I'm sitting on my back deck next to Jamie, happy as a flabbit (and that's really happy) that the Kickstarter campaign for The Warden and the Wolf King is fully funded, with all the stretch goals. That's right, ladies and germs, if you sign up for the CAVE BLAT level before the Kickstarter campaign ends you'll get a copy of Pembrick's Creaturepedia, along with all the other bonuses. Thank you all for reading these books and spreading the word about them. It's been a dream come true.Click here to visit the Kickstarter page.--AP
Janner Igiby Needs Your Help!
(Click here to visit the Kickstarter page.)Almost ten years ago I put my three kids to bed, told Jamie for the millionth time about my desire to write a novel, and with her blessing dug out my sketch pad to draw the first map of Aerwiar. I turned off the television (this is key) and sat in the recliner with my high school art supplies, eager to tell a story. As with any adventure, had I known how much work and time it would have taken, I might not have had the guts to start. I drew the coastline of Skree on the left, then for some reason on the right I drew another coastline and named the continent Dang. The expanse between was named the Dark Sea of Darkness. I grinned like the geek I was, sharpened my pencil, and began the work of filling in the details. Eventually, Glipwood sprang out of the map, and the Wingfeather children sprang out of Glipwood. But who were they? And why did their story need to be told?It took a few years of "research," which when it comes to fantasy novels means "making stuff up." Orson Scott Card's book How to Write Science Fiction & Fantasy was a tremendous help, mainly because it reminded me that, because I was inventing a world from the ground up, I had to answer a zillion questions about the history of the world, the political situation, the currency used, the presence (or absence) of magic, the presence (or absence) of religion, and what the flora, fauna, and fangishness of this new world might be. At some point in the writing of the history of Aerwiar, a nameless evil (named Gnag the Nameless) demanded my attention, and soon I had the beginnings of the Wingfeather Saga. After a laborious first draft, then a second, third, and fourth draft, I managed to fool the good people at Random House/Waterbrook into giving a singer/songwriter a shot at publication. On the Edge of the Dark Sea of Darkness was published in 2008. North! Or Be Eaten came in 2009, and with the help of Rabbit Room Press The Monster in the Hollows arrived in 2011.In case you haven't noticed, it's 2013. That means it's time to finish the story. Janner, Kalmar, and Leeli are weary and homesick, and I need to bring them home (in one way or another). And you can help them. As of the writing of this post, I'm at 124,758 words. According to my Word document, that's 417 double-spaced pages. I'm on chapter 79. There are quite a few chapters remaining, but not too many. Things are winding down, slowly but surely, and it won't be long before I know how this whole thing ends. Since this book (and the previous one) were published by Rabbit Room Press and not a major publishing company, there's a great deal of freedom. That's a good thing. It means I can choose my editors, I'm intimately involved in the look and feel of the book, and I get to work with the illustrators. But there's another side to the coin, and that's this: there's no big, fat monetary advance, and we need you, dear readers, to help us make this book happen.We live in a pretty exciting time for music and publishing. Thanks to websites like Kickstarter, not only are projects that may have never had a chance given birth, the readers get the thrill of being the midwives. I know first-hand, because I've helped to Kickstart albums by Matthew Perryman Jones and Andrew Osenga (among others) as well as books by DKM and Doug TenNapel. There's something wonderful about opening a package and holding a book or record in my hands, knowing that my modest contribution helped make its existence possible. Community begets art. It was true of the Inklings, it's true here in the Rabbit Room, and I'm hoping that with the help of the amazing community of Wingfeather fans it will be true of The Warden and the Wolf King. We decided to pull out all the stops and shoot for the moon. (Yes, that's a mixed metaphor involving a pipe organ and a rocket.) With your help we'll not only be able to publish this book full of beautiful illustrations by Joe Sutphin, we'll be able to do much more. If you can help, click this link and learn about all the fun stuff we've cooked up. Thank you all, young and old, for your enthusiasm about this story, and whatever help you can give. My family and I are delighted that a super-nerdy map ten years ago is culminating in the publication of this book. Back to writing! Beware the bumpy digtoad.APP.S. There's a weird guy at the end of the video making some outlandish claims. Ignore him at all costs.
Nashville to Stockholm
Greetings, Wingfeather fans! This is a post that just went up on another site of mine, called The Rabbit Room, and I figured I'd share it here. Thanks!I knew this would happen. We flew from Nashville to Stockholm on Tuesday, arrived in a fog of half-sleep, ate some pizza for comfort more than hunger, and collapsed as though we might sleep for days. But then this. This tossing and turning in Sweden's summer midnight, which is never totally dark, this weary awakeness in which I'm so tired I can't sleep, where I'm obsessively and compulsively working out what time it is at home, working out how many Swedish crowns equals a dollar so I'll know how much I really paid for that pizza, a head game made all the more irritating because of my ineptitude at math.I'm not cranky, truly. Just jet-lagged. I couldn't be more thankful to be here, safe and sound, with my sweet wife and three sweet kids in this little borrowed Stockholm flat, all four of them sleeping much better than I can right now. And so I give up on rest this first night of our adventure, and my thoughts turn to what led me here. There's a long version and a short version, but I'm going to give you the ultra-short version: sometime late last year I realized that I was exhausted. There's no better rest for me than being alone with Jamie and the kids, so we kicked around the idea of making this Sweden tour a family affair and trying to book enough concerts to pay for all of our plane tickets this time (this is my seventh tour over here). We realized furthermore that Aedan will be 15 this year, which means we're running out of time for a trip like this. Well, one thing led to another, and we decided that if we're crossing the dadburn Atlantic we may as well make it count, which led us to booking concerts in England, Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland. In addition to the shows (fifteen of them, I think), I'm trying to finish The Warden and the Wolf King while I'm here, and I'm really hoping that walking these ancient lands will season the story in the best way. "So much for rest," I hear you thinking. But just having the family close by will be for me like riding the eye of the hurricane.The trip only began yesterday, but I've already learned so much about life and the Lord and how faith might work. See, I've wanted to play in the U.K. for more than a decade, but it's never worked out. I've wanted to bring my family to Sweden since my first visit ten years ago, but it's never worked out. This year, though, we felt such urgency about the trip that we decided not to wait for the concerts to show up. Rather, we looked at the calendar, chose a window of time, then told as many people in the U.K. and Sweden: "We're coming this summer and we're looking for help." Not, "We'd love to come, but we can't unless we get X number of gigs." Not, "Let's wait and see how this pans out, and maybe it'll work." We just decided to make our plans as if it was a done deal. This isn't a blog about how to book a tour in Europe, of course, because what worked in this case might not ever work again, for you or for me. But now that I'm sitting in the half-light of Stockholm at 4:56 a.m. listening to my family sleep, I think back to a meeting with my manager and booking agent in January in which we decided that we weren't going to wait for this to happen. We were just going to do it. It felt like Indiana Jones and the leap of faith.I know some of you guys have always wanted to write a book. You've always wanted to ask that girl to marry you. You've always wanted to actually build a friendship with that neighbor, or start that ministry, or right that wrong, but things just never worked out. You're waiting on the Lord, when maybe the Lord is waiting on you--he's not waiting to bless you; he's already done that and will continue to, regardless of your zeal. And he's not waiting to "show up," because he's already there. I mean, what if he's waiting for you to have a seismic shift in your understanding of what it means to be his child, what it means to trust him, to finally realize that the sky's the limit--like the father of the prodigal son saying to the self-righteous one: "All that I have is already yours."Finally, I want to ask you to pray for us. In sixteen years of touring I've never left home for two solid months. Nashville never seemed so beautiful than the day we left, and I had to resist the urge to hug random strangers on the street. Leaving for this long is an awfully romantic notion, but in the end I'm really just a homebody who travels for a living. And if this is as crazy of a trip for me, imagine how crazy it must feel for Jamie and the kids! Crazy, indeed. So yes. Pray for us. Pray for the audiences, for safety, and most of all please pray that we would be ever mindful of the great love of God as we carry that love to everyone we meet.That's what I'm thinking about here in Viking land today. Or tonight. Wait, what time is it in Nashville? Aw, forget it.
(Skye's face in this picture is hilarious, by the way.)If you live in Sweden or the UK and you want to know where we'll be, click here.If you want to follow me on Instagram, where I may or may not post pictures from time to time, click here.
A Grand Adventure
Greetings from Orebro, Sweden! I wanted to give you an update on The Warden and the Wolf King, so here it is: I'm working on it. I'm in the middle of an adventure with my sweet family, partly to do some concerts, partly to rejuvenate, and partly to finish this book. I'm doing a tour of Sweden and the United Kingdom this summer, and my hope is to get the book finished here in the company of castles and viking ruins. I don't have much else to say, except that I can't wait to see how this story ends. We're going to start our Kickstarter campaign very soon, so keep a close eye on the blog. Beware of toothy cows.Back to writing,AP
UPDATE: The Warden and the Wolf King
(Thanks to Heather Rodrigue for the image. Good advice.)Oy, Dear Readers!I would apologize for the long silence, if that long silence didn't mean I had been working on the new book. I've written up to chapter 23, which is when everybody finds out that Gnag is actually not a bad man, just a bad wizard, and someone named Dorothy and her lion friend tell the Jewels that there's a space/time portal under Anniera and they zap themselves to the 1950's and save Marty McFly's parents from never meeting right before destroying the One Ring.Over the years I have learned that there will always be at least one person out there who will read this and think, "Really?" For that person's sake: the previous paragraph was a joke. Except for the part about having actually written up to chapter 23. And I'm so excited about that part. I've got some pretty cool news regarding the illustrations for the book, which I'll announce soon and very soon, and we've even got a tentative release date, which we'll announce soon and very, very soon.If you don't follow me on Twitter or Facebook (my Facebook artist page, that is), now's the time. As I write chapters I often include the last sentence or a word count, just to prove to you guys that I'm not sitting around. It's easier for me to do a quick update there than to write a whole blog entry, especially when my fingers are sore from typing. Now that my latest tour is almost over, I'm shifting into high gear on the book, which is intimidating and exciting all at once. I can't wait to tell you this story.Now, I need your help. We're going to put together a fun promotional video for the Wingfeather Saga which will feature a collage of videos from kids and grownups alike, telling us what you like about the books, who your favorite character is, maybe acting out a scene, giving us your best Fang snarl or your best Podo "Arr!" Upload it to YouTube or Vimeo, then email the link to [email protected] with the subject line WINGFEATHER VIDEO. Keep it simple, be as creative as you like, and try and get it pretty close up on your face.Thanks, folks!AP
The Sketch is in the Mail
Not only is it after Halloween, but Thanksgiving, Christmas, and New Year's have come and gone--but I'm happy to tell you costume contest winners that at long last the sketches are finished, packaged, and ready for delivery in tomorrow's mail. My apologies for taking so long to finish up the project. I'll think twice next time I decide to mail out so many drawings--part of the problem is that I had so few that were decent enough to give away as prizes, and it was hard to find time to draw more! Anyway, here are the pictures, for your viewing pleasure. The winners will have to wait and see who gets which one.Back to writing The Warden and the Wolf King!
Costume Contest Winners
Okay, the last time I put on a contest I regretted it. Why? Because it was so terribly hard to choose a single winner. Below are the submissions, in no particular order, so you can see what a tough decision this was.First we have Matt and Amanda Marlin, with their dog Loki, dressed as a very fashionable (and very bearded) Janner, Leeli (with a whistleharp and crutch), and a convincing Kalmar (boasting an actual tail). Nice.
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------This is Lydia Townsend, as Leeli--also with an impressively homemade crutch. I dig the addition of Tiny Nugget.
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------Here's the description of the next kids, written by their mom: "Carter, age 7, wanted to be Slarb the Fang. Sydney is 6 and she wanted to be Leeli. (She specifically asked for a crutch that said "Lizard Kicker" on it, then remembered that Leeli doesn't get it until after their encounter with Slarb, so she went back and found that she needed purple flowers. She also pointed out that it was Leeli's right foot that was twisted, and asked that I note these two details when writing you.) Camelia is 4 and she wanted to be Nugget. It was a hard choice for her, as she found a grey wolf costume in her size and contemplated being a Grey Fang, but ultimately decided she wanted to be good, not bad."Great job, guys! Bonus points for attention to detail.
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------Now presenting Merrick Hedlund (13) as the Florid Sword. Avast! Aha! I would love to hear Merrick's accent.
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------And Merrick's sister Miranda Hedlund (21) terrified the world as the Stone Keeper. Appropriately creepy.
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------This one is especially cool, because we have not just Nugget with a cutout of Leeli on his back, BUT...
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------...the little guy's actual, bona fide, on-his-birth-certificate name is Janner! Janner Forrester (2). He's the second Janner I've met this year, which makes me happy and freaked out in equal measure.
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------And here's Janner as Nugget with his dad Andrew as Peet the Sock Man. Awesome.
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------This is Grace Beasley as Leeli, also with a custom crutch and whistleharp. Beautiful! If I were shooting a Wingfeather film this week (and, sadly, I'm not), I'd cast Grace as Leeli immediately.
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------Finally, as a sort of honorable mention because though she didn't dress up as a character in the books, she dressed as a Hollish sailor and invented a whole Wingfeather Saga backstory for the character, I present Savanna DeWolf as Bryllen Tate.
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------There you go! Thank you all for reading the books and going to all the trouble to put these costumes together. I can't tell you how weird it is to think up these characters and then see real-live versions of them. Tonight after the concert I finally (with the help of my buddy Andy Gullahorn) chose the winners.Fourth place: a tie between Loki, Matt, Amanda, Miranda, and SavannaThird place: a tie between Lydia Townsend and Merrick HedlundSecond place: a tie between Carter/Sydney/Camelia, and Janner ForresterFirst place goes to Grace Beasley!Congratulations, folks. Here's the scoop with prizes. Grace wins a sketch and a signed deluxe edition of Light for the Lost Boy. Since second and third places had ties, I decided to go ahead and draw something for each of the winners (meaning the Cook kids get one sketch, Janner gets one, as do Lydia and Merrick). That's five sketches, which means I'd better get busy. I should remind you that a) I'm not a real artist--only a hack, b) it will take me until next week to get them finished, c) the drawing will be on a 6x8 sheet of sketch paper, ripped straight from my 6x8 Strathmore sketchbook, and d) the drawing might be of a Skreean or Dangish creature, the very sight of which might curdle your milk. Okay? Okay. All you guys have to do is send your address to andrew at wingfeathersaga dot com. This is important: put "Wingfeather Contest" in the subject line so your email doesn't get lost in the shuffle. If you guys in fourth place send me your address we'll put something in the mail to you, too.Thanks again! This was fun. Back to work on The Warden and the Wolf King.AP
Happy Octoberween! (A Contest!)
This drawing is from the beginning of book one, submitted by Gabrielle Girard (13). She said, "My picture is of breakfast in the snug Igiby cottage, the sunny morning Podo stomps in with a sack of wriggling thwaps. Leeli is pleading with Podo not to dump them into the dark sea, and two little thwaps are spying on them from the doorway." Great work, Gabrielle!-----------------------------------------Folks, it's one of my favorite times of the year: leaves changing and leaves crunching underfoot, firepits (like the one I'm sitting beside right now), pumpkins, soups, sweaters, and the sense that creation is getting ready for bed. Another thing I get excited about is trick-or-treating with my family. Last year I dressed up as a ridiculously obese G.K. Chesterton, while Jamie dressed as Princess Leia. This year my daughter is a farm girl (with bubba teeth) and my boys have strangely decided with their buddies to go as a gang of sugar cubes--that's right: sugar cubes. They're painting refrigerator boxes white and roving the neighborhood as (I'll say it again) sugar cubes. Terrifying, I know.Someone in Illinois told me their son was dressing up as a Fang of Dang, and (after I begged for a picture) I had this crazy idea to host a little Wingfeather contest. So if you're the type who dresses up for a certain night of neighborly fun, then dress up as a Wingfeather creature or character, email me a picture of your costume at [email protected], and I'll choose three winners. The grand prize is a deluxe edition of my new record Light for the Lost Boy, plus a signed, original sketch by yours truly of something in the Wingfeather universe. Second and third places will receive sketches, too. That's three drawings I'll be doing in the near future. Unlike the last Wingfeather contest, in which it took me nearly a year to complete the drawing, I promise to get it to you in early November (this also means it won't be a full-on drawing; rather, it will be a sketch, which is less than a work of art and more than a doodle).Email me the picture by November 4, and I'll announce the winners that night. Have fun and be safe!P.S. I know you may be thinking, "Why is he drawing Wingfeather pictures instead of working on The Warden and the Wolf King?" The answer: drawing is one of the best ways I know to sink back into Aerwiar. I've been in music mode for most of the year, so this is one of the ways I shift gears. Never fear! Book four is soon to be underway.