New blog

I've transferred my blog over to www.paulcrilley.com as it's easier to keep track of one site. I'm still tweaking and building the pages, so only the front page is active.

An unforgivable omission

With the upcoming release of the wonderful Legacy of Wolves, by Marsheila Rockwell, (It really is wonderful. I was one of the beta readers), I thought I’d take the opportunity to make amends for a rather unforgivable lapse on my part.

When I got the copyedits on Night of the Long Shadows, it was a week or so before the Christmas holidays. I wasn’t required to hand them in before the holidays started, but I wanted to try, seeing as we’d just moved house and there was a lot of stuff that needed doing, and I didn’t want to be distracted by going through copyedits. So I decided to try and get them done before the holidays. Not a problem. First thing I did was write the dedications, as I’d been wrestling with the wording for ages, and still didn’t quite know how to say what I wanted to say. (Hey, it was my first book. It had to be special.) I got that taken care of and thought, “Great. Now on to the actual copyedits. I’ll come back once I’ve done and write the acknowledgments.

So I finished the copyedits on, I think, the day before the holidays started and sent off the book, totally forgetting about the acknowledgments. I felt really crap about that when the book came out, so I thought I’d try and make up for it here, although I know it’s not the same thing.

Anyway, many, many thanks to fellow Eberron authors Jeff LaSala and Marcy Rockwell for being kind enough to beta read and offer numerous helpful insights and grammar corrections. I really do appreciate it. And thanks to Ed Bolme as well as Marcy and Jeff for all the cross-promotion we managed to squeeze into the text

Plus a shout out to Mark Sehestedt. A better editor I couldn’t have asked for. Someone who let me tell the story I wanted to tell and didn’t try and force me into anything I didn’t want to do. Whose suggestions, when they came, were spot on and really made the book a better read. Cheers.

Interview

Wizards of the Coast has interviewed me to tie in with the release of Night of the Long Shadows. You can find it here.

Milestones

Milestones in life are noteworthy events. Looking back, I don't seem to have many of them. (Or maybe that's just my memory going.) First major personal milestone was meeting Caroline when we were both 18 years old. We've been together ever since.

Then over the next ten years, serious attempts to get published. I'd written since I was 13, but from about 18 on I really started to get serious about it. Finished my first novel at 23. A comic fantasy that I'm still quite fond of and may go back and re-write sometime. It features Nightsoil! a self-proclaimed hero with a cloak that keeps tripping him up. But he won't get rid of it because he reckons he needs it for the image.

Next milestone was my first pro short story sale. I think I was 26. That was to Mike Resnick's anthology, New Voices in Science Fiction. Next was Isabella being born. That was 2 years ago now. (Hang in there. There's a point to this post.)

After that was my first novel sale. To Wizards of the Coast. And that neatly ties in to...

My first book Night of the Long Shadows, officially went on sale yesterday. So it's out there. For people to pick up and read, and judge, and say whether they hate it or not. It's quite a nerve wracking feeling, but it's out there now. One of the few ambitions I've carried with me most of my life, and I got there in the end.

Now I've just got to keep up the momentum.

Night of the Long Shadows

So I finally got my grubby hands on the author copies of Night of the Long Shadows. Very weird feeling to finally hold a book in your hand that you've written. Of course, I started paging through it and saw lots of tiny things I want to change, but I'm like that with all the stuff I write. I'm never satisfied. You've just got to know when it's time to stop.

Night of the Long Shadows

The three nights of the year when the dark powers of the world gain strength and rise to prey upon the unwary.

When one of Sharn’s most famed Inquisitives is hired to investigate a brutal murder at Morgrave University, his brilliance may be his damnation, as he uncovers a trail of blood leading from the seediest neighborhoods of the City of Towers to the highest reaches of power.

Dr Who - Destination Prague

One of my earliest television memories is the death of the Tom Baker Dr Who. I was five at the time and I remember being really freaked out by the regeneration into the Peter Davison doctor. (Seen here. Scroll to 1.07.)

Anyway, it's a bit of a geek dream come true to write a story about Dr Who, and Big Finish have just formally announced the Dr Who anthology I have a story appearing in. It's called Short Trips: Destination Prague, and my contribution is called Sunday Afternoon, 848,988 AD. It features the seventh Doctor, played by Sylvestor McCoy, who I always felt was given a bit of a hard time. I quite liked him.

Now playing: Linger - The Cranberries

What not to do when looking for an agent

Now Playing: Past the Mission - Tori Amos

So I learned a valuable lesson this week. (Well, two, but I'll save the other for a different post.) Apparently, if you're going to query an agent, make sure you have the book completed first.

Yes, I know it sounds pretty bloody obvious when you read it, but I never really thought of it as a hard and fast rule. I submitted a synopsis to the Nelson Literary Agency last year and in September they asked for the first three chapters. But Real Life (TM) intervened in the form of a new job and a new house, and I only got round to polishing up the chapters last month. I always kind of intended to start writing the full book in September, but as I said, real life has a habit of taking the best laid plans and throwing them out the window while laughing mockingly at you.

Last week, Agent Kristin emailed me saying she loved the first three chapters and could she please have the whole book pretty please.

Oops.

I wrote back apologizing for my appalling lack of knowledge of the field I want to make a living in and she was very nice, telling me to send it in when it's ready with a covering letter explaining my naughtiness.

So. Take a lesson folks. If you're querying an agent, make sure you have the book finished. It doesn't matter if you think the agent probably won't even ask for the full manuscript. Just have it finished.