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

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/

ConDuit Convention

Hello,

Well, the time for my local sci-fi/fantasy convention has come. On May 25-27 I'll be attending ConDuit here in Salt Lake City,http://www.conduit.sfcon.org/ . It's going to be lots of fun as I'm doing a reading of The Pirate Witch from the Pirates of the Blue Kingdoms anthology (www.popcornpress.com), and will be on four panels. I'm excited to be part of my local convention and hope to meet lots of local fantasy fans. I've been to the convention a few times before, but have never been on a panel there or done a reading. I'm also hoping to do a signing. We'll see what happens.

Read my "News" section on my website for more specifics.

If you've never been to a convention of this type, this is a small one, but has lots of fun stuff. There's a big anime room, dealers area, miniature games, role-playing games, board games, and lots of other stuff going on.

Support your local conventions and check them out.

Paul Genesse

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

Shadows, Pirates, and Pages

Hello,

It's been a little while since I posted and I have no good excuses. However, I've been busy with writing stuff this week. Three big things happened:

1. Brad Beaulieu sent me his short story, Shadows In Mirrors, which will be in the Dimension Next Door anthology from DAW Books. I'll be in that one also.

2.The galley pages from Pirates of the Blue Kingdom came--my story, The Pirate Witch is in it.

3. The big news: My editor sent me the edited manuscript for my novel, The Golden Cord. He's had it for almost four months, but once he started reading it took him less than two weeks to finish.

Wow, what a week. I read Brad's story, which was amazing, and gave him a critique. Not much to fix there. Brad is such an amazing writer. I've also been invited into the same anthology and I have an idea for it--supplied by my buddy Glenn. I'm not spilling the details yet . . . The deadline is months away, luckily.

I managed to read over the galley pages for my pirate story, The Pirate Witch, and found no errors. The bio was fine too. I'm really excited about it coming out and it could go to press around May 15. Life is good. This summer is going be great.

So, the big job, working on my manuscript. I had one night of fear when I saw my editor wanted a new first line/opening paragraph. This news kicked me in the nuts. Hard. The first line had been green-lighted before, but it could always be better--I knew it then and I know it now. I couldn't face rewriting it that first night (Wednesday) when the MS came, but managed to rewrite it Thursday. It turned out well, but the opening will have to be read over by Brad and Pat before I call it done and send it to John.

Now I'm up to page 87 of 323. The comments from my editor, John, are fine, but I have to read through the whole MS and work on a few things. No major changes, thank the Gods!

This whole process is very time consuming, but I'm not too stressed about it. So far, reading over the MS hasn't been that painful. Perhaps I'm excited because this might be the last time that I have to read this entire manuscript. I still like it, but after you've read something so many times it becomes a little tiresome. I'm being generous, it's a big pain in the ass. But, the book is getting better and I think I'm improving the work. John's comments were excellent and now I just have to get it to him by May 18. No problem there.

Once this task is done, I'm back to Medusa's Daughter. I want to finish it by November 1, plus two short stories this year. One short story is due in August, the next in November. I have all the time in the world . . . I just have to believe the affirmation posted next to my computer. It reads: I release all that is unlike love. I have time and space for everything I want to do.

I repeat it in my mind, but now I should really start believing it.

The Pirate Witch story

Hello,

I just sent my short story, The Pirate Witch to Jean Rabe, editor of the Blue Kingdoms anthology. I think it came out great, though it's 8,371 words, and the ideal was four to six thousand. Oh, well. It's a swashbuckling adventure with a lot happening, so I hope she goes for it.

If not, I think I have the start of a fun novel. It wouldn't be half as good without the help of three of my friends, Brad Beaulieu, Patrick Tracy and Kelly Swails. They critiqued the story and provided invaluable help.

Brad's initial critique really helped me fix the story, then Kelly's ideas and Pat's additions polished it off really well. Kelly had some good suggestions and Pat added some really pirate-like language. The tale is more cohesive, makes more sense, and has a strong rudder.

The reader will understand the main character, Maeve a lot better and will care about her more. Most of the initial problems were related to me being worried about word count and going over. But screw it! Write the story and make the editor decide if it’s too long. Arrrr! Savvy?

To all of you writers out there who get critiques or give critiques: Llife will be even better for you if you start using the Track Changes tool on MS Word. It makes giving critiques a snap (adding comments, deleting lines etc.) and helps the poor writer see what terrible lines were there before the critiquer made them a LOT better. Without the Track Changes it makes finding changes quite difficult.

John Helfers, the editor who bought my first novel and hired me as a copy editor a while back, asked me to get MS Word and to use Track Changes when we first started working together. I was nervous at first, but once I started using it I realized that it was amazing. Critiquing with Track Changes and adding comments in the text makes you look like a pro.

Well, today I'm going to send a query to an amazing artist, Ciruelo Cabral, and hope he can do the cover for The Golden Cord. I have authorization from my editor to contact him. I just hope we can afford him.

Well, I best get busy. I’m working five 13 hour night shifts in a row this week—starting tonight (Sunday-Thursday). Yes, I will have a lot of loot at the end of the week, but I’ll be very tired.

My unit lost two charge nurses this week (one to the ER and one to the mechanical heart program), so I must step up and shoulder the load. Damn! I need a clone!

I wish you all a great week!

Paul the Pirate

The Pirate Witch

Hello,

Well, I'm 3,400 words into my 6,000 word short story, The Pirate Witch for the Blue Kingdoms anthology. It's going well and I'm at the halfway point. I'm loving the story and am just wondering about length. I hope I'll be able to keep it at 6,000 words, which is the limit. The editor, Jean Rabe said we could go over, but I'd rather not.

The main character is Maeve Tierney, The Pirate Witch. She's a fiery character with a past that is catching up to her in a bad way. Marrying the infamous pirate, Bull Tierney was probably not the greatest idea, but as a witch she got even when the sea dog did what most pirates do--he went after another person's booty . . .

Now Maeve's on the run with only a single friend in the world. Her and Bax were hiding out in a remote pirate town called Bilgewater, and it would have been a perfect place to hide if Cap'n Coyle of the buccaneer ship Vulture hadn't found out where she was.

All she has to do is escape on the last ship in port, a leaking sloop captained by a highly contagious leper and two salty sea dogs. Except for Maeve, all of the crew is about thirty years past their prime.

If she only knew that the worst is still ahead. I hope you'll all enjoy reading The Pirate Witch in the Blue Kingdoms anthology edited by Jean Rabe and Steven D. Sullivan. The book should be out this summer when Pirates of the Caribbean 3 comes out, savvy?

Paul

P.S. I guess this is all assuming that the story is accepted, but I have a good feeling about this one. Visit www.bluekingdoms.com for more info on the world.