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Praise for Queen of None from Publishers Weekly
You know I’m pleased when they call me clever. The review for Queen of None from Publishers Weekly just went live, and I’m still grinning. Is the validation required for writing? No. Does it help? Absolutely. Are things right now a trash fire and this is a much-needed moment of fresh air? You betcha. “…a layered, engaging retelling sure to please fans of the Arthurian tales.” Publishers Weekly I wrote a bit of a longer piece on Facebook about this, and the review process, so I’ll paraphrase here: your writing career is not one review, or even ten reviews. If you want a career in writing, you’ve got to learn…
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Kirkus Reviews on Queen of None
As publication time comes nearer for Queen of None, reviews are coming in! I was thrilled this morning to find the Kirkus Reviews take on the book: A captivating look at the intriguing figures in King Arthur’s golden realm. Kirkus Reviews I just submitted the last pass on the novel, as well, so the timing was pretty cool. I have so many thoughts right now on this, given the state of everything right now… but it’s truly exciting to see this book resonating. Yes, all books mean a great deal to the writers who craft them. Queen of None is particularly dear, in ways that I can’t quite articulate at…
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Cool news: Queen of none available for pre-order Now
Anna Pendragon spends most of the book stuck inside... so that should be familiar to a lot of us in 2020.
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The Faces of Queen of None
When the going gets tough, the writer has some fun with a little distraction.
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Queen of None to be Published Fall 2020 by Vernacular Books
A little good news for the weary of heart.
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arthuriana, blog, editing, fantasy, glassmere, peter of windbourne, pilgrim of the sky, queen of none, steampunk, the gnome and the necromancer, ward of the rose, WIP, writing
Prosaic Analysis Paralysis
In which I think aloud for a few paragraphs… pardon the navel gazing. The burden of words. It’s quite something, I tell you. And at the moment I’m finding it to be on the verge of utterly overwhelming. I have all these stories, all these books and novels and ideas, and instead of a calm, steady stream (the way I’ve written for the better part of the last five years) it’s a frozen lake. A frozen lake filled with strange faces and whispers under the icy surface, all jumbled together, staring at me, challenging me. And I’ve got analysis paralysis. I have too much to work on, so much so…
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… and then some stuff happened.
I’ve been trying to write a post in what feels like forever, but it hasn’t happened. Well, now it’s happening. The last week kinda sucked, with our cat nearly dying. We were quite surprised when she didn’t (I thank all the lovely kitty mojo love from Twitter). It’s likely she’s had a stroke, and she’s recovering well. We’re keeping an eye on her and doing our best to keep her comfortable. Minerva, the kitty, is really the most amazing cat I’ve ever known, and she was our first “child”. We answered an ad in the paper seven years ago for a “free black and white cat” expecting the usual tuxedo…
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Loving Lancelot or, the Force of Character
I have to confess, I’ve never much liked Lancelot. I never got the whole thing with him, never understood why, time and again, he appears in book after book after book, film after film. And I swore, up and down I swore, that if I ever wrote Arthuriana that there would be absolutely no sign of Lancelot to speak of. No stupid Frenchman ruining everything. No pure, guiltless knight; no hunky posterboy. The only Lancelot I marginally liked was T.H. White’s… because he was terribly ugly. I can appreciate that sort of irony. (Of course, they couldn’t have kept that in Camelot. Had to go and make him all sexy…
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Arthur Re(du)x – Part One
I can’t say for sure, but I think the first time I ever saw something remotely Pre-Raphaelite was in elementary school upon visiting the Clark Art Institute in Williamstown, MA. It very well could have been this painting, though I’m not sure when it was acquired. Regardless, I remember returning from the museum on an absolute high, my mind alive with the images I’d seen and thrilling at the prospect of such visual imagination. Throughout college, I learned a great deal more about the Pre-Raphaelites, and they and their brotherhood (and sisterhood, et al) continued to crop up during my Arthurian studies. And the more I read of Arthur, the…
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The Queen, the Knight, and Arthur
If you’ve followed either of my blogs, listened to my podcast, of likely talked to me for all of ten minutes, you’ve probably gathered that I have a thing for Arthuriana. My love of the genre is deep-seeded, having taken root somewhere in between watching The Sword in the Stone and receiving a book from my great aunt on the subject (I can’t seem to locate the book, but it had fabulous illustrations, including a brilliant one of Morgause holding up Mordred as a newborn amidst the rocky sea and churning waves). But it wasn’t until college that something really clicked with me, something started reverberating in my brain, in…
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Writing can soothe the soul…
I recently had the pleasure of reading one of Lilith Saintcrow’s amazing entries about how writing can, indeed, save our lives. Since I have been revisiting in a book that did much to soothe my own soul, I wanted to tell you a little about it. If you follow me on Twitter, you’ll know that a little less than a year ago, my younger sister was diagnosed with cancer. Now, illness kind of runs in our family; mom’s had cancer and a series of other ailments, dad’s been fighting a mystery disease/heart disease and suffered a near-fatal staph infection the week before my wedding. And that heart surgery he had…
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Glut, glut, glut.
I am trying to be candid here. I have too many words. Not counting finished drafts, I have somewhere around 230K of unfinished business. This is either work in process (currently I am writing two separate books) or words that need to be edited. This morning I thought I’d total it up, for reasons of amusement. But now? Looking at it I’ve got to wonder what the hell it is I’m getting at. This started when I got frustrated editing a first draft. Then I decided to do something else; which lead to something else… which means, ah, what the hell? Self: Stop this grumblefest. You need to look on…
