Robert Priest's Blog: Blogging not logging - Posts Tagged "spell-crossed"

In the past few months two books, Rosa Rose, a book of verses for children about inspirational people and things and a book of adult poetry previously feared darkness have come out. In the midst of touring and publicizing these I've been working with Dundurn press on my epic fantasy series spell crossed. Book 1 the paper sword will be published in July. I'll get the copy edits in a few days and that will be that. Concurrently I've been working on the first two or three chapters of the re-write of book 2, second kiss, in preparation for a deadline in March when I turn it in. Plus I'm going on tour in Ireland the UK and to Paris during the second week of November as a poet and singer-songwriter. (I had a CD out about a year ago called feeling the pinch. You can get it on iTunes.). So I really am at a bit of a nexus. Something that occurs a lot in spell crossed. I'm under one spell for poetry and another for prose and another for songs and I live in the three-way flow. Also I'm a reader of course. The latest book being David and Goliath by Malcolm Gladwell. Here's my latest Facebook post about it.

During the past couple of years I've been working on the poem for children about the children's March in Birmingham. It's hard to get a lot of information on it. I decided I'm going to have to go there and visit the center. But I just read the most stirring account of it in Malcolm Gladwell's new book David and Goliath. I I'm still writing the poem but in the meantime check out the story as he tells it.

I Try to do at least an hour of work a day on my fantasy novel, second kiss, book 2 of my paper sword series but yesterday because I want to enter a song of mine into the John Lennon song contest I had to head out to Georgetown to do a new vocal. More than 2 Hours Each Way on the various buses involved so I didn't get my minimal in on the book. Sometimes though a little lag is good for brewing. Meanwhile I got a decent vocal on the song. The lyric is from my new book Rosa Rose so I'll probably post the new mix of the song here when it's done. Meanwhile a little over two weeks before I go to the UK. And tonight I get my copy edits on the paper sword, book one of the spell cross series. Where nexus meets nexus.

Just finished the final edits for book 2 of the spell cross series, second kiss. Typically I love the editing process. It's easy for an author to get attached to particularly flowery formulations even when they are slightly over-the-top. A good editor can point these out and clear the way for a straight narrative line. There were one or 2 very musical phrases that were hard to let go like “still finding their places in the ancient algorithms of the thaumaturgy." but it's done now and the book is better for it. I particularly like the second book. I love the ending. Now having taken a few days off I'm back at book 3. I've got about 40,000 words of first draft and now I have to put the pieces together and see what else needs to be written. Plus do a lot of tidying up and editing and melding of text. But so far I am continuing to enjoy this, though those procrastinated hours that lead up to finally doing some writing are no fun at all. Well, except when my chosen means of diverting myself is to write a poem. It has also led to tidying my room, my house, exercising. You can find an entry about book 2, second kiss in the new Dundurn catalog https://bnccatalist.ca/ViewTitle.aspx...

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

I got my authors copies of book 2 of Spell Crossed, Second Kiss, yesterday. The book looks great and feels good. Even a tiny bit hefty. Three hundred some odd pages. Putting the first and the second book together side-by-side I'm enjoying the aesthetic of the two covers. Meanwhile I am busy writing Missing Piece, book 3. And I'm off for two weeks of teaching in Banff. It's so intricate writing fantasy. Knowing what to tell about what's going on with the magic and what to leave unstated but hopefully able to be ferreted out as the narrative proceeds. More of the latter is good I believe. Enjoying working with the character Tharfen who takes the lead in book 3. Right now there are snowflakes the size of tea cozies flopping down into the water filled use troughs outside my window. Kamikazes.

had a great book launch for Second Kiss at the Dora Keogh in Toronto. Sold a goodly number of books through Ben McNally books. Meanwhile toiling daily on the follow-up Missing Piece and I'm really enjoying it. First draft is almost complete including formatting of text etc. It being a book about pieces I have a number of fairly small fractured chapters but a large cast of characters.

Monday I'm off to Salerno Italy for a poetry Festival. Back on June 10. That's my fourth travel this season, more than usual for sure, especially when I've got a book to finish but the same thing happened when I went to Japan and had to finish Second Kiss and look how good that turned out (I tell myself).

In between times I'm gigging with my band, (just did a great gig at say what in Toronto), writing songs, writing poems for my new book of children's poems called People like you and Me. And about halfway through a book about old poems which includes quite a number of sonnets I'm slightly embarrassed to say.

I have an idea for a new young adult novel after I finished missing piece. But this one will take place in our world and not be a fantasy. But the main character will be a kind of rude brilliant revolutionary chatty person. That will be about April Fools' Day.

I've also changed my workstation again. I now have a wireless keyboard and I sit about 4 feet back from a large iMac screen with the resolution up large so I have no problem seeing it. Mostly I dictate but when necessary I have the little keyboard with the touchpad on my lap. I probably write three times as much like this is I ever did or could physically in my years of plunking at a typewriter. That's good because there's a lot of ancillary writing tasks that go with being a writer and it's easy to get up in the morning and wind up doing two or three hours of feeling forms and writing emails so that by the time you're finished the energy for creative writing has been severely dipped into by mundane but necessary tasks. Now I can do that work which isn't psychologically taxing and have it not be physically taxing either so that late in the day if I get inspired and need to spill out some whole episode or chapter or delineate an idea I can do it without hurting myself.
And that's good. Plus I'm learning a bit of Italian

Book 1 in my Spell Crossed fantasy series, The Paper Sword, is an iBooks summer reads selection! you can get an eCopy for a mere $3.99. Just go to the iTunes store, go to books, go to summer reads and it's in the young adult category. So economical and perfect reading for fantasy lovers. and then you won't have to wait very long for second kiss because it's right there for $8.99.