I am pleased to be able to let you all know that The Wild Hunt trilogy has been picked up by Tor Books for publication in the USA, bringing the number of overseas editions to six. Songs of the Earth is expected to hit bookstore shelves in the spring of 2012, followed by Trinity Moon and The Dragon House in due course.

This is the Big Kahuna, folks – the USA is a huge market for fantasy, and notoriously difficult for a debut to break into. I can’t begin to describe how stoked (and slightly scared) I am, and excited to be working with a publisher of Tor’s calibre.

I have no word on covers or definite release schedules yet, but as soon as I have something I can share, I’ll be sharing it. Now to find something to remove the silly grin plastered all over my face . . .

If you haven’t already heard about the Genre for Japan auction, where have you been the last few days?

Fantastic lots, many of them pure unobtainium, including critiques, artwork, stuff signed by really cool people like Neil Gaiman and Joe Abercrombie, your name in a book, Stephen Deas to do with as you will (more or less) for two whole days,  . . . and personalised ARCs of M D Lachlan‘s Fenrir and Songs of the Earth from, er, me.

If you’re a writer, a reader, connected with genre publishing or just a fan, you should check this out. Follow @GenreforJapan on Twitter or visit the website, and get browsing, get donating, get involved.

And get your bloody wallet out!

Always a daunting moment, reading the first review of your first book. Will it be good, filled with effusive praise about my world building, my fascinating characters and original plot? Or will it be “D-. Must try harder.”

Judge for yourself, over at the Wertzone. I’ll wait.

. . .

. . .

[whistles tunelessly]

. . .

. . .

Ah, you’re back. Well? What did you think?

Solid, I thought. Very fair. Well pleased with the liberal use of “intriguingly” and “subtle” and “interesting”, and the lack of words like “dull” and “predictable” and “unconvincing”.

Cheers, Adam. The cheque’s in the post.

It bloody well is, you know.

Songs of the Earth is now manifest in physical form, and doesn’t it look pretty, all shiny and clean, ready to be launched into the big bad world to be variously picked apart, analysed, sneered at, reviewed, raved about, blogged over and ignored. Gulp.

I feel like a mother on Junior’s first day of school. Proud, and slightly nervous, smiling brightly and waving goodbye with an emergency hankie or two stuffed up my sleeve.

Actually, scratch that. Junior’s got rather more to worry about than a wedgie and having his lunch money stolen. Some of those reviewers can be downright merciless; it would be an entirely fitting allusion to say I feel like a gladiator’s mum before his first bout, having just walked through the armoury and past the wild-animal enclosure with the screams from the infirmary ringing in my ears.

Still, I’ve done my best, and he’s on his own now. I’ll be proud of him whatever happens. Go get ‘em, kid.

In the last couple of weeks, I’ve had some very exciting news.  I’ve been told that I might have some roughs for the cover of Songs of the Earth to look at soon.  With my editor, we’ve finalised the cover copy a.k.a the bit on the inside flap that makes you, the reader, start salivating as you fumble for your credit card.  And I’ve got a tentative publication date.

Naturally, as Gollancz are still working the kinks out of their schedule for the first half of next year, there’s still an “ish” factor here, so I won’t be revealing the date until I know it’s firm, but it does mean that the countdown to launch has begun.

This is becoming alarmingly real.

Songs is moving from an electronic file wrapped up in a dream to something solid.  Tangible.  A physical object that I can hold in my hands and inhale that “new book” smell.  I cannot tell you how much that excites me.

It also terrifies me.  In a couple of months my editor will crack her knuckles and set to, and I imagine the process of delivering a final typescript that she’s happy with will be rather like childbirth.  There will be sweat and swearing and probably tears, and if things get really rough there might even be a little blood, before the finished book is smacked on the bum, weighed, measured, and packed off to production.

In the meantime, I’m not exactly sitting on my hands here.  I still have Trinity Moon to finish.  Although progress has been slow of late due to a variety of health-related issues (which also explain the infrequent updates to this blog), the strands are coming together into what I think will be a satisfying whole.  A bit darker than Songs in several ways.  A bit more menacing.

Watch this space.

…but a fortnight is a bloody long time to keep your lip zipped when you’re sitting on astonishing news like this.

Lest I get too big-headed about this, I shall let theBookseller.com tell the story:

http://www.thebookseller.com/news/98263-gollancz-signs-new-fantasy-series.html

Yes, that’s me she’s talking about.  Little old me who’s been scribbling away for mumblety-mumble years on a rag-tag collection of reporters’ notebooks,  A4 pads and the backs of old envelopes.  Who wrote the first draft of the opening chapter twelve years ago in a haze of rage and pain, and who wrote the entire siege of Chapterhouse in one sitting (read the book and you’ll understand what a big deal that was; go on, read it!) and bawled her eyes out as she killed off one of her favourite characters because It Had To Be Done.

Me.

As Nanny Ogg said, “Well I’ll be mogadored!“

That’s what the email said.  The email just received from my literary agent, currently on holiday somewhere hot with unreliable internet access.  The email that said my agent has received a bloody handsome offer to publish Songs of the Earth and the next two books in the Wild Hunt series.

Fuck.

On Thursday I had a further phone call from that nice literary agent to see if I’d received the client agreement in the post. I know it doesn’t mean anything yet, in the grand scheme of things, but this is indeed A Step in the Right Direction.  On the way home from work I bought a bottle of bubbly to celebrate–I’d expected a real struggle to score an agent simply because so many have an entry in Writers & Artists that says “No fantasy, thanks”–and allowed it to go to my head for a little while.

Then I had to knuckle down to the serious business of getting together a synopsis for Trinity.  First draft down, just a little tweaking to do; it’s a tad longer than I’d like.

The omens are that I’ve left myself a bit of a mountain to climb in order to wrap everything up in Book 3.  Forcing myself to focus on the plotting of Trinity and what I could and could not do with the characters and timescales has thrown into sharp relief just how ambitious I’ve been here, without me even realising it.  The curse of the pantser.

Pruning will have to occur, no doubt about it, but how much?  And where?  Do I go all bonsai on its donkey and force it to fit, or do I follow my organic instincts and let the tree be free, man?  I’m not sure yet.  My brain is still full of Bollinger.  Ask me again in the morning, when my brain will no doubt be full of Nurofen.

That’s what the literary agent who phoned me this afternoon said.  He’d thoroughly enjoyed reading my opening chapters, and could he see the rest, please?

Hmm, let me think about that for a moment…

I carry a USB memory stick with my ms on it.  All the time.  Yes, I am that sad.  Naturally I emailed the whole kaboodle off to the agent so fast I think his head’s still spinning.

He’s going on holiday on Friday, and said he’d try to read it all by then and get back to me, or failing that when he returns mid-September.

Colour me chuffed.

The first of my SAEs plopped through the letterbox yesterday.  I had a bit of an ohshit moment, and had to put it to one side until I’d remonstrated with myself and got my wibbles under control.

Rejection, obviously, but what sort?  Would there be an encouraging note, or just a form letter?  Gingerly, I opened the envelope.

Compliments slip, with two boxes to tick.  One saying “You twerp, we don’t handle this kind of fiction” or words to that effect, and the other saying “Thanks but not at this time”.

Neither was ticked.  Instead, the agent had written “Well written, but my list is full.”

I was quite obscenely chuffed with that.  Even if it meant “Well written, but not well written enough to blow my socks off and make me jam you into my list pronto even if it is already bursting at the seams”, I took that hand-written comment as a sign that I’m on the right track, and spent the rest of the day with a daft grin pasted on my face.  Little things, etc.

Ah-one, ah-two, sing along if you know the words, ah-one, two, three, four:

#You’ve got to

#Ac-cent-uate the positive

#E-lim-inate the negative…