Browsed by
Category: Sword and Starship

Sword and Starship Book 2: Rewrites Begin This Week

Sword and Starship Book 2: Rewrites Begin This Week

Comments 0 Comment

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…

Read More Read More

Blood’s Force Is Here!

Blood’s Force Is Here!

Comments 9 comments

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…

Read More Read More

Blood’s Force Update: 1 Manuscript, 2 Books

Blood’s Force Update: 1 Manuscript, 2 Books

Comments 0 Comment

Happy Middle-of-Summer! I thought I’d sneak in another book update! After the first major editing pass, the manuscript went from 85K to 185K, which is really more like two novels. My editor and I have agreed on a good point to create a split. So, to my pleasant surprise, there really will be two books on the near horizon, plus whatever I write later to complete the series! Book 1 will still be called Blood’s Force. I’m still deciding on…

Read More Read More

Blood’s Force Update

Blood’s Force Update

Comments 0 Comment

Since October, I’ve had my head buried in the manuscript and my editor’s recommendations, which mostly involved expanding the story. After much rewriting and reediting, I’ve passed my manuscript back to my editor for her final review. The original manuscript weighed in at 88,000 words. This one’s nearly 180,000! If you’re wondering, that’s big for a novel. “Novel-length” typically starts around 80K words. So, doing the math… there’s a possibility that I really have two books on my hands, not…

Read More Read More

2014 Year-End Summary, 2015 Goals

2014 Year-End Summary, 2015 Goals

Comments 0 Comment

Before closing out another year, it’s good to take stock of what got done, and what the year ahead will look like. Then next year, we can giggle at how off-base all my hopes and predictions were :) The biggest accomplishment this year was saying so-long to my full-time job, and taking up writing as my new full-time (and then some) pursuit. I mostly already talked about stuff I did in 2014 here, at the six-month anniversary of said leap….

Read More Read More

The Grand Experiment: 6 Months Since The Big Leap

The Grand Experiment: 6 Months Since The Big Leap

Comments 0 Comment

(Image credit: imagebase.net) November 2014 is a big month for me. My spouse and I have been together for 10 years- and it’s now 6 months since I jumped ship to write full time! I can’t believe how fast it’s gone. Am I glad I did it? 100%! Do I feel any yearn to go back to my old full-time schedule? Not at the moment. Though I do miss certain coworkers of mine, I’ve enjoyed a lot less anxiety since…

Read More Read More

Blood’s Force: The Quest On The Horizon

Blood’s Force: The Quest On The Horizon

Comments 6 comments

(Cover art by Chris Howard) I can hardly believe it! I’ve balled up the manuscript for Blood’s Force, the first of the Sword and Starship books, to hand to my editor, RJ Blain. I’ve been performing my own editing and rewriting pass, with significant feedback from my spouse, since February. In that time, Dame Jessamine’s quest has undergone drastic improvement. The manuscript lost a few thousand words, gained them back, and lost them again: 88,000 words across 22 chapters at…

Read More Read More

The Manuscript That Didn’t Kill Me

The Manuscript That Didn’t Kill Me

Comments 0 Comment

(Artwork by über-talented Chris Howard) …but it was a near thing! I’ve been talking nebulously about this novel I’ve been working on for years, but guess what?  I finally have a completed first draft.  It’s a thing!  You can read it straight through (sort of)!  It’s really rough in some places, but won’t be for long! Time to introduce it to the world.  The book is called Blood’s Force, and will be the first of a series of books I’m…

Read More Read More