Robert Priest's Blog: Blogging not logging - Posts Tagged "magic"
Spell crossed book 1 out, book 2 finished book 3 taking shape
I couldn't find my blog last time I was here. But this time it was easy. Maybe the results of too much time on the computer not seeing the trees for the forest. The paper sword is now officially released in paperback and I love the look of the book. I've already read in one of the reviews here how someone purchased the book because they liked the cover. That's just what I wanted.
I've just sent in the edits round one to my editor at Dundurn. So I am about 2 thirds of the way through book 3 first draft, fielding edits for book 2, and promoting book 1. A good thing about it is that reviewing the earlier texts keeps me attuned to the the details of the story. Book 3 Takes Place 5 years after the other 2 books and it revolves around missing pieces—whether physical pieces that are missing from people's bodies or psychological pieces or magical pieces, pieces of a talisman or peace itself.
also my son Daniel just got married and we had a big wedding party yesterday. So life is full and joyous. I've seen the cover for book 2 and it's going to be just as good-looking as book 1.
I've just sent in the edits round one to my editor at Dundurn. So I am about 2 thirds of the way through book 3 first draft, fielding edits for book 2, and promoting book 1. A good thing about it is that reviewing the earlier texts keeps me attuned to the the details of the story. Book 3 Takes Place 5 years after the other 2 books and it revolves around missing pieces—whether physical pieces that are missing from people's bodies or psychological pieces or magical pieces, pieces of a talisman or peace itself.
also my son Daniel just got married and we had a big wedding party yesterday. So life is full and joyous. I've seen the cover for book 2 and it's going to be just as good-looking as book 1.
Why I think we need fantasy
What I like about fantasy
fantasy or books with magic in them were always my first choice whenever I went to the bookmobile I attended in Scarborough. Then as a grown-up I was taken with the magic realism of Marquez and Julio Cortazar and Salman Rushdie. And poetry. And I think they all have much in common. The sense of escaping causality in the material sense getting into the poesis. A realm where the word is power. Poems and spells. A world where one could overcome vast forces with a word. Now science makes some of the wilder dreams of the poesis attainable. Flight. We dream it. We hold the vision hard and insist on it and our senses through science attain it. Same thing with telepathy. Same thing with healing and immortality. How many spells before mutations of the spells broke down into equations. All of which started with a vision of the world not the way it is or was-a magical vision. but as the lingo streams through the logos it selects more and more for the more exact language of numbers. we wind up in a world much more made of mathematical formulations than magical spells or the geist legends of poetry to which our organisms are attuned. We are not made for an exact world. nor an understandable world nor a predictable world. We are made for a fantastical world.
fantasy or books with magic in them were always my first choice whenever I went to the bookmobile I attended in Scarborough. Then as a grown-up I was taken with the magic realism of Marquez and Julio Cortazar and Salman Rushdie. And poetry. And I think they all have much in common. The sense of escaping causality in the material sense getting into the poesis. A realm where the word is power. Poems and spells. A world where one could overcome vast forces with a word. Now science makes some of the wilder dreams of the poesis attainable. Flight. We dream it. We hold the vision hard and insist on it and our senses through science attain it. Same thing with telepathy. Same thing with healing and immortality. How many spells before mutations of the spells broke down into equations. All of which started with a vision of the world not the way it is or was-a magical vision. but as the lingo streams through the logos it selects more and more for the more exact language of numbers. we wind up in a world much more made of mathematical formulations than magical spells or the geist legends of poetry to which our organisms are attuned. We are not made for an exact world. nor an understandable world nor a predictable world. We are made for a fantastical world.
How do I get to my blog?
Once again I've come to Goodreads to blog, signed in and been unable to find the link that takes me to this page where I'm writing now. New blog post. Weird. If anybody's reading this (and I don't think anybody is but that's okay for now) please drop me a line and tell me the easy way to get to my own blog. For now I just go to Google and put in "blogging not logging" get to it that way.
The good news is that I've upgraded my Dragon Dictate software and acquired my buddy, Al Booth's old iMac which has so much more power so that not only do I have a new program but much more processing capability so that it runs very smoothly all of its very necessary editing functions and spelling functions easily attainable. Since I've been a public speaker all my life and I'm fairly comfortable speaking out loud and have used some version of voice to text for at least 15 years I've grown pretty comfortable with this process and I love it.
So I've been working on Missing Piece book 3 of my spell crossed series and I'm managing to be pretty delighted with how it's going. I probably said in previous posts that I've become a writer of "faith" my faith being that I will maintain high enough imagination to make virtues out of my narrative challenges. Faith that things will continue to unfold within the very general parentheses of the plot line I have. Also I'm behaving myself in terms of not going off on huge poetic tangents. Trying to keep a lot of it action and dialogue oriented. I sent a proto-version of Chapter 1 to Dundurn in the hopes that because it's only 4 pages they may be able to put it in at the end of Book 2, Second Kiss. All of this is helped by the fact that I have this new toy that's dictated all of what you've just read without a single mistake so far. Though I did have to capitalize a few things. Later — RP
The good news is that I've upgraded my Dragon Dictate software and acquired my buddy, Al Booth's old iMac which has so much more power so that not only do I have a new program but much more processing capability so that it runs very smoothly all of its very necessary editing functions and spelling functions easily attainable. Since I've been a public speaker all my life and I'm fairly comfortable speaking out loud and have used some version of voice to text for at least 15 years I've grown pretty comfortable with this process and I love it.
So I've been working on Missing Piece book 3 of my spell crossed series and I'm managing to be pretty delighted with how it's going. I probably said in previous posts that I've become a writer of "faith" my faith being that I will maintain high enough imagination to make virtues out of my narrative challenges. Faith that things will continue to unfold within the very general parentheses of the plot line I have. Also I'm behaving myself in terms of not going off on huge poetic tangents. Trying to keep a lot of it action and dialogue oriented. I sent a proto-version of Chapter 1 to Dundurn in the hopes that because it's only 4 pages they may be able to put it in at the end of Book 2, Second Kiss. All of this is helped by the fact that I have this new toy that's dictated all of what you've just read without a single mistake so far. Though I did have to capitalize a few things. Later — RP
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