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Author: Karen Myers

Karen Myers is a fantasy and science fiction author, best known for her heroic fantasy novels. Her stories feature heroes in real and imagined worlds filled with magic, space travel, and adventure.

February 8, 2016
Karen Myers
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Mistress of Animals – the beginnings

Posted in Mistress of Animals, and The Chained Adept

book-sculpture-guy-laramee-1
Building imaginary worlds in books

In the past, when I finished a book, it usually took me a couple of weeks to finish all the revisions, proofread, format, and distribute it, along with all the initial announcements.

It happened this time, too, for The Chained Adept, but the difference was, I kept right on at the same time with my daily writing for the next book, Mistress of Animals, the second book in the Chained Adept series.

You see, I like to include the first chapter of the next book in the back of the prior book, and I can only do that if I've written that first chapter, and that means that I need a title, and a good idea about the plot, and so forth. So, when I got my obligatory first chapter done I just… kept on going, instead of stuttering to a stop to focus on the release. Write in the morning, other stuff afterwards.

All of a sudden, I've got a quarter of the next book done, even though the last was just released this week. I like doing things that way.

I'm even ahead of my cover artist, but he's already sent me his first conceptual sketch (approved!) and I can't wait to see what's next. Of course, this only works because I've already written the scene that became the obvious choice for the cover. At the moment I'm on track to get this one done in two to three months (keeping my fingers crossed), so he still has enough time for his part.

Keeping the plot a secret
Keeping the plot a secret

My fastest book so far (The Ways of Winter) took less than two months for 360 pages, and I'm still happy with it. Don't know quite how I did it, but I'm working on making that lightning strike again.

Can't talk too much about the plot, yet, lest I give some things away. You'll have to wait a little while for that.

February 7, 2016
Karen Myers
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Need more fuel

Posted in A Writer's Desk, and Plot

So, it's like this, see…

There's this scene that has to be written next, and you kinda know how it's gonna work. This person's gonna do this thing, and that other person, he's gonna do that thing, and then someone's gonna find the whatsis and then…

So you go to sleep on it and your good old subconscious cranks away and, wouldja believe it… when you wake up, the scene in your head's got all sorts a details it didn't have before.

So you write it all down, and it's all good, and you reread it, and you're happy.

And then you look at the word count. One scene, not even a thousand words. And your daily goal is a thousand, hell, two thousand or three sometimes. So you need at least another scene, maybe two, even. And you're all outta puff.

So whaddaya gonna do? Go take another nap and get some more material?

Richard Dadd - the Fairy Feller's Master-Stroke (detail)
Richard Dadd – the Fairy Feller's Master-Stroke (detail)
February 5, 2016
Karen Myers
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The Chained Adept has been released

Posted in Fantasy, Release, and The Chained Adept

The Chained Adept - Full Front Cover - 297x459
A STRONG WIZARD WITH UNANSWERED QUESTIONS AND A CHAIN AROUND HER NECK.

Penrys’s past is unknown, but she’s got a better grip on her future: find out where she came from, discover what happened to her, and figure out how the unremovable chain around her neck makes her different from other wizards.

What any of this has to do with the renewal of an ugly war between neighboring countries, half a world away, is just something she’ll have to sort out, along with the rumors of wizards where they don’t belong.

Assuming, of course, that no one removes her as a threat before she can find her footing.

All she wants is a firm foundation for the rest of her life, with a side helping of retribution, and if she has to fix things along the way, well, so be it.

Order direct from the author, or see the publisher for retail sites.

January 31, 2016
Karen Myers
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The Chained Adept (excerpt) – Chapter 1

Posted in The Chained Adept, and The Chained Adept

CHAPTER 1

Penrys was crouched on one knee, slamming the rysefeol’s recalcitrant wooden joint with the back of her hand by way of a delicate adjustment, when the sudden transition hit.

“Oh, thennur holi,” she said, under her breath, but the oath that started in her well-lit workroom finished in swaying light and strong shadow. Already off balance, she tumbled on her backside. The soft surface took the sting out of it, and her hands, spread wide to break the fall, told her of carpet and, below that, uneven ground. A gust of wind blew smoke in from outside and the walls fluttered.

A tent, she realized, and a very large one.

She saw the people, then, and froze, stifling a sneeze, but they didn’t seem to have noticed her. No, that’s not it. They aren’t moving at all.

Perhaps no one’s moving but someone’s talking. She tilted her head and pinpointed the voice—it came from something like a mirror suspended from a metal stand in front of the nearest tent wall. She was too close alongside the same wall herself to see anything but the edge of the frame.

The flickering light from the glass-enclosed lanterns on the tables and chests in the tent cast moving shadows on the faces of the people. It gave the illusion of life, distracting her for a moment, and then the words from the voice in the mirror penetrated.

“…a field test like this is always useful for a new weapon. I look forward to greeting you in person, when you arrive for a permanent visit.”

Read moreThe Chained Adept (excerpt) – Chapter 1
January 17, 2016
Karen Myers
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Finding and working with a conlanger

Posted in Just for Writers, Language, The Chained Adept, and The Chained Adept

WerewolfThe Chained Adept includes four nations with different cultures and languages, in a full fantasy world (in other words, not just Earth under some other guise).

I may have a shallow linguistics background in a dozen languages (and I do), but that's just not enough to provide suitable linguistic depth for my world.  While full-world fantasies are often content to let many conventional earthly things appear unchanged, such as the air we breathe, the horses we ride, the sun in the sky, and the tasty beer, that is more in the nature of not having to explain absolutely every noun in a story to your readers. Those things are thought of as transparent, part of the background against which you set the actual story with its exotic cultures.

That carefully-crafted exotic flavor sours quickly if your characters are named Sam and Susie, or if their language and cultural artifacts are internally inconsistent, or indistinguishable from the usage of their enemies in another country.

Yet Another Fantasy NAme Generator - one of the better ones, actually. http://dicelog.com/yafnag
Yet Another Fantasy NAme Generator – one of the better ones, actually. http://dicelog.com/yafnag

We've all read fantasies where the author just threw in a few names from an RPG name generator and called it a day, but I know too much about real languages to stomach that approach and, besides, why stop at personal names? Why not include special terms for the exotic elements of the different cultures, using the appropriate languages, just as we refer to Japanese sushi, or French je ne sais quoi, or Sanskrit karma, all of which describe a cultural item in the native language? Why not make sure all the names in the landscape really are plausibly from the appropriate languages, possibly reflecting a history of border shifting or older populations?

Unless you model your cultures on real-world languages fairly closely, it's easy to find yourself out of your depth in linguistic plausibility.

Read moreFinding and working with a conlanger
January 7, 2016
Karen Myers
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The Chained Adept – Manuscript finished

Posted in The Chained Adept, and The Chained Adept

The Chained Adept - Full Front Cover - 297x459Yippee!

Now I have at least a week's worth of work to digest all the conlang material, do the big edit passthru, get beta readers involved, and scrub for typos.

And also: a big name index (time-consuming), a map, and Chapter 1 of the next book in the series, which means I have to rough outline the next book, title it, and produce that chapter.

Then formatting and distribution (that part runs like a watch).

ETA for release is circa three weeks from now, before the end of January.