I will be doing a book tour this Fall. Many of the events will be with David Farland (Runelords) and Larry Correia (Monster Hunters International). Here’s the list so far. I will be making updates as we get closer.

Trade Show: Friday & Saturday, September 25-26, Denver, CO

Mountains & Plains Independent Booksellers Association Trade Show at the Crowne Plaza Hotel, Denver International Airport More

Book Signing & Panel Discussion: Saturday, October 10, Salt Lake City, UT

Sugarhouse Barnes & Noble, will include panel and multiple  SF/Fantasy authors.

Official Book Release Day: Tuesday, October 13, North America & UK

Yea!

In truth it’s not a firm, fast day. The books will begin shipping from the warehouses in late September, so your bookstore may have the books a bit earlier.

Book Signing: Thursday, October 15, Seattle, WA

University Books, Seattle, WA
4326 University Way N.E.
Seattle, WA 98105
206.634.3400

Book Signing: Friday, October 16, Redmond, WA

Borders, Redmond, WA
Redmond Town Center
16549 N.E. 74th St.
Redmond, WA, 98052
425.869.1907 (Near Microsoft Campus)

Book Signing: Saturday, October 17, Beaverton, OR

Powell’s Books, Beaverton, OR
3415 SW Cedar Hills Blvd.
Beaverton, OR 97005
503.228.4651

X96 radio and book giveaways: Monday – Saturday, October 19-24, Utah and streaming online

Starting on Monday, October 19th and running all week long, X96 will be doing book giveaways of Servant of a Dark God. Listen to the morning Radio From Hell program (Gina, Bill, & Kerry), Kerry Jackson’s Geek Show, and Todd Nuke ‘Ems afternoon shows.

Book Signing: Thursday, October 22, Logan, UT

Logan Borders, 6-8pm
435-787-0678

Book Signing: Friday, October 23, Orem, UT

Orem Barnes and Noble, 4-6pm

Book Signing: Saturday, October 24, Layton, UT

Layton Barnes & Noble, 12-2pm

Book Signing: Saturday, October 24, West Jordan, UT

West Jordan Barnes & Noble, 3-5pm

Book Signing: Thursday, October 29, Mountain View, CA

Books Inc., Mountain View, CA
301 Castro St.
Mountain View, CA 94041
650.428.1234

Book Signing: Friday, October 30, Fairfield or Half-Moon Bay, CA

Bay Book Company in Half-Moon Bay

Or

Barnes & Noble, Fairfield, CA
1600 Gateway Boulevard
Fairfield, CA 94533
707.435.0484

 We’ll also be hooking up with editors at World Fantasy in San Jose.

Book Signing: Thursday, November 12, San Diego, CA

Mysterious Galaxy, San Diego, CA
7051 Clairemont Mesa Blvd.
Suite #302
San Diego, CA 92111
858.268.4747

Book Signing: Friday, November 13, Torrance, CA

Borders
3700 Torrance Blvd
Torrance, CA 90503
Phone: 310.540.7000

Book Signing: Saturday, November 14, Los Angeles, CA area

Locations TBD

Book Signings & Possible School Visits: Thursday – Saturday, November 19 -  21, Phoenix-Mesa, AZ area

Locations TBD

Book Signings & Possible School Visits: Thursday – Saturday, December 3-5, Denver, CO area

Locations TBD (this one is still iffy with my schedule)

My heart breaks tonight. I have four daughters. Dear Lord, I have four daughters. What do you do? I’m going to take this to my family council this week. I have insulated myself in a world of Twinkies and DVDs. This from The Economist.

More: Starving Afghans sell girls of eight as brides, The Bride Price.

Rejoice! Sing! The draft is done!

Hallelujah.

Based on my records I spent:

• 48.5 hours on the pre-draft for this book
• 503.5 hours to finish draft 1
• 130 hours to finish draft 2
• A total of 682 hours of work to this point

If I’d been working full time on this that would be roughly 17 weeks. That’s about 4 months. I don’t think that’s so bad, considering this book clocks in at 230,000 words. Not bad at all. But no wonder just finishing a novel is the thing that filters most would-be writers out. That’s a freaking huge amount of time. I hope as things progress I get faster.

Here’s what I focused on in this draft.

• Sugar’s story. It was a mess and the biggest problem with draft 1. I had to rewrite or massively revise about a dozen of her chapters. In fact, I ended up added three chapters to her story: White Tower, Withers, and Loyalties. I’m very please, however, with the result. I think it works very well.
• The Gnolum. I had purposely left the seeding chapters for these giants out (seeding as in I can’t just have them show up at the end without laying some groundwork). I had to add 2 chapters for them to this draft.
• Early Argoth chapters. The first two chapter of Argoth’s story needed to be totally rewritten. The second needed major revising.
• Chapter titles. For titles in draft 1 I used the name of the main pov character in the chapter and a short summary of what was happening. It helps keep things clear. So those are now out and the chapter titles in.
• Rough stuff. In many of the early chapters I was still feeling my way into the story. Yes, I had an outline, but I just can’t get the whole story until I begin to write. So there were many chapters with notes to myself or blanks to fill in. Some things no longer worked because of later chapters. All this I had to fix.
• Reordering chapters in the last half of the book. About halfway through the book Talen’s story breaks off from Sugar’s and Argoth’s. So when I was originally writing them, I found it easier to just write all of Talen’s story and then all of Sugars and Argoth’s until the three met up again. Well, this created some time gaps. I fixed those. I also had long stretches of one pov. For example, I had Talen’s story running for 14  chapters without any break to the other viewpoints. All this had to be fixed.

So I’m very pleased with this draft. Here are the first three chapters for your enjoyment: CODG draft 2 beginning for readers. Remember: feedback from my wife, agent, editors, and other early readers will change it. You’re welcome to contact me with any comments you might have about it.

Here’s Joseph Finder, a NY Times best-selling author, talking about how he studied his craft, why he uses outlines, and what he decided about four-letter words and why.

I had the same reaction when my daughter came to me wanting to read my stuff. I’ve never heard of Joseph Finder–there are soooo many authors these days. But I can tell you I’m going to pick up one of his books to see what he’s all about.