Category: Obsidian

Writing Roundup

9/2/2014

If you know me, then you know it's not unusual for me to have 2 or 3 writing projects going at once. However, with a trilogy in progress, it's time for me to organize and make a plan to keep things going. Here's what's up with my writing these days:

Shatterpoint, the blog series I did here in July, is now published as a free ebook at Smashwords. I published it yesterday and encourage you to go pick up your free copy. If you've never registered with Smashwords, it's easy and well worth it. Plus, you can get ebooks in any and every format available on the market today. So go pick up your copy today and forget everything you know about Christians! It's available at
https://www.smashwords.com/books/view/472472

Obsidian, the sequel to Move, is temporarily shelved. I feel I've rushed this project, and I need to slow down to make it the best ebook it can be. I'm putting it on hold while I write the rough draft of Fracture, the first book in The Earthside Trilogy. At the rate that Fracture is going, I believe I'll have that rough draft done by Halloween, so I should return to Obsidian in November. I plan to self publish it, so hopefully I'll have proofreads and cover art for it and be ready to publish by late November or early December - if, as an old friend of mine says, the Lord wills and creeks don't rise. Honestly, I don't think shelving this project for now will delay the publication much more than a month or so from my original plan.

As I just mentioned, Fracture, the first book in The Earthside Trilogy, is in progress. I have a plan for the entire book and it's flowing ok - usually, I pick up around the midpoint, so this one should go pretty quick. Once I get Obsidian complete and published, I plan to take the rest of 2014 off and return to do the rough draft of Book 2 and Book 3 in this series. I decided to write the entire series at once instead of doing the books one at a time. I feel it would be better to do it all together and to focus on this project solely in 2015, at least until it's ready for submittal to the publisher. This is my biggest venture to date - it will probably be around 200,000 words total for all 3 books, so I need to buckle down and really focus on it. Plus, sci-fi is more intensive than mystery, so it takes a sharper focus and lots more research to pull it off. But it's fun. I enjoy it. I'm already enjoying Fracture, so this whole series promises to be fun.

So that's the plan. Let's hope it works out. Then again, I can adapt and adjust if I need to. That's what being a writer is all about!

That's all today. Take care and have a great week.

Bye!

Meanwhile, At The Hall of Justice

8/15/2014

Remember the Superfriends cartoons from back in the 80’s? I loved that show. Usually, the Wonder Twins and that intergalactic monkey of theirs were screwing things up back at the Hall of Justice.

Not so here, thankfully, and life has plugged on. Truth be told, a lot has been happening lately that I haven’t talked about. It was a friend on Twitter that asked if I’m writing. I know I’ve said “a lot” on social media, but haven’t elaborated on that much. Perhaps its best if I start at the beginning and work through it project by project:

Whiskey Creek Press sells to Start Publishing – I shared a news release about this a few weeks ago, and it’s official: I’m with a New York City publisher. Whiskey Creek Press, who published Splinter and Anywhere But Here, sold to Start Publishing in July. So far I’m very happy with Start Publishing. It’s funny: I started out wanting a NYC publisher, decided to go the ebook/indie route in 2010, and now here I am. Talk about taking the long road! Life is funny, I’ll say that. And you never know where your road leads.

Nonstop to Nowhere, the story for the Nightlife Young Adult Anthology, is turned in and is being formatted for ebook release in late September, and a paperback release in December. I’m glad this is progressing and am excited about this project. Look for more plugs for it through social media and this blog as we get closer to a release date!

Obsidian, the sequel to Move, is getting to a final form. I plan to send it to a proofreader and get cover art next month. If all goes well, I hope to publish it through Kindle Direct and Smashwords in October. This has turned out to be a great project, and I’m happy with how everything ends in it. Stay tuned.

Shatterpoint, the inspirational novella that I released here last month, is also in progress. I plan to self publish that and offer it as a free ebook, but there are some parts that need to be redone, given recent life events. Fortunately, it’s a short project, so I hope to have that published through Smashwords before too long. I don’t want to rush it, but at the same time, I see no reason to hold on to it either. Truth be told, I’ll probably finish it and get it posted sooner rather than later. Keep an eye here and on social media for announcements.

The Earthside Trilogy. The sci-fi trilogy has a name, and has gone from planning to progression. Yes folks, the alien invasion is coming! Book 1 is tentatively titled Fracture. Book 2 is developing, and Book 3 is currently summarized as follows: all hell breaks loose - battles, breakdowns, chaos, and resolution. That one obviously needs more development. This is a massive project, and I’m excited about it. Don’t look for huge aliens with tentacles and flippers here. My aliens will be something different. (No spoilers, but I can assure you that there will be no intergalactic monkeys in this story.)

Oh, the fun this already is! One thing I still haven’t figured out is whether to write all three books together, or take them one at a time. I’m leaning toward writing straight through all three, but we’ll see what works.

Short stories and fun stuff - through all of this, I have done a couple of short stories. It hasn’t been much and is mostly writing exercises. The big thing in this area is that I did a fun bird story over at Conure Corner titled Attack on Anipal Land. It started as a fun story I told Zack about his adventures with our Twitter friends, and Rick encouraged me to write it and post it on their blog. The story grew to 5 installments and was a hit on Twitter. People love seeing their names in print, especially on fun adventures like this one turned out to be. Plus, it was great to write and share something just for fun, without worrying about grammar, spelling, and publishing potential.

Readwave Editor - You may also recall that I accepted a post as an editor for Readwave in May. That’s grown to three themes: feminism, society, and flash fiction. I’m enjoying that too, and I think it helps me as a writer to see what other people are doing “out there” and to stay connected with other writers. The stories are short, so it’s not terribly time consuming, but it’s still good to get a peek at the writing industry from the other side of the desk, so to speak. I’m having fun with this. Plus, it inspired me to clean up my own profile on the site, and to keep plugging along and having fun with my own writing.

So whew, that’s the update on my writing! When I said I had a lot going on, I wasn’t kidding. And not even a stupid cartoon monkey dumping shape shifting buckets of water on the super-computer, either. Zack and Chloe are downright sophisticated compared to that!

So there’s you update on what’s happening in other areas of life. The muse and the laptop are working overtime, as they should be with a writer. I hope you’re enjoying life and things are going well. Take care, and have a great weekend.

Bye!

My Own Worlds

8/3/2014

I hope all of you enjoyed Shatterpoint. I like to do a blog series every now and then just to mix things up around here, and it looks like the website hits went up while that series was running. I hope you enjoyed it. I plan to spruce it up and offer it as a free ebook through Smashwords in the coming months, so keep your eyes open for that.

It's amazing where inspiration comes from. Shatterpoint was spurred by a trip to a Christian Bookstore a few weeks ago, and to tell you the truth, my muse has been quite busy every since. It seems that ideas are everywhere, and I'm finding stories all over the place. In addition to Shatterpoint, I've also started a fun project over at Conure Corner titled "Invasion on Anipal Land." It's what I call "the ultimate bird fairy tale," and it features many of our Twitter pals. So far, they're loving it. Swing by at the hyperlink if you're interested. I posted Installment 4 today, and there's one more installment due out, probably on Tuesday. I don't plan to publish that - it's just a fun project that Rick and I thought would be good for the bird blog.

I also wrote two short stories last week. One's a flash fiction piece titled 5:00 over at Readwave. The other is a short story that's still in progress called "Dedication" over at Writing.com. It was inspired by seeing the same car parked outside an abandoned building in our office complex for a week. That one is still in rough draft format and needs work, but I welcome feedback from the Writing.com community. Again, it's just a fun writing exercise for me to hone my skills.

Today, I started another round of edits on Obsidian. I figured I may as well keep going since I have the momentum up and things are flowing well. I tell you, it might seem like I'm in my own little world(s) to others, but these are the times writer's like. Writing ideas all over the place when things are relatively settled in life - what more can you ask for? It's a blessing I'm definitely grateful for.

In other news, the foot is on the slow healing process from plantar fasciia. At least it's not getting any worse, which is good, but I am trying to take care of it. I appreciate all the well wishes, too. It will heal. I actively keep that in mind, especially on occasions when it acts up. Heck, it might be the only thing on WebMD that doesn't end in death :) Rick is helping me out a lot around the house too, which no doubt is helping with the healing. He helped me clean the house and get groceries this weekend, and every day he helps me with all the other things that go into keeping a house running, in order, and relatively sane. I appreciate it so much. He's the best!

The birds are doing good. Heck, they think they're famous with this fairy tale on their blog, and they're enjoying it. We've all had a tremendous amount of fun with that one. More bird stories may be in order in the future!

So that's what's up with me. I hope you're doing well. Take care, and have a great week.

Bye!

Hurricanes and Stuff

7/3/2014

It looks like we've been spared the wrath of Hurricane Arthur in South Carolina. So far all we have in the central part of the state is a lot of clouds, some wind, and scattered rain. The biggest impact is the influx of North Carolina evacuees clogging up I-20 west. My commute home took 25 minutes in Interstate gridlock. But I guess that just goes to show how spoiled I am by working 3 miles from home. 25-30 minutes used to be my normal commute when I worked downtown. That I'm used to half that time now and find what used to be normal outrageous - yea, so what? I battled downtown traffic for 4 years of college and 12 years of working. I paid my dues. Tell me you wouldn't cut your commute in half if you had the chance.

Anyway, we were spared. I am sorry for the Outer Banks getting smacked again, and this time on a holiday weekend. What a pain in the rear. Keep those folks (residents and tourists) in your prayers. Hurricanes aren't any small matter. Rick and I both survived Hurricane Hugo in 1989. Rick got the worse of it in Summerville, but it hadn't died down that much by the time it made it to the midlands. That put a scar on the lower part of the state. Folks that were in the lowcountry for that adventure still get jittery over wind and thunder to this day. Don't ask them why, by the way. Trust me on this. It's like asking folks around here about the downtown Lexington tornado in 1994.

Isn't it amazing how the weather can impact you? We think it's small talk, but when it rages, it can really tear stuff up and reshape landscapes and lives.

Then again, if the weather is the talk of today, then that means that: 1. it's the big story now (which it is) and/or 2. not much else is going on - which is also true. That's good, through. Most of this week has been cleaning and organizing the house (as we do every now and then), and I finished reading A Dance With Dragons. A great book, and it's safe to say that the A Song of Ice and Fire series has made my list of all time favorite must read books. Now I can't wait for The Winds of Winter to come out, whenever that may be. In the meantime, I'll have to find other things to read - probably sci-fi, since I feel an urge to return to that with brainstorming my own sci-fi trilogy that I hope to start working on in 2015.

And writing, of course. If the Lord wills and creeks don't rise, I plan to do another read-through/draft of Obsidian next week. I'm also thinking about trying my hand at short stories again. I did publish an article on Readwave yesterday titled "Unicorns, Dragons, and Spies" about the Facebook experiment snafu, and I realized that I really should be contributing more short stories and articles toward my writing endeavors. Short stories aren't that intensive, and I think it would be a good idea for me to brush up on that. I used to do a lot of short stories, but that was before I got my fiction published and when I was still really active on Writing.com. I kind of got away from it with Blurry and on - the novel ideas kept coming, and I've been rolling with that pretty much since 2011. Short stories are fun and I wouldn't mind improving my skills on them again. I see more markets emerging for anthologies, and I need to sharpen my skills on writing the shorter stuff if I want to take advantage of this growing opportunity.

Well, that's all that happening my corner of the world. Rolling along and loving life. I hope you're doing well. Have a safe and happy 4th of July and a wonderful weekend.

Bye!

What's Really Up

6/19/2014

If you’ve been following me on Twitter, you know that I relapsed with my sinus infection from April. I didn’t know that was possible, but the doctor I saw told me that you really have to be diligent about taking care of yourself for up to a month after starting treatment for sinusitis to make sure you don’t relapse. I never knew that. I thought you were golden once the antibiotic was done, but that’s not the case. That would have been good to know two months ago. You learn new stuff all the time.

Writing wise, I’ve turned to promotion lately. The summer gets slow for this, but I have found a few things. I put Move on a summer sale at Smashwords through August 1. Go to https://www.smashwords.com/books/view/286425 and enter Coupon Code WW75A to get it for $1.50. I have a blog tour lined up for mid-July, and it’s also my way of thanking you for putting up with my miscellaneous ramblings while I work on the sequel to that novel. I hope to publish Obsidian by the holidays, so you can load up your phone/tablet apps or ereaders with a new offering for 2015. So get Move now, and now, and get ready for the adventure to continue in late 2014/early 2015.

The outside cat has a name! Rick and I finally found one that met all of our criteria and that we agreed on. The criteria was no Biblical names (because Rick said the girl name selection in the Bible is terrible) and nothing overused (in other words, we didn’t get 7 replies on Twitter that “I named my cat that too!”). The name we settled on is Genevieve. We’re calling her Gen. Now, her mission is to become the master of the woodland realm. In other words, stay back here near the house and out of the road, because if I have to haul her off the side of the road and bury her, I’ll be unhappy.

Before you ask, she’s not an Ollie replacement. She’s just around a lot and it made sense to have a way to identify her, and names are handy like that. She gets the supper scraps we put outside every night, and dry cat food on nights that we eat out. That’s life in the woods. Animals come, animals go, and that’s the circle of life. Rick is allergic to cats and we did encroach on their territory when we built out here, so we try to make their lives a little easier by providing some food here and there.

In other news, everything else is about the same. No news is good news, so I won’t complain. Really, there isn’t much to report since I’ve been sick this week. Oh well, a slow week never killed anyone. Nobody I know anyway.

That’s all today. Take care. Have a happy Friday tomorrow and a wonderful weekend.

Bye!

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