Category Archives: The Chalice War

Professional Wednesday: 2023 Is 1/4 Gone — What Have You Done?

Spring is here. April is knocking on the door. 2023 is just about one quarter gone (a thought that sends me into a frenzied panic) and with the first three months of the year nearly over, I felt this would be a good time to pause and take stock of my goals and accomplishments so far. Care to join me?

The end of March is significant for me, because my convention season is about to begin. Yes, I sometimes have an event or two early in the year, but most years my professional travel begins in earnest with the onset of spring. 2023 promises to be no different in this regard, and the truth is I feel like I have been stuck in second gear since the beginning of the calendar year.

I keep a day book, a sort of diary, using my Sierra Club Engagement Calendar. I write down key events of each day, important conversations I might have had, and, most notably for the purposes of this post, an accounting of the work I have gotten done daily. I do this for myself (although it is also helpful occasionally in settling arguments about the timing of certain things . . . .) for moments like the one I’m having right now, when I wonder if I have actually accomplished anything at all.

I HAVE gotten work done this year. A lot of it has involved editing — the Artifice and Craft anthology I’m editing for Zombies Need Brains, edits on my upcoming Celtic urban fantasy series, and editing I do for clients. This is all important work, but it doesn’t leave me much to show for my efforts. When I’m writing a book, I can point to my page count or word count. With editing . . . my track-changes count? It just isn’t as satisfying.

Add to that the week-plus that I lost to Covid, and some travel I’ve done, and I can account for all the time that has passed since New Year’s. But aside from my short story for another ZNB anthology, Dragonesque, and a couple of dozen blog posts, I haven’t written much of anything this year. I think that is what’s bothering me. I get grumpy when I don’t write enough, and I’m feeling grumpy.

The Chalice War: Cauldron, by David B. CoeI also know that what has been a quiet year thus far is about to get very, very busy. Starting in May, we (Bell Bridge Books and I) will be releasing The Chalice War trilogy, the aforementioned Celtic urban fantasy. The first book, The Chalice War: Stone, will be out that month, followed closely by The Chalice War: Cauldron, and, sometime in the summer, The Chalice War: Sword. I can’t wait. Sword will be my thirtieth (yes, 30th) published book.

Also this summer, Zombies Need Brains will release Artifice and Craft, my 5th edited anthology, and Dragonesque, which will include “Reenactment,” my 30th published short story.

In April, I will attend JordanCon (Atlanta). In early June, I will attend ConCarolinas (Charlotte), and later that same month I will be at LibertyCon (Chattanooga).

I have recently been accepted into the Launch Pad Astronomy Workshop, which is taught in late May at the University of Wyoming in Laramie. Launch Pad is a week-long workshop on all things related to space and space travel taught specifically for writers and editors. It offers an amazing opportunity to learn about these fascinating topics from professional scholars who also happen to have backgrounds in SF. I have been considering a new science fiction project, one that would be a dramatic departure from anything I’ve written before. Launch Pad will be invaluable in preparing me to write those stories.

We have family travel on the schedule for July, following an important professional transition for Nancy at the end of June. And then I will be attending DragonCon (Atlanta) in late August/early September.

Jacket art for Bonds of Vengeance, book III in Winds of the Forelands, by David B. Coe (Jacket art by Romas Kukalis)I have two other projects underway as well. A nonfiction thing that I am not ready to discuss in detail, and, at long last, the editing of the Winds of the Forelands books for re-release in late 2023 or early 2024. And I have another writing project — a collaborative undertaking — that I also cannot describe in detail, simply because I am not the organizing force behind the project, so it is not mine to reveal. But I am excited about it.

And I have a possible tie-in project looming, which is not certain enough to reveal at this time.

I know: There’s a lot of secrecy in this post. My apologies. There is also a mixed message. On the one hand, I feel a bit stuck and dissatisfied with what I have done so far this year. But I am also excited about what is about to come and a bit overwhelmed with all that looms on my professional calendar.

At the beginning of the year, I had a sense of things I wanted to get done in 2023. My life has been filled with enough uncertainty over the past few years, that I knew better than to fill out a work schedule in ink. But I had goals; I still do, and they remain much the same. The busier calendar on my work horizon won’t make it any easier to get work done. Or will it? I work better when my deadlines are immutable, and once I have revised the third Chalice War book, I will be finished  with most of my editing duties for the year. More time for writing — yay!!

So, that’s where I am at the 1/4 mark. Where are you?

Keep writing!

Creative Friday: THE CHALICE WAR: CAULDRON Cover Reveal!!

The Chalice War: Stone, by David B. CoeAs I have mentioned previously, the release of the first book in my upcoming Celtic urban fantasy, The Chalice War (Bell Bridge Books), has been delayed. We had hoped for February. It will be May.

After that, though, the other two books in the trilogy will come fairly quickly. You have already seen the gorgeous art for book I, THE CHALICE WAR: STONE, and yet I offer it again above. Because how can you see it enough, right?

And today, I offer as well, the cover reveal for book II, THE CHALICE WAR: CAULDRON. I am so jazzed about the look of these novels. Book II is set in Australia — in Sydney and its surrounds — where my family and I lived for a year back in 2005-2006. It was so fun to revisit our experiences there as I wrote the various scenes. And that bird on the cover is an Australian Magpie.

So, there it is! Enjoy!

The Chalice War: Cauldron, by David B. Coe

Creative Friday: About That Celtic Urban Fantasy . . .

The Chalice War-Stone, by David B. CoeRight around the holidays, I was shouting from the virtual rooftops about my new Celtic urban fantasy trilogy, The Chalice War, which would be coming out early in 2023. The first book, I bellowed (virtually), would be coming out in February, and it would be called The Chalice War: Stone. It would be followed, a month or so later, by The Chalice War: Cauldron, and then a couple of months after that by the finale, The Chalice War: Sword.

So, about all that . . . .

Life happens. Lately it’s been happening to me. A lot. In this case, though, it happened to my editor/publisher at Bell Bridge Books, through no fault of hers, or really anyone’s.

The books are still coming. Really. Stone will be out in May. That’s the current plan. It will be followed a month or so later by Cauldron. Sword should be out by midsummer. The first book is ready to go. We have art; the manuscript has been revised, copy edited, polished to a high shine. We’re just scheduling it in a way that allows us to follow it quickly with Book II, which has now been through revisions and will soon be copy edited.

I apologize for the delay, but I assure you the books are on their way. And, as a way of thanking you for your patience, I offer another teaser from Book I. Enjoy!!

*****
While the woman’s heels still clicked on her walkway, Marti sensed a second source of power. The energy from this one was as turbid as the woman’s was clear, as tied to darkness as hers was wild. It took Marti several moments to spot this second presence, and when she did, she had to bite back a shouted warning.

A large animal—a cat of some sort from the look of it—crouched by the side of the woman’s house, partially concealed by the bushes growing there. It followed the woman with its eyes and the gentle swivel of its massive head, but it made no move to attack her.

Marti watched them both, motionless, holding her breath. The cat had to be a conduit, bound to a Fomhoire sorcerer. She swept the street with her eyes, not daring to turn her head, wondering if the sorcerer was close by or had sent the cat to scout. Or to hunt. If that last, was it after the woman or Marti herself?

After watching the cat for another few seconds, Marti convinced herself the creature was intent on her neighbor, not her.

For now, Marti had no access to her magic, and the stone was shielded. Power called to power, Alistar used to say. That cat—a panther by the look of it—would be drawn to a conduit as potent as itself, not to an unbound Sidhe sorcerer.

Marti stood smoothly, taking care not to make any sharp movements. She picked up the bottle and cup, tiptoed into the house, and locked and bolted the door. She lingered by the window, eyes on the cat. Her neighbor had made it inside; lights went on downstairs and, minutes later, on the second floor. Marti didn’t think the woman was in danger, at least not this night. But she had drawn someone’s interest, which promised to make Marti’s life even more complicated than it was.

After some time, the panther emerged from the bushes, padded out into the street, and with one last backward glance at the house next door, prowled off into the night. Marti remained at the window until the creature had reached the corner and trotted off of Fairlea.

Then she retrieved her protective herbs and stones, and went after it.

She understood the risks, but she wanted to find out who the cat belonged to. Having no conduit herself, and carrying the sachet and crystals, she didn’t think another sorcerer, even a Fomhoire, would sense her. Of course, having no conduit, if she was wrong about this, she would die.

She slipped back outside, locked the door behind her, and eased down the road. She made not a sound, kept to shadows, avoided the light that pooled beneath streetlamps the way she would patches of quicksand. At the corner, she caught a glimpse of the panther loping off the road into what appeared to be another yard.

Marti followed, and soon realized the cat had led her to the community playground she’d passed when driving in earlier. It was darker here; there were no streetlights or houses near the play area. But by the light of a half moon, she spotted two figures standing near the swings, one a good deal taller than the other.

The panther trotted to the shorter of the two, lay down at this person’s feet, and began to lick one of its paws. Marti crept closer, hoping to overhear something of value. She placed each foot with care, eyeing the ground in front of her for dry leaves, twigs, children’s toys—anything that might give her away. With fewer shadows here, she had to follow a line of trees—a less direct route than she would have liked. At one point, the cat raised its massive head and stared in her direction. She froze, deciding she had gotten close enough.

She couldn’t hear their conversation, but as her eyes adjusted to the darkness, she was able to see the two figures in greater detail. The cat had lain at the feet of a man. He had dark hair and wore dark slacks and a pale dress shirt. The other figure was murkier, as if obscured by a black veil. She couldn’t imagine why, at least not until it raised an elongated arm to point at something above them. Marti suppressed a cry.

The moonlight revealed a translucent membrane of flesh underneath its arm, broadest at the shoulder, tapering to the wrist. No wonder it appeared to swallow light; no wonder it was so freaking tall. A Sluagh.

With nightfall, the air had grown stagnant, but in that moment, the smell reached her and her stomach heaved. Decay, disease, death. Smells, she’d read somewhere, could kindle memories that transported a person to different times, different places. This stench carried her to the old house, to Alistar’s brutalized corpse in the garden, to Burl’s blood-matted carcass in the kitchen.

Marti searched the sky and street for more of the demons—they rarely traveled alone. She saw none, but that did nothing to put her mind at ease. She resisted the urge to run—if the demon didn’t hear her, the cat would. Either would kill her.

Indeed, if not for the Fomhoire and his cat, the demon would have found her already. The panther couldn’t sense her talent for magic because she didn’t have a conduit, but the Sluagh could. It hadn’t because—only because—the Fomhoire stood beside it, no doubt reeking of magic. She shuddered.

A moment later, matters grew far, far worse. The Sluagh pointed skyward again and let out a rasping screech that made Marti flinch. From above came two answering cries, as harsh and chilling as the first. Two more Sluagh circled over the playground, their wings luminous with moon glow, the webbing between their long legs making them look like huge swallows. They wheeled, swooped toward the ground, and pulled out of the dive at the last instant, cupping their wings like billowing sails and landing near the other Sluagh.

The cat scrambled to its feet and bared its teeth. The Fomhoire caressed his conduit’s head and said something to the creature. The panther nuzzled the side of his leg, but it kept its bright eyes on the Sluagh and remained standing. For his part, the sorcerer had shifted his stance so that he could watch all three of the demons. He had also edged away from them; he would be no more immune to the fetor than Marti was. Likely he had a spell at the ready, just in case. Sluagh might serve the Fomhoire, but they would prey on any magical creature.

She almost hoped they would turn on the man and his conduit. Almost. The problem was, when they finished with him, they would sense her magic, and have her for dessert.

The Sluagh didn’t linger for long. The Fomhoire and the first demon spoke for another few seconds before the three demons leapt skyward and soared off.

The sorcerer watched them go, absently petting the panther’s head. When the Sluagh had vanished from sight, he glanced around and left the playground.

He headed straight toward Marti.

Professional Wednesday: The Twisted, Tortured Story of THE CHALICE WAR

The Chalice War-Stone, by David B. CoeMy “What matters?” series of posts will conclude next Monday, after a Monday Musings post this week that straddled the personal and professional a bit more than usual. In the meantime, I am using today’s Professional Wednesday post to begin pivoting toward the impending release of my new series, a contemporary urban fantasy that delves deeply into Celtic mythology. The series is called The Chalice War, and the first book is The Chalice War: Stone. It will be released within the next month or so, and will be followed soon after by the second book, The Chalice War: Cauldron, and the finale, The Chalice War: Sword.

In my experience, every new project has a story (no pun intended) and this one is no different. Back in the summer of 2009, I was in a bit of a career doldrums. Blood of the Southlands, my third epic fantasy series, was complete, and all but the third book had been released. The series had done well critically, but sales were a bit disappointing — a pattern I had encountered before and would again — and I was trying to figure out where to go next. I had pitched the first iteration of what would become the Thieftaker series to my agent, and she was trying to sell it to Tor Books. But, as always, the publishing world was moving at a snail’s pace, and I had nothing to do.

Within half a year, I would be working on the Robin Hood novelization and starting to convert Thieftaker from an epic fantasy to a historical urban fantasy. But for the moment, I was without a project.

And then an idea came to me — a sudden flash of insight into what would become a pivotal scene in Stone. I took the idea and ran with it. First, I read a ton of material on Celtic history and lore, taking copious notes and figuring out how I might create modern-day versions of the heroes and deities I was reading about. Then, my research complete (for the moment), I began to write the first draft of a contemporary urban fantasy.

I didn’t do much outlining, but rather allowed the novel to take me where it might. And boy did it take me to some interesting places. It started in an imagined bedroom community in northern Virginia, soon evolved into a cross-country trek on U.S. Interstate 40, and wound up on the Strip in Las Vegas. The Battle Furies — the Morrigan — showed up. Turns out, in addition to being goddesses who fed on strife and human suffering, who could turn themselves into a winged horse (Macha) and twin giant ravens (Badbh and Nemain), who drove armies to a killing frenzy and men to uncontrollable lust, they were also Vegas nightclub singers.

Thieftaker, by D.B. Jackson (Jacket art by Chris McGrath)I finished the book and showed it to my agent. She liked it a lot, but thought it needed work. She was right, of course. But by that time, I had signed the contracts for Robin Hood and the Thieftaker books. Not too long after, I finally sold the Fearsson series to Baen Books and so had that trilogy to get through.

But I never forgot my Celtic urban fantasy, or its heroes Marti and Kel. When I had some spare time, I went back and rewrote the book, incorporating revision notes from friends and from my agent with my own sense of what the book needed. I rewrote it a second time a couple of years later, and having some time, started work on a second volume, this one set in Australia (where my family and I lived in 2005-2006). I stalled out on that book about two-thirds of the way in, but I liked what I had. By then, though, I was deeply involved with the final Thieftaker books and the Fearsson series. And I was starting to have some ideas for what would become the Islevale trilogy.

The Celtic books languished in a virtual trunk, not forgotten, but ignored. I didn’t know how to end the second book. I knew the first book needed another rewrite. And I had no idea how to complete the trilogy.

INVASIVES, by David B. Coe (Jacket art courtesy of Belle Books)But I had been through this before. The first book in the Case Files of Justis Fearsson went through at least half a dozen iterations between the first draft, written in 2005, and its eventually publication in 2014. I first came up with the basic concept for Invasives, the second Radiants book, in 2009. It sat on my computer desktop for more than ten years before I actually used it.

I revised Stone yet again, and in so doing, came up with an idea of how to complete the second novel. I rewrote what I had written of that novel, and this time got past whatever had held me back and managed to complete it. And in finishing that volume, I came up with an approach for the third book. It was daring, and quite different from the first two books, but it worked. I set that one in Ireland, and also in the Underrealm.

Finally, in 2021, I had a conversation with Deb Dixon, my marvelous editor at Bell Bridge Books. She asked me what I was thinking of writing next, and I said, “Well, I have this series I’ve been working on — a contemporary urban fantasy steeped in Celtic mythology . . . .”

Her response: “Yes, please.”

The moral of the story should be clear: Never, ever, give up on a project. Sometimes we’re not ready to write the ideas we have. Sometimes our imagination outstrips our creative abilities. At other times, our careers take us in other directions, and we’re not yet ready to pursue projects that we know we want to write eventually. And at still other times, our ideas come to us piecemeal. We can’t see the entire work, but we know there is something there worth writing.

All three of these things were true for me. On some level I knew what I wanted to do with the Celtic books back when I wrote that first iteration of Stone. But I wasn’t yet a good enough writer to do justice to the idea. I had other projects that were more fully formed and that I needed to work on in the moment. And so I did. And the idea for the trilogy took time to percolate.

In the end, these are books I love, stories I’m proud to see come to fruition. I look forward to sharing them with all of you.

Keep writing!!

Professional Wednesday: What Matters In Your Work? Part I

On Monday, I began what will be a series of posts on the things that matter to us, and the ways in which we can make them central to our lives. Not surprisingly, I think about this a great deal with respect to my writing. And I believe all of us, no matter where we are in our careers, can benefit from this sort of thinking.

As with the broader topic, I expect that the question “What matters?” will inform the next few Professional Wednesday posts. Today, I want to take on the question in its broadest sense.

At the start of each year, I spend some time mapping out the coming months, trying to make certain that I schedule my work for the year to come, the various projects I hope to complete, in a way that will maximize my productivity without setting myself up for failure by giving myself unrealistic deadlines or overly ambitious timetables for the completion of manuscripts. It’s a process I’ve written about a couple of times in the past month or so. (Find other posts here and here.)

Creating a work calendar for the year is about more than time management, though. It is also about prioritizing. It is about answering the question “What matters?”

We all have projects we care about and goals that stir our passions. For some, “what matters” is that novel we’ve been trying for years to finish. For others, “what matters” is finally getting that first professional sale, either of a book or a short story. And for others still, “what matters” may simply be finally making writing a daily or weekly habit — getting started on a road that may not reach its final destination this year, but that at least begins here and now.

Whatever your “what matters” might be, it should inform your planning for the coming year.

The Chalice War-Stone, by David B. CoeWhat matters to me? Professionally, for this coming year, a few things. I have a series debuting in February. I want to promote the hell out of it. I want to feel at the end of the release windows — the weeks immediately preceding and following the releases of the three books — that I have done all I could to make the series successful. I also have an old series that I want to re-release. I’ve been talking about doing this for several years now, and each year I have found other projects to take up my time and energy. But this series, Winds of the Forelands, is one about which I am passionate. This is the year I bring it out again. It matters to me. And I want to start something new, a series that will take me in a new direction, I have resisted starting it for a couple of years, I believe because I am intimidated by the magnitude of what I’m taking on. It’s time to get over my hesitation.

Jacket art for Bonds of Vengeance, book III in Winds of the Forelands, by David B. Coe (Jacket art by Romas Kukalis)What about you? I’m not merely asking what you wish to accomplish, though obviously that’s part of the equation. I’m asking as well what you care about. Sure, maybe you want to be published — or at least contracted — by year’s end. That’s a laudable goal. But what project will get you there? What story is burning brightest inside you? What work will bring you joy? What project is most likely to tap into your greatest creative passion? That ought to be part of the equation as well.

Our professional pursuits are not just about what ambitions we’ll realize. They’re also about what matters most to us as artists. Writing, like all acts of creation, is about more than sales and “success,” however we might define that word. Writing is an act of love. This business is too hard, too fickle, too cruel, to be approached solely as a bottom-line endeavor. Often, the truest satisfaction we can hope to draw from our work is the self-recognition of our own achievement. And ultimately, I would argue, our own pride and sense of accomplishment ought to be what matters most.

So as you begin 2023 — and I hope it is a year of accomplishment and satisfaction for all of you — ask yourself “What matters?” Because I guarantee you, if the work — the concept, the narrative, the characters, the settings — matters to you, that emotional connection to the project will show up in your writing. “What matters” is not just about warm and fuzzy feelings. Answering the question will point you toward the most powerful expression of your creative vision.

Keep writing.

Professional Wednesday: Planning For Next Year — Try Something New!

The Chalice War-Stone, by David B. CoeAs you know, early in 2023 I will be coming out with a new urban fantasy series that is steeped in Celtic mythology. Before working on this series, I hadn’t known much about Celtic lore. But I did my research, learned all I could, and then started to imagine ways in which I might blend those Celtic traditions with my vision for the stories I wanted to write. I tried to be respectful of traditions that are not my own, while also having fun and writing something I hoped would be fun for my readers.

INVASIVES, by David B. Coe (Jacket art courtesy of Belle Books)Two years ago at this time, I was revising Radiants and starting to organize my plans for Invasives, the second book in the sequence. I had never written a supernatural thriller before, but I had the idea and wanted to give it a go.

Two years before that I had just released the second Islevale book and was working on Time’s Demon, the second book in the trilogy. These were my first forays into writing time travel and while I knew there were tremendous pitfalls to writing in that particular subgenre, I wanted to give it a try. Plotting a time travel series is probably the most challenging thing I’ve ever attempted as a professional writer; I doubt I will ever try it again, but I’m glad I did it once.

TIME'S DEMON, by D.B. Jackson (Art by Jan Weßbecher)Around that same time, I was also reading submissions for the Temporally Deactivated anthology, my first co-editing venture. Last year I opened my freelance editing business, and a year ago at this time, I was editing a manuscript for a client.

Back in 2015-2016, again at this time of year, I was working on the Author’s Edit of the LonTobyn Chronicle, my first series. Up until then, I had never re-released any of my old work, but I had the rights back, and I knew I could improve the books with a deep edit of the original manuscripts.

Yes, there is a point to all of this.

Temporally Deactivated, edited by David B. Coe and Joshua B. PalmatierLast week, I wrote about planning out my professional activities for the coming year. This week, I want to discuss a different element of professional planning. My point in starting off with a list of those projects from past years is that just about every year, I try to take on a new challenge, something I’ve never attempted before. I didn’t start off doing this consciously — I didn’t say to myself, “I’m going to start doing something new each year, just to shake things up.” It just sort of happened.

Children of Amarid, by David B. Coe (jacket art by Romas Kukalis)As it turns out, these new challenges have brought me to a place where I can say, in all candor, that I have never been happier in my work than I am now. Each time I try something new, I reinvigorate myself as a creator. I force myself out of the tried-and-true, the comfortable. With each of the new projects I mentioned above I had a moment of doubt. I wondered if I was capable of accomplishing what I set out to do. Now, I’m a pretty confident guy when it comes to my writing chops and my ability to help others improve their writing, so those doubts didn’t last long. But they were there each time.

Indeed, part of the joy of taking on the projects lay in pushing myself, in overcoming the doubts and getting the work done. As I’ve written before, writing is hard in any number of ways. We help ourselves when we can self-define our successes, rather than relying on a fickle, difficult marketplace to define them for us. Each of the aforementioned projects boosted my sense of self worth.

The Loyalist Witch, by D.B. Jackson (Jacket art by Chris McGrath)But those new challenges did more than that. They kept my professional routine fresh. I am a creature of habit. I try to write/edit/work every day, so in a general sense, my work days and work weeks don’t change all that much. By varying the content of my job — by writing new kinds of stories and expanding my professional portfolio to include editing as well as writing — I made the routine feel new and shiny and exciting. And at the same time, these new projects made it possible to return to some old favorites, notably the Thieftaker series, with renewed enthusiasm.

I also made myself better at my craft and deepened my understanding of and appreciation for the nuances of storytelling. I learned a ton by revising my first books. I saw old mistakes that I was still making, and also gained a fresh appreciation for the ways I had improved as a writer. Writing time travel strengthened my plotting by forcing me to look for the loose ends that might have escaped my notice had my characters not possessed the ability to go back in time and undo my choices! Editing has taught me a ton about my own writing by showing me, in unfamiliar narrative contexts, what story elements work best (and worst).

My point is this: As you begin to plan your professional activities and ambitions for 2023, try to put in your calendar something new and different. It is fine to set as a goal the completion of that novel you’ve been working on for a long time, or the publication of a series you’ve had written for a little while now but haven’t yet sent out into the world. Those are laudable aims, and I wish you every success with them.

But maybe you’ve never tried writing short fiction, or you’ve written stories but never submitted any of them. Maybe you’ve written fantasy but never tried science fiction, or thrillers, or romance. Set as a goal for 2023 taking on one of those new tasks. Allow yourself to accomplish something unfamiliar. At the very least, doing so will force you to grow as an artist, which is always a good thing. And perhaps you will discover a previously unexplored talent and passion for something you hadn’t even considered trying.

Best of luck, and keep writing!

Professional Wednesday: Preparing For the Coming Year

December has come to my little corner of the Cumberland Plateau. The trees are bare, days of gray skies and cold winds outnumber the blue, chickadees and nuthatches, titmice and woodpeckers and cardinals flock to my feeders. Yes, we still have nearly a month left in 2022, but already these remaining weeks feel foreshortened. The holidays will gobble up much of our time and energy in the closing days of the month, and we will be distracted by all the preparations for family get-togethers and the like.

Which is as it should be. The past two years have seen our holidays strained and, for some, ruined by the pandemic. We deserve a holiday season.

Already, though, my professional thinking has turned to 2023. In past years, I have written about my penchant for mapping out my professional year, trying to plan for the many projects I intend to take on in the months to come. I didn’t write a post of this sort last year, because of the uncertainty surrounding our daughter’s health, and the fresh memory of how so many of my plans were upended in 2020 and 2021 by the pandemic, by family issues, by emotional strain, etc. The fact is, my professional plans are always just that: plans, intentions, hopes even. Nothing more.

And so I approach the coming year with a bit more humility than I did in the years before Covid and before my family’s health crisis. Any work calendar I create will be written in pencil, not pen.

But I also understand that planning out my work calendar helps me, and I believe you might find it helpful to create a similar plan for your coming year.

Right now, I am struggling to decide what major writing project I will take on next. I have posted about this before, and have asked for input from followers of my work and this blog. Yet, still I haven’t been able to decide on a path forward. That’s fine for now. I have stories to read for the Artifice and Craft anthology. I have a story to write for the Dragonesque anthology. I have a couple of editing clients interested in engaging me for some work. In short, I have no shortage of things to keep me busy.

I’d be lying, though, if I said I wasn’t missing the allure of the new shiny. One of the things a work calendar does is keep me looking forward. Often a project supplies its own momentum. The desire to see it through to the end, to complete the damn thing, is usually enough to keep me on task. Now and then, though, I need the carrot of the next project to pull me through. “When I finish this, I get to work on X.”

Put another way, I don’t have to decide right now what major writing project to take on in 2023. I am certain, however, that if I can decide and hold that next project out as the prize I get for completing other things, it will make reading anthology slush a little easier.

I also find a work calendar helpful as I seek to manage my own professional expectations. It’s easy to look at a blank calendar and think, “I have all year to get X,Y, and Z finished.” As it happens, this is rarely the case. Already I know that I’ll be editing short stories for much of January and preparing for the releases of The Chalace War books starting in February and continuing through the spring. (Oh, and here’s the art for book I again, just because I love it so much . . . .) Plus, non-writing stuff is bound to impinge on my writing time. We need to do some work on our house, and that will also probably come in the spring. The work promises to be disruptive. There is no way I’ll be as productive as usual while it’s going on.The Chalice War-Stone, by David B. Coe

I need to take all of this into account while planning my schedule. Because even if some of my deadlines are self-imposed (rather than coming from a publisher) I know that missing them can disrupt the work to follow. It can also have an impact on my mood, on my self-confidence as an artist. We should always keep our expectations for ourselves realistic. The last thing we want to do is set ourselves up for repeated failures by expecting too much from ourselves and not taking into account time commitments we have to make to other parts of our lives. This is not to say that we should budget too much time for projects. There is a balance to be found. We want to push ourselves to accomplish tasks that matter to us, without expecting so much that we can’t help but fail. A work calendar helps me with that.

So as the year winds down, and as I sit in front of a fire, or in front of yet another World Cup soccer match, I will be working on my work calendar, mapping out a strategy for getting done all I hope to accomplish, and also for managing the inevitable disruptions that life — both professional and private — tends to throw in our path. It’s easy to do. I receive calendars in the mail all the time from the various charities we give to each year. I always reserve one of those calendars for this.

Best of luck with your 2023, whether or not you map it out ahead of time.

And, of course, keep writing.

Professional Wednesday: The Chalice War, Book I Cover Reveal!!

For some time now, I’ve been writing about and teasing my new Celtic urban fantasy, The Chalice War. The series is part thriller, part comedy, part myth, part urban fantasy, part mystery. It is set in our modern world — all over it, in fact: book I takes place in the U.S.; book II shifts the action to Australia, and book III is set in Ireland — but the series also draws heavily on Celtic lore. It is unlike anything I’ve written before. Each volume was a ton of fun to write, and will be, I hope, just as much fun to read. I love these books and I am incredibly excited about their upcoming release.

The first book, The Chalice War: Stone, should be out from Bell Bridge Books in February 2023. The second book, The Chalice War: Cauldron, will follow within a month or two, and the trilogy’s finale, The Chalice War: Sword, will drop not too long after that.

Today, I am delighted to share with you the incredible jacket art for book I, which was created by my brilliant editor and publisher, Debra Dixon. Drumroll please . . . .

The Chalice War-Stone, by David B. Coe

Wednesday Musings: Thanksgiving and Some People To Thank

The past couple of years, usually on the Monday of this calendar week, I have written about Thanksgiving — last year a catalogue of all the things for which I’m thankful (the list still holds), and the year before, ahead of the country’s first Covid Thanksgiving, a rambling remembrance of holidays past that still makes me laugh when I read it over. For obvious reasons, I didn’t feel like writing such a post for this past Monday. But with the holiday upon, I thought I would try again.

I don’t know how to approach a Thanksgiving post this year without repeating myself from those previous posts, and yet here I am making the attempt. And maybe repetition in this context isn’t the worst thing in the world. The things for which I am thankful year in and year out remain remarkably consistent — boring for a blog, but gratifying in every other way. My marriage, my children, my extended family and friends and fans, my career, and, of course, the good fortune of having a home, food in our pantry, health care access, and so many other blessings that too many people lack.

As I have said before, Thanksgiving is my favorite holiday, in part because it forces me to take stock, to set aside the petty grievances that too often cloud my mood, and recognize that in the important ways, despite real and serious problems in our lives, my loved ones and I are doing okay. We live, it often seems, at 75 mph, the world blurring past as we try to complete our work, take care of our chores, see to our obligations. Even when we are “on vacation” or taking a bit of time off, we try to squeeze in so much that the relaxed times feel rushed.

To me, Thanksgiving is a time to slow down, to focus on the now, on those things that matter most. It is a time to inhale deeply and say, “Right now, in this moment, I am grateful for _______.” The things we fret about, the things that inconvenience and nettle and worse — they’ll still be there the day after Thanksgiving (in fact, they’ll probably be on special…). They’re not going anywhere. So why not push them away for a while and accentuate the positive? This from a confirmed, life-long pessimist.

In any case, I will hop down off the soapbox now. And I will share with you a brief list of very important people, outside my circle of friends and family, who have made an enormous difference in my life this year. Their mention here is small thanks for all they have done for me and my family.

1. I am thankful for my therapist, a woman named Rebecca, who has been absolutely incredible to work with. She is insightful, gentle, funny. Best of all she gets me and understands when to push me and when to let me stumble into truths on my own. I have learned so much from our time working together, and feel better equipped than I have ever been to deal with the uncertainties of this crazy world.

2. I am thankful for my editor, the marvelous Debra Dixon, who has been an amazing creative partner, mentor, critic, and booster. She is terrific with artwork. She did the gorgeous covers for the Radiants books, and she has done a fabulous job with the first book of the The Chalice War, the Celtic urban fantasy about which I’ve told you all so much. You’ll see a reveal of the cover not too long from now.

3. My older daughter’s oncologist, who shall remain nameless so as to protect my daughter’s privacy, is just terrific. He is compassionate, honest, brilliant, devoted to our child and her battle with cancer, and willing to communicate with us whenever we have the need (so long as our daughter has given her okay, of course). We know he can’t perform miracles, but he has our daughter’s complete trust, respect, and affection, and that is all we can ask.

I wish these three a glorious Thanksgiving, and I wish the same to all of you. May your day be filled with laughter, joy, and the companionship of people you love. And may the year to come be filled with blessings large and small.

Happy Thanksgiving.