December 6, 2009

My Books

Shifter Born

Becoming an adult is scary. Even with fang and fur.

This is the first two stories of a series.

Coming December 31st, 2009

New Ickford Manor

Lush feasts, sword play and pageantry were only fantasies until nature’s fury casts a group of renaissance enthusiasts into the reality of medieval England.

In this fun read, you will see what happens as we share a trilogy of erotic tales.

December 6, 2009

How do you like it?

This is a new layout (theme) for my blog. I’m experimenting with making things a bit more readable as well as easier to navigate.

Opinions welcome, of course.

December 6, 2009

Tips for Newbie Writers

Three Tips

Number one: Never, EVER pay to have your work published! Any agent or publisher that asks for money up front is NOT your friend! They are called a vanity press and are nothing more than scams.
Number two: Any legitimate publisher will look over your work and either offer you a contract, which comes with an editor, or they will suggest you rework your story in some way. Pay attention to their advice. They have been making a living at this.
Number three: Editors are your friends. They are interested in getting paid too and they will make money if you do. Several people have told me about typoes, misspellings, etc. in their published works. That is due to a failure to properly edit the work or in the case of vanity press publishers, no editing at all.

The Process

There are two sides to the process of going from a ‘writer’ to a ‘published author’. They are the ‘craft’ of writing and the ‘business’ of writing. Both are difficult and both are needed to succeed. This group has a tremendous amount of wonderful information, but the bottom line is that you need to develop these skills.

Here are some very useful links:

Predators and Editors tells you who has a good rep and who to avoid.
Absolute Write is a water-cooler around which pros and newbies gather to share their skills.
Jerry Pournelle has written a good essay on the subject.
Marie Brennan has some good tips in her Essays on writing.
Tobias Buckell blogs and has some video clips about the business of being an author.
And finally, always read the ‘Submission Guidelines’ that every legitimate publisher has on their webpage. If you submit something that doesn’t match their guidelines, they are going to reject it out of hand.
Good luck and keep writing!

November 30, 2009

Edit Time

The NaNoWriMo challenge is over. Shifter Born is in the editor’s hands for the final round and I took the holiday weekend off to party with some old and dear friends.

Now we are in the holiday season and for many of us, that means making lists, sorting priorities and focusing our attention on edits.

I was actually a bit surprised when I refreshed my ToDo list and realized that I have three novels and three short stories that need to be finished and submitted. Two of the short stories are sequels to Shifter Born (more on those, later).

Happy Holidays!

November 23, 2009

FREE Holiday Cookbook!

That’s right, gang! I said a kissindontlastcookbook

The Authors and Editors at Red Rose Publishing gathered some of our favorite recipes and Delilah Stephans put a lot of work into assembly them into a Cookbook.

Just click on the Kissin Don’t Last link to download your free copy.

November 23, 2009

NaNoComplished!

This past week was hectic to say the least. As I mentioned in my last post, I was on a roll with my NaNoWriMo novel and this all came to a head, early Saturday Morning.

I woke up at 3:30 in the morning with images and dialogue running through my head. Nothing would do but I had to get it out. Finally, just before noon, I wrapped up a really ugly first draft of my new novel. It was officially at 50,006 words. It is now on the back burner, while I work on last-minute edits for Shifter Born and a surprise project.

It will be a little while before I start the first round of edits on Cloud Dancer and by then, I’m thinking it will undergo a name change.

More to come!

November 17, 2009

On A Writing Role

Wow! I’ve been on a roll, today. I’m finally into the really exciting ‘meat’ of Cloud Dancer. This is one of the parts I’ve been waiting and so far, I like how it’s come out.

It was rather hard to imagine an air-sea battle between a destroyer and an airship. After all, even in the early stages of World War II, it was a given that airships were too slow and made way too big of targets to be of any serious use in an offensive role. They were considered very expensive transport for rich folk.

Since I was determined to not only fight my airship, but to have her win, it took a lot of day-dreaming to work it out in my head, before the first words hit paper. With that in mind, I managed to break thirty seven thousand words before noon!

Oh! And one other thing to report… I’ve started another drawing. This time, I needed to have a firm idea of how and where the Cloud Singer was armed and how she would relate to an enemy destroyer and the Cloud Dancer. With any luck, I should be able to wrap up the new set of plans this evening and I’ll share some of them with y’all.

Keep on writing!

November 11, 2009

A Change of Pace

I was spinning my wheels a bit, while trying to write and I realized I had only a very vague idea of what the Cloud Dancer looked like. This was not acceptable, so I took some time to draw up a rough sketch that gave me an idea of proportion, crew size, armaments, etc.

So, it looks like I’ll share this first peek at my dieselpunk warship.

First Rough Drawing

Click to enlarge to full size.

Opinions and questions are appreciated.

November 10, 2009

Ain’t Nuthin’ Bettah!

One of my weaknesses involves apples, cinnamon, brown sugar, etc…

This just came out of the oven a few minutes ago!

Fine Dining!

Thanks, Bren!

November 9, 2009

Day Nine of NaNo

Wow! Time passes when you’re having fun! It has been a week since my last post and I’m now up to over seventeen thousand words in Cloud Dancer.

So far, there have been two romantic interludes, two battle sequences, many historical references and some required expository text. Things are shaping up nicely and I’ve not even revealed the Cloud Dancer.

Just to give you an idea of some of the research I’ve been doing, here are just a few of the more than two dozen links I’ve bookmarked just for this novel.

http://www.prinzeugen.com/SBOATIND.htm

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Waychinicup_River

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Military_history_of_Australia

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/OS2U_Kingfisher

Those are just part of establishing the initial backstory.