Category: Writing

Posts pertaining to writing

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Plans: I got ’em!

I'm setting goals, you guys! #wheeee #amwriting
Well, half of 2017 is in the books! Wow, that sure went fast. So what’s coming down the pike? I’m glad you asked!

1. In terms of book releases, the next project on the horizon is THE CHILLING KILLING WIND, which is the supernatural thriller long code-named GHOSTCOP. I am hoping to release this book in September. This book will launch a series of novels featuring former police detective John Lazarus and his strange encounters with the supernatural. It is currently in the hands of a couple of very capable beta-readers, so we are hopefully on pace!

2. In terms of drafting new books, I am resuming work on ORION’S HUNTRESS, which you’ll recall is a new space opera series set in the same universe as THE SONG OF FORGOTTEN STARS, but with little to no plot overlap. It’s a big galaxy, and all of that. I don’t have a targeted release date for this book yet, but it won’t be until late 2018 at the earliest.

Then I plan to stick to space opera and return to my beloved Princesses and their pilot. It’ll be time to start working on FORGOTTEN STARS IV, for which I’ve already started generating plot notes and such. The next books in the series will form a tighter arc than the first three, so I’ll need to plot things farther out. In fact…gasp!…I’m thinking of outlining these books.

I know. It’s like it’s not even me anymore!

After a draft of FORGOTTEN STARS IV is done, then I plan to return to SEAFLAME!, the fantasy-adventure long code-named THE ADVENTURES OF LIGHTHOUSE BOY. I’ve been waffling on this project because I have Book One drafted, but the whole story is told in two books, so I’ve been trying to figure out if I should draft Book Two before doing any editing, or do an edit of Book One first and then draft the second. I’m leaning strongly to the latter, with both books getting some much more serious editing later on after both are written. SEAFLAME! is basically one very long book that I am splitting in two, and once both are out, it will be done.

I expect that all of this work will take me far into 2018, so after that, who knows? Maybe FORGOTTEN STARS V, maybe a third John Lazarus book.

3. And let’s not forget about editing! The major editing project will be getting THE CHILLING KILLING WIND ready for publication, and I have a draft of THROUGH THE PALE DOOR (the sequel) done, which will require some very heavy lifting. There’s also the afore-mentioned SEAFLAME!, the first book of which will receive a light edit before I draft the second half of the story, and I also have a draft of a supernatural thriller involving a doomed kayaking expedition in the wilds of Alaska. (This last is a one-shot, no series, no sequel.)

So I am not lacking for projects to keep me busy. In fact, I’ve booked myself probably well into 2019 at this point. Yay, me! And, whew.

Swamped

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FINALLY!!!

At long, long last, the ebooks of AMONGST THE STARS are available!

Kindle
Nook

I do apologize for how long this took. This book’s formatting was quite the hassle in terms of getting it all to render correctly in e-book form. Scrivener is a fantastic piece of software, but the “compiling” part of the job is ZERO fun. In fairness, I’m not really sure how they could make it any better than it is, and there is always some aspect to ANY job that is the pits.

(If you MUST know, this book eschews numbered chapters in favor of “viewpoint” chapters, with each chapter headed by the name of the character whose viewpoint we are now in. If you’ve read George RR Martin’s Song of Ice and Fire books, you know how this works. Getting all that to compile correctly, without Scrivener adding chapter numbers, and generating a proper table of contents, was a HUGE pain. But I got it figured out in the end! And I wonder about people who compile even more complex works, in terms of structure within Scrivener where you can have entirely separate scenes to compile into chapters and then into parts and then into novels…yikes!)

But there we have it. The ebooks are here! Huzzah!!

And there will be another announcement toward the end of next week, so hold on to your hats!

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Interviewed! (And a couple of other things)

Hey everyone! I did an interview!

Did you read my interview at TheGeekiverse.com yet? No? Well GO, folks! 😆 #amwriting

The Geekiverse is a cool website, based in Buffalo, that focuses on all manner of geeky stuff, from games to movies to music to books. They’re a neat bunch and I’m excited to be featured on their site. Go check it out!

(Meantime, I hope those of you who are waiting for the e-book of Amongst the Stars will continue to be patient. I’m running into some formatting problems that are giving me fits, specifically with regard to the book’s structure and how it works into a usable Table of Contents. I’ll get it figured out, I promise! More to come on that hopefully later this week.)

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Yikes!!!

I can’t believe I’ve gone close to four months without posting here. The time has not been wasted, folks — but I have really fallen behind on some things.

BUT, I am indeed making progress! The long-promised Amongst the Stars is in the pipeline, and I hope to have it out sometime quite soon. I’m not promising a date, but…soon. As in, no later than Memorial Day, and likely before that, once I iron out the last bits of design and get my proof copies.

For now, here’s a little teaser of the cover!

Rasharri's Eyes

More details as they come! I’m picking up the pace now! Onward and upward! Zap! Pow!!

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[tap tap tap] Is this thing still on?

So, almost two months without an update? Yeesh, that’s terrible.

November was…not good, folks. Not good at all. At least it was terrible as far as my writing goes; on the personal front, things are fine. But November was easily the worst writing month I’ve had in all of 2016 and the worst I’ve had in several years. November was NaNoWriMo, so I should have produced at least 50,000 words. In fact, I produce only 21,262.

Ouch.

Why is this? Well, I cannot lie, but I also don’t want to be political on this site, so I’ll simply say that the results of the American Presidential election threw me for a serious loop that did major damage to my mood for a big chunk of the month. It took almost ten days afterwards for that hangover to wear off and for my creative brain to lurch back into motion, by which time NaNoWriMo was a lost cause. Alas.

But it wasn’t all bad. I did finish the Doomed Kayak Expedition horror novel! The draft ended up at just under 84,000 words, which is the shortest thing I’ve written yet, and I’m sure that when I edit it I’ll get it down below 80,000. For me that is positively Hemingway-esque in terms of brevity! I also gave that book a title:

The Jaws of Cerberus.

If you’re wondering to what that name refers in terms of the book, well…hopefully the book will see the light of day sometime in 2018.

What’s next? A space opera novel! No, not Forgotten Stars IV, but something new. It’s a new series, but it’s set in the Forgotten Stars universe. I’m not sure right now where it fits time-wise with that series, but I am not planning any direct overlap at all (that’s the current plan, anyway), so it might not matter. I don’t have a title yet, but I can tell you this much:

  • It’s book one of an open-ended series of space adventure books.
  • The main ship is a light freighter named Orion’s Huntress.
  • The crew is initially comprised of four women with varying degrees of trust issues.
  • The Captain and the astrogator are lovers.
  • The ship’s doctor actually owns the ship, which makes her relationship with the Captain rather tense.
  • While I don’t have a title yet, my current idea is for every book in the series to have the word Huntress in it, alluding to the ship.

This is an idea I’ve been knocking around for a while. This is nothing new: I like to let my ideas knock around for a good long while! So here I go with this one. I’m aiming for a series of shorter books, around 100,000 words each, with each book being relatively self-contained. This is more Firefly or Miles Vorkosigan than, say, Star Wars or The Song of Forgotten Stars.

So that’s what’s going on right now. Stay tuned for more posts, I hope! I have 2017 to plan, after all. I’m behind on editing and publishing, so I’ll have more to say about those things in days to come. Stay tuned!

Because in my head I'm still twelve. #AmWriting #overalls

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Good news, bad news, and NaNo News

It’s a mixed bag today, folks!

First:

good news everyone

STARDANCER received a really nice review from the book blog Tea and Titles. Check it out: Four Things I Loved About STARDANCER!

The world is Stardancer is hugely detailed, and it’s absolutely gorgeous. Kelly has thought of everything from food to customs to games, and none of it feels overdone or irrelevant. There’s this really beautiful scene where two of the characters are teaching each other their language—it’s one of the best scenes I’ve ever read. The best thing is that it’s very easy follow. Sci-Fi can be quite confusing at times, but I didn’t get lost in all the details here.

Read the whole thing, and then, if you haven’t read STARDANCER yourself, well, I think it’s time you started questioning your life choices!

That’s the good news. Next we have the not so great:

glass case of emotion

Sadly, Amongst the Stars (The Song of Forgotten Stars, Book III) is not going to be out in November. I simply have not been able to get the work done. I’m hoping for December, but January is looking more likely. I apologize to you all. I really want my readers to finally learn what’s been going on since we last left Princesses Tariana and Margeth and their trusty navigator, Lt. Rasharri!

Stay tuned, folks — the wait will be worth it, I promise!

(Now, why is the book delayed? Well, I hate to admit it, but I think that John Scalzi is on to something here….)

And in NaNo News….

via GIPHY

My current WIP, the kayaking-meets-Greek-tragedy horror novel, has spun a wee bit longer than I expected at first, so I’m likely to spend the first part of NaNoWriMo finishing that. Then I will be onto my new space opera novel, which will be followed by Forgotten Stars IV, and then, way down the road, the second half of Seaflame!. So at least I know what I’m writing for a while. Also, I’m hoping to have the first John Lazarus novel (still trying to nail down a title) ready for release sometime next summer.

So that’s where we are for right now. If you haven’t read STARDANCER or THE WISDOMFOLD PATH, now would be a great time! AMONGST THE STARS is coming soon, folks! Just not quite so soon as I’d hoped. But soon!

Onward and upward! Zap! Pow!!

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