When I wrote the first draft of  Queen of Sind, I wrote it on the fly.  I had a lot of fun writing it, but I did very little worldbuilding.  It was purely laziness.  But this week I’m diving into the research hole that is the Ancient Near East, or more specifically Persia. Why Persia?  Because Persian women, at least the upper class, had  basically the same rights women have today. Which is *rare* in  Antiquity.

And  I have only started the research and I am having so much fun.  Right now I’m reading  Introduction to Zoroastrianism by P. Oktor Skjaervo.  It is really good, and available as a free pdf from Harvard.  More importantly, I have had it for years.

One book about religion wont get me far, though. So, I just ordered Life in the Ancient Near East. This is the kind of book that I love.  Packed fill with details about their lives and death. Don’t get me wrong. I like reading about history. It is intresting and it often gives me new ideas.  But books about their lives gives me the knowledge to make sure that the details are correct. And to me, as fantasy writer, that is worth more than having knowledge about history that I probably wouldn’t use directly. 

One thing that I probably would use, if just as inspiration, is knowledge about their legends and myths. Luckily, I know the library should have an e-book copy of Shahname.

I’m sure that there will be a lot of more books read for inspiration and research. But this is were I’m starting 🙂

 

This is a little something that I began writing a couple of weeks ago.  I decided that since it had snowed in so many odd places, it might be fun to make it snow in Hell.  This is only the beginning, since the rest of the scene turned into spoiler territory and started to feel like the beginning of book 3. But I hope you enjoy it!

#

Razael lifted his head when he heard shocked shouts from outside.  Since there were no sounds of battle, not that anyone would dare to attack the household of a Fallen One, he yawned and closed his eyes. Unless the other attacker was another Fallen One. The thought had him wide awake. With a curse, Razael pushed away the blanket and walked over to the window.

He frowned.

Hell had an arid climate and Ignisa were in the warmer portions unlike Nifel who was in the colder portions. He could count of his claws how many times it had rained.

“ This looks like no rain I’ve seen,” he muttered.

“ Is it raining?” Kate mumbled  from the bed.

He shook his head.
“ No.  This is something else. You have to see it.”

He stared out the window. The odd rain was covering the ground in a thin white layer.  Not that whatever it  was would stay white for long.  Nothing in Hell remained untainted for long.

A couple of minutes later, Kate joined him at the window.  She glanced outside and squealed.

“ It is snowing!”

He blinked. Was this odd rain common enough on Earth to have a special word?

She beamed at him.

“ Maybe there will be enough snow for us to make snow angels!”

He winced.

She had mostly dropped her habit of mentioning Angels and He above, but sometimes she forgot.

A roar filled the air.

Razael stared at the big Dragon that was decending to the household. Shaitan who had probably been out on a morning flight, before he started the days.  How would he react to this… snow?

Razael had been responsible for Shaitan’s security for long enough that he knew that Fallen Ones could be fickle.  Either he will be curious or insulted.

When the Dragon rose higher, Razael frowned.   He relaxed when the Dragon started to dance through the air.  He is playing.

“ Come on. Let’s find some cloaks and go outside.”

He gave her a horrified look. Get outside into that?! He opened his mouth, but he closed it.  He knew that when she looked like that, she wouldn’t listen to him. He shrugged.  He had learned to pick his battles.  This wasn’t worth fighting over.

They walked out from the room, and hurried down the stairs.

I love this song, but I have some bittersweet feelings for it.  It was 2009, when Spotify had just launched. I found all his albums there, and suddenly an idea I had exploded. It was such an cool idea, about a man who accidentially unleased a demon, and the woman who found his cottage centuries later, and their search to stop it.  I listened to his songs, and the idea grew, and grew. But the naive f00l I was, I didn’t write it down.  And then… the songs were pulled.  And the idea collapsed.  And it never returned. But maybe now that I have learned how to write a blurb based on vague ideas, I can revive it.

Maybe. But this wouldn’t have happened it I had just written down the idea all those years ago. So when you get a fabulous idea? Write it down.

I have muttered on Twitter and in the war room about a phone call that isn’t coming.  Since I did get the phone call, I feel I can shout to the world that I have a job. A part-time one, doing stuff I’ve done before. Everyone says it is important for research, which it is but I also know it is really easy.   I also know that there is a backlog, and that I really need to deal with.  Ideally, I would like to be able to work almost fulltime for the first month or so and then scale down. But we will see.

The bad news is that this will probably happen smack dab when I need to gear up for Daughter of the Dark’s release, and since I need to focus on the new job, I’ll have to push back the release date to June.

This is not a bad thing, since I just realised that I need get an ITIN and not an EIN from IRS. The main reason for that, is that I suspect if I want to sign a  contract  with a publisher, an EIN will not be enough.  There are also other bureaucracy things I need to do.

I don’t often write about music, and how some songs affect me when it comes to various aspect of writing. But I have been thinking about it, and decided that I wanted to blog about it.

I love this song. Not just because Salem al Fakir is a great artist,but most of all I love it because it symbolize writing and publishing to me.

Yes, writing with the aim of getting published is hard, and there will be moments when you are wondering if it is worth it. But most writers decide, that yes it is.  They are stubborn enough to not stop, and submit manuscrifts to agents and editors. And then the are the equally stubborn ones that decide to selfpublish.

But to me, it also about  writing a draft.  Writing on those days when you have to drag out the words, or you feel like you never reaches the end.  And then comes those days when you remember why you wanted to write the story.  And those days makes up for all the days when you just don’t want to, but do it anyway.

 

I finished Cauldron Bound on Friday, and then had a CSI Miami marathon the whole weekend.   This morning, I sat down to outline the prequel story I want to write before I get  Daughter of the Dark back from the Editor, sometime in February. ( I’m sending it to her Feb 4, and I suspect a short turn around time.)

I cursed a bit when I realised that the short story didn’t want to be a short story. Nope. Based on the fact that the outline is as long as the one for Cauldron Bound, it want to be a novella.  But! I look forward to write about how Jenny managed to reach  Ahira, one step before the Arch-Priestess men.

Despite the fact that the draft probably will be 10 000 words longer than I expected, I can still finish it before I get the edits back.  After all, I wrote Cauldron Bound in 3 weeks over the holidays, so I should be able finish this draft in a month. ( Yeah. I know, just because I assume this, I’ll hit an unexpected plot snag.)

I’ll probably take a couple of days off, to give Daughter of the dark one last read through before sending it to the editor.

And once this draft is done, the juggling editing and revising part  of 2014 begins.  I’m not keeping a brutal pace ( 750-1300 words is  doable for me) , but I’m definitely keeping a writing/ editing schedule.  And yes, sometimes my brain gibbers, but it seems to have worked for the writing.  So maybe it will work for the editing too!   *exhales* But I am telling myself that it will be worth it in the end.

Oh, and I am giving myself the summer off from deadlines.  Still plan on writing, but no deadlines :).

Right now, I’m working on Cauldron Born ( or Bound).  And yesterday, I reached the part of   the draft that is an eternal slog.  The inner critic whispers ” This is crap. Shouldn’t you focus on the unfinished YA Fantasy instead?”, while I would like to finish it, I know that I need to finish this draft first.  At the moment, I’ve written almost 8000 words, which means I’m probably roughly half way into the first draft.

The draft is  sparse with almost no description, but that’s OK.  For me, the first draft is more about  getting the bare bones story down on paper.  Yeah there are  probably plot holes that I don’t realise, and the writing is clunky, but that’s what revising is for.

Right now, I’m looking at finish it in mid January.   I’m aiming for 15 000 words, but it might be longer.   But rest assured, when I send it to an editor? It will be longer, since I often add 5-10 000 words in my revisions.  The big exception was Queen of Sind, I added a whopping 20 000 words during revisions.