#A Matter of Integrity

I finally decided on the title of my ‘Lews Canon’ novel. It came to me when I woke up at night and couldn’t fall asleep again. Finding a title is, for me, the most difficult part of writing a novel. You can’t just pick out anything because it sounds cool. The title needs to reflect something from the novel. The title I came up with ‘A Matter of Integrity’ does exactly that. I did have to do a little bit of rewriting some dialog to make the title fit, but it worked out.

I read the whole novel once again, discovering quite a few inconsistencies and errors, which have been fixed. I had to add new paragraphs but also had to take out some. There were many awkward sentences which needed to be rewritten. Done all that. When I started with the novel I had no idea where it would lead me, but it developed nicely, new ideas came to me while I was writing and in the end with a bit of tweaking it all came together. I’m happy with the novel; actually, quite happy.

A Matter of Integrity is 76,000 words long. I think it is just the perfect length for an electronic book. I’m still not sure who I will publish with, either Amazon or Smashwords, but I will publish it myself. I have more control over the content, and I don't have to wait a year for it to be published.

This novel, like ‘Bullet of Revenge’, doesn’t have any Erotica in it. There is a bit of romance and interaction between men and women, but only bantering and hints. After all, that’s what happens in life. We can’t ignore that and pretend sex doesn’t exist. It is part of life and part of happiness between couples. Romance without sex would be quite boring. But there are no explicit scenes in this novel.

Now I’m taking a bit of a breather from this novel, just to distance myself a little. Perhaps for a couple of weeks or so. Then I’ll read it again for another edit, looking for misspelled word and other mistakes that still lurk inside the novel. I also have to design the cover. That is also a bit daunting. It takes a lot of time to browse through images that fit the novel.

In the meantime I’ve already started a new novel. I’m at 1,700 words right now. It is a Science Fiction novel and takes place in the universe I created in my 4 book series ‘The Spider Wars’. The first book was ‘Outpost Epsilon’ and the other 3 books were subtitled ‘Lizard World’. Book one: Epsilon. Book two: Epsilon City. Book three: Raptor’s Tooth.

But this story happens about 20 years after the events in ‘Lizard World’.

I liked that universe and the alien races inhabiting it, and I liked the main character Terrex Stonewall. He is also in this story, but only as secondary character, and twenty years older. The main character is his nephew Bret Grayson. I don’t know yet how this story will develop, but as I write things happen and the story and the characters will take shape and become more real in my mind. We’ll see where it leads and ends. That’s the excitement of writing a story. I never know what danger awaits the characters as they experience the life I’m creating for them.

I have no title yet. Right now I’m writing it as ‘Outpost Something’.