I really need to remember to do these posts! It's not for a lack of having something to say, I just forget to do them. That, and when you're writing time starts at 5:30am, there aren't a lot of people on to share with.
Book is going well, I'm down to the last 1/4 or so to write, then it'll be editing time. Poseidon is next in line to get taken down by the UHD and things are starting to change ever so slightly for M and his crew. I've had a pretty clear idea of where I wanted this series to go and possibly end, but now I know how I want to go about it. Nothing terribly new in the writing style department. Same segmentation of of ideas via seperate chapters as the last couple books, same multi-perspective battles. However, this book is heavily written from M's point of view, so be ready for that.
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I didn't realize it had been so long since I did an update on here. My apologies. I normally try to do one a week, but being married with children has its many hurdles. Moving on...
I'm technically halfway through this book and past first major battle of the war. If you're an avid reader you know what I'm talking about, if not then you need to catch up! At the moment I'm trying to set the stage for the next book, which will cover The Purge, mentioned in books 1 and 2. No, no, not the dumb movie The Purge. Something wildly different and way better. So far, this book has been mostly action and should stay that way to the end. Given that this is the beginning of a war that's the whole series has been building up to, there's not much need to work additional plot in, other than to foreshadow what's to come. Sorry it's been so long since I did one of these, or even a blog post. I've been fighting off bronchitis for the past couple weeks and trying to finish up some other side projects (writing, or otherwise). So far, I'm really digging this book. I'm getting to the half-way point and it's been 90% action. After all, there's a war going, of course there's a lot of action! There's a good, thick, lining of mythology weaved into the story as well. If you have the inclination, look up Hathor from ancient Egyptian mythology and that'll give you an idea of what I'm talking about. Don't worry, it's not a spoiler.
The writing the past few days has slowed down a bit because I'm at a point where I'm giving myself breathing room for future books past this story arch. It's not so much that I'm having a hard time with it, as much as it is that I'm trying to get, what will be, the backstory the way I want it. If you haven't noticed by now, these books get a little complicated at times. Working it out ahead of time is how I keep it comprehendable. For example, the whole time-travel/many worlds theory I'm working with in this series took me several months to not only work out all the kinks, but to get it down to something that I could explain in a few sentences. No one wants a thesis in the middle of a fantasy book. Keep it quick, clean and entertaining. Remember the days when you would finish off a box of cereal and find a prize at the bottom, or if you were lucky it was sitting on the top? Remember how much trouble you'd get in to for dumping all the cereal out b/c you wanted it bad enough? Remember when there was sh*t to read on the box, or even little games to play?
I think this needs to come back. Now, I don't mean for children, since it's still on their boxes, I mean for adults. If I could do it, I would make every box of "adult" cereal like the kid's cereal. I want mazes on my box and random facts about...whatever. I want to find a hidden treasure in my box of cereal. It doesn't have to be a cheap toy, I understand not everyone is going to jump for joy at finding a top to spin on their desk at work. Still, I want something to brighten up my morning. It's little things like this that I think would make the world a happier place. I also think a lot could be done with this idea to improve life in various ways. For example, October is National Dental Hygiene month (had to google it), for the month of October all boxes of "adult" cereal have little containers of floss in them. It seems silly, I'm sure, but if that gets even 1 person to floss regularly, then I don't seem the harm in it. How about a folded up crossword, or word search? Maybe a how-to oragami swan? There are a million things they could put in there that would make my cubical hell slightly better, even for a day. I personally go through a box of cereal every 3-4 days. So two toys a week, just for me sounds pretty badass. I can't remember if I mentioned this, but a week or so ago I added all my books to Kindle Unlimited. If you aren't familiar with Unlimited: for $9.99 a month, you can essentially rent books from Amazon's site via pc, table, phone, etc. It's basically the same idea as a library/Netflix, but it is something to consider if you are a fast reader. Personally, if I had the time to read like I did when I was single I would be all over this service. I would read a book a day or every other day. Let's just say it was a tad expensive.
Currently, Unlimited is (heh) limited to the USA. According to Amazon's site they plan to push it internationally, but I think they are using us as the testing grounds. In any case, they are on amazon and if you have Unlimited, please check the series. Here's a link to make it easier. After an extremely bumpy week, I was able to get through all the editoral changes and send it back to my editor. Still no word on the cover and as that has been the sole reason this wasn't published 7-8 months ago, I'm more than a little frustrated. Not to say it's the current artist's fault, but the whole situation makes me wish I could draw. I hate relying on others for this very reason. The editor, on the other hand, is very prompt and open with her schedule. If she has space for it on such and such a date, then she does and she will begin work that day. It's nice to be partnered up with at least one professional.
At the moment I'm working on a side project that is so short that I need to just get it over with and get it out there. I suspect I'm about halfway done with it and if I get it together and do so without distraction, I might push out the first draft today. Yesterday was not the greatest day ever. I decided to pay off my car. After an hour of dealing with their automated phone service, I finally got through to a human being who easy to deal with and happy to take my money. The problem: there was a pretty good chance that my card had a charge limit lower than the total of the car. No biggie, I've had to work in the world of collections for the past 8 year years, this is nothing new. All I should have to do is call the bank, explain the situation and they will increase my limit for the day. After all, this charge restriction is to keep people from robbing me blind, right? Apparently not.
I talk to some representative from my bank from the 800 number I found for my LOCAL bank online. Whatever. I tell him the situation: I just made a huge payment towards my car note and I have about $400 left to go, I just need them to increase the limit for the day so I can pay it off. First, this guy asks me if I can tell him the last transaction I made, which I just did had he been listening. So I told him again, with the same amount of specific detail that only the person who owns the account and made the payment could (I was reading it directly from the online statement). If he really wanted to verify that I wasn't trying to rob myself, he could have easily checked my previous transactions and took note of the 2 years of car payments I already made. He didn't. Instead, he puts me on hold for 10 minutes. I'm instructed that for every other transaction I will need to call in and get permission to make said payment. Yes, thats right. In order to use MY money, I have to ask my bank permission to access it. On top of that, they seem to be stopping ALL transactions to my account. This morning my Netflix subscription required me to put in my credit card info because my bank is blocking that transaction as well. Strangely, the groceries I bought last night went through, but the payment to fiver.com did not. This is probably due to some payments being ran like a same-as-cash charge, instead of just a debit card charge...don't ask, it makes no sense. Here's my thing and what I feel needs to change. I understand this restriction on my account is put there to protect my assets...assumably. When I call, give them all my credentials AND state the last transactions on my account, then that restriction better be lifted. Banks hold our money for the sake of keeping it safe. It's insured against theft and we receive a minuscule percentage for letting the bank hold on to it. In exchange the bank gets to invest it and make a vault of wealth off of our hard earned money. As such, a bank always has more money than any of us do. So there is zero reason I should have to ask permission to spend my own fraking money! I am not a child and I'm not asking mommy for money to buy candy. I pay my bills, I rarely ever dip in to my savings to cover something and I sure as hell don't need permission to spend my own damn money. It's like I'm being penalized for paying off my car. I'm curious if rich people have to do this with their banks as well. If I had millions and decided to buy a $250,000 car, would the bank block all my transactions for the day until I call and ask for permission? Somehow I doubt it. I've had the editor's first run through back in my (digital) hands for a couple days now and have been sifting through it. So far, so good. She made me realize something that I had forgotten to mention to her and to probably everyone outside the voices in my head.
For those of you unaware, America is one of a few countries NOT using the metric system. To me this is a pretty stupid move. The scientific community here, as well as the hospitals are on metric, but for the most part we are using US Standard (feet/inches). What I had planned on doing with the main series was slowly converting over to metric as time passes within the series. The Five Man Midget Death Squad book is written about 200 years into the future, where I suspect the entire world will be far more unified in, among other things, measurement. A last thought, and one I know I've stressed a couple times in the past, is the layout of this book. It's written 200 years in the future. Written as a brief historical piece on the Tungri Clan, a dwarven city-nation who currently lives in the Scottish mountains somewhere. 1/2 of the book is about how they ended up in Scotland and the events that shaped their lives and the other 1/2 is about the Death Squad, a five dwarf team who ended up shaping the entire world. It is tied into the main CoM series, but much like Hitori it is a standalone book. No background information required. I am a people watcher. Not a stalker, not a creeper, merely someone who observes others around me as I do whatever it is I happen to be doing. I have a bachelors in psychology (classes centered mostly in perception and cognition) with an emphasis in sociology and philosophy. So, let's just say people and their social doings are an active interest for me. For the past year or so I've taken a particular interest in how people handle themselves in restaurants. It wasn't intentional at first, but something continues to catch my attention that I feel is a bit of a problem.
Something I've noticed is the lack of social interaction, at least with those in the physical area. Teenagers rarely speak to anyone in the local vicinity, too attached to their phones and tablets to be bothered with talking. On a rare occasion the teenager might share a silly picture or video with someone at the table, but the bulk of the meal is spent in silence. This isn't as prevalent in adults, but I can see an increase in it, albeit much slower. Here's what I would do: If I owned a restaurant, I'd enact a no phones policy. If you get a phone call, answer it, if you need to make a call, make the call. Want to take a picture of your food, or jot down a reminder for something later, go for it. However, you have a five minute time limit. After that, you better start talking to the people around you. If you're eating alone, do what you want. I'd rather you sit on facebook than talk to yourself. The people you are sitting with are family, friends, REAL people. Those 500 facebook friends you've got on your list: take a good, long look at that list and count how many of them you actually hang out with. Chances are you spend zero time with them in the real world. I also don't count people from the past who somehow lurked into the present. If you live in Colorado and they live in Florida, what you ate for dinner hardly matters to them. It's about as useful as a tampon commercial to a guy. So in short, put the phones down people, talk to the people who are actually PART of your real lives and not the ones lofting about in cyberspace. You can bs with your cyberfriends when you get home and go back to ignoring your family in front of the television. <3 For the past several days I've been debating if I should jump ship on Smashwords, and by connection Itunes, kobo, sony, etc, and drop all my books into Kindle Unlimited. If you don't know what that is, Kindle Unlimited is a rental service of sorts for ebooks. $9.99 a month gets you access to every ebook that opts into the program - think of it as Netflix or Hulu for books. I THINK there is a cap on how many books per month you can get, but I honestly am not sure.
As 99% of my overall sales comes directly from amazon, I haven't exactly benefited from having it elsewhere. However, if I do move them to Kindle Unlimited, then I have to give Amazon exclusive rights to the books - 90 days at a time. As the people reading this are mostly readers of the series (or at least avid book readers), I am asking your opinion. What ebook app do you use? Would you try out Kindle Unlimited, as a reader? |
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