The problems i always wanted to have...

Be careful what you wish for, which is to say; make sure you know what you want. I think too many people read the first bit as a warning not to want anything, but that's just plain old crazy. I like to think of it less as a zen thing and more of a capitalist axiom: Make sure you read the label.

I am now in the middle of all the problems I always wanted to have. I got a cover design draft today that at once made this whole thing feel real, and at the same time freaked me out in the direction the publisher wants to take the book. As my friend at work said, 'its very litteral'. ie, the subtitle of book one in the Magickless trilogy is 'The Dragon and the Crow' and you guessed it, there is a dragon and a crow on the cover. I never imagined this, and even the font choices and the textured background kinda looks more Dan Brown than the David Eddings type cover I had imagined. But I know as much about marketing a book as I do about cricket, so who can say.

Also, pretty soon my editor will return to me a markup copy of the manuscript, at which point my contract kicks in, and bam, i'll have 2 weeks to put my last changes on a text I have been picking away at for nearly 5 years... I likened this at first to what i imagine it will be like when my son (he's two right now) is all grown up and leaves home. But another colleague pointed out that children leave their parents emotionally when they hit puberty. So I've reformed my metaphor and have decided that right now my book has become a teenager, but either way I'm running out of time to influence it to be the creation I always wanted it to be.... let go... let goo.....

In the meantime, back to making a map. Is there such a thing as too much forest? Never.

T.B

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"I have never let my schooling interfere with my education." - Mark Twain