Just a quick update. It’s come to my attention that some folks who pre-ordered the e-book of Twice Dead had their orders canceled by Amazon. The message attached to the cancellation claims that the publication was canceled by the publisher. After recovering from my heart attack, I checked in with the excellent folks at Charlesbridge. They assure me that they haven’t quietly kicked my poor book to the curb. Twice Dead is still scheduled for publication on September 18, 2018. The canceled orders seem to be due to some glitch on Amazon’s side. We’ve notified them about it, so fingers crossed it doesn’t pop up again.

If your pre-order was canceled, you should be able to resubmit the order without any trouble.

In other news, I’ve seen the jacket copy for the hardcover edition and it is beautiful. I can’t wait to share it.

A couple weeks ago I had the good fortune to sign with the wonderful and talented Lucienne Diver of The Knight Agency. It’s taken this long for the good news to truly sink in, and as it has I’ve been thinking more and more about all the little happenings and decisions that got me to this point.

It’s been five years since I first began to seriously consider the idea of writing a book, and I still remember the moment that decision clicked. I was sitting alone in a bedroom in Valparaiso Chile. I was a few weeks into a six month study abroad program. My introduction to city life in Chile had already included waking up to what was at the time the fifth strongest earthquake in recorded history. I was feeling isolated and unbalanced, and seriously beginning to question my life choices. My Spanish was good enough to get by, but not so good that I felt confident socializing. It was a frustrating and humbling experience.

I’d spent that particular evening finishing one of the books in Brent Weeks’ Night Angel series. Having run out of book, I flipped to the acknowledgments. I found myself smiling, and relating as much to Weeks’ frank description of learning to write as I had to the actual story. I found myself thinking, I wish I could write like that. On the heels of that realization came the obvious question.

What, exactly, was stopping me?

Up until that moment it had been a vague fear of failure. Writing books was something other people did. Other people had good story ideas. How could I possibly write anything worthwhile when there were already so many great stories out there? But the more I thought about it, the more I realized this was something I really wanted. I needed an outlet for linguistic frustration, even if it was one only I saw. And besides, I’d already survived a major earthquake, and learned to navigate the city’s map-less bus system, how much harder could this be? With that naive optimism glowing inside me, I sat down and started typing.

That first book became a refuge, a way to remind myself that I could still string together words into sentences that were more than just functional. I finished the project a year or so later, and proudly showed it to a few close friends and family members. It was awful. Eventually I managed to figure that out even though most of my readers were too polite to say so. I revised. I rewrote most of the book. Twice. Eventually it got a little better. Then I wrote another book, and another.

Would I eventually have gotten to this point without that night in Chile to drive me forward? Who knows. But I can say that what started as a refuge has grown to an addiction, one I’m happy to keep feeding.

Yes, it’s that magical time of the year. That time when the leaves turn, the air grows crisp, and everything suddenly tastes like pumpkin spice.

Also, National Novel Writing Month.

The first time I learned about NaNo, I was skeptical. 50,000 words is a lot for one month. Also, most of what I write ends up a good deal longer than that, so I knew I wouldn’t *really* have a completed novel at the end unless I pushed way past the minimum word count.

Now, diving into NaNo for the third time, I guess you could say my doubts have been assuaged. Here’s a few reasons why I think NaNo is a great resource.

1. The community. I don’t think this can be overstated. Writing is a solitary pursuit. Conferences are expensive and good writing groups are hard to find. But for one month you can join with thousands of other writers who share the crazy plan of finishing a draft in a month.

2. The graph. This might sound weird, but I’ve found the little bar graph on the official NaNo site is a great way to keep me motivated. Maybe my brain’s just tuned to a gamified world, but sometimes the urge get those little bars up is just what I need push me through another couple hundred words at the end of the day.

3. The rules are meant to be broken. NaNo comes with a lot of rules. Don’t start before Nov 1st. Write every day. Don’t revise. But really, the only one who gets to decide which rules to follow, is you. I tend to start early, and I always end up doing revisions as I go. Revisions keep the earlier parts of my book fresh in my mind, and starting early means I’m actually pushing to reach the end of my story by Nov 30th rather than some arbitrary word limit.

Hey internet.

This blog is likely to be rambling and strange. There might be cookies, or cats, or evil space monkeys. No promises.

But for these first few posts I’m going to talk about helpful writing resources I’ve found over the years.

Today’s resource is the Writing Excuses podcast featuring Brandon Sanderson, Dan Wells, Howard Tayler, and Mary Robinette Kowal. I found Writing Excuses on the recommendation of a friend a few years back, and have been hooked ever since.

The podcast is pretty huge. But for those who don’t know about it, the archives are a fantastic (and amusing) resource. Most useful to me have been the discussions on worldbuilding and on adjusting characters with Brandon’s slider system. There are also some great posts on the business side of writing that cover everything from small-press publishing to online etiquette.

Aside from all the useful information, these guys are just plain fun to listen to. And the episodes are all under twenty minutes, so they make for a good break when your brain’s gone mushy from too much plotting.