With my second novel “Shrouds” now out of the way (until the dreaded first draft editing), I have a little more time to work on other things.
The Site!
I’m the proud owner of yet another internet domain, this one to my own name. I’ve owned it for a few months now, but could never find the time to put anything on it.
You might ask why a new domain?
Didn’t the other one work?
Of course, it worked! (I’m the administrator, remember?) The thing was, this was not the place to host a professional writing place, so I went on and got a site in my own name, so I can start to appear more professional. While I was at it, I elected to change my blogging software. Not that I wasn’t happy with b2evolution, but I felt a little constrained here, and let’s face it, everyone uses WordPress these days. I’m advising my own customers to use it, so it felt weird not to use it for myself.
So, welcome to the new site : arnaudkoebel.com. The wordpress configuration offers so much flexibility that it’s difficult to find exactly what I want and have it working well enough. The site should change rapldly in the next few days.
The Writing!
As I said in august, my second novel “Shrouds” is done. Well, the first draft is. I did a quick edit of the first chapter just to give my alpha reader a feel of the piece (which I called “sneak preview”), but aside from that, I’m letting the book rest for a while, so my edits will be better after.
“The fifth compendium” is still being shopped chapter by chapter to the writing group. I think the writing group helped me a big deal, and now my submissions comments focus more on the story than on the actual writing – at least now, I can see what’s wrong before the piece gets to them. Chapter 10 is an entirely new chapter focusing on Listeria (my favorite character of the book). She didn’t get any screen time in the previous time until act 2, but now, she has 2 nice chapter in act 1. Hopefully, she will appeal to the readers more than some other characters. This chapter is next on my submission list, so it should be out in a week or so.
Speaking of the writing group, Reading Excuses was hosted by “The Time Waster’s guide” which was old and got hacked. As a result, we were transferred to a nice site hosting Brandon Sanderson’s fan site. The new place looks shiny and beautiful, but loosing TWG hit the group pretty hard. We lost a lot of people during the transition, and even the one which stayed got so confused that few people criticise anymore. Even me who makes a point of reviewing everything submitted, I have accumulated a backlog of a dozen submissions that I still have to read. 3 weeks of vacation without internet access certainly didn’t help there.
Novel #3 is starting to build up in my head. I should be able to start writing in a few weeks (do I dare enter NaNoWriMo? 50 000 words in a month look like a lot to me, especially during a convention month). Anyway, my starting premise is fun, so I should have a good time writing.
Utopiales
I’m returning to Nantes this next november for my second Utopiales con. I don’t expect to have the same blast I got last time (after all, Brandon won’t be there), but it should be loads of fun. I’ll be there between november 10th and 13th. This year, I booked the convention hotel and applied for a badge, so things should go more smoothly for me.
GOH this year should include Glen Cook, Ian Mac Donald, and Tim Powers.
I’ll try to report on the con as I’m there, but we saw how that went for Eurocon (I still have a post in “draft” mode since last june).
