In which I reappear after a six month absence, and try to figure out where I’ve been.
Okay. Wow. I knew I’d have to take a bit of a break from blogging, but I didn’t know it would be that long.
It has, in fact, been exactly six months since my last post, which I wrote at New York Comic Con. And that feels weird, because it seems like I was at NYCC just yesterday. I had a great time there. I know a lot of people hate the crowds and the lines and the sheer slog of getting from A to B, but I was in heaven. I loved walking the halls and seeing so much enthusiasm for genre: books, movies, comics, games, TV shows. It was my first Comic Con, and I had a most excellent experience.
And on top of that, there was my time at the Del Rey booth. The Del Rey people are efficient, tireless, well organized, really smart, and have a keen sense of humor. Loved working with them, loved getting cramp in my hand from signing so many books. Enjoyed hanging out in the back of the booth — and down at the bar — with them, and with a number of Del Rey’s other authors.
I will resist the urge to name-drop. Yes, I will. For now. Because getting to meet so many of my writing heroes -and- a bunch of awesome debut authors who are going through just the same things as me right now deserves a more thoughtful appraisal, at some point.
Anyway, since getting home from NYCC, it’s pretty much been the salt mines for me. I was on a tight deadline to deliver Book Three, and I took it seriously, while also taking the day job seriously at the same time, so that means I’ve been working 60-70 hour weeks. Constantly. I did NaNoWriMo, to power me through the second half of the book. Zoomed past 50,000 new words on November 26th and kept going. And then I had to edit all those words. Long story short: I’ve now delivered Eagle and Empire to Mike Braff at Del Rey, and I’m eager to see what he has to say about it and get his feedback. At the moment the manuscript clocks in at 167,000 words, so I’m predicting there may be a leetle bit of structural editing required. But it’s done, the story is all there, the way I always wanted to tell it, and I’m very happy with the book.
Oh, and in the meantime… Book Two came out! Eagle in Exile hit the streets on Tuesday, March 22nd. Over February and March I wrote about 20,000 words of guests blogs, interview Q+As, and other associated promo stuff. I’ll be devoting a whole blog post to that soon, including a handy compendium of links.
And now that my head is back above water after all the writing and promo, I’ll try not to be such a stranger to my own blog pages. Hmmph!
Alan Smale 