mean it can include more subplots and a broader cast of characters. And when I say “it can,” I mean readers have more interest and patience for that in traditional fantasy.

Contemporary fantasy is quicker. It tends to jump immediately into a problem and hustle through the action. There’s more emphasis I think on the plot than the worldbuilding, though the worldbuilding certainly has to be there. (I applied that sense of pacing to The Hollow Crown and I think it was very successful, but it was a conscious effort.)

Young Adult is far less about the worldbuilding Which means you have to be a lot more subtle and stronger in your choices because that description has to do more work. It reminds me of poetry, where you distill things down to the most essential language. The pacing is still pretty quick, the language (for me) is a little less complex–in the sense that it’s what teenagers would say and they generally haven’t developed a hugely broad vocabulary at this point.

All of them have to hit a particular kind of note in a particular kind of way. Don’t get me wrong, there is room for innovation and development, but for me, these are some of the differences I’ve encountered and it’s really interesting to me because each one teaches me a lot about writing better.

I’ve been thinking about short stories. And maybe not stories . . . Maybe just scenes or vignettes. I kind of want to write some things for fun here and there. So. Here’s your chance to tell me what you’d like to read.

Stuff set in the Path universe? Who do you want to hear about? What story do you still want to hear?

Stuff set in Crosspointe? When? With whom? What do you want to know?

And Horngate? What do you want to know there?

Or something else entirely? Maybe an offshoot of the short stories on my site? Anything else?

If you want a signed Crimson Wind or several, you can contact my local bookstore and I’ll go down and personalize it for you and Debbie will send it. (she already has copies in).

To do that, here’s the contact info:

Debbie @ The Bookstore
26 North Idaho Street
Dillon, MT 59725-2508
(406) 683-6807

And of course you can also get my other books from her. Just tell her you want me to come sign it and who you are so I can personalize it. Feel free to email or post here if you want to let me know too.

Crimson Wind, the second in the Horngate Witches series, will be released on December 28th. Have you preordered yours? Here’s a snippet to whet your appetite and I will have a chapter up very soon. I’ve been horribly swamped trying to meet a deadline for my YA project, and for Shadow City, the third in the Horngate Witches series. Yes, there will be a third and a fourth! So without further ado, a snippet:

“What was that?” she demanded.

“It is what is.”

“It’s happening now?” Max wanted to throw up. She scraped her fingers through her hair, pulling sharply. What was happening there? “What will the smoke and those creatures do to them?”

He shrugged. “I do not have the gift of foreseeing.”

“Then show me. Show me what’s happening to them.”

His brows rose and his eyes gleamed. “What will you pay?” he asked softly. “Will you come with me now if I show you?”

“You motherfucker,” Max spat, crossing her arms tight across her stomach to keep from stabbing him through the eye. “You know I can’t. I have to help them.”

“Will they be alive when you get there?”

Are you a fan of Bitter Night? Looking forward to Crimson Wind? Good news. Now I can announce that there will be two more in the series. Details here. Hurray!

For those of you who’ve commented and emailed and I haven’t responded, I’m so sorry. I ended up with a cervical spine fusion and have been racing deadlines and trying to overcome pre-and post surgery issues. I’m getting better, but it’s been a slower process than I like.

For those of you who are willing to help, here’s a link to explain why reviewing my books on Amazon could really help me. The short explanation is that once you hit a minimum critical mass, Amazon starts suggesting your books around to more readers, which creates more readers, which in turn allows me to keep writing the books. So for me and other writers, do me a favor and put your opinions up there on Amazon.