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While I& #39;m scuttling around on the ceiling waiting for book news, and wrangling another dose of Oh Boy, Cancer Sucks, here& #39;s a thread of people who have inspired me to keep writing during tough old times, and who deserve your time and attention. I may add to this as time allows.
1. @RB_Lemberg has just released The Four Profound Weaves, which looks stunning, but I came to their writing through & #39;The Desert Glassmaker and the Jeweler of Berevyar& #39;, https://bit.ly/2Z0XsXT .
I">https://bit.ly/2Z0XsXT&q... probably wouldn& #39;t have kept writing through this without it. It& #39;s exceptional.
I">https://bit.ly/2Z0XsXT&q... probably wouldn& #39;t have kept writing through this without it. It& #39;s exceptional.
2. I discovered @tithenai around about the same time, and the first work of hers I read, The Honey Month, has stayed with me since then. I come back to it every so often, and it& #39;s like a draught of something wild and strange.
3. Conversely, @OlgaWojtas is one of my oldest writing pals, and getting to read her Miss Blaine& #39;s Prefect series has been a joy. It& #39;s a cliche to say a book is witty, but there& #39;s a wryness running through these that has kept me going, and that definitely comes from Olga herself.
4. While I haven& #39;t yet read @muninnherself & #39;s The Bookshop of Second Chances (November 2020), Jack has been a constant delight on my timeline, and has impeccable taste in weird old rocks, which became surprisingly important to my own writing.
5. Because I like hanging out with people who love murder, meeting @flint_writes at Arvon seven thousand years ago was a delight. Her novel, Little Deaths, is exactly as dark as you would want it to be, and Emma is exactly the friend you would want to have.
6. Sometimes, I like my murder with a supernatural twist, and @Ben_Aaronovitch& #39;s Rivers of London series has been a constant in my life for years now. He& #39;s also been unfailingly kind when I& #39;ve shuffled up to him starstruck, clutching something to be signed. A genuine inspiration.
7. I had to get really weird for this book, and there& #39;s a few folks that helped me do that. Running @so_engery & #39;s Casket Land for months has helped me keep things grim, rotten and hopeless, in the most uplifting of ways. Drowning your pals in occult horror is key to a happy life.
8. Nobody does weird like @Ghostwoods. I knew Tim& #39;s work long before I met them on Twitter, reading his Vampire: The Masquerade books on my pal Dave& #39;s old couch late at night. Sometimes, I let something really brutal happen to one of my characters, and I think of those books.
9. Often, I read @toadlett & #39;s Owl People,( http://owl-people.com"> http://owl-people.com ) and feel like I& #39;m looking into a world that sits next to my writing, not in content, but in feeling, and strangeness, and that& #39;s lovely. And they do stellar goblins. A+, extremely crunchy.( https://gumroad.com/toadlett )">https://gumroad.com/toadlett&...
10. Obvs. I& #39;m a weird nerd, but I& #39;m a weird nerd with impeccable taste, and finding @trollishdelver & #39;s Romance of the Perilous Land ( https://bit.ly/34WH52c_ )">https://bit.ly/34WH52c_&... lit up every bit of me that used to love Arthuriana, Robin Hood and Robert Holdstock. It& #39;s all leaked into the book.
11. I only discovered them very recently, but @spookybri & #39;s doomed knights feel like they linger on the edge& #39;s of the Perilous Land, and they brush against my writing, sometimes. ( https://www.bonjourbri.com/sigils )">https://www.bonjourbri.com/sigils&qu...
12. Wild to think I would ever lean into the gothic, but @Arr_Roo & #39;s Barrow Keep has kept my imagination alive with plots and conspiracies and wild transformations.
13. Somewhere, there& #39;s a Venn diagram where Barrow Keep and @DavidSchirduan & #39;s Tempered Legacy intersect, and it explains a lot about the way my head works. All fantasy needs sacrifice, and change and wonder, and Tempered Legacy 𝘨𝘦𝘵𝘴 𝘵𝘩𝘢𝘵.
14. It& #39;s been a year short on laughter, and it& #39;s all very well writing a fantasy epic, but if none of the characters ever crack a smile, what& #39;s the point? I owe @BrennanLM and @dimension20show for mercilessly ratcheting me between humour and heartbreak over coffee every morning.
15. Sometimes for the book, I needed nature and wildness, and heartbreak, and everything Leonard McDermid& #39;s Stichill Marigold Press produces makes my heart-ache. Printed lands that your soul walks into. (Photos courtesy of @Marc_R_Lambert, as my copies sleep in storage.)
16. I& #39;ve mentioned it recently, but Sheila Dong& #39;s Moon Crumbs from @BottlecapPress is my chapbook of the year. Language that melts and fizzes and aches down in the bone.
17. Shifting and realignment and all the fine threads in @tambourine & #39;s amazing poetry - https://bit.ly/3gSzDYb .
Something">https://bit.ly/3gSzDYb&q... to breathe in. Something to hold. Words to move the bodies in your own head.
Something">https://bit.ly/3gSzDYb&q... to breathe in. Something to hold. Words to move the bodies in your own head.
18. It would be strange to write a book about conflict, the end of conflict, and what comes after, and not find my way to @Marjgill & #39;s Refuge. https://bit.ly/2F30tzu ">https://bit.ly/2F30tzu&q...
Lines of shelter, and the memory of shelter, and the movement inbetween.
Lines of shelter, and the memory of shelter, and the movement inbetween.
