I talk quite a bit about the nerve-wracking aspect of this book over at Magical Words today, and Joshua Palmatier invited me to participate in his author introduction series…where, it turns out, I talked about the nerve-wracking aspects of this book, albeit in a *slightly* different way. :)

I should be less nervous, maybe. It’s my tenth book, which you’d think would settle my nerves some in and of itself. It’s gotten some really nice reviews (money shot from Booklist’s starred review: “…the first of what promises to be an outstanding series featuring a masterfully intricate dance of politics and intrigue in a world with parallels to the Elizabethan era., and Kate Elliott said it was really good, which means more to me personally than Booklist, because ZOMG Kate Elliott! o.o). It has, in fact, already gone back to print, thanks to a big library supplier order, which, y’know, bodes well.

Still. Nervous. Excited. Hopeful. Very hopeful.

I’d love to astound my editor by having the book go back to print again by the end of May. It only (only!) needs to sell about 15,000 copies to do that. So send people to read the excerpt and to drool over the cover and help me make a little noise about this one, please? *looks charming and hopeful* :)

And it’s the mark of a couple pretty freaking significant landmark for me. First, it’s my first non-Harlequin book. Second, it’s my TENTH FREAKING NOVEL! ZOH. MY. GOD.

And third, I now have one million words in print.

Not too damned bad for somebody whose first book came out in June 2005, eh?

*beams like a fool*

P-Con starts tomorrow! I am GoH! I think it will be fun! …I’ll be an utter *zombie* on Monday, mind you, but it’ll be fun. And Ted is on a panel about what it’s like being married to a full-time writer, which I’m quite looking forward to attending. :)

Iiiii…am closing in on 100K on THE PRETENDER’S CROWN. About…well, 2K more, technically, because I’ve got a 2000 word scene that fits in later that’s not part of the actual current build-up of words and pages. 4K in straight beginning-to-end terms. I think I’ll go write for a while longer today, and maybe I’ll get up early enough to do some work before catching the train to Dublin tomorrow. (*Maybe* I’ll actually do some work over the weekend, but mostly that thought inspired a “bahahahahah!” in me, so probably not. So it’d be nice to hit 100K by tomorrow afternoon, don’t you think?)

I haven’t yet posted about Match It For Pratchett because I’m easily distracted by bright shiny objects, but I have been meaning to. On the off chance anyone reading this hasn’t heard, Terry Prachett, who was recently diagnosed with early-onset Alzheimer’s, has donated half a million British pounds (approximately $1m USD) to Alzheimer’s research. His fans, within a matter of days, had started the Match It for Pratchett fundraising effort, which has the aim of raising an additional half million pounds, to bring it up to a nice round million.

In the past week, some £34,000 has been donated. The Alzheimer’s Research Trust in Britain is stunned and overwhelmed; according to their figures, $25US pays for an hour of their high-end research, so this kind of money really does make a significant difference to them.

My agent, Jennifer Jackson ( / arcaedia) has just posted the following:

Also–the person reading this blog that makes the highest donation by midnight on Saturday, the 22nd (and sends me some verification thereof), I will read and review your synopsis plus 50 (or so) pages of a work-in-progress (limited to novel-length fiction in the adult/YA genre categories I actually represent). You can go directly to the tipjar on the Match It site and make a donation. You can send verification to jjackson [at] maassagency.com

I *unquestionably* have the most awesome agent in the universe.

I am also hoping to get, at the very least, a Match It tip jar set up at the front desk for P-Con, and hope to get tickets handed out to everybody who donates. At the end of the weekend we’ll draw from a hat and I’ll give a signed copy of the complete Walker Papers series (so far) to the winner, or possibly books 1 and 2 of the Negotiator and will send 3 along when it comes out, if the winner prefers that.

I love my tribe, I really do, and I’m terribly proud of them for this effort.

And on a not exactly related, but not exactly not, topic, I’d like to raise a glass to Arthur C. Clarke, who was one of the pioneers of the world we live in.

I have blatantly stolen the Synopsis Q&A Joshua posted in the post that inspired all of this.

Please note that there are SPOILERS for URBAN SHAMAN behind this cut. The book synopsis is replicated in its entirety. As it happens, because of how this particular synopsis is written, it’s not *very* spoilery, but it is spoilery! So be warned, and now you can, if you wish,

(more…)

Margrit’s story will be wrapped up with the third book. I do have about eight other ideas for stories set in the Old Races world, and she may be a supporting character in some of those, but writing them is a long way out: I’m planning to finish the Walker Papers before I go back to the Old Races, so it’ll be several years before I return to that world.

The good news is that there’ll be a Janx and Daisani short story in an anthology published by Subterranean Press released next year (I think released next year o.o), so there’ll be at least a hint here and here of more of the Old Races. :)

HOUSE OF CARDS is out! Quick! Go forth! Buy it! Get me onto a bestseller list! *hopeful eyes* :)

I’ve posted a teaser for THE QUEEN’S BASTARD, first in my new series starting in May.

I’ve been invited to participate in a Subterranean Press anthology with three other authors (Kate Elliott, Robin Hobb and Kelley Armstrong. Wow, am I in good company!). My plan at the moment is to write a Janx and Daisani short story, tentatively titled “From Russia, With Love”. That’s going to be so much fun. :)

Second, comics!

We’ve moved the TAKE A CHANCE launch date to July, to give ourselves more time to get our legs under us and to give the comic the dazzling start we all think it deserves.

Third, appearances!

I’m the guest of honor at P-Con in Dublin, Ireland, March 29-30 2008. If anybody has a chance to make it over, please do!

I’ve been invited to be a workshop teacher at a writer’s conference in South Carolina this October. I’ll post more about that when I have more details, but it looks like a really exciting, intense weekend, and I’m looking forward to it.

I’ve arranged a bonanza signing at the Forbidden Planet in London, tentatively scheduled for 20 September. The entire Negotiator trilogy will be out by then, as well as THE QUEEN’S BASTARD, and of course all the Walker Papers that are currently available. There should also be three issues of Chance out at that point, so, yeah: a bonanza signing event. More as I know it on that, too.

Fourth, stuff totally not related to writing! :)

I’m running a poll on my livejournal page to tally votes for a photography exhibition project, and invite you all to go take a look and render an opinion. I think you have to actually be an LJ member to vote, but if you’re not, you can always email me at cemurphyauthor@gmail.com with your two cents. :)

Due to the response in the poll already, I’m looking at selling 5×7″ prints of each set of 6 for $50, and am likely to start with the graveyard set. If anybody’d like to pre-order a packet, or sees a specific image they might want at a larger size, again, please do email me. :)

And I think that’s about all for now. :)

-Catie

Is that not awesome? Do I not have the best friends EVAH? *beams more*