Caught in a bind for Halloween? Inflatable tombstone blown away? Squirrel ate your pumpkin? I may have the answer for you. Ghost deer. Scary in a whole new way. Do you have a Happy Holidays ornamental, life-size lawn deer in your garage? Can you make a bed? If you can answer yes to these questions you can assemble your own ghost deer. To assemble your ghost deer you need: Instructions. Place deer on lawn. Cover with sheet.*

Be specific. That’s one of the most important pieces of advice writers receive, and one of the easiest ones to accomplish. Whether you’re describing a setting or writing action you need to provide details to give the scene weight and realism. The broader your descriptions the less powerful they will be. “The man was holding a gun” is not as scary as “The man was holding a Colt Anaconda. Thirteen inches long and stainless steel, it had to weigh close to four pounds.” Details that are credible and specific persuade us better than generic descriptions. We assume the writer knows what he’s talking about. He’s the expert; we believe him and we believe in the scene.

Coming up with realistic details takes practice but once you get the hang of it it’s relatively easy. First you have to look at every noun you write--object names, place names--and think about them. Isolate them in your mind. What’s unusual about this item/person/place? What’s unique here? What can I say about this object that provides a brief, memorable sentence? What’s been said about this object countless times before? What hasn’t? When you start asking yourself these questions you’ll develop a new awareness as you write. Say you have a character in the woods. Are the trees hardwood or softwood? What’s the groundcover? Has it been raining? What caused the holes in the tree trunks? Beatles? Woodpeckers? Mice? When your character steps on the pine needles how do they smell? Once you’ve got his far you’ll have to start hitting the books (or the woods). As the writer you need to know what’s typical and atypical about the woods in the area you’re describing. You need to know the names of the plants, trees, insects and animals.

You need to know them and then not use them. The catch of the specific details is that they must be used sparingly. They need to be kept to a sentence or two, or you risk clogging up your story with descriptions. If the details are chosen well they’ll do the work of an entire paragraph. Remember the Colt Anaconda? It weighs four pounds: it’s going to take a big man to wield it. It’s a serious, professional weapon too, not likely to be kept in the average bedside drawer. And it’s stainless steel: top of the line, expensive.

If you pick your details right they’ll work overtime. Being specific, yet restrained, makes for a tight, credible narrative.

The local fire threat is receding. The mandatory evacuation of the area adjacent to where I live has now been canceled. Carlsbad has also canceled its voluntary evacuation of my area. The smoke is terrible, but getting better.

The car's packed and I'm ready to go at a moment's notice. According to the official Carlsbad City website the voluntary evacuation is due to the air quality, not imminent fire danger. According to the official San Marcos website, the San Elijo Hills Fire is now one hundred percent contained, and the mandatory evacuation order for that area (just a couple of miles down the road from my house) had now been lifted. I'm going to stay put for a while, and see what develops. The winds have died down--Santa Anas only blow during daylight. Visibility is poor but getting better.

The police have just driven past with a speakerphone. Voluntary evacuations are now under way in my part of Carlsbad (southeast). I'm off to pack up.

The air is hot and stinking. It's eighty degrees and the wind is gusting up to 50 mph. Part of my fence has blown down. The Helen Woodward Animal Shelter in Rancho Santa Fe, where I adopted Biggie, has been evacuated. No news on the progress of the local San Marcos/Escondido fire. No news on the possible Olivenhaim evacuations. To the south, a quarter of a million San Diegans have been evacuated.

The wildfires are tearing through San Diego. The winds are high and ash is sailing through the air. A few weeks ago I posted a photograph of me standing by the Olivenhaim Dam in Elfin Forest. That area now has fires and residents are under a mandatory evacuation order. It’s 5 miles from my house. Residents of Olivenhaim, a rural area in east Encinitas, have now been warned of a possible evacuation. That’s 2 minutes from my house.

The Santa Anas are hot seasonal winds that blow in from the desert. They started up yesterday, blowing into bone dry Southern California. Power lines are blown down and fires spread with breathtaking speed. In Northern San Diego County, where I live, fires have been burning through the night. The air smells of smoke and the sky is red.

Fantasy Book Critic interviewed me at the weekend. Hop over to Robert Thompson’s site to read the transcript.

Bookplates are self-adhesive. You peel off the backing and stick them on the inside title page of the book. If you’d like a personalized signed bookplate for A Sword From Red Ice email me with your address and I’ll pop one in the post. Sadly this offer is only for US residents. Apologies to everyone overseas. Robert Thompson at Fantasy Book Critic interviewed me for his blog. Follow the link to your right to read the interview.

I’m a dog person, I really am. We had a dog growing up, Winston. Mum didn’t like cats. Still doesn’t. So how did I end up with a cat? I don’t know. I also don’t know what Biggie was up to when I snapped this photo. Is she checking the word count? Looking for a really slim mouse? I’m not sure, but as you can see I have a lot of books in my house. It saves on furniture. Stack enough of them and you have a coffee table. The book’s out now and is available online and in bookstores. I hope you enjoy it. Let me know what you think. Also, email me with your address if you'd like a signed bookplate for Sword.

I went boating on Sunday, in the Pacific out of San Diego Bay. We didn’t see any whales or dolphins, though both had been spotted earlier in the week. Thanks to Captain Don for taking us out.

Bonjour, mes lecteurs francais. Je suis desole que je ne puisse pas comunicate avec vous en votre langue maternelle. The second book in the French edition of The Book Of Words Trilogy arrived in the post today. Bon lecture!

A couple of people have emailed me asking how they can order A Sword From Red Ice online. A quick google search of the title should show plenty of bookstores where you can pre-order the book from. Sword will also be in you local bookstore on the 16th. I took this photo on Sunday morning, close to midday. I was hiking across ridges of heaped pumice and rolling benchland. It was like walking on the face of the moon. That’s the Colorado River in the center. And the beautifully-named Chocolate Mountains in the distance.

The post today brought my author’s copies of A Sword From Red Ice. Two boxes of them. The book looks wonderful. The cover art by J.P. Targete is striking and makes for a great cover. That's my biased opinion. Judge for yourself.

I was at the California/Arizona border at the weekend. The Colorado River has been dammed at Picacho Peak to create a series of lakes and washes. It’s a volcanic landscape of heaped basalt and pumice. At night you can hear wild donkeys braying.

For those awaiting the publication of A Sword From Red Ice in the UK here’s a shot of the British cover art. I think it’s pretty cool. And yes, it depicts the title scene. Interestingly enough, the artist painted it before the chapter was written. I gave him a description, but by the time I came to write the chapter I had something else in mind. Somehow the artwork manages to reflect the new scene (cue eerie Twlight Zone music). A month ago, I gave away three galley copies to readers to read and review. Two reviews have come back. You can read them by following the link to your right (btw, Paul from Alaska email me I’m waiting to send out your book).

Not to be confused with its US namesake, Canadian Glacier National Park is in British Columbia, west of Banff. Here I snapped some photos of mountain goats and took a walk in a forest of oldgrowth hemlock. Hemlock are the predominant trees in the northern clanholds, so looking at this photo it’s easy to imagine trekking through the vast forests of Blackhail. The groundcover is fern and the appropriately-named devil's club. Devil’s club stems have wickedly-sharp thorns that draw blood if you make the mistakes of brushing against them.

October is finally here. A Sword from Red Ice will be out on the 16th in the US, and it's my birthday ten days later. Is this the best month of the year, or what? Here am I on my Saturday morning hike, showing off yet another water feature. This one's a lot closer to home. It's the Olivenhain Dam in the picturesquely named Elfin Forest. The dam was completed in 2003 and is the tallest of its kind in North America. In true Southern California tradition, the banks of the newly-constructed dam were given a dye job to perfectly match the surrounding hillsides.

My second water feature is the Vermillion River in Alberta where I was three weeks ago. As you can see it's not the slightest bit red. I decided not to find out why it was named after a color it doesn't resemble. The river and its name are so lovely I don't care.