Those of you who are following me on this new-fangled (ok, ok, for me, not the wider ‘verse!) Twitter thing should already have picked up that the Christmas-New Year holiday is now over and I’m back to work. So far, I’m not matching Rachel Aaron’s 10,000-12,000 words per day (you can read all about how she does it, here) or Brandon Sanderson’s 10 hours a day (as discussed in our blog interview late last year here) but I am slowly getting into the groove—and I do have a writing goal for the year.

Basically, it’s this: I would like to try and complete Daughter of Blood, The Wall of Night Book Three, by 31 July of this year–without compromising on the quality of the work.

The only book I’ve managed in this kind of timeframe before is Thornspell and it is around 1/3 the proposed size of Daughter of Blood. So I am definitely setting myself a challenge with this. On the other hand, I found myself getting really good momentum both last year and in the final quarter of 2010 with The Gathering of the Lost—and as my personal view is that Gathering is the best book I have written yet (how’s that for nailing one’s authorial colours to the mast?) I don’t believe quality necessarily has to suffer as a result of commitment to improving one’s time/output ratio.

So what do I think I need to do/set in place to achieve this goal:

• I shall definitely need dedicated writing space and time without distractions (ie internet disconnected, phone off hook, door ‘locked’)—needless to say, I am hoping the creative writing residency at the university for the same time period will really help with this;
• I need to treat every month until the job is done as NaNoWriMo—aiming for that 50,000 word count, or better. If I can get to Rachel Aaron’s approximately 200,000 in a month, well that would be awesome—but I’ll start with the NaNoWriMo 50,000 as my goal and work from there.

I think those are the basics but I’ll certainly let you know if other absolute “must do’s” arise as I go.

And as well as the daily tweets on what I’m doing writing-wise, I’ll also be doing more in-depth weekly updates here on the blog.

So, let the games begin …

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Oh, why am I doing it? Well, partly just to see if I can do it. Secondly because I would like to experiment with writing more, and more efficiently. Finally—and possibly most importantly—I feel that having embarked on a series that is effectively one story told in four parts, I have an obligation to get the books to readers in as timely a fashion as I can manage. Earthquakes and related factors have thrown quite a few spanners into The Gathering of the Lost works, so I want to see if I can do some catching up as well. But it will never be at the expense of the story—that, I feel, having entered the service of the Muses, must always be a ‘not for trading off’ item.

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And do you like ‘all the pretty book covers’—I’m so excited that they’re all milestones for 2012 too! 🙂

Since I accidentally posted my intended Tuesday Poem, The Curve of the World here, on Monday (what was I thinking?) it will not now be my final “The Best of ‘…on Anything Really'” post after all. That will be today’s post, which you may think of as “Helen’s Tuesday poem effort reprised!” 😀

So here it is, the Tuesday Poem reprised, and also the last of “The Best of ‘…on Anything Really'” —  from the hill, first featured on June 7 last year, on the anniversary of my joining the Tuesday Poem community:

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from the hill

boats turn
at their moorings,
facing into the wind:

I can see every
shift in the weather
from up here,
she says, standing
at my shoulder —
the boats better
than any
weathervane…

we take our tea
out, onto a deck
made of timber
from old hulks
dredged out
of harbour mud,
she speaks
of the home to
which she does
not return, of the
much younger man
who will not let
her go — nor she him —
turns again to watch
the boats, talks
of a change
in the wind.

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(c) Helen Lowe

first published in Takahe 62, 2007

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To enjoy more Tuesday Poems, visit the Tuesday Poem Hub today—either click here or on the Quill icon in the sidebar.

It’s official—the UK mass market release of The Heir of Night (Orbit) will be 19 January, a little closer than even I had realised.

I am very excited about it though, not least because the mass market edition is coming out with a new cover. Those of you who checked out the Orbit blog post on the Ursula Bethell residency, here, will have gotten a sneak preview—but today’s feature is the official launch here on the blog. Right here. Now. At once. Today! 😉

And I have to say that I do really like this cover: I always liked the authentic ‘historical’ feel given by Malian’s armour (with the red cover), but now the arch really adds to that—as well as to the ‘bastion’ sense of the Shield-Wall of Night, while the fire and storm in the background speak straight to the darkness and danger of the story.

And although you can’t see it here, the back cover will feature a new quote—from a  review that I hadn’t caught up on before, from TheBookBag.co.uk:

“Dark and magical … The Heir of Night is a grand entrance”

Now I can’t wait to hold the book in my hand—because when all’s said and done, that’s the thing that gives a tangible sense of accomplishment. (And I have, after all, read the story before! 😉 )

In the final of my “The Best of  ‘… on Anything, Really’ 2011” round up, I am featuring my National Poetry Day selection from Friday 22 July, last year  as my Tuesday Poem feature today:

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.“Last year, I posted “Ti” for National Poetry Day, and this year I have chosen another poem that I feel has a distinctively New Zealand flavour in terms of landscape/seascape—I hope you enjoy.

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The Curve of the World

Summer breathes
through marram grass, salt-tough
where the southerly whips in
off the Pacific, light &
shadow all the way out
to the distant smudge
of albatross feeding—at night
you see lights dance,
squid boats fishing
the same spot.
The larger ships, too,
follow the albatross road,
tall towers disappearing
beneath the curve
of the world …

The wind sweeps in, recounts
tales of ships, albatross,
men with eyes bleached
to seams … tells
it all to the salt grass
and driftwood piled
into a beach fire—

smoke wavers upward
in a thin stream, dissipates
into the gulf
of sky.
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(c) Helen Lowe

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Published in JAAM 27: Wanderings, ed. Ingrid Horrocks,  2009

On December 18 I mentioned that I had begun reading “The Lieutenant”, and what I had to say then included the following:

“The Lieutenant is historical fiction and based on the true story of William Dawes, a soldier, astronomer, mathematician and linguist who was part of the First Fleet expedition to settle Australia, and founded the first astronomical observatory as part of the Sydney settlement. And according to the Author’s Note at the rear of the book: ‘The record he left of the language of the indigenous people of the Sydney area is the most extensive we have.’

Getting round to reading The Lieutenant has taken some time, and so far I am only in the early chapters. But I am enjoying them immensely, partly because the character of Daniel Rooke, based on Dawes, is so interesting, and partly because Grenville’s writing is such a joy to read—clear compelling prose, beautifully expressed, with wonderful characterization. I am a little wary of how the story will develop, not because of any doubts about Kate Grenville’s writing or storytelling, but because I know that the history of interaction between the British settlers and the indigenous Aboriginals was generally tragic (mainly for the Aboriginals.)  But based on my experience with The Idea of Perfection and what I have read so far, I am pretty certain that I’m going to continue enjoying the book.”

I finished The Lieutenant over the holiday break and so can now confirm that I absolutely continued enjoying the book, for all the reasons given above, but mostly I believe for the finely drawn character portrait of Daniel Rooke and his ‘first contact’ interaction with the Cadigal people—and the choices we must all sometimes face between what would be easiest and most convenient for ourselves and what we know to be right.

I recommend The Lieutenant unreservedly, particularly to those who enjoy character-driven historical fiction.

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And by the way, I now have an author page on Good Reads so I will be adding my ‘What I’m Reading’ (WIM) text to the books I list there from now on. (I may get around to adding some WIM text retrospectively as well, but that will be as time allows.)

As I tweeted on Thursday, I received a parcel from Bloodaxe Books (UK) that I suspected contained poetry—and on opening it I was proven right.

The books are Here Bullet and Phantom Noise, both by US poet, Brian Turner. I first heard of Brian when I was driving to one of the Autumn Poetry Readings of the Canterbury Poets’ Collective in 2009 and tuned into a public radio documentary on contemporary war poetry. Brian Turner was one of the featured poets and I heard his poem AB Negative (The Surgeon’s Poem) for the first time. Well, I loved that poem and I wanted to read more of Brian’s poetry, so I think finally having both of his collections on my ‘To Be Read’ table is a good step along the way!

The fact that Brian is published in the UK by the  prestigious Bloodaxe Books probably gives you an idea of how his poetry has been received internationally, but here’s a bit more information for you from his author page:

“Brian Turner served for seven years in the US Army. He was an infantry team leader for a year in Iraq from November 2003 with the 3rd Stryker Brigade Combat Team, 2nd Infantry Division. In 1999-2000 he was deployed to Bosnia-Herzegovina with the 10th Mountain Division. Born in 1967, he received an MFA from the University of Oregon and lived abroad in South Korea for a year before joining the army.

His poetry was included in the Voices in Wartime Anthology published in conjunction with a feature-length documentary film. His collection Here, Bullet (Bloodaxe Books, 2007) was first published in the US by Alice James Books in 2005, where it has earned Turner nine major literary awards, including a 2006 Lannan Literary Fellowship and a 2007 NEA Literature Fellowship in Poetry. In 2009 he was given an Amy Lowell Traveling Fellowship. His second collection, Phantom Noise is published by Alice James Books in the US and by Bloodaxe Books in the UK in 2010.  It was shortlisted for the 2010 T S Eliot Prize.”

And now to the back covers of the books.

Regarding Here, Bullet the back cover reads:

“Here, Bullet is a harrowing, first-hand account of the Iraq War by a soldier-poet. Iraq war veteran Brian Turner writes powerful poetry of witness, exceptional for its beauty, honesty and skill. Like Keith Douglas’s poems from the North African desert in the Second World War, Turner’s testament from the present war in Iraq offers unflinchingly accurate description but no moral judgement, leaving the reader to draw any conclusions.”

(You can read more from the back cover, including review quotes, here.)

And again from the back cover, it would appear that Phantom Noise is very much a progression of that first collection:

“Brian Turner’s first book of poems, Here, Bullet, was a harrowing, first-hand account of the Iraq War by a soldier-poet. In Phantom Noise he pumps up the volume as he faces and tries to deal with the traumatic aftermath of war. Flashbacks explode the daily hell of Baghdad into the streets and malls of peaceful California, at the same time sending Turner’s imagination reeling back to Iraq.”

(You can read more from the back cover, including review quotes, here.)

Needless to say, given what I have read of Turner’s poetry so far, I am very much looking forward to reading both collections. I also hope to feature some of his work as Tuesday Poems.

Yup, I’ve done it—I’m now on Twitter! And yes again, it’s a bit of a big step given that my writing commitments are heavy and anything that has the potential to eat into writing time is quite scary.

But then again, when you live at the bottom of the world, not quite as far away from anywhere else as it’s possible to get but close to it, the internet and social media like Twitter are an important way to interact with both readers and other writers. In a way, going on Twitter is probably the writer’s equivalent of frequenting an 18th century coffee house …

Mind you, I can already see that the Twitterverse is a wild wild world with a huge amount going on (Paul Weimar from SF Signal called it a ‘river’ and he’s not wrong!) But wild and chaotic can be fun, too—so I do hope that those of you who are on Twitter will consider following me on what feels as much like embarking on a whitewater rafting adventure as strolling into a coffee house!

You will see the “Follow Me @helenl0we” link on the right side bar, just below the Tuesday Poem icon. 🙂

(The ‘0’ is a zero by the way, so don’t be fooled …)

Interviews with authors have definitely been one of the highlights of my blogging year, which is why I have featured two in my ‘The Best of’ post series already—and my interview with Brandon Sanderson was no exception to the trend, which is why I am bringing it to you again today.

So in the spirit of the new year: enjoy!

“Introduction:

Brandon Sanderson has been one of the exciting new names in Fantasy fiction over the past eight years—commencing with the successful publication of Elantris in 2005, being asked to complete Robert Jordan’s epic Wheel of Time series in 2007, and most recently winning this year’s Gemmell “Legend” Award for The Way of Kings. So when Ruby Mitchell of Hachette mentioned the possibility of an interview I was delighted to have the opportunity—and am equally delighted to welcome Brandon today.

Hachette have also provided two copies of The Alloy of Law for giveaway—details are provided below the interview.

The Interview:

Helen: Brandon, to leap right in, you’ve written a considerable body of Fantasy, with standalones such as Elantris and Warbreaker, the Mistborn trilogy, The Way of Kings (Book One of The Stormlight Archive) and most recently The Alloy of Law—as well as being asked to complete Robert Jordan’s long-running Wheel of Time series. Although almost all these works are in the epic/high quadrant of the fantasy compass, there is also considerable diversity in the stories—and all are well regarded. So what, for you, is the “core” to writing compelling fantasy?

Brandon: That is a really hard question to answer. Do you emphasize with the fantasy, or not? A really great story is going to be about awesome characters that you fall in love with. Beyond that, it’s going to need a really great plot. You can’t separate these things from writing a great fantasy, because while I think the worldbuilding needs to be really cool, if you have terrible characters and plot, it doesn’t matter how good your worldbuilding is—you’re not going to have a good story.

That said, the core of writing great fantasy as opposed to other fiction, assuming that you’re already doing the plot and the character right, is to get down to that idea of the sense of wonder. What is wonderful about this place that would make people want to live there, or be fascinated by it? What’s going to draw the imagination?

Fantasy is writing books that could not take place in our universe. For me, that’s the dividing line. In science fiction there’s the speculation: “This could take place here,” or “This may be extrapolating science beyond what we know, but it could work.” In fantasy we say, “No, this couldn’t work in our ruleset, our laws of the universe.” Really focusing on it is what makes the genre tick. So you have to do that well.

Helen: What drew you to write Fantasy as opposed to any other style of fiction? What about the genre “rocks your world?”

Brandon: I became a fantasy writer because of the great fantasy books I read. Other books didn’t do it for me. As a young reader (I didn’t really like to read), the first powerful fantasy book I read—Dragonsbane by Barbara Hambly—drew me in, captivated me, and took me to this place that could not be but that I wished could be. Nothing else excited me on that level, so that’s why I write fantasy.

Helen: Dragonsbane is a longstanding favourite of mine as well. And I recall first reading  The Eye of the World, the opening novel in Robert Jordan’s Wheel of Time series, at about the same time.  Being asked to complete such a famous series following Robert Jordan’s death was a great honour and compliment to your own writing. But did it also feel like a tremendous responsibility?

Brandon: It’s been a very humbling experience and a great honor. But it’s certainly a tremendous responsibility. When I was considering taking on the project, I thought, “Wow, if I screw this up, I’m in serious trouble. People will find me and burn my house down. Wheel of Time fans are hardcore.” I struggled with this, and it almost caused me to say no. One writer I know mentioned, or posted somewhere, regarding this: “This is a thankless job. Anything that Sanderson gets right will be attributed to Robert Jordan, and anything he gets wrong will condemn him.”

In the end, I felt I could do a good job on this, and that it could be a sendoff I could give one of my favorite authors, someone who deeply influenced me as a writer. And I felt that if I passed on it, someone else would be found and would get to do it. The question that it came down to for me was, “Knowing that someone who is not Robert Jordan is going to do this, can you really pass and let anyone other than you do it?” And the answer was that I couldn’t let someone else do it. I had to do it. So I said yes.

Helen:  As well as the Wheel of Time novels, the first instalment of what you have called your own “grand epic”, The Way of Kings (Book One of The Stormlight Archive) was published in 2010 and this year won the Gemmell “Legend” Award for Best Fantasy Novel of the Year. Was there any particular significance for you in winning the award for The Way of Kings?

Brandon: Sure. First off, The Way of Kings is the book of my heart—the book I’ve been working on for years and years. For example, it has a character in it who originated in the very first novel I tried my hand at as a young teen. Finally having this book come out is extremely fulfilling, and having people enjoy it as much as they have is even more fulfilling.

Specifically with the Gemmell Award, I’d lost the award two years in a row—in fact I’d lost three times in those two years, since I had two books nominated one of the years. Finally winning was extremely gratifying and a really big honor. Plus the actual award itself is a battleaxe. That is the best award ever.

Helen: The Alloy of Law is newly out and returns to Scadrial, the world of your Mistborn trilogy, but rather than the medieval milieu of high fantasy, instead comprises a late 19th century world of steam trains and industry. This sounds like steampunk, but The Alloy of Law is also very much a “western” in feel, with a former gun-toting Roughs (Wild West) lawman, Wax, returning to the urban metropolis—yet still ending up fighting the bad guys with his wise-cracking buddy, Wayne. So was that fun to do, blending the genres? And what led you to explore that path with your Mistborn world?

Brandon: I’ve said that what I love about fantasy is that it can do anything any other genre can do, plus have that added sense of wonder. So I’ve wanted to explore different types of what fantasy can achieve. The steampunk movement is awesome for doing this. I don’t actually consider this book to be steampunk, because the Victorian feel and steam technology aren’t there, but it certainly is a cousin to what is happening in steampunk.

At its core, really what I’ve done is write a detective novel. A buddy detective novel set in an early 1900s industrial age equivalent, in a fantasy world where the epic fantasy that I wrote as a trilogy (Mistborn) has become the mythology for this new world. That concept excited me. What made me do it? The idea that I could, and that I hadn’t really seen it done before. That’s what fantasy is all about.

Helen: The Alloy of Law also deals with the influence of commerce and industry on events, an element I found in Daniel Abraham’s The Path of Dragons as well. Do you see this as a new trend, broadening the traditional fantasy scope—or is it something that has always been part of the mix?

Brandon: I think it’s always been part of the mix. Dune, which is one of those hybrid fantasy/science fiction books, is all about this, and is—I would say—the great example of this. It’s the foundation for a lot of modern science fiction and fantasy. A fantastic book, and it deals with the idea of how commerce affects a fantasy and science fiction world.

So I don’t think it’s a new trend, necessarily, but what is a new trend in fantasy is digging into nonstandard (for the genre) types of plots. Moving away from the quest narrative and focusing more on political intrigue, or focusing on the effects of different fantastical elements on a world and its economy. Basically, George R. R. Martin is going this way too, and he’s been doing this for 15 years so I can’t say that it’s a new trend. But it certainly is an exciting direction for the fantasy genre.

Helen: Magic systems are a strong part of both the Mistborn books, with their allomancy and feruchemy, but also of the Stormlight world, with its fabrials, shardblades and voidbinding. Do you spend a lot of time developing the magic system before you begin writing, or does it tend to evolve with the story?

Brandon: I spend a lot of hours ahead of time on my magic systems. I am a planner when it comes to worldbuilding. Of course, everything’s going to evolve as you work on a book—nothing can be planned out perfectly; there needs to be some freedom, some improvisation to really bring life to it. But I do plan things out a lot, specifically my magic systems. This is a big focus to me, partially because it’s become one of my big calling cards in the genre. It lets me add something different, my own take. Granted I’m not the only one who does interesting magic systems, but it has become one of the hallmarks of my writing, and so that’s fine with me because it’s something that I love to do.

Helen: Elantris and Warbreaker are both standalone novels, but the greater body of your work comprises series. Should this be interpreted as a preference for the series form or do you enjoy both equally?

Brandon: You can indeed interpret that as a bit of a preference. I grew up reading the big classic fantasy series like the Wheel of Time, and I don’t think you can do that as a writer like myself without developing a deep fondness and a desire to write your own. So I would say a slight preference, but some of my favorite books are standalones, like Tigana by Guy Gavriel Kay. I do think that the form of the standalone epic fantasy is a really cool one, and one that I want to experiment with more, and one that I like a lot. So while there’s a slight preference, I wouldn’t say that it’s a deep overriding preference. I do what feels right for me for any given story.

Helen: Well, in terms of doing what feels right, your creative output since Elantris was published in 2005 has been very high, including not only seven novels in your own right but also completing Robert Jordan’s Wheel of Time, with a two further books published in that series. So I have to ask: how do you do it? (And can I bottle the formula?!)

Brandon: One of the things that you have to remember is that I wrote Elantris back in 2000, so I have a much bigger head start than it looks like. I sold Elantris in 2003, and had all of 2003 up through a big part of 2006 to write the Mistborn trilogy before the first book of that came out. So what you’re seeing is my big head start that I had by having that book already done, then launching right into the trilogy.

I don’t think I write faster than any other fantasy writers, but I do write a lot. I love to do it; I spend a lot of time doing it, and it’s one of my favorite things to do, to tell these stories. So if you want to bottle it, all you really do is spend ten hours a day writing, and boom, you’ve got it.

But it does look more impressive than it really is, because I have those extra years. A lot of the years where I had two books come out, I had written one much earlier and the other I wrote the year before. My popularity has made my publishers start increasing the publication schedule of some of my books, so you get overlap—a book I wrote long before and then a book I’ve recently turned in come out at the same time, because when I turn in the new book they want to publish it as soon as I can. So that’s why this year, for instance, we only have one book—The Alloy of Law—and it’s a very short book. That’s because the publication schedule finally caught up to me.

Helen: Brandon, it’s still a very impressive achievement—and I’m very pleased that you’ve been able to make the time in such a busy writing and touring schedule for this interview. It’s been a great pleasure having you on the blog today and I look forward to reading the next instalments in both your Stormlight Archive and Mistborn series.

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About the Author:

Brandon Sanderson has published seven solo novels with Gollancz—Elantris, the Mistborn books, Warbreaker, and The Way of Kings—as well as four books in the middle-grade Alcatraz Versus the Evil Librarians series from Scholastic. He was chosen to complete Robert Jordan’s Wheel of Time series; 2009’s The Gathering Storm and 2010’s Towers of Midnight will be followed by the final book, A Memory of Light, in 2012. His newest Mistborn novel, The Alloy of Law, was released in November 2011. Currently living in Utah with his wife and children, Brandon teaches creative writing at Brigham Young University.”

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To read other recent interviews, click on the links immediately below:

• Daniel Abraham & The Dragon’s Path
• Mary Victoria & Oracle’s Fire
• Pip Ballantine & Tee Morris, Phoenix Rising: A Ministry of Peculiar Occurrences Novel

My apologies for the delay in posting this result—I know that it was meant to be yesterday!

But as I explained in the comments I decided to take a short break away from the recent renewal of Christchurch earthquake activity, which also ended being an internet holiday amidst the remote backcountry of a wonderfully hot dry Central Otago. (For those of you who don’t know it already, but have seen The Lord of the Rings films, just think the Westfold of Rohan in the early scenes of The Two Towers movie.)

Now, on to that result! Since I do have a few additional cover flats in hand, rather than going to a draw I have decided to simply give one to everyone who commented. How could I not when you all liked it so much! 🙂

So if I don’t already have your postal address, I’ll be sending you an email to obtain it shortly so that I can get your cover flat—signed of course!—into the mail. (Alternatively, you can contact me through contact[at]helenlowe[dot]info.)

I hope you’ve all had a positive start to your new year—& that 2012 will hold many more ‘goods’ for us all.

Indifferent Planet

Taking out the rubbish
in the dark pre-dawn,
the stars still crisp
in the frost-black
overhead, the plastic wheels
on the bins jolting
over the gullies and ridges
of the old creek bed
that was once our driveway
before — before February 22nd
when the earth god stretched
again in his sleep, or was it Loki,
writhing to avoid the serpents’ venom,
the earth also condemned
to writhe with him, while we,
like ninepins, were knocked about —
most to pick ourselves up again,
dust off, dig out,
but one hundred and eighty one
not so fortunate, fallen witness
to the random acts of violence
of an indifferent planet.
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© Helen Lowe, 2011
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This poem is dedicated to the memory of the 181 people who died in Christchurch’s February 22nd earthquake.

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This is also an earthquake poem—you can find the sequence to date under Categories: Earthquake Poems in the right hand sidebar.