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Just finished a short story called The Road to Ephrath which takes place in the world of The Wizard’s Path. It follows the activities of a Raven –a member of the Sacred Brotherhood of Thieves– who is hired to commit a murder for hire. Sometimes justice is found in a dark alley.

It occurs to me that the reader may not know what The Wizard’s Path is. To put it simply it’s a series I’m hawking to publishers that takes place in the murky middle eastern post-bronze age. It’s full of heroic figures and powerful gods, colorful religions and bloody war, up close and personal.

Like most epic fantasy I’ve tried to expose the grittier side of living in an ancient world, while acknowledging that man is a political rather than social animal. The clash between supreme theocracies, powerful wizards, and insurgent witches — plays out against the life of a disaffected royal, a missionary witch and the last survivor of a guild of thieves and beggars. As always organized labor pays the price when the wealthy and powerful go to war.

One thing I’ve tried to explore in a more realistic fashion is the concept of tactical magic. Magic and wizardry are always alluded to in novels as having a vast power in warfare but what we generally see is some physically frail individual who must hide in a fortress and lob a few fireballs that do as much damage to friendlies as the enemy. I’ve tried to rationalize the system so that the frightening power and consequence remain, but the tactical advantage to deploying magicians in forward units is more believable.

In The Road to Ephrath we see a very small corner of the vast world in The Wizard’s Path. I hope that a publisher sees the value that exists in this work, so I can share it with you. Hope with me so you get to read it. It’s a fun romp if I do say so myself.

I’m generally a patient person, but if you know anything about the writing trade you know that waiting for those rejection . . . umm I mean acceptance letters is a tedious process. I chose to submit over the threshold with my last novel and chose a publisher who specializes in military and sci-fi and of course military-scifi. They use an electronic submission form and the day I used it there was a glitch. Instead of redirecting to a confirmation page it remained on the submission form cheerily displaying the link to my submission and the little box where I was supposed to type any comments to the editor. Needless to say I clicked the friendly submit button once again, just as my email client dinged at me informing me that a confirmation email from the first time was arriving.

So now I sit here with two submissions of the same manuscript and six months later I’m worried that the double submission might affect my chances.  Soooooo I sent an email to apologize for the mix up (though it was clearly a web script bug that caused it) and to update my email address.  Now I’m concerned that my message will look like nagging for feedback.  Sigh!  I guess pathos of such mediocre nature is proof I’m a writer.

I’m currently writing the first volume in what I see as a Duology. It’s working title is Redmantle and it is a Renaissance Fantasy that involves alternate history a dollop of magic and a large helping of Political and Religious conflict. It centers around a civil war based loosely on the English Civil War but spills over into mainland Europe.

Been wasting time working on setting up a listserv for my Reading Excuses posts. Just finished a first draft of chapter one in my current novel.

I’ve been following a forum associated with The Time-wasters Guide a review site focusing on speculative fiction sci-fi/fantasy gaming.  In other words wastes of time. :)  However a writing workshop called Writing Excuses and a Writing Circle called –oddly enough– Reading Excuses both have a major presence on the TWG forum.

Being the intrepid waster of time, reformed gamer, and struggling writer that I am –I was drawn in and felt the need to jump into the Reading Excuses with both feet.  This is good because I find that reading my own text repeatedly can become a vacuous mind-numbing prospect which leads to periods of unproductive daydreaming and, um, games.

Reading Excuses give me the opportunity to put my Philology into play (yes children I actually studied divinity) and tear someone else’s work to shreds.  As a critic I lean toward canonical criticism –meaning that I look to how characters interpret the meaning of events and circumstances, then rigorously apply those doctrines wherever those things appear in the work.  I comfort myself that text belongs to the reader and the characters not the author so when I rip apart a subplot or manner of expression it’s nothing personal.  Of course if it’s MY writing then it’s personal buddy! 😛

Well all that was said to explain my current dilemma.  I have a book in progress, but I’m not sure I’m ready to share it.  I have notes on another book, but I’m not sure I can put together anything to be reviewed in anything like a short time.  However I committed myself to submit to Reading Excuses on Monday!  Whatever is a boy to do?

Like the new theme but will have to customize it eventually. Still tweaking and adjusting, but thought it would be good to get started on more substantive posts.

Been working on the collectable card game. So many exploitation novels have been written around a game that I thought I’d try reversing the process and creating an exploitation game around the novel. The game is a reasonable facsimile of the game player by the characters, should be fun.

New ventures often require a new design for living. This is a new area of authorship for me and I’m just feeling my way. But it became very clear early on that Author sites are primarily about sidebar communications with readers. Reader response isn’t limited to co-creating a world of imagination and discovery as the world of the text merges with that of the reader and the writer. Blogs and comments let Readers feel that sense of connection and partnership that fuels the sort of readership that spans generations. I’d like to think that this small move is the start of a beautiful relationship.

Okay, day two and my URI seems to be working, the site seems to be working and Email seems to be working. So far so good.

Control panels can be the most disorganized mess.