Friday, August 28, 2009

The End of an Era

I'm not sure what the on-line etiquette is in this situation, but it seems like important news to pass on so...

First of all, may I have a moment of silence while I speak the benediction? "Gucci, Gucci, Garnet. You were a good series."

Yes, Garnet Lacey is no more. The book I finished this year, HONEYMOON OF THE DEAD, will be coming out in May of '10 as scheduled. However, my editor turned down the proposals my agent and I sent for books 6, 7 and 8. As far as I know, all the previous books are still in print. I haven't heard that they're going to be remaindered right away or anything.

Yesterday was my day of mourning. I wailed and gnashed teeth. But it was a rather less dramatic affair than you might imagine because I *am* still contracted for three books in the new young adult series. And, as I told Shawn, we're not really _out_ anything, since, most years, I only write one book a year anyway. More to the point, Penguin was actually quite gracious. They told my agent that they're interested in possibly seeing a new series by me. So it's not like they said, "And don't let the door hit you on the way out." In fact, quite the opposite. It's hard to be too depressed when this really does feel like an opportunity to propose something fun and fresh. My editor would like to see contemporary urban fantasy, but that's a mighty wide pool. I'm kind of excited to start pondering ideas. I think I've mentioned this before, but I actually really, really LOVE writing proposals. Most people dread the synopsis, but I rather embrace it. It's a funny thing.

Speaking of which, I thought that for fun, I might post the proposals of the Garnet books that Shall Never Be over the next couple days so people can see what might have been...

Meanwhile.... be vewy quiet, I'm hunting ideas!

Wednesday, August 26, 2009

A Review of Dead Sexy

What's that old phrase? You can't please all of the people all of the time? Well, this review over at "The Good, the Bad and the Bookish" seems to start out favorable and ends with an "eh."

She says she wouldn't seek out the next book in the series, but if she happened across it she wouldn't scream. (um, ouch?) So I offered to send her one. I hope she takes me up on it.

But, you know, it's kind of instant karma in a box, innit? Given my reaction to Beckett's book, I can't expect the Universe to pull punches, now can I?

Tuesday, August 25, 2009

Reading and Writing

A long time ago, back when MiniCON was big, I attended a panel that Alan Steele was on. I no longer remember what the panel topic was, but I remember him talking about how he had these tremendous periods in output (writing) followed by a cycle of input (reading.)

Well, even though I'm still in the middle of writing my young adult novel, my input valve must be stuck or something because I've been reading like CRAZY. I've just narfed a bunch of graphic novels in the manga series HIRAKU NO-GO (about a bunch of kids, a ghost, and professional "Go" playing in Japan) and I finished a novel by Australian author Bernard Beckett called GENESIS (hardcover, Houghton Mifflin Harcort, 2009). (I have a long extended rant... er review of the book over at my alternate personality's LiveJournal blog Warning: SPOILERS.)

Anyway, that always leads me to wonder... what are the rest of you reading these days?

Monday, August 24, 2009

New Review: DIID

Vampire Genre has a short, but very complimentary, review of Dead if I Do up at their site: http://www.vampiregenre.com/2009/08/22/tate-hallaway-dead-if-i-do/