Busy, busy, busy!

I've recently worked on edits for Valmore Daniels. Mitchell Hogan, and M.R. Mathias:

Valmore Daniels:

Seed of Creation -- the excellent start to The MoonWar Cycle, and possibly his best book to date. It's good to see Valmore return to SF. Seed of Creation is tightly structured, fast paced, and very engaging.

I also provided a copy edit for an older work aimed at children, due to be released under a new title.


Mitchell Hogan:

First off, I provided a number of rounds of editing for Mitchell's foray into SF, Inquisitor, an accomplished novel that manages to be fast-paced while displaying Mitchell's trademark world building skills.

I was also involved with final edits for the revised Blood of Innocents, and for the yet-to-be-released conclusion to the Sorcery Ascendant Sequence: A Shattered Empire.

M.R. Mathias:

I've just finished a literary edit for Paragon Dracus, the latest installment of The Legend of Vanx Malic series.

OTHER NEWS

While working on the above, I've managed to finish my own Return of the Dwarf Lords (Legends of the Nameless Dwarf book 4), and have written approximately half of Legends of the Nameless Dwarf book 1: Carnifex. I've also started work on book 2: Nameless. Book 3 is already written (currently The Complete Chronicles, but to be re-released as Bane of the Lich Lord). There are seven books planned in all.

I've now signed with Fuse Literary to represent the books, so I'm working flat out to get the first four books ready in the next few months.

EDITING SERVICES

To make sure I reach my deadlines, I'm having to close to editing commissions for the time being. The good news is, Quills2keyboards editing services has agreed to consider all referrals from this site. I've worked with Paula on a number of commissions, and she's also edited two of my novels, and provided content feedback on virtually all of them. She's one of the most diligent and knowledgable editors I've worked with, and if you're a new writer, her First Draft Triage service is about the best thing I've seen.

Dragons, SF, Star Wars, Game of Thrones, and Steampunk

Over the past few months I've been fortunate to work with some terrific writers, some new, some established.

I'll be taking new bookings from February, but for now, here's a bit about the authors I've been working with, as well as a project of my own that's nearing completion:



M.R. Mathias


Blood and Royalty by M.R. Mathias

Always a pleasure to work with, M.R. Mathias continues to put out crisp, vividly imagined, fast-paced fantasy, and he keeps getting better. M.R. has his Dragoneers books down to a fine art now, to the point that the characters probably write themselves and generously allow him to take all the credit. My work gets easier with each new Mathias book.


Mitchell Hogan

Mitchell keeps going from strength to strength. He's now following up his massively successful A Crucible of Souls and Blood of Innocents with a science fiction novel that has yet to be named. I've provided developmental and copy editing, and have recently completed a second edit after Mitchell's extensive redraft. The book is carried by tight, focused point of view, compelling themes, and a very satisfying story arc.

Laurel Anne Hill

I provided developmental and copy editing for Laurel's forthcoming steampunk novel Engine Woman's Light. I don't want to say too much about the novel for risk of giving away the plot, but I was impressed by the use of language and voice, mise en scene, and most of all by a couple of scenes that were breathtaking in their brilliance.

Jessica Henwick

I provided developmental and copy editing for the first part of Jessica's debut novel Beneath the Jade Throne. This novel was one of those rare books that got my attention early on: not only does it have a unique setting and an astonishing depth of characterization, but the prose was fluid, measured, and very readable. This has the potential to be a genre classic. 

I know I'm probably light years behind everyone else, but when I Googled Jessica to see if she had an author page, I only found her iMDB entry and the Wiki entry linked to her name above. Seems she might be a little busy with Game of Thrones and Star Wars Episode 7 for a while! 

In the months ahead, I will be working with Rakesh Gupta, J.R. Tomlin, Michael Karner, and Mitchell Hogan.

I'm also finishing the second draft of my own novel The Archon's Assassin (Shader 4), which has been a long time coming. After I self-edit a few times, I'll be sending it to my editor Paula  at Quills to Keyboards. Paula worked on some of my Nameless Dwarf books and the first two Shader books. It's good she's finally quit the day job to run the editing business full-time.

Editing News

I've just finished edits for Sibel Hodge (It's a Catastrophe!) and Rex Jameson (Hallow's Ween).

I'm currently working on a non-fiction book by Victorine Lieske.

Paula is working on a copy edit for Curtis Hox.

Next week I start on a historical fiction by N. Gemini-Sasson.

As usual, please send all queries (even if you just have a question about writing or editing) to derekprior@yahoo.co.uk