Knave Update: Cafe Fiore All-Day Push

Today begins a string of all-day writes. 

Goal: Complete Beta draft to 85%, and send it to Beta Readers. While they read, I finish the last 15%. BOOM!
Notice the headphones: Thanks to the inestimable Martin Shoemaker (a 2015 Writers of the Future winner) for showing me that Instead of typing or writing at a desk, I can dictate passages while I hike or walk. 

So often it seems I face the choice between writing and exercise, but thanks to Martin’s revelation, I need not always face that choice. Today I will transcribe* two “foreshadowing” passages that I composed on a walk I took while waiting for a ferry in Fauntleroy .

*Martin actually pays a service to transcribe for him. He composed a novel this year commuting in his car to his day job. Kevin J. Anderson also composes this way.

Some of my “Foul Papers”

Knave Progress Update: Friday’s Desk

I’m into the hard-copy polish phase of THE KNAVE OF SOULS.

That means I print a chapter, I read it for flow and economy of writing, mark it, type in corrections, and DONE!

Target Release Date: Thanksgiving!

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THE JACK OF SOULS is up for preorder on Audible!

The audiobook for The Jack of Souls is up for preorder on Audible, and it’s freaking fantastic!  I am so pleased!

Here’s an audio file of the opening pages. The actor, Alex Wyndham, went with an English accent—probably because of the lofty material, 😉 –and he rocks it! Turns out he’s a great character actor.

JOS - Audiobook

Even in the first minute I love what he did with the barman. II can’t wait to hear how he did Caris and Willard and Brolli and Bannus’s voices.

I shall have to subject my kids to it on the road trip to the mountains this weekend. Mwa-hahaha!

 

World Building: High Fashion Through the Ages

The Emperor Has Clothes, and They are Ridiculous

The wonderful absurdity of fashion is not a new phenomenon either, as witnessed by the bizarre confections of silk and wool dreamed up by renaissance tailors in Italy. Collars of any era are likely to have a high absurdity factor—think of the Virgin Queen, or John Travolta’s character in Saturday Night Fever.  Shoes are also common offenders, and hairstyles.

Recently I viewed a Roman tomb that captured in stone a noblewoman’s hairstyle from the decade she died, which appeared to be a mass of tight curls piled in what can be only be described as a cross between a beehive with a radar dish.

Wonderful article, by the way, in which a hair dresser plays archeologist to explain how these crazy roman hairdoos defied gravity:

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/03/22/ancient-roman-hair-janet-stephens_n_2925152.html