Writing

I’ve been to the shores of Omaha beach in Normandy. It’s a serene, quiet place where the waves of the Channel lap against the sand. The rocky hills slope gently there and are covered with green grass. In June, it’s an idyllic spot — far away from the bustle of Paris. The coast is cool and refreshing compared to the rest of France.

I’ve been to Caen. It’s grown in size but it’s still a quiet, rustic village in Normandy. The homes have small, rocky walls encircling the gardens that are every Frenchwoman’s pride. Children run up and down the sidewalks. People go to and fro on their errands, carrying bags or dragging caddies in their wake.

I’ve been to Paris. It’s a gem of a city filled with architecture that spans the eras from the Pax Romana to the neo-modern. I’ve walked the bridge from the Eiffel Tower, over the Seine. I’ve visited Notre Dame de Paris — I was married in Notre Dame de Champs just a brisk walk away. I’ve seen the Tullieries and the Jardin du Luxembourg. I used to read over by the Fountaine de Medicis next to the Sénat and feed the ducks and fish that make that fountain their home.

I’ve lived in France. It’s a beautiful country filled with wonderful people. Some of my best friends are still there and, though I’ve returned to my native land, part of me will always be in France. But, my ten years in France were made possible by my grandfather’s trip there back in 1944. He came across the Channel in the afternoon, when the worst of the fighting was over. He was part of the Big Red One and would be with them as they pushed to liberate Paris and then on to Berlin. My grandfather never really talked about his time in the Army and, to be honest, I never really asked him about it. He passed away when I was 10 years old so the subject never really came up. But he and countless other men stormed those beaches that I saw. The white sand and green grass must have been covered with blood and gore from the earlier waves of attacks. The ground was probably chewed up and muddy from the fighting. I doubt that my grandfather ever saw the beautiful country that his fighting made possible — once the war was over, he returned to his life back in the US. Just like the countless other soldiers, he set aside the nightmares he must have seen, went back to work, raised his children, and lived his life.

We call them the “Greatest Generation” not just because of the war they fought — we call them great because, once that war was over, they returned home, took off their Army uniforms, and went back to work.

Quiet heroes, all.

— G.K. Masterson

I’ve not posted much in the way of an update because I’ve not had much to say. Work continues apace on Midnight of Lanar’ya. Sales of Twilight of Lanar’ya are going fairly well. All told, I’m pretty happy with how things are turning out. I hope to have the first draft of Midnight of Lanar’ya finished within the next couple of weeks and will be looking for beta readers to give it an eye over and give me some critical feedback before I go into Editor Mode.

In unrelated news, I’ve also bought a bass guitar and have been teaching myself how to play it. That’s going fairly well. And, I’ve dusted off my US WoW account and gotten my character to 85 and have been gearing him up with an eye towards raiding again.

All in all, life is going well. My job is going nicely. I get paid to browse techie sites and post things to Facebook and Twitter. That’s awesome. I’ve really got nothing to complain about at the moment.

So now, I shall return to working on Midnight of Lanar’ya!

Twilight of Lanar’ya is now on sale in paperback (CreateSpace and Amazon) and eBook (Smashwords and Amazon).

I think my #1 pet peeve in some works is time gaps. You get to know one group of characters and then, bam, you’re 4000 years later with a whole new bunch to learn. Sometimes, this tool (I hesitate to call it that) can be used effectively. Brandon Sanderson does it quite well in The Way of Kings and Robert Jordan really got you drawn into The Eye of the World with a prologue that takes place 3000 years before the story proper. However, with some other authors, it’s clear that it was just a crutch to cover the fact that they didn’t want to actually build up their characters and do a proper transition.

In Twilight of Lanar’ya I do have several time gaps. I wanted to set the prologue in the early days of the Empire and then show how Andral was coping with being an elf flung into a human world. I also wanted to show events that would be referenced in Jarl’s life but without having to create a monster-sized book. So, I used time gaps. The characters I used the gaps with were all built up either before or after the gap so I didn’t fall into the “I didn’t want to develop characters” trap but I did feel somewhat guilty about how often I was using time gaps.

Well, I’m hitting a point in Midnight of Lanar’ya where there’s going to be a bit of a gap. I’m in the homestretch for writing the first draft and if I can just sit down this weekend, undisturbed, and get some serious work crunched on it, I will definitely have the first draft finished by the end of this month.

Still, I hate using time gaps within a book. A gap between books is okay. A gap within better have a damned good reason for being there or else I’m going to need some sort of strong signal that “A Lot Of Time Has Passed.”

Anyhow, I’d best get back to working on Midnight of Lanar’ya. Apparently a bunch of people have finished Twilight of Lanar’ya and are bugging me to finish the next book already because they want to know what’s going on.

Twilight of Lanar’ya is now on sale in paperback (CreateSpace and Amazon) and eBook (Smashwords and Amazon).

After so many years of writing things that would have been awesome had they only seen the light of day (other writers will know what I mean), it is with great pride and excitement that I announce that Twilight of Lanar’ya is now on sale at CreateSpace and Amazon.com in paperback or at Smashwords in eBook format! It will be available in the Amazon Kindle store within the next 24 hours. Edit: Now available for Kindle here.

If you are ordering the paperback edition, I do prefer that you go through CreateSpace for that as I do get a larger royalty payment from them than from Amazon. Also, the reason for the $10 price on the paperback is that the manufacturing costs came up to $8.00 USD. Otherwise, it would be selling for $5.00 USD if I could swing it.

I will post about the various adventures I’ve had actually getting this thing published later. For now, I’m going to go celebrate!

Thanks to everyone who has stood by me while I got this thing written and published. Thanks to my parents, my illustrators, Keary and John-Paul, to my beta readers, and to all my friends out there. I did it guys. I finally did it.