Something New

I talked last time about starting out a new project with an ensemble cast, each person with an unusual skill. I had a whisper of an idea about each of four people, their milieu, the shape of stories they could tell. To accomplish anything they need a leader, and I decided which one that would be.

I diddled a bit with the world. Thought up some ideas of how the story would run. Talked with my muse, Linda, over a very long lunch about how the story might get going. Wrote a page of notes and watched a DVD series from the History Channel that pertained to my chosen time period. I even had an idea for an opening scene.

All of this was good--but every time I sat down to look at it, the project became more daunting. After creating five distinct worlds over the course of fifteen books, the notion of starting over from scratch appeared bigger than Trump's ridiculous wall on the Mexican border. Not only did I need to come up with cool ideas, I had to stay out of my own way. Surely I hadn't included every favorite bit of world structure/custom/myth or character foible/skill/hangup that I love!

Certainly not, but still I couldn't get going even to write that first scene. Panic time. And then I went to Vancouver Island...





Now I adore writing retreats at my friend Brenda's house overlooking the Saanich Inlet almost as much as I love retreating to a certain funky little retreat hotel in the heart of the Rockies. Being away from home and its myriad distractions helps me focus. And somehow being surrounded with awe-inspiring beauty provides extra fodder for words. Certainly the energy of other serious writer friends working hard gives me energy. But it was Brenda herself who said about five words that broke the dam. She is a generous listener, and when I started running on about the backstory of my lead, she stopped me.

"Why don't you write that story?" she said. "If it works out, it could be a short story to accompany the novel. If you decide not to write the novel, you'll not have spent so much time and effort on it."

Perfect sense. Seven thousand words appeared over the next few days...like magic.

Now you who have talked about character interviews all these years can laugh at me. Yet this is truly a story, not interview notes.  (Though one could say, Romy is interviewing for a job.) And those who tell me that writing short fiction can be less intimidating that starting a novel...I give you points, too. Old dogs can learn new tricks.

For now I am continuing to write a bit of story that might never appear in a novel, but is a delight for me anyway. We'll see how things pan out. Read more of this post!

Every Project Starts the Same Way - Or Does It?

Every one of my books/series (now up to 15/5) truly begins with a character.  In the Books of the Rai-kirah, it was the arrogant, the-world-is-mine-to-enjoy desert warrior Aleksander (not Seyonne!).  The Bridge of D'Arnath rose from the bitter, exiled duchess Seri.  The novels of the Collegia Magica were to be a home story for the brooding necromancer Dante (nope, not Portier). Lucian, the non-renegade, the upright believer in pureblood discipline, was the whole reason for the Sanctuary Duet. Only for the Lighthouse Duet did I have ideas about the world and the world's problems before I had an idea of that character. But I didn't write a word until the image of a lanky renegade drug addict came to me. He was face down on the floor of an abbey church taking holy orders, and I could hear an unforgettable voice, saying, "What the hell am I doing here?" Anyone who's read those two books knows very well that Valen shaped and drove the story of Flesh and Spirit and Breath and Bone in the same way that Aidan, the visionary musician, shaped the story of Song of the Beast.

Even my pieces of short fiction that now number more than nil took off with the idea of a character. Gareth, the talentless farmer, was the inspiration for Unmasking, Girl told of her experience At Fenwick Faire. Valen, my favorite blackguard, was the seed for Seeds. The encounter of a novice constable with a familiar unnamed necromancer was the starting point for Uncanonical Murder (now out in the spring issue of Pulp Literature ).  And Saverian from Breath and Bone demanded to star in an almost-novelette for a new anthology to be announced later in 2016.

All the other characters, the world, the settings, the plot grew from ideas about that one person, even if, on occasion, a character I believed secondary became the more important than the instigator.  So there.

But when I started noodling around with a new (big) project last month...



I settled on an ensemble cast, each person with an unusual skill. I had a whisper of an idea about each of four people and then I ran into a wall that seemed near insurmountable. This will be a different process. Maybe.  I'll tell you how it's going next time.  Read more of this post!

Where is ASH AND SILVER?

Well, everywhere, of course!  Your local chain or indie brick and mortar bookstore.  Your favorite online bookseller, be it Indiebound, Barnes and Noble, or Amazon (despite a Penguin/Amazon hitch that suspended sales for a week in December) or the online store of your favorite bookseller like Mysterious Galaxy, Powell's City of Books, or Seattle's University Bookstore.

It is always tough to let a child go out into the world. But response has been great. (And thanks for that!) Yet I wouldn't recommend releasing a new book in December. It's tough to schedule events; everyone, including the author, is distracted by the holidays, and review sites are very busy putting out best of the year lists. (And yes, Ash and Silver did make a few of those, despite it's late release date.)

Lots of people are asking if Lucian's story is finished.  Or if, perhaps, the storyline of the Sanctuary Duet will ever entwine with the storyline of the Lighthouse Duet.



  And the answer is ...

I hope so. It is no accident that Ash and Silver ended on the same night as the climax of Breath and Bone.  I'm certainly not sure that Lucian and Valen would always get along, and both of them could easily end up at odds with good King Eodward's chosen heir. Could make for some interesting fireworks.

But I've some other things I want to work on before I return to Navronne.  Some short pieces and some long.  So I'm going to let ideas about a follow-on duology simmer in that great stew of a fantasy writers' mind for a while.  Stay in touch!

Read more of this post!

November Sighting

OK, who stole the past year?

His name is Greenshank...though he knows that's not his true name.  He is a reticent man, and took something over a year and a half to tell me his story - a story entwined in mystery and murder, war and redemption and political manipulation.  It does him well to be reticent, as he has a very hard time determining who is friend and who is enemy and who is . . . something other.

Of course I know that his story began in Dust and Light, released last year.  But for a long while, I thought it was going in one particular direction, and then it took off on a path I didn't expect. Certainly Greenshank didn't.  And I hope my readers will enjoy its twisty unraveling.

That's why the book is releasing in December and not August as I had hoped, so I trust it won't get buried in holiday bustle.

A greenshank is a water bird, as it happens.  Many of Greenshank's fellows are also named after water birds, as much of Ash and Silver's action takes place on the cold, wet northwestern coast of the kingdom of Navronne.  Just off the coast lies an island fortress that might call to mind a fascinating place in our own world.  Fortress Evanide is a place of mists and storms and rampaging tides, and, in Greenshank's experience, a strict and mysterious military order that calls itself the Equites Cinere' or Knight of the Ashes.

For this week, 11/23/15 through 11/30/15, you can register to win a copy of Ash and Silver at Goodreads. I'll be hanging around Goodreads from now through New Year's, answering questions.

You can also head for my website to Read Chapter 1 or check out my coming Appearances or sign up for my newsletter.

Or friend me on Facebook.

I'll be back soon with more news! Read more of this post!

Dust and Light - In the Wild!

Out today, Dust and Light, the first novel of Sanctuary.

How much must one pay for an hour of youthful folly? The Pureblood Registry accused Lucian de Remeni-Masson of “unseemly involvement with ordinaries,” which meant only that he spoke with a young woman not of his own kind, allowed her to see his face unmasked, worked a bit of magic for her....After that one mistake, Lucian’s grandsire excised half his magic and savage Harrowers massacred his family. Now the Registry has contracted his art to a common coroner. His extraordinary gift for portraiture is restricted to dead ordinaries—beggars or starvelings hauled from the streets.

But sketching the truth of dead men’s souls brings unforeseen consequences. Sensations not his own. Truths he cannot possibly know and dares not believe. The coroner calls him a cheat and says he is trying to weasel out of a humiliating contract. The Registry will call him mad—and mad sorcerers are very dangerous....

You can find Dust and Light at
    Your local Independent Bookstore
Or online at
    Amazon

    Barnes and Noble
    Powells  
    Audible


For an autographed copy, contact my good friends Nina and Ron Else at the Broadway Book Mall - 303-744-BOOK - in Denver.

Read the starred review from  Publisher's Weekly
Read an excerpt
Read more of this post!

Launching Dust and Light!

August is going to be a busy month.

Any month where you give birth is busy - though I hope to get more sleep than in those human baby days! I'll be all sort of places online in August and do a little traveling, too. A book's legs are established in its first month out.  And an author's career teeters on those legs.  So I'm off to the races.

I'm going to kick things off this Friday.  Yes, the book isn't quite  out yet.  August 5th is the official date.  But I had an opportunity to share an evening of talk and reading with E.C. Ambrose.  Back when E.C. Ambrose was writing as Elaine Isaak, a very cruel dark-fantasy writer, I shared a  couple of panels with her at conventions.  We had fun comparing our wicked ways with our heroes.  The word?  She makes me look like a pansy!  And so does her alter ego, EC.

Anyway she is in town launching her own new book, and she couldn't make it in August.  So we'll have our little soiree on Friday evening, July 25th at 7:00pm at Old Firehouse Books in Fort Collins.

Next up will be Bubonicon, August 1-3 in Albuquerque.  The book won't officially be out then, either, but my good friends at the Broadway Book Mall are in charge of the bookstore at the con and have gotten early release permission from my publisher.  So if you want it early, come visit us in Albuquerque.

Then it's off to California and a Sunday, August 10th, 2pm event at the flagship sff bookstore Mysterious Galaxy in San Diego.

Saturday, August 23, at 2pm, I'll be back in Denver for my Colorado launch at the wonderful, friendly Broadway Book Mall.  And I'll be reading, and parlaying with Laurey Patten, longtime writing partner, who has just released her excellent sword-and-sorcery adventure The Talent Sinistral.

And then there are the online appearances.  Here's where you'll be able to find me online in August:

Thursday August 7:

John Scalzi's Big Idea;

Magical Words: Guest Author on Dust and Light;

Thursday August 14:

Reddit Fantasy AMA (Ask Me Anything) Real Time starting at 7pm Central;

Magical Words: Guest Author on Characters;

Thursday August 21:

Magical Words: Guest Author on Blowing Up the Dam;

Thursday August 21:

Magical Words: Guest Author on The Writing Life;

Join me so I'm not sitting lonely at my keyboard. You can ask me anything at any of these stops (not just the Ask Me Anything).  And Stay Tuned for a few more stops!

What about autumn, you might say...

In September I'll be thrashing and burning, trying to finish off Ash and Silver. The forecast is cloudy. But I will also be appearing at the Colorado Gold Writers Conference and teaching some workshops on worldbuilding and NOT outlining. Later in the fall I'll be at MileHiCon in Denver and then at the World Fantasy Convention in Washington DC in early November.  More on those later. Read more of this post!

Same World, New Story

How easy is it to go back to a world you've created?  Lots of authors do it.  Sometimes with sequels, sometimes with prequels.  Sometimes with time jumps.  Often with wholly a wholly new cast of characters.  When I finished the novels of the Collegia Magica, I realized that I had created five fairly complete worlds, all of which I loved.

I try very hard to make my series have a good resolution.  I want readers to believe that the mysteries and dilemmas of the plot have been untangled and finished off in a satisfactory - and believable - way.  And that the characters live on in the new directions they've taken, with love, magic, companionship, hope, grief, whatever I've left with them. I have always sworn not to go back to a previous cast of characters or world unless I had a new story to tell.

That's why I picked Navronne - the world of the Lighthouse Duet, Flesh and Spirit and Breath and Bone.  Not only was the world - with its mythic underpinnings and rich history - one I enjoyed, I felt a nagging sense that I had left a lot of interesting story on the table.  Valen, the hero of the Lighthouse books, was a rebel, a wanderer, and the path of his life took him to a most unexpected place.  While the part of the world that he had spent his life running from - the families of pureblood sorcerers with their strange culture, their strict discipline, and their unique position in the world - was left almost entirely unexplored.  Valen hated the life his birth condemned him to - and he discovered the life he was meant to have.  What would life be like for a man of similar age and similar status who embraced the role he was born to?  Who had a family that appreciated his talents and loved him dearly.  That man is Lucian de Remeni-Masson, a very wealthy, privileged sorcerer, born not with one, but two strong magical talents - most unusual, as it happens - and who believes that his magic is a divine gift.  Lucian embraces the strict life that Valen abhorred.   And then, of course, because he is my hero...

  ...everything goes wrong.

That is the story begun in Dust and Light (Roc Books, August 2014). More next time on the peculiar difficulties of going back - not only to the world but to a parallel timeframe, so that the civil war, the environmental collapse, and the rampaging Harrowers that were so much fun in the first series, could set up problems for Lucian as well.  Just very different problems. Read more of this post!

Here is a snip from this morning's news:

John Barrymore - 1922

All in the family: Former President Jimmy Carter’s grandson, Jason Carter (D), is going to run for Georgia governor next year, and so he might be on a Democratic ticket that also has former Sen. Sam Nunn (D-GA)’s daughter on it -- Michelle Nunn, who’s running for the Senate. Indeed, here’s a reminder of all the other famous names and relatives who are going to be running in 2014 or who are up for re-election:
-- Liz Cheney (daughter of former Vice President Dick Cheney)
-- George P. Bush (son of former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush)
-- Gwen Graham (daughter of former Sen. Bob Graham, D-FL).
-- Shelley Moore Capito (daughter of former WV Gov. Arch Moore).
-- Mark Begich (son of the late Rep. Nick Begich, D-AK)
-- Mary Landrieu (daughter of former New Orleans Mayor Moon Landrieu and brother to current Mayor Mitch Landrieu
-- Mark Pryor (son of former Arkansas Gov. and Sen. David Pryor).
-- Andrew Cuomo (son of former New York Gov. Mario Cuomo)
-- Jerry Brown (son of former California Gov. Pat Brown)

Why do I mention this?  Because news stories like this prompted my creation of the purebloods strict familial relationships in the Lighthouse Duet - Flesh and Spirit and Breath and Bone - and that I'm now working with in the Sanctuary Duet - Dust and Light (August 2014) and Ash and Silver.

I had noticed how often in our times professions run in families, whether in the arts (the Barrymores from John and Ethel and Lionel to Drew, the Sheens, Nat King Cole and Nora Jones) or in auto racing (the Unsers, the Pettys, the Earnhardts), in banking, philanthropy, etc.  and then I made the great step that fantasy and science fiction writers always take...

I asked What If...? 

What if magic could be inherited?  And what if a young man or woman could only pursue the talent inherited from the mother's bloodline or the father's?  How might those things be reflected in a society?  And what happens when things aren't quite...normal...

The Lighthouse books deal with a young man who despises the whole way of life.
 
The Sanctuary books will deal with a young man who...   Well that's the story, isn't it?
Read more of this post!

The Next Big Thing

You may have seen other authors posting this meme. I was tagged by my new excellent friend, the lovely Leigh Evans, and I thought it would be fun. Answer some questions; tag some of my author friends to do the same. Here goes!

What is the working title of your next book?
Dust and Light, the first book of the Sanctuary Duet.

Where did the idea come from for the book?
Unfinished business! My novels Flesh and Spirit and Breath and Bone took place in a deliciously complex world. A civil war raged in a kingdom suffering a disastrous decline in the weather. Magic was confined to a group of wealthy families - known as purebloods - who provided their services to cities, nobles, clergy, or whomever else could afford to pay for them. To nurture and preserve their magic, purebloods kept themselves detached from ordinary society and politics.  They created a mannered, disciplined subculture, linking themselves to their clients by strict contracts.

It had been great fun to develop and structure the pureblood culture – but as it happened the hero of Flesh and Spirit had spent his life running away from his pureblood family. In fact he called the life of a pureblood sorcerer “slavery with golden chains.” But his jaundiced viewpoint  left many aspects of pureblood life unexplored. When I started considering what project I wanted to work on when I finished The Daemon Prism and the Collegia Magica series, I wondered if there might have been someone else interesting raised in the pureblood social structure—someone who embraced and believed in it—and that’s when I met Lucian de Remeni-Masson.

Unlike most pureblood sorcerers, who inherited the talents of either the mother’s bloodline or the father’s, Lucian demonstrated gifts in both his mother’s artistic line and his father’s bloodline magic of history. That’s when the story took off.

What genre does your book fall under?
Mythic fantasy with a strong mystery element.  Or something like that.

What actors would you choose to play the part of your characters in a movie rendition?
Oh, I never do this – or if I do, I don’t tell. I’ve found that my readers have such widely varying images of my characters, so I don’t like to skew them too much. The lesson came clear when I had readers casting Seyonne, the hero of Transformation, with everyone from a young Daniel Day Lewis to Orlando Bloom! Suffice it to say that Lucian is a lean, good-looking young man of twenty six with typical pureblood features: dark, straight hair, aquiline nose, and dusky skin.

What is the one-sentence synopsis of your book?
Maybe I can distill it into three. Lucian de Remeni, pureblood sorcerer with a bent for portraiture, has grown up in wealth, privilege, self-discipline, and the conviction that his beloved family’s magical talents are the gods’ gift to a troubled kingdom. But a family tragedy begins a spiraling downfall that sweeps the young sorcerer into a life he had never imagined. Banished to the crude society of a bustling necropolis, Lucian’s task of becomes the key in two murder investigations which threaten to upend the war for Navronne’s crown and unravel the very foundations of pureblood life.

---

Before I go on, I want to tag those who are next up on this branch of The Next Big Thing.

Diana Pharaoh Francis is the author of two fantasy series – the Path series and the Crosspointe Chronicles – and the fabulous Horngate Witches urban fantasy series.  I’m jealous when I report that not only does she write exciting adventures, but she is also a professor of English at the University of Montana, rider of horses, wife, mom, and exceptionally fun person to hang out with at a science fiction convention.  You have never met a professor like Di!

Cindi Myers has authored more than forty novels, spanning romance, historical, western, and women’s fiction.  Her work is consistently excellent, and she is the most focused and productive writer I know.  I go hang out with her on mountain retreats just hoping to absorb some of her professionalism.  Again, it just isn’t fair that she’s gorgeous, generous, and a great teacher.

Mindy Klasky is the author of fantasy, urban fantasy, paranormal chick-lit novels, and under her alter ego, Morgan Keyes, a fabulous new YA fantasy called Darkbeast.  A reformed lawyer and law librarian, Mindy sat alongside me on our first ever convention panel – My First Novel at the 2000 Chicago WorldCon.  Our first books had come out one month apart, from the same publisher, and as women of other professions, we bonded immediately.  Now with twenty-eight novels between us, I guess our panel was a success - our friendship certainly is!

Compared to these three, Linda Joffe Hull is just a newbie.  But her first novel, The Big Bang will likely leave all of us genre writers in the dust. Library Journal describes it as "a fun, sexy suburban soap opera with a touch of mystery." I’ve known this book since it was a baby, and believe me it is like nothing else out there.  Neither is Linda, who is also fun, smart, and sexy!

 

---

And now back to the NBT questions:  

Will your book be self-published or represented by an agency?
I've worked with agent Lucienne Diver of the Knight Agency from my first sale thirteen years ago. Dust and Light will be published in 2014 by New American Library/Roc Books.

How long did it take you to write the first draft of the manuscript?
Knowing how unlikely it is that I'll reach the end of the story before my deadline of June 2013, it will have taken me a year and a half. I would love to think I could be a third of the way into the second (as yet untitled) volume of the duology by that time, but I'm not placing any bets.

What other books would you compare this story to within your genre? My books have been compared to those of Robin Hobb, Guy Gavriel Kay, Mary Stewart, and Lynn Flewelling.

Who or what inspired you to write this book?
My favorite authors of my favorite kinds of stories - murder mysteries, historical political intrigues, and world myths. The heart of Dust and Light is the interweaving of two mysteries - the strangling death of a young street urchin in the royal city and the savage massacre of a wealthy family by rampaging fanatics. The resolution of these mysteries leads my hero to dangerous discoveries about the fundamental nature of pureblood magic in Navronne.

What else about the book might pique the reader's interest? These books are not a sequel, but a parallel story to Flesh and Spirit and Breath and Bone, involving entirely new characters. (Dust and Light actually begins a bit more than a year earlier than Valen's story.) One will be able to read either pair first. But for those who've already read the Lighthouse books, there will be some "Easter eggs" – references to some old friends and places. I think that will be fun. Read more of this post!

Autumn in Review - September

Time to wake up this blog! I just sat up and realized it's Thanksgiving - well no, that's already passed. I think I'll start with a quick review of what's been happening this year. Out of order and higgledy-piggledy, but here goes. Let's start with September...

On one weekend,  I took a Sunday hike with kids up to Lake Isabelle in the Brainard Lake Recreation Area.  Our terrible drought here in Colorado was made visible when we arrived at the lake.  Not fire damage, thank goodness, but just dry.  Most of the lake just wasn’t there.  Here’s what we saw on a glorious autumn day.  Note the barren strip around the current water line -a beach where there shouldn't be one.   Here’s a view of the same lake in a greener year.  We did have a good time stomping on the wooden bridges along our hike to make sure no trolls came up to grab us.  None did.  Whew!

 


The Colorado Gold Writers Conference, sponsored by the Rocky Mountain Fiction Writers is always a September highlight. The workshops are great, but I find myself sitting for a great deal of the conference hours in the large, open, and most welcoming bar/lobby of the Denver Renaissance hotel. It’s a great time and place to catch up with writer-friends from all over the region, as well as meet new ones. I gave a morning Master class on characterization, as well as a workshop on writing first person. I also did an hour's discussion with authors Warren Hammond and Mackay Wood on violence in fiction – why an author may choose to use it, and what we considered our own boundaries and favorite techniques for writing violent scenes. I also had to give a kick-off speech, seeing as how the members of RMFW had voted me in as their 2012 Writer of the Year. It is a great honor, and I was treated royally.

What I Was Working On: workshops for Colorado Gold, proof pages for The Daemon Prism mass market, the New Boo, the Obama campaign

What We Were Watching: Merlin, Mad Men, Bronco football

More about the New Book soon.  Watch for The Next Big Thing. Read more of this post!

WorldCon!

This year's World Science Fiction Convention is at the Hyatt Regency in downtown Chicago over Labor Day weekend - Thursday, August 30 through Monday September 3. It's always fun to visit this vibrant city (especially since I have kids in the area.

But WorldCon itself is amazing. Five days of non-stop programming, sometimes 25 things going on at once. There are panels on every conceivable fantasy/sf-related topic - writing, art, "the literature", film and TV, comics, and so on - as well as actual gaming from Risk or Magic, the Gathering to the latest RPGs, music, dancing, costuming and the ultimate Masquerade, an art show and art auction, the Hugo Awards, book dealers and other vendors selling art, jewelry, costumes, and everything else. Guest writers like me, editors, agents, reviewers, and artists staff the panels, hoping to get face to face with readers. I've got a busy schedule this year.

Here's the list...

• Thursday, Aug 30, 4:30pm: Autographing 
• Friday, Aug 31, 12 noon: panel on Writing Beyond the First Two Pages 
• Friday, Aug 31, 3pm: BroadUniverse Rapidfire Reading - 17 readers in an hour and a half - FUN! Saturday, Sept 1, 10:30am: panel on Writing Vivid Characters 
• Saturday, Sept 1, 3pm: ANOTHER panel on Writing Vivid Characters(Don't ask me! But I like the topic.) 
• Sunday, Sept 2, 9:30am: Reading - PLEASE COME! Depending on the audience, I might be prevailed upon to read from the new book... 
• Sunday, Sept 2, 10:30am: Kaffeeflatsch - Sign up on the list and come - we can talk about anything you like!
I've some prep to do. Four-minute reading for BroadUniverse, full reading for Sunday. Considering topics for the Character panel that I am supposed to moderate and thoughtful comments for the others. All good things. Hope to see lots of you there.

Read more of this post!

Writing DIfferences

Somewhere, someone once said, Write what you know. I hate that phrase. For many years, I took that to mean Write things that you’ve personally experienced. No one wanted to read about my life – teacher, software engineer, student, wife, mom. Quite ordinary and boring to those looking for adventure. I kept reading.

Jump ahead a few decades. I’d read a few thousand books by now and internalized that not every author had experienced everything in his or her stories, not when someone could make me believe hobbits existed, or that this world was only a shadow of an idealized place called Amber. These writers were fiction writers. It was their job to make me believe in the reality – and yes, the underlying truth of their story. When I took up fiction writing as a hobby, I wasn’t sure I could instill that same sense of belief in other people. But the more I worked at it, the more I learned that I could - by thinking hard, by working hard to know what I was talking about, by considering what it might be like to live in a culture or situation or a profession far from my own experience.

Yet I still heard people saying don’t. Don’t try to write people of a different gender. I got past this one, too. I was not only writing from the point of view of two characters who were warriors, but they both happened to be men. I had certainly observed plenty of men! I thought hard about how their feelings or reactions might be their own, not mine. I worked hard to make their voices, concerns, and behavior right for their characters and the story. And male readers told me I did just fine.

And then I wrote from the point of view of a ten-year-old boy (later sixteen-year-old) and that worked, as well. (It helped that I lived in a house with one - male - spouse and three sons!)

Still, of course, there were other nay-saying voices out there in the aether: Don’t try to write people of a different color or sexual orientation or a disability you don’t live with. How could you possibly know? How could you possibly understand? How could you possibly get it right when you are an American, heterosexual woman of Irish heritage who grew up in the southwest US in the 20th century without anything one would label a disability (except maybe painful shyness)?

But I decided that if I could write men convincingly, and if I could write two very different warriors convincingly when I had no combat training or experience, then I ought to be able to write these things too. I am fiction writer, and I use knowledge, imagination, logic, and reason to make my characters’ behavior and experiences true to the human experience as it exists in the fictional worlds I create, and close enough to the human experience in this world that my readers find them believable and identifiable.

But when the tides of the storyline in one of my series swept my brooding, violent sorcerer hero into blindness, I did feel trepidation. This was new territory. I very, very much wanted to get it right, to avoid TV/film/fictional cliches, to avoid any hint of paternalism or pandering or any other thing that might ruin the story for any reader. And yet I didn’t hesitate. It was the right thing for the story, which was about all about seeing – seeing the truth of magic in a world where it was dying, seeing the truth of a wicked conspiracy, seeing the truth of oneself and of those you could not believe might find you worthy of love or compassion. It was only fitting that this man face the loss of the thing that he valued above all things – the sight that enabled him to work the most complex forms of magic. So how was I going to do this right?

Part of my challenge was physical – how does a man cope with blindness in a society comparable to the early 17th century? Part was emotional – how does a man of a passionate, volatile nature react to an abrupt change that he can only view as devastating? Note that this is his view, not my own—a critical distinction when dealing with such topics. My aim was not to preach about how loss of sight is not a “disability” but just another way of dealing with the world, but to relate this man’s feelings about and reactions to what had happened to him. And part of my challenge was authorial – how do I communicate a vivid sense of a world without using visual images?

So how did I approach it?
 

First: Research
The internet is our friend. I read medical information about the mechanisms of sight and its loss. More importantly, I found forums and blogs by the newly blind giving personal perspectives – emotional, physical, and how those affected day-to-day life. It didn’t matter that it was 21st century information. I was accustomed to translating human experiences to a less techno-savy century.

Second: Write
I never research too much before I begin writing. Knowing how the story unfolds tells me what I need to focus on in research. As I wrote, I considered every word, phrase, scene, and situation from this perspective.

Third: Network
I was fortunate to know a fellow writer who has been losing her sight for many years. I asked if she would read my early chapters and give me her opinion, as I was trying to get it right. She was pleased to be asked. Not only did she give me a few pointers, but gave me a most invaluable reference – a man who had lost his sight profoundly and abruptly at very near the same age as my sorcerer. He was delighted to help and, as it happened, had done so for other writers. Not only did he vet my chapters (and say I’d done a decent job!!) but answered my every question and offered me some wholly unexpected insights. I wish I could have used everything he gave me! But, as always, one can’t burden the story with all the delicious research.

Hard thinking. First-hand information. Respect. Focusing on the story. I think these things got me through. The result is found in my novel, The Daemon Prism, the third (and final) novel of the Collegia Magica.


I wrote this originally for a series on Bookworm Blues. Check it out. Read more of this post!