We are teaming up with Anne & her publishers to give away not only 3 signed copies of her latest book (The Prince of Lies), but one lucky reader will also win the whole trilogy: The Alchemist of Souls, The Merchant of Dreams and The Prince of Lies! Details on how after Anne’s article!
Before I ever completed a novel, I’d heard plenty of writers talk about the “post-partum blues” – the feeling of sadness at having literally closed the book on your world and characters. I was therefore somewhat surprised to feel none of this when I finished the ready-for-submission draft of The Alchemist of Souls. I think it was partly that I was exhilarated to have finally completed a manuscript fit to be seen by agents and editors, but also because I knew I wasn’t finished with Mal’s story yet.
Thankfully Angry Robot agreed with me, and my agent negotiated a three-book deal that would see the trilogy completed within eighteen months. I therefore had no time to pause between books – I was too busy learning the hard lessons that every debut author faces. That is, how to transition from writing at your own pace and for your own pleasure to writing to a schedule and outline agreed with your editor. Of course the finished book may not resemble the outline in every detail (and my outlines usually only run to a couple of pages, so there’s very little detail in any case), but as long as the general tone and story arc are adhered to, all your editor really wants out of you is another great book!
By the end of the trilogy I was pretty burned-out by the pace of publication and just relieved to be able to hand over a manuscript that my editor, Marc Gascoigne, was happy with. Then, as the publication date of The Prince of Lies drew nearer and I tried to simultaneously plan a totally new book whilst publicising the upcoming one, the post-partum blues finally hit. People kept asking me if there would be more books (or even just short stories) about Mal, Coby and friends, but the honest answer was no, not for the foreseeable future – and having to say that out loud (or at least online) over and over really hammered it home. I was done with Elizabethan England.
Still, being the pro I am (or aspire to be), I carried on with my plans for a new series, drawing on old projects that had been long abandoned: a short story that had failed to sell but had some interesting characters I could reuse, and various disparate worldbuilding ideas that had never had stories attached to them. I wrote a short story set in this new world for a BFS anthology called “Unexpected Journeys”, and began planning a novel or two.
Then publication day arrived, with both the World Fantasy Convention in Brighton and NaNoWriMo hot on its heels. Unfortunately I had a dreadful cold at the time, so although I pushed myself to write every day at first, the strain was starting to show by late November and I gave up at around 37,000 words. In my post-partum blues I hadn’t been able to summon the enthusiasm to complete an outline for my new novel, and when I ran out of outline it was just too hard to continue. It didn’t help that my day-job simultaneously became more demanding, absorbing a lot of my time and mental energy.
I’ve thus spent the last three months in recovery mode, eschewing the hubbub of social media in favour of relaxing and focusing on domestic affairs. Of course I’ve been jotting down thoughts as they came to me (I even bought a fancy new notebook to help motivate myself!) but mostly I’ve been catching up on my reading. The ideas are finally starting to gel together, thank goodness, so I’m hoping to reboot this project in the next few weeks and get back in the writing saddle once more. So, what’s the new book going to be about, I hear you ask?
One of the first things I decided, long before I finished the Night’s Masque trilogy, was that I wanted to write something not set in the “real” world. Historical settings can be both a shackle and a crutch. A shackle because although you can change history a little and even add blatant fantasy elements (such as my skraylings), you’re also restricted to historical cultural norms; deviate too much, and the period is no longer recognisable – so why bother writing in a historical setting at all? Although I love many aspects of Elizabethan England, I just didn’t want to carry on writing about the same sexist, racist, homophobic culture that I’d been mentally inhabiting for the past seven or eight years. As for the crutch aspect, there’s so much information online about sixteenth-century England, it’s almost easier to do a quick google or have a browse through Wikipedia than it is to make stuff up!
So, my new project is set in a “secondary”, i.e. invented, world, informed by my historical knowledge but not confined by it. As with the skraylings, I’m turning to my love of biology and linguistics to create some unique cultures to populate this world, but at the centre there will be the same mix of intrigue and derring-do that I so enjoyed writing about in my first trilogy.
As to when I’ll finish something worth sending out to my agent, I have no idea. It took me four years to get The Alchemist of Souls from initial inspiration to polished manuscript, and whilst I’ve learnt a lot about the craft of writing in the meantime, I’m still not sure how to shorten the overall process. One thing I do know is that I won’t get there by waiting for inspiration to strike – time to shake off the post-book blues and write!
COMPETITION
So, in addition to Anne agreeing to stop by for a guest post, she spoke nicely to her publishers and convinced them to send us over 3 signed copies of her latest novel, The Prince of Lies, and a complete set of her Night’s Masque trilogy too! Now, I’m guessing that the three novels were not for me to read and enjoy, but rather to give out to the Fantasy-Faction community. So, how would you like to win one or maybe even the whole trilogy? All you have to do is answer the following question:
If you could travel back to any year/time period with any magical power, what time and power would you choose and why?
Personally, I’d have to choose Ancient Egypt and flight so that I could watch the pyramids being built (but stay out of the way, so as not to be captured as a slave!)… but that’s just me!
You can either tweet @FantasyFaction your answer or post it up here in the comments. Good luck! 
