Infidel

Went out to the coffee shop down the street tonight to catch up on my Black Desert writing. Finished up nearly 5K, getting me back within 1K of where I’m actually supposed to be according to my writing schedule. It was an intense little session. I haven’t been that deep in the book in awhile, […]

Nyx put her hands on the edge of the well and looked down. The water was glassy black; she stared at her darker half, gazing up at her from the bottom of the well. There was nothing but water and her reflection and the stir of the water around the rope. The rope. She reached

So I’ve got a new writing soundtrack. I’d forgotten how great the soundtrack to The Fountain was, and now that I’ve got it, it’s great to write to. That said, here’s another excerpt: ————————————— 7.The night train to Beh Ayin took Rhys southeast, across some of the most contaminated habitable wilderness in the world. Unlike

Nyx didn’t touch the letters again until she and Eshe and Suha were back in Faleen, holed up in a little two-room rental with a terrace at the edge of the Chenjan district. The call to evening prayer rolled out over the city and was taken up by half a hundred muezzins out on their

Rune was a coastal city, a loose collection of homesteads perched along the edge of a wooded isthmus that thrust itself into the sea at the far eastern edge of Nasheen. It was the sort of place that made Nyx’s belly ache and her palms sweat, being surrounded on three sides by all that water,

Halfway through Black Desert. It’s at about 45,000 words, that point at which, which you print it out, it almost feels like you’re writing a real book. Repeat after me: Draft by October! Draft by October!

I love that I have to get 200 pages into a novel before I figure out what the fuck the plot is.

Dear self, The Nyx books ARE NOT EPIC FANTASY. This means that you CANNOT WRITE A FUCKING PROLOGUE FOR BLACK DESERT. That is all, thnx. EDIT LATER: I’ve just realized that Black Desert really is THE EMPIRE STRIKES BACK of the series. I can’t tell you how happy this makes me. I promise, tho –

I spent an inordinate amount of time last night just before bed tossing and turning and playing out in my head the scene in Black Desert that finally made the whole thing fall together for me. It’s a brutal little book, meaner than the last one but with more heart (you know, compared to the

Safina ma Raj had taken a flying leap off the minaret of Aludra’s central mosque, the Hagia Sarat, three days before Nyx drove into town. Nyx got there in time for the blood arbiter’s dissemination of Safina’s possessions outside the same mosque, on the same stained stones where Safina’s body had burst like an overcooked