Page 5 of posts filed: The Hardest Part

The Hardest Part: Jenna Black on writing a full novel after having sold it on proposal

Posted on 2014-01-09 at 3:38 by montsamu

Durham author Jenna Black's next novel publication is a re-issue of her 2006 novel Watchers in the Night, which begins her series The Guardians of the Night, all set for re-release in 2014 starting with book one next week. With two additional series also in print, Faeriewalker and Morgan Kingsley, she has two more series ongoing, her Nikki Glass urban fantasy series and her new near future YA dystopia Replica, and with all these novels she's had plenty of time to examine and exercise her craft. Here she

Posted in The Hardest Part | Tagged jenna black

The Hardest Part: Tina Connolly on Copperhead

Posted on 2013-12-26 at 19:38 by montsamu

For author Tina Connolly, the hardest part of her debut novel, Nebula Award nominee Ironskin, was the muddle in the middle. For the follow-up, Copperhead, there was no time to battle with such a muddle. There wasn't in fact much time for anything other than writing: so that's just what Connolly did.

By Tina Connolly:

So the hardest part of writing Copperhead was that I got busy. I mean insanely busy. The only thing more boring than listening to someone recount their dreams is listening to them drone on

Posted in The Hardest Part | Tagged copperhead, ironskin, tina connolly

The Hardest Part: Nick Mamatas on Love is the Law

Posted on 2013-12-11 at 12:0 by montsamu

Nick Mamatas is no stranger to writing whatever he wants, damn the torpedoes. And as Mamatas writes here about his latest novel -- the Trotskyist/Crowley/Long Island noir Love is the Law -- for "The Hardest Part", writing can be the easy part. "If there was any difficulty in writing the novel at all, it was in writing the book so that it could end up in a bookstore somewhere."

[caption id="" align="alignnone" width="185"] Love is the Law
by Nick Mamatas
Dark Horse, October 2013[/caption]

THE HARDEST PART: L

Posted in The Hardest Part, Uncategorized | Tagged love is the law, nick mamatas

The Hardest Part: L. Jagi Lamplighter on The Unexpected Enlightenment of Rachel Griffin

Posted on 2013-12-04 at 15:29 by montsamu

I've had my eye caught repeatedly by the covers to Virginia author L. Jagi Lamplighter's Prospero's Daughter series, which borrows from Shakespeare's The Tempest and other classical sources to create a robust modern fantasy. But not all sources of inspiration and creativity and setting are so easily borrowed from, as she writes here for "The Hardest Part" guest column series.

The Hardest Part: Filing off the Serial Numbers

When I was twelve, I started my first novel. My father

Posted in The Hardest Part | Tagged L Jagi Lamplighter

The Hardest Part: Sofia Samatar on A Stranger in Olondria

Posted on 2013-11-27 at 13:40 by montsamu

I was delighted when Bull Spec poetry editor Dan Campbell bought one of Sofia Samatar's poems, and we worked to sneak "The Year of Disasters" into issue #7 last year as her debut novel, A Stranger in Olondria, was due that summer. Buzz was already building and Small Beer Press soon released a multiple chapter PDF preview which I happily devoured, waiting for more. But, as sometimes happens, the book was moved to this year's publishing schedule instead. Released to some fantastic reviews early on (Library

Posted in The Hardest Part

The Hardest Part: Jeremy Zerfoss on Wonderbook: The Illustrated Guide to Creating Imaginative Fiction

Posted on 2013-11-13 at 14:56 by montsamu

Life is sometimes a fortuitous sequence of events and meetings all leading to someplace interesting. For example: artist Jeremy Zerfoss started doing work with Jeff VanderMeer; I was publishing a review of VanderMeer's non-fiction collection Monstrous Creatures and found room for Jeremy's fantastic limited edition dust jacket cover; and then was later able to commission Jeremy to put together his amazing cover for Bull Spec #6 to celebrate all things VanderMeer. Looking back, I barely remember the process

Posted in The Hardest Part | Tagged jeff vandermeer, jeremy zerfoss, wonderbook

The Hardest Part: Mike Allen on The Black Fire Concerto

Posted on 2013-11-06 at 13:0 by montsamu

I know Roanoke, VA author Mike Allen primarily through his fantastic speculative poetry (his poem "Hungry Constellations" is currently featured at Goblin Fruit) and in his role as editor of both his poetry journal Mythic Delirium and his anthology series Clockwork Phoenix. But he's also quite an accomplished short fiction writer, with stories in Solaris Rising 2, Beneath Ceaseless Skies, Weird Tales, and his Nebula Award nominated story "The Button Bin" in Helix. (Though, admittedly, I didn't catch it until

Posted in The Hardest Part | Tagged Haunted Stars Publishing, mike allen, the black fire concerto

The Hardest Part: Gail Z. Martin on Deadly Curiosities

Posted on 2013-10-30 at 15:56 by montsamu

Charlotte author Gail Z. Martin is no stranger to Bull Spec's ongoing guest column series The Hardest Part, as she wrote about launching a new epic fantasy universe with Ice Forged in January after six books in her Chronicles of the Necromancer oeuvre. Here, she writes about an interesting difficulty encountered when jumping between epic fantasy and urban fantasy for her forthcoming 2013 novel, Deadly Curiosities as part of her ongoing Days of the Dead blog tour. Read on past the end for more info on her

Posted in The Hardest Part | Tagged gail z. martin

The Hardest Part: Nathan Kotecki on Pull Down the Night

Posted on 2013-10-22 at 14:48 by montsamu

Durham author Nathan Kotecki's debut novel, 2012's The Suburban Strange, was an exercise in lengthy revision, as Kotecki wrote about in a The Hardest Part piece about its writing. When I got to talk to Kotecki about his new sequel, Pull Down the Night, on Carolina Book Beat, I started to get the impression that his second book had been an almost painless process. Not quite so, as the author writes here. Welcome back, Nathan Kotecki, to The Hardest Part:

Posted in The Hardest Part | Tagged nathan kotecki

The Hardest Part: Jay Posey on Three

Posted on 2013-07-31 at 19:56 by montsamu

Durham author Jay Posey has written stories for a living for a while now; Tom Clancy gets his name on the cover of the game box, though. Posey got his own cover treatment yesterday, however, as his debut novel, the post-apocalyptic-set Three, the first in his Legends of the Duskwalker series set to be published by Angry Robot Books. Here, Posey writes about the help and encouragement along the way to getting past attacks of self-doubt and all the way to "The End".

By Jay Posey:

It probably comes as

Posted in The Hardest Part | Tagged jay posey