The Queen's Ransom

Hello,

I was trapped on a desert island infested with scorpions and roaches. That's why I haven't blogged for two weeks. In truth, I wrote a short story that takes place on the afore mentioned island where the creepy crawlies live.

I just finished the rough draft of the sequel to my Pirate Witch story. I'm calling it, The Queen's Ransom. It starts out where the first one leaves off. It's about 29 pages, just over 8,000 words--the same size as the first one. It will be coming out in Specters of the Blue Kingdoms, around October of 2007.

Three fourths of The Queen's Ransom were done this week, after outlining and getting it started last week. I haven't been that productive, but things happen. The deadline is August 15, so I've got time to get it to my first readers, Brad and Patrick for a critique.

I just read the first 93 pages of Brad's novel, The Winds of Khalakovo. It kicks ass and I can't wait to read more. Patrick just finished his novella, Dayhunter and I love the first chapter. I have to read it now and finally have time. Pat sent it in to a writing contest and I hope the editor loves it. Check out Pat and Brad's blogs on my blogroll for more--Brad's link is obvious, and Pat's is Wolfhawkwind.

Life is good and I was just able to hang out with my old friend Jason Wilson, who was in town for a statistics convention. He's getting his PhD and after hearing his presentation for the conference I know he is one of the smartest people I've ever met. He's hard core and both of us like to do things at full throttle. When we jump in, we jump head first and don't look back.

Passion is a good thing and when I die I want people to say that I had great passion for whatever I did. For me, writing is about harnessing your inner passion and bringing words on a page alive for the reader. Good writing is hard to quantify, but if the characters come alive, you've done well.

Peace and happy writing,

Paul Genesse

Author of The Pirate Witch

in Pirates of the Blue Kingdoms

http://www.popcornpress.com/

Author of The Golden Cord

Book One of the Iron Dragon Series

Five Star Books, April 2008

The End of Harry Potter

(No spoilers here, sorry)

Hello,

It's Harry Potter weekend and I hope the book ends well. Lots of people are reading it now. The interesting news I read online was about research related to the reading habits of kids. A lot of people have said that Harry Potter has gotten kids to read more. I guess the truth is that kids are not reading more. The rates of reading are actually down nationwide. The real question is what would the rates be if Harry Potter had not come along?

I just hope that the end of the Harry Potter books will not be a huge blow to the book business. I guess time will tell, but I wonder what you all think? Will kids (or adults) read less now that the series is over?

Paul

http://www.paulgenesse.com/

Author of The Pirate Witch

in Pirates of the Blue Kingdoms

http://www.popcornpress.com/

Author of The Golden Cord

Book One of the Iron Dragon Series

Five Star Books (April 2008)

Pirate Game!

Ahoy,

Tonight was a great night in the Blue Kingdoms. I DM'd a game at a local hobby shop (Cross Class Adventures). We played Dungeons and Dragons in the Blue Kingdoms for the second time at that hobby shop. It was so much fun and the players and I were having such a jolly good time. It was crazy mayhem and there were a bunch of new players there.

Swashbuckling adventure is exciting and in the end most of the crew ended up joining the enemy captain, Scarlett Rose. She was very persuasive: double rum rations per day, equal shares for all crew, and did I mention that she is half siren? She used magic and charmed all but two of the players. The two who resisted escaped--while all of their friends joined her--the enemy captain.

Some of the characters we played are featured in my Pirate Witch story: Lem and Cod. Both are salty sea dogs in their fifties. They are a riot, but Gar, the Al-Kibar (dog-headed humanoid)was the howling main event--literally.

I love the Blue Kingdoms and it's a great place for D and D.

Best wishes,

Paul Genesse

http://www.paulgenesse.com/

http://www.paulgenesse.blogspot.com/

Author of The Pirate Witch

in Pirates of the Blue Kingdoms

http://www.popcornpress.com/

The Dimension Next Door Story

Chichen-Itza

A Mayan Pyramid in the Yucatan.

My newest short story is set in Central America near a pyramid like Chichen-Itza.

Hello,

I've just returned to the blogosphere after aliens abducted me. Don't worry, they were nice, but don't drink the green liquid. Trust me.

Anyway, I've neglected my blog for a while. I've been busy writing stories and novels and haven't made blogging a big priority. Plus, I wanted to leave the cover art for my novel on the blog for a while.

What have I been doing? Writing a story for the Dimension Next Door anthology for DAW Books--deadline: August 1. The story is almost done. Draft one is completed and just needs a rewrite. My friend Brad gave me a great critique on Sunday and I'm going to fix the problems and tweak the story a little this week--then send it off to the editor: Kerrie Hughes. I think she's going to love it.

The story is about Nina, a linguistic archaeologist who specializes in Mayan epigraphs. She's dying of cancer. Most of the story takes place in the year 2012, on December 21. That is the day that the Mayan calender ends. It's the day the world is supposed to end. Nina finds out the truth and witnesses an event that you only see once . . .

My next project is to write the sequel to my Pirate Witch story. It's due on August 15. A very short deadline. Then I've got a short story for the Catopolis anthology, deadline: November 1.

I also need to finish my novel, Medusa's Daughter. I'm hoping to finish it by November 1, 2007. I've got so much work to do!! But it's fun! I love writing.

I hope you're all doing well and let me tell you: deadlines are good. When the date is looming, you get the work done. After all, as my friend Pat and I often say: diamonds form when put under great pressure . . .

Best wishes!

Paul Genesse

Author of The Pirate Witch
in Pirates of the Blue Kingdoms
Order an autographed copy at
www.paulgenesse.com

Author of The Golden Cord
Book One of the Iron Dragon Series
Releasing April 2008 from Five Star Books

Cover Art

Cover Art

for my first novel

The Golden Cord

Book One of the Iron Dragon Series

Here it is. The cover art for, The Golden Cord, Book One of the Iron Dragon Series. The artist, Ciruelo Cabral painted it. I first saw this image, Moon Dragon, in Ciruelo's 2007 Dragon's Calender. From the moment I saw it, I thought it would be a great cover for The Golden Cord. Then I had to convince my publisher to use it--which wasn't very difficult. The book jacket designer, Ed Vincent is now working on the cover design (text and such). I'm looking forward to seeing that.

I'll post it as soon as I get it. For some reason I've delayed posting this art. I don't know why, but now seems like a good time for its debut.

Let me know what you think of the cover and have a great day.

Paul Genesse

Author of The Pirate Witch
in Pirates of the Blue Kingdoms
http://www.popcornpress.com/

Medusa's Daughter--93 pages and counting . . .

Medusa

Angelina Jolie would be perfect to play Medusa,
in the movie version of my novel, Medusa's Daughter. Check out the other actors and actresses that I've cast for the movie on my website in the casting news section.
A guy can dream, can't he?

Keep in mind that the mythological Medusa was not the snake haired monster, like we saw in the movie Clash of the Titans. She was beautiful and did not have snakes for hair. No one could look at her, or they'd die. That was her curse.

Okay, enough of the myth lesson, but read more about the mythological medusa online or check out the book, Medusa, Solving the Mystery of the Gorgon by Stephen R. Wilk. It's a thorough look at the myth and how it's changed over the years.

Well, as you can see I'm still a writer. Big shocker, eh? These days off have been very productive and I've regained some confidence in my ability to crank out the pages. I've managed to write 7,000 words of Medusa's Daughter--which was three and half chapters. The chapters are pretty short and I haven't finished chapter ten yet, but I've got it going really well and I've mapped out the last half. It's a critical chapter in the book when the main characters, Nerissa and Nikander have a very important interaction . . .

So, I'm up to page 93 in Medusa's Daughter, so that feels good. I've written about 26 double spaced pages in the past few days, plus I've edited chapter six, which I wrote last week. I've written a lot more than that in the past, like 40 pages in one day, but that was back when I just went for it and didn't worry about what how it turned out. Now I'm slower, but the work comes out better in so many ways. The book is coming along great and I think it's going to be fantastic once I'm done. I just wish I'd been more motivated to get this done a while back, but other books and writing promotion got in the way. Now it's back to work! (Insert whip-cracking noise here)

I also worked on the story outline for my Dimension Next Door story. I've got the main outline and really figured out some major plot points. I think it's going to be great. I think I'll work next week on Medusa's Daughter, then I'll stop and work on The Dimension Next Door story. The deadline for it is August 1. I want to get it to the editor before that.

Figuring out how to do promotion and work on writing has been troubling me, but I'll find a balance at some point. Next week I need to plow ahead with Medusa's Daughter, then do a little promotion--sending some books to reviewers. I also need to send out a group email update about my pirate story, but I'm waiting for my buddy, Jordan to help with my website first, so people can buy it there. He's a busy guy, but I know he'll get to it soon.

I've also heard from the head guy at Mountain Con, Carl Stark. He's a cool guy and said his people loved my panel ideas. I'll end up with a bunch of them for sure and I'm looking forward to that.

Well, I hope you are all well and I encourage you to set goals and keep them with your writing. My goal is to finish a solid draft of Medusa's Daughter by November 1, 2007. I also have two short stories, perhaps three, to write. I know I'll make it all work. Working full time makes it challenging, but there are ways as long as you stay motivated.

Thanks for stopping by my blog. Have a great week!

Paul Genesse, Author

Author of The Pirate Witch
in Pirates of the Blue Kingdoms
www.popcornpress.com

Author of The Golden Cord
Book One of the Iron Dragon Series
Releasing April, 2008

Ballet

Our evening at the Ballet

Tonight, Tam and I went to the ballet. We saw the final performance of Ballet West's production of Carmina Burana. Check out Ballet West at www.balletwest.org. Most of us have heard the music of Carl Orff's famous symphony, but how many have seen the ballet? I hadn't. I think the first time I heard the music was in the movie Excalibur. Which I still love to this day.

Anyway, we've been to the ballet many times, but this time the tickets came from the ConDuit convention. Tam volunteered at the convention and she chose two tickets as her reward for volunteering. Sweet!


Hearing the live choir and live orchestra was amazing, much better than the CD I have of it. Then seeing the ballet dancers doing their thing made it all come together. There were three opera singers as well. The performance was great because it combined: a symphony, a choir, opera singers, and world-class ballet dancers.


Part of the fun for me was trying to figure out the story being told with the music and dance. As with good writing, the music starts fast--with the part that we've all heard--and finishes with the same high-powered choir singing.


Art makes it all worth while.


Bye for now,


Paul Genesse, Author

www.paulgenesse.com


Author of The Pirate Witch
in Pirates of the Blue Kingdoms
www.popcornpress.com