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.