Macro Monday Continues Its Fond Reminiscing Of The Pacific Northwest

I know, that header image is of a rose with a fly on it, and that has very little to do with the Pacific Northwest but SHADDAP I like it. I don’t know why I like it. Something something contrast, something something irony, or maybe I just really like that Seal song, A KISS FROM A FLY ON A ROSE or whatever.

More PNW photos at the base of this post, if you care to bask in them.

Let’s see, what’s up with me?

I did another editorial pass on WANDERERS — it’s a book that, blessedly, is getting a lot of love from inside the publisher, and my last developmental and copy-edit came from Del Rey. Now it’s gone on to PRH readers, and so they wanted to do another pass on it to tighten it — not the plot, meaning, not a developmental edit, but a line edit that really cinches all the laces and tugs all the knots, in part because OKAY HEY I REALLY LOVE A GOOD METAPHOR, OKAY, and if I like one metaphor, you can damn sure believe I like TWO metaphors, and blessedly, my editor went in with a flashing, gleaming straight razor to cut those extraneous threads.

Thank fuck for editors, is what I’m saying. They have saved my bacon time and time again. Never let me get so big-headed that I believe editors are someone superfluous. Not every editor is amazing, to be clear, but when they’re good, they’re great.

Expecting a cover release soon for that book, bee tee dubs.

Oh and don’t worry, the book is still like, 270-some-thousand-words ha ha ha ohh no what have I done oh god oh shit. Ahem.

What else?

Working on a new novella — Interlude: The Tanager — for an upcoming collection with Kevin Hearne and Delilah S. Dawson. Our last one, Three Slices, has done very well (in no small part because Kevin is amazing and has a wealth of wonderful fans). That collection features an interstitial Miriam Black story set between The Cormorant and Thunderbird, and now this new collection Death & Honey, will have an interstitial Wren-focused story set between The Raptor & The Wren and Vultures. Vultures, the sixth and final book, comes out in January — and D&H will drop in Feb-Mar. Delilah, also one of my favorite writers, will also contribute to D&H, and may I just take a special moment to say if you need more fun in your life and you have not yet read Kill The Farm Boy, get on it (print | ebook).

I also finished outlines for a five-issue [REDACTED] comic book series.

Hopefully I can talk more about that soon.

Maybe at NYCC, which I’m going to!

Also, I’ll be in NYC this coming weekend —

At the Writer’s Digest Conference!

My schedule:

• Saturday, 1:45pm, panel on SFF writing with Jeff Somers, Ann VanderMeer, E. J. Wenstrom, Diana Pho, Jennifer Marie Brissett, Jess Zafarris (Moderator).
• Saturday, 4:15pm, craft workshop session with me on writing a Damn Fine Story — how to focus on character over plot and tell a compelling tale

And I’ll be floating around otherwise, so feel free to find me and there’s a cocktail reception and book signing that Saturday at 6:30pm, so come, drink some drinkies, I’ll devalue your books with my monkeyscrawl, we’ll have a few laughs, it’ll be great.

I think that’s it for now.

Here, have some more fond visual reminiscing of the PNW.

Nope, no macros in here, but… yay pretty?

(You can find the full album here, with a ton more photos. I add to it daily as I process pics.)