There are a variety of reasons why the opening chapters of SHAMAN RISES have been difficult to write.
One is that I knew when I sent them off to my editor as part of the proposal that I hadn’t really gotten them right yet. I had to fix them (which was made more difficult by the 3rd reason cited below) Another is that due to Life, I have gotten almost no writing done at all in this calendar year, when in my dream world I wrote 50K in January and was halfway done with the book. It’s hard to get traction when you’re starting out half a book behind. :/
Another is that a while back, an enterprising young artist took a silver Sharpie to my netbook screen, and I have not been able to get it off. It’s hard to write when you can’t see the whole screen. (Don’t bother giving me suggestions on how to get it off–I’ve tried a bunch of things unsuccessfully, and will buy a new computer as soon as the tablet/laptop hybrid I want comes out in Marchish. I don’t like this netbook anyway. :))
The biggest reason, though, was that the book starts off with a kind of fight scene, and I really wanted/needed to get it right before launching into what I am *hoping* will be a headlong rush of inevitability ending in a triumphant climax followed by everybody going out for shawarma. Or something to that effect.
I have finally gotten the opening chapters done, and since I know how the next one ends, I hope I’m now about to fling myself into that headlong rush. I certainly hope so, because if the rest of the book goes like the first chapters did, the whole thing is going to be like pulling teeth, and I’ll never make my deadline. o.O
This is going to be, I think, a big book: there are a lot of characters making reappearances, and a lot of repercussions and arcs to tie up from the PREVIOUS TEN BOOKS. Holy shit, guys. TEN BOOKS. How did I end up with TEN Walker Papers novels? (This counts “Banshee Cries”, which is, okay, technically a novella, and NO DOMINION, which is definitely a novel!) So there’s a lot of ground to cover, and I think it’s going to be a wild, exciting, heartbreaking ride.
I can’t believe it’s the last one.