Kater Cheek's Blog - Posts Tagged "kit-melbourne"
Changing Places/Changer's Turf
Well, FAERIE KILLER, the fourth book in the Kit Melbourne series is out now, in ebook and paperback. Congratulations to the winners of the Goodreads book giveaway, which ended last week. They should be getting their signed copies soon.
But of course, I've already started rewriting the sequel to FAERIE KILLER. And by rewriting, I mean I've been writing an entirely new novel from scratch with only a loose resemblance to the original novel, which was titled CHANGING PLACES and completed in 2004.
It's the crap-faeries who do it. Crap faeries are related to shrink moths (the moths that get into your closet and drawers and make your favorite jeans too tight in the rear). Crap faeries take your wonderful stories and make them suck. You finish the draft of your deathless prose, go to bed, get distracted by life, and when you return to your manuscript, the story has huge glaring flaws that you surely didn't put in there.
When I wrote this series, I wrote books 1-3 with a first person perspective, and I strove for as linear a plot as possible. Books 4-6 I wanted to try something different. For these books, I had four main characters in each one, each with 25% of the story. I'm not saying this was a completely ineffective technique, but it's no longer suitable for a series titled "The Kit Melbourne Novels". Kit has to be the main character, not one of four.
The original book #5,CHANGING PLACES has some good elements that I'll be sad to lose. CHANGING PLACES had a girl who was dating a god, and a vampire who lost her money in the stock market, and a man whose migraines masked the betrayal his subconscious knew about. In the original story, Kit is laid up by a difficult pregnancy, and her brother James takes over for her as Dayrunner.
I don't know if I can keep any of this. I'm still keeping the faerie who works at the Renaissance festivals, and I'm still keeping the modern-day private investigator whose life is an homage to his noir heroes. The vampire still lost her money in the housing crisis (who didn't?) but it's no longer her primary motivator.
It's going to take a year to get the new book, CHANGER'S TURF out and ready for reading. It feels like kind of a waste to throw CHANGING PLACES out and write a new one, but when I reread it this summer, it was clear it wouldn't do. It wasn't my first novel (closer to my 6th) but I wrote it in 2004 and I have a few million words of prose between me and it. Also, I no longer feel that a 4-main-character novel is the best thing for this series.
I do worry that the same thing will happen with FAMILIAR BATTLES, the sixth book in the series. For years I considered it my best novel, but the crap faeries tend to get into everything, no matter how much anti-faerie-powder you spray.
But I'll worry about that later. For now, I intend to work solidly on CHANGER'S TURF, the sequel to FAERIE KILLER so that I have enough of it done to begin posting chapters weekly as soon as FAERIE KILLER is all up on line.
Be sure to visit www.katercheek.com if you want to read the serialized version of FAERIE KILLER or if you want to find links to purchase my other work.
But of course, I've already started rewriting the sequel to FAERIE KILLER. And by rewriting, I mean I've been writing an entirely new novel from scratch with only a loose resemblance to the original novel, which was titled CHANGING PLACES and completed in 2004.
It's the crap-faeries who do it. Crap faeries are related to shrink moths (the moths that get into your closet and drawers and make your favorite jeans too tight in the rear). Crap faeries take your wonderful stories and make them suck. You finish the draft of your deathless prose, go to bed, get distracted by life, and when you return to your manuscript, the story has huge glaring flaws that you surely didn't put in there.
When I wrote this series, I wrote books 1-3 with a first person perspective, and I strove for as linear a plot as possible. Books 4-6 I wanted to try something different. For these books, I had four main characters in each one, each with 25% of the story. I'm not saying this was a completely ineffective technique, but it's no longer suitable for a series titled "The Kit Melbourne Novels". Kit has to be the main character, not one of four.
The original book #5,CHANGING PLACES has some good elements that I'll be sad to lose. CHANGING PLACES had a girl who was dating a god, and a vampire who lost her money in the stock market, and a man whose migraines masked the betrayal his subconscious knew about. In the original story, Kit is laid up by a difficult pregnancy, and her brother James takes over for her as Dayrunner.
I don't know if I can keep any of this. I'm still keeping the faerie who works at the Renaissance festivals, and I'm still keeping the modern-day private investigator whose life is an homage to his noir heroes. The vampire still lost her money in the housing crisis (who didn't?) but it's no longer her primary motivator.
It's going to take a year to get the new book, CHANGER'S TURF out and ready for reading. It feels like kind of a waste to throw CHANGING PLACES out and write a new one, but when I reread it this summer, it was clear it wouldn't do. It wasn't my first novel (closer to my 6th) but I wrote it in 2004 and I have a few million words of prose between me and it. Also, I no longer feel that a 4-main-character novel is the best thing for this series.
I do worry that the same thing will happen with FAMILIAR BATTLES, the sixth book in the series. For years I considered it my best novel, but the crap faeries tend to get into everything, no matter how much anti-faerie-powder you spray.
But I'll worry about that later. For now, I intend to work solidly on CHANGER'S TURF, the sequel to FAERIE KILLER so that I have enough of it done to begin posting chapters weekly as soon as FAERIE KILLER is all up on line.
Be sure to visit www.katercheek.com if you want to read the serialized version of FAERIE KILLER or if you want to find links to purchase my other work.
New Books for 2013
I have some new publications planned for this year which I'd like to let people know about.
Right now I'm working on CHANGER'S TURF the fifth book in the Kit Melbourne series. It's going fairly well. My plan is for it to hit the shelves by September 1, but of course if I can get it out earlier, I will.
To help keep me motivated for the September 1 release date, I'm going to be giving away the other Kit Melbourne books in a series of goodreads giveaways. The first one, for two copies of SEEING THINGS, will begin March 21st if it is approved by the goodreads staff. I will follow that with a giveaway for TREEMAKER, and then DAYRUNNER and FAERIE KILLER. After that I may give away boxed sets.
The other exciting news is that I'm going to publish a new urban fantasy series this year, starting with the first book ALTERNATE SUSAN. The novel itself is finished and has had editing, so it will just need a few rounds of proofreading once I get some hard copies. Right now I'm working on the cover art. You'll be able to comment on the prototypes at www.catherinecheek.com or www.katercheek.com after Easter when I have something ready.
Right now I'm working on CHANGER'S TURF the fifth book in the Kit Melbourne series. It's going fairly well. My plan is for it to hit the shelves by September 1, but of course if I can get it out earlier, I will.
To help keep me motivated for the September 1 release date, I'm going to be giving away the other Kit Melbourne books in a series of goodreads giveaways. The first one, for two copies of SEEING THINGS, will begin March 21st if it is approved by the goodreads staff. I will follow that with a giveaway for TREEMAKER, and then DAYRUNNER and FAERIE KILLER. After that I may give away boxed sets.
The other exciting news is that I'm going to publish a new urban fantasy series this year, starting with the first book ALTERNATE SUSAN. The novel itself is finished and has had editing, so it will just need a few rounds of proofreading once I get some hard copies. Right now I'm working on the cover art. You'll be able to comment on the prototypes at www.catherinecheek.com or www.katercheek.com after Easter when I have something ready.
Changer's Turf progress
I finished the first draft of CHANGER'S TURF in August, a little over a year after I started. Since then I've been working hard on revisions. I got a new software, called Scrivener, and I can't believe I've ever been so foolish as to attempt a revision without it.
Usually a revision is a messy affair, involving notecards, stacks of tiny printouts of chapters, and various chunks of manuscript cut and pasted (with scissors! and tape!) and laid together on the living room floor, while the cats do their best to foil my efforts. Now I can do it all on the computer.
I'm so fortunate to have a number of amazing writer friends who have been willing to read my draft and give me feedback. When I'm done with this edit, I'll get a working cover so that I can print out proofs for copyediting.
Hope you guys can wait a little longer. (I'm not the most patient person either.) Current estimation is that CHANGER'S TURF will hit the shelves around Christmas. I'll post a cover when I've got it.
Meanwhile, if you haven't already seen my new novel, ALTERNATE SUSAN, feel free to go to my website, where I'm serializing it. If you like it, it's out now. It's the first in a new series.
Usually a revision is a messy affair, involving notecards, stacks of tiny printouts of chapters, and various chunks of manuscript cut and pasted (with scissors! and tape!) and laid together on the living room floor, while the cats do their best to foil my efforts. Now I can do it all on the computer.
I'm so fortunate to have a number of amazing writer friends who have been willing to read my draft and give me feedback. When I'm done with this edit, I'll get a working cover so that I can print out proofs for copyediting.
Hope you guys can wait a little longer. (I'm not the most patient person either.) Current estimation is that CHANGER'S TURF will hit the shelves around Christmas. I'll post a cover when I've got it.
Meanwhile, if you haven't already seen my new novel, ALTERNATE SUSAN, feel free to go to my website, where I'm serializing it. If you like it, it's out now. It's the first in a new series.
Changer's Turf Progress 2
Well, I've got my proofs of Changer's Turf out, and I've been starting to get the proofs back from my awesome copyeditors. I have a cover snapshot to show you as well.
Goodreads won't seem to let me post photos, so you'll have to go to my blog at www.katercheek.com
Don't forget to check out my giveaway! In honor of book 5, I'm giving away two copies of book 4, FAERIE KILLER to a couple of lucky winners.
Goodreads won't seem to let me post photos, so you'll have to go to my blog at www.katercheek.com
Don't forget to check out my giveaway! In honor of book 5, I'm giving away two copies of book 4, FAERIE KILLER to a couple of lucky winners.
Kit Melbourne 6 Progress and Delays
I have rules for myself, and one of them is that I only work on one project at a time. I work on it until it's done, and then I go on to a next project. It's a pretty good rule, keeps me from having a lot of half-finished projects lying around. sometimes the 3/5ths mark of a novel is the nadir of inspiration, for example, and without this rule I might not finish anything.
But I had a novel I wanted to work on that had been haunting me for a while. I have a title for it that I love "Prophet of an Indie God" and it's in an alternate version of America. A really, really alternate version. I had only written one truly second-world novel before, and it was a hot, steaming mess. But this time would be different.
Eight months and 50,000 words later, I decided to set it aside. I got too bogged down with worldbuilding and lost what excited me about the project in the first place. I'm going to finish it, someday, but later.
So I started working on the sixth book in the Kit Melbourne series. I had already written it. It was, in fact, one of my favorites. It deals with a woman dying of an incurable disease, a boy who sees faeries and a girl who stopped aging as a tween. There's a really cute scene at a Halloween festival when a faerie-made costume turns to leaves and grass at midnight, forcing its wearer to sprint home in the all-together.
But I had to throw it all away. When I first wrote it, I was learning to write, and I wanted to explore other characters, but now that I'm publishing this series as the Kit Melbourne series, I feel that each book has to have her as a main character. I tried to insert her in there, but it just didn't work.
So I'm rewriting it with a new plot. Some of the characters bear passing resemblances to the original characters, which will confuse those half-dozen people who read the first version, but it's now darker and more twisted. I hope it will remind people of stories they've heard about or lived through in their own lives. I hope it will resonate. I know it will entertain.
But I haven't gotten very far, so you're not going to see it until late 2015 or early 2016. In the meantime, I plan to publish some stories I've been holding in reserve, and maybe try to edit and format and get some other novels ready for publishing. I plan on publishing at least one thing in 2015, but this one, this book that was once called FAMILIAR BATTLES, this one may take a while.
I hope you agree it's worth the wait.
But I had a novel I wanted to work on that had been haunting me for a while. I have a title for it that I love "Prophet of an Indie God" and it's in an alternate version of America. A really, really alternate version. I had only written one truly second-world novel before, and it was a hot, steaming mess. But this time would be different.
Eight months and 50,000 words later, I decided to set it aside. I got too bogged down with worldbuilding and lost what excited me about the project in the first place. I'm going to finish it, someday, but later.
So I started working on the sixth book in the Kit Melbourne series. I had already written it. It was, in fact, one of my favorites. It deals with a woman dying of an incurable disease, a boy who sees faeries and a girl who stopped aging as a tween. There's a really cute scene at a Halloween festival when a faerie-made costume turns to leaves and grass at midnight, forcing its wearer to sprint home in the all-together.
But I had to throw it all away. When I first wrote it, I was learning to write, and I wanted to explore other characters, but now that I'm publishing this series as the Kit Melbourne series, I feel that each book has to have her as a main character. I tried to insert her in there, but it just didn't work.
So I'm rewriting it with a new plot. Some of the characters bear passing resemblances to the original characters, which will confuse those half-dozen people who read the first version, but it's now darker and more twisted. I hope it will remind people of stories they've heard about or lived through in their own lives. I hope it will resonate. I know it will entertain.
But I haven't gotten very far, so you're not going to see it until late 2015 or early 2016. In the meantime, I plan to publish some stories I've been holding in reserve, and maybe try to edit and format and get some other novels ready for publishing. I plan on publishing at least one thing in 2015, but this one, this book that was once called FAMILIAR BATTLES, this one may take a while.
I hope you agree it's worth the wait.
New Books for Summer
I have two new books coming out this summer that I'm very excited about. The first new book is the second Kit Melbourne omnibus, titled DAYRUNNER MAGIC. It contains books 4-6 of the Kit Melbourne series. I'm going to release an ebook version too, so if you wanted a cheap way to get the whole series, getting BINDI MAGIC and DAYRUNNER MAGIC together wouldn't be a bad bet.
The second book is a standalone young adult fantasy called PARASITIC SOULS. It's currently in the final editing stages, and should be released by August. This is a great novel about young people living in a small town in California wine country. It has some dark twists, magic, and romance. Because it doesn't have sex or violence (a few swear words) it's a PG book that's suitable for even the children of protective parents.
Kater
The second book is a standalone young adult fantasy called PARASITIC SOULS. It's currently in the final editing stages, and should be released by August. This is a great novel about young people living in a small town in California wine country. It has some dark twists, magic, and romance. Because it doesn't have sex or violence (a few swear words) it's a PG book that's suitable for even the children of protective parents.
Kater
Dayrunner Magic Giveaway
I have a new goodreads giveaway for Dayrunner Magic starting today. It ends in two weeks. There's only one copy, because at three books in one, it's a heavy paperback.
I have another book coming out later this summer that I'm very excited about. It's neither in the Kit Melbourne series nor the Desert Mages (Alternate Susan) series. It's a YA urban fantasy set in California wine country. Come back to the blog later for more details.
Meanwhile, go to the goodreads page http://www.catherinecheek.com/2016/08... to find it. And if you read Faerie Killer, Changer's Turf and/or Hawthorn Hex, why don't you write a review and let other people know about this?
I have another book coming out later this summer that I'm very excited about. It's neither in the Kit Melbourne series nor the Desert Mages (Alternate Susan) series. It's a YA urban fantasy set in California wine country. Come back to the blog later for more details.
Meanwhile, go to the goodreads page http://www.catherinecheek.com/2016/08... to find it. And if you read Faerie Killer, Changer's Turf and/or Hawthorn Hex, why don't you write a review and let other people know about this?
Dayrunner Magic Giveaway
I have a new goodreads giveaway for Dayrunner Magic starting today. It ends in two weeks. There's only one copy, because at three books in one, it's a heavy paperback.
I have another book coming out later this summer that I'm very excited about. It's neither in the Kit Melbourne series nor the Desert Mages (Alternate Susan) series. It's a YA urban fantasy set in California wine country. Come back to the blog later for more details.
Meanwhile, go to the goodreads page http://www.catherinecheek.com/2016/08... to find it. And if you read Faerie Killer, Changer's Turf and/or Hawthorn Hex, why don't you write a review and let other people know about this?Dayrunner Magic
I have another book coming out later this summer that I'm very excited about. It's neither in the Kit Melbourne series nor the Desert Mages (Alternate Susan) series. It's a YA urban fantasy set in California wine country. Come back to the blog later for more details.
Meanwhile, go to the goodreads page http://www.catherinecheek.com/2016/08... to find it. And if you read Faerie Killer, Changer's Turf and/or Hawthorn Hex, why don't you write a review and let other people know about this?Dayrunner Magic
Kit Melbourne Returns
Last night I finished the first draft of book seven in the Kit Melbourne series. The current title is Sorrow's Apprentice, and it will be a fun romp for everyone who's missed Kit's adventures since the last book Hawthorn Hex came out in 2016.
I have some tinkering to do before it gets sent off to my editors, but if all goes well it should be available this fall. I intend to use the same artist/designer who did the compilations (Bindi Magic and Dayrunner Magic) so the cover will be darker and have a model rather than brightly colored with an icon.
Kater
I have some tinkering to do before it gets sent off to my editors, but if all goes well it should be available this fall. I intend to use the same artist/designer who did the compilations (Bindi Magic and Dayrunner Magic) so the cover will be darker and have a model rather than brightly colored with an icon.
Kater
