As always, I have several projects going on in my life. There are some things that I can’t wait to share with you, so I am going to give you a few updates on some projects. I’ll ask for a little bit of your on input on some of these. So please feel free to leave a few comments with your thoughts. I’d love the feedback.
Dissolution of Peace Second Edition
As most of you who follow me on Twitter and Facebook know, I have hired another editor to do over the manuscript of Dissolution of Peace and fix the mistakes that were missed by me despite my first editor’s best efforts. I am a difficult person to be an editor for because I simply don’t get it. There are many grammar and spelling rules that I simply don’t understand. And even when they are explained to me a thousand times, I just don’t get it. So even though my first editor was amazing, I still missed a lot of stuff.
I hired a new editor for Volition Agent, and I have since hired her to look over Dissolution of Peace again. The main reason I felt compelled to get this done right away is that I got a big explosion of reviews. And, while all the reviews seem to love the story, a lot pointed out distracting grammar mistakes. And, I listed to my readers and feel that fixing those will be a simple thing to do. My new editor Tiffany Carrera is a great match for my books. She is patient with me and my lack of knowledge, she deals with me constantly asking “how much longer”, and she has a passion for assisting writers with getting their work to be as perfect as possible. Tiffany is also a prior member of the military, which is handy since I write a lot of stories with a Military and/or Police element to them.
At last update from Tiffany, she was a little over halfway through it. My hope was to get it out by the one year anniversary of the book, but that doesn’t look likely. Maybe by my birthday in November (feel free to send gifts) I will have it out. I am going to ask Amazon to notify all of those who bought the kindle edition, so that they can download the updated version. Hopefully that won’t be a problem. But that will be up to Amazon. Of course I will update on Twitter, Facebook, and here.
The Next Novel
I am really excited about my next novel. I recently asked my social media followers to give their ideas on a few titles for the next book. I am terrible with titles and I always will be. I originally billed this as being a Post Apocalyptic/ Dystopian novel. But I think I will cross off the Dystopian part. In fact, it has more to do with rebuilding than any dystopia. There are two titles out of the list that I really like. Broken Trust and The Council’s Mistake. I am leaning more towards Broken Trust because it plays on several levels of the story and in several different story lines. Though the story is also propelled by several of the Council’s mistakes, the title doesn’t work for me is some way. I would like to know what you think of the titles, let me know.
I have also put together a blurb for the book. Tell me what you think:
Liam Fisher never wanted to be a leader. But after finding the survivors, protecting them, and founding the city-state of Lagoon Hills; the people demanded he be their leader. Instead, Liam agreed to sit on a Council with four other leaders, each of them with a specialty.
Together with Talya Brooks, the person who saved his life after the collapse, Liam runs the militia of Lagoon Hills. And though it was tough early on, the people of the city now live in relative comfort and safety.
But Liam is fighting his own personal demons: The loss of his wife and unborn son. Rachel, his long lost love has suddenly arrived in the city. And a neighboring city-state is threatening war.
The people of Lagoon Hills are counting on Liam for their safety. Can he keep himself together and be the leader everyone wants him to be? Or will the people closest to him be the greatest threat of all?
I feel like it captures a lot of the essence of this book.
So what is the next step for this book? Well I am currently about 25% of the way through the second draft. I don’t waste time of creating a second draft. I mentioned before that I don’t find much use for a “cooling off period” and so I tend to dive right in.
Once completed with the second draft I will be asking for beta readers. If you are interested please let me know. Beta readers are a very important part of the writing process. All too ofter I have trouble finding Beta readers, and even more trouble getting them to respond in a timely manner. I am hoping to have it ready for Beta reading by the middle to end of the month. All of November I will be working on NaNoWriMo, but I would like to work on Beta edits for this book in December. I hope to get it to Tiffany in January and maybe see a release by March. Maybe… Anyway, if you want to Beta Read, please let me know, just make sure a November reading works for you.
Also I am looking for cover art. Either premade or custom made. So feel free to leave your artist suggestions too.
NaNoWriMo
I am going to make a first time honest effort to do NaNoWriMo this November. I already know what I am going to write and I am already working on the plot points in my head. I will be writing the sequel to Dissolution of Peace and I am excited to get this project started. I’ve talked before about why NaNoWriMo is so tough for me. But I really want to do it this year, so here is hoping I am up for the challenge. I know I am excited about it. I may actually have a title for the sequel too. But, I am not sure what to call this series. I need to give it a series name for the sake of my own sanity. I have been tossing around ideas for some time now. If you have some ideas, please let me know. You can probably expect some other NaNo updates as November comes along.
Author Features
I’ve had a few successful author feature posts over the last two months. I am really enjoying doing these. You should sign up if you’d like me to assist you in promoting your works. I have dates in November and December open for all of the feature types. You can find out more about those by going to the Author Feature page (under contact me).
Plasma Frequency Anthology
After so much work, the Plasma Frequency Anthology has been released and is available on Amazon for your Kindle or in Paperback. The cover art is amazing and was done by Laura Givens, who has done number of art works for our magazine. Please consider checking it out. The money raised from selling the anthology goes right back to the magazine.
On the topic of the magazine, Issue 8 released earlier this month. We made some major changes to Plasma Frequency after all the knowledge I picked up at WorldCon. We revamped the website, we revamped the magazine, and we changed how we distribute the magazine. Working with Amazon and Weightless Books should prove to be a good thing for our publication.
We are also looking for good people to help us with our magazine. Namely in the marketing and social media and in the need for additional readers. If you are interested, you can find out more on our website.
WorldCon 2014
I had such a blast at WorldCon this year that I really wanted to go to London. But, the deck has been stacked against me. The final straw was when I found out that LonCon 3 will take place right at the same time by kids start school. And 2014 will be my youngest first day of school ever. Somethings are more important than conventions, and family is one of those. So I won’t be going to London, unless something changes, but it is unlikely.
I will however be going to the NaSFIC in Detroit this year. I am excited about going to this and have already upgraded to an attending membership. I’ve also already submitted my participant ideas and suggestions. The odds of me being chosen to speak on any panels is probably slim, but I wanted to try. As many of my regular blog followers know, I have no problem sharing my opinion and giving tips and tricks that I learned along the way.
I wonder what other conventions would some of you suggest I attend? I am knew the convention scene and only really know of WorldCon/NaSFIC. I don’t really know of many others. What others are great for writers like myself? What about conventions that would be good for my to attend as an Editor for a magazine? Let me know what you suggest. I think I could get used to attending a few convention a year.
Other Events
What other events can you think of? When Dissolution of Peace is ready for the second edition, I plan to contact a few local book stores for a book signing. We have a small shop in downtown here. I think there are some other small town bookstores around. I don’t know how much interest a Barnes and Noble would have in me. Any suggestions on that? What other places might be a good spot for a book signing? As I release more books, (maybe I will even have four out by the time I go to Detroit) I hope to attend more signings and events. So I would love to hear your suggestions.
Narrowing Down my Ambitions
I wrote a post a little bit ago about getting focused on what I want. And besides being so busy with all the stuff above, I have tried to limit all the other distractions. There are people in my family who don’t seem to understand that I am working to a goal and therefore may spend a lot of time in my office. And I think next week I will write a blog on the difficulties of choosing a “hobby” as a career. That should be an interesting post. See you next week.
0
views
I know I haven’t been the best about blogging regularly lately. So many new things going on and so many excuses to give you. So now, I wanted to get back into this with the regular feature I promised, but never delivered on. The I Call Bullshit series where I take things I was told starting out in writing and blow them apart. The first one was on how I was told that social media marketing was really easy. It is not. This time I am going to go over a big one.
The main difference is that Traditionally Published Authors already have that validation. They have an agent, editor, and publisher that loved their work enough to put it out on shelves and stamp it with their name. Where as the independent author, the only validation that our work gets is from the readers.