Hoory! It's Friday! + Nano Updates

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Happy Friday Everyone! We made it through the week! Who-hoo! 

My Follow Friday post is HERE at Musings on Fantasia if you want to see it, or join our blog hop. 

As for NaNo, as of today I've written 17, 537 words for NaNoWriMo, which puts me at 31, 231 for the novel. I've written 9 chapters out of 24. As you can see, though I'm still running a bit behind on my NaNo word count, I'm chugging right along.

How has everyone else done with NaNo this week? Got any fun weekend plans?

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NaNoWriMo Updates + Updates on Book 2!

I didn't mention it yet, I don't think, but I'm trying to finish the second book in my Street Games series for NaNo. I'd started writing it before November, but I only had about 5,000 words. I think it will be longer than 55,000--more in the 70-90,000 range, but I think I can finish it, or if not that, come very close.

I'm tentatively calling book 2 Desolate Mantle.

Yesterday, I wrote 4898 words, which puts me at 12303 for NaNo and 25,997 for the novel. 

Here's the info on book 1, Dark Remnants. It's currently priced at $0.99, though that will probably change when I finish book 2.  You can get it on Amazon, B&N, or Smashwords.

      In the most dangerous city in the country, one controlled by a sadistic gang called the Sons of Ares, Kyra Roberts is searching the deep places for someone…
      Kyra has come to Abstreuse city to find someone she’s lost, but walking the underbelly—a dark alley system residents call the Slip Mire—even in disguise, is rife with dangers. Kyra must stay on her toes if she intends to live. After crossing paths several times with the same detective, she wonders if his work and hers might be connected.
      Gabe Nichols has worked homicide in Abstreuse for three years. Dead prostitutes and gang violence are part of the night shift. When a woman who looks like a street junkie but acts like an intellectual saves his life, he’s intrigued. Another woman shows up at his crime scene, and Gabe’s instincts kick into high gear when she clams up. Two cases involving strange women who won’t tell what they know are too coincidental.
     If Gabe and Kyra can’t find a way to collaborate, they may not live to see the sunrise. Doomed, like so many others, to become gray, unmarked graves in a forgotten fracture of the Slip Mire.

How's everyone else doing with their NaNoWriMo projects?

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Quick Monday Pole: Will You Give Me Your Opinions? Pretty Please?

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As many of you know, I'm currently working on lots of projects, including an epic fantasy that includes dragons. One of the guys in my critique group asked me about the length last week. He made a comment along the lines of, "You sure know how to write an epic fantasy, 'cause this sucker's gonna be long!"

He's not wrong. This is the type of epic fantasy that has four or five different viewpoint characters, most doing vastly different things in different parts of my fantasy world. 

Now, I'm not terribly worried about the length. 1) I plan to edit it well so that the writing is tight. As long as the writing is awesome, length has never bothered me as a reader, so why should it bother me as a writer? 2) It's an epic fantasy. They tend to have longer word lengths. 3) I will probably self-publish it, which means that while the print edition may be a bit higher than I'd like to cover printing costs, I can keep the e-book edition priced low, which should help push sales forward.

As this is something I've been thinking about a lot this week, I thought I'd ask for opinions:

Does length bother you when you're choosing books? Are you less likely to choose a long book, even if price isn't a factor? Just wondering what everyone thinks. 

Thanks so much for your help, wonderful readers! Have a fantastic Monday! :D

Oh, and if you're interested in my Dragon Magic series, the first book of which will be out early next year, check out the prequel, The Hatching. It's on sale for $0.99 on AMAZON right now! :D

Amazon Link -- $0.99

Goodreads Blurb

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Book Signing Update + Announcements

So maybe this is stating the obvious, but Barnes and Noble is definitely the place to do a book signing! I've done several signings over the past couple of months and each time I've only sold a handful of books--like less than five, with three being the golden number. When you're an unknown author, that's just the way it goes, and I'm always grateful for any sale. Then, on Saturday, I went to the B & N in Layton and sha-zam! I sold like a dozen books in under two hours! Can everyone say boo-yah!

It occurred to me that it's probably because, in other places there are books, but also other things. If people come in to Hastings to rent movies, they are often reluctant to plunk down money on an extra, unforeseen purchase. I get a lot of requests for digital copies in those cases. But when people walk in to B & N, they're there specifically there to buy books--so my sales are much higher. Yea!

As for the next events, I'll be presenting a workshop for the Write for the Heights conference on 5/4. My topic is 'The Big Opening,' as in, the big opening of your story. I'll also be presenting to Wasatch Writers, a chapter of the League of Utah Writers on 5/13. At that event, I'll be talking about traditional vs. self-publishing. Both will be held in Utah, but if anyone wants to attend, just email or comment and I'll give you details.

Anyone else had any awesome, successful bookish events lately?

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Thank You, Thank You, Thank You! + Announcements

Oh so many orders of business today!

First off: Thankyou Thankyou thankyou thankyou thankyou thankyou thankyou...a million times thank you to all those who participated in my Persistence of Vision blog tour. It's officially over! There may be a few later reviews and posts that we couldn't fit into the official tour, and I'll post them as they come, but the tour, for all intents and purposes, ended last week. The book is doing relatively well for a debut novel, and I know it's because so many supportive, enthusiastic bloggers were willing to feature me. So, thank you so much! I really appreciate it. More than I can say. Thank you. Thank you. Okay, one more time and I'll stop. THANK YOU!!!

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This and That

This weekend I attended a luncheon for all Jolly Fish Press authors. It was great! We got to meet some of our fellow publishees and put faces to, well...faces that we've only seen on Facebook profiles before now. It was so fun to talk with everyone and chat about all our soon-to-be out there work. I've got a few pictures (which I shamelessly pilfered from Facebook) below.

As I drove home, I thought about where I am and where I'll be going (writing-wise) in the near future.

I'm right at a point where many projects are intercepting and I feel like I'm doing a little bit of everything. Over the weekend, I finished the first draft of the second installment of Interchron. (It's okay if you need to read that again; it was a complicated sentence! :D) Of course it's by no means done. I have to go back through and put things in that I left out the first time through, simply because I was preoccupied with the action or other parts of the narrative. After that, I'll give it to my alpha readers and let it rest (for me, I mean) for 4-6 weeks. Then I'll go back through and do more serious editing once I have some space from it.

While my alpha readers rip that apart, I have another book--totally different genre of crime thriller--called The Botanist. My published for Kremlins said he'd take a look at it. There are no promises of publication, of course, but I thought I'd give him dibs. I want to do another editorial cycle on it, though. I haven't looked at that manuscript in months, so it's time I did. I'll probably send that to him (fingers crossed) sometime in September.

After that, I'll start getting the second installment of Kremlins ready. It's actually all written but I GUARANTEE it needs a lot of editorial love. Once I learned to edit myself, I went over book 1 with a fine-toothed comb, but I haven't touched book 2 yet, which means it's pretty raw.

I'm also trying to get more reading done. I'm a firm believer that anyone who wishes to be a successful writer should be devouring books on a daily basis. Unfortunately, I've been a bit of a hypocrite lately, so I'm trying to remedy that and chisel away at my To Be Read list a bit.

So, in short, I have plenty to keep me busy until the end of the calender year. A lot of it is editing, but that's okay with me. Sometimes it's nice to know that something is mostly written and you just have to fine tune it, rather that be uber-creative and come up with completely new stuff.

Anyway, just some this and that updates on my life. Everyone have a fabulous week! :D

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