The fourth book in our Jennifer Scales weredragon series, The Seraph of Sorrow, released this week. These are the books I co-write with my husband, Anthony Alongi (which explains why they're longer than anything I write on my own).
Also, I'm fleeing the hemisphere mid-month to give the keynote speech at the ARRC09 (held this year in Melbournce, Australia). Between me and thee, I cannot get out there fast enough. It's summertime on the other side of the planet, but five below zero in Minneapolis.
Here's the Amazon link to the book, if you want to check it out. Meanwhile, I'm on the hunt for SPF 8000. Wish me luck. :-)
http://www.amazon.com/Seraph-Sorrow-Jennifer-Scales-Book/dp/0441016669/ref=pd_bbs_sr_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1233363195&sr=8-1
Friday, January 30, 2009
Friday, January 23, 2009
The Seraph of Sorrow, or I Write A Longer Book
With help, natch. More than "help", actually...the fourth book from our Weredragon series, THE SERAPH OF SORROW, will be out in less than two weeks. And I have to say, I was surprised.
Not by the approaching date...although it does seem like 2008 went by in about a blink and a half, and here we are in mid-to-late January 2009 already and when did time start speeding up, my God, I feel like if I blink it'll be Valentine's, and if I sneeze it'll be Spring.
No, I was surprised, very pleasantly surprised, at the heft of this book. Although our publishing contract stipulates many, many author's copies, those usually show up within a week of publication. Our publisher always sends us a book, one copy of the new book, a few days before it's released. For us, it's the first time we've seen a computer file, a pile of copy edited pages, galleys, flap copy copy (no, that's not a mistake, it's copy for the flap copy) and then hey, presto! It's a book. A nice, hefty paperback...one with more heft, more meat, as it were, than the books I write on my own.
Yep, the Undead series sells very well, amazingly well...but the universal complaint is always "too short". This is a chronic failing in all my work; I dislike description and if I had my way, my books would be 350 manuscript pages of pure dialogue. Fortunately I do not have my way, and they aren't. (Maybe I should head for Hollywood and punch up scripts!) But even after my editor has her way with me and forces me to describe a room or a character or a desk set, the Undead books tend toward the lean.
Ah, but Jennifer Scales is edging toward fat! The series, anyway, not the poor girl/weredragon my husband and I have been torturing for five years. SERAPH OF SORROW was originally a hundred pages longer than the book available on the shelves at the end of this month. SERAPH was put on a radical diet! And even now, post-editing, it's a nice plump paperback. It has been sneaking ice cream when no one was looking.
As I hefted SERAPH I had to smile; my books always run short because I'm all dialogue, no description. SERAPH has plenty of both. Jennifer Scales, like most teenagers, is growing and growing with no clear signs of stopping, and the series, also like most teenagers, is taking us along for the ride...and who in the world (or worlds, in this case) knows where we'll end up?
I s'pose finding out will be part of the fun.
Enjoy!
Not by the approaching date...although it does seem like 2008 went by in about a blink and a half, and here we are in mid-to-late January 2009 already and when did time start speeding up, my God, I feel like if I blink it'll be Valentine's, and if I sneeze it'll be Spring.
No, I was surprised, very pleasantly surprised, at the heft of this book. Although our publishing contract stipulates many, many author's copies, those usually show up within a week of publication. Our publisher always sends us a book, one copy of the new book, a few days before it's released. For us, it's the first time we've seen a computer file, a pile of copy edited pages, galleys, flap copy copy (no, that's not a mistake, it's copy for the flap copy) and then hey, presto! It's a book. A nice, hefty paperback...one with more heft, more meat, as it were, than the books I write on my own.
Yep, the Undead series sells very well, amazingly well...but the universal complaint is always "too short". This is a chronic failing in all my work; I dislike description and if I had my way, my books would be 350 manuscript pages of pure dialogue. Fortunately I do not have my way, and they aren't. (Maybe I should head for Hollywood and punch up scripts!) But even after my editor has her way with me and forces me to describe a room or a character or a desk set, the Undead books tend toward the lean.
Ah, but Jennifer Scales is edging toward fat! The series, anyway, not the poor girl/weredragon my husband and I have been torturing for five years. SERAPH OF SORROW was originally a hundred pages longer than the book available on the shelves at the end of this month. SERAPH was put on a radical diet! And even now, post-editing, it's a nice plump paperback. It has been sneaking ice cream when no one was looking.
As I hefted SERAPH I had to smile; my books always run short because I'm all dialogue, no description. SERAPH has plenty of both. Jennifer Scales, like most teenagers, is growing and growing with no clear signs of stopping, and the series, also like most teenagers, is taking us along for the ride...and who in the world (or worlds, in this case) knows where we'll end up?
I s'pose finding out will be part of the fun.
Enjoy!
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