I Hold the Line

The Kid is in the Game

I got my first writing contract this weekend. It's been brewing for several weeks, and the ink isn't dry on the paperwork, but still...I am now a working author. Or, a PAID working author, rather. I didn't want to say anything until it was in the bag.

I kind of figured that sooner or later I would get a writing gig...A lot of people like my stories and my style. But still,when the offer came in, it was a full three hours before I could speak to someone about it. For a crippled guy, I bounce off the walls pretty good.

The book is set in a medieval world one step short of a renaissance, with an assassin called Katya. Think Thieves' World meets Assasin's Creed meets Ironhand's Daughter.

I'm still jazzed about it - it's hard for me to concentrate on what to blog about it.

One thing I'm pretty excited about is the opportunity to portray a more realistic (as close as one can get in the world of medieval fantasy, anyway) use of weapons and techniques suited to a woman in the killing trade. One thing I always hated about the Highlander series was the majority of women on the show used ridiculously heavy weapons when they had all the figure of an X-Ray with boobs. It happens time and again, some skinny slip of a girl squares off against a guy the size of gargantuan the ape man, and she pulls out the friggin' Sword of Crom, or some equally unbelievable weapon & proceed to wield it so awkwardly you wonder if being alive for hundreds of years doesn't make you just the tiniest bit...Retarded.

I'm not the first writer in the family, as it turns out. Walter D. Edmonds - author of "Drums Along the Mohawk", and "Tales My Father Never Told" (my favorite) - was my great-uncle.

I wouldn't have gotten the gig if Steve Perry hadn't pushed it my way, for which I will be forever grateful. His name is also going to be headlining the book, but mine is going to be right beneath it. You can read that as "I'm Steve Perry's bitch", at this point I'll suffer that one GLADLY. To be completely honest...It ain't that far from the truth.

Of course, now I have to do the actual WORK. With the eyes of my uncle Walt on me, Steve Perry cracking the whip and the future of my reputation on the line.

Really...No pressure.