This one comes from Tyler:

And here’s a question–if it has been asked before, I’m sorry; I missed it—–
When and how did you get the idea for PATH OF FATE, and after getting the idea and after beginning to write it, how long did it take you complete the first draft of the book?

So the answer to that one requires me to take a step back a little to what was happening before writing Path of Fate.

Way back when when I was working on my dissertation, I was also working on a novel. A long, sprawling novel that I still have a fondness for, but which will likely never be pulled out of the trunk for various reasons. Whenever I got stuck on my diss, I’d switch to writing my novle and vice versa. I was around 185K when I stopped working on it and it wasn’t quite done yet.

So I get my PhD and I get a job and I moved to Montana. I jumped into working and didn’t have a lot of time to write at that point. But what I did do was get pregnant. And then on top of that, i had one of my short stories “All Things Being Not Quite Equal” picked up for The Best of Dreams of Decadence antho (this is my ugly vampire story and anybody who wants to read it can go to my website and have gander). So it was 2001 and my son wasn’t a year old yet and I decided to head off to Wiscon to participate in the writers workshop there with the first chapters of the novel I’d been workinig on during my dissertation years–short title Errand.

Now first you have to know that I’d had a major editor tell me at an academic conference that now that I was having a baby, I wouldn’t be writing anything for years and years. That pissed me off. The other thing to know was that I got to be in Nancy Kress’ group at the Wiscon writers workshop. Dream come true. So she had nice things to say about my writing and offered some suggestions. When I was done, I was all pumped to go home and finish and revise Errand and get it submitted out.

So I’d been home less than a month when a friend called me up and asked, How’d you like to do a book in a week? Um, huh what?

Basically a book in a week is this idea that you try to write as much of a book as you possibly can in a week. The idea is that most people can carve out a week of their lives when they can get rid of work, housecleaning, and whatever obligations, and just write. Will you finish a book in a week? Probably not. But in that time you’ll have a substantial draft and you’ll know whether it’s worth pursuing or not.

So I’d been kicking around the idea for Path of Fate for a litle while, and thought, sure! I’ll do it. And at the end of the week I was about 30K into the book and knew I wanted to keep going.After that, It took me about 7 months to write the novel. Then I wanted to send it out and instead managed to control myself and send it out to a coupl of beta readers who gave me excellent advice and I revised and revised. Then I spent time working on the synopsis and cover letter and figuring out who to submit to. About the same time I finished the book, Rock published the antho The Best of Dreams of Decadence, which gave me a slight ‘in’ when submitting to them.

The idea for Path of Fate is hard to pin down. I had this idea of the goshawk connected to Reisil and that Reisil would be afraid of heights. I also am fascinated by people who sacrifice themselves for others–who will give up everything for strangers. I also like the idea of someone who is “chosen” and doesn’t care to be. The rest of it sort of gelled up around those ideas. They’d been rummaging around loose in my head for awhile–a lot of my ideas do that. They are looking for other ideas to glom on to and create a story. I ended up using a goshawk for Saljane because a friend of mine does research on goshawks and I could ask a lot of questions and go out into the field and observe.
Any more that you want to know about that? Or other questions? Keep ‘em coming!

I. Am. Tired. But the revisions for Bitter Night are done and winging their way through cyperspace to my editor. I hope she likes. And remarkably, they are on time. Due today, turned in today. Okay, not be 5:00 NY time, but nothing said they had to be, and as long as it’s before business open tomorrow, it counts. That’s my story and I’m sticking to it.

Just at the moment I’m about cross-eyed with exhaustion. I need sleep. And I need to get back to work on The Traitor King. And there are one or two other things to get done too. No rest for the wicked. Or even for me.

And the remarkable Ilona Andrews has been doing awesome things with my website. Go look. It’s got some issues, especially in IE, but I don’t care. It’s lovely. And I need to add content, I know.

I’ll post the first chapters of The Turning Tide soon–how’s that?

And now, collapsing in a heap. And trying to figure out how to cook dinner while in said heap.

So far I’m not nearly as far along on the revisions for Bitter Night as I should be, but I am making progress. What’s interesting is that I’ve cut at least 6K words out (and I’m not quite a third through the revisions–I did say they were going slow). I say at least because though I keep a snippet file of bigger chunks I’ve cut, I don’t include single sentences or phrases or words in there and there’s been a lot of those and trust me, they add up. Anyhow, I’ve got a file of around 6K, and the novel is about 2K longer than it started out.

So that means I’ve probably cut closer to 8K and put 2 K back in. But really, I’ve probably cut more like 12K and added back in about 4K. I’m still chopping–trying to make it lean and not saggy–and also I know of at least two scenes I need to add, and maybe a third, depending. I also have a scene I plan to cut. I’ve added one large scene already.

My goal is to make this novel about the same length as I first submitted it. That’s not arbitrary. Well, yeah, to an extent it is. But I do believe I’ve been a bit wordy and in making those cuts, I’m trying to force myself to really pay attention and streamline the prose so it’s a really good, sharp read.

I just got the cover for Bitter Night. Here it is. Isn’t it awesome?

So I have a first chapter of The Traitor King. I have no idea if it will still be part of the book later, because I am pantsing this book so much more than I like to. If I were to draw a plot line, it would essentially start with a list of characters who will be important: Keros, Margaret, Nicholas, Gimlet, Amberdel, Vaughn, the lord chancellor and his wife. Then there would be this line leading from Margaret and Gimlet, since they are where this chapter started, and then there would be this large, lovely, black scribble ball in the middle, taking up most of the page. Beneath it would be a caption saying “many bad things (and some good) happen.” Then there would be a teeny-tiny little line, maybe a quarter of a centimeter long, and it would lead to the word: END.

YOu’ll note that what I know about this story is the character names. You’ll note I don’t know much else. Which isn’t true, really. I know a lot. I just don’t really know what will happen, nor the order it will happen in. I’m terrified.

But here is a snippet for those of you who want to know how this begins . . .

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So on my sfnovelists post, someone asked the following in the comments. It’s such a great question, but I don’t know that I have a great answer. I am, however, going to take a stab at it. I would like for all of you to jump in, though.

The question:

Diana I find I start writing but on the first edit after I’ve finished the first draft I will eliminate up to 7 chapters at the beginning because I’ve mainly written backstory. I don’t know why I do this, but it happens every time even if I plot the story out in its entirety. The first couple of chapters lets me get into my characters heads and then the story takes off from there. Don’t know how to break this habit. Do you have any suggestions?

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I have a post up on starting a novel at Sfnovelists if you want to have a look.