I've been meaning to post. Really I have. I had resolved to post everyday this week. But then I downloaded my new writing toy, and, well, it's made the gathering of my research for the new project much more fun. And it's kept me fro doing much else. The new toy is Scrivener, and I know many of you use it already. It's a mac-based program designed for writers who are piecing together a project and blending research information with story ideas. It's kind of hard to describe really. I've only had it for a few days. But I like it, and I'm finding it incredibly useful as I begin to pivot from research to writing.

More as I explore further.

My research for the new series continues....

From Carl Bridenbaugh's exhaustive (and, at times, exhausting) urban study, Cities In Revolt: Urban Life in America, 1743-1776 (Oxford University Press, 1971) comes this tidbit:

According to Bridenbaugh, "The tavern was the most flourishing of all urban institutions" in the mid-eighteenth century. New York had more taverns and public houses than any other colonial city, reaching a high of 334 in 1752 [roughly one tavern for every 45 people in the city], but that doesn't mean that the other cities didn't engage in their fair share of drinking. In fact, in 1752, the colony of Pennsylvania imported 526,700 gallons of rum and distilled 80,000 more, "and most of this was consumed in or near the city [of Philadelphia]." A generous estimate of Philadelphia's population at the time would come in at around 20,000 people, and even if we assume that only half that rum remained in the city, that puts the annual consumption at about 15 gallons for every man, woman, and child. That's a lot of daiquiris....

Today’s post can be found at http://magicalwords.net, the group blog on the business and craft of writing fantasy that I maintain with fellow authors Faith Hunter, Misty Massey, and C. E. Murphy. The post is called “The Power of Reunions” and it’s about getting to know our characters a bit better. I hope you enjoy it.

Oh, and by the way, that new contest is still up on my website: http://www.DavidBCoe.com. Visit the site and maybe you’ll win a signed book!

These days I'm steeped in research for the new historical fantasy project, so I thought I'd share with you my "Fun Historical Fact of the Day".  Under the heading of "This Sounds Familiar...": 

In the pre-Revolutionary period, the American colonies were eager to be economically secure in their own right, but most of them, particularly Massachusetts, were still tied closely to Great Britain.  So much so, that during the Stamp Act Crisis of the mid 1760s, when they were truly ticked off at the Brits, and went so far as to drink tea out of teapots that read "No Stamp Act!" they had to import said teapots from -- you guessed it -- England.  Kind of like today, when we talk about how important it is to Buy American, and then we go to rallies and we wave American flags that are made in China.  The more things change, the more they stay the same....

[This tidbit comes from T.H. Breen's The Marketplace of Revolution (Oxford University Press, 2004)]

Today’s post can be found at http://magicalwords.net, the group blog on the business and craft of writing fantasy that I maintain with fellow authors Faith Hunter, Misty Massey, and C. E. Murphy. The post is called “Research and the Writer” and it’s about balancing the need to do research for our books and the need simply to write. I hope you enjoy it.

Oh, and by the way, there’s a new contest up on my website: http://www.DavidBCoe.com. Visit the site and maybe you’ll win a signed book!

Some of you may have noticed this on the web yesterday.  For those of you who didn't, I have just sold a new book project to Tor Books.  It's a two book (for now) series of stand alone mysteries with a strong historical and fantastic element.  The series will be called The Chronicles of the Thief Taker, or something of the sort, and it will be set in pre-Revolutionary Boston, albeit a Boston with magic -- hence the "Harry Dresden meets Samuel Adams" pitch.  I'll be writing the books as D. B. Jackson.

The first book in the series won't be out until late spring or early summer 2011, and I have a good deal of research and writing to do in the interim, but I'm excited about this project and I hope very much that you'll enjoy the books when they come out.

In the more immediate time frame, Magical Words, the blog I maintain with fellow fantasy authors Faith Hunter, Misty Massey, and C.E. Murphy, now has a new regular contributor.  Bestselling author A.J. Hartley will be writing for us on the first Friday of each month, and his initial offering is up today and can be found here.  Check it out and enjoy.

Let’s start with the obvious: In the two high profile races last night, the Virginia and New Jersey gubernatorial elections, the Democrats got spanked. There isn’t a committed Democrat in America this morning who isn’t a bit concerned about those losses. And with good reason. In both votes, independents broke decidedly for the Republican candidates, reversing the trend that had swept Democrats back into power in 2006 and 2008. In both states, young voters and minority voters -- key elements of Barack Obama’s winning coalition in 2008 -- stayed home, voting in small numbers compared with other demographic groups. In Virginia, a state that has been shifting toward the Democratic column for the past twenty years, the Republican, Bob McDonnell won in a landslide, and carried Republicans to victories in the lieutenant governor and attorney general races as well. In New Jersey, a solidly blue state that voted overwhelming for Obama last year, Chris Christie beat the incumbent, Jon Corzine by a small but significant margin. None of this is good for Democrats. It seems that reports of the death of the Republican party were somewhat exaggerated.

That said, the night was not an unalloyed success for the GOP or an unmitigated disaster for the Democrats. First of all, let’s keep a few things in mind about these gubernatorial races.

( Read more... )

Today’s Magical Words post is a bit late, but that’s because I’ve just returned from World Fantasy Convention in San Jose, California. My post about the con can be found at http://magicalwords.net, the group blog on the business and craft of writing fantasy that I maintain with fellow authors Faith Hunter, Misty Massey, and C. E. Murphy.

Off tomorrow to World Fantasy Convention in San Jose, California.  WFC is, year in and year out, my favorite convention.  It is big but not huge, with a strong emphasis on reading, writing, and publishing.  It's always attended by lots of writers, editors and agents, making it a great place to meet up with old friends and get some business done.

On Wednesday night, from 6:30-8:00, I'll be signing books along with a mass of sf/fantasy writers at Borderland Books, in San Francisco.

I'll be moderating a panel on Friday morning at 10:00.  The panel is called "Writing Human Characters, Whether or not They're Human," and the other panelists are Kate Elliott, Kay Kenyon, Laurel Anne Hill, and Shauna Roberts.  Should be a fun discussion.

Other than that, I'll be going to readings, catching up with old friends, meeting with my agent and editor, and spending a good deal of time at parties and in the bar.  Hope to see some of you there -- please, if you see me, come and introduce yourselves.

I have two posts going up today. The first, my usual Monday Magical Words post, can be found at http://magicalwords.net, the group blog on the business and craft of writing fantasy that I maintain with fellow authors Faith Hunter, Misty Massey, and C. E. Murphy. The post is called “A Luddite Looks at the Future of Books” and it’s about e-books and what they mean for the future of writing and publishing. The second is a special Halloween Week post that I’ve written for the Knight Agency, where I’m represented. This post can be found at http://knightagency.blogspot.com/. I hope you enjoy both posts.

Today’s post can be found at http://www.sfnovelists.com, the group blog on speculative fiction that I maintain along with a group of over one hundred published authors of fantasy and science fiction. The post is called “Our Books, Warts and All.” I hope you enjoy it.

Just eleven more days to enter the current contest on my web site.  C'mon!  Don't you want to win a free copy of The Sorcerers' Plague (Book I of Blood of the Southlands)?  Sure ya do!  Follow these links to see jacket art, check out maps of the Southlands, and read sample chapters.  And then give the contest a try.  Or, if you already own the book, but need a gift for a friend or someone in your family, you can try to win one for him or her.

Either way, come visit the web site!

Today’s post can be found at http://magicalwords.net, the group blog on the business and craft of writing fantasy that I maintain with fellow authors Faith Hunter, Misty Massey, and C. E. Murphy. The post is called “Writing the Seasons” and it’s about using seasonal imagery in our writing. I hope you enjoy it.

We went up to Nashville Monday night to see a concert at the Grand Ole Opry House.  The concert was a celebration of the fortieth anniversary of the founding of Rounder Records.  We were drawn to the concert by the headliners -- Bela Fleck, Mary Chapin Carpenter, and Alison Krauss and Union Station featuring Jerry Douglas.  Turns out, though, that we got both more and less than we bargained for.

It turns out that the concert was being filmed for a special that will air on National Public Television in March.   Well, we thought that might be kind of cool.  We've seen lots of concerts that were taped or made into DVDs and it seemed like the folks at those shows had fun.  And in fact, our introduction to the whole taping-for-TV thing included requests that we, the audience, give them a few rounds of applause that they could use to edit and fill in space as they put the show together.  Polite applause, applause with whoops and whistles, frenzied applause.  They taped them all before the show even began.  It was a little goofy, but it was fun.  The kids thought it was very cool.

Our host for the evening was Minnie Driver, the British actress, who, it seems, is also Minnie Diver, the Rounder recording artist.  I know.  I was surprised, too.  But she was the opening act.  She played four songs, all of them her own compositions.  They were fine; not outstanding, but not terrible, either.  They had a kind of standard pop/country sound.  Her band was good, although she didn't introduce them and something about the way she spoke to them and told us about them gave us the impression that she didn't know their names.  Weird.

After Minnie finished her set, she went backstage, changed clothes, and came back out to play emcee.  At the same time, the stage crew moved equipment around.  The first band (after her own) that she introduced was a cajun/creole group called Nathan and the Zydeco Cha Chas, and they rocked.  I don't own much Zydeco music, and probably wouldn't listen to it much if I did, but live it was terrific.  Nathan Williams and his band had the entire audience on their feet and dancing for his entire set, which also consisted of four songs.

Then we had another break, while the stage was rearranged, and Bela Fleck came out.  I was so excited -- Fleck is one of my favorite musicians.  He is the most influential and accomplished banjo player this side of Earl Scruggs, and I adore his music.  At one point Jerry Douglas came out to accompany him on dobro -- another thrill.  The two of them a great friends; they've recorded together for years.  But they only did one piece together, and after Bela had played his fourth number, he got up and left the stage.  Minnie came back out to say that they were going to take a small break and then continue with the next act, soul singer Irma Thomas.  At this point it was already approaching 10:00.  The concert had been scheduled to begin at 7:30, but hadn't started until 8:15.  We'd heard exactly 12 songs, and Bela Fleck, who had been one of the main reasons we'd bought tickets in the first place, had been onstage and off so quickly that I almost thought he was joking when he first got up to leave.

Irma Thomas was fine.  I'm not a big fan of soul, but she was feisty and fun, and she was also given just four songs.  Another break to redo the stage, and then Mary Chapin Carpenter came out.  Her set was terrific.  Five songs this time, including her mid-90s hit "He thinks he'll Keep Her."  Then yet another rearranging of the stage.  And finally, at about 11:30, Alison Krauss, Jerry Douglas, and the rest of Union Station came out for their set.  They got a huge reception, of course, and they played several of my favorite songs.  But they played five and went off stage, came back on for a single encore, and were done.  Another change of the stage, a few minutes of Minnie Driver doing introductions for video segments that we wouldn't see, but for which we were expected to applaud, and then all the major performers came out and did one last number.

We got up from our seats to leave the auditorium at 12:20, almost five hours to the minute after we had sat down.  We'd heard maybe, maybe, two and a half hours of actual music.  The rest had been delays, forced applause, stage changes, and the brief intermission.  Don't get me wrong:  most of the music was terrific.  Bela Fleck's four songs were wonderful; the zydeco band ad Mary Chapin Carpenter were great; AKUS was fabulous as always. But we had the kids with us, and we drove an hour and a half in each direction to see this show.  We didn't get home until 2:00 am.  I won't even tell you what we paid for the tickets.  And to be quite honest it wasn't worth it.

Hi, all.  A little publicity work here:  I have just updated my web page with lots of information about my next book release.  The book is called The Dark-Eyes' War, and it's the third and final volume of my Blood of the Southlands trilogy.  I've uploaded sample chapters, jacket art, and other information about the book and the series.  I hope you'll visit the site and check it out.  Thanks!!

Today’s post can be found at http://magicalwords.net, the group blog on the business and craft of writing fantasy that I maintain with fellow authors Faith Hunter, Misty Massey, and C. E. Murphy. The post is called “A Kick in the Pants” and it’s about overcoming some of the frustrations inherent in writing and getting back to work. I hope you enjoy it.

Thought I'd let you all know that I have another interview up, this one at Examiner.com's Speculative Fiction page.  This is kind of an off-beat Q and A.  The interviewer, Josh Vogt, has done a series of what he calls "Never Have, Never Will" interviews, in which he asks authors about some of the more subtle points of writing.  I hope you'll visit the site and enjoy the interview.

Here's a link to a terrific editorial by Paul Krugman on the spitefulness of conservatives in the Age of Obama.  As Jon Stewart put it last night on The Daily Show, it turns out, for all their talk about patriotism and "Country First," that those on the far right "hate Obama more than they love America."

Today’s post can be found at http://magicalwords.net, the group blog on the business and craft of writing fantasy that I maintain with fellow authors Faith Hunter, Misty Massey, and C. E. Murphy. The post is called “Deadlines!” and it’s about using time constraints to help you with your time management. I hope you enjoy it.

Bluegrass mandolin virtuoso Chris Thile, formerly of Nickel Creek, came to our little university town last night with his new band, the Punch Brothers.  In addition to Thile, the band consists of  Chris Eldridge on guitar, Paul Kowert on upright bass, Noam Pikelny on banjo, and Gabe Witcher on fiddle.  All of them assisted on harmonies at one point or another, though Thile and Witcher handled the bulk of the vocals, and all of them provided some scintillating musicianship during the course of the evening.  Kowert in particular did some amazing work on the bass, not only showing off his skills, but also his creativity with the instrument.

Thile, though, is the focus of the band.  He is the front man, the lead vocalist, and the group's most dynamic personality.  Watching him is nearly as mesmerizing as listening to his mandolin work.  He dances, bounces, shimmies, and struts his way through the band's repertoire, looking like a wannabe rocker who somehow has had his Stratocaster replaced by a vintage Gibson mandolin at the last minute.  He's charming, funny, and it's clear that he and his fellow musicians are having a blast playing together.

For those of you who are not familiar with Thile or his music, he has been recording on the mandolin since he was twelve years old.  He is a true master, who not only plays brilliantly (while still in his teens, he had already recorded a couple of solo albums backed up by such bluegrass giants as Jerry Douglas, Sam Bush, Stuart Duncan, Alison Brown, and Russ Barenberg) but also writes wonderful songs and instrumental pieces.  He formed Nickel Creek along with Sara and Sean Watkins, and for several years they were one of the hottest groups in bluegrass.  But Thile continued to do solo work and to collaborate with other acoustic instrumental stars.  (His 2001 release Not All Who Wander Are Lost is, in my opinion, one of the finest acoustic instrumental albums of the last 25 years, ranking up there with such classics as Bela Fleck's Drive, The Telluride Sessions by Strength in Numbers, Bela Fleck's The Bluegrass Sessions:  Live From the Acoustic Planet, volume 2, and Skip, Hop, and Wobble, by Douglas, Barenberg, and Edgar Meyer.)

Nickel Creek split up in 2007, and since then Thile has been playing with the musicians who would eventually come to be called the Punch Brothers, and ranging farther from bluegrass.  While the instrumentation of the Punch Brothers' music remains fairly traditional, and while they still do some bluegrass instrumentals, as well as a number of bluegrass and country covers that sound like something Nickel Creek might have done, much of their original work sounds like an alloy of bluegrass and indie rock.  The songs modulate, sometimes wildly, and Thile's vocals have a plaintive sound that works well with some of his angst-driven lyrics.  To be honest, I find this end of their repertoire less appealing than the more traditional pieces.  But there can be no denying that the predominantly college-age crowd reacted well to the entire concert, and went absolutely crazy when the group did an acoustic Radiohead cover for their first encore.

Overall, it was a terrific show.  Given the chance to see the Punch  Brothers in concert again, I wouldn't hesitate to buy tickets.