Another question for Mr. Jackson:
Is it bad that I called off of work at a previous job to continue reading Pirates Honor because I couldn't put it down?
Ha! No...not bad at all! Hope I didn't get you fired!!
| 1 person marked this as a favorite. |
Do you know when the audible copy of Pirate's Prophesy will be available.
Very soon! The audio versions usually trail the print release by a little bit, and the *actual* on-sale date is tomorrow... subscribers often get the print books early just because they're special. :)
To All the authors: What was the biggest/coolest thing you bought with the money from your first novel?
Honestly, I probably just invested it. I'm boring like that. :P
(Then again, our honeymoon wasn't that long afterward, so... let's say the wedding and going to New Zealand. :D)
| 2 people marked this as a favorite. |
To All the authors: What was the biggest/coolest thing you bought with the money from your first novel?Honestly, I probably just invested it. I'm boring like that. :P
(Then again, our honeymoon wasn't that long afterward, so... let's say the wedding and going to New Zealand. :D)
EDIT: The money went *toward* wedding and honeymoon, rather than paying for them outright. I'd have to be doing significantly better than I am if I could make that much money off one novel. :P
Thanks James...hopefully it comes out by Friday so my wife and I can listen to it on our road trip but if not thats fine. We're in the middle of Plague of Shadows.Do you know when the audible copy of Pirate's Prophesy will be available.Very soon! The audio versions usually trail the print release by a little bit, and the *actual* on-sale date is tomorrow... subscribers often get the print books early just because they're special. :)
I'm dying to hear it myself! Can't wait!
To All the authors: What was the biggest/coolest thing you bought with the money from your first novel?
Well, hmmm... I think it had something to do with my boat... I was doing a lot of refitting prior to going sailing when I first started to make more than I spent being an author. Prior to that, just about every cent and more went into marketing, conventions, and a new laptop every time mine melted down.
| 1 person marked this as a favorite. |
I bought some shiny rocks.
Contributor
|
| 2 people marked this as a favorite. |
To All the authors: What was the biggest/coolest thing you bought with the money from your first novel?
With the money from my first novel, I bought the original cover art to The Halls of Stormweather and, later, Black Wolf.
With the money from my Pathfinder novels, the coolest purchase I made was a diorama featuring a couple of obscure characters.
So here is a question for all authors:
What was the hardest part of adjusting to the fandom that Paizo attracts?
Was it hard to get used to?
Not hard at all, since I've been a gamer for about 40 years. I like gamers' enthusiasm. Had a fantastic time at PaizoCon last year just hanging out with folks I can identify with.
A question for you good sir. Do you know when the audible copy of Pirate's Prophesy will be available. And do you happen to have the magical power to make that day be today? I've been eagerly awaiting the release of this since I found out about it last week.
Another question? Did I read correctly that your working on a 4th book for this series? If so do you know a release year for it and would you be able to give that to us without violating your NDA?
Sorry I missed this one!
So, unfortunately, I don't know when the audio is coming out, but I'm dying to hear it. As far as magical powers go... all I can do is make rum disappear without a trace!
As for the next novel, yes, it's in the works, and no, I can't talk about it yet... But it's cool... And I'm dying to have you all read it!
| 1 person marked this as a favorite. |
How do you folks outline your novels? Bullet points? Mindmapping? Sticky-notes with push pins and string and low-res pictures on a cork board a la conspiracy theorist?
I outline all my novels because I've got a crappy memory. Also, as far as the PFT stories go, we have to submit an outline before we get the green light to write it, so...
I hate sticky notes (but my wife loves them). I always create a "timeline" document to keep a quick reference of what is happening in which chapter.
| 1 person marked this as a favorite. |
So here is a question for all authors:
What was the hardest part of adjusting to the fandom that Paizo attracts?
Was it hard to get used to?
*sniffle* I had a long response all typed out to this one and then I screwed up and lost it to the ether. Alas.
Anyway, short version: I don't know that there was a "hard part" to adjusting to Paizo's fanbase. It's weird getting used to the concept of having fans at all, but once you get past that hurdle, it's really nice writing for Paizo. For one thing, the fans tend to be a pretty great group of people. For another, there isn't as much pressure on me as an individual writer, because even if a fan doesn't necessarily love your take on the world, there'll be another writer up in the rotation pretty soon, and there's a good chance that reader will find something to like in the next story. Writing for the IP feels like being on a team, not just playing solo. I think that's pretty nice.
How do you folks outline your novels? Bullet points? Mindmapping? Sticky-notes with push pins and string and low-res pictures on a cork board a la conspiracy theorist?
I just write a paragraph of plot summary per chapter in a WordPad document.
It generally works pretty well for the first two-thirds of a story and then the little divergences in the manuscript steer me too far away from the plot outline and I end up driving the story off a cliff and having to redo the entire ending. You'd think by now I'd have learned not to do that, but haha no I never learn.
| 1 person marked this as a favorite. |
Question for everyone:
How did you get started? Fan-fic, open submissions, etc? What was your first foray into the field?
I wrote some short stories, sent them out into various slush piles, got some number of them published. After racking up three pub credits (a number I had invested with mythical significance for no particular reason beyond that three seems like a good number to do that with, generally speaking), I took a shot at drafting a novel.
I think it's good to start with short stories if you can. It's good practice for putting together plots, establishing characters, working on prose at the sentence/paragraph level, and -- importantly -- learning to take criticism and rejection (which there will be a lot of, always, for any writer) on a project that only represents a week of your life instead of a year or more.
| 1 person marked this as a favorite. |
Question for everyone:
How did you get started? Fan-fic, open submissions, etc? What was your first foray into the field?
Not sure if you mean with Paizo, or writing in general, so I'll answer both.
I wrote a few novels, and tried submissions directly, which failed. I got an agent, which turned into a disaster (no details there) and I got disgusted. So, I self-published three novels and started marketing at conventions. At conventions I met other writers, and got a recommendation to a small press, who picked me up to write a series. If you are serious about getting into SFF writing, conventions are an excellent place to make connections and get exposure, but they're not cheap, so for those first several years, my day job was paying for my writing career, but it turned out to be a good investment. That series (the Scimitar Seas novels) did well, and since they were nautical fiction, I pitched myself to Paizo (at GenCon) as the guy who could write Pathfinder pirate stories. They had just come out with Skull and Shackles, so there was a market for this, and a niche for a novelist to fill. Sutter liked my samples, and the Stargazer short story, and picked me up for a novel. Serendipitously, just before Pirate's Honor came out, one of my self-published titles, Weapon of Flesh, which has always been one my fans have been bugging me to continue with a sequel, went crazy in digital sales, so that series continued and is doing pretty well.Now I'm a full-fledged, and full-time, hybrid author, writing for a few different publishers and myself.
|
Contributor
|
| 2 people marked this as a favorite. |
How do you folks outline your novels? Bullet points? Mindmapping? Sticky-notes with push pins and string and low-res pictures on a cork board a la conspiracy theorist?
One of my many flaws is that I go overboard on outlines. I try to keep them below 5,000 words, but I've slipped and ended up with a 15k outline once or twice.
Mine are big word documents with a page or two on each chapter, sometimes including reminders to myself about foreshadowing and subplots, running jokes, setting-specific references and how they matter to the boys, and so on.
I also include a list of important characters with descriptions ranging from a few sentences to a page, and copious footnotes and appendices.
It's a sickness.
|
Contributor
|
| 1 person marked this as a favorite. |
Question for everyone:
How did you get started? Fan-fic, open submissions, etc? What was your first foray into the field?
My first pro sale was for an open call for Forgotten Realms short fiction. That was "Every Dog His Day" for Realms of Magic. The editor liked that one well enough to invite me to submit for Realms of Mystery. I did a few more stories and a short novel (novella, really) for the Realms.
Later I pitched to an open call for Forgotten Realms and Ravenloft novels. The editors liked both of my pitches, but since there were so many Realms pitches, they asked me to do the Ravenloft one.
I should have heard the sinister organ music.
What they didn't tell me was that the Ravenloft line was doomed, and they cancelled it when I was only halfway through my manuscript. Fortunately, rather than a kill fee and a clumsy translation of my unfinished novel to the Realms, I asked for a clean shot. That got me invited to pitch for the Sembia series, for which I wrote "Thirty Days" for The Halls of Stormweather followed by Black Wolf, my first full-length novel.
| 2 people marked this as a favorite. |
For those of you fine folk who are full-time (or close to it) authors, how long did it take for your writing to become your primary source of income?
A very long time... I started writing "seriously" about 25 years ago. I quit my day job to do some sailing in 2009 (figuring I could maybe get four years in before having to go back to work) about the time the Scimitar Seas novels were starting. Those did well, I started writing for Paizo, then had a self-published series hit on digital. We have been very lucky and have been paying all of our bills (few though they may be, since we're just sailing around with no mortgage) with our writing proceeds for the past four years or so.
Financial independence as a writer (as your only income) is hard to achieve. The vast majority of "professional writers" have day jobs. The old adage goes "Don't quit the day job unless you've got three years of income in the bank." Good advice.
| 1 person marked this as a favorite. |
What Chris said. He is a wise (and kind and talented) man.
A VERY long time. And I'm not sure I'd actually be there yet if I hadn't had the good sense to be married to a doctor. Sometimes there's a very long break between signing checks, royalty checks, and all that. I imagine once, or if, you're lucky enough to have a number of books in print that are selling and steadily earning royalties there'd be something of a steady income and regular checks rolling in.
To All the authors: What was the biggest/coolest thing you bought with the money from your first novel?With the money from my first novel, I bought the original cover art to The Halls of Stormweather and, later, Black Wolf.
With the money from my Pathfinder novels, the coolest purchase I made was a diorama featuring a couple of obscure characters.
If you ever have to get rid of the Black Wolf one, please let me know. I love the covers Terese Nielsen did for the Sembia series, and that one's my favourite.
Developer
|
| 1 person marked this as a favorite. |
FYI, Forge of Ashes author and Paizo editor Josh Vogt is doing a Reddit AMA today. You can ask him questions about Pathfinder Tales, books in his Cleaners series, or whatever (literally, ask him anything). The AMA can be found here.
| 1 person marked this as a favorite. |
FYI, Forge of Ashes author and Paizo editor Josh Vogt is doing a Reddit AMA today. You can ask him questions about Pathfinder Tales, books in his Cleaners series, or whatever (literally, ask him anything). The AMA can be found here.
Forge of Ashes also just got short listed for a Scribe Award! Woot to Josh!
What exactly is Velenne's 'dog'? It's a barghest, right?
| 1 person marked this as a favorite. |
It's a secret!
...but no, not a barghest. :)
| 1 person marked this as a favorite. |
Have any of you read any particularly good books lately?
It's a secret!
...but no, not a barghest. :)
It is hinted a few times that its an eidolon, but Velenne was a wizard in Nightglass.
| 1 person marked this as a favorite. |
Have any of you read any particularly good books lately?
Reading the Dennis Lehane "Kenzie/Genarro" novels... Damn fine writing.
One of my biggest problems is that I do not read enough. I can't turn off my internal editor. I'm actually leaning toward audiobooks for this reason. I'm not as critical when I'm listening.
| 2 people marked this as a favorite. |
Have any of you read any particularly good books lately?
I wish, but unfortunately not. Mostly I've been reading baby books (I'll throw out a rec for Emily Oster's Expecting Better, if anyone needs a good book on that particular topic; it's refreshingly sane and evidence-based) and case files. So many case files. So many.
hnnrrrgghhh
re: Velenne's build, yes, she is a wizard (well, wizard [conjuration specialty] --> diabolist).
One of these days I may attempt a summoner, but I need to understand the eidolon rules a lot better first. ;)
I have to know, does she tell Indrath the truth about her at the end?
Contributor
|
Liane, I loved Nightglass and Nightblade and I was wondering how you would build a Pathfinder statblock for the Joyful Things if you were running a game that included them?
Are they clerics or oracles with metamagic feats to allow them to cast spells without somatic components? Psychics with the pain discipline? A whole new thing that you'd build from scratch? Something else entirely?
I have to know, does she tell Indrath the truth about her at the end?
About her origins?
re: statting out the Joyful Things -- you know, they're not actually my creation, so I'm gonna punt on that one. They originate in Skeletons of Scarwall, and I thought the concept was purely delightful so I stuck 'em in a book, but I do not know what stats they were meant to have.
My best guess (emphasizing that this is, again, a guess, and they're not my inventions) would be that you could build them one of two ways: either the Joymaking ceremony transforms them into something with fixed stat blocks, or they're human(-ish) Kuthites with class levels.
Personally I'd be inclined to go with the former because it seems like if Z-K is imbuing these guys with class levels then it's not really efficient to keep them chained up in iron coffins where their ability to exercise that power is so restricted (so neither the church, the god, nor the individual devotee has much practical incentive to go around lopping their own limbs off), whereas with the fixed statblock version, maybe the transformation is a necessary tradeoff in order to get the powers at all.
But that's just my take on it and totally unofficial, obviously you should do whatever works best for your campaign. :)
| 1 person marked this as a favorite. |
If you guys were to see your novels turned into a movie who would you like to see play your main characters? Really interested in seeing Chris's response to this but its for anyone/everyone.
Naveen Andrews as Salim!
Good choices, Dave! :-)
If you guys were to see your novels turned into a movie who would you like to see play your main characters? Really interested in seeing Chris's response to this but its for anyone/everyone.
I posted this somewhere, but I can't remember where...
Curiously, Torius is a hard one to cast. Maybe Chris Pratt... The scene in GotG when he's kicking cave rats reminded me of Torius. Half badass, half smartass.
Celeste: Zoe Saldana... OMG, she's perfect
Vreva Jhafae: Catherine Zeta Jones (again...perfect)
Grogul: Vin Diesel He could tear that part to pieces...
Thillion... another tough one, not sure.
Snick. I totally balked on this one. I don't know of a single actor who could pull it off. Suggestions?
| 1 person marked this as a favorite. |
Re: Snick - I can't think of any actressess known for that kind of manic energy - which probably says something about how women are cast in Hollywood as much as it does about my memory. (If Snick were male, we'd just cast Bradley Cooper to do his Rocket Raccoon and continue the GotG reunion you've got rolling there.) Catherine Tate could probably do it.
Could grab Essie Davis, Tatiana Maslany, or another actress known for being a chameleon instead of for a particular type of role, instead.
Another question for Mr. Jackson(slow day at work): Would you be surprised if you saw Pirates Honor/Promise/Prophecy fan fiction pop up on the internet?
Not really... I would also not be offended if someone chose to write some... Why, did you find some?