I’m not a person who likes to make new year resolutions I know I won’t be able (or willing) to keep, but I do like to see a sense of progression in what I do, so I find it useful to look back at what happened before. So here it is : my view of 2014 from a writing angle.

The Whisperer’s revolution

Now, that book really has been a surprise for me, not only in it’s writing process, but in how the book turned out. I already started editing it (see below) and what I found was that the writing quality has increased so much (when I compare it to Shrouds) that I can feel comfortable now submitting the rough draft with minor edits to the writing group. That’s a huge improvement over what I produced earlier (The Fifth Compendium for instance took me twice the time to edit as it took to write because it was so laden with mistakes that the rewrites were major).

The story itself had been brewing inside my head for a long time, with different ideas merging into a single plot line. There was at one time a feeling that I had to start writing it or I would lose ideas like a boiling cauldron sending out splotches everywhere. I never had trouble finding ideas, but to feel like I was brimming with this one story was really great.

The writing went smoothly even if the characters kept driving the story in unexpected directions. There was one scene in particular where I sensed I was so immersed in the world, that it drained me: writing a good man coming to the decision he must sacrifice an innocent friend to save his kingdom was a really powerful moment for me as a writer (much like Liseria telling me she murdered her mother while I was writing The Fifth Compendium)

I also feel very proud of the Whisperer’s ending. I don’t want to spoil anyone, but I think it’s surprising enough and still makes a lot of sense with the characters. We’ll see how my beta readers enjoy it. I might get cursed at some point, but I think my decisions made the story much stronger.

Editing

A very large part of this year was spent editing not one novel but two. I always knew I had to go back to Shrouds after I finished The Whisperer’s Revolution and I plunged right into it armed with my friends at Reading Excuses comments, but when my new writing group started to take off, I felt like I couldn’t give them Shrouds where my edits were more on language this time, and I decided to feed them with The Whisperer’s Revolution. The surprise there was how less work Shrouds needed when compared to The Fifth Compendium and how less Whisperer’s needed when compared to Shrouds. It shows evolution in my writing, I think and I look forward to the next novels to see even better stories (though I expects some diminishing returns in that area).

What I also noticed was my shift in dealing with magic systems. The Fifth Compendium is about discovering magic and its uses, so the third part of the book is all about the magic. In Shrouds the magic is everywhere but the bad guy has found new ways to use it, so the book tries to understand exactly how he does things and counter it. Emerald Shower was also about someone discovering magic (a dark version of magic anyway) and how that magic is taking hold of her. Already there I had started to shift my focus from the workings of magic to how the magic changes a character. In The Whisperer’s Revolution, I went along the same lines with a character dealing with her increasing abilities (even though she’s not the real protagonist). This I think came from the realization that as a writer I’m much stronger dealing with character than description. Setting is why I started to write in the first place, but over time, my writing mind started to use characterization more and more.

Anyway, despite a lag in September where I didn’t have time to edit, I still managed to finish Shrouds and edit the rough draft of Whisperer’s for the first act. Great work.

Writing Group

At the beginning of the year, I already knew that my Paris writing group was tanking. In fact, I had used the group not as a writing group per se, but as a way for me to practice my spoken English. I mean, that group was so transient (over 40 members, with average attendance of 3-4 for every meeting) and with so much time in between (once a month), that no good work could be done. At one time, I had decided that I should only submit short stories there because where the group renews itself every month, no-one will be able to judge chapter 24 of a novel without having read what came before. Still, I had hopes in this year that I could keep the group going and that serious members would somewhat appear. Then I had a meeting where I was alone (when 6 said they would come) and I decided to allow the group to die, so I stopped paying the monthly meetup cost and waited. No-one said anything when the group went from active to standby and no-one said anything when the group died. I had made my peace with that, so I wasn’t devastated. Leading a writing group is a frustrating job at best when nobody takes an active part.

But something good came from it anyway. During the group’s last throes someone new contacted me. I explained that the group was past dead now and we got to talk. I met him once and had a great time, exchanged some emails. Then he himself met other serious writers and this new group was born. We’re all writing genre (which is difficult to find in Paris) and are in different points in our writing careers (ranging from new to published), but all are really there to learn and work. So I’m really hopeful about this group. I had so wonderful comments on my work I already know the next draft will be much stronger. Yeah group!

Conventions

I loved both Eastercon and World Fantasy, but I wasn’t prepared for the monster that Worldcon is. Apparently, as things go, Loncon was a larger beast than usual and I think it shows. I had hoped to meet a few acquaintances there, but aside from Gillian (because I knew she would be in the dealer’s room) and Aliette (because I attended one of her panels), there were so many people I didn’t get to see anyone. The interesting parties (the publisher’s) were all secret and private, so I didn’t go to any. The panels were difficult to get into (especially on Saturday where British walked in and bought day-passes) and far too many for me to choose well (I mean, who can choose between 16 different tracks with different lenghts?). Anyway, I got to see interesting panels (Charlie Stross is always great to listen to), but nothing as interesting as World Fantasy (When you heard Tom Doherty speak about publishing, really nobody can compare afterwards).

Then there was my usual Utopiales in November. That experience has been bittersweet for me this year. I go to that particular conference because they tend to invite international writers in an environment where few people can actually talk to them. It’s perfect for me and I used that con to grab chunks of time from Brandon Sanderson, Ian McDonald, Nancy Kress and Michael Moorcock. The hickup this year was that the guests were not that interesting to me: Jo Walton, Norman Spinrad and Michael Moorcock I already met, Christopher Priest was only there a short time, and K.W. Jeter  I didn’t know. So not much interaction with established writers here this year. Aside from that, the panels were better than the earlier years (they got rid of most of the bad moderators, academics who take a third of the panel ‘framing’ the question without anyone having said a word).

And then one morning I noticed a business card on a coffee table and read it. ‘Worldcon in France’ it said on one side and when I flipped it over, there was the mysterious sentence ‘Meeting Saturday, 2PM, Room K2). I went to the website (really bare bones thing) and yes, it appeared legit, so I went to the meeting. There I met France’s fandom. All 15 of them where I maybe was among the youngest. I joke when I say they’re all the French fandom–they’re the French fandom who cared enough they went to Loncon. There are surely more fans hidden somewhere, though they might not know about it. Anyway, this group has serious communication issues if you need to find secret business cards to find them. They could have asked the organizers to have a few minutes of screen time. I’m sure it would have attracted at least 100 people there, but they didn’t.

After I went to the meeting, I agreed to join their group and the magic started. Euh, not exactly. We’re french, you know and we can’t just get to work without some heated discussions and the appropriate amount of paperwork. For now things are moving at an handicapped snail’s pace. Thankfully, we placed ourselves on the 2023 slot, so there is still time, but I wish we could start working and stop the petty village wars for once. We still don’t have a venue, so unless we find one (which is a really difficult thing, since we could attract from 2000 to 9000 and there is no way to know beforehand), that project will end up at the bottom of the sea.

Preview of next year

Next year promises to be a busy one. First, I started my next novel ‘Chrysalis‘ a few days ago. The writing is really slow for now, mostly because I don’t know what this book will look like. I still haven’t decided on a genre for it (though I’m leaning toward Fantasy-Horror) and the characters still feel a bit bland to me. I already know what is happening behind the scenes, but that’s pretty much it. We’ll see how this turns out.

Then, I need to send out Shrouds now that it is finished. All I need now is a damned hook for the logline (because ‘God detective story’ isn’t nearly good enough) and a decent query letter. Once this is done, I have my agents and publishers list: I know where to go.

Hopefully, I can send everything before Easter and go to Eastercon (in London this year) to talk about Shrouds.

Within all this, I have to squeeze enough editing on Whisperer’s Revolution to keep my writing group well fed. And if that’s not enough, I always have Emerald Shower to give them even if it needs major rewrites.

And then there’s the Writing Excuses retreat. I’m still on the fence about this one (mostly because it happens at a really bad time of year). I guess I’ll have do decide before June.

Woah. That’s a big program! Maybe I should go right away back to writing, because those 1900 words blogs don’t really count as writing, do they?

Happy new year all.