I’ve had the best celebration day for the The Heir of Night going on sale, and I’d really like to thank you all for “making that so!”

I suggested, in the party invite, that people either post—and thank you so much for “knocking on my door” and doing just that :-)—or “tell me why books and/or fantasy rock your world”.

So although you can read all these wonderful ideas by reading through the comments, I thought I’d re-post some of them here, in “large and in lights”, just to underline again what a wonderful party it’s been. As well as those who did “simply post” in order to rejoice with me: how special is that?

Pretty durned special, I think: so here you all are: [Selected excerpts, anyway!]

“Ah Fantasy, some truths can only be spoken in metaphor, and some plots are just too fun to put down. Good fantasy has both, with amazing characters thrown in, what’s not to love?” — AJ Ponder

“Why do I love fantasy novels? Because they are filled with imaginative worlds, complicated characters, and intriguing conflicts.” — Violet

“Fantasy is one of my favourite genres because it takes you to new worlds and makes you encounter amazing things and creatures you can only dream of in real life.” — Sullivan McPig & Carien

” … thank you for creating new worlds” — Harvey Molloy

“Oh, fantasy. The best way of saying true things that are made up.” — Karen Healey

“F&SF – my favourite genre. No limits to the imagination…” — Anthony

“Fantasy has always attracted me and it is what I want my life to be.” — Giada M.

“It’s so thrilling to see all your years of hard work pay off… Looking forward to having the whole series in pride-of-place on my bookshelf! ” — Joffre Horlor

“I want you to plant that kiwi flag right in the heart of the US of A. … (Yeah, I know books don’t have passports… but just this once… for fun…)” — Mary Victoria

“Hooray!!! “— Jane Higgins

“Looking foward to toasting it together soon” –- Viki

“I loved HEIR from the moment I first read the manuscript a few years ago, and I am just so very thrilled to see it in print!” — Beth Miller

“It is such a wonderful story Looking forward to the next one.” — Sharon

“It’s always a pleasure to read good and fascinating fantasy books.” — Seregil of Rhiminee

“Congratulations on the book release!” — Sami Thomson

“Hey, fantastic news!” — Rose-Marie Lillian

“I love this idea of a blog party, and you don’t have to clean up afterward! “— Vanda Symon

“All the very best for your launch/es …” — Micah Timona Ferris

“Fab news – am very excited for you – will have bubbles in November … ” — Jayne Richardson

“Woohoo! Am I late? Sorry. *hands over a magnum-sized bottle of Diamond draught* Go EASY on that stuff, it’s a heady brew…” — Ciaran Fox

“I hope you get to do whatever is your favourite mode of celebration today and that the good news regarding Heir of the Night just keeps coming.” — Nicole Murphy

“Such a blast to see all the great reviews and know that “Heir” is out there doing it’s thing!” — Andrew

[That’s “my” Andrew; so glad he could make the party, however briefly, even on a ‘school day’! 🙂 ]

“… go you. I look forward to reading it. Loved Thornspell.” — Judith Stanley

“I have spread the news of the party on a prominent bird-related social networking tool, so I hope still more revellers (nice, well-behaved ones – not gatecrashers) will join in soon.” — Tim Jones

“I have my best frock and hat on, Helen — what a great party!” — Claire Beynon

“I loved the book and it now sits on the Staff Recommends shelf of the bookstore I where I work (a bit of New Zealand in the middle of the USA as someone put it)…” — Georgette

“A musical ting of champagne glasses to you, Helen!” — Alison Croggan

“A big warm heartfelt congratulations from me! I’m so excited about this book launch. Am tweeting about it now!” — Kim Falconer

Yes, it's you all this fuss is about!

Last Friday, I blogged (in part) about that proverbial  “journey of a thousand miles”—which may begin with opening your front door and walking out, or may commence when one half-begun manuscript is picked out of the pile and the resolution made to “finish it”. But although all such journeys may begin with that single, first step they are rarely—if ever—completed entirely alone.

In my case, and that of The Heir of Night, I feel very moved by the warmth all of you have shown in joining in my celebration today. What can I say, except a great big THANK YOU to you all!

So now, as the grande finale of our blog party, I hope you will now all raise your—ok, metaphorical! ;-)—glasses and drink with me to The Heir of Night now being officially on sale throughout the United States and Canada.

And, of course, Heir (with the red cover!) is also officially on-sale in Australia and New Zealand next week—7 October is the big day and I have something very special planned, so come back and visit again then! 🙂

In fact—you kow you can always drop by any time you like!

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And in addition to celebrating right here on my blog, I have a guest post on Out of this Eos—and you can check out my interview on RisingShadow here and reviews on FantasyLit.com, Bookloons and again on Risingshadow: just click on the links! Otherwise, kickback, comment, or send me a post to generally join in the fun!

And another blog inteview just posted on Fiction Kingdom: just click on the link to check it out! 🙂

Out of the blue

On a morning when I stare
at small things

like the curve of a spoon
or light on a white rimmed plate

you ring, breathless
with talk of wild pigs,

how they swept down
from the Aorere Hills

on a moonlit night
to ravage your garden –

the winter cabbages
pale roots upended

like ghostly masts.

Once our mother buried
broken china in the ground

blue willow    blue willow

now you pick shards from the mud
the lovers, you say, still wave

from the arching bridge.

© Frankie McMillan
from Dressing for the Cannibals (Sudden Valley Press) 2009

Re-published here with permission of the poet.

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Frankie McMillan completed an MA in Creative Writing (with Distinction) from Victoria University’s International Institute of Modern Letters (IIML).  Her first short story collection The Bag Lady’s Picnic (Shoal Bay Press, 2001) was described as “dazzling” by the NZ Listener and received widespread critical acclaim.  Dressing for the Cannibals is Frankie’s first poetry collection.

I have known Frankie, and her poetry, for a number of years and elements of her work that I particularly enjoy include her subversive humour, keen observation of the world, and acute but compassionate eye for the foibles of human nature. Out of the blue is a vignette that describes a small moment in time, but at the same time captures something much larger, the paradox of life’s impermanence and continuity caught in the same poem.  In this sense, it continues the theme of Bassho’s haiku, In the midst of the plain, and Ezra Pound’s short poem, In a Station of the Metro, featured over the past two weeks.

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To see the featured poem on the Tuesday Poem Blog—and link to other Tuesday Poets posting around NZ and the world—either click here or on the Quill icon in the sidebar.

Giveaway Result:

I apologise for the delay in posting this result, but today is On Sale day for Heir in the USA and things are frantic—frantic, I tell you! (But fun!)

So the signed samplers go to everyone who posted:

Janicu
Mette
Wen
Mary
Zac

And the Sorting Hat, deployed as always in the interests of random impartiality, did spend some time muttering Hufflepuff, Ravensclaw, Gryffindor, before declaring that the winner of the signed Heir ARE is:

Mette!

Congratulations, Mette—thank you for commenting.

If you email me through contact@helenlowe.info with a postal adress (assuming I do not already have it), I will get samplers and ARE in the mail.

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Only two days to go now …

Arrived today!

And early this morning a courier van turned up in my drive (why do they always come with the dawn chorus?)  “Are you Helen?” the courier asked, and I confimed that indeed, Helen I was—and am—so he handed over the small, awkwardly shaped parcel with the New York sender’s address. Of course, I checked out the shape with my hands (as you do!) and guessed “books”—and books, once I cut the packaging open, it was.

Two early copies of the US edition of Heir (that’s the blue cover, guys, just in case you were in any doubt) with “more to come”—but this way I will have a copy in hand, and a spare, for the big day, which is the 28th. It looks just wonderful. Fabulous, in fact. And the title is embossed, so it feels wonderful as well.

Just to add to the excitement, when I checked my email immediately afterward, I found that another review for Heir had come through from Bookloons in Canada (you know about me and reviews now, because I talked about reviews on Saturday). You can read the full Bookloons review here, but the verdict is:

“I very much enjoyed The Heir of Night and am anxious for more of this very promising and fast-paced new epic fantasy in the second book, The Gathering of the Lost.”

So, in the spirit of Saturday’s post, still staying on my centre here, but all the same—yay!

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Samplers

Also, I have just realized that I was supposed to do another giveaway yesterday—and I FORGOT! Clearly, I am a bad person and a failure as a “human bean”. But there is still today—and the giveaway is 5 signed copies of The Heir of Night sampler (i.e. a chapbook containing the first 2.5 chapters of Heir) that was available at Worldcon–and they will go to the first 5 people to comment on this or subsequent posts.

But to make up for my failure to do the promised giveaway yesterday and to celebrate receiving my very own, real-deal USA Heir (plus a spare) I will also give away my last signed copy of the Advanced Reader Edition (i.e. uncorrected readers’ proof or galley) of The Heir of Night—with the winner to be drawn from the names of those who post today (ie before midnight NZ time) saying they would like it. (Of course, if only one person posts–well, they’ll get it!)

Publication Day, minus 3 … Although as Jan commented this morning, it’s the 28th in the USA that is “on sale day”, and as US Eastern Standard Time is currently (with NZ’s shift to daylight saving) 17 hours behind NZ, I should perhaps technically still be saying Publication Day, minus 4.

But as seven hours of our 28th will overlap with the 28th in the USA, I think I shall stick with the original countdown schedule. Official release date for Australia/New Zealand is still the 1st, so I get to party all over again on Thursday, too.

Today’s blog was going to be on what matters to me when writing a book like The Heir of Night, but as I have been working on two blog interviews, one for FantasyLit.com in the USA and one for RisingShadow in Finland (both of which have recently reviewed Heir; just click on the links if you want to see the reviews) I thought I’d talk about that first.

Mostly to say that blog interviews are both interesting and fun—mainly because every interviewer will ask some unique questions, which reflect their experience of the book. Those questions can often make you, as the writer, reflect more deeply on an aspect or nuance of the book that you may not have considered in that light before—which is seriously cool.

Most interviews, blog or otherwise, usually contain some overlapping questions as well. The reason I find this interesting in the blog interview context  is because the overlaps point to universality of experience and interest, even when interviewers come from very different parts of the globe.

One of the main reasons I enjoy blog interviews though, is because they give me the time to really think about my answers, and so the opportunity to provide more in-depth information for interview readers than is possible in a television soundbyte or even a quick radio Q&A. (Although of course we always do in-depth interviews on Women on Air!)

I also have another blog interview coming up this week with the Christchurch Library, as part of their programme to interview some of the writers who were to have appeared at the cancelled (owing to earthquake) Christchurch Writers’ Festival. Definitely another one to watch for—although I have to say that all three sites, FantasyLit.com, RisingShadow.net and Christchurch City Libraries blog are well worth a visit at any time.

That’s probably about all I can say for now, but I will be sure to post links here when the interviews are online so you can check them out for yourself.

Publication Day, minus 4 …

As you’ve gathered from a few of last weeks posts, this is the time in the writing cycle when reviews start to come in thick and fast—and also the time as a writer when you feel acutely aware of just what it means to put yourself and your work on the line.

Yesterday, I blogged about my eleven-year journey to get The Heir of Night (The Wall of Night Series Book One) to this point—and obviously, by the very act of publishing I am putting my work out there into the world so that people can read it. Again obviously, I have written the kind of story I love and hope that there will be others out there who love what I write—but I know that not everyone is going to do that. The world is a very big place and chock full of people with a variety of opinions and tastes, a great many of which are not going to accord with mine.  My rational mind knows this to be true, but The Heir of Night is a project I have been working on for eleven years. It represents  a huge investment of time and energy and imagination and hope and love. So although I know that part of sending a book out into the world has to be letting it find its own path, one can’t help but feel vulnerable as well, on both your own and the book’s behalf, because of the emotional investment that it represents.

Reviewers are amongst the first members of the reading public to see a new book and their role is to provide a level of objective evaluation for readers. (I know readers who follow certain reviewers, knowing from aligning their own reading of books with the reviews, whether this is a person their views are in synch with or not.) Again obviously (or so I believe), no reviewer can be completely objective; he or she will have preferences that affect their response to a work. Nonetheless, the key element of review (in my opinion, anyway) should be an evaluation of positives and negatives, strengths and weaknesses, leading to an overall summation intended to give readers an idea as to whether this is the kind of book they are likely to enjoy.

But as the writer, you still can’t help hoping that reviewers—as the pilot fish of the reading leviathan—will perceive the merits of your hard work, while conversely dreading that they will not!  And being human, it can be hard not to focus on the negative review, or even the negative component of an otherwise positive review. Rationally, you may know that the review is just one’s person’s opinion in a world that is full of diverse opinions, and that not everyone is going to like your work—but there is still that “ouch” moment at best, and at worst the feeling battered and bruised for several days at least!  (We writers tend to be sensitive wee flowers where our stories are concerned!)

The converse is also true, of course. The glowing review is just as much one person’s opinion (in a world of diverse opinions) as one that is negative or ho-hum. A few years ago, I was privileged to have Owen Marshall as my writing mentor (through the New Zealand Society of Authors/Creative New Zealand mentorship programme), and he gave me the very valuable advice that ultimately, a writer could not give undue weight to reviews, whether positive or negative, but must focus on staying true to, and pursuing, their muse.

I believe this to be sound advice—if one can manage to follow it (as is the way with all sound advice!) Another way to look at reviews is as another form of feedback, and my approach to feedback has always been to be very glad when it is positive. When it is feedback of the more “constructive” kind, I always ask myself two questions: first, do I believe this to be true? If the answer is yes, then clearly I have something to work on. If the answer is no, then my second response is: “OK, what in my work in its current form could have led someone to form this mistaken opinion—and what can I do to try and prevent similar errors occuring in future?” In other words, feedback is always an opportunity for improvement.

In having these kinds of discussions with other writers, the question has also been asked: but what if the review or other feedback is simply malicious? Or so far off true that you don’t think the reviewer can have read the book–or certainly not your book? One response is that of course one always has the option of dismissing a review or other feedback out-of-hand—and sometimes that may be the right decision. At other times, feedback may be given where on reflection, the writer concludes that he or she simply does not agree. The point, for me, is that reflection has taken palce before making that decision, in which case it is fine to “agree to disagree” and move on.

Another question is whether as a writer, one should publicly argue the toss when one strongly disagrees with a review, either through one’s own blog, website or other social media outlet, or by posting on other sites, or writing to the review journal etc. So far, my view has been that this is a “better not”, unless one is correcting a clear issue of fact (as opposed to opinion). But in terms of opinion,  no matter how much a  review may make a writer go “ouch”, or appear malicious or misguided or even downright wrong, there are other avenues to get alternative perspectives on our work out there—particularly now that we live in the wide wide world of internet.

Otherwise, I can’t help feeling that part of the deal of putting one’s work out there into that world of diverse opinion is taking the rough with the smooth, and so when Publisher’s Weekly publishes a review which describes Heir as “mainly standard fantasy” albeit with a “clear portrayal” of the main character and “adding depth with descriptions of the stoic and proud Derai warrior culture”, well—I just have to suck it up! As I have, equally, to remain on my centre when reading the Library Journal’s take that the same book “reinvigorates the epic fantasywith appealing characters and a richly detailed world”. (Although, of course, I much prefer the latter view! 🙂 )

US Cover

This week, as you’ll have seen from earlier posts, I’m very much in countdown mode—double countdown in fact—to the official launch of The Heir of Night (The Wall of Night Series, Book One) in the USA (Eos) on 28 September and Australia/ New Zealand (Orbit) on 4 March. So what does that mean, in practical terms?

AU/NZ Cover

Well, for a start, it’s a really big deal for me, not just as a writer but as (what I like to call) a “human bean” (“Being”—just in case you didn’t get it! <Grins>) I started working on the Heir of Night story almost exactly eleven years ago—I think it was October of 1999. That’s a fair chunk of time out of anyone’s life. In fact, I made a small typo just before: I wrote, “I began walking on the Heir of Night story almost exactly eleven years ago.” Which is very apt, because if a journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step, my journey began when I laid out several half-finished manuscripts on my kitchen table and told myself: pick one—and just finish it.

The one I picked was the story that became The Heir of Night. The first step of choosing it began that journey of a thousand miles that has involved both “just finishing it” and the subsequent process of finding a publisher and getting the book to the world—which is by no means the end of the journey. But it is a very significant milestone along the way.

Other things have happened on that journey. I’ve written poetry and short fiction and had it published. I’ve become a community radio interviewer and podcaster. Together with my sister, I looked after my mother during her prolonged terminal illness, a very difficult time, but one during which I “kept writing”.  I even put The Heir of Night aside for a time and wrote Thornspell, which was published two years ago by Knopf (USA) and is just out in paperback now.  Throughout this time, the old friends have endured—and in fact I do not think I could have made it this far without the support of both my partner (especially my partner!) and many wonderful friends: guys, you rock! But I have also made many new friends through—and because of—my writing. (And never doubt it: you also rock!) Thornspell has been responsible for opening many of those doors, particularly into the world of international SFF fandom. (Waves to the SFFANZ friends in particular, here.)

So being in countdown mode is partly about reflection, but also very much about celebration, right? So surely, I hear you cry, there’s going to be  a huge party?

Well, I would love to have a huge party, but you may have noticed that up until now my countdown emails have been fairly “focused”—ok, there have been the reviews to share, and that’s pretty important and very much part of the book getting out into the world. But a double release into the USA and AU/NZ markets also means that there is an awful lot happening that I need to do and respond to: reviews and interviews and guest blog spots, for a start, as well as all the behind-the-scenes details. Important and exciting stuff—but of course in the middle of that I am writing the next book. And although I’m already well through it, there’s still a bit of writing left to do before I write (ok, type!) “fini”.

So a big part of being in countdown mode is being really, really busy—which is exciting, but occasionally–just occasionally—the sense of excitement and celebration does get a tad swamped by the “to do” list. I am sure all this will sound entirely familiar, not just to anyone who has written a book, but to anyone who has brought a large project to completion!

Earthquake weather (with apologies to Tim Powers)

On top of all that, I am living in a city that was struck by a major earthquake just on  3 weeks ago—with no loss of life or even serious injury, but considerable damage to both public and private infrastructure. Some people are living in damaged homes, others have lost their homes altogether; still others have lost their jobs or their businesses, or are waiting for premises to be made safe to get their business up and running again. (So serious loss of income in the meantime.) All through the city there are cranes and scaffolding, buildings and whole sections of streets cordoned off, and teams of our local heroes in glo-jackets out there fixing drinking water and stormwater, roads and bridges and sewers—keeping the city livable while the afterquakes and shakes go on: 790 recorded to date since the original 7.1 earthquake on September 4. (If you want to see the pattern for yourself, you can check out the digital quake map here.) So maybe, just maybe, not the right time or place for a big party just yet.

So that’s being in countdown mode to publication of The Heir of Night: a time for reflection; a time for plenty more hard work; and a time for celebration, too, of the  journey that began with the single step of picking up a manucript from the pile on the kitchen table eleven years ago—but which will now go on, past publication day, to the next stage of the book being “out there” in the world, and to the completion and release of Books 2, 3 and 4 in The Wall of Night series.

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And the good news is: I still have 3 of those signed cover flats to giveaway. They really are very cool, you know, so leave a comment if you’d like one. 🙂

"The Heir of Night" Cover Flat

Giveaway: Sullivan M. & Andrew–thank you for your comments; I have a signed cover flat here for each of you. Sullivan, I know I already have your details, but Andrew — if you email me your address through contact@helenlowe.info I’ll get yours out to you. 🙂

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5 days left to go …

And my editor in the US has sent through a review from the Library Journal for The Heir of Night: (I have only reproduced the actual ‘review’ part, the […] comprises a summary of the story.)

“Lowe, Helen. The Heir of Night. Eos: HarperCollins. (Wall of Night, Bk. 1). Sept. 2010.
c.496p. ISBN 9780061734045. pap. $7.99. FANTASY…

VERDICT Lowe’s first novel, a series opener, calls to mind the inchoate evil of Barbara Hambly’s classic  “Darwath Trilogy” (The Time of the Dark; The Walls of Air; The Armies of Daylight) and reinvigorates the epic fantasy with appealing characters and a richly detailed world.”

To celebrate the countdown to Publication Day, I have 5 of these  Heir of Night (USA) cover flats to give away to readers who comment on this blog today–that’s until midnight, NZ Time, 23 September. I’ll sign them for you, too. 🙂

US Cover

Yesterday, I thought I had 10 sleeps to go until official publication of The Heir of Night, but today my US editor, Kate Nintzel, told me that although the official date is still the 1st October, at HarperCollins USA they always release on a Tuesday—so it’s the 28th September. Not many sleeps at all, at all!

So now onto the newly revised 6-day countdown:

Heir has just had its second blog review, this time from Rising Shadow in Finland. You can read the review here.

And I have a guest post on the Out of this Eos site on Writing Fantasy—& Why I Love It. So do rock on over to Out of this Eos and check it out. (There are giveaways, too, if you’re in the USA.)

In a Station of the Metro

The apparition of these faces in the crowd,
Petals on a wet, black bough.

Ezra Pound, 1885-1972

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Last week I posted a haiku by Bassho as my Tuesday poem. This week I have chosen a very short poem by Ezra Pound, a poet greatly influenced by Chinese and Japanese verse, to complement the haiku. In a Staion of the Metro is not a haiku, but I believe it encapsulates much of what the haiku form seeks to accomplish, chiefly the capture of that single “a-ha” moment in the most succinct form possible. I am also intrigued by the way the title is effectively part of the poem—although not necessary for the subsequent two lines to also work—and that like a haiku, the poem works equally well when the lines are read in reverse order.

Recently I posted The World as Meditation, a poem by Wallace Stephens. Ezra Pound is another American poet from the same era, much of whose poetic work I admire greatly, while admiring his politics, most notably fascism and anti-semitism, not at all.

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To see the featured poem on the Tuesday Poem Blog—and link to other Tuesday Poets posting around NZ and the world—either click here or on the Quill icon in the sidebar.