Child of the Knight - Back Cover Teaser

Last post I showed you the new Child of the Knight front cover... here's the back cover teaser text.

It is supposed to get you to want to read the book. I hope it works!

Akinos is dead, and the Wasting ended. For a year and a half all is well in the world.

Then terror arrives in Landomere. Mercenary raiders capture the infant children Orlos and Enna. Orlos, the son of Maret, is the only living spiridus. Without him the Great Spirit of Landomere will perish. Enna, the daughter of Hadde and Morin, is a rival to the throne of the Kingdom of Salador. It is a claim Queen Ilana would like to see ended. 

Maret, captured with the children, struggles to keep them safe during the dangerous journey to Salador. Hadde will risk everything to save them.   

To the north, a weary Champion Nidon returns from war to find a paranoid Queen Ilana plotting against threats real and imagined. To her eyes, Nidon is the greatest threat of all. 

Far to the east, beyond the Dragon’s Gate, Cragor wields the Orb of Creation. And with every passing day, his mastery of the Orb grows and the date of the next great invasion draws closer.

Child of the Knight Cover Reveal

Here it is...

A big thanks to Ken Hendrix for another great cover. I love it!

Child of the Knight will be released on June 5th. I'll start shouting when it is available for pre-order.

Getting sooooo close!

Finished! (Final Edits)

That's a wrap! Finished my final edits on Child of the Knight during lunch today.

A HUGE thank you to Mike Shultz, Ann Emery and Jax Reeder. Mike served (once again) as my critique partner, while Ann and Jax pulled editorial duties. This process would have been impossible without their help. Well, not impossible, just disastrous. They stripped out redundancies, focused the story, and taught me many valuable lessons about writing.

Child of the Knight went to Mike as a 128,000 word, 45 chapter manuscript. It now weighs in at 119,000 words and 42 chapters. This is very close to Eternal Knight's 116,000 words.

What's left?

1) Format the manuscript and upload it to CreateSpace for binding and printing.
2) Order three proof copies and send them to my proofreaders.
3) Finish the back cover text while my proofreaders have my book. Send finished back cover material to my cover artist.
4) Make proofreading changes and formatting adjustments.
5) Add a dedication and acknowledgments.
6) Format the ebook.
7) PUBLISH!

When do I hit the publish button?

June 1st

Am I sure?

Sort of. If not June 1st, it will be very close to that date. 

New Eternal Knight Cover

With Child of the Knight soon to be released, I thought Eternal Knight should get a fresh cover. Soooo....

The new EK cover is designed to match the Child of the Knight cover. The circle is larger and moved down on the page, all of the writing is black (so it will show up better on websites), and the cover has a little less of a washed appearance.

I will soon reveal the Child of the Knight cover. Maybe in a week or so.

As far as CotK goes, I am 75% done my final edits. I expect to be finished in less than a week. After that it goes to proofreading.

I am hopeful for a May 15th release.

Book Review: The Fell Sword

The Fell Sword, by Miles Cameron, is the sequel to The Red Knight.

Miles Cameron is also the pseudonym of Christian Cameron, the prolific, and excellent, historical fiction author.

Characters: The Fell Sword has a very large cast of characters. First and foremost among them is the Red Knight himself. The mysterious Captain (he's simply called "Captain" by his soldiers) of a company of mercenaries, the Red Knight is both an accomplished magister (sorcerer) and a deadly knight. You spend a good bit of page time from the Red Knight's point of view, but The Fell Sword has a large cast and you do switch POV a lot. One interesting element of the novel is that the villains get their share of time as well, so the reader gets to see the plots and plans of both sides. To be honest, I did lose the thread of the story on some of the lesser characters. Personally, I found myself less interested in the Outwallers and the Jacks than in the story of the Albans and the Moreans. Despite the large cast, characters all have unique strengths and weaknesses and are distinct individuals.

World Building: The world building in The Red Knight and The Fell Sword is phenomenal. Imagine medieval Europe butted up against pre-colonial Canada. Alba, Galle, and Morea are reminiscent of England, France, and the Byzantine Empire. In "The Wild" we have Outwallers based on native North American civilizations. There are enough similarities with the historical locations that readers will be able to identify with cultural elements that lend a sense of familiarity to the reader. But the differences in history and characters (there are no actual historical personalities) give the world a unique feel. Cameron's magic system is also highly inventive, with magisters wielding power from within "memory palaces". Woe to anyone going into battle without their own magister. Magic in The Fell Knight is very powerful.

Writing/Mechanics: Cameron is an excellent writer. I've never read another fantasy (or historical fiction) author who can bring a world to life the way he can. Cameron does not shy from using historical terminology, or archaic language in his novels. But the way he does it is so seamless I am never caught out by it. Cameron is excellent at using context to bring out the meaning of obscure terms, and by using those terms, the world of the book is enriched.

Engagement/Willing suspension of disbelief: The Fell Knight is a long book, but it is engrossing. The multiple plots are intertwined in a way that lets the reader know that the series is building towards a titanic climax. No, you are not getting that climax in this book. There is more to come. But this book did have a satisfactory ended, that gave the novel a "complete" feel. While speaking of engagement, you will not find better medieval combat scenes (physical and magical) than in a Cameron novel.

Impact: An excellent novel. I read it every moment I could spare. I anxiously await the next book in the series. Luckily, Cameron is a prolific writer, and I won't have long to wait for the next Traitor Son novel.

Author Review - Quinn, Puttre, Howey

Every once in a while I review good books I've read. I thought I'd change the pace and review a few authors.

As an indie author I make an effort to read and support other indie authors. Unfortunately, it can sometimes be a daunting task. Anyone can publish a book these days. Sometimes the books are still in need of a little work before they are ready for prime time.

But things seem to be changing. Lately I've had a much easier time finding really good indie novels. Today I want to share a couple of these excellent authors with you.

Susan Kaye Quinn writes, well... I can't put her into a genre box. I think I first heard of her when I saw a link to her blog on the website of another blogger I follow. The first Quinn novel I read was Open Minds, a young adult sci-fi novel. I enjoyed the novel very much even though I wasn't in her target audience. I next read Delirium, an adult sci-fi novella that I thought was terrific. I have the rest of the series on my to-read list. Her latest book, Third Daughter, is a young adult steampunk novel set in an India-like setting. I haven't read much steampunk and really enjoyed it. I would highly recommend Open Minds and Third Daughter to fans of young adult novels. Delirium is definitely for the grown-ups.

Michael Puttre's novel Outre Mer is an excellent adult sci-fi (space opera). I learned of Puttre when he was recommended by my favorite traditionally published author, Christian Cameron. Outre Mer is an excellent combination of international diplomacy, intrigue, and war. The characters are deep and the world building (universe building) is top-notch. I am looking forward to the sequel.

Hugh Howey is akin to a prophet to the indie publishing community. His international best-seller, WOOL, was an absolutely engrossing dystopian sci-fi novel. If you haven't read WOOL yet, go out and get it. And if you are an indie author, his website is a must read.

Which reminds me... I also read Susan Kaye Quinn's Indie Author's Survival Guide. Another must read if you are interested in publishing your work.

Enjoy! You can't miss with any of them.

Child of the Knight Progress Report (Critique Stage)

Keeping with my blazing once a month blogging pace... a progress report.

I am currently in the critique stage of Child of the Knight. What does this mean?

A few weeks ago I finished the rough draft. This process including spell checking (I turned spell check off while writing) and my own revisions. Revisions mostly consisted of clearing up inconsistencies that developed over the course of writing.

Right now the book is in the hands of my friend Mike Shultz. Mike critiqued Eternal Knight and has been a sounding board throughout the writing process for Child of the Knight. Mike is a novelist and accomplished short story author. He is very good at the craft of writing. I think of myself as a good storyteller, but I struggle with the craft of writing. This is where I rely on good critique partners and editors.

The more I write, the more I learn. I learn from doing, I learn from reading, but most of all I learn from other talented writers like Mike. The first draft of Child of the Knight is much better than the first draft of Eternal Knight. And the first draft of Something Something Knight will be better yet.

Mike is currently critiquing chapter nineteen. I am following behind and should be on chapter twelve tonight. We are moving at similar paces and this critique stage should be completed in early February.

After that Child of the Knight will go to my three editors: Ann Emery, Kemp Brinson, and Jax Reeder. What's the difference between editing and critiquing? Critiquing involves a lot more discussion of plot and story, while editing is more about the writing. I'll still take story advice from my editors, but by the time it reaches them the story should be pretty stable. Ann was a critique partner for Eternal Knight, while Kemp was an editor. Both were hugely helpful. Jax is a new addition to my circle of writing friends.

Post editing we go to proofreading, formatting, and publication!

I love the critiquing and editing part of the process. I love bringing new people into the world I've created and seeing how they help me make it better. Some writers fly solo, but even if I could, I don't think I would want to.

FINISHED! (Revisions)

Just finished my revisions on Child of the Knight tonight. Wow, it feels good to write that.

What's next?

I send it off to my three critique partners to be put through the meat grinder. It is their job to make it into a better book by telling me everything I have done wrong. Time to put on my armor as getting a thorough critiquing can be a brutal process!

How long will it take? They have as much time as they want.

After that I re-write as necessary and send it off to the next round of readers. This is stage one editing where I don't ask for story advice, but I am looking for writing advice. This is where serious polishing goes on.

Another round of fixes and I send it off to some trusted proofreaders. Time to find mistake that have made it through the process.

And then to my copy editor for one last look before publication.

We are still two months (at least) from publication, but tonight was a big step on the path.

Progress Report

Hooray for snow days!

Amelia had a friend over and they spent the entire day outside playing in the snow. Which gave me loads of time to work on Child of the Knight. I finished revisions on almost four chapters today, bringing me up to chapter thirty. Ten to go.

Revisions means that I am making story corrections to make certain that all three story lines mesh with each other. So far, so good.

Challenges:

Names- wow, there are a lot of them. Minor characters mostly. When I wrote the manuscript I used XXX, YYY, ZZZ as a filler for people I didn't feel like naming at the time. There are a lot of people getting names right now. I have a spreadsheet to keep track of all of them.

The mercenaries are Idorians. No big deal, except in the first draft of the novel they were Saladorans. Now I have to change 90% of my "Saladorans" to "Idorians", but can't do it universally as there are still plenty of Saladorans in the novel. An added challenge is that Idorians don't speak Saladoran when they talk to each other. I've had to make up a new language for those times when they speak with each other.

She knows what? With three points of view, I have to keep track of which characters know what piece of information. Hadde doesn't know everything Maret knows.

How many arrows? Jeez, keeping track of inventory is a much bigger challenge in this book. I can't tell you why, but it is.

What's next?

Ten chapters of revisions. The pace is getting faster as I get to more recently written chapters.

40 chapters of spell check and grammar fixes. Whew... I turned off spell check when I wrote this one. I didn't want to be bogged down with little details. I thought by turning off spell check I would write faster. I think it worked. I can't wait to see what happens when I turn spell check back on.

Correcting grammar... not my strong suit. I'll do the best I can and hope I'm not too embarrassed by what my critique partners discover. 

Overall I am very pleased by my progress right now. I've blown every timeline I've put out there, so am loathe to try it again.

So I'll do it anyway....

Revisions finished: Soonish. Before the new year.
Get critique back from critique partners: When they get it done.
Second round of revisions: After that.


Best,

Matt

FINISHED! (the rough draft)

I officially released Eternal Knight on May 1st of 2011. Wow! It was great! What a wonderful feeling to send a book off into the world.

Of course I dreamed of a best seller, book deals, movie deals, the whole nine yards. Hey, I write fantasy, can you blame me? I have an imagination.

The rational part of my brain (there is one) told me that those things were not going to happen. And the rational part was right.

But many wonderful things did happen. Readers liked Eternal Knight. Not just friends and family, but strangers. It is an incredible moment when a complete stranger says that they liked something you created. It is even more amazing when they ask for more.

And this is where I made a mistake. I worked at promoting Eternal Knight instead of working on the second book. Why?

Part of me was looking for motivation in big sales numbers. I thought the demand for a sequel would drive me to the computer. I'll be completely honest... if Eternal Knight had flopped I probably would have stopped writing. I had invested so much time into Eternal Knight I could not imagine another such effort.

The sales didn't come. But good reviews did. And several of the early reviews were from book bloggers - people who read and critique a lot of books. And these were book bloggers who weren't afraid to give out bad reviews.

And then friends, family, and fans started asking when the next book was coming out. And my response was, "I'm working on it." When I really wasn't.

Unless you count thinking about the book as working on the book. And I was thinking about it. Because even though Eternal Knight works as a stand-alone book, it was never intended that way. There was more story to tell.

It wasn't until March 26th, 2012 (an eleven month break) that I got back to writing again. And since I work best with goals, I decided to set a goal of 1,000 words a day. It turned out to be overly ambitious, but I thought I would give it a go. I also decided to track my progress on a spreadsheet. Here are the results plotted on a graph:

The horizontal axis is the date. The vertical axis is the estimated number of days remaining to complete the novel. I used the formula (word count goal - current word count) / (average word count) to come up with the estimated days until completion. My original goal was for a 100,000 word novel. Let's say I was 50,000 words into my word count, and averaging 250 words per day. It would look like this (100,000 - 50,000) / 250 = 200 days until completion.

My original plan was to write 1,000 words per day and to finish a 100,000 word book in 100 days. It didn't quite work out that way. It took 578 days to write Child of the Knight!

Most of the writing was done in three bursts.

Phase One: March 26th - June 4th, 2012.  52,000 words. Why did I stop? Summer started. You would think summer would be a perfect time for a teacher to write. Maybe, but not for me. My wife works and during the summer I am home with Amelia. And summer is filled with evening swim meets, vacation time, and late evenings with the family. I work best on a steady schedule. Summer broke me from my schedule.

See that long rise on the graph? That is my average word count dying. I was averaging 758 words per day before that climb. 246 days later my average word count was a dismal 174. Given that pace the book would take an additional 410 days to finish.

Phase Two: February 6th - June 14th, 2013. 58, 000 words. February and March were huge, with constant writing and great progress. Average word count climbed and days until completion plummeted. April, May, and June were more sporadic, but progress was still made. And then summer hit again.

Phase Three: September 5th - October 22nd, 2013. 13,000 words. A new school year and a fresh start. I knew I was close and was driven to get the job done. Final word count: 123, 435. Average words per day, only 220. I can do better.

Eternal Knight took twenty-three years to write.
Child of the Knight took a year and a half.
Book Three will take even less. I know it will because I know what it takes now. Ideas are not the problem. Story is not the problem. Devotion, focus, drive... there is the problem. And those are problems I can beat.

What is next for Child of the Knight?

1) My revisions. I need to re-read the manuscript, proofread, make changes, and generally clean things up.
2) Give the manuscript to my (3) critique partners for comments and criticism. Make changes based on their evaluation.
3) Give the book (now I'll call it a book) to my (3) first round editors. Listen to their input and make corrections.
4) Give the book to my (3) proofreaders and hope they don't find too many issues.
5) Give the book to my (1) copy-editor. Please, please be a clean manuscript at this point!
6) Typeset and publish.

How long? I cannot imagine it taking less than three months. How long could it take? Five? And while much of the process is going on, I will get to work on book three.

In any case, writing the last word of my rough draft was a wonderful feeling. Can't wait to dig in and start my revisions!