There is a LOT of information on this website. There are substantive quotations and musings, and there are fragments that may seem meaningless. There are whole galleries of visuals, like large collage boards. There’s just a lot of STUFF. I wanted to get as much research and musing as I could in one place, so here are the Evernote notebooks, the bits from the defunct wiki, the scribbled notebook pages, the old Tumblr site, the Pinterest boards. Here are the journal entries and the emails to myself at 3 am. I put the first words of these books down in 2011. It’s been a while.
For your sanity and mine, you can sort posts by book title to see posts relevant to a particular book. You can also sort by one of the categories below:
Behind the Curtain – this is stuff about the craft of writing. What the writing process looks like from the backend. “Pay no attention to the man behind the curtain!”
Below the Waterline – this is worldbuilding stuff and thematic influences. Also in this category are biology and language notes. The name comes from the iceberg theory of worldbuilding, where only 10% of your work, the tip of the iceberg, makes it into the story directly; the other 90%, the rest of the iceberg, is below the waterline – out of sight, but allowing you to write with the confidence of a fully-realized world.
Fables Agreed Upon – my history notes, as this is historical fantasy. I am a little loose with dates in this series; I am much more interested in period rather than year, as in the culture of a period, or the politics of a period. “What is history but a fable agreed upon?” – Napoleon
Listen – the soundtrack. This is both music of the period (including songs referenced directly in the books) and the ever-evolving playlist, which is a mix of all different kinds of music, from Gregorian chants to hip-hop. (Also an unusual amount of Led Zeppelin, compared to my regular listening habits? I dunno, it’s not like I’m the author or anything … )
News – updates and progress reports.
You’ll notice that some posts are password protected. That is due to either their length &/or rights issues with some of the material inside. You can get the password by signing up for Prima Materia Quarterly, which is the quarterly serialization of the books. For only $1/month you can access all the content here AND read along as the series develops. Why not give it a try?
Questions? Leave a comment below and I will be happy to answer! Thanks again for all your support for this project. It wouldn’t be happening without you. <3 LSJ