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Hey Tri-Staters! I will be appearing this weekend at Lunacon in Rye Brook NY (March 19 – 21). If you’re in the neighborhood and want to stop by, I’d love to sign your books, chat, or whatever. I try to make it out to Lunacon every year. It’s a fun time with a lot of great guests. I’ll be on a number of panels, and doing a reading and a signing.

Here’s a schedule of my Lunacon events:

How NOT to get published
Friday 5:00 PM – 6:00 PM
Tips on submissions, contacting agents, and all the other myriad challenges that face an aspiring author. What works, what doesn’t, and what will work against you completely.

Peter V. Brett, Chris Evans [M], Violet Haberdasher, Josepha Sherman

Reading: Peter V. Brett
Friday 7:00 PM – 7:30 PM

Blogging, Writing, and Fandom
Saturday 3:00 PM – 4:00 PM
The world continues to grow smaller as the internet brings instantaneous access to writers and other professionals. With so many writers maintaining web presence, has there been a detrimental effect on con-going? Why leave your house when fandom is just a click away?

Peter V. Brett, James Chambers, Violet Haberdasher [M], Saul Jaffe, Nathan Lilly

Autographing: Peter V. Brett, Scott Grimando
Saturday 7:00 PM – 8:00 PM

Emma Frost: Disney Princess?
Sunday 2:00 PM – 3:00 PM
It was the announcement heard ’round the comic shop: Disney was buying Marvel and the rights to every Marvel character. Immediately, the internet explodes as panicked fans debated if Mickey was going to be the newest member of the Avengers or if Marvel was going to have to make sure all its titles were appropriate material for children under ten. The merger was completed at the end of December, with no obvious effects, but only time will tell. Were these rumors nothing more than fans’ vaunted fear of change, or will the Phoenix come back only after getting love’s first kiss.

Joshua Bilmes [M], Peter V. Brett, Lynn E. Cohen Koehler, Jonathan Maberry

Whither Wander You?
Sunday 3:00 PM – 4:00 PM
The physical journey can mirror and drive the spiritual journey of the characters, while providing an interesting and amusing source of external conflict. When done poorly, it can devolve into tedium, and wreak havoc on the pacing of the novel. How do you keep one from sliding into the other? What are some of the best travel scenes we’ve written and read? Which have been done poorly? How do you write a compelling travel scene without losing the reader to what seems like a hundred pages of endless trudging through snowy wastelands?

Alma Alexander [M], Peter V. Brett, Sam Butler, Keith DeCandido, Josepha Sherman

Don’t be shy if you want to say “Hi!” between events. I love meeting and talking with readers.

Posted on March 14, 2010 at 3:56 pm by PeatB
Filed under Appearances, Events, Fans, World Traveler
6 Comments »

First off, a few bits of good Messenger news:

1) My US publisher, Del Rey Books, sent me an e-mail on Friday that they had received copies of The Desert Spear from the printer, and they look awesome. I am bouncing in my seat to see my samples on Monday.After three years of writing/editing and another eight months of production, I can’t wait to hold one in my greedy, greedy hands and hug it like a baby.

2) All pre-orders of The Great Bazaar have shipped, and most everyone I know who ordered one has received theirs. If you are still waiting, it should be any day now. My mom found hers in a soaking wet box on her doorstep just this afternoon. Apparently the Messenger couldn’t be bothered to ring the bell, even in the pouring rain. Thankfully, the fine folks at Subterranean Press wrapped the books in plastic, so there was no damage.

3) I’ve shipped all early requests for bookplates this past week, so if you put in for one, expect it soon. I’ll do a full post about the plates–with information on how to get one for yourself–shortly. I first wanted to do a trial run and see what it would cost to ship them to some of the more exotic corners of the world where my readers lurk and hide.

In other news my first Desert Spear Interview is live online as of last night, this one with Annie, the Superfast Reader. You may recall that Annie was one of my earliest US supporters, posting both a wonderful review of The Warded Man and an interview with me early last year. She has since moved to first place, likely because she reads so damn fast. The interview is spoiler-free, but nevertheless contains some insight into the characters and cultures in the new book, as well as a lengthy discussion of my writing process. You can read the interview here. More will be popping up in the near future.

If you’re interested in winning a signed copy of The Warded Man in paperback (on sale March 23!), head on over to Pat’s Fantasy Hotlist and follow his entry guidelines. All you need to do is send him an e-mail and you will be put into a lottery to win.

I found a funny little entry about The Warded Man on the website TV Tropes. It has a couple of spoilers, but they are invisible unless you highlight them with your mouse, so fear not if you haven’t read the book.

Lastly, if you have read The Great Bazaar and are looking to chat about it, there’s an interesting little thread on the A Song of Ice and Fire forum that google pointed me to last night. SPOILER ALERT!!! The poster pretty much gives away the ending, so if you haven’t read the story yet and intend to at some point, I STRONGLY encourage you to not look at this until you have. But if you are one of the lucky few who got the book in the mail this week and have read the 60-page title novelette, by all means, click here. I’m considering responding myself, but holding back for the nonce.

That’s all for now. I’m off to dinner/baby time, and then have an article for a German SF magazine to edit and 1,000 words of The Daylight War to write before bed.

Posted on March 13, 2010 at 7:30 pm by PeatB
Filed under Contests, Craft, Desert Spear, Fans, Great Bazaar, Interviews, Messenger, Reviews, Writing
18 Comments »

It’s getting to be about that time!

No, not Lent. Better. It’s time for Desert Spear reviews to start popping up!

The first comes from the blog SFF Chat. You may recall that blog editor Simcha won a copy in the Desert Spear ARC Contest by risking life and limb walking a metal beam over a deep ditch to visit a Bedouin encampment down the road from her home in the Judean Desert with a copy of TWM. She then had to explain that the pictures were “for a weird American thing”.

Anyway, Simcha promised to review the book for her blog, and was true to her word. Check out her review here.

It’s had me grinning since last night.

Posted on March 9, 2010 at 1:23 pm by PeatB
Filed under Contests, Desert Spear, Reviews, Writing
15 Comments »

I’ve spent fifteen years in publishing—working as a retailer, editor, copyeditor/proofreader, managing editor, production supervisor, and writer. As a result of these experiences, I have formed some opinions, many of them centered around how subjective the rules of grammar and language style are.

One of those opinions is that semicolons are the devil. I fucking hate them. Always have. Why? Not because of the mark itself, which I’m rather fond of. It is kind of quaint, yet often handy.

No, it’s because no matter how semicolons are used, or not used, you are pretty much guaranteed that someone along the editorial process will try to change them on you, often along with some snide comment that implies they know more about sentence structure than you do.

In some ways you can understand it, because most people really don’t know (or give a shit) what a semicolon is for. People in publishing, however, have spent a lot of time studying language, and want to make sure everyone around us knows how smart we are.

As a result, just about every writer, editor, copyeditor, and proofreader has an opinion about semicolons they’re happy to share as if is Ancient Law, but there is little general consensus. Some think they are NEVER necessary, and that if you can’t get by with a comma, you’re better off just rewriting the sentence. Others will throw them in any old place, like sprinkling salt in a soup. Many will accept them only under certain circumstances, like when you are connecting two independent clauses.

But the definition of “independent clauses” is itself a point for debate, as modern writing styles often present dependent clauses as independent sentences or statements, using context to fill in the blanks. A writer might want to insert a semicolon for proper cadence, even if one of the clauses isn’t strictly independent. Some editors have a strict and narrow definition of “independent”, while others take a broader view in line with the writer’s general style. Some have their opinion shift with the phases of the moon.

In my experience, any use of semicolons will throw up a flag with everyone in the editorial process, and sooner or later, someone, if not multiple people, will give you grief over it. Handy and quaint as they are, they’re a pain in the ass. I get agita just by looking at the damn button on my keyboard.

But sometimes a comma won’t do, and you like the sentence just the way it is. Lately, I’ve been experimenting with em dashes to take the place of those semicolons, and in some other tricky places as well.

Somewhere out there, right now, someone in publishing is itching to tell me that is improper use of em dashes.

Go ahead—I dare you.

Posted on March 8, 2010 at 1:34 am by PeatB
Filed under Craft, Musings, Writing
12 Comments »

So my friend Jen was having a 1st birthday party for her daughter today (happy birthday, Zoe!). We had to drive out to Westchester, and spent the morning running around trying to get ready and get the baby ready, and plan for traffic and wrap gifts and whatnot. Typical family day. Dani and I usually plan a buffer of time–when we SHOULD go to ensure punctuality, as opposed to when we MUST go, giving us barely enough time if there is no traffic.

Of course, we never make it out the door when we SHOULD. If you have an infant, you understand.

But, as we’re running out the door with the baby and diaper bags and presents and whatnot, the postman come out of the elevator and hands me a box.

What was in that box, you ask? A picture is worth 1,000 words.

There’s writing a book, and there’s selling a book. Both are powerful feelings, but there’s no feeling in the world quite like holding a book in your hands for the first time. awesome.

P.S.

If you pre-ordered on Amazon and got an auto-generated e-mail the other day saying they didn’t know when the book would be out and asking you to confirm your order, please do. The snafu there should be resolved in the next couple of days. You won’t be waiting for months.

Posted on March 7, 2010 at 1:19 am by PeatB
Filed under Great Bazaar, Messenger
12 Comments »