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Kathleen Chalfant reads The Camelot Kids!

Kathleen Chalfant reads The Camelot Kids!

Here’s a lovely audiobook cover illustration by Ian Greenlee.
As usual.
The guy is a genius.
I’ll always be thankful to Nathan Fox for introducing us. Oh, and there’s much more to the image, by the way, which I’ll share later this week as we get closer to the audiobook launch.
I’m so honored to have had Kathleen Chalfant on this project. I’m writing a post about the experience. It was 10 days of my life that I’ll always cherish. In the end, it was the ultimate New York City story. I look forward to sharing it with you.
If you want to see Kathy’s other work you can see her in The Affair (NSFW)

She’s theater royalty (I’m sure she hates that term — but it’s true!) She brought so much depth to the characters and the story. I hope you enjoy listening to it as much as we enjoyed recording it.
Writing three books at once is not a good idea

Writing three books at once is not a good idea

Something has to give. I’m just not sure what yet.

I’m in New York City for the next two months, teaching a marketing course at School of Visual Arts. While I’m here, I’m writing the next Shirley Link. The final draft will be done by the end of the day! I’m excited by that in ways I’ve never felt before. This Shirley adventure has been the toughest one to craft yet. By far. Part of it is that I’ve had the idea for the mystery for a long time. That meant wrestling with age-old preconceptions about how the clues would be set up, how the players would respond to them and how they’d be revealed. But once I sat down to write the book, well, none of those ideas lasted a single draft. Still, with the help of my beta readers, I’ve worked through it and I think this may be my new favorite Shirley Link book! Stay tuned for launch dates and peeks at artwork soon ;-)

Then there’s The Camelot Kids: Book Two. I found myself at 40k words before I knew it, so I know the book is primed and ready to emerge. I’ve been getting up at 5:30am every morning to work on it and that’s worked well on a number of fronts. There’s something about writing Fantasy (that’s heavy in magic) at the start of the day when the world is quiet. Magic is more present when our lives are still. But to tap it means pushing aside all concerns. It means assuring The Stress that it can come out in a little bit and do its thing. It means gently nudging strong insecurities back into whatever caves they spring from. While the story is all over the place right now, I’m excited to release the ending to a story that’s been dancing around my head for ten years.

And then there’s Atticus. The book died last night. I mean it was dead. Flatlined. It had frustrated me one too many times. I went to sleep in despair. My good idea had no legs. It had nowhere to go. It gasped for oxygen and I tried to give it some but it wasn’t enough.  Then, this morning, its eyes popped open and it breathed in a lungful of air of its own making. So, on its own, it’s showed me a way forward. Now I’m more excited than ever about the story, though I also see that it’s bigger than I initially assumed.

Excited. Terrified. Tired. Pounding on three books will do that to a guy. So wish me luck. I’m headed into the final pass on Shirley Link & The Party Poopers and then I’ll be outlining the next Shirley! Yeah, you know that title I gave this post? The one that advises against writing three books at once? Well, I may be addicted to the feeling so, uh, do as I say, not as I do…

The Camelot Kids book trailer

The Camelot Kids book trailer

Do you want to know a little more about The Camelot Kids? Check out the book trailer for a peek at Simon Sharp’s incredible adventure into New Camelot.

What would you do if an odd girl in a hooded cloak said, “You know you’re a descendant of King Arthur’s knight, Lancelot, right?” You’d probably do the same thing 14-year-old orphan Simon Sharp does: back away nice and slow. The difference is Simon’s Camelot-obsessed parents recently died under mysterious circumstances.

But he learns the truth about their fate and his heritage after he’s kidnapped by a drunk troll, rescued by a 7-foot elderly man named Merlin, and thrown into training with 149 other heirs of the Knights of the Round Table. Can Simon survive a prophecy that predicts the world will be saved through its destruction? Can he do it while clues keep popping up that his parents are alive?

The Camelot Kids is about one boy’s struggle to solve a mystery and make it to tomorrow in a world both real and fantastic.

Enter to win a copy of the softcover book here!

Attention authors! Amazon Giveaways are here and I think I’m in love!

Attention authors! Amazon Giveaways are here and I think I’m in love!

 

chivalry in The Camelot Kids

This post has two goals.

First, GIVEAWAY! You can win a copy of The Camelot Kids softcover by going here.

Second, this contest is being run and fulfilled by Amazon, using their new Amazon Giveaway service. It took about three minutes to set up. Their instructions need to get ironed out a bit, but it’s live (after waiting for an hour).

The cool thing is that you simply buy the item you want to give away and they take care of landing pages and fulfillment. They also made the process a “Click on the box to see if you win!” deal. Those are fun. And, maybe best of all, they allow you to require a Twitter follow to enter the contest.

I’ll let you know how it goes.

You can read more about Amazon Giveaway here.