August 2019 Dispatch
Kyell Gold
July Recap
I didn’t go to Anthrocon, but it sounds like everyone who did had fun! I heard from a few people who picked up The War and the Fox, and so far response has been good.
While home, I worked on some ongoing projects, critiquing a novel manuscript for my writing group and working on some novels of my own, both the new Dev and Lee book and the fourth Calatians book. The Dev and Lee novel has a title now! It’s going to be called Titles. I’ve got some editing to do on it but I’m hoping it’ll be ready for MFF.
In the third week of July, we went to ComicCon for the something consecutive year, fifteen or so as a dealer and maybe eighteen for me as an attendee? I don’t remember anymore. Anyway, it was as large as ever, as fun and frustrating as ever, and the fun still outweighed the frustrations (most of which have to do with how large it is). We got to pick up a few new books—there’s a graphic novel series in the world of the furry short film The Dam Keeper, which you may remember as an Oscar nominee from several years back in the “short animated film” category (it lost to Feast, the Disney Cute Dog pic). The story looks just as well done and it fleshes out the characters a little more. Saladin Ahmed’s new Miles Morales book feels like a worthy sequel to the fantastic Into the Spider-Verse movie, if that was your introduction to the character (as it was mine).
I watched a couple shows this month. We watched “Stranger Things” season 3, which I liked more than s2 but maybe not quiiiiiite as much as s1. Still, it was worth it just for the mall. I also watched “The Detour,” TBS’s raunchy family comedy by Jason Jones and Samantha Bee (Jones also stars), and “Killing Eve,” a spy thriller starring Sandra Oh and Jodie Comer, written by Phoebe Waller-Bridges (of “Fleabag,” mentioned last month). “The Detour” was a lot more fun than I was expecting, and all three seasons move along at a good pace with very few slow spots. There’s a lot of crude humor but also a fair share of laugh-out-loud moments. “Killing Eve” is much more serious but is also intense, dramatic, and very sharply written and acted. I like me a good spy thriller and this one was great.
We also watched the end of “Crazy Ex-Girlfriend,” another terrific show that we’ve loved since it started four years ago. It starts out looking like a traditional sitcom that happens to have some fabulous musical numbers, but very quickly diverges to make insightful commentary on romance, relationships, and mental health. The ending they settled on felt very fitting, and that’s about all I can say without spoiling it.
August is going to see me on an East Coast trip (more below) and that should be a lot of fun! When I’m not traveling (and even when I am), I’m going to be reviewing submissions for FANG 10 and working on getting edits for Titles done, as well as continuing “Unfinished Business” on my Patreon.
Release dates
The third Calatians book, The War and the Fox, came out at Anthrocon, as did ROAR 10 with two of my stories included. If you got either of them, bring them to Furrydelphia and I’ll happily sign them.
The Tower and the Fox audiobook is out; you can find it on Audible, Amazon, or iTunes. If you don’t have an Audible account yet, check out my new Soundcloud page (https://soundcloud.com/user-710305036-429996600), which has samples and links to all my audiobooks. Those links help me get extra money especially if you use them to sign up for a new account.
Here’s my best guess at a 2019 release schedule: The forthcoming New Tibet anthology and Titles will probably be out late in 2019, maybe at MFF. Love Match 3 may be pushed to 2020 through a combination of beta reader availability, artist availability (Rukis is doing art for both this and the Dev and Lee book), and my own schedule and desire to get the Dev and Lee book out before it gets even more out of date.
Appearances in 2019
My full list of upcoming appearances is at http://www.kyellgold.com/contact.html, recently updated (or soon to be updated).
Come see me at Furrydelphia in August where I’ll be a GOH with Rukis! I’ll also be at Megaplex in Orlando on the Saturday and Sunday of con, just seeing friends, but if you’re around there, tweet at me! After that I plan to take fall mostly off and go to MFF in December. Might hit our local PAWcon in November for a day or so. Come 2020 I will be at Further Confusion and Texas Furry Fiesta, future dates TBD.
Spotlight: None this month
Excerpt: “The Revolution and the Fox”
The fourth and final book in the Calatians series will keep expanding the world as Kip and his friends go abroad to the International Exposition of Sorcery in an effort to solve the mounting problems facing them at home. I included a preview chapter at the end of The War and the Fox specifically because that book ends on a note that could be a series-ending note, and because people are so used to trilogies that many assumed that the Calatians series would be a trilogy.
Because this is a book 4, it’s slightly spoilery; just having some people in it clues you in to their survival through book 3, for example. So I picked a descriptive part that I enjoyed and edited it slightly to avoid the most egregious spoilers, but if you don’t want any, skip down to the next section.
The Dutch school of sorcery, the Athæneum Maleficis Artibus, had a translocating room for visiting sorcerers, a large empty space in the basement. When Kip heard this, he thought of the basement full of moldy paper that he and Coppy and Emily had been shown upon matriculating at Prince George’s College, but this basement smelled clean and fresh. Someone had even placed fresh-cut tulips on small tables around the edges of the room, which had given the room a light honey scent.
“Come on.” Emily pushed Kip and Alice forward. “We can’t stand here in the center.”
“Nobody’s going to translocate on top of us,” Kip said, but hurried toward the door.
“No, but the point of this room is that it’s big and empty and it’s supposed to be easy, so let’s keep it easy. Hendrik keeps telling me that it’s busier than usual because of the Exposition.”
Scents underlay the flowers, a composition Kip remembered from previous visits to Amsterdam. The plants and dirt and water and people here all combined to create a smell unique to this city, one that grew stronger as they stepped from the translocating room out into a small foyer where a clerk sat behind a small mahogany desk.
Alice wrinkled her nose, dropping back as Emily stepped up to give their names. “What’s that…that kind of <mintbit> smell?” she asked Kip.
He inhaled and sorted through the scents. “Coriander,” he said. “It grows around many of the gardens here.”
“I like it.”
“Me too.” He stepped up to Emily’s side to face the young woman behind the desk wearing purple apprentice’s robes similar to Alice’s. “Good morning,” he said.
“It’s evening here, sir.” She spoke excellent English with a Dutch accent. “Would you be so kind as to sign our ledger please?”
Kip took the proffered quill, dipped it in ink, and signed his name on the indicated space below Emily’s. Alice reached out at his side to take the quill when he was done, signing quickly so that the ink didn’t have time to dry.
“Thank you so much,” the woman said, taking the quill back. “Welcome to Amsterdam. Is there anything I may assist you with?”
“I’m to talk to Master Voorhees,” Emily said. “Is he upstairs in the common room?”
The woman beamed. “Just so. He is welcoming new arrivals. If you are with a group, you will be assigned an apprentice to show you to your quarters.”
“We’re from America,” Emily said, and then to Kip and Alice, “You two wait here. I’ll fetch the others.”
When she’d vanished, the apprentice cleared her throat. “Excuse me,” she said, and tapped the ledger, her eyes wide. “Could you please tell Master Carswell how much I owe to her?”
“Owe to her?” Kip frowned. “Did she loan you—”
Alice put a paw on his arm. “Of course we can,” she said, “but you should tell her yourself. She is quite pleasant. How long have you been an apprentice?”
“Oh!” The young woman sat up, looked quickly at the ledger, and then back up to Alice. “I had not realized you are also a woman. Apprentice Cartwright?”
“That’s right.” Alice smiled. “It’s all right. In robes, we foxes look very similar to you.”
“I have met many Calatians. I did not think—” Her cheeks reddened.
“What’s your name?” Kip asked, in as friendly a voice as he could.
“Apprentice DeGroot, sir.”
Malcolm and Jorey, a young red squirrel in student’s robes, came through the door in that moment, accompanied by a sharp tingle in Kip’s nose that told him a demon was also present. Malcolm’s eyes had been taken from him by a demon, and though he’d adjusted well to his blindness, in unfamiliar places he often summoned a first-order demon to serve as his eyes.
“Good evening,” Apprentice DeGroot said. “Please sign the—” She gasped, seeing Malcolm’s eyeless face for the first time.
Malcolm walked confidently to the desk and put his fingers on the ledger. “This book?” he asked.
“Y-yes, sir.”
As Malcolm signed, Jorey came up beside him, bushy tail twitching. The squirrel glanced at Kip, who gave him an encouraging smile, and then spoke to Apprentice DeGroot. “Master O’Brien’s appearance may be off-putting,” he said, “but don’t let him startle you with it. He has sorcery to allow him to see as well as anyone—better, even.”
The young woman seemed grateful to have another face to focus on. “I—I meant no—”
“He knows you didn’t.” Jorey took the pen from Malcolm and added his name to the ledger.
“He can speak for himself, young student,” Malcolm said, though he smiled.
“Sorry, sir.” Jorey put the quill down. “I’ll do my best to hold my tongue.”
“Aye, well.” Malcolm put a hand on the squirrel’s shoulder and guided him to one side. “Let’s set our sights on something attainable before we go reaching for the moon, shall we?”
Before Jorey could reply, the other two students arrived, followed by Emily. The taller, a boy whose white robes bore dirt on the sleeves and hem, strode first to the table, smiling under his mop of red hair as he stuck out a hand to Apprentice DeGroot. “Good day,” he said. “I’m Richard Farmer, student of sorcery. It’s a true pleasure to meet you and visit your country. May I have the honor of knowing your name?”
“Oh, ah.” Apprentice DeGroot’s cheeks reddened further. She took his hand. “It’s Jan, thank you.”
“Thank you for welcoming us to your lovely city.” Richard brought her hand briefly to his lips. “It’s so inspiring to see another woman joining us in the ranks of sorcery.”
“I only just became an apprentice last month,” she said.
“What area are you specializing in?”
“I’m going to be a translocational sorcerer.”
Emily nudged the third student, a young girl with light brown skin and black hair, up to the table as Richard said with genuine enthusiasm, “That’s wonderful! I would love to be able to travel, but I fear my talents lie more with the physical.”
“Oh, there’s so much to learn with physical magic,” Jan said. “I couldn’t master very much of it myself—” She noticed the third student and composed herself. “I’m so sorry. Richard, can you please sign the ledger, and then…” She inclined her head to the girl.
“Charity,” the girl said. “It’s lovely to meet you. I’m to be a translocational sorcerer as well.”
Emily came to stand beside Kip, both of them watching Richard as he signed the book. “He reminds me of Victor,” Emily said in a very low voice, “but not in the bad ways.”
“He means the things he says,” Kip said. “And he actually has magical talent.”
Emily nodded. “Still, I worry a little about him.”
“I worry about all of them. But they’ll watch out for each other.”
Richard watched as Charity signed the ledger, and then the two of them joined Jorey off to the side, whispering to each other while keeping an eye on their teachers for guidance. Kip smiled. “They remind me of us,” he said. “The three of us, I mean.”
Emily nodded. “Except they don’t have other students to fear.”
“No.” Kip put an arm around Alice’s shoulders. “We’ve done that right, at least.”
Apprentice DeGroot gazed at Richard for a moment and then came back to herself and raised a hand to Emily. “If you please, Master Carswell, Master Voorhees will be awaiting you.”
“Yes, thank you.” Emily smiled. “Come along, everyone.”
Questions From YOU
If you’ve got a question about my books or my writing—or anything else you want me to talk about—shoot me an email and I’ll answer it here.
This month’s question comes from Kenneth: “How do you feel about side characters, especially in your longer series? In the Dev and Lee books, for example, Dev and Lee both have notable friends or figures that hold at least a small amount of significance to them, but we the readers are often rarely actually exposed to them (Selim or Carol, for instance). Did you ever have bigger plans for them? What goes into creating or developing these characters?”
A side character starts out as a way to either help or hinder the main character along their journey. They’re on the same journey but a bit ahead, or they took a different path, or they make the main character ask questions about themselves. Think about Ron and Hermione in the Harry Potter books: Ron encourages Harry to have fun, but also reminds him of the importance of family. Hermione reminds him that studying and knowledge are important to him. Harry needs to remember both of these things to succeed in his quests. Other side characters in the books have other functions: Draco is Harry’s counterpoint, illustrating the wrong decisions often; Sirius shows Harry passion and impulsiveness; Dumbledore shows restraint and analysis (the good and bad). Side characters have the benefit that they don’t have to carry the weight of the plot, so they can be funny, quirky, sometimes even more memorable than the main character.
They can’t be two-dimensional caricatures, though. One of my rules about side characters is that they should feel as real as the main characters to you. A good exercise is to think of a scene they’re in and ask yourself, “If this character were the main character, how would that scene go?” If you find you don’t know enough about the side character to answer that question, it’s worth thinking a little more about it.
If you ask yourself that enough times, one or two of the characters will have enough going on that you’ll start thinking about them even when they’re not in the scene. And then maybe you’ll put them into another scene, and you’ll start thinking about how those scenes connect.
Very rarely does a side character start out with bigger plans in mind. They tend to grow in the above manner over the course of a manuscript (or series). Sometimes they just stay an amusing side character; sometimes they push for a little more time.
In addition to the ones you mentioned, Seito is another side character a lot of people were interested in because of one remark he makes to Dev in the OOP series. Like Selim and Carol, he had potential, but for whatever reason I just never got inspired to do more with him.
I put out a collection called “Twelve Sides” of short stories that allow side characters from earlier books to take center stage, if only for a short time. Those were fun to write because they went into the lives of those characters a very little bit, and there were a wide range of them. They included characters as important as Colin, Dev’s enemy through many of the OOP books, and Colin’s wife Penny, who I think has one scene in one of the books. Characters from the Dangerous Spirits series and the Argaea books also appear. Overall, that was a fun exercise, and I really like some of the stories that came out of it.
Farther along the spectrum, you have side characters who got their own novels. Technically Red Devil and Black Angel are both novels starring side characters from Green Fairy. I wanted to keep writing in that world, but I didn’t want to do the same thing over again, and I was interested enough in Alexei and Meg that I knew I could stay with them for a whole book. Ty from OOP originally had a side story that was going to be a novella, but as I started writing, I realized that there was enough there for a novel, and that’s how Ty Game came about (half of Ty Game is devoted to Tami, but still).
If you’d asked me when Ty first appeared in the Out of Position series which of the side characters would be most likely to get his own novel, I probably would have put Ty way down the list behind Charm, Fisher, Lee’s father, Hal, and a couple others. But as the books went along, Ty got more time and I got interested in what was happening with him, and…here we are.