a multitude of me

Hey, everybody, I’m back again. Whew. :)

Fell down the stairs on a bus a couple days ago and am a seven-fingered-typist right now; I jammed the holy living crap out of my fingers and while it doesn’t hurt all that much, it looks just *awful*:

That was yesterday. It’s better today, but man, my 12K wordcount goal this week has been shot. *squinchy face*

Fortunately last week was a terrific writing week and I got 30,000 words–a little more than 1/4th of the length of one of the Walker Paper books, or pretty much exactly the length of “Banshee Cries”, for reference–written. I’m working on THE PRETENDER’S CROWN, sequel to THE QUEEN’S BASTARD (which is out in May), and had I not smashed my hand I’d have made the halfway point by today. Bah. Oh well, not much to be done for it.

Lots of people’ve asked questions in comments, but for today I’ll bring up the most recent and answer it (this is something I’m going to try to get into the habit of doing!).

Thelma H said:
Cate: Loved your Bombshell Books. Will you be writing anymore of that type?

Sadly, not for the foreseeable future. The Strongbox Chronicles were actually planned as a 12 book (or maybe 13 book) series, with 4 trilogies, each starring a new heroine and a new aspect of the Sicarii to face down (and then possibly one blow-out final book which would’ve been called THE THIRTEENTH CHRONICLE). However, with the combination of the Bombshell line being cancelled and my schedule of writing CE Murphy books being so very busy, any further development of the Strongbox Chronicles has been put on a very back burner. I’d love to go back to them someday, but if I do it’ll be years down the road.

-Catie

Because SO MANY of you answered, I decided to randomly pick two people instead of one, so the following two people will get an advance copy of HOUSE OF CARDS:

James Proudfit

Ley

If you two would be so good as to email me your snailmail addresses to cemurphyauthor@gmail.com, I’ll get those into the mail as soon I can. :)

-Catie

Dood heavens, there are zillions of you out there! Many of whom seem to hope I will post here regularly!

Therefore, I’m gonna put it to y’all: what would you like to hear about? I have, if you are not aware, a general blog in which I go on about daily life and writing and whatnot at mizkit.com, but because I do want to get content up here regularly, and this is obviously the Writerly Aspect of my life, I’m of course inclined to focus on that.

So: ask questions! Suggest topics! I’ll do my best to respond!

-Catie

Ok, this will be an actual test to see how many people are coming by reading this blog. :)

I just got two boxes full of HOUSE OF CARDS in the mail! It’s beautiful and I’m very very excited and happy, and so I am going to give away one! count ‘em! one! copy of HOUSE OF CARDS to someone who comments here and tells me why it is you, yes you, should receive a shiny new author-signed copy of the second book in the Negotiator Trilogy!

I will send the book on Friday the 1st, so people have a week to respond!

-Catie! :)

Wow, I’m really delighted people’ve been stopping by and leaving comments. Yay! Thank you! Sorry for the delay in getting them posted, sometimes–I’ve got moderation turned on in order to help catch spam, so I have to okay the first posting from people, but after that you should be able to post without a problem.

Not a heck of a lot to say here, really. Two of the, er, five, computers in the house have blown up in the last three weeks, though fortunately none of them were my writing computer, and we haven’t lost the hard drives, just power supplies and motherboards, which is annoying enough. But I’m feeling rather paranoid about making backups now, yes I am. O.O

I’m busy working on THE PRETENDER’S CROWN, having today reached 20% of its total (slightly over 100 pages, so far), and frantically trying to get everything organized for the comic book. Very very busy, and a little overwhelming, but apparently I’ve got a hard time understanding “stop” or “slow down”, so I expect I’ll chug along through it all and come out the other end blinking with surprise. :)

FAQ from the comments (and I must add this to the FAQ, I guess!): yes, there will be more Walker Papers! The fourth book is scheduled for May or June 2009, and I’ll be writing it as soon as I’m done with THE PRETENDER’S CROWN. :) I’m really looking forward to getting back to Jo–it’s been five books and one rewrite so massive it might as well have been a new book since I’ve written her!

All right, I’ve got another few hundred words to get written tonight, so I’m off to work again. Keep those comments coming! I love ‘em! :)

-Catie

Happy New Year!

It has been a very, *very* eventful year so far, here at the CEMurphy.net household (and you must keep reading until the end, because I’m saving the best bit for last!).

First, if not precisely foremost, I’ve switched CEMurphy.net over to blogging software, so it’s now actually possible to leave comments there to chat with me. (I’ve also just noticed that the comments are unreadable. Will fix that in a minute here…there. Fixed.)

Second, I’ve posted a teaser for HOUSE OF CARDS, second in the Negotiator Trilogy, which is due out in March 2008. That teaser is available here.

Third, I was interviewed by the League of Reluctant Adults a few weeks ago. The League is discussing HEART OF STONE as their January Book Club book. If you’d like to participate, go hang out there over the next few weeks. :)

Fourth (it never ends!): I’ve received the cover for THE QUEEN’S BASTARD, which is due out in May 2008. I luff it! Check it out!

Fifth, and finally!

I am *utterly* delighted to announce that I have sold my pet project, “TAKE A CHANCE”, the comic book I’ve been working on over the last three years. TAKE A CHANCE is the story of a woman who loses her son to gang violence and turns vigilante to save other children, and will be produced by Ernst Dabel and Les Dabel of the Dabel Brothers (dabelbrothers.com — for those who are also Jim Butcher fans, these are the guys producing the Dresden Files comic!)

The first issue ought to be on the shelves in May, we hope, and I am just *beside* myself with excitement over this whole thing. This is the culmination of years worth of work and hope, and I hope you’ll all find yourselves rushing out to the comic shop to buy copies. *grin*

So again, happy new year to all! I hope 2008 treats you well!

In an effort to keep cemurphy.net more regularly updated, I’ve installed WordPress blogging software, and am going to post writing-life posts here as regularly as possible. The site’s more or less functional right now, with some emphasis on the “less”; I gave myself 2 hours to do this in and I’ve got a lot of pages to convert, so I’m going to spend another 40 minutes trying to get ‘em converted and then I’m done WordPressing for the day. :) And there are still look & feel things I want to get fixed, too.

But! A win! There are now comments available here at the blog, so if people want to chat or ask questions, they’re absolutely welcome to. I hope to hear from you now and again!

In the meantime, Happy New Year!

-Catie