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Archives October 2016

Let the Marathon Begin!

friends-of-mountain-forge-cover-smFriends and fans, tomorrow begins the biggest challenge of my writing career. If you have been following my blog you’ll know that tomorrow is not only the first day of November, but also the beginning of National Novel Writing Month (NaNoWriMo). Starting tomorrow, I will be committing myself to write for approximately two hours everyday with the goal of writing nearly 1700 words every day for thirty days. While I am accustomed to writing almost daily, I’ve never actually committed to writing every day for this long a time. I am both excited at the challenge and scared at the same time which seems absurd given that I have no one except myself driving me to do this.

I have many friends that have trained and worked hard to be able to run marathons, and I cannot begin to understand the amount of commitment that it takes to do something like that on a physical level. Maybe, I will have some level of understanding on December 1st, we will see. I have no doubt that this will be one of the hardest things I have ever tried to accomplish.

I am therefore asking that any encouragement you can offer throughout the month would be welcomed and appreciated. I know I can do this and I want to do this. The only thing that stands in my way is myself.

Thank you in advance. Here’s to book four in the Silverwood Chronicles series, working title “Friends from Mountain Forge.”

Book Three, Prophet to the Outerlands, Draft is Finished!

Happy day.   I have completed the first draft of book three, officially titled, Prophet to the Outerlands.  I have already started doing the first revision which I may or may not get done before I decide just to hand it off to my army of editors.

Speaking of my army of editors, if you haven’t reached out to me yet and you’d like to help proofread/edit the manuscript, please reach out to me.  There is never enough editors on a book, in my current humble opinion.  I have a pretty tight deadline for the edits to be returned, end of November, so I may even divvy up the responsibilities so that I can get better coverage.

Also coming up is the November Holiday Fair at the Monroe County Fairgrounds on November 12th.  I will be there along with my creative consultant signing books.  This is a great opportunity to get that special reader in your family a unique gift for Christmas at an awsome price.

One last thing, next week begins NaNoWriMo which is National Novel Writing Month.  I am planning on starting book four right away.  The goal for NaNoWriMo is to write 50K words by the end of November.  This means that I could have two-thirds of book four complete by the end of November.  This also means my updates may be interrupted more than usual and shorter.   Any encouragement during this marathon is appreciated as I expect the first week to be pretty exciting and then the last three weeks to be grueling and painful.

I’m hoping to start dropping cover idea’s out as well over the next several weeks for book three.  I’m considering including chapter heading artwork in this book to dress things up a bit, but I don’t know if I have enough to make it work.  We will just have to wait and see.

Thanks again. Blessings to you and happy reading.

Three Days to Go!

This will most likely be my last update before the big event at the Greenwood Public Library, this Saturday, October 15th at 1pm.  I really hope you can come by and see how book three is coming along.  I’ll have a draft copy of the manuscript and a couple of the prototype covers that I and my creative consultant are working on for it.  There will also be a little challenge for those of you who like to consider yourself an editor.

Chapter thirteen is complete and fourteen is over halfway there.  I can not tell you how excited I am with the way the last half of this book has progressed.  Thirteen and Fourteen are shaping up to be, in my honest assessment, some of the funnest and most exciting storytelling I’ve ever done.  I just pray I can keep the pace up and have fifteen end on as high a note.  Tonight’s goal is to finish fourteen and hopefully start on fifteen.

By and large, I should be done with the manuscript in the next week or so, but ending it by Saturday will probably not happen.  My normal weekly writing schedule has been interrupted during the day as I try to encourage some new team members at work during my lunch breaks.  I feel this important as things have been rocky over the last several months in our organization and with new people coming on board, I feel like it is important that they not only feel welcome and excited to be here, but comfortable with the people they work with.

So far, I’ve lined up a couple of proof readers for book three.  If you are interested in being one of my army of proof readers, please let me know.  In the past I’ve been fairly slack on when I get the manuscript back, but I’m really pushing to get the book into production before the end of the year, so as quick as you can turn it around it would be greatly appreciated.  Again, the first completed draft should be available in the next week to ten days.

Until next time.  Blessings to you and happy reading!