Series launch with two books, Vol 3 progress

I originally put this post over on my blog about self-publishing, since it seemed the natural thing to do, as a kind of wrap-up for having blogged about what was involved in organising and preparing the launch. So this article is just copied from my blog about self-publishing, A Toe in the Ocean of Books, with just a little added at the end.

Anyway, Saturday July 9th was the big day, and my sister made a little video of the people speaking at the launch.  I hadn't done the whole "artistic release" business or gained approval in advance from attendees to film them, so it's a video of just the emceee, Jon Marshall, the guest speaker, Sandra Wigzell of Book Expo Australia, and myself, with a short reading from Wild Thing, at the end.  (From the scene that introduces Sara/Leeth, in which Dr Alex Harmon "acquires" her for his research.)

Considering that I hadn't explained how to operate the camera, I think my big sister did a fantastic job (thanks, Lisa!).  The little Canon Ixus170 did a pretty good job, too: it went from completely out of focus to nicely in-focus within 20 seconds, all on its own we think.  For the first 20 seconds, Lisa was getting it framed correctly, so I've replaced that portion of the video with a still shot taken by Alfred Bellanti (thank you, Alfred!) who came along with Lama Jabr (of Xana Publishing & Marketing), who has been very helpful to me, and Gabriella Kovac, Ehssan, and I think perhaps Andrew A., and others too.

Apologies also for missing the first few seconds of Jon's intro, in which he thanked everyone, and went on to say that because I dreamed up Leeth for an RPG campaign that we played for about five years in the early 90s, he'd known Leeth for a long time: longer than her age of around eighteen (by the end of Vol 2).

I've hesitated to admit the detailed genesis for Leeth, since my own experience of reading novelisations of role-playing game campaigns is that they've been uniformly pretty awful.  I feel that this (turning an RPG campaign into a novel) is what lay behind the only failure(s) - to my mind - of my literary hero, Roger Zelazny.  But some things from an RPG and a novel are in complete agreement - and that's the characters, first and foremost. And secondly, the world.  Or at least, the feel of the world: I completely replaced the RPG world with one of my own creation.

These fictional worlds shared the same blending of magic and science, and were set in similar time periods in our future; there's even some similarities in the mix of races, and how magic works. (Which is based on real world ideas of the hermetic and shamanic forms of magic, with interesting bits and pieces of Carlos Castaneda's curious experiences stirred in to spice things up.)  I think Shadowrun was a bit more dystopian than my own near-future world: for me, there are lots of good bits, too.  I think of it as a "mixtopian" future.

Some games really spark, and work brilliantly; our Shadowrun campaign was like that.  The character I played for some years was my most fun character ever; and his ending was as traumatic as it was dramatic.  Thinking about it now, I rather suspect that Leeth was my way of coping with that loss: I set myself the goal of inventing a character who would be even more fun and original and challenging to play than Mike d'Angelo - a big ask!

I took along some "show and tell" for the launch:

• My original hand-written MS (of about 400 sheets of closely-written, mostly-A4 sheets of paper, each carefully numbered).
• A fake scientific (sociological) paper about the disenfranchised people, the cast-offs of the advanced and successful society only a few miles away, who lived in the shattered and now undesirable parts of the city.  I did this half for fun, and half to clarify in my own mind how this second society functioned.
• Leeth's original character notes, and the formal "character sheet" which included an illustration of what Leeth looked like, in the persona she was operating under for the campaign.  When you eventually see "Bonnie" turn up, you'll know I've finally started to delve into some of the actual experiences from the campaign!  I think some of the conversations may well appear in the books.  You'll then be able to judge whether or not I succeed in my approach to novelising a few parts from the game.
• Notes on the personnel and purpose of the Institute for Paranormal Dysfunction, along with a map of the building and grounds.
• Notes on the personnel and purpose of the Bureau for Internal Development (or at least, the ultra-secret Department concealed within it).
• A kind of graph or time-line which I titled "The Genesis of Leeth", in discussion with my step-daughter Leonie ("Do you think it should have a title, Luke?") at about 2pm on the day of the launch.  It showed the thousands of hours of work put in to the creation of Leeth across the years, with significant events and milestones marked.

Thanks once again to everyone who was able to come along to the launch in person, and who made it such a happy event for me.  And best wishes to those who wanted to come along, but for whom circumstances or obligations conspired against them.

Progress on Volume 3

Following the launch, I took a break, taking care of some family stuff, having a rest, doing some long-delayed chores around the house, and even starting to catch up on reading some of the 200-odd books waiting in my piles of books-to-be-read, and watching some DVDs. (I devoured seasons 4, 5, 6 of Archer over four nights: wonderful!) More recently, I've been discussing Shadow Hunt with my editor, Dave @ThEditors.com. Since Leeth went off and did her own thing, it meant that Vol 3 needs to change - the question is, how much? I think I have a nice set of changes that flows and fits naturally, and we're in discussion about that. As well, as I've written various scenes to be fitted in to what I already had. If the clever plan I worked out last week is as good as I think it is, I'll be in very good shape. If the clever plan does not hold water, however, I'll have a lot more work to do.

If the former, Shadow Hunt is probably 90% complete. if the latter, something like 70% complete. We'll see. I'm also itching to get back to writing Lost Girl (Volume 4). For that one, I need to just write, to learn what happens next.

In either case, for volume three Dave and I both agree that Leeth needs to be much more in the driver seat; much more in control.

And from some of the reviews on Amazon, I also realise that some readers may have been assuming that the "Leeth Dossier Volume #N" thing meant that this was going to be a trilogy. Even before the multiple splits of book 1, I've always thought of Leeth's tale as at least a five book series, so if one were to assume that because the 1st book will have split into four, that means it will be an eight book series; but you could say, "Well, each book might wind up turning into four." But I don't see The Leeth Dossier as being a twenty-volume saga like Laurell K Hamilton's Anita Blake series (oh: 25, now!), or Jim Butcher's Harry Dresden (maybe?). But who knows? I think there's at least ten books, though. And goodness knows, there are quite a few plots threading through. I suppose I'm still learning how to flag which plot is wrapping up in any given book, and which plots are still worming their way through for later explosions....

I've also been in touch with the wonderful Mirella de Santana, and we're planning some subtle changes to the spines. Which reminds me: I should dust off my artistic brief for her and start discussing the cover for Shadow Hunt.

Finally, I promise I will blog more frequently here. I expect my self-publishing blogging to slow down, and this one to ramp up. Hopefully I don't have as much to learn (and say) about self-publishing as I do about writing, and about Leeth in particular.