new novel – Flores Factor

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.

Last week I wrote a rather depressing blog post about the ups and down (mostly the downs) of being an independent author. It was nasty, dark, and true. But is also awoke something in me. Something that I hadn’t really had in a long time.

The writing muse.

Muses are funny is the way they come and go. They also have a weird way of being awoken at the most interesting of times. But this little muse snuck right in and wacked me over the head with a frying pan. I’m not sure why a writing muse has a frying pan, but it worked at getting my attention.

My writing days started way back. But the real passionate writing that I enjoyed started in 2003. I was finding myself stressed out beyond belief. And escaping to the world I had created, the world that Dissolution of Peace is set in, relaxed me. It relaxed me to a point that I could sleep well and face the next day ready for those challenges. I’d put down 2,000 to 4,000 words a day and I loved doing it. And when I did it, I had a small hope that someone else would read it and find themselves escaping into my world to relax. But that was never the point, the point was a lot simpler.

I wrote for me.

There was that damn frying pan to the back the head again. That was what the muse had came to lecture me about. I wrote to relax, and now here I was stressing about how to get more book sales. I’m stressing about the very thing I used to do for fun. And if I was no longer doing it for fun, what’s the point?

Every story teller just wants to be heard (or read in this case). And I still very much want readers to escape into my worlds and relax. But I have always written for me first. And fortunately this muse, and the frying pan, reminded me of that.

So I started a new novel project the next day. I’m sorry to say that it isn’t the next book in the Dissolution of Peace series. Though I think that will be my first ever NaNoWriMo project. I digress.

This new project has spoken to me for a while and it touches very deep on some of my own life trials and tribulations. And, it has had me writing 2,000 or more words a day. Yesterday alone I put down over 6,000 words. And you know what, it feels good to be writing to relax again. It feels good to be telling a story that makes me happy, and it feels great to get back on the horse. If I keep my focus on what I love, my books will eventually sell themselves. And, eventually readers will find relaxation in the pages of my worlds.

The best part is, I feel better. I feel like I can take on the world with my keyboard and computer. And the muse has finally put the frying pan away.

And with my new positive outlook, something did come my way. Samantha LaFantasie, another author is going to do an Author interview with me in October. And she got me thinking. Why can’t I post things on my blog to help out other authors? So I will. Starting in August. I will be posting some things for other authors. If you want to join in, you can contact me here. Just fill out the form and we will be in touch.

Here is what I am thinking:

1st Friday of every month: Author Interview

2nd Friday of every month: Guest Post

3rd Friday of every month: Book Review/Feature

4th Friday of every month: Author Spotlight (Brief Bio, List of Titles and upcoming releases)

This is free. I won’t charge anyone for doing this, I just want to help promote others because that is what we should be doing. So Please sign up to participate. I’ll do my best to accommodate everyone. It will likely have to be on a first come, first serve basis. But we will see how it all goes. So head on over and contact me. Won’t cost you anything. It just might be what gets you back on your own horse.

Tag Archives

Project Announcements