Sunshield is out in the world! We had a great time during release week, with several awesome events hosted by bookstores, blogs, podcasts, and Reddit. You all showed up throughout the week to ask questions, share photos of your books, and help me figure out what to wear to the virtual launch. Over the past few weeks, I’ve heard from so many of you as you progress through the book. I’m so grateful to everyone who is enjoying it and/or cursing me from afar as they finish it! No matter what you think of it, please remember to post a short review on Amazon or Goodreads--that means a lot!
Since release day, I’ve had the great fortune to have been a guest on several podcasts and blogs to chat about Sunshield, writing, and sundry other topics. So in lieu of a brand-new blog post (Covid has really taken a bite out of my work schedule, and as you may have noticed, monthly blogs have been one of the casualties), here are links to some of the places I’ve appeared. Make sure to check out their other guests and topics, too! Also listed are all the independent bookstores where you can purchase a signed copy of Sunshield! Check them all out below the jump!
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A desperate outlaw. A sheltered diplomat. An imprisoned heretic. If you’ve been following my blog posts over the past few months, you know we have one more Sunshield protagonist to meet. I’ve introduced you to Lark, the dreaded Sunshield Bandit, and Veran Greenbrier, the earnest court translator. The final cog in this trio is Tamsin Moropai—poet, musician, and the epicenter of an ambitious political coup.
Writers are busy, distracted beasts. There’s never been a time in my writing career that I’ve had less than three manuscripts going at once. That’s not to say I’m writing them all at the same time—they’re always at different stages, from concept to drafting to editing to publication (for a peek at some of my strategies at each of these different stages, check out My Strategic Author Shoebox). This was true in the very early stages of Woodwalker, back in 2015 when it was just a baby manuscript looking for an agent. That year, I was a park ranger in Yellowstone querying my first book, drafting my second, and plotting my third, when a brand new character popped into my life. Over the past four years, that character has sprouted a whole world and duology around her, with book one, Sunshield, debuting on May 26, 2020. The Outlaw Road duology has three narrators, but at the heart of the story is a single character, and it’s her alias that gives book one its title. Head below the jump to read about her origins and the story that grew around her, along with her visual development! It’s not going to be a long blog post this month, because I have precisely five days before I need to be in a car with my husband and all my worldly possessions and heading cross-country to Yellowstone. But being in the thick of several manuscripts at all different stages—one in plotting, one in drafting, and one in editing—I wanted to share some great tips I’ve gathered over the years on jump-starting protagonists. Think of them as icebreakers for authors, only less horrible than real social icebreakers because your characters can't judge you. So many of my protagonists start out as little more than a suggestion—a role to fill (Mae), a foil to another character (Rou), a catalyst (Celeno). Often, it’s not until I reach the end of the first draft that I understand exactly who that character is and how to achieve their full potential. Sometimes that makes drafting hard, especially when I need a character to make a big decision—by the time I was writing Creatures of Light, I knew, for example, how Mona would react in any given situation. But as I was drafting book 1 of The Outlaw Road, with new characters, I had to do a lot more puzzling. What choices would this character make? How do they handle their problems? How do they react when they fail? There are lots of great character-building exercises and activities available online and in writers' workshops to help you get to know your protagonist, but I have a few go-to aids that I use when I realize I need to know more about them. Check them out below the jump!
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Emily B. MartinAuthor and Illustrator Archives
August 2020
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