rough drafts – One Thousand And One Parsecs

Toward a new writing technique

For the last year, I’ve been struggling to write this novel (Children of the Starry Sea, Book 2 of the Outworld Trilogy) according to my new novel writing method, which I’ve been developing since about 2017. The method involves creating a rigorous scene-by-scene outline and cycling through each scene multiple times, so that you basically revise the book as you go.

However, for a novel WIP the size of Children that doesn’t seem to work very well: either my mind is stuck in the revisions, or I’m so focused on producing new words that I don’t get around to revising, or (as happens most often) I’m so torn between both that I can never get in the right headspace, and my productivity suffers.

One of the things that happens is that I get hung up on a scene that I don’t really want to write. There are other parts of the story that appeal to me, but in order to get to them, I have to write that scene first… IF I’m writing the whole book in order from start to finish. So because I don’t want to write the next scene, I end up working on revisions for a while, which makes it harder to get back into the right headspace to write new stuff… you get the picture.

But the thing is, because I have such a rigorous scene-by-scene outline, I don’t actually need to write all the scenes in order. So lately, I’ve been picking and choosing which scene to write next, experimenting with writing the book out of order.

So far, it’s worked out pretty well. The outline gives me all of the plot points and character arcs that need to be worked out, so I can treat each scene as a sort of mini-story, which helps to eat the proverbial elephant. (How do you eat an elephant? One bite at a time.) Also, my ADHD-addled brain really loves the creative freedom of being able to pick and choose what to work on next, ignoring whether it has anything to do with what I wrote yesterday.

Of course, this means that the revisions will have to wait until all the holes in the narrative have been filled. I may be able to do it on a chapter-by-chapter basis, with the first revision happening once all the scenes in a chapter are done, and the next revision focused on fitting the chapters together, but I don’t know. It may just be better to put off the revisions altogether until the entire rough draft is complete.

Then again, there are advantages to cycling through the manuscript during the drafting process. It can help to identify plot and story problems as they emerge, which can help to remove writing blocks before they become really onerous. Also, it leaves me with a lot less work to get to the final version, once the initial manuscript is complete.

So here’s how I think I’m going to do it:

Prewriting: Develop a rigorous outline that includes a scene-by-scene map with all important plot points and character/relationship arcs.
Rough Draft: Pick and choose which scenes to write, focusing on hitting the plot/character/relationship points and making each scene cohesive.
First Revision: Fix all the points in the revision notes (such as things that need to be foreshadowed) and focus on making each chapter cohesive.
Second Revision: Fix any remaining revision notes and focus on overall story and chapter flow.
Final Revision: Focus on the sentence and paragraph level writing to cut the book’s word count by at least 10%.

So maybe I’ll do the first revision in-line with the rough draft, as each chapter comes together. Unless the book has major problems, the second revision should be pretty straightforward and not take longer than a week or two—besides, it should probably wait until the first draft is totally done, since that’s the time to work on overall story flow. And the final revision can go in-line with that.

I don’t know if any of that makes any sense to anyone but me. Thinking out loud does help to put my thoughts together, though I’m not sure how much it makes for good internet content. Still, I’m curious if anyone has any thoughts on the subject. Have you tried out something similar? Or does the very thought of writing like this feel like scraping nails on a chalkboard? Let me know! I’m curious to hear your take on it.

So it’s the end of another month, and I’m happy to report that things are going well. Gunslinger to the Stars has had a decent release, and seems to be on its way to grow into its natural readership. I don’t want to push it too hard just yet, better to wait until a few reviews and also boughts come in. But I can push the short story, “Jane Carter of Earth and the Rescue that Never Was.” Will be interesting to see whether that garners interest in the novel.

On the writing front, I’m making good progress on Patriots in Retreat, my current WIP. The plan is to finish the last four Sons of the Starfarers books in quick succession, in order to release them one after another in the beginning of 2018. The covers are all done, and the editing shouldn’t be too expensive, so if I can knock all these books off over the summer, I’ll be in good shape.

The goal is to write each one of them in four weeks, with a week-long buffer between each draft. I’m trying out a new writing method—actually, a method I used to use when I was a kid but laid aside when I wrote my first novel. Instead of writing several distinct drafts, I’m cycling through the previous day’s work in order to produce a more clean first draft.

When I wrote my first novel, the goal was just to finish the thing, so instead of trying to fix all the problems with it as I went along, I prioritized getting to the end. Needless to say, that hot mess of a novel will never see the light of day. But for some reason, I’ve stuck with that method of writing ever since, sometimes to great detriment. Heart of the Nebula took several years to complete because the first two drafts were full of plot holes, worldbuilding inconsistencies, and totally useless characters.

Of course, back then I was a much less experienced writer and needed some emotional distance in order to figure out how to fix my own work. But now, I think I’ve got a pretty good handle of it. So we’ll try out the cycling thing with these books and see how it goes.

I did recently reread the first book, Brothers in Exile. Have to say, it’s not my best work. Not that the story itself is bad, but the writing is pretty poor and needs a good polish. Also, some of the character reactions are off. There’s a bit more melodrama than I’d like, and not enough consistency.

Again, nothing in need of a complete overhaul. Just a touch up. And maybe this is more just a recognition of how much my writing has improved over the last couple of years (at least, I hope that’s what it is). But once the last four books are done, I plan to take a couple of weeks to really touch it up.

In other news, The Sword Keeper, my first fantasy novel, is just about finished and on track for a September release. There’s a couple of issues my first readers have pointed out, but it’s more a question of patching the sails than bringing her into drydock and building a new hull. The next big step after sending it off to the editor is to find a good cover artist. I’ll probably post a classified on Deviantart, see who bites.

I really want an illustrated cover, not one of these photo-realistic things that all tend to blend together (or worse, copy the same stock photos). Those do tend to be a bit more expensive, but for my first fantasy novel, I’m willing to pay a little more.

On the publishing side of things, I’ve got a short story single and a short story bundle lined up for June. It didn’t seem fair to release the one story as a single only to release it a couple months later in a bundle, so I’m doing them both together. The cover is pretty spiffy—I’ll be sure to do a reveal later this week.

And that just about does it. Lots of things to do on the publishing side, lots of stories to write on the writing side, but it’s all coming together and I think you’ll really enjoy how it turns out. Take care!

The Sword Keeper 1.0 is finished!

It’s been roughly four and a half years since I wrote the first word in The Sword Keeper, and now the first draft is finally complete! I finished it on Monday and promptly came down with the flu, which is why I’m only writing about it now.

This is my first complete fantasy novel, which is kind of a weird thing to realize. I started writing fantasy back in high school, but I never actually finished anything until college, and by then I was writing science fiction almost exclusively. Of course, the line between fantasy and science fiction is pretty fuzzy, especially the science fiction I tend to write, but still it’s a different set of tropes and a different kind of story.

In terms of other fantasy books, this one is pretty light. It’s just under 100k words, which makes it about 1/3 to 1/4 the size of a Brandon Sanderson novel. There’s magic, and it does drive the story, but the magic system itself isn’t the main driving factor of the plot. No elves, no dwarves, no dragons.

Instead, there’s an ancient order of magic sword bearers, a secret brotherhood of dark mages, a prophecy about saving the world, and a tavern girl (not a farmboy) who turns out to be the chosen one. About half of the fighting happens in the Void between the mortal and immortal realms. Oh, and the cost of magic is death.

There’s no question that this book needs a lot of work before it’ll be ready to publish. That said, I’m really excited about it. If all goes well, I expect it to be out sometime next year.

Excited for a new old project

So a couple of weeks ago, I picked up the manuscript for a novel I’d written years ago, looking to see how much work it would take to salvage it. It’s a direct sequel to Bringing Stella Home, with James McCoy (again) as the main character. Long-time readers of this blog may remember it as Heart of the Nebula.

I wrote the first draft in 2010-2011 (started it almost exactly four years ago, in fact), and right from the start I could tell there were a lot of problems with it. I tried to throw in a romantic subplot that backfired horribly, and several of the major plot points weren’t thought out very well. I pushed through and finished it, though, and in spite of a few extra arms growing out of weird places, there was a lot of stuff in there that I liked.

(Come to think of it, I think this was my NaNoWriMo attempt back in 2010. That would explain why I pushed myself to finish the thing, even though I knew it had problems. I dropped it before the end of November and didn’t pick it up again until March, but since the only other books I had going on at the time were Desert Stars and Bringing Stella Home, I forced myself to finish it just so I had another one. This was back when I was under the impression that every book needs at least five or six revisions to be any good, and that most of the work in writing is actually revising. I no longer labor under those myths).

Over the next few years, I went back to it from time to time to dust it off and run it through a revision pass. Unlike my other novels, though, this one was so broken to begin with that revising wasn’t enough. I changed a lot in the 2.0 revision, cutting out most of the worst problems but not really replacing them with anything better. In the 3.0 revision, I mixed things around a bit but didn’t substantially change the story. Then I went through a bunch of incomplete revision attempts, tweaking scenes and rewriting sentences, but not really changing the story as a whole.

Then last year, I read through all the sundry drafts that I’d written of this story and put together a massive set of revision notes for the 4.0 draft. This time, I tore into the heart of the story itself, reworking plot points and adding new subplots to replace the ones that didn’t work. I went through the whole thing by chapter and scene, making a list of bullet points for all the changes that needed to be made. I also made notes for scenes that I needed to write entirely from scratch, and other notes for scenes that I needed to recycle from previous versions.

It was a massive undertaking, and I got about halfway through it before putting it on hold for other projects. That was nine months ago. Between then and now, enough time passed for me to more or less forget most of my ideas for it.

So earlier this month, I had an opening in my schedule and decided to take a look at this one again. Instead of picking it up where I’d left of, I decided to start from the beginning. Immediately, I was struck by how much better the story was. This wasn’t the three-armed baby I’d stuffed into the closet back in 2011–this was a really compelling story, with an intriguing hook and great potential to go places. The further I got in it, the better it became.

There were a couple of scenes early on that just didn’t work. I could tell that I’d reworked them to death, so I threw them out and wrote completely new ones. This time, they actually worked! By completely getting rid of the problem scenes, amputating those mutated limbs at the base, I was able to free the story from the mess in which it had spawned. For some of these scenes, revision is not enough–they need to be tossed and rewritten from scratch.

Over the last two weeks, I’ve really gotten excited about this project. Not only do I think it’s salvageable, I think I can make a really awesome story from it. I just got to the middle of it today, past the part where I’d stopped back in February. For the next few chapters, I think I’m going to throw out the revision notes entirely and just see where the story goes. I’ll probably write toward the stuff I know I want to keep, but throw out everything else.

So yeah, you can expect to see Heart of the Nebula come out sometime next year, probably in the spring. I still want to run it past my first readers, but I don’t think it’s going to need any major revisions after this one (at least, not any that should take more than a week). Keep an eye out for it!

The Writer by Dosshaus on deviantART

The next few months are going to be CRAZY

I knew that back in March, but with Brothers in Exile about to be published, I’m right in the thick of it! Fortunately, it looks like everything is proceeding more or less according to schedule, which is good for my readers because it means a steady stream of books all summer.

First of all, I’m just about ready to publish Brothers in Exile–in fact, if all goes well, I should be able to hit “publish” tomorrow (it still takes about 24 hours for the book to actually go up for sale, but yeah). Yesterday I got the cover art, today I went through all the edits, and tomorrow I’ll write up the author’s note, format the thing and put it up on Amazon, Smashwords, Kobo, and Barnes & Noble.

The second book, Comrades in Hope, is coming along quite well and should be ready in six weeks at the latest. I’ve gotten enough feedback from my first readers to do a quick revision draft, probably in about a week or so, before getting the publishing gears ready to grind. My first readers ate this book up–many of them said they finished it in one sitting. It’s short, but not super short–about the length of a 60s sci-fi novel–so that tells me it’s just about ready to go.

The third book, Strangers in Flight, is going to be a bit more tricky, but I should be able to get it out six weeks after Comrades in Hope. I’m still writing the first draft, and am maybe 1/4 to 1/3 of the way through it, but the story is coming along well and shouldn’t hit any major snags <crosses fingers>. I know exactly how it’s going to end, and I predict a lot of you are going to squeal at the cliffhanger, but don’t worry–I’ll try to throw in at least some resolution, since it might be a few months before book IV.

Right now, I foresee at least nine books in the Sons of the Starfarers series, perhaps as many as twelve. Like Paul Atreides, I can only catch a few fragmentary glimpses of what will happen in the next few books, but the overall direction is very clear. These books are going to be a lot of fun to write–if you guys enjoy reading them as much as I’ve enjoyed writing them, you’re in for a real treat.

The books are fairly short–not as short as the Star Wanderers books, but not too much longer. They straddle the line between novellas and short novels, kind of like the long-form science fiction from the golden and silver ages. Unlike those books, though, these are more character-driven than idea-driven, with the overarching galactic conflict tying all the characters together, rather than the other way around.

Once I’ve finished writing Strangers in Flight, I’ll take a short break to work on some other projects. I’ll come back to Sons of the Starfarers sometime in the fall, though, with the same grueling schedule for the next three books. It’s hectic but fun–I’m definitely not complaining.

So that’s what the next few months are going to look like. With luck, tomorrow will be the day I upload Brothers in Exile–I can hardly wait to get it out to you guys! Definitely look out for it in the next couple of days or so!

Operation SB #1: The Infiltrator

Title: The Infiltrator
Genre: Science Fiction
Word Count: 3,945
Time: 2 days

For my first story for Operation Short Blitz, I took a story idea that’s been bouncing around in my head for some time: that one of the best way for aliens to spy on us without being detected would be to send an infiltrator disguised as a homeless person.

I tried to do something with this idea before, but like many of my short story attempts, it turned into something longer. For that one, I tried to tell the story from the point of view of a normal twenty-something single guy living in an apartment close to where the alien infiltrator had his base. But then it started turning into a story about the guy, leaving the alien as the impact character, and the story became about something else. I eventually lost interest and trunked it.

For this one, I kept it simple, telling it straight from the point of view of the alien. I resisted the urge to put in extra subplots and instead focused on the core idea itself, making sure that everything in the story was directly connected to it. That definitely helped to keep it short and focused.

I think it turned out pretty well. It was hard not to self-edit as I wrote it, which was part of the reason it took two days to write instead of one. I started it on Saturday, tried to finish it but went for a two-hour midnight walk instead. Picked it up on Monday and finished it up then.

So now, after doing a quick proofread to fix typos and grammer, I’m going to put it on submission, sending it to Writers of the Future first and working my way down. I don’t expect it to place, but maybe it will get honorable mention, which would be cool. And who knows? Nothing ventured, nothing gained.

It’s all there (mostly), just out of order

So I picked up the rough draft of Star Wanderers: Benefactor (Part VI) this week and started making notes for the revision. It turns out that most of the scenes after the first chapter are jumbled and out of order.

This is good, because it means that I don’t have to toss it out and write it from scratch. All I have to do is figure out the right order, rework the transitions, and then maybe add a couple of scenes to smooth things over. Not too difficult, and it should turn this story around from something’s-broken-and-I-don’t-know-what to dang-this-is-awesomesauce.

It’s not so good, though, because it means I’m going to have a real struggle over the next couple of weeks to get at the core essence of this story and draw it out. That’s always tough, when I don’t get it on the first pass.

To be honest, I’ve kind of been avoiding this story for the last couple of months. When I finished the rough draft and put it on the back burner, I had the sense that something was wrong, but I didn’t know what it was. That’s always the worst. Now that I know, it’s just a matter of doing the work. But that’s also daunting, because it’s like I’m standing at the base of a mountain looking up. At least the climb itself is invigorating, so once I get started, it should be pretty straightforward.

Benefactor takes the Star Wanderers series in a bit of a different direction, focusing on Jakob (Mariya’s father) and his struggle to provide for his family when all he’s ever really been is a star wanderer. As an outworlder, he’s always had a certain amount of pride and independence, but as a starbound refugee with a family to look after, that only gets in the way. When he married Salome and settled down, it seemed like they had a bright future, but now he’s trapped in a life he never wanted, and the love he once shared with his wife has grown cold.

Here’s an excerpt from the first chapter, which probably won’t change much in the final draft:

Jakob never felt more bone-weary than when he came off of a twelve-hour shift at the Oriana Station dockyards. His feet ached and his back groaned with pain, even in the low gravity of the tram as it raced from the hub to the rimside habs. As usually, the narrow car was crammed like a vacuum pack, every seat occupied with the hot and sweaty bodies of the other workers. He glanced out the window to catch a glimpse of the stars, but an advertisement for a synthetic protein formula filled the holographic windowpane.

My life is a prison, he thought to himself—silently, as always. It’s a prison of my own making, but it’s a prison nonetheless.

The twelve hour shifts had started only a standard week ago, but already it felt like months. A Gaian Imperial battle group had just arrived from the Coreward Stars, panicking some and causing a lot more work for others. Jakob didn’t have much time to follow interstellar politics, but he knew it meant longer work shifts for the foreseeable future. Which really wasn’t so bad, except that the overtime pay would barely keep the family above water, without paying off any of their debts.

From the quadrant tram station, he took an elevator to the slums on the lowest level. This was always the worst part: getting used to the slightly heavier gravity, after spending so much time in null-gee at the hub. He shuffled down the rimside corridor, barely lifting his feet off the floor. The walls were drab and gray, but spotlessly clean. That was something to say about the immigrant community—they might be poor, but they weren’t dirty.

The pungent odor of Deltan cooking spices met his nose the moment the door hissed open. That would be his mother-in-law, fixing dinner. He stepped inside and dropped his work boots on the floormat, waking his sister-in-law’s baby in the living room. He cringed from the high-pitched wailing almost as much as he did from the tongue-lashing he expected to get for it. But what did it matter? Ignoring the baby’s cries, he trudged off toward the bathroom for a much needed shower.

“Oh, hi Dad!”

His daughter Mariya bounded down the hallway, her black hair bobbing with every step. The bright smile on her sixteen year old face cut through his dark mood, at least momentarily. She gave him a great big hug, and he returned it with a grunt.

“Guess what?” she said, her eyes lit with excitement. “I finally found someone to rent out the spare room to!”

Jakob raised an eyebrow. “Oh?”

“Yeah! A couple from Delta Oriana—Megiddo Station, in fact. At least, the girl is from there. Her husband is out working on his ship—he’s a star wanderer, see—but she’s out in the living room right now, talking with Aunt Giuli. Do you want to meet her?”

Her words passed over him like a flurry of raw, unprocessed data. He focused on the important parts and disregarded the rest.

“How long are they going to stay?”

“Oh, not long. They just need a place to stay for a couple weeks until they’ve refitted their ship. Apparently, they—”

“How much are you going to charge them?”

So yeah, it’s a new direction from the previous books, but it’s got a lot of the same characters and ties in quite well with Fidelity, I think. Also, it expands the universe and shows some other aspects of what life is like for star wanderers and outworlders in general.

It’s going to be to be a lot of work making sure I get this one right, but it’s a short novella, so it shouldn’t take too long. Barring no unforeseen complications, I should still be able to get it out before the end of the month. The next two books, Reproach and Deliverance, should be ready soon after that.

In the meantime, I’d better get some shuteye so I can wake up early and work full steam on this book tomorrow. Gnight!

What I’ve been up to recently

It’s been a while since I posted anything except Trope Tuesday posts, so I figure I should do a quick one here explaining what I’ve been up to recently.

As far as writing goes, I finished the first draft for Star Wanderers: Reproach (Part VII) about two weeks ago. Since then, I’ve been bouncing around between Lifewalker and other projects, writing only about a thousand words a day (which is kind of low for me), but it looks like I’m going to go full steam ahead on Star Wanderers: Deliverance (Part VIII). That’s the story that really excites me right now, and it’s practically writing itself. I should (God-willing) finish the first draft sometime next week.

As for Star Wanderers: Benefactor (Part VI), I’ve gotten feedback from first readers and sent off the first chapter to Kindal Debenham’s writing group, where they workshopped the first chapter. It’s going to require a bit of work, but I should be able to publish it before the end of July. My goal right now is to publish something every two months, and Benefactor is at the top of the queue.

Life-wise, I’ve had a whole lot of weird expenses pop up recently, including a wisdom tooth that needs removing (??? I’m like 28!). But between my new job and a marked increase in book royalties, I should be able to cover it without any problems. The job I have right now is really nice–it pays twice minimum wage at only 20 hours per week, with a schedule that leaves the whole day open. It’s perfect for writing (well, as perfect as any day job can be), and it’s quite physical so I should be in pretty good shape by the time I’m done. I’ll probably keep it for a couple months, up until the end of the summer, and hopefully save up enough to move elsewhere in the country, or perhaps go back overseas. Who knows?

About book royalties: my sales on Amazon have really gone up recently, which kind of astounds me. I’m selling about 10-11 ebooks per day, which doesn’t sound like a lot, but it really adds up. Throw in Amazon UK, Smashwords, and all the other retailers, and I’m perilously close to actually making a living at this thing. I have no idea if the current trends will continue or if sales will suddenly fall off, but it looks like people are reading and enjoying my books, so I’ll definitely keep putting them out there.

Speaking of sales, I inadvertently tossed a rhetorical hand grenade over at KBoards by suggesting that perhaps the community over there focuses a little too much on sales as the primary measure of success. Well, they didn’t quite run me out with pitchforks and torches, but the debate did stretch to eighteen pages, so one way or another I think I touched on a sore spot. In the end, though, it turned out to be a fairly constructive discussion, and I think the KBoards community is a better place because of it.

Other than that, I’ve been spending far too much time on minecraft than I probably should. I’m on a server now with my brother-in-law and some other friends, and I’m building a city in the sky, kind of like Zeal or Shevat. It’s actually turning out really well, but I don’t want to post any pictures yet because it isn’t finished. Later, though–definitely later.

That’s just about it. I want to put in at least two thousand words today, and it’s already noon, so I’d better run. See you later!

It’s finished! Now onto the next thing.

Well, over the weekend, I finished the first draft of Star Wanderers: Reproach (Part VII). Technically, I finished it at 4:30 am on Saturday, but I’m counting that for the Friday May 31st deadline that I set when I started the project. I was determined to finish the thing before I went to bed, and nearly pulled an all-nighter. Still recovering.

Star Wanderers: Benefactor (Part VI) needs some work before I feel it’s ready to be published, but I’m not sure if that’s what I want to move on to next. From a business standpoint, that would appear to be the most prudent decision, since my Star Wanderers books are selling fairly well and expanding the series while the momentum is still good is probably the surest way to capitalize on that. However, from a creative standpoint, I think it might be better to give this draft some more time to mull around in the back of my head, like I did for Genesis Earth, Bringing Stella Home, and Desert Stars.

Also, I really want to finish the first draft of Lifewalker. All of my friends and family who have read bits and pieces of it are raving for me to finish it–literally, every time I talk with my Dad, he asks me when it’s going to be done. I really do enjoy the voice of the main character in that one, and I stopped it only to finish Reproach, not because it was giving me any troubles. If I go ahead with that now, I can probably finish it by the end of the month, with time to start work on another project (possibly Benefactor).

It’s difficult for me to talk meaningfully about a project that only I and a couple of other people have seen, so here are the first few paragraphs from the current draft, just to give you a taste of it:

My given name is Isaac Jameson, but most people know me as the Lifewalker. It is a fitting title. I am a stranger and a wanderer; death has cheated me not once, but thrice. For more than three generations, I have wandered the Earth, watching men and women spring up as wheat, bear seed, and pass away with the autumn frost. Yet with each passing generation, I alone remain—with each new crop of humanity, death refuses to harvest me. Some would see this as a blessing, but it is not. It is a curse worse than the fever that steals an infant from its mother, or the blight that takes the mother from her newborn child. It is hard enough to say goodbye to those you have known and loved—those who have shared everything in their lives with you, holding nothing back. But to say goodbye to everyone you have ever known—to find yourself a stranger in your own homeland, a man washed up on the shores of time while the world spins wildly beneath you—yes, that is a fate that can make death seem like a mercy. But I digress.

I suppose I should start this volume with a brief description of the land of my birth. Far to the west, beyond the lakes of the north and the great river of the plains, a series of great, craggy mountain ranges cross the land. In the heart of these mountains, almost a year’s journey by wagon from the eastern coast, lies a great salty sea. It is a desolate and lifeless place, and so far as I can tell, always has been. I only visited it once, but saw no signs of habitation along its briny beaches, ancient or otherwise. However, only a few short miles to the east, the ruins of a once-great city still stands. Its rusting skyscrapers are not as tall or as numerous as those in Boss-town or Old Neyark, but there are enough to show that it was once a place of some importance, before the years of the Blight.

South of these ruins, and beyond the numerous villages and communes that thrive in its shadows, lies a wide mountain valley with a freshwater lake at its center. The lake is extremely shallow, and the reeds grow thick along its southern coasts. It is a good place for catfish and mussels, as well as heron and other waterfowl. The mountains rise sharply all around it, but more especially to the east, though none of them are quite high enough to boast a peak that is snow-capped year round. A monument to the letter Y can still been seen on the face of one of the nearer foothills, though the coloring has long since faded. The northeast border of the valley is guarded by a mountain that looks like a young maiden, sleeping on her back with a hand on her pregnant belly. Some say that the child she carries is the hope of the new world. A narrow river runs just south of this mountain to the lake, through the heart of the land of Provorem.

Just for fun, I posted a longer version on the minecraft server where I currently play. It’s possible to make books inside of the game, and fill them with a couple thousand words of text. I’ll probably do a couple more minecraft books with bits and pieces of Lifewalker, and possibly a couple of other projects as well.

At the same time, I’ve got an idea for another project, one that has the potential to turn into a series of heroic fantasy novellas, along the lines of Star Wanderers. I talked it over with my brother-in-law over the weekend, and while the world and the characters still need fleshing out, I think the core idea is pretty solid. Part of me wants to drop everything and work on that right now, but the other part feels like a deer in the headlights with a semi full of story ideas bearing down on me…

All good problems to have. But don’t worry–if I don’t have anything new published before the end of this month, I’ll definitely have something by the end of July. That’s my unofficial goal now: at least one new published something every two months.

Gotta write. Later!

Update on STAR WANDERERS and a sneak peek at some cover art

So in case you didn’t know, I’ve been getting an omnibus edition ready for Star Wanderers. It’s subtitled The Jeremiah Chronicles, and contains parts I-IV (Outworlder, Fidelity, Sacrifice, and Homeworld). This covers the first major series arc, with all of the stories from Jeremiah’s point of view–hence the title.

I commissioned Ina Wong from Deviant Art for the cover, and this the result:

I must say, I’m rather pleased. It’s got a very different feel from the current space photography covers, but I think this is a lot truer to the actual story. I can’t commission art like this for the individual installments, of course, but for an omnibus edition, I figure it’s alright to go all out.

The only content in the omnibus that isn’t already in parts I-IV will be the author’s note, which I’ll either post here or include as a PDF to my newsletter subscribers. In other words, don’t worry about missing out on anything if you’ve already read the individual installments.

I’m getting feedback from my alpha readers for Benefactor, the next part in the series, so I’ll probably release that one in the next six weeks. In the meantime, I’ve picked up work on Reproach again (Part VII), and hope to finish the first draft before the end of the month.

Just as Dreamweaver is a parallel novella to Outworlder (from Noemi’s POV), Benefactor is a parallel novella to Fidelity (from Jakob’s POV) and Reproach is a parallel novella to Sacrifice (from Noemi and Mariya’s POVs). After that, I’ll do a parallel novella to Homeworld with Lucca and Mariya as the main POV characters, and then branch out into some other characters and storylines.

The fun part about writing this series is that each new story seeds at least two or three others. I just wish I could keep up!

I haven’t abandoned Lifewalker, but I did reach a point where I figured it would be good to take a short break just to keep things fresh. My creative process seems to work that way. As much as I’d like to train myself to stay on project until it was finished, creativity can’t be trained so much as fostered. I set myself a deadline to finish something by May 31st, so now it looks like that’s going to be Reproach.

As for The Jeremiah Chronicles, all I have left is to write the author’s note and book description. It should be out on Amazon, Barnes & Noble, and Smashwords by this time next week. In the meantime, I’ll keep working on Reproach so you guys can have plenty more stories to read!