DFT3 - First Review & what I like the best

The Blind Mapmaker did a nice brief review of my latest book, DFT3.

It's extremely valuable to an author to get feedback, positive or negative. We rarely get as much as we'd like. Or at least, I don't.

Reading it over made me think of what I like the most about my own books:

- I like re-reading my edited words to hear how my writing could sound if I was just better at it. This gives me a lot of pleasure, but also helps me write better the next time.

- Picking the quotes - and then getting to read them in the final book. I think I found some excellent ones for this book - Poul Anderson, Gary Gygax, Glen Cook, Hugh Cook, J.R.R. Tolkien, Michael Moorcock, and Alexei Pehov. The first thing I do when I get one of my own books back is go through and read the quotes. It's also the first thing I do when I get someone else's book. It tells me so much about the author and the feel the book is going for. Basically, it's a "who are your influences?"

- and I like reading over all of the credits - the people who helped me, the staff that made the book happen, and seeing my friend's names in print for all of their hapless dead PCs who played through the material I put down into the book.

Those three things make me happy.