What a great group! I’m second from the right, desperately skimming my manuscript for an answer to someone’s question. Taking a brief break from Harbingers edits (I’m still working on it, promise!), I headed south to Washington, PA to meet up with a book club who chose to read Blood’s Force for the month of October. My very first book-related event! How exciting—but you bet I was nervous! Fortunately, this was a great group of ladies to cut my teeth…
A small update on Harbingers: I have the first 1/3 of feedback notes from my editor, so my last editing pass has begun in earnest! There are 30-ish chapters to review, some of which need more work than others. Sometimes it’s just a matter of fixing a comma or plugging in a better word. Other times, I gotta tear down what’s there and start over from scratch. If you’re curious about the details of my last-pass editing process, I’ve written more…
You guys! Sword and Starship Book 2: Harbingers is making progress toward being a thing you can read! :D This beautiful cover, just like the last one, was done for me by Chris Howard. Here’s the full-wrap version that will be used to make the paperback cover: And here’s the current draft of the back cover blurb, something I’ll continue to chisel at right up until publication: The Quest Continues To Stop A Killer “Curse!” Dame Jessamine is a woman…
Let’s pretend it’s not February already, you guys. Let’s pretend this is completely timely and topical. Last year, I posted a list of my goals for 2015. Let’s see how well I actually did! * The novel, duh. “The novel,” Blood’s Force, did indeed become a thing by the end of the year. Hooray!! :D It’s available in 2 formats and 4 platforms. In the process of getting it ready for prime-time, I learned a lot about my strengths and…
I’ve been kinda quiet here lately, but that’s because I’ve been blogging almost nonstop behind your backs. Don’t worry, it’s not a betrayal. It’s a blog tour! Starting next Monday and continuing for 2 weeks (minus weekends), I’ll have guests posts and interviews up at 11 different blogs to get the word out about Blood’s Force. Follow the tour every day to learn all kinds of stuff about me, ancient history, the origin of the Sword and Starship series, and…
Hey all! I wanted to talk about the important stuff on my workdesk and radar for the next few months. Without further ado … * Working on Harbingers (Sword and Starship Book 2) * Hey look, it’s my life for the foreseeable future! To make this a standalone, I’ve had to completely change the beginning, so I’ve been drafting more than editing thus far. I’m almost at the point where I get back to editing existing content. I’m hoping I…
So for those who may or may not know: this little adventure started with a manuscript I finished—after many years of hemming, hawing, temporarily quitting, doubling back, and tail-chasing—in early 2014. I hired a lovely editor and passed it her way, thinking it’d need only a few tweaks to be ready for prime-time. Wrong! I hadn’t given the story enough room to breathe. My editor suggested sweeping edits that took me a while to get through, but they were completely…
I can hardly believe it, but Blood’s Force is done! And published! :D I’ve accomplished what I set out to do when I quit my job back in 2014, and I can’t wait to keep going with more books. As the series name (Sword and Starship) implies, the novel is a genre-bender featuring knights running around from planet to planet in search of quests and adventure. The original spark of the premise came to me in 2006. I started a…
My copy of Volume 1. Kirk and Spock are there for scale. These books will last you a while. Since I’m in the business of making books, I figured you wouldn’t mind if I talked about them from time to time… Samuel Clemens (aka Mark Twain) is one of my favorite authors. I hope I don’t have to explain why. He had one stipulation regarding his official autobiography: that it not be released until 100 years after his death. That…