Novel Territory

I crossed the threshold this week, and I'm pleased to announce that my work-in-progress The Last LawKeeper is officially a novel. At a little over sixty thousand words, it feels like the story is somewhere near the halfway point. The world is built, the characters are fleshed out, all the conflicts and mysteries are amping up. I've got plenty left to write, but I'm okay with how much I've been able to wordsmith over the course of the summer. At the end of this month, I'll be back at the day job (my 28th year in education), and I'm thinking I'll be able to churn out another 10K by then. That's the goal, anyway, and I'm sticking to it.

My reading playlist during this novel-writing process has been an interesting assortment. I always like to be in the middle of a good book or few while I'm drafting, and this time I've been strategic about finding my inspiration. I started out with Conan by Robert E. Howard for the epic action and adventure and world-building. Then I moved on to Riders of the Purple Sage by Zane Grey to get a feel for the old-school western. Since then, I've been reading a collection of Ray Bradbury's early short stories, because I've always appreciated his poetic prose. And to top it off, I'm re-reading The Gunslinger by Stephen King, because one does not simply write a post-apocalyptic western without revisiting one of the best post-apocalyptic westerns of all time.

As far as my musical playlist goes, I've been listening to a bunch of instrumental post-rock courtesy of the local library: pg.lost, This Will Destroy You, Toundra, Collapse Under the Empire, Caspian, and If These Trees Could Talk. The absence of lyrics keeps me focused on the words I'm slinging, and the atmospheric music works well as a soundtrack for all the scenes in my head. "Silent Hills" by Lanterna would work great as theme music, should The Last LawKeeper ever become a movie, streaming series, or video game. One can dream, right?

Audio Re-Release #3

The audio version of my novel City of Glass is now available (again) wherever audiobooks are sold. Steve Campbell did a standup job bringing this story to life, so if you haven't heard it already (or even if you have), be sure to check it out:

Amazon     Apple     Audible

The future is now. 

The children of the remnant are adults living in the 10 Domes of Eurasia, self-sustaining biospheres along the Mediterranean Sea. Aerocars fly, clones work as security officers, and every citizen's words and actions are monitored via their neural implants. Peace reigns over all—until a group of terrorists targets government buildings, and Chancellor Persephone Hawthorne is kidnapped. 

Sera Chen, Dome 1 law enforcer, is drawn into the conflict after chasing a curfew violator capable of leaping from one skyscraper to another. When her augments go offline due to a localized EMP burst, she starts hearing voices. The band of survivors in North America is fractured. Daiyna roams the Wastes with a bounty on her head, refusing to confront her demons. Samson and Shechara target UW raiders who are pillaging ruins for resources the remnant needs to survive. James Bishop struggles against unexpected obstacles to be reunited with his family. And Luther is determined to find a way into Eurasia to meet the twenty children taken from Eden. 

As their lives converge, unlikely alliances will form to combat an emergent enemy with plans to undermine the course of humanity's future.

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Staying the Course

I'm up to 40K in my current WiP, and things are going pretty well. Still averaging 1K a day and plotting each chapter before I write it. The world-building and character development have been a blast; it's a slow-burn post-apocalyptic western, and I'm dropping plenty of mysterious breadcrumbs along the way. If all goes according to plan, I'll be at 70K by the start of the next school year. Then I'll be lucky if I sling a few hundred words a day. But every step in the right direction is progress.

The current goal is to send this manuscript to Tor and Baen in December, and if they don't want it, I'll publish it myself. I've already got the cover art ready, just in case. My contact at Tor is the editor I worked with on Girl of Great Price. She's looked at a few of my other manuscripts over the years, and I've appreciated her feedback. My contact at Baen is the editor who updated me over the course of eight years while they kept BackTracker under consideration. Fingers crossed they won't take that long this time.

Am I having second thoughts about going full indie now that Amazon's algorithm has changed and the market is being inundated by AI-generated slop? Not at all. I'd rather my backlist be under my complete control, regardless. But I'm not going to limit myself to only one route. I never have. Do I regret firing my agent seven years ago? Nope. That was a bad decision from the start. I only went with him because he was the last name on a list of over a hundred agents who'd declined. He was willing to represent me, so I overlooked a few glaring warning signs at the get-go. Will I try snagging another agent at some point? I don't think so, but who knows?

Over the past sixteen years of my Journey through the Published Land, I've had a lot of good experiences and an equal amount of the other kind, but one thing that's remained constant is my passion for the process. I enjoy telling a good story. And I appreciate getting better at it with every story I tell. That won't ever change, no matter what.

Summer Sale

In case you haven't visited my author store in a while, now's a great time to take a look around. All of my series starters have been marked down to 99¢ and a few of my short story collections are currently free. Browse, buy, download, tell your friends and neighbors. Happy reading!

Start Here

Writing Update

I've passed the 20K mark on my current work-in-progress, a post-apocalyptic western featuring an Old Testament city of refuge. It's a place where people who commit involuntary manslaughter can be safe from retribution, but it's also a haven for outcasts of all stripes. I'm enjoying the characters and the world-building, and I'm grateful for those twenty-five pages of notes I scribbled down way back in May. My past self was really thinking ahead. Thank you, past self.

Considering how burnt-out I was at the end of the school year, I wasn't sure I'd be able to commit to a new project this summer. Part of me considered taking a couple months off on the writing front. But I'm glad I stuck with it, drafting maybe two hundred words a day at first, then graduating to five or six hundred, then more than five or six hundred. It all adds up eventually. This week, I've managed to average a little over a thousand a day, and that feels pretty darn good.

My last two books were on the shorter side, around 50K-60K, but I can already tell this one will probably be over 100K when complete. We'll see if it grows or shrinks at that point, during edits and revisions. My Spirits of the Earth novels and BackTracker are between 120K and 150K, and the pacing of this WiP feels like it's in the same ballpark. (But what do I know? I'm just the one writing the dang thing.) For now, I'm thinking it will be a big standalone book, but that could change as well, depending on sales. Maybe it'll be Book 1 in a new series...

Recently I realized that 16 of my novels are written in first-person, and 10 are in third-person. The last two or three trilogies I've worked on have been first-person narratives. So it's kind of refreshing to take a break from that and go back to third-person. Four protagonists so far, each with their own unique perspective, and a narrative that's bigger than all of them combined. It was an adjustment at first, but I'm in the groove now, and I appreciate being able to tell the story through more than one pair of eyes.

Audio Re-Release #2

The audio version of my novel Tomorrow's Children is now available (again) wherever audiobooks are sold. Steve Campbell did a great job bringing this story to life, so if you haven't heard it already, be sure to check it out:

Amazon     Apple     Audible

The future is in their hands. 

The post-apocalyptic world is bigger than the remnant imagined. Across the ocean, the domed cities of Eurasia have survived the nuclear holocaust that ravaged the rest of the planet. But only the survivors from the North American Wastes can give the sterile Eurasians what they need most in order to continue existing as a society: children. 

Sergeant James Bishop, United World Marine, leads his team across the desert wasteland in order to make first contact with survivors in Eden, who are rumored to have a lab full of viable embryos. Meanwhile Cain, a coastal warlord dedicated to repopulating the planet, follows the will of Gaia, a malicious spirit of the earth with no love for humankind. Margo, telepathic geneticist responsible for designing the next generation, struggles to balance the will of a selfish dictator with what's best for humanity. And Tucker, an invisible man on a mission, carries precious cargo across the Wastes in an effort to rally a group of survivors into action against Eden. 

As their lives intersect, agendas collide and tensions reach a breaking point. Twenty unborn children in incubation chambers hang in the balance—along with the fate of the world.

Vic Boyo, Three in One

Collected in a single volume for the first time: all three novels in the Vic Boyo, Doofus Detective trilogy, now available wherever eBooks are sold. If you're a fan of old-school hard-boiled noir with plenty of action, adventure, and screwball comedy along the way, give these campy crime thrillers a chance. Only one thing stands between Vic Boyo and saving the day. Well, maybe a few things. But with a little luck and a whole lot of gumption, anything is possible—even for him.

Includes Double Murders Are Twice As Bad, Less Than Meets The Eye, and Witless Protection. Even some chuckles, to boot.

Get your copy today

Summer Plans

With the end of the school year fast approaching, it's time to look up from my gradebook and see what's ahead. I've got a few releases lined up for this summer—the Vic Boyo, Doofus Detective collection, as well as the reissued Spirits of the Earth audiobooks—but other than that, I won't have a series to continue or conclude. So what will I be doing when I'm not working on projects around the house, trying to stay in shape, or reading under our maple tree in the backyard?

Well, I've got twenty-five pages of notes for a new book I'd like to write. Assuming I'll eventually recover from my current burnout, I might start drafting it next month. Here's what I have so far: a post-apocalyptic western combining elements and characters from my novel BackTracker with my short stories "Live by the Ten, Die by the Gun," "Soulless in His Sight," "Sins of the Father," and "Like Clockwork." But without requiring the reader to be familiar with any of those tales.

That's right, a standalone novel (with the potential for sequels, as always) that takes place 200 years after the events of BackTracker in the Wild, Wild Wastes. Starring Boaz MacIntyre from "Live by the Ten," a grizzled middle-aged sheriff hard-wired to enforce the Ten Commandments, plus a few characters from BackTracker (who are somehow still alive two centuries later), as well as Boy from "Soulless" and the strange automaton from "Clockwork."

In a lawless, unforgiving world, one man dares to stand for what's right. Some call him crazy. Others: the Last LawKeeper. Or something like that. We'll see how it goes.

Standard eBooks

When I received word that Amazon would no longer be supporting Gizmo, my 16-year-old Kindle, my first thought was, "What support?" It's not like the device has ever received a software update of any kind (unlike my Chromebook, which seems to have one every other day). The only "support" I can think of was the ability to send eBooks wirelessly to Gizmo and the ability to borrow eBooks from the public library. Alas and alack, no more. 

But Amazon was real nice about it. They offered me a discount on my purchase of a NEW Kindle as well as a gift card to put toward buying a few new books. And if all the millions of unsupported Kindle owners decide to take them up on their offer, they'll make millions in the process. It's almost like Amazon suddenly realized, "Uh-oh... We made those old Kindles too well. They won't be going kaput anytime soon. Time for Plan B."

No thanks! Gizmo still works great, and I have no desire to replace it. So what if I can't purchase new eBooks from Amazon? I rarely did that anyway. And so what if I can't borrow eBooks from the library anymore? I've got 70 classics on Gizmo that I haven't even read yet (including War and Peace; that one should keep me busy for a while). Furthermore, I can keep side-loading eBook files onto my old, unsupported Kindle via a USB cable. Good thing there are so many alternatives to Amazon out there.

On the topic of classic books, I've recently discovered a great site with quality offerings: Standard Ebooks. They're a "volunteer-driven project that produces new editions of public domain ebooks that are lovingly formatted, open source, free of U.S. copyright restrictions, and free of cost. Standard Ebooks takes ebooks from sources like Project Gutenberg, formats and typesets them using a carefully designed and professional-grade style manual, fully proofreads and corrects them, and then builds them to create a new edition that takes advantage of state-of-the-art ereader and browser technology."

How cool is that? I've started reading a collection of Conan the Barbarian stories by Robert E. Howard, and I can confirm that the formatting is much more pleasing to the eye than most of the atrocities I've downloaded for free in the past. All this to say, I'm glad Gizmo and I still have a future together—until it decides on its own to go kaput at some point.

Friday Freebie

Meet Captain Quasar, a cross between James T. Kirk and Dudley Do-Right—except in Quasar's case, things seldom ever go right... 

Join Captain Bartholomew Quasar and the crew of the Effervescent Magnitude in this hilarious collection of short stories as they confront bands of nefarious space pirates, cantankerous bandits, exotic aliens, devious powers of persuasion, mysterious ghosts from the past, deep space identity crises, a runaway hyperspeed train, an insidious computer virus, and a villain with the fastest thumbs in the quadrant. Includes the action-packed prequel novella The Bounty Hunters from Arachnxx Three

Free eBook

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Audio Re-Release

In case you missed it the first time around (six years ago), the audio version of my novel After the Sky is now available (again) wherever audiobooks are sold. When the rights reverted, my former publisher pulled it from retailers as part of our agreement; but the producer was amiable to the idea of a re-release, so here we are. Steve Campbell did an incredible job bringing this story to life. If you haven't heard it already, be sure to check it out:

Amazon     Apple     Audible

The meek have not inherited the earth.

The world isn't how they left it. When the bunker airlocks release them after twenty years in hibernation, the survivors find a silent, barren landscape outside. But they are not alone. There is a presence here, alive in the dust—spirits of the earth, benevolent and malicious as they interact with the human remnant.

Milton is haunted by a violent past he's unable to escape, despite the superhuman speed the spirits give him. Not interested in bearing the next generation, Daiyna is determined to destroy the flesh-eating mutants lurking in the dark, pierced by her night-vision. Luther is a man of conviction who believes the Creator has offered humankind a second chance, yet he's uncertain they deserve it—and he's perplexed by the talons that flex out of his fingers. Willard is a brilliant engineer-turned-soldier who refuses to leave his bunker, afraid of becoming infected and willing to destroy any obstacle in his way.

As their lives collide, the mysteries of this strange new world start unraveling, culminating in the ultimate life-or-death decision one survivor will make for them all.

Release Day

Third time's the charm? 

With Detective Vic Boyo, anything's possible.

1933, New York City: Prohibition may be over, but that doesn't mean things have cooled down any for our intrepid hero—even when a massive blizzard strikes the Big Apple hard. Good thing Boyo's always got his trusty heater.

When an old flame shows up on his doorstep seeking help, Boyo promises to do everything in his power to protect her. Problem is, she's not telling him the whole story, and before Boyo knows it, he's caught in the middle of a tug-of-war between powerful political and underworld forces who aren't playing pattycake. No, they're playing for keepsies.

Now Available: 

eBook     Paperback

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100% Human

My writing has always been human-generated (by me). No AI used at all. Not for any stage of the process: brainstorming, outlining, researching, or editing. Not to make my writing flow better (that much should be obvious). Not to write myself out of corners I've written myself into. Not to write taglines or synopses or blurbs. None of that.

But I've used AI-generated cover art on a dozen of my books over the past few years. Until last week, that is, when I gave them a major overhaul with human-generated images instead.

Why'd I make the change? Because I want to be able to say that my work is 100% human. I'm not a big fan of AI, particularly not the deluge of AI-generated books currently crowding the marketplace, and I want my work to stand apart. I don't want my books to have the same style of cover art as AI slop. Plain and simple.

Now when I look for suitable artwork on sites that offer free, commercial-use images, I filter the search to exclude anything generated by artificial intelligence. Sure, the pickings are slimmer. And yeah, I have to work a little harder to make the images fit the themes I'm going for (thankful for Canva). But overall, I'm pleased with the results. 

We'll see if readers notice. From what I've heard, thousands of unsuspecting types have been burned by soulless AI garbage. Hopefully they'll be able to tell at first glance that my stuff is about as diametrically opposed to that as you can get.

Keep reading

Novel #26

Third time's the charm? 

With Detective Vic Boyo, anything's possible. 

1933, New York City: Prohibition may be over, but that doesn't mean things have cooled down any for our intrepid hero—even when a massive blizzard strikes the Big Apple hard. Good thing Boyo's always got his trusty heater. When an old flame shows up on his doorstep seeking help, Boyo promises to do everything in his power to protect her. Problem is, she's not telling him the whole story, and before Boyo knows it, he's caught in the middle of a tug-of-war between powerful political and underworld forces who aren't playing pattycake. No, they're playing for keepsies.

Buy Direct or Pre-Order

Eight years ago, when I released the first Vic Boyo novel Double Murders Are Twice As Bad, I thought it was going to be the only Vic Boyo novel. Well, the joke was on me. Because last year I took a look at a novella I wrote during the olden days of my misspent youth, and I decided to flesh it out into something novel-length. Thus, Less Than Meets The Eye was born. That's right: the sequel nobody asked for. And since it left a couple plot points up in the air with regard to Boyo's personal life, of course I had to write the threequel. So that's what I did, and a fun time was had by all.

While the official release date isn't until May 5, you can grab a copy of the eBook today at my Payhip store. I would say chuckles guaranteed or your money back, but I have no idea how the logistics of that would work. So if you laugh, then laugh out loud. And maybe a few somebodies within earshot will desire a copy of Witless Protection for themselves.

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2nd Editions

It's re-release day, and that means every novel in my Spirits of the Earth trilogy and Captain Quasar Chronicles has officially been unshackled from its former publisher + Kindle Unlimited and is now available everywhere books are sold. Click each cover for a direct link to my Payhip store as well as links to Amazon, Apple Books, Barnes & Noble, Bookshop, and Kobo:

 

It's tough to pick favorites among all the stuff I've written, but these are definitely at the top, right up there with AGROTHARN, Charlie Madison, and the rest. I wrote Spirits of the Earth over the span of 10 years, so that trilogy is pretty special to me. And, come to think of it, the first Quasar short story was published a decade prior to the trilogy's release. So these characters have been living in my head for quite a while!

Home Stretch

The 50K mark went flying by this past week, which makes my current work-in-progress officially a (short) novel. If I had to guess, I'd say it's maybe 10K away from the finish line. And I'm planning to complete the first draft over the next week because...Spring Break!

With a May release looming on the horizon, now's as good a time as any to share the cover art and blurb with you. So here they are, in all their glory. No pre-order option yet, but if you subscribe to my newsletter, you'll be the first to know when Vic Boyo's Book 3 is released into the wild.

Third time's the charm? 

With Detective Vic Boyo, anything's possible. 

1933, New York City: Prohibition may be over, but that doesn't mean things have cooled down any for our intrepid hero—even when a massive blizzard strikes the Big Apple hard. Good thing Boyo's always got his trusty heater. When an old flame shows up on his doorstep seeking help, Boyo promises to do everything in his power to protect her. Problem is, she's not telling him the whole story, and before Boyo knows it, he's caught in the middle of a tug-of-war between powerful political and underworld forces who aren't playing pattycake. No, they're playing for keepsies.

Short and Direct

All of my short story collections are now available wherever eBooks are sold, so that means I've got a new section for them in my Payhip store. When you buy direct, more of the purchase price goes to the author instead of a massive megacorporation, and the author gets paid immediately instead of having to wait a couple months to see those royalties. You also get an actual EPUB copy of the book to keep instead of just a license to view the content on your device. Sounds like a real win-win, don't you think?

But since I like giving my readers all sorts of options, you'll also find these collections on Amazon, Apple Books, Barnes & Noble, Bookshop, Kobo and everywhere else. A few of the books are even free. How about that?

Over Halfway There

I've passed the 30K mark on my current work-in-progress, and things are shaping up nicely. Been doing a lot of plotting on this one. Not sure if that means I'm getting old and scatterbrained or just more organized. I don't know how I used to draft 100K manuscripts without notes. This one will probably end up being between 50-60K, and I've had to outline almost every scene in order to keep track of what I'm writing about. But it's turning out well, and that's what matters. Slow-going, as seems to be the case lately, but every step in the right direction is progress.

In other news, all of the eBooks in my Captain Quasar and Spirits of the Earth trilogies are formatted and ready to go. Next up will be the paperbacks. I'm planning to release them all at the same time, most likely in April to coincide with my turning half a century old. Something to celebrate.

Next week, each of my short story collections will be dropping out of KU and going wide, so they'll be available wherever you buy such things—including my Payhip store. Coyote Cal has new cover art, which might be my favorite so far. I also tinkered around with BackTracker's cover again (since I was in cover-tinkering mode), and I'm thinking this one's a keeper.

Now to plant myself in the study and see if I can churn out a thousand words or so...

Bookshop.org

I found out this week that all of my novels are now available on Bookshop.org, an alternative to Amazon that has raised more than 45 million bucks for independent bookstores over the past six years. I'm all for selling my work wherever I can, and that includes Amazon. But I'm not a big fan of monopolies, so giving my readers another viable option to buy books is always a good idea.

There are a couple of ways you can support your local bookstore with Bookshop. First, you can search for a participating bookstore, order your book through them, and Bookshop acts as the distributor / online retailer, with the bookstore earning the full profit from your purchase. The second option is to make your purchase directly through Bookshop with 10% of the profits going into a pool that is then distributed to indie bookstores all over the country. Pretty nifty, eh?

Something else I like: signing up for an affiliate account earns me an additional 10% on every book I sell through a Bookshop link. For example, the Chronicles of AGROTHARN. Instead of making only $3 on a $4.99 purchase, I'll make $3.50. Yahoo!

So, if you're interested in buying books without supporting a megacorporation, give Bookshop a try.