Category Archives: LonTobyn Chronicle

Professional Wednesday: The Emotions of a Book Release

The Chalice War: Cauldron, by David B. CoeLet’s start with the obvious: The Chalice War: Cauldron is now out and available from all booksellers in ebook and paper formats. This is the second installment in my Celtic urban fantasy trilogy, The Chalice War. Stone, the first book, came out a month ago. And the third and final volume, Sword, should be released in early August. The cover reveal will be coming soon.

I sold a bunch of copies of the first two books at ConCarolinas this past weekend, and hope to sell bunches more at LibertyCon (Chattanooga — June 23-25). By the time DragonCon rolls around (Atlanta — August 31-September 4), I’ll have all three books in stock.

I have, in a previous post, made the case for supporting authors and their blogs, etc. by buying their published works; I won’t bother making the case again. I have also made the case for buying the early books in a series as they’re released, rather than waiting for the entire series to drop, and I won’t bother doing that again either.

But I did want to spend a bit of time discussing the emotions of a new release, emotions that begin well before the actual publication of the novel. The anticipation can be excruciating. Not just waiting to see the book, or even looking forward to seeing it in the hands of readers, though I feel both of those. With each new book, I experience this sense of excitement about the story finding its way into the world. “I have a new book coming,” I want to shout from the rooftops, “and it is going to blow your minds!!” As I’ve said before, I almost always feel that my newest book is also my best, and so I want to show off a bit, let people see what I’m capable of as an artist now. Ego? Maybe. Pride? Definitely.

Children of Amarid, by David B. Coe (Hardcover -- Art by Romas Kukalis)I’m asked quite often if I still feel the thrill of seeing a new book in print, even after so many years and so many releases. And the truth is, I do. Sure, the very first time was unlike anything I’ve experienced since. I still remember getting a call from the local bookstore here in our little college town. My author copies hadn’t arrived yet, so when the store manager reached out to let me know the hardcover edition of Children of Amarid was in stock, I rushed over to see it. I’m pretty sure Nancy came with me.

And, typical of me, I was so excited to see the book, to hold it in my hands, to see my name right there on the cover, right below the gorgeous artwork. I was over the moon. But I also recall thinking, “Hmmmm, the image is a bit too dark, and the colors don’t pop the way they should.” I have long been Glass-Half-Empty Guy . . . . Which doesn’t change the fact that I was right. The cover did come out too dark, something Tor corrected with the mass market paperback edition a year later. Just sayin’.

Those competing impulses, though, are fairly typical for me, and, as I gather from conversations I’ve had with other authors, for many of my colleagues as well. Yes, the thrill is real. So is the worry about sales and critical response, the hyper-sensitivity to anything that might be even slightly off with the new product, the certainty that the excitement will prove fleeting while the concerns linger.

We authors notice things others don’t — the darkness of the images is a perfect example. No one else thought the jacket art for the hardcover of Children of Amarid was anything other than cool. But I picked up on the (very mild) flaw immediately. That said, I have been fortunate with my book art throughout my career, and have liked the cover images that appear on almost all my books. There are a couple of exceptions, but I won’t say more than that. The point is, I have never actually hated one of my covers. I know plenty of authors who have. I can’t imagine how difficult that would be.

There can be other problems as well. Sometimes the maps we put in our books are split in an awkward way in order to fit them in the front pages. Sometimes there are typos. I know authors who have had their books published only to find that the print editions begin or end with the wrong chapter or scene!! Oh. My. God. I would lose my freaking mind. All sorts of things can go wrong.

And, as I mentioned before, even if all goes as it should with the published version of the book, and even if the jacket looks great, sales can disappoint. So can reviews. Releases can coincide with economic downturns. Or national tragedies. Or global pandemics. We have no control over such things, of course, and in the context of world events, the fate of our book release is pretty insignificant. Except to us. For us, it’s more than a book release. It’s the realization of years of work and hope and passion.

The Chalice War: Stone, by David B. CoeWith all this in mind, I am happy to say that the releases of The Chalice War: Stone and The Chalice War: Cauldron have gone great. No new pandemics. The stock market is up. The art work looks marvelous. All the chapters are just where they should be. (I think — I should probably check to be sure . . . . Yep, they look great!) Sales? I have no idea at this point. It’s too early to know. Reviews? We’ll see about those as well. I worry, of course. I want these books to succeed. I want you to like them. And, if you do, I would love for you to tell the world.

Thanks for reading this.

Keep writing!

Professional Wednesday: Learning From Each of Our Projects

Ideally, every new book and story we write is not just an adventure in imagination, a chance to discover new characters and settings and narratives, but also a learning opportunity. I continue to improve my writing with each project, and I try to do at least one thing new with each story or novel. For instance, while working on my short story for the Dragonesque anthology, which will be published later this year by Zombies Need Brains, I was aware that my editors (and good friends), Joshua Palmatier and S.C. Butler, both tend to cut out a few dialog tags from all the stories they edit. I was determined to make that impossible for them. And I wound up managing to write the entire story using only a single instance of “said” or “asked.” Let them find something else to cut! In doing this, I actually made the story leaner, more concise, and more fun to read.

The Chalice War: Stone, by David B. CoeWith this in mind, I thought it might be helpful to list a few things I learned, reminded myself of, and/or tried to do differently while writing my Chalice War trilogy, which debuts on Friday, May 5 (THIS FRIDAY) with the release of The Chalice War: Stone from Bell Bridge Books.

Journal about, well, everything: The first book in the Chalice War series includes a frenzied chase/trek across the U.S., and a series of climactic scenes that are set in Las Vegas. The second book is set in Australia — in Sydney, as well as in the tourist town of Kiama along the Illawarra coast. The third book is set in Ireland. I have driven across this country a few times, and I’ve been to all the places I just mentioned. I have driven into Vegas at night, approaching from the east, as my characters do. I have spent time along the Irish coast (although not quite the same part). I have spent a good deal of time in Kiama.

And I have journaled about all of these experiences. While writing descriptive passages for the books, I drew heavily on old journal entries (and also on my old photographs). I’ll admit this is not the first time I have drawn upon personal experiences and writings for this sort of thing. When I wrote the Fearsson books, I consulted journal entries from visits to the Sonoran Desert. Whenever I write in the Thieftaker world, I draw on old entries from my college years in New England. This is not a new lesson, so much as something I was reminded of while writing the Chalice books. But the value of the point is undeniable. The more we write, the better we get, and journaling helps us keep in practice, which is reason enough to do it. But it can also be a terrific source for material that we can adapt to our fiction, be it in the form of descriptive writing, character development, or even plot points.

Dude, lighten up: My books tend to be very serious. Bad things happen all the time to good people. The fate of the world hangs in the balance again and again and again. It’s kind of like Buffy’s tombstone from the finale of the fifth season of Buffy The Vampire Slayer — “She saved the world. A lot.” I’m not suggesting this is a bad thing. People return to my books because I keep the stakes high, and they like that.

And the stakes could not be higher in the Chalice War books. The fate of our world is balanced on a knife’s edge throughout all three volumes. Serious stuff.

But people who know me know that I enjoy laughing and that I joke around a lot. And in these books, really for the first time in my career, I rely heavily on humor. I won’t go so far as to call the books “light-hearted” or “romps” — the series is action-packed, and, as I say, the stakes could not be higher. Still, there is a lot in these pages that made me laugh as I wrote, and I expect the books will make my readers laugh as well. A lot.

Limit the number of POV characters: Early in my career, when I wrote my big, fat epic fantasies (The LonTobyn Chronicle, Winds of the Forelands, Blood of the Southlands), I used a vast array of point of view characters. I was writing big sweeping stories and had a cast to match. I went from those to Thieftaker and Fearsson, which both had, basically, one POV character (the first chapters of the second and third Fearsson books were written in other POVs, but then both books reverted to Jay). Noir-style mysteries, I felt, worked best when told from the perspective of the investigator. Later books (Islevale, Radiants) fell somewhere in between — more than one, but not as many as those huge stories I told early on.

With this newest trilogy, I tried something a little different. I needed more than one POV character, but I wanted to have a maximum of three in each book. And that’s pretty much what I did. Chapter one of books I and II are from different POVs, but after that I have two POV characters in Stone, the first book, and three POV characters in the others.

And I like the way the novels read with limited casts of this sort. There is enough variety in the voices to propel the books forward with each POV shift, but there are few enough narrators that my readers can grow comfortable with the characters and their personalities. Obviously, every story is different, and what works with one series won’t necessarily work with another, but going forward, I will look for opportunities to limit my cast of narrating characters to more manageable numbers.

I hope you will check out the new series. I really do believe you’ll enjoy the books.

In the meantime, keep writing!

Monday Musings: My Favorite Babies

This post is not about my daughters. I swear. I love my girls exactly the same amount. Except maybe around my birthday, when my love for them is directly proportional to the quality of the presents they give me. Other than that, though, I don’t play favorites.

Today, I am writing about my other babies. My books.

I am asked quite often if I have a favorite among the books or series I’ve written, and always I deflect a bit. I make a joke about how my books are like my children and asking me to choose among them is akin to asking me which of my kids I love most. Then I say something about how, generally speaking, my favorite book is my newest book. And there is some truth to that. I am still learning, still honing my skills as a storyteller and a writer. I believe my books continue to improve.

It is also true, though, that I do have favorites. Probably not one overall favorite in particular (although I do have a candidate for that — more later!) but there are certain books that I love more than some of the others. To be clear, I am proud of all my books. I like them all. Otherwise I wouldn’t have written them. But yeah, I have favorites.

Jacket art for Bonds of Vengeance, book III in Winds of the Forelands, by David B. Coe (Jacket art by Romas Kukalis)I’ve been thinking of this a lot recently because I am in the process — finally! — of reissuing my Winds of the Forelands series, which has been out of print for several years. The books are currently being scanned digitally (they are old enough that I never had digital files of the final — copy edited and proofed — versions of the books) and once that process is done, I will edit and polish them and find some way to put them out into the world again.

I have always viewed the Forelands series as the most important project of my career. I’ve done better work since, but Winds of the Forelands marked a huge step forward from my first series, the LonTobyn Chronicle. The Forelands books proved to me (and to my publisher) that I could not only come up with another world, another narrative, another set of characters, but I could do all of those things with greater creativity and to greater effect than I had with the first series. For that reason alone, Winds of the Forelands is among my favorites of all the series I’ve written.

I should pause here to say again that I love all my books and I am deeply proud of lots of the books fans of my work like best. The Thieftaker books, for instance — I love writing them, I look forward to writing more of them. I think the concept for the series is clearly the best I’ve ever developed; there’s a reason those are my most popular stories. There’s also a reason why I’ve written more books (6) and more short stories (at least 12) in that world than in any other.

That said, the books that tend to be my favorites are ones that have special emotional resonance for me. My choices in this regard have almost nothing to do with sales or critical success and everything to do with my attachment to the characters and the worlds, or in a couple of cases, with what was happening in my private life when I wrote the books. I would even go so far as to say that I love some books precisely because they have not done as well commercially as others. It’s as if I am compensating in a way, giving them extra love to make up for the fact that they failed to garner the attention I believe they deserve.

His Father's Eyes, by David B. CoeI feel that way about the second and third books in my Case Files of Justis Fearsson series, His Father’s Eyes and Shadow’s Blade. These books are easily as good as the best Thieftaker books, but the Fearsson series, for whatever reason, never took off the way Thieftaker did. Hence, few people know about the Fearsson books, and it’s a shame, because these two volumes especially include some of the best writing I’ve ever done.

Time’s Children, by D.B. Jackson © Angry Robot. Art by Jan Weßbecher.Same with the Islevale Cycle trilogy. Time’s Children is the best reviewed book I’ve written, and Time’s Demon and Time’s Assassin build on the work I did in that first volume. But the books did poorly commercially because the series got lost in a complete reshuffling of the management and staffing of the company that published the first two installments. The series died before it ever had a chance to succeed. Which is a shame, because the world building I did for Islevale is my best by a country mile, and the plotting is the most ambitious and complex I ever attempted. Those three novels are certainly among my very favorites.

INVASIVES, by David B. Coe (Jacket art courtesy of Belle Books)But of all the novels I have published thus far, my favorite is Invasives, the second Radiants book. As I have mentioned here before, Invasives saved me. This was the book I was writing when our older daughter received her cancer diagnosis. I briefly shelved the project, thinking I couldn’t possible write while in the midst of that crisis. I soon realized, however, that I HAD to write, that writing would keep me centered and sane. I believe pouring all my emotional energy into the book explains why Invasives contains far and away the best character work I have ever done. It’s also paced better than any book I’ve written. It is simply my best.

So far.

The Chalice War: Stone, by David B. CoeNext month, I will release the first volume of The Chalice War trilogy, my Celtic urban fantasy. This is a different sort of book for me, a different sort of series. As usual with a new release, I love the book and I am excited to get it into the hands of my readers.

Do I think it’s my best? Honestly, it’s too early to say. It has more humor than anything I’ve ever written, and I’m very proud of the way I have adapted Celtic lore to our modern world. Plus, I love my characters. So yeah, I love it. Do I love it most? Time will tell.

Have a great week!

Monday Musings: Joni Mitchell and the Creative Journey

Reckless Daughter, by David JaffeRecently, I have been reading a biography of Joni Mitchell (a holiday gift from my older daughter), a long-time favorite of mine and, in my opinion, the finest songwriter in the history of rock and roll (more on that shortly). It’s been an interesting read — the author is a bit fawning for my taste, and a bit too eager as well to weave Mitchell’s (admittedly phenomenal) lyrics into his prose. But as is often the case when I read biographies of artists I admire, the book made me think about creativity and the artistic process.

First, to my statement about Joni Mitchell’s place in rock history: In my opinion, if you look at her lyrical work, her melodies, and the remarkable alternate tunings she brought to her guitar work (a response to the weakening of her hand that resulted from a childhood battle with polio), she emerges as the most innovative, eloquent songwriter rock music has ever seen. And if she was a man, I don’t think there would be any argument. I know Bob Dylan is generally recognized as the best, but though his lyrics are great I believe his music and melodies lack the sparkling originality one sees in Mitchell’s songs. Honestly, I believe Joni’s toughest competition comes not from Dylan but from Paul Simon, whose music is as brilliant as his poetry. And between Simon and Mitchell the comparison is quite close. I prefer Mitchell ever so slightly.

In 1971, as Joni Mitchell was preparing to bring out her next album, she had already established herself as one of THE up-and-coming songwriters on the folkrock scene. Other artists had enjoyed success covering her songs, most notably Judy Collins with “Both Sides Now,” and Crosby, Stills, Nash, and Young with “Woodstock.” But Joni herself had yet to become a performing star. That changed with the 1971 release of Blue, an album that is revered, and rightfully so. Its ten songs are uniformly excellent — there isn’t a dud in the collection. And several, most notably the incredible “A Case of You,” are as good as any songs put out by any of the singer-songwriters of the late ’60s and early ’70s. She followed Blue with 1972’s For the Roses, an album that has been added to the Library of Congress’s National Recording Registry, an honor reserved for recordings of historic and/or aesthetic significance. In 1974, she released Court and Spark, her biggest commercial success, and Miles of Aisles, her first live album. She followed these with The Hissing of Summer Lawns (1975) and Hejira (1976). Five years, five studio albums and a live recording. The studio albums are remarkable for their consistent quality (among all the recordings I can think of one song — one — that is less than great) and their stunning musical diversity. The live album is just damn good.

I would challenge anyone to point to a better, more productive five-year stretch from any artist. Yeah, I know: The Beatles. Next to Mitchell’s songs, their early efforts sound simplistic, and the quality of their later production is sporadic.

So, yeah, in my opinion, Joni Mitchell is a once in a generation talent, who was slow to gain the recognition she deserved because she was a woman trying to find fame in a man’s world.

But I also have to say that I found the biography’s personal portrait of her disturbing and disappointing. Her incredible ego, her flirtation with casual racism, her inability to let go of old grudges or admit fault in any number of longstanding feuds, her tendency toward harsh judgments and summary dismissals of colleagues, old lovers, and former business partners, her self-destructive addiction to cigarettes, which ruined her voice — they all combined to leave me with the sense that while I love to listen to her music, I wouldn’t wish to know her. (This is not a quirk of this biography — another Mitchell biography left me feeling much the same way.)

More, I was struck as well by the degree to which her artistic sensibility and creative ambitions undermined her commercial success. I mentioned earlier that the brilliant studio albums she put out in the early 1970s were musically diverse. I cannot emphasize this enough. Blue was the ultimate expression on the singer-songwriter movement. Lyrically, For the Roses is just as good, but the music is far more complex, the instrumentation richer. Court and Spark manages to be commercial, capturing perfectly the pop sensibility of the early 1970s, while also offering breathtakingly eloquent poetry. Hissing of Summer Lawns begins her embrace of jazz themes, taking her music in unexpected directions, and Hejira refines and perfects that combination of jazz and pop.

But with Hejira her audience began to drop off slightly. The following studio album, Don Juan’s Reckless Daughter, which continued her experimentation with jazz and pop themes and pushed her music in less accessible directions, saw a more dramatic drop in sales. The trend continued for the rest of her musically productive years. She never recaptured the success of her early albums. By comparison, Paul Simon continued to experiment musically as well and found renewed success in the 1980s with Graceland and The Rhythm of the Saints. Miles Davis, the king of cool jazz and a favorite of Mitchell’s (and mine), experimented throughout his long career, sometimes with stunning success, other times with results that fell flat with fans and critics alike.

Other musicians I listen to — James Taylor, CSN, Elton John, Bonnie Raitt, to name a few — didn’t change their sounds all that much. They were content to follow the formulas that made them successful without the sort of experimentation and risk-taking one sees in Mitchell’s career arc. As a result, they have continued to sell. Also as a result, their creative journeys seem less impressive, less weighty.

Years and years ago, I met a writing hero of mine, a person I had read early in life whose works made me want to become a published author. This person spoke with some bitterness about the trajectory of their career. They had shifted directions after their early successful series, only to find that their audience fell off dramatically. When they changed directions a second time after the aforementioned project sold poorly, they lost even more of their audience. The writer’s message was clear: If you’re doing well with what you’re writing, keep writing it.

I have changed directions a few times in my career, with mixed commercial results. The Thieftaker books originally represented a marked departure from what I had done before. They sold quite well (albeit under a different name). Other shifts in direction have proven less fortuitous. But every time I have taken on a new project I have been driven more by artistic impulses rather than by commercial ones. I suppose that is evidenced by my sales . . . . [Rimshot] But without daring to put myself on an artistic level with the likes of Joni Mitchell (or any of the other creators I’ve mentioned by name) I would say that I have followed her example, or at least attempted to.

I write the story that burns in my heart. With the exceptions of the media tie-in work I’ve done, I have never taken on a project for financial reasons. I write what I’m eager to write. I love to challenge myself with new sub-genres, with new worlds and characters and themes. I think I would have long since lost interest in writing had I not taken my creativity in so many different directions.

Which is not to say this is the “right” approach, or that others who follow a different course are “wrong.” The fact is, I don’t listen to any of Joni Mitchell’s later albums. I don’t like them. On the other hand, I buy and listen to everything James Taylor puts out, because I know what I’m going to get, and I like the sound. And no, to anticipate the next question, I would not want people to make similar choices with respect to my books.

I have no answers, no absolutes to embrace, no advice to offer. This is one of those Monday posts that’s long on musing and short on solid conclusions. Each of us must follow our own creative path. I admire Joni Mitchell’s integrity, and I am awed by her brilliance. I certainly understand the artistic decisions she has made over the course of her career. And yet, I would have loved for her to put out more albums like those I loved from the Blue-to-Hejira era.

I also know that when people tell me, “I wish you would write more LonTobyn books,” I always want to respond, “Really? Have you seen the stuff I’ve written since? It’s SO much better . . . .”

I have been, and remain, of two minds about all of this. And I continue to muse.

Have a great week.

Professional Wednesday: My Best Mistakes, part IV — Managing Expectations

The Outlanders, by David B. Coe (jacket art by Romas Kukalis)For the past several weeks, I have been sharing “My Best Mistakes,” which have included inappropriate remarks at a convention, poor business decisions, and replies to reviews. This week’s “Best Mistake” is a little different, in that it’s less about interactions with others and potential damage to my career than it is about self-care and maintaining equilibrium in a difficult profession.

I started my career as a complete unknown in fantasy and science fiction. This was before Amazon had ever turned a profit. It was before ebooks had really become a thing. If one aspired to a notable writing career, New York traditional publishing was essentially the only game in town. So when I sold my first novel to Tor Books, one of the top names in speculative fiction, I was excited. My first advances, I now realize, were actually pretty decent, although at the time they felt small. But I dreamed of bigger things to come.

Jacket art for Bonds of Vengeance, book III in Winds of the Forelands, by David B. Coe (Jacket art by Romas Kukalis)My first series, the LonTobyn Chronicle, did well. It won the Crawford Award as the best fantasy by a new author, and my sales grew steadily. Children of Amarid would eventually go through six printings. When I signed contracts for my second series of novels, Winds of the Forelands, Tor gave me significantly higher per-book advances.

I say all of this not to brag, but rather to set up a discussion of my expectations at that point in my professional development. Up through the releases of the first couple of Forelands books, my career had followed a steady upward trajectory. And — my big mistake — I began to assume that this was simply the way of things. I was climbing, just as I had hoped. My career, I thought, would build and build and build. Maybe I would never be a huge seller, but I would improve my sales with each publication, and improve my advances with each new contract.

It never occurred to me that the industry would undergo a set of seismic transformations, impacting everything from publishing’s corporate structures to the way we read books, and undermining all assumptions about the publishing business. On a personal level, it never occurred to me that certain mistakes made by others would have profoundly negative consequences for my sales. Nor did it occur to me that my luck — and yes, luck plays a large role in all of this — would turn on a dime from terrific to terrible.

To be clear, I wasn’t wrong to hope for progress. Ambition is good. Dreams of growth are good. Rather, my mistake lay in expecting that everything would keep getting better, in assuming that I could anticipate what the publishing industry would look like five years after I started or ten years after. I won’t even say I thought books would always be made of paper, or that the traditional New York publishing model would always remain ascendant. If someone had asked me if I believed such things I would have said no. Change is inevitable. But I certainly didn’t imagine such dramatic transformations would come so quickly.

I also should be clear in saying I know how fortunate I have been to have the career I’ve had. I love what I do. I get to play “let’s pretend” every day and I get paid for doing so! No, my career hasn’t followed the path I had hoped for. But twenty-five-plus years on, I am still writing, still selling novels and stories to publishers.

More to the point, I still love the work I’m producing. While my commercial performance might not improve with every novel, the quality of my writing and storytelling does. I am still learning my craft, and I take great satisfaction in the progress I make as a writer from one project to the next.

But the consequences of my mistake, of my unrealistic and unrealized expectations, were severe and long-lasting. It’s easy to look back now and see the magnitude of those changes in the industry, or appreciate the part chance can play in any writer’s fortunes. But in the moment, I blamed myself for things over which I had no control. I saw the vicissitudes of the business as personal failure. I convinced myself that instances of bad luck were an indication that on some level I didn’t deserve the success of which I had once dreamed. And I grew bitter with each new disappointment. So many times, I considered giving up on this job I love.

It took me years to come to grips with things I probably should have understood sooner. That in any profession, hard work doesn’t always guarantee success; that what we achieve and what we convince ourselves we “deserve” are often not the same; that in business, as in life in general, there is no point in complaining about what is “fair” and what isn’t; and that all any of us can ever do is work to the best of our ability, and treat people with respect and courtesy. The rest is in the hands of fate, or the divine, if that’s your thing.

In the years since those first books had me believing I was on a professional escalator to the proverbial heavens, my career has had plenty of ups and downs. I have had no choice but to adjust to the fact that there is no guarantee of more and more and more success. Waves and troughs, I now know, are the norm. And one of the reasons I am so happy in my work these days — happier than I’ve ever been — is that I have internalized these realizations. I write the stories I want to write, the books I know I would enjoy reading if they weren’t mine. And while I still do what I can to make my books successful, I no longer live and die with sales figures and reviews and such. I do the best work I can do, and that’s enough. It has to be enough. Because that’s life.

Keep writing.

Professional Wednesday: My Best Mistakes, Part III — Reviews, Damn Reviews, and More Reviews

Continuing the “My Best Mistakes” series of blog posts . . . .

Children of Amarid, by David B. Coe (jacket art by Romas Kukalis)Very early in my career, when my first book, Children of Amarid, was the only one I had out, I responded publicly to a online review from a less-than-delighted reader. Amazon was still a novelty (no pun intended) as was the notion of online reader reviews. (Hard to imagine, right? That the idea of readers offering reviews of the books they’d read should have been new and different and even a bit odd?) I don’t remember what the reader in question objected to about the book, nor do I remember what I said in my public response. The original book is out of print now — only the 2016 reissues are available on the site, so our exchange is lost to the ages. All I know is that someone criticized the book, I didn’t take the criticism well, and I took it upon myself to write a reply and post it to the Children of Amarid Amazon page.

But that’s not quite what this post is about.

SPELL BLIND, by David B. Coe (Jacket art by Alan Pollack)Some years later, soon after the release of Spell Blind, the first book in The Case Files of Justis Fearsson, another Amazon reviewer panned the book because my book was “a blatant rip-off” of Jim Butcher’s Harry Dresden books, “a ludicrous case of copycatting.” For the record, I didn’t copy Dresden at all. I had only read the first two books of the series, and the “copycatting” the reviewer claimed I’d done amounted to using tropes of the genre, not elements of Butcher’s work. And so I responded to the review, wanting to set the record straight.

But that’s not quite what this post is about.

At this point, you might have sensed that I have a problem. There are writers out there, I know, who couldn’t care less about bad reviews of any sort. Clearly I am not one of them. It’s not that I’m thin-skinned. Well, not really. If people don’t like my books, so be it. I write for me, because I understand that we can never please every reader. Even if ninety-nine readers out of a hundred love our book, there will always be that one reader for whom something just doesn’t work — the characters or the setting or the magic or the prose. Something.

My problem, and I know I am not alone in this regard, is that I can get all those nice reviews, but the one on which I’ll fixate, the one I’ll remember, is the lone bad one. I think it’s tied to imposter syndrome, and to every other insecurity I have as a writer. And as I say, I know I’m not the only professional who is like this. Certainly, when I see a review that misrepresents my work, or impugns my professional integrity, I can’t help but obsess over it a little. That’s what happened with both of the examples I’ve already cited.

That’s what happened with another book in another series, which was reviewed in a fairly high profile publication. As it happens, this third review was mostly positive. The reviewer liked the book. But they also said something about the book, a mild criticism, that I felt was simply untrue. I didn’t respond publicly. I sent the author of the review a private message, thanking them for their kind words about the book, but pointing out that they had gotten it wrong in this one regard.

Why did I do this?

Because I’m an idiot. Because despite my protestations before, I AM thin-skinned about my books. I take editorial feedback really well, but I respond terribly to public criticisms that I feel are unjust or inaccurate. To my mind, reviewers — professional reviewers, those who merely comment on bookseller sites, and all in between — ought to keep in mind that their words can have an impact on people’s livelihoods. If they have legitimate criticisms, so be it. But they need to take care to get their facts straight. Okay, off my soap-box.

Where was I? Oh, right. I sent a private message to the reviewer. I never heard back from this person. But they reviewed my next book, and they took their revenge. Publicly. Brutally. Cruelly. Their review of that next book was one of the most humiliating things that has ever happened to me in my career. It was unfair. It was relentless. It misrepresented the book. The review left me heartbroken, because I loved the book. Still do. And I am certain this review came about as a direct result of that message I sent after the first review. It was my fault. True, the reviewer didn’t have to take their revenge in the way they did, but still, I should have known better.

Because writers are told again and again never to respond to reviews. Most people will tell writers that they shouldn’t even read their reviews. Clearly, I have struggled throughout my career to follow both these bits of advice. In fairness, I have finally gotten better about all of this. I do not respond to reviews anymore. I rarely read them. But as mistakes go, this was a big one, and it is one I’ve made too often.

Don’t do what I did. Write your book and move on to the next. Promote the hell out of every publication. Pay attention to your sales numbers. Don’t worry about your reviews. Don’t go to your Amazon pages and scroll through the ratings. If you have to read your journal reviews, so be it. Who am I to criticize? But don’t obsess over them. Don’t fixate on the negative phrases. And for God’s sake, don’t respond to them.

And if you can do all that, you’re a better person than I am.

Keep writing.

Monday Musings: The Story of the Storyteller On My Desk

In May of 1994, Nancy and I took our first trip to New Mexico. (We have been back several times since, and we’re always looking forward to our next visit; it is one of our favorite places in the world.) By that time, we had been married for three years, and we had been talking about visiting the state since the beginning of our relationship. Early in that year, Nancy told me it was time to plan our visit, because she was ready to start a family, and, she said, “this time next year, I expect to be pregnant.”

Yes, ma’am. She was more than right, by the way. Our older daughter was born in May 1995.

At the time, I was still in the dreaming stage of my career. I had started work on the book that would become my first published novel, Children of Amarid, and an editor from Tor Books had expressed interest in the series. My agent at the time was negotiating terms with Tor, and already I was learning an early, nerve-wracking lesson about the slow pace of New York publishing. We had yet to sign a contract, and I despaired of ever doing so.

One of the many joys of visiting New Mexico is experiencing the artistry of the native peoples there. The various Pueblo communities produce their own styles of jewelry, pottery, wood carving, and other forms of visual art. During that first visit, I was drawn in particular to ceramic representations of the Storyteller, the embodiment of oral tradition, a symbol of shared history and community lore. Storyteller figures are typical rendered as open-mouthed (in the midst of relating some tale) with smaller figures — children, ostensibly — perched around and/or on them. The Storyteller can be of any gender. They can also take the form of an animal or bird, and they can support any number of smaller figures on their lap, their limbs, their shoulders.

I saw the figures as a symbol of my dream of being a professional writer, and I wanted desperately to find one to take home with me. Unfortunately, the figures are intricately crafted, and their price reflected that. I couldn’t find one that both spoke to me and was affordable.

As part of our visit to New Mexico that spring, Nancy and I made our way out to the Acoma Pueblo. Acoma is known as Sky City, because it is perched on a gorgeous, craggy mesa in the desert west of Albuquerque. It is one of the oldest communities in all of North America, and it is known for, among other things, its exquisite pottery. You can’t drive to the top of the mesa, but rather must park below and walk up. And you can’t just wander the community on your own. You can only access it by taking a tour.

The StorytellerDuring our tour, we encountered many people selling pottery in front of their homes. And at one table, a mother displayed her wares beside those of her young daughter. I think the girl must have been around 7 or 8, give or take a year, and she had made a few small bowls, seed pots, and dishes. And she had made a tiny storyteller. As one would expect, it was quite crude compared to those we had seen for sale back in Albuquerque (we hadn’t yet been to Santa Fe or Taos), but something about the figure spoke to me. Maybe is was just that the storyteller was so cute. Or maybe it was that the girl herself was so proud of it. Or maybe I saw in this child’s early effort to follow in her mother’s footsteps something akin to my dream of becoming a professional writer. Whatever the reason, I asked the girl how much it cost.

She looked at her mom, seeming surprised that she might actually sell something. Her mom said, “Five dollars.”

“I’ll take it.”

I handed the girl the money. She wrapped up the storyteller she’d made and gave it to me. And Nancy and I followed our tour to another part of Sky City.

Acoma Kiva, by David B. CoeThat was a magical day in many ways. Acoma was as beautiful as we had been told, the pale red stone of the Pueblo seeming to glow beneath a deep azure sky, wooden kiva ladders rising above their structures and reaching toward the clouds. At one point, I spotted a rainbow in the clouds overhead — there was no rain, just the prismatic color, which appeared for a moment and then vanished. I think I was the only one on the tour who saw it. I believed that, together, the rainbow and my little storyteller were omens, signs that my dream would, in fact, come to pass.

Children of Amarid, by David B. Coe (jacket art by Romas Kukalis)Two months later, I got my first contract from Tor Books. Children of Amarid wasn’t published for another three years — that first book needed a lot of editorial work. But I was on my way.

Nearly twenty-nine years later, the storyteller I bought that day in Acoma still sits on my desk, right beside my computer screen. I look at it every day, and it still represents for me the dream that launched my career.

I wish you a wonderful week.

 

Professional Wednesday: My Best Mistakes, Part I

A new month, a new blog series. Not that I’m committing to doing a series every month. Really, I’m not . . . .

[Sigh] What have I done . . . ?

Over the course of my career, which has spanned more than twenty-five years, I have managed to accomplish a lot of things. But it has occurred to me that I have also made some pretty interesting mistakes. And maybe readers would learn something from hearing about a few of them. Certainly they might be entertained. And so, with this week’s post I kick off my “My Best Mistakes” series. I hope you enjoy it.

I’m going to start with a story a number of you might already know from one context or another. If you have seen me on panels or at readings, you might well have heard me tell it. If not, here you go. (And a note pertaining to this post and others to come — I will be telling stories that almost invariably include other people and/or published works of mine that I am still seeking to market. In the interest of discretion, some details of these mistake-stories will be kept purposefully vague. I hope you understand. If you don’t understand . . . well, I really don’t care.)

Children of Amarid, by David B. Coe (jacket art by Romas Kukalis)Very early in my career — like, one book in — I attended a very large convention as a guest. It was by far the largest, best-attended con I’d been, too, and at first I was a bit star-struck by the whole thing. Unfortunately, that didn’t last. Read on.

One of my panels was on character-building. Or at least I think it was. Maybe it was on things that happen to us when we write. Or things we can talk about that will allow an impulsive, full-of-himself-young-writer-with-one-lonely-book-to-his-name to do stupid things. I was on the panel with three other authors. Two of them I didn’t know, though they seemed to be solid mid-list authors, each with several publishing credits. The third was a giant in the field. This writer also published with Tor, my publisher, and might well have been one of their three biggest names. I was nothing compared to this person. I was lint.

Somehow, the discussion turned to that wonderful creative moment when our characters begin to do things that we don’t expect, that we don’t necessarily plan. I have written and spoken about this quite a bit. To my mind, it is the moment when we discover that all the work we’ve done to create realistic characters has paid off. They are acting of their own volition in a sense, though of course we are still creating them. The creation is just happening deep in our hind-brains, making it SEEM that they are independent, sentient beings. That, at least is how I felt — and still feel — about it.

The big-name writer disagreed. This person responded to what I had said about this by telling me, in no uncertain terms, in front of a roomful of people, that if my characters were not doing exactly what I expected, I was doing it wrong. And be “it” this person meant “writing.”

“You are the god of your world,” this person said. “You control everything.” End of story. As it were.

The other two writers quickly dropped out of the conversation. They sat at the panel table, staring at their hands, keeping silent, and allowing this other idiot — ie. Me — to keep on arguing the point. Because they were very smart. Much smarter than me. I. Whatever.

Me? I just kept on arguing with the big name, the person who could crush me and my career like a bug if they chose to. Because I was right and this person was wrong. That’s what I thought. (Still do, honestly, but that’s beside the point.) Finally, in my growing frustration, I said (at volume, with heat) “If you write them like puppets, they’ll read like puppets!”

And then I realized what I’d done. Big name. Room full of people. Me saying, essentially, that this person wrote flat, boring, lifeless characters. Holy fuck.

As I have said before in other venues, in that instant the entirety of my tiny little career flashed across my eyes. I figured I was totally screwed. Worse, I had screwed myself.

Now, as it turned out, I was fine. The conversation shifted to another topic. I kept my voice down and my opinions blandly neutral for the rest of the panel. And afterward, I apologized profusely. The big name author was gracious, kind, generous, and forgiving.

I was fortunate. I also learned a valuable lesson. Panel discussions can grow heated; the best ones sometimes do. But even when they do, we must remain polite, and we must always refrain from making any of our statements sound personal or targeted. Because that’s the courteous thing to do. But also because we are always going to be on panels with a mix of people, some of them less experienced than we are (or at least equally lacking in experience) and some of them more experienced, with greater reach and a greater capacity to hinder our career advancement.

I got lucky that day. The person at whom I directed my statement understood I was speaking without thinking, in the heat of the moment. Other authors might not have been so understanding. I could have done real damage to my career.

So that is this week’s mistake. In future weeks, I will focus on different sorts of missteps — bad business decisions, bad reactions to reviews, etc. I hope you find the stories helpful.

In the meantime, as always, keep writing.

Professional Wednesday (On Thursday): About Deadlines

Yes, this is a Professional Wednesday post, going up on a Thursday morning. And it’s about dealing with deadlines and professional obligations, which should give you some hint as to where this essay is going . . . .

I apologize for not getting my Wednesday post up on Wednesday. I would say it won’t happen again, but that would be dishonest. It’s rather likely to happen again at some point. Read on . . . .

Deadlines and obligations are part of any profession, but they seem to loom larger in the literary world than in most others. We writers tend to work in isolation. We don’t go to offices to ply our trade. We have few meetings. We don’t wind up on committees or task forces or action groups or anything of the sort. We have, essentially, one professional duty: We are expected to turn shit in on time. That’s a slight oversimplification. Yes, we have to compose lovely prose. We have to construct narratives, develop characters, create settings, tease out themes and moods and emotions and the like.

But in presenting our work to the outside world, in moving from the creative process to the marketing of our work, our responsibilities come down, largely, to deadlines. Deadlines for submission, for revisions, for copyedits, for proofs. And I don’t mean to downplay the challenges deadlines can present. Being able to create on demand is THE defining attribute of a professional artist. We don’t wait for the muse. We don’t create when the mood strikes us. We produce regularly, and often we do so on someone else’s schedule.

I have been on both sides of deadlines: I have written to them, and I have imposed them on writers sending material to me for editing. And so, I feel confident in discussing how to manage them and how to handle the conversation when we know we’re going to miss them.

The Outlanders, by David B. Coe (jacket art by Romas Kukalis)The first deadline I missed was on my second novel, The Outlanders, the middle book of the LonTobyn Chronicles trilogy. And I had good excuses. Between the time I started writing the book, and the day the first draft of the manuscript was due to Tor, our first child was born, my mother died, my father died, and my siblings and I had to settle my father’s estate.

Being a first-time parent was glorious, but it consumed my days and disrupted my nights. Losing both my parents in quick succession was brutal, and the loss of my father hit me particularly hard. HIS father was still alive (my grandfather was over 100 at the time), and his mother had died in her nineties. We thought he would live forever. His death devastated us all.

With the deadline for The Outlanders approaching, I reached out to my editor at Tor Books and told him the book would be late. How late? I had no idea. I was stuck, an emotional wreck, and I didn’t know how to get unstuck. But I promised him I would get it done, if he could just be patient with me. He was, and I did.

That conversation was hard, but it was the right one to have. Looking back, however, I realize I should have initiated it months earlier. The first lesson of dealing with deadlines is this: As soon as we understand that we are going to miss a deadline, we need to alert our editors (and our agents, if we have representation). Missed deadlines impact our publishers as well as the other authors in the publishing queue with us and behind us. A deadline is an obligation with consequences beyond our own lives, and we owe it to the people doing business with us to be as honest and forward-looking as possible.

INVASIVES, by David B. Coe (Jacket art courtesy of Belle Books)Yes, sometimes we think we’re going to miss a deadline, and then we make it. And if we alert our publisher prematurely, we could lose our spot in the queue. So be it. That’s the price of acting professionally. When our older daughter first was diagnosed with cancer, I told my editor and my agent what had happened, and let them know I was probably going to be late with the novel I was writing. As it turned out, writing that book — Invasives, the second Radiants novel — was a wonderful escape, and I met my deadline. But I had given up my publishing spot and so the book was released later than I had hoped. It wasn’t that big a deal. As I say, the most important thing is be up front about the situation with those who need to know.

Sometimes, we fall behind on our writing not because of life events, but simply because we’re struggling with the story, with the writing itself. Again, communication is the key. In that case, we should reach out to our editor. Let them know we’re having trouble. It may be that a conversation with someone who knows the story, who understands what we’re trying to do with the characters, who might even have already published previous books in the series, will help us clarify our thinking and get us back on track and on schedule. At the very least, it will alert our editor to a potential problem with the upcoming deadline.

And sometimes we just bump up against the realities of the creative process: It doesn’t always conform to our scheduling and planning. Art can be messy and inefficient. In making our commitments, in accepting deadlines in the first place — and usually we have the opportunity to agree to a deadline or to ask for more (or less) time — we have to keep this reality in mind. We have to plan well. We have to avoid setting ourselves up for failure by agreeing to a more ambitious timeline than we are capable of meeting. Once we have have made our commitment, we have to budget our time and then stick to the calendar we’ve set.

In the end, there is really no secret or magic formula to any of this. We must be honest — with ourselves and with our colleagues. We have to do the work. And we have to anticipate problems before they arise.

Easy-peasy. Usually. Every once a while, missing a deadline can’t be helped. And then a Wednesday post goes up on a Thursday.

Keep writing.

Professional Wednesday: In Which I Ask You, What Should I Write Next?

As I discussed at length in last week’s Professional Wednesday post, I have recently completed a first draft of the third book in my contemporary Celtic urban fantasy, The Chalice Wars. The novel needs to sit for a while before I can do a final revise-and-polish and send it off to my editor — six weeks or so, I would think. And since the first book has not yet been copyedited and proofed, since the second book still needs to go through a round of revisions and then the entire production process, and since the third book is still wet behind the ears, I have plenty of work left to do on this series.

Thanks to the successful Kickstarter campaign Zombies Need Brains ran late in the summer, I also have a new anthology, Artifice and Craft, to co-edit with my good friend Edmund Schubert. We already have more than 150 submissions for the anthology, so that work is bound to keep me busy through the end of the year and well into 2023. I also have a short story to write for one of the other anthologies, and I have editing clients in my free-lance business queue.

But beyond the short story, which should only take me a week or two to complete, I have no idea what I am going to write next. None.

Yes, I have ideas. Many.

What are they? Funny you should ask.

The Loyalist Witch, by D.B. Jackson (Jacket art by Chris McGrath)One idea is to write my next Thieftaker novel, either in the form of a trio of novellas, like I did with The Loyalist Witch, or as a simple novel. In the Thieftaker novel timeline, the Revolutionary War hasn’t even started yet. There is lots and lots more I can do with Ethan and Kannice and Sephira.

I have also considered going back to the Case Files of Justis Fearsson series, another contemporary urban fantasy that I began in the mid 2010s with Spell Blind, His Father’s Eyes, and Shadow’s Blade. I LOVE these books and have missed writing in Justis Fearsson’s world. I have several ideas brewing for that world.His Father's Eyes, by David B. Coe

I have long wanted to return to my five book Winds of the Forelands series and the Blood of the Southlands trilogy, to revise and re-release those eight novels. They are among my best stories, and they have been out of print for far too long. I envision an “Author’s Edit” re-issue, along the lines of what I did with the LonTobyn Chronicle back in 2016.

INVASIVES, by David B. Coe (Jacket art courtesy of Belle Books)I want to write at least one more Radiants book. Actually, I would like to write several more. Radiants and Invasives are, to my mind, the two best books I’ve written to date, and I still would love to see these books gain come commercial traction so that I can justify writing more of them.

And then there are the new ideas . . .

I have one idea for a space opera series (yes, you read that right), set on a pair of terraformed planets. The plot involves intrigue, mystery, romance, and vengeance, and it is actually based on the work of a well-known, much-beloved, and for-now-secret 19th century novelist. I’m excited about this one. (Actually, I’m excited about all these ideas, which is why I’m considering them in the first place.)

I have a middle grade novel that I first wrote back in 2010 or so, when my kids were much younger. The idea still sings to me, though I know the book needs a good deal of work. But I love the concept and I adore the characters. And I think I would enjoy writing for kids.

My good friend A.J. Hartley has been trying for years to get me to write a non-fantasy, non-supernatural, straight-ahead thriller. He thinks I’d enjoy it. He thinks I’d be good at it. And I will admit I have some ideas percolating along these lines as well. Of all the projects I’m thinking about, this one probably has the most commercial potential, which is not the only consideration, but I do this for a living, so . . . .

And finally, I have considered taking all the Professional Wednesday and Writing Wednesday posts I have written since 2020 and collecting the best of them in a new writing how-to book. I have more than enough material, and I think some people would like to see the advice I have offered gathered in a single, convenient volume.

So there we are. Those are the things I’m thinking about right now. (I should add that I can’t guarantee I won’t have five more ideas tomorrow.)

What ideas appeal to you? Feel free to Tweet at me, or to comment in my Facebook Group! I look forward to hearing your thoughts.

In the meantime, keep writing!