{"id":1450,"date":"2010-09-24T01:00:41","date_gmt":"2010-09-23T13:00:41","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/helenlowe.info\/blog\/?p=1450"},"modified":"2010-09-24T09:07:11","modified_gmt":"2010-09-23T21:07:11","slug":"being-in-countdown-mode","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/helenlowe.info\/blog\/2010\/09\/24\/being-in-countdown-mode\/","title":{"rendered":"Being In Countdown Mode"},"content":{"rendered":"
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US Cover<\/p><\/div>\n

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<\/strong><\/a> <\/em>(The Wall of Night Series, Book One)<\/strong> <\/em>in the USA<\/strong> (Eos) on 28 September <\/strong>and Australia\/ New Zealand<\/strong> (Orbit) on 4 March<\/strong>. So what does that mean, in practical terms?<\/p>\n

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AU\/NZ Cover<\/p><\/div>\n

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<\/em> <\/strong>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<\/strong> on the Heir of Night<\/em> <\/strong>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.<\/p>\n

The one I picked was the story that became The Heir of Night. <\/em>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.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>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”.\u00a0 I even put The Heir of Night<\/em> aside for a time and wrote Thornspell<\/em>, which was published two years ago by Knopf (USA) and is just out in paperback now.\u00a0 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<\/em> 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.)<\/p>\n

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\u00a0 a huge party?<\/p>\n

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<\/em> 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”.<\/p>\n

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!<\/p>\n

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Earthquake weather (with apologies to Tim Powers)<\/p><\/div>\n

On top of all that, I am living in a city that was struck by a major earthquake just on\u00a0 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<\/strong><\/a>.) So maybe, just maybe, not the right time or place for a big party just yet.<\/p>\n

So that’s being in countdown mode to publication of The Heir of Night:<\/strong><\/em> a time for reflection; a time for plenty more hard work; and a time for celebration, too, of the\u00a0 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<\/strong> The Wall of Night series<\/strong>.<\/p>\n

—<\/p>\n

And the good news is: I still have 3 of those signed cover flats to giveaway. They really are very cool<\/span><\/span>, you know, so leave a comment if you’d like one.<\/span> \ud83d\ude42<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

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 […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1450","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-about-my-books"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/helenlowe.info\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1450","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/helenlowe.info\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/helenlowe.info\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/helenlowe.info\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/helenlowe.info\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1450"}],"version-history":[{"count":15,"href":"https:\/\/helenlowe.info\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1450\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1465,"href":"https:\/\/helenlowe.info\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1450\/revisions\/1465"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/helenlowe.info\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1450"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/helenlowe.info\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1450"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/helenlowe.info\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1450"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}