Folks who know me from podcasting might not know that I’m a teacher. Listeners who know me from the Golden Age of the Solar Clipper might not know about Tales from the Lammas Wood. Some of you may know me as a teacher or as an expert in web accessibility or … well, you get the idea.
Hello, World. Glad you stopped by to see what’s happening here.
In 2009, my friend Mur Lafferty challenged me to complete NaNoWriMo in half a month. For the un-initiated, NaNoWriMo is National Novel Writing Month and it falls in November each year. To win, write at least 50,000 words of a new extended work of fiction starting at midnight on the morning of November 1 and ending at midnight in the evening of November 30. For most normal purposes, 50,000 words is a rather long novella or a rather short novel, but it’s a handy target and every year thousands of erstwhile novelists from around the globe pit themselves against their keyboards and the clock.
In 2007, I completed the first draft of South Coast in November and had the podcast out by Christmas. In 2008, I failed to break the 2,000 word mark because of day job conflicts–travel, new high-priority projects, etc. In 2009, I accepted Mur’s challenge and the result was the first draft of Ravenwood. The first of what I hope will be a new series of works set in a fantasy setting.
Why fantasy?
2009 was the year of The Challenge with NaNoWriMo. After I accepted the speed challenge from Mur, another friend challenged me to get out of my genre and write a fantasy work while a long time beta reader finally nailed me down to write a female lead character. Little did I know how much of a challenge it would be, or how much fun I’d have working in this new country.
Keeping with my idea of twisting tropes, I approached the Epic Quest Fantasy by first identifying the things I wanted to change. In the typical story, the kid leaves home to seek fame and fortune (or escape the boredom of the farm) and adventures across the land becoming a hero and gaining powers as they go. So, I wanted to tell the story of an older person on a quest to find a place to settle down and write her magnum opus — a book on the collected herb lore collected from a lifetime on the road. The result is Tanyth Fairport – a wandering herbalist in the autumn of her years in search of the last of the keepers of the Old Knowledge.
I had so much fun with this book, I can hardly wait to get back into the world.
In January, 2007, I sat down at my word processor to see if I could write a novel-length work of science fiction. I was tired of the save-the-universe stories where the hero was a king or the captain of the ship. I wanted to know what that famous red-shirted crewman did before he got sent on the Away Team and killed. I wanted to think about what it would do to our vision of the universe if we sent out freighters instead of frigates, sent an airline and not an air force.
The result is The Golden Age of the Solar Clipper.
The main narrative consists of the Trader’s Tales from the Golden Age of the Solar Clipper. All six books in the series are available at Podiobooks.com or as free audio downloads on the iTunes music store.
Currently, I’m working on Cape Grace — the sequel to South Coast, book one in a spin off series that explores the life of a South Coast shaman.
Over the years, I’ve been honored with six Parsec Award finalists and in 2011 I became the first person to win back-to-back Parsec Awards in the Long Form category for Owner’s Share.