Sons of the Starfarers – Page 16 – One Thousand And One Parsecs

What I’ve been up to lately (besides short stories)

It’s been a while since I did an update post, so I figure I should do one of those to let you guys know what projects I’m working on. There are quite a few of them, and I’m happy to say that the writing is going quite well! If I don’t post on this blog very much, it’s probably because I’m busy writing.

Anyhow, here’s what I’m working on (and what you can expect to see in the coming months):

Sons of the Starfarers
Book II: Comrades in Hope

This is the project that’s been taking most of my attention. What started out as a novella has grown and morphed into a short novel–I expect it will top out at just under 40k words. I’m just past the 2/3rds mark now, where it’s still a slog but I can just about see the end. I was hoping to finish it this week, but now it looks like I’ll be pushing it back into April.

That’s okay, though, because my second big project is:

Sons of the Starfarers
Book III: Strangers in Flight

I’ve been itching to start this one for a while, and last night I finally opened up and started it. In the first book, Brothers in Exile, the two starfaring brothers Aaron and Isaac find a beautiful girl covered in henna tattoos and frozen in a cryotank on a derelict space station. In this, the third book, the girl finally wakes up and we get to see things from her point of view.

With the way I’m writing Sons of the Starfarers, it’s going to be structured in a series of three book arcs. Since I want to release the books in each arc fairly close to each other, I don’t want to publish Brothers in Exile until Comrades in Hope and Strangers in Flight are both complete. So even if I end up taking a break from Comrades in Hope for a little while, if I’m working on Strangers in Flight, it’s not putting things off since I’d have to write that one first anyway.

I am really, really excited about these books, and when you read them, I think you will be to. I’m trying to think of ways that I can share them, since it’s hard to talk about something if it’s not actually out there for you to read. Maybe if I posted a series of short excerpts from the first book, no longer than 400-500 words each? I generally skip over blog posts where authors sample their own books, but maybe if they were shorter excerpts, that wouldn’t be as much of a problem. What do you guys think?

So that’s what I’m working on writing-wise. Here’s what I’m working on publishing-wise.

New Star Wanderers covers (and print editions)

So the cover designer I’ve been working with for Star Wanderers told me this week that he’s overextended himself by taking on more work than he can handle and that unfortunately he has to drop some clients. That’s unfortunate but understandable–we all have limitations, and things come up in life that we can’t always plan for. We’ve parted amicably, and he’s promised to get me the files I need to pick up on the cover work where he left off.

I’m really anxious to get the new covers done, though, and would like to find a good cover designer as soon as I can. If you guys have any recommendations, please let me know. Ideally, I’d like to find someone who I could work with long-term, since there definitely won’t be a shortage of work anytime soon!

Because of this, though, I’ll probably keep the original space art covers for the POD books at least for the foreseeable future. The omnibus editions will feature the new art, though, and I’ve just bartered with a friend of mine to do the typesetting for those. I’m not sure when they’ll be out, but it will probably be sometime in the late spring / early summer.

As for the print edition of Star Wanderers: Deliverance (Part VIII), that should be out approximately whenever I get around to it, which would be sooner except that I’m so busy writing Sons of the Starfarers. I’m not sure how many of you are waiting on that one–the print versions for the individual novellas have been selling better than I’d expected, though still at a trickle, so that’s not quite at the top of my priorities right now.

Blogging A to Z Book

Last year, I did the Blogging from A to Z challenge and had a lot of fun with it! The topic I blogged on was science fiction, with a new post each day in April starting with “A is for …” “B is for …” etc. Well, I’d like to do that again this year, but first I’d like to put together last year’s posts into an ebook. It shouldn’t take too long–probably no more than a week at the longest–so I’ll probably take care of that next week or so.

For this year’s challenge, I’m going to blog about publishing. I already have the first few posts planned out: “A is for Amazon,” “B is for Big 6 (now 5),” “C is for Contracts,” etc. These posts aren’t meant to be advice, more just sharing my perspective and experience, since hey I’ve been indie published for 3+ years now, which might as well be 3+ decades what with the way the industry is changing. So even though there’s a lot I’m still learning, I do have a few things to share.

That’s just about it. Better grab some lunch now and head out to write. See you!

SW: TALES OF THE FAR OUTWORLDS is now out!

Well, it’s been a few days since I uploaded Star Wanderers: Tales of the Far Outworlds (Omnibus V-VIII) to the various retail sites, and I’m happy to report that it’s up on just about all of them! You can now purchase it for $3.99 on Amazon, Barnes & Noble, Smashwords, and Kobo. In just a week or two, it should be up on iTunes as well.

This omnibus edition gathers Parts V through VIII all under one cover, with an author’s note that I’ll post here as well. So if you’ve bought or downloaded the individual parts already, there isn’t much of a point to pick up this one unless the omnibus keeps your library uncluttered. But if you have already read them, I would appreciate any honest reviews.

If you’re on Goodreads and want to add the book to your library, you can do so here. I need to get better about posting my reviews and to-read list to Goodreads, because it also helps to boost visibility. I’ve noticed my overall Goodreads author rating creeping slowly up, so apparently more and more of you are enjoying the Star Wanderers books. Thanks!

This omnibus ties up the main series, but I’m thinking very seriously about bringing the characters back for a full-length novel. It’s still in the pre-writing stages, of course, but I’d probably set it 15-20 years after the events of Tales of the Outworlds and bring back all the major characters, as well as their children. I even have a titled planned for it: Children of the Starry Sea.

This is actually a project I’ve had on my mind for a while–I first blogged about it here–but I’m thinking a lot more seriously about it, and will probably bump it up on my writing to-do list. It would certainly be fun to bring all the old characters back for another adventure. And I have the beginnings of a plot, too. I can’t say much about it, but it would probably revolve around Salazar, the exiled pirates, and a couple of things from Sons of the Starfarers.

So yeah, even though Tales of the Far Outworlds represents a closing point for now, it probably won’t be the end of the whole series. But I have no idea when anything else will come out, or even if Children of the Starry Sea will be the next book. I could quite possibly write a couple more novellas.

tl;dr, I have no idea what I’m going to write until I actually write it, but there’s probably going to be a full-length novel after this one. So keep an eye out, either here or through my email newsletter. I’ll be sure to keep you posted!

LTUE 2014

Without a doubt, my favorite sci-fi convention / writing conference / symposium is LTUE. I say this every year, but this year’s symposium was one of the best! Orson Scott Card and Brandon Sanderson were both there, along with a whole bunch of other authors and artists, local and otherwise. It drew a huge crowd, too–around 1,800 people over the course of the weekend–but there was plenty of space at the Provo Marriott, so it never felt too crowded.

If anything, I think that LTUE has gotten better since leaving BYU. There’s much more openness, much less administrative or bureaucratic restriction. Fans can dress up in cosplay and that’s okay, panels can discuss pop culture topics without having to pretend to have academic value, non-LDS panelists are free to share their perspectives without feeling like the religious censors are breathing down their backs, and we have a whole hotel hotel to ourselves, as opposed to a corner of the student center.

At the same time, all of the stuff that makes LTUE great is still there, and there in abundance. Since the vast majority of attendees are LDS, the panels all revolve around the LDS perspective and experience. In his main address, Orson Scott Card talked about how his experiences growing up in the church influenced the writing of Ender’s Game and his views on leadership. At the banquet, Brandon Sanderson referenced Orson F. Whitney’s famous Home Literature speech in discussing Mormons’ place in the current science fiction & fantasy field.

In other words, all the good stuff was still there this year, plus a liberal helping of cosplay and facial hair. And who can say no to that?

In any case, I had a blast. I was on five panels this year, and they were tons of fun. In particular, the Writing Romance panel was really great. Since I’m not familiar with romance as a genre, I was a bit worried that I’d be out of my league. But the discussion was all about how to put romance in your sci-fi, and I know a lot about that. At one point, I argued that men have just as much of a hunger for romance as women. That surprised some of the female panelists, but I definitely believe that that’s true. We got into a lengthy and interesting discussion out in the hallway, which is how the best panels seem to go.

One major shift I’ve noticed from previous years is that self-publishers and self-publishing has all but lost its stigma, with people talking openly about the benefits of that career path. In fact, it was a major undercurrent throughout the entire symposium. In the green room, we got into some really intense discussions about the AE report, which came out just days before the symposium began. It seemed that I was constantly hearing or overhearing people talk about whether and how to self-publish, and on several panels people were openly advising to skip traditional publishing altogether.

Three years ago, people would have treated me like I had leprosy if I openly admitted I was self-published. Now, everyone seems to be embracing it. It’s so awesome that we’re past the stigma, because it means that we can all be open and supportive of each other and focus on the important things, like writing the best possible stories and connecting with our readers.

By far, the best event I attended was John Brown’s presentation on Clear and Vivid Writing. HOLY CRAP GUYS. That presentation completely blew my mind. The powerpoint is up on John Brown’s blog, so you can grab it and see for yourself. All I can say is that the man is a writing genius. The presentation completely changed the way I think about my own writing, and will definitely influence what I write from here on out.

Another great event was Sandra Tayler’s presentation on how to build a fan community around your stuff. She talked about the difference between a following and a community (basically, a community is a following where the fans talk to each other), how to cultivate a safe and inviting place for your fans, and what to expect from when you first start out to when the community starts to get rather large. I still feel as if my writing career is just getting started, but her advice will no doubt be very useful in the coming years.

The What Makes a Hero panel was really great. Peter Orullian, Larry Correia, and Lisa Mangum were all on it, so the discussion was energetic and full of awesome, juicy stuff. The big takeaway I got from that one was that as long as the reader doesn’t throw the book across the room in disgust, you can always bring back a fallen character and redeem them. There is nothing so beyond the pale that makes it impossible for a character to step up and become the hero once again. It takes skill to pull it off, of course, but it can be done–and that is one of the most awesome things about what it means to be a hero.

There was a bunch of other stuff that I took away from LTUE this year, but those are the major things. By the end of it, I just wanted to sit down and write! The climactic final battle for my current WIP, Sons of the Starfarers: Comrades in Hope came to me in all its awesomeness as I attended the various panels, and holy crap am I so excited to get to that part! It’s going to be amazing, and the cliffhanger ending is going to make you scream so horribly, but that’s okay because the next book will pick up right where the previous one left off, then take things in an even more awesome direction.

In any case, that was LTUE this year. SO MUCH FUN. If every convention can be like this one, holy crap, sign me up for them all!

Teaser for SONS OF THE STARFARERS: BROTHERS IN EXILE

Hey guys–some news about Sons of the Starfarers, my next big series. While I’m working on Book II: Comrades in Hope, I’m also getting Book I: Brothers in Exile ready for publication. If all goes well, I’ll be publishing it in May, with books 2 and 3 coming shortly thereafter.

Today, I put together a teaser / book description. Here it is:

TO WAKE A FROZEN GIRL FROM THE ICE, TWO BROTHERS MUST UNITE TO FACE AN EMPIRE.

Deep in the Far Outworlds, a derelict space station holds the bones of a long-dead people—and a beautiful young woman locked in cryofreeze. When the star-wandering brothers Isaac and Aaron find the sleeping girl, they soon realize that they are her only hope for rescue. If they don’t take her, then slavers certainly will.

With no way to revive her, they set a course for the New Pleiades in the hopes that someone in the star cluster can help. But a storm is brewing over that region of space. After a series of brutal civil wars, the Gaian Empire has turned its sights outward. A frontier war is on the verge of breaking out, and the brothers are about to be caught in the middle of it.

They both harbor a secret, though. Somewhere else in the Outworlds is another derelict station—one that they used to call home. That secret will either bind them together or draw them apart in

SONS OF THE STARFARERS BOOK I: BROTHERS IN EXILE.

What do you guys think? I’m not so sure about the opening hook–that’s probably going to get tweaked. What about the rest of it?

In other news, LTUE is in two days. I am excited! I’ll be on five panels this year: Being a Foreign Speaker, Planet Building, Writing Romance, Epublishing Short Stories, and Starting the Next Project. If you’re going, be sure to drop in on one of my panels or catch me out on the main floor. I’ll be there all day Thursday, Friday, and Saturday (and maybe in the evening for some filk as well)!

That’s all for now. Take care, and I hope to see you at LTUE!

Juggling projects (and trying not to drop them all)

Many, I wish I could write faster. I probably can, but there are times when writing is an uphill slog, and you can’t put your foot on the accelerator too hard or your tires will spin out.

Right now, I’m about halfway through Star Wolf (formerly HEART OF THE NEBULA), and I’m in the part of the manuscript that needs the most work. I’ll probably be throwing out 60%-70% of what’s in there now and rewriting it from scratch, at least until the last five chapters. That’s not the hard part, though–the hard part is untangling the storylines that need to be kept from the storylines that need to be thrown out. I’ve already outlined the basic structure, but for the next couple of chapters, I’ve decided to abandon my revision notes. Now, everything is murky.

So that’s what I’ve been up to in the last few days. Star Wolf is a novel in the Gaia Nova series, and will probably end up around 120,000 words or so. That’s around the same length as Bringing Stella Home, or perhaps a bit longer. Definitely a change of pace from the novellas I’ve written in the last couple of years. As much of a slog as it is now, though, it’s got a lot of good stuff in it. Action, adventure, political intrigue, hard moral choices–not to mention space battles, generation ships, and cryonics gone horribly right.

But really, I want to get this one finished so that I can work on Sons of the Starfarers Book II: Comrades in Hope. I’m so excited about this one, I’m thinking about putting Star Wolf on hold for a few weeks so that I can just write it. Of course, a few weeks will probably turn into one or two months, and by the time it’s finished I’ll want to move immediately on to book 3.

Which actually might not be a bad thing, since I want to launch Sons of the Starfarers as soon as I can. It seems like you guys have really enjoyed Star Wanderers, so I think that you’re going to enjoy Sons of the Starfarers even more. I’m already getting the feedback from my first readers for Book I: Brothers in Exile, and while there are a few minor fixes to make, the story itself seems pretty solid. And the places I want to go with this series … man, it’s going to be awesome.

Just to give you a taste, here’s an excerpt from the first chapter of Brothers in Exile. Isaac and Aaron have just arrived at a derelict station on the fringes of settled space, light-years away from the nearest human being.

“So this is Alnilam station,” he mused as he peered out the forward window. The station’s hull was a dark gray, the beacons at the ends of the antennae a deep flashing red. Though it shone a little as it reflected the stars, their light was too dim to give anything more than the basic shape of the structure. On the inside of the wheels where the windows should have been, there was a blackness as dark as the night on the planet below.

“I’m picking up something,” said Aaron.

“Is it a transmission?”

“No, it’s something else. Radiation signatures, concentrated mostly at the hub.”

Isaac’s heart fell. “That would be one of the station reactors, probably leaking fuel or coolant internally.” Proof that no one’s alive in there after all.

“Well, it can’t be that big, since the wheel engines are obviously still working. And I’m only picking up radiation immediately around the reactors, so it’s not like it’s leaked down to the rim. If anyone’s still alive—”

“They can’t be. If they were, they would have fixed the leak.”

Aaron bristled. “How do you know that? For all we know, the engineers are gone and none of the survivors knows what to do about it.”

“If there are any survivors, why haven’t they hailed us?”

“How should I know? All I know is that it’s possible. You can’t refute that.”

I guess I can’t, Isaac thought. Instead of admitting that, though, he kept silent, peering at the ghostly derelict as if lost in thought.

“We should dock and go in there,” said Aaron. “Peek inside, take a look around. Even if there aren’t any survivors, maybe we can at least find out what happened to them.”

“Are you crazy?” said Isaac, his heart beating a little faster at his brother’s suggestion. “We have no idea what’s in there. For all we know, the place is infested with some sort of disease.”

“So we go in EVA suits and take a quick sterilizing spacewalk before coming back. No big deal.”

“It’s still a dumb idea. We’re not going.”

Aaron scowled and rolled his eyes. “So what, you just want to turn around and leave? Abandon this place without finding out what happened?”

“That’s right. We know that the station is dead, and that’s enough.”

“But we don’t know that,” said Aaron, raising both of his hands. “We don’t know hardly anything. All we know is that no one has answered our transmissions and there’s a small reactor leak at the hub, but everything else looks fine.”

It does not look fine, Isaac thought to himself. His palms felt clammy, and he was already beginning to regret his decision to come to this system at all.

“Listen,” Aaron continued, “even if there aren’t any survivors, maybe we can find some fuel and supplies to make this trip worthwhile. It’s more than a parsec to the nearest settlement, and even if we go straight there we’ve already burned through so much that we’ll have to sell half our cargo hold just to resupply.”

That much was true. Even with the credit they’d built up around this sector, they’d be dangerously low on fuel if they turned around now. The Medea was a small ship, and it could take them almost a year to make up their expenses if they cut their losses now. Still, the thought of setting foot on that derelict made Isaac’s skin crawl.

“It isn’t safe,” he muttered. “Whatever happened here, we shouldn’t get involved.”

“But we are involved,” said Aaron. “We’re involved just by being here. And since we’re already involved anyway, we might as well find out what happened to these people so that we can get their story out. They deserve that much.”

That’s right, Isaac thought. They certainly do.

“Okay, I’ll bring us up to one of the rimside docking nodes so we can go in. But I want you to stick with me, Aaron—understand? No running off—we do this together.”

“Yeah, yeah. Together. Got it.”

I hope you do, Isaac thought as he stared out the forward window at the derelict station. Down below in the planet’s atmosphere, lightning flashed silently, illuminating the tempest for a single instant before the lifeless world returned to darkness.

Oh man … so much awesome stuff to write! When the first three books are written, I’ll publish the first one, and publish the other two soon thereafter. I don’t want there to be a long gap between releases. But between book 3 and book 4, there will probably be a bit more time, since I intend to organize this series in groups of threes.

That’s just about it. Tomorrow, I’ll probably spend most of the day working on short stories, since there’s a story idea that’s screaming at me to be written. With short stories, you’ve got to move fast, because they will get away from you if you don’t write them immediately. But if I get a chance I’m probably going to start Comrades in Hope, because that’s the one I really want to be writing.

So many projects to juggle … I just hope I don’t drop them all!

Lindsey Stirling, Nichieri, Susan Boyle, and thoughts on discoverability and greatness

I saw a couple of things on Youtube that made me think recently about the importance of quality work, especially in the arts.

I’m a casual fan of Lindsey Stirling–I’ve watched most of her videos, put them on in the background from time to time, and get a kick out of following her career. For those of you unfamiliar with her, she’s a Youtube sensation who combines violin music, dance, and dubstep/electronica, often in some interesting and beautiful places. This is her most popular video, and probably her best work so far:

Her career is interesting because it follows a path very similar to a lot of self-published authors. She started by putting out videos on Youtube, built up a huge following that way, turned down a number of deals from traditional record labels and put out her first album herself. Now, she’s touring all over the world, collaborating with a bunch of other Youtube artists, and doing a lot of other amazing stuff completely independently.

The other day, I was really surprised that she was on America’s Got Talent back in 2010. Apparently, this was before she got really big, and the connections she made while on the show helped her find success later on:

Two things stood out to me from that video. First, the judges were right–even though she was pushing herself, this was not her best work, and it showed in a way that was rather glaring. I hate to say that because I like so much of her stuff, but it’s really true–her performance fell short.

The second thing that stood out to me was her response to the criticism. It must have been incredibly painful to stand up there in front of everybody and get hammered like that, but she still managed to smile, be gracious, thank the judges, and focus on the positive without being confrontational. That takes class.

When I was in Georgia, I watched a lot of TV, especially on the Rustavi 2 channel. One of the most popular shows is Nichieri (ნიჭიერი), a talent competition show set up much like The X Factor or America’s Got Talent. Even though I didn’t really understand anything the people were saying, I could still really tell when a contestant did some truly amazing.

There’s something about greatness that makes you sit up and pay attention–something that makes it stand out on its own. It’s something timeless and stirring, something that drives you to keep coming back to it, or at least to remember it long after it’s passed. With poor quality stuff, like bad writing, clumsy performance, or the like, you tend to forget it (unless of course it’s a spectacular failure, which in a weird way gains a sort of greatness of its own to a certain extent). But good quality stuff sticks with you–indeed, it’s almost like it becomes a part of you. It certainly becomes part of the culture.

When it comes to talent shows like Nichieri, The X Factor, and America’s Got Talent, the greatest moment has to be Susan Boyle. Everything about it is just perfect, from the awkward, homely way she started out to how she blew everyone away with her stellar performance. She didn’t look like she had it, and she certainly didn’t act like she had it, but she did, and she knew it. She didn’t settle for anything less than her best, and she didn’t let anyone else put her down.

In a lot of my discussions with other indie writers, we talk a lot about discoverability. We’re all anxious to be read, to be heard, to be discovered–to get our shining moment. The thing is, though, that moment is not enough if you don’t have quality work. It’s not going to keep you down or “ruin” your career, necessarily–Lindsey Stirling has come a long way since her disappointing performance on America’s Got Talent. But that’s only because she produces quality work.

I think I need to spend a lot less time trying to boost my discoverability and a lot more into producing the best work that I possibly can. The thing to remember, though, is that quality is subjective and you can’t please everyone. As Lindsey later said, “A lot of people have told me along the way that my style and the music I do … is unmarketable. But the only reason I’m successful is because I have stayed true to myself.” You can’t compare yourself against others, either–you can only really compete against yourself.

How do you know when you’ve done your best? That can be a little tricky, partly because it’s a moving target. I think Genesis Earth and Bringing Stella Home represent my best work at the time, though when I look back at those books I see things that could be improved. I tend to think that Desert Stars is my best work to date, though I’m not so sure anymore. Do I only think that because I struggled so much and for so long with that book? Just because something is a joy to create doesn’t mean that it’s any less than something you toiled and suffered over.

Star Wanderers was both a gift story and an experiment. The novella format was new to me at the time, so I did a lot of learning on it. Outworlder, Dreamweaver, Homeworld, and Deliverance came to me in a white-hot creative heat, but Sacrifice and Reproach were a real struggle. Is there a discernible difference in quality between them? Not that I can tell. I do think that the later stories hold together better on their own, though. I didn’t really hit my stride with the novella format until I started branching off into other characters’ viewpoints.

This is all on my mind because my next big project, Sons of the Starfarers, is something that I really want to do right. I don’t just want to write it for the sake of putting it out there (though I recognize that writing quickly doesn’t always mean sacrificing quality). I don’t just want to put it out so that I can make my work more “discoverable,” though that’s certainly a motivation. I don’t even just want to do my best. I want to improve my writing and storytelling so much that this becomes the best thing that I’ve ever written.

At LTUE a few years back, Tracy Hickman said that as writers, it is important for us to believe that we have not yet written our best book. That’s so incredibly true. You have to always believe that you can do better, not to make you depressed when you look back, but to make you enthusiastic as you look forward. Imagine what would have happened if Lindsey Stirling thought that her performance on America’s Got Talent was the best that she’d ever do! Her career hadn’t even dawned yet.

I think it’s the same with me. I’ve gained a little exposure, suffered a few setbacks, and experienced a small measure of success, but the big stuff is yet to come. And even though I may not want to be the next Brandon Sanderson or Orson Scott Card in terms of popularity, I do need to shoot high in terms of quality. Before I work on my discoverability, I need to make sure that I’m putting out some truly amazing stuff. I need to shoot for greatness.

LTUE, current WIP, and other assorted updates

So even though I haven’t been too good about blogging this past month, I have been busy writing. Besides the short story in my last post, I’ve been steadily revising Star Wolf, formerly titled HEART OF THE NEBULA. It took me a while to get back into this story, but I’m fully involved in it now and it’s coming along nicely.

So far, I’ve only been revising through about 2k words per day. I’m hoping to push that up to at least 4k words, though, which means that I should finish it in the first week of February. I definitely want to get it done before LTUE, because there are other projects I’m anxious to get working on, especially Sons of the Starfarers. I want to launch that series this summer, but I still have to write books 2 and 3 … gah! Must … write … faster …

In other news, I recently got my schedule for LTUE. It looks like I’ll be on 5 panels this year, including on one with Eric James Stone and Dave Farland. Am I feeling imposter syndrome right about now? Why, yes, thank you for asking. :p In any case, here’s what the schedule currently looks like:

Thursday, February 13, 2014

4:00 pm — Being a Foreign Speaker
6:00 pm — Planet Building

Friday, February 14, 2014

12:00 pm — Writing Romance

Saturday, February 15, 2014

12:00 pm — ePublishing Short Stories
6:00 pm — Starting the Next Project

I’m definitely excited for this year’s symposium! Orson Scott Card is going to be there, as well as Brandon Sanderson, Dave Farland, LE Modesitt, and pretty much all the regulars (except for Howard Tayler–I heard he’s not coming). I’ve also got a bunch of long-time writer friends who will be there, many of whom are on panels of their own. It’s going to be big this year, and definitely a lot of fun!

In other news, a couple of days after posting about my goal to travel to the Czech Republic, a job landed in my lap that seems like the perfect way to save up the money. It’s with Google Fiber, and involves escorting technicians to the various utility huts scattered throughout the city, opening the doors for them, and sitting around while they do their work. With luck, I’ll be able to get a fair amount of writing done while I’m on the clock. And even though it’s an on-call position that might only go 10 or 20 hours some weeks, I’ll be paid for the full 40 hours (and not at minimum wage).

I have no idea how the job will work out yet, but it seems like a great opportunity to save up a lot of money while still having plenty of time to write. We’ll see how it goes.

In other news, Brothers in Exile is out with my first readers right now. One of them already finished it, which kind of shocked me. If they don’t find any major problems, I’ll go ahead and write the next one, hopefully finishing it before the end of March.

Sons of the Starfarers is going to be another novella series like Star Wanderers, but I’m going to go a bit longer on the individual books, like around the 35k to 45k word range. The omnibus editions will be in groups of three, so books I-III for the first omnibus, IV-VI for the second, VII-IX for the third, etc. I’d like to go to at least nine books in this series, though it could certainly end up going longer. I only have a very loose idea of where it’s going, but it feels like nine books at least.

That just about does it. Right now, I’m up to my knees in Star Wolf, so that definitely takes priority. But I definitely want to get back to Sons of the Starfarers, so I’ll try to finish it as soon as I can. If only I was one of those writers who could knock out 10k words every day … maybe someday. In the meantime, I’ll just keep plugging along as best I can.

Later!

So what should I work on next?

Now that Star Wanderers: Deliverance (Part VIII) is published, I’m back in the position of trying to figure out what to write next. Usually, I just do this on my own, but this time I thought I’d run it by my readers and see what you guys have to say. Here are the options:

Heart of the Nebula — This is a direct sequel to Bringing Stella Home. It follows James, Lars, Stella, and several new characters as they struggle to keep the Colony from falling apart following the collapse of the New Gaian Empire. This one is mostly a space opera story, with lots of action and political intrigue. It also explores the wolf/sheepdog analogy that Danica brought up in Bringing Stella Home, with Lars’s rebuttal.

Mercenary Savior — Another Gaia Nova novel, this one showing the origins of Danica Nova and her band of Tajji mercenaries. I’ve got a lot of ideas for this one, though I’ve only written the prologue so far. This is going to be a military sci-fi story, with lots of action, lots of violence, and (hopefully) a few heart-wrenching moments as well. Danica, Roman, Mikhail, Artyom, and several of the other mercenaries will appear in this one.

Empress of the Free Stars — Yet another Gaia Nova novel, this one a direct sequel of Stars of Blood and Glory. It brings back Princess Hikaru, now the Empress of Shinihon, and shows her struggle to ensure the safety and freedom of her people in the face of a Federation that is fast transforming into an autocratic, totalitarian empire. Colonel Webb is at the heart of the political intrigue in this one, and the stakes are as high as they’ve ever been.

Sons of the Starfarers — This is the spinoff series I’m writing to follow up Star Wanderers. It takes place in the same universe as the Gaia Nova novels, except a thousand years before, and will eventually show the origins of the Hameji and tie all of these books together. This is the one I’m most excited to write, as it brings back a bunch of characters from Star Wanderers and puts them into some interesting situations. Hopefully, it will have the same stuff that made Star Wanderers so great while adding a bit more action/adventure stuff into the mix.

Edenfall — This one is the sequel to Genesis Earth, and the second book in what will eventually become a trilogy. Basically, about fifteen years after Michael and Terra settle down on Icaria, a military expedition arrives from Earth, shattering the idyllic life they’ve made for themselves. They try to convince the military people that there is no alien threat, but before they can do that, the ghost ship comes back, throwing everything out of balance. This story is mostly from the point of view of Estee, Michael and Terra’s daughter, whose whole world is changed when the other humans appear.

Lifewalker — I’ve mentioned this one only a couple of times on my blog, but everyone who’s read the first chapter tells me that they want more. This one is a completely different project from anything else I’ve done. It’s a post-apocalyptic tale told from the point of view of a man who lives out his natural life where everyone else is infected with a disease that kills them at age 25. After the first chapter, the he starts down the ruins of I-15 with a bible, a bicycle, and a copy of Brandon Sanderson’s Mistborn, searching for the mythical city of light known by the forefathers as Lavegas. Little does he know, that place is now populated by cannibals.

The Sword Bearer — An epic fantasy about an ancient brotherhood of sentient swords who pass down the knowledge and skills of each bearer down through the generations. The brotherhood has been broken, and the few swords that haven’t been lost have driven their bearers insane to the point where they’re now amassing an army to conquer and enslave the whole world. The only sword who hasn’t gone down that path is the one prophesied to be wielded in the final battle to defeat this great evil, but it hasn’t taken a bearer for almost a thousand years–that is, until a curious young tavern girl from the mountains accidentally stumbles upon it.

Those are pretty much all the major options. I have a couple ideas for other books, but nothing that I’ve really started. Even though I have my preferences, I could go almost any way depending on what you guys want to read. So if there’s one or two that you really want me to work on next, feel free to let me know!

STAR WANDERERS: DELIVERANCE (PART VIII) is now available!

Well, guys, it looks like I’ve gone and published another book! Star Wanderer: Deliverance (Part VIII) is now live on Amazon, Smashwords, and Kobo, and will soon be up on Barnes & Noble, Sony, and the iBookstore. In the next couple of months, I’ll probably put it up on Google Play and DriveThru Fiction as well.

This is the eighth Star Wanderers book, and more or less brings the series to a close. That doesn’t mean that I’m finished with this universe or these characters, though. I plan to bring a lot of them back with Sons of the Starfarers, a spinoff series that will follow Mariya’s brothers, Isaac and Aaron, as they fight to keep the Outworlds free from Gaian Imperial domination. That series will also tie everything in with the Gaia Nova novels, and show the origins of the Hameji. So be sure to look out for those!

Also, I’m happy to report that the print editions of Outworlder (Part I), Fidelity (Part II), Sacrifice (Part III), and Homeworld (Part IV) are now available on Amazon! Each costs about $5, and is between 75 to 100 pages. The print versions for Dreamweaver (Part V), Benefactor (Part VI), Reproach (VII), and Deliverance (Part VIII) will hopefully be out before the end of the month!

A note about the print editions: I’m currently using the same covers as the ebooks, with the generic NASA space art. However, I recently made an agreement with Derek Murphy of CreativIndie Covers to redo the book covers for the entire series. This includes the print versions, so once I have the new covers, I will replace them and the old versions will be unavailable.

If you want the best looking print book, it’s probably best to wait. Derek did a really awesome job on Part I: Outworlder, and I expect that the rest of the covers will be just as stunning. However, since there’s only going to be a limited number of the original versions, there is a chance that they might become more valuable if these books really take off. I can’t make any promises about that, since I really have no idea, but if you would like to get the original versions, they will only be up for a couple of months as I gradually replace them. I will have matching versions for each book in the series, though, so if you want to collect a complete set with the original cover art, you’ll definitely be able to do that.

That just about does it. As always, thanks for reading!

Resolutions and such for 2014

Yes, I know this post is a couple of days late. Yesterday I was busy publishing Star Wanderers: Deliverance (Part VIII), though, and the day before that I was on the train, and today I had to renew my vehicle registration … enough! On to the resolutions.

1. Publish something every 6 weeks.

One thing I really need to get better about is publishing new work. So this year, I’m going to do my damnedest to follow a regular publishing schedule. I don’t know what I’ll be publishing, exactly, but I have a pretty good idea, and surprisingly enough it actually works out to a lot less work than you’d think:

WEEK 1: SW-VIII: Deliverance (already done)
WEEK 7: SW V-VIII: Tales of the Far Outworlds (the second STAR WANDERERS omnibus–basically, I just need to write the Author’s Note and get a cover, since the stories have already been written).
WEEK 13: Science Fiction from A to Z (a book version of last year’s A to Z blogging challenge, released just in time for this year’s A to Z, for which I’ve already thought of an awesome theme).
WEEK 19: Heart of the Nebula (rough draft already written, just need to rewrite/revise).
WEEK 25: Sons of the Starfarers Book I: Brothers in Exile (already written).
WEEK 31: Sons of the Starfarers Book II: ??? (this one I still have to write).
WEEK 37: Sons of the Starfarers Book III: ??? (also need to write, but both of these are novellas so they shouldn’t take too long).
WEEK 43: Open slot–maybe I’ll publish Lifewalker in this slot.
WEEK 49: Sons of the Starfarers Omnibus I-III (just in time for Christmas).

Of course, this is all just a tentative schedule–I could definitely change it depending on which stories you guys want me most to write. The point is that it’s doable–surprisingliy doable. I might even break the schedule once or twice to release a surprise project, depending on how things go.

Then again, I might need the extra writing time in order to finish my second resolution, which is:

2. Write at least 2 short stories per month and submit them to traditional markets.

In other words, Operation Short Blitz. Since I’ve already outlined my goals and objectives for that one, on to resolution 3:

3. Read a book every week

Or at least 50 books before the end of the year. This is a recurring one that I’ve never quite been able to do, but I really need to read more, so I figured I’d bring it back. It’s also a good excuse to get more active on Goodreads, which I’ve been meaning to do for some time.

Now for some non-writing related resolutions:

4. Keep a detailed weekly personal journal

I’ve kept a journal off and on since 2nd grade, but in the past few years I’ve been really lax about it. My excuse was that the blog counts sort of as a journal, but that’s not really true, because there are things in my life that I would never want to talk about publically on this platform. At the same time, I’m not a teenager anymore–I don’t need to keep a super secret diary stashed beneath my mattress in order to cathartically vent my hormones and thus maintain my sanity.

So for this year, I’m going to completely redo the way I do journal writing. Instead of free-writing, I’m going to keep it deliberately structured. Instead of writing it only for myself, I’m going to write it for the benefit of my future kids and grandkids. I’ll include some private stuff in there, but nothing I wouldn’t mind being read years later.

Honestly, I still haven’t figured out exactly what I’m going to do for this goal, but I plan to at least write in it every week. In any case, it makes for a good Sunday project–not just writing in it, but figuring out exactly where I want to go with it.

5. Get to the point where I can run a mile ever day.

Writing is a sedentary activity, and I definitely need to get out and be more active. My grandpa got fit and lost a lot of weight later in his life, and one of the things he told me that was key was to run a mile a day. Currently, I can’t quite do that–I tried that about a month ago, and I pulled something on the third day that put me out for about a week. But it’s definitely something I can work up to.

My brother-in-law is a runner, and he advised me to start by walking. Walk at least a mile a day for a week, then the next week walk two, then the week after that walk for most of the days but throw in a running day somewhere in there. Gradually work up until you’re running more than walking, then soon enough you’ll be running every day.

So that’s what I’m going to do. I’m starting out with the two-mile walks, since the one-milers are way too easy. Maybe I’ll hike the Y a few times before I start running, just to build up muscle strength. And when the snow melts, I’ll definitely be climbing some mountains.

What I’d really like to do is get a treadmill desk. Those things are expensive, though, and there isn’t much room for them where I’m currently living. In any case, the best resolutions are the ones that don’t require a huge monetary investment or a massive shift from your current lifestyle, since those are the ones that are most likely to get done.

And just for the heck of it, here’s a crazy impossible stretch goal:

6. Finish hiking the 7 peaks.

Those of you who have been following me for a while probably remember that last year, I made only one resolution, and that was to climb four of the seven peaks here in Utah county. Well, I only got to two of them: Spanish Fork Peak and Santaquin Peak. And guys–they were amazing! Real adventures. Santaquin peak especially was just spectacular–without a doubt, the most perfect hike of my life. But then things got busy and I never got around to hiking the other two, blah blah blah lame excuses.

So this year, I want to revisit that goal, and since four is a lame number to stop at, I figure I’ll just shoot for all seven of them. It’s going to be tough–Cascade Mountain is a beast, and from what I’ve heard, Lone Peak has some cliffs that are especially harrowing–but by golly, I’m going to do it!

And if I hike Mount Timpanogos this year, maybe I’ll finally break the curse that is keeping me trapped here in Provo.

In any case, those are my resolutions for 2014. What are yours?