I have many essays for you this week!

As per usual, I am roughly speaking all over the internet writing stuff for FULL FATHOM FIVE’s launch.  I’m hearing lots of great noise about it, too—my favorites being notes from people who say the book has encouraged them to think generatively, to break out of imaginative ruts.  Little could please me more than hearing that.

After a crazy launch / convention week, I’ve finally got back into stride on Book 5.  This morning I wrote three scenes that have needed writing for a while.  Pretty soon I reach the All Hell Breaks Loose segment of our adventure, not that All Hell hasn’t been breaking loose already—but Our Heroes are in a slight calm before the storm.  Seven plot cards remain (Or six?), but that could be anywhere between 15 and 30,000 words, probably closer to the later given that one of the cards basically says “THERE WAS A FIREFIGHT!”

So yeah, that’s what’s up with me lately.

First order of business: I’m signing this evening at 7 PM in the Framingham, MA Barnes & Noble, so if you’re in the region get thee to the store!

Second order of business: listening to me talk about things!  What kinds of things have I been discussing around the internet?  Well, to date…

• Place as Character in the Craft Sequence! (Featuring dragons and other strangeness) on The Qwillery
• First Drafts Suck, an exhortation on Chuck Wendig’s blog about the relative quality of basically every first draft I’ve ever written or seen, with few exceptions.
• Of Meat Hooks and Desire, being a discussion of why action sequences sometimes, but not always, accelerate a story, and an application of action scene technique to subtler pacing.  It makes sense.  I swear.  Hosted by the estimable Brian Staveley!
• Tangled Up in Heroes, an essay on Bob Dylan, the Indigo Girls, heroism, and diversity in story.
• And, on Tor.com, my answers to The Pop Quiz at the End of the Universe, which is about as cool as it sounds.
• Oh!  And, for your listening pleasure, I was a guest on Fran Wilde’s Cooking the Books podcast, in which I discuss food and Full Fathom Five, and provide an excellent recipe for Chinese-style fried egg and tomato.

Third order of business: surprise!  I’ll be participating in an AMA on r/Fantasy Thursday afternoon / evening.  Bring your questions!  I will answer them!  My answers may be neither correct nor complete, but I’ll probably have some scotch at my side, so I’ll have that much going for me at least.

Happy reading!