After I finished my massive edit of the 800+ page manuscript of THE DARK BETWEEN THE STARS, I celebrated by going to the dentist to get a crown put on a tooth (yippee) and after that, I really celebrated by going to see IRON MAN 3. (That was much more fun.)  Then the following day, Thursday, Rebecca and I drove off into the mountains to Glenwood Springs, where we spent the afternoon soaking in the mineral hot springs.  It's a gorgeous mountain resort, great hot springs (this is where Doc Holliday went to spend his last days).  During the three-hour...
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Late last fall I went through a writing marathon to finish the first draft of THE DARK BETWEEN THE STARS—Book 1 in The Saga of Shadows, a new "next-generation" trilogy set in my Seven Suns universe.  After prepping for many months by rereading all seven novels in The Saga of Seven Suns, plotting the multiple storylines in great detail, I wrote the entire 836-page first draft in 47 days.  Then the editing started... The third draft was in good enough shape that I handed it to my group of test readers and to my editor at Tor Books.  After I...
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Late last fall I went through a writing marathon to finish the first draft of THE DARK BETWEEN THE STARS—Book 1 in The Saga of Shadows, a new "next-generation" trilogy set in my Seven Suns universe.  After prepping for many months by rereading all seven novels in The Saga of Seven Suns, plotting the multiple storylines in great detail, I wrote the entire 836-page first draft in 47 days.  Then the editing started... The third draft was in good enough shape that I handed it to my group of test readers and to my editor at Tor Books.  After I...
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A week ago, I flew up to the Seattle area to spend several days with Brian Herbert so we could immerse ourselves in plotting HELLHOLE INFERNO, the finale to our Hellhole trilogy.  We do this for each book. Since we live far apart (Brian in Washington state, me in Colorado), we need the intense face-to-face brainstorming that lets us bring out the best in the story. I had prepared by rereading HELLHOLE and HELLHOLE AWAKENING, not to mention finishing several weeks on the road signing copies of HELLHOLE AWAKENING.  I reloaded the characters, the plot lines, and the settings in...
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