Friday, March 20, 2015

Robert Ellis News



Robert Ellis
Happy to say that all things are good! City of Echoes has been proofed and sent to the typesetter. I love my editors, I loved working with them. I've always been lucky, or maybe blessed, to have editors who care as much as I do about the finished novel. This time around the entire experience from start to finish was terrific. I feel that City of Echoes is the best novel I've ever written, so putting something I cherish in the hands of such good people means a lot to me.

But there's more. Cover art is in progress, and I've been meaning to take that new author photo since the snow began piling up in February! Now, to my horror, it's begun to snow on this first day of Spring, with 4 to 6 inches expected overnight! So I guess I'll be waiting a bit longer to take that photo!

Finishing a novel is always difficult for me. Because City of Echoes is something of an epic thriller, waiting for the shine to wear off has been more than challenging. Instead of dwelling on it too much, I'm making every effort to blast through the haze and begin something new. A friend of mine used to work as an assistant to one of the brightest producer/directors in Hollywood. She always used to talk about how frightened her boss was when he began working on a new film. I found everything she was saying something of a shock because her boss had produced, directed or acted in more that forty films, and won or been nominated for too many Oscars to count. So if an artist like that (and I'm intentionally leaving his name out even though it's an easy enough guess), if an artist like that can admit to experiencing fear when he faces a blank page, I guess I can, too.

It may be the difference between seeing yourself as a writer, and seeing yourself as a storyteller, which has been mentioned before in earlier posts. Seeing yourself as a storyteller may amplify the feeling a fear because there's so much more at stake. I have always had that uneasy feeling when it's time to push the boat away from the dock. But this time around things are a little different. This new project will be something of an experiment for me because it picks up where City of Echoes ends, and just keeps going. Six weeks will have passed in story time between the two novels, and that's it. Six weeks go by and the story continues. Even better, this new project is more crime story than thriller, with an entirely unique set of story problems. The experience feels like a breath of fresh air. It's new and exciting and I'm pleased to say "all things are good!"

Sleep loose,
Robert

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