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Matt and I have released our second book - a standalone epic fantasy called Lesson of the Fire. The ebook is live for sale on Amazon (as well as borrowable by Amazon Prime members), and the paperback will be out in a couple days.
Sven Takraf has burned a path through rival wizards to seize power over Marrishland, power he means to wield like a torch to bring sweeping reforms to its stifling magocracy. But fire can immolate as well as illuminate, destroy civilization as well as bring it, and Sven is burning out of control.
As the fires of the Takraf War spread from the crumbling citadel of the capital to the swamps and marshes of the rest of Marrishland, they disturb yet another enemy that fears Sven’s stubborn fire, one whose massed force stands poised to sweep down like the waters of a swollen river from a broken dam - waters that will snuff out every fire in Marrishland...Current Mood:  excited |
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So I posted a response to the Department of Justice allegations against Apple and five of the Big Six publishers on Tuesday, contending, among other things, that certain events would of necessity come to pass before we could say publishing had adapted to ebook technology.
One of my predictions from Tuesday partially came true on Wednesday, and the reasons given for why it came true were the same as the arguments I made for why it would happen. This must be what economists feel like roughly 50% of the time. So I kind of felt like I should post a response to having one of my predictions come true. Because even if it's all just coincidence, it still feels kinda neat.Current Mood:  hopeful |
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BABY!!!
*Ahem*Current Mood:  peaceful Current Music: Nocturne #8 (Chopin) |
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As many of you have already heard either via Facebook or Beth's post, William Blake Zawadzki was delivered via c-section at 5:36am on 2/17 - 20.5 inches long, 7 lb, 14.6 oz.
Baby is healthy. Mother is recovering well from the surgery and is able to walk around a little bit, now. I'm a little bit sleep deprived from playing pacifier last night, but it was very nice to sleep with William in the room with us.
And yes, we named him after the English Romantic poet. We knew the names we were choosing before we came home from the 7 week appointment. Beth suggested it, knowing that the juxtaposition between William Blake's "Little Lamb" and "Tyger, Tyger" was the first time I felt like I understood a poet and was probably one of the main reasons I became an English major two years later. I told her it was certainly a good possibility, but there were tears in my eyes as I said it, so she knew I wouldn't spend much time thinking up alternatives.
Blake's poetry is full of personal mythology, paradoxes, and abundant rage at the social injustices and religious hypocrisies of the poet's time. Reading Songs of Innocence and Experience, I always got the sense not that he was trying to tell people how to make the world right but that he wanted to show them how it really was and the ways in which it was wrong and the ways our experiences could cripple us, if we let them.
As a young man I thought that was an almost perfect goal for a writer to pursue. I have since grown less interested in pointing out social problems in my fiction. It is so easy to do it badly and sound like a self-righteous pedagogue instead of telling a story. His mythology is often obscure to the point of being inaccessible to all but a few readers (kind of like reading The Silmarillion if you're looking for an easy-to-read fantasy novel). And he had some personality issues that were, um...okay, so he was a bit of an asshole.
But I still find Blake's paradoxes absolutely fascinating, because so much of the experience of my emotional life really hinges on paradox and contradictions. I cope with anger by making jokes, and with grief by laughing (which is exceptionally difficult to explain at funerals). Poetry and beautiful music, in the right emotional context, can make me cry, while having some dickhead swear at me and call me names only provokes cold anger and a desire to respond with dismissive sarcasm.
This dead poet won my soul for poetry, and without that discovery, I don't know whether I would ever have fully explored my learned loves of literature, music, film, and all the other arts that celebrate the world and the human experience. In tribute, I have named my firstborn son after the man who taught me to love poetry through his poems. Yeah, I'll probably do my darnedest to pour my love of the arts into this young person along with my love for him.
This world is full of terrible things but also so much beauty and wonder, and I want to show my son all those things. And it is full of some serious assholes, but there are so many amazing, kind, and inspiring people, too, and I want to introduce him to all the people. And the world is wide and can never be fully understood, but we owe it to ourselves to seek out as much of it as we can, so I want to take him all the places. And don't get me started on the ideas - so many ideas that will cripple and destroy, but so many more that can uplift and motivate and guide, so of course I want to show him all those ideas, too.
I'm only two days into fatherhood, and I've only started to share this joy in being.
THE LITTLE VAGABOND (from Songs of Experience)
Dear mother, dear mother, the Church is cold;
But the Alehouse is healthy, and pleasant, and warm.
Besides, I can tell where I am used well;
Such usage in heaven will never do well.
But, if at the Church they would give us some ale,
And a pleasant fire our souls to regale,
We’d sing and we’d pray all the livelong day,
Nor ever once wish from the Church to stray.
Then the Parson might preach, and drink, and sing,
And we’d be as happy as birds in the spring;
And modest Dame Lurch, who is always at church,
Would not have bandy children, nor fasting, nor birch.
And God, like a father, rejoicing to see
His children as pleasant and happy as He,
Would have no more quarrel with the Devil or the barrel,
But kiss him, and give him both drink and apparel.Current Mood: Joyful Current Music: Nocturne #11 (Chopin) |
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Contractions started at about 2am and are becoming gradually more frequent and intense. I'm posting this because "update social networks" was on the pre-hospital to-do list, and I'm far too drowsy to deviate from it.
More updates as soon as I have a baby in my arms.Current Mood: excited |
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So, I did this:
So I guess I've probably earned this:
I'm going to go to bed and actually get a full night's sleep, now. I'll be posting a more detailed account of my NaNoWriMo experience and my thoughts about it when I update my writing blog on Thursday.
Nov. 30th, 2011 @ 04:04 am
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| » Sorry to gloat, but ... |
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16,400 words written in the last 72 hours. Currently on par, and it looks like I'll reach 50k by the end of November despite absurd week 3 setbacks. Graph is still hilarious.
I suspect my friends and family have missed me. I've never skipped out on gaming to meet a self-imposed deadline. I might do something nice to people here and elsewhere to balance out the fact that I've talked about *nothing else* for the last month.
Bed, now. Assuming I'm still capable of sleep. Not quite sure about that...
Nov. 28th, 2011 @ 05:35 am
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| » NaNoWriMo and ridiculous-looking graphs |
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I'm by no means done for the night, but because of the weird "yesterday is today, and today is also today" overlap of my weekend writing schedule, my NaNoWriMo graph looks pretty frickin' hilarious today:
You can see the point at which my hard drive crashed and then I got sick. You can also see just how desperate I've been to get caught up, this weekend.
I aim to do another 3,000 words before I sleep, dangit, which is super insane but actually probably doable. There's a chance of social austerity measures tomorrow (i.e skipping Hunter), and I'll probably beg Matt to write Tuesday's blog, this week, but the end is almost kind of in sight.
Cue up the "Indiana Jones gets out of the hopeless-looking situation" music.
Right. Back to work. Blood for the Blood Muse!
Nov. 27th, 2011 @ 12:12 am
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| » Where did *that* come from? |
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I just wrote 1,600 words in two hours? My usual pace is 500 per hour, and Matt's is 1,000 per hour. So, I just managed to not only confuse/surprise the hell out of myself but actually approached *Matt's* hour-for-hour composition rate, which is something I never thought I'd be able to touch. I long since got used to the idea that the only way for me to rival his month-for-month output is to just write every single day for a few hours.
Granted, I'm still only barely on-track and still have all sorts of competing priorities that will make it impossible to keep up for the entire week, but I sat down with only 2 hours before bedtime and came within about 50 words of the daily NaNoWriMo output.
Nov. 7th, 2011 @ 04:32 am
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