Today (March 29) it was 17 degrees Celsius, but a bit windy. I also saw my first Robins. About ten of them sat in our trees in the yard. This is early. Last year I saw my first Robin April 12th. But everything is early this year, even Easter.
I'm still busy with editing my novel. I changed the title again, but I think this will be the final title. 'Web of Conspiracy'. It is the most appropriate one. It describes pretty well the scope of the story. Books One and Two are finished, ready to be sent in. I'm almost done with Book Three. Maybe tomorrow I will finish editing it.
Monday, March 29, 2010
Wednesday, March 24, 2010
Spring News
Hard to believe that Spring is here already. The snow was already gone but last night we received some snow again. It will probably melt away by the weekend. As fast as the time is moving along, my editing is going slow. I put aside my long novel Epsilon again, because I have to write some more stuff for the third book to make it longer.
Also, I'm still struggling with the titles. I think the hardest part of writing a story is to find the right title for it. When I started writing Epsilon it was only meant to be one book and the title for it was already chosen before I even began writing, but then it turned out to be so long (165,000 + words) so I needed to make it into three book. And that's where the problem began. I think a finally have it though. The series will be called 'The Spider Wars', in case I want to write more books. This trilogy will be Lizard World, Book One - Epsilon; Lizard World, Book Two - Epsilon City; Lizard World, Book Three - Raptor's Tooth. So far, but I may change that again.
I decided to have my Contemporary Thriller 'Tarnished Valor' published as an ebook. It was supposed to be my breakout novel into the print publishing world, but I have to face reality. I tried to find an agent for the last two years. Nobody seems interested. I'm not getting any younger and if I want to see the book published I can't wait years to find an agent and then a publisher. The background of the story is the Iraq war, which is actually over now. The US have pulled out of Iraq and moved into Afghanistan, which means my book is in a way time-sensitive. In my opinion it is good story, a murder mystery and more, and I don't want it to get moldy in a drawer (hypothetically speaking since it is on my computer), so I contacted my publisher MSFiction if they were interested and they are. The story contains little Erotica so I wasn't sure if they wanted to publish it.
Since the book is 180,000 + words I had to make three separate books out of it and it worked out quite well.
I'm finished doing the final edits of Book One and have started Book Two. It is a slow process. Writers who write books on how to write stories always suggest to put a story away once it is finished and not look at for a month or even longer and then read it again.
I have to agree with that. I haven't looked at Tarnished Valor for over a year and I thought it was polished enough for publishing. Well, what a surprise when I started reading it again. I still found spelling mistakes and a few parts that needed more polishing, even changing. That's why it is taking me longer now to edit it again. I pride myself to send in a polished manuscript free of error. It is not as easy as it seems. Our brains are funny that way. We might read a sentence with misspelled words or even missing words. After reading for a longer time our brains will just fill in the missing words and not notice the misspelled ones. You can't put your trust in word processors because they don't always pick up the wrong words.
The trilogy will be (so far) 'Web of Deception', Book One: Death of a Hero. Book Two: Traitors and Patriots. Book Three: Tarnished Valor.
On another note, Orion, the Hunt was on number 6 position in sales for the last 20 days with FictionWise on March 22. Orion. Symbiont of Passion was numer 7 on March 13. So my books are still selling even though I haven't anything new out since last year with Symbiont of Passion. My other books have slipped far down on the scale. Advertising is everything and I haven't done any.
Yesterday I took down our Martin house (There are never any Martins in it, only Sparrows). I wanted to give it a new paint job, but as my wife and I let down the pole it was mounted on, I lost my grip on the pole and it came crashing down. Needless to say, the house got damaged. Then I discovered the wood was rotting away, which means I will probably have to rebuilt the whole thing. More time taken away from my writing, but I love watching the birds outside, so building this birdhouse is priority. It needs to be put up before the birds start breeding.
Today I will be filtering 3 batches of wine so I can bottle them next week. I've made Australian Cabernet/Shiraz, Chilean Merlot, and German Piesporter (white). They are made from Kits. I like them better than the wines you can buy and they are much cheaper. I'll also be making some beer. They've raised the price of beer $1.25 a case of 12 last week. It is getting too expensive. I still don't know why Alcohol is so expensive in Canada. I was in Germany last year and I couldn't believe the reasonable prices there. You can buy a bottle of fairly good wine for three Euros which is about $5.00. The same bottle would cost in Canada about $15.00 with Tax. And that is the problem I believe. Taxes. Anyway, enough griping. I think I'll drink a glass of wine for lunch. Or maybe a bottle of homemade beer. Darn, I can't make up my mind. Ah, what the heck, at these prices I'll have both. (Just kidding). I'll probably have a can of alcohol-free beer or a cup of tea.
Also, I'm still struggling with the titles. I think the hardest part of writing a story is to find the right title for it. When I started writing Epsilon it was only meant to be one book and the title for it was already chosen before I even began writing, but then it turned out to be so long (165,000 + words) so I needed to make it into three book. And that's where the problem began. I think a finally have it though. The series will be called 'The Spider Wars', in case I want to write more books. This trilogy will be Lizard World, Book One - Epsilon; Lizard World, Book Two - Epsilon City; Lizard World, Book Three - Raptor's Tooth. So far, but I may change that again.
I decided to have my Contemporary Thriller 'Tarnished Valor' published as an ebook. It was supposed to be my breakout novel into the print publishing world, but I have to face reality. I tried to find an agent for the last two years. Nobody seems interested. I'm not getting any younger and if I want to see the book published I can't wait years to find an agent and then a publisher. The background of the story is the Iraq war, which is actually over now. The US have pulled out of Iraq and moved into Afghanistan, which means my book is in a way time-sensitive. In my opinion it is good story, a murder mystery and more, and I don't want it to get moldy in a drawer (hypothetically speaking since it is on my computer), so I contacted my publisher MSFiction if they were interested and they are. The story contains little Erotica so I wasn't sure if they wanted to publish it.
Since the book is 180,000 + words I had to make three separate books out of it and it worked out quite well.
I'm finished doing the final edits of Book One and have started Book Two. It is a slow process. Writers who write books on how to write stories always suggest to put a story away once it is finished and not look at for a month or even longer and then read it again.
I have to agree with that. I haven't looked at Tarnished Valor for over a year and I thought it was polished enough for publishing. Well, what a surprise when I started reading it again. I still found spelling mistakes and a few parts that needed more polishing, even changing. That's why it is taking me longer now to edit it again. I pride myself to send in a polished manuscript free of error. It is not as easy as it seems. Our brains are funny that way. We might read a sentence with misspelled words or even missing words. After reading for a longer time our brains will just fill in the missing words and not notice the misspelled ones. You can't put your trust in word processors because they don't always pick up the wrong words.
The trilogy will be (so far) 'Web of Deception', Book One: Death of a Hero. Book Two: Traitors and Patriots. Book Three: Tarnished Valor.
On another note, Orion, the Hunt was on number 6 position in sales for the last 20 days with FictionWise on March 22. Orion. Symbiont of Passion was numer 7 on March 13. So my books are still selling even though I haven't anything new out since last year with Symbiont of Passion. My other books have slipped far down on the scale. Advertising is everything and I haven't done any.
Yesterday I took down our Martin house (There are never any Martins in it, only Sparrows). I wanted to give it a new paint job, but as my wife and I let down the pole it was mounted on, I lost my grip on the pole and it came crashing down. Needless to say, the house got damaged. Then I discovered the wood was rotting away, which means I will probably have to rebuilt the whole thing. More time taken away from my writing, but I love watching the birds outside, so building this birdhouse is priority. It needs to be put up before the birds start breeding.
Today I will be filtering 3 batches of wine so I can bottle them next week. I've made Australian Cabernet/Shiraz, Chilean Merlot, and German Piesporter (white). They are made from Kits. I like them better than the wines you can buy and they are much cheaper. I'll also be making some beer. They've raised the price of beer $1.25 a case of 12 last week. It is getting too expensive. I still don't know why Alcohol is so expensive in Canada. I was in Germany last year and I couldn't believe the reasonable prices there. You can buy a bottle of fairly good wine for three Euros which is about $5.00. The same bottle would cost in Canada about $15.00 with Tax. And that is the problem I believe. Taxes. Anyway, enough griping. I think I'll drink a glass of wine for lunch. Or maybe a bottle of homemade beer. Darn, I can't make up my mind. Ah, what the heck, at these prices I'll have both. (Just kidding). I'll probably have a can of alcohol-free beer or a cup of tea.
Thursday, March 04, 2010
Back again
It is March the fourth today and still winter. It's a miserable day outside. Minus 4 Celsius and cloudy. Good day to stay indoors. We got back February 22nd from a holiday in the Mayan Riviera. If anyone is interested I wrote a review on tripadvisor. I do that every time we go on a holiday. Just click on the link.
With our long winter it is always nice to get a break and go south into the sunshine and swim in the ocean. I took a lot of pictures, a few with my book covers in mind. My 2-book novel 'Stars in Chains' is scheduled to be released in September and October of this year. I designed covers for them. I don't know if they'll be used. That is up to my publisher. I don't have a good program that lets me design covers the way I envision them.
I'm still working on the edits of my three-book novel 'Epsilon', which I changed to 'Stars in Chains'. I want to make sure there are as few mistakes as possible when I submit it. Right now I am cleaning up all the inconsistencies. I'm also adding more stuff to the individual books, since originally I wrote the novel as one book, but it turned into over 160,000 words. Much too long for e-publishing. More explanation need to be put into each book for the reader to understand certain scenes. For instance, in the second book I am explaining Epsilon City, but that explanation is missing in book one, since I separated the chapters. The story is told from three different viewpoints, but in the end all of the characters get together, and even during the course of the story some of the characters interact with each other. It made sense in the book as a whole, but not after each character had his own book. But I'm managing to fill in the gaps.
I can't wait to get started again with the continuation of Book Four of The Xandra, no title yet, but I'm not going to rush with 'Epsilon'. I've learned to be patient. It pays off in the end.
My books aren't doing well at FictionWise because I haven't published anything lately. It seems readers forget about you quickly unless you offer them something new once in a while, then all of sudden all my books are beginning to sell again. I don't have any idea how my books are doing on my publisher's site MSFiction, but even there I have nothing new. I'm hoping that my Anthology 'Tapestry of Dreams' will be available on FictionWise soon. Somehow it never made it to that site, but it is available from MSFiction.
With our long winter it is always nice to get a break and go south into the sunshine and swim in the ocean. I took a lot of pictures, a few with my book covers in mind. My 2-book novel 'Stars in Chains' is scheduled to be released in September and October of this year. I designed covers for them. I don't know if they'll be used. That is up to my publisher. I don't have a good program that lets me design covers the way I envision them.
I'm still working on the edits of my three-book novel 'Epsilon', which I changed to 'Stars in Chains'. I want to make sure there are as few mistakes as possible when I submit it. Right now I am cleaning up all the inconsistencies. I'm also adding more stuff to the individual books, since originally I wrote the novel as one book, but it turned into over 160,000 words. Much too long for e-publishing. More explanation need to be put into each book for the reader to understand certain scenes. For instance, in the second book I am explaining Epsilon City, but that explanation is missing in book one, since I separated the chapters. The story is told from three different viewpoints, but in the end all of the characters get together, and even during the course of the story some of the characters interact with each other. It made sense in the book as a whole, but not after each character had his own book. But I'm managing to fill in the gaps.
I can't wait to get started again with the continuation of Book Four of The Xandra, no title yet, but I'm not going to rush with 'Epsilon'. I've learned to be patient. It pays off in the end.
My books aren't doing well at FictionWise because I haven't published anything lately. It seems readers forget about you quickly unless you offer them something new once in a while, then all of sudden all my books are beginning to sell again. I don't have any idea how my books are doing on my publisher's site MSFiction, but even there I have nothing new. I'm hoping that my Anthology 'Tapestry of Dreams' will be available on FictionWise soon. Somehow it never made it to that site, but it is available from MSFiction.
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