Heading to Game of Thrones Gala Premiere

I will be playing arm candy for my wife tonight at the Game of Thrones premiere tonight. It’s entirely possible that I will see a real live actor!

Watching TV in Avery Fisher should be cool enough by itself, actually.

Book 3: Status Update

I thought it might be worth saying, I managed to get through an end-to-end draft of A King in Cobwebs (Dave’s Third Book).

There are a couple of seriously rocky bits in the middle where my fits-and-starts writing schedule has produced some strange incongruities, but the book has a beginning, middle and an end.

During New York’s Febuary Mid-Winter Break, I actually managed to iron out a number of big problems in the opening. It felt good.

I do wish I could afford to steal a few months to hammer it all out. Still, it’s been good to have an ending on paper.

Toronto

It looks like I’ll get a chance to sit down with Steve Lundin (Steven Erikson) in Toronto at Ad Astra at the beginning of April. Steve and my wife are guests of honour out there — my wife, a writer in her own right, has been editing such luminaries as George R. R. Martin for fun and profit over at Random House since books were made of paper and the internet was still a toy of the National Science Foundation). 

 

Update

A quick update: I’m working on the last few pages of King in Cobwebs as I write these words. My predictive powers have been profoundly limited these last few years, but I see considerable reworking ahead for the manuscript once the draft is complete. (Writing in fits and starts has not been good for continuity, for example). Still, if I can hammer out the ending this week, I will feel pretty good.

-Dave

Summer-y

Every summer, I write as hard as I can (before school snatches my time and attention away for another year). This year, I hoped to reach the end of A King in Cobwebs, but I’ve come up a little short.

The end is not far off. I’ve reached what the English teachers in the crowd will recognize as the denouement. The climax has climaxed, and all that’s left is to count the cost.

While it might seem that this last chapter or two should be the easiest bit to write, I’m finding it all curiously difficult. Loose ends have a tendency to wriggle away. A particularly good scheme is required if I’m to grab them all and tie them up in a big satisfying knot.

I’m sure any writer could tell you that there is a great danger in letting a book go cold. Over the years, I’ve come to realize that, while I’m actually working on a book, there are always problems bubbling away on the back burners somewhere. Any lengthy absence from the book turns off the heat and it takes time to get the story back on the boil.

I will have to fight to find a little corner of time every day…

~Dave

Progress Report

The third book in Durand’s story is slowly coming together with about twenty thousand words to go.

My work on the third book has been slowed considerably by the demands of family (a three-year-old girl has taken over my office and filled it with stuffed animals) and my day job (where I work with other people’s teenagers).

Thusfar I’ve proved hopeless at estimating a completion date. I think, however, that the book will be finished this year. As I write these words, MS Word tells me I’ve got 123, 298 words on paper. In my notebook, I’ve probably got another fifteen thousand to type up, and the end is in sight.

Thanks to those of you who wrote to wonder when (or whether) there would ever be a Book III. It helps to hear that there are real readers out there!

~Dave Keck

Calgary for World Fantasy

David is flying to Calgary, Alberta, Canada for this year’s World Fantasy Convention, October 30-November 2.

The latest draft of the convention program promises an opportunity to see David moderating a panel, Friday at 4pm (panelists include Barbara Hambly, Patricia McKillip, and Irene Radford).

August

David is hard at work on A King in Cobwebs the follow-up volume to In the Eye of Heaven and In a Time of Treason, taking advantage of the last few weeks before teaching picks up again in the Fall (all too soon!).

While he should be working, you may just find that his researches have inspired another post or two on his livejournal.   (Days filled with nothing but time to work, invariably create distractions of their own).

I am verily perswaded, That there are very few Human Affairs whereinto some Devils are not Insinuated.

(So says Cotton Mather, 18thc. Puritan)

Comic Con Reports

David is at Comic Con International in San Diego this weekend (as you may have guessed from the previous post), and blogging about the experience. 

Take a look over at davidkeck.livejournal.com.

Comic-Con International in San Diego

David is looking forward to Comic–Con International this summer.

First, there’s a signing in the signing area Saturday, July 26th from 5:00 to 6:00.

Afterward, David will participate in a world-building panel: Playing God, SATURDAY, JULY 26, 6:00-7:00, room 5AB.

Expect to see convention Guest of Honor Jim Butcher (Small Favor, The Dresden Files), Chris Evans (A Darkness Forged in Fire), Lynn Flewelling (Shadows Return), Jenna Rhodes (The Elven Ways) and Eldon Thompson (Asahiel, Shannara (screenplay)).

See you there.