NobleDead.org - High/Dark Fantasy Fiction by Barb Hendee and J.C. Hendee

Q&A: Writing (Collaboration / Process)

One of sev­eral things we get asked about again and again is col­lab­o­ra­tion. The other part is just how do we do it. And then comes the fur­ther de­tail of how it has (or hasn’t) changed over time.

To many peo­ple, there’s some­thing rare — or just odd — about spouses who col­lab­o­rate. Pos­si­bly more so than with other col­lab­o­ra­tive teams who don’t live on top of each. All writ­ers dif­fer a lit­tle or a lot in their processes and ways of look­ing at story-mak­ing and story-telling. Since that dif­fer­ence is hard to show with one voice…

Q&A: What’s in a Name? Everything! [Books/Series/Character/Language]

Now that the draft for S3B2: The Dog in the Dark is off to our ed­i­tor, and the raf­fles have been fin­ished off (for now), it’s time to get back to some Q&As.

Over the months since we moved our two web sites to the Blog­ger.com sys­tem (No­bleDead.com be­came No­bleDead.org, Barb­Hendee.com be­came Barb­Hendee.org), a num­ber of read­ers asked what hap­pened to the “Glos­sary” from the old site. This usu­ally came up in con­junc­tion with “How do I pro­nounce such’n’such’s name?”

The old No­bleDead.com site had server-side ASP/data­base ser­vices; the new site at No­bleDead.org doesn’t have such. We’re in­ves­ti­gat­ing ways to em­u­late data­base op­er­a­tions through AJAX, JQuery, and XML data, but as yet we haven’t found a so­lu­tion. We’re de­ter­mined to suc­ceed, so please be pa­tient. As to pro­nun­ci­a­tion of names…

They don’t all fol­low the sim­pli­fied, four-di­a­crit­i­cal shared sys­tem we use for lan­guages. You can still find the Pro­nun­ci­a­tion Guide at No­bleDead.org under “Books.” But per­haps we can help out a lit­tle with names, though it might not be as sim­ple as you’d as­sume. We won­der (with a wink) how many of you are would-be “sages” who’ve caught lit­tle de­tails along the way and ac­tu­ally pieced them to­gether, be­cause a few of those have to do with names…

Noble Dead Raffle, Week 6: AND THE WINNER IS…

JES­SICA TYNER wins the sixth and final copy of S2B3: Of Truth and Beasts!

Jes­sica’s in­for­ma­tion will shortly be on its way to the pub­lisher once we re-ver­ify the de­tails with her.

THIS ENDS THE CURRENT SERIES OF RAFFLES

The draft ver­sion for S3B2: The Dog in the Dark is off to our ed­i­tor, so we’re wait­ing to see what comes be­fore we begin the first re­vi­sions. S3B1: Be­tween Their Worlds is now out in the wild, wild world, and so it’s time for us to drop into a deep coma-like slum­ber for at least a day. Drag­ons and fairies – or if your pre­fer bad­gers and ot­ters – need a lit­tle hi­ber­na­tion now and then!

It’s been fun, folks, and likely we’ll do this again… maybe with a slightly dif­fer­ent twist in the near fu­ture. We want to thank you all for your in­volve­ment and en­thu­si­asm. And a spe­cial thanks goes out to Brady McReynolds, Berkley/NAL Pub­lic­ity, Pen­guin Group (USA).  Brady is the one who has been pro­cess­ing the book prizes and ini­ti­ated all of this in the first place.

We’ll be back soon with our usual news through No­bleDead.org and Barb­Hendee.org.

Noble Dead Raffle, Week 6: REMEMBER…

THE DEAD­LINE FOR THE SIXTH AND FINAL WEEK IS TO­MOR­ROW, JAN­U­ARY 8th, MID­NIGHT, PST!

Be sure to get in your entry be­fore then, as this is the last of our six give­aways of a hard­cover edi­tion of S2B3: Of Truth and Beasts. We’ll an­nounce the win­ner the com­ing Mon­day af­ter­noon.

It has been quite fun to run the raf­fle for all of you. Thanks should go out to the pub­lic­ity de­part­ment of Pen­guin-Put­nam and its sub­sidiaries and im­prints, and es­pe­cially to Brady Reynolds therein, who has per­sonal processed the books for the raf­fle win­ners.

The win­ner each week can­not enter fur­ther raf­fles in this se­ries; those who have won a pre­vi­ously en­tered raf­fle must still re-enter a fol­low­ing one to be part of a new draw. If you need to catch up on how to enter, see the in­struc­tions below. [Open only to par­tic­i­pants in the USA.]

Go to www.​No­bleDead.​org, or click this fol­low­ing link to the Con­tact page. Sub­mit the fol­low­ing com­plete in­for­ma­tion via that se­cured form:

Name: [First and Last in full]
Email: [where win­ners will be no­ti­fied]
Sub­ject: Noble Dead Raf­fle
Mes­sage:  Street Ad­dress, City, State, Zip Code

NOTE: Barb and J.C. have full con­trol of all par­tic­i­pant in­for­ma­tion; you will not be added to any form of mail­ing list.

Within a few hours (usu­ally), ei­ther J.C. or one of the staff will send you a con­fir­ma­tion that your entry was re­ceived.

Noble Dead Raffle, Week 6: NOW OPEN!

Win a copy of S2B3: Of Truth and Beasts (hardcover)

We’re down to the last copy of S2B3: Of Truth and Beasts [hard­cover] to be shipped straight to some­one’s door. So this is your last chance to get your hands on it… well, other than buy­ing one. And of course, S3B1: Be­tween Their Worlds, is now on the shelves. Time to begin the new Phase/Se­ries 3 of the Noble Dead Saga.

So get your raf­fle en­tries in, and we’ll be watch­ing for them. [Open only to par­tic­i­pants in the USA.] In­struc­tions are re­it­er­ated below...

Noble Dead Raffle, Week 5: AND THE WINNER IS…

SHAWN MI­CALLEF wins the fifth of six copies of S2B3: Of Truth and Beasts!

This ends the fifth week’s raf­fle. Shawn’s in­for­ma­tion will shortly be on its way to the pub­lisher once we re-ver­ify all ship­ping in­for­ma­tion.

By to­mor­row af­ter­noon, we will open up the final week 6 of the raf­fle. Keep an eye out for the com­ing no­tice. Pass the word to any friends you think might enjoy get­ting in on this.

And yes, S3B1: Be­tween Their Worlds, the be­gin­ning of the third of four Phases/Se­ries in the Noble Dead Saga, should be avail­able now in some venues (or within hours or a few days at oth­ers)!

All in­struc­tions for en­ter­ing the raf­fle will be re­it­er­ated for those who missed weeks 1 through 5. All those who en­tered pre­vi­ous  raf­fles and did not win may re-enter again to be con­sid­ered for week 5; pre­vi­ous en­tries do not carry over to a fol­low­ing week’s raf­fle. Win­ners of a pre­vi­ous raf­fle may not enter fol­low­ing raf­fles. Until then, con­grat­u­la­tions again to Shawn!