Book 19 - incredible progress

I made myself wait to write this episode and was going to make it Book 20, but it couldn't wait. And now, I'm having way too much fun writing it. Book 19's working title is ALL THE KING'S MEN, and it is all because of the Feri I created for the series.

Soon after I came up with the name and look of L'Ni's people way back in writing Book 4, I knew I had the perfect alien species. Not only does the name play well with fury (FURIOUS and DRAGON AND FURY), but they look like space elves. I'm having fun with making the Inari and Feri played up a bit as fantasy creatures on a world with humans in a no-tech medieval setting (logical explanation for that amid the high-tech other worlds). I even have a creature that resembles a dragon that is native to the world on which this story takes place, and it existed before humans were transplanted there. There's no magic involved, however; it's all technology and Starfire.

This is going to be too much fun to write.

It has had it's own struggles already, but filling those plot holes was easy.

Plus, I have over 6K words already written in less than a week! (So far--that pace could change.)

I've said in the past that this series lets me write all the stories I could ever want to write but with a common setting and characters. The original Starfire Angels was science fiction with a veneer of YA paranormal. This series is space opera, but this episode has a veneer of high fantasy.

In the meantime, be sure to check out Books 1-16 available now. (Books 17 & 18 forthcoming this year)

T-minus 0.... GHOSTS has been published

It's done! GHOSTS is published.

I'm freaking out now because I'm sure I could find more to edit, but I'll always find something to tweak. At some point, you just have to say it's done. One can only do so much before over-editing takes away from the story, in which case it loses that unique voice.

This story definitely has it's own voice. It's an exploration of Seska's past and things that have been going on behind the scenes of the Paxon front of duty, honor, discipline, and strength. We all wear masks, but some wear several, as the special agents of SecurCom are taught to do. Seska was no different, but she had a special talent.

This is her story and the story of those she made disappear.

Everyone in the Paxon hierarchy wants to know what Special Agent Levat knows, but first they must wake her from her coma. When a SecurCom agent manages to rouse her enough to access her memories, she reveals a location not in any of their assignments. Perplexed by this, they decide to investigate. Others are watching, however, ready to act to protect the secrets locked in Agent Levat's mind.

When a message is received by the Cartegos requesting Ann's presence at Aurelia Station and suggesting that Seska is alive, Zaer changes their course. Knowing the station is run by a tenuous partnership of criminal organizations that hate Ethalians, a plan is formed to keep Ann safe while meeting with those who have information about Seska… 

But nothing ever goes as planned, especially since Paxon Central Command has posted a high bounty for Ann's capture that each of the partners of Aurelia wants for themselves.

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The book was just uploaded, so it will take some time to become available for purchase. I'll be sending out my newsletter with links and adding links to my website page for this book as they become available. The announcement email should go out sometime in the next few days, if the process is as quick as in the past. 

You can request to be added to the book announcement list by completing the contact form on my website with the type of emails you'd like to receive from me. For now, I only send out new book announcements.

Next up, I think I'm going to get edits on HOMECOMING done and set that up for pre-order. I don't foresee anything in writing Book 19 that might change it, although I could surprise myself. The series is pretty well established, but I always come up with something that surprises me in each book. If that happens, I'll fix it, but if I can get ahead enough to begin using pre-orders again, I might as well do that. I'm going to start editing ahead now and see how this goes for the rest of the series. It looks like these have been going 5 months between, so I'm estimating into August for a HOMECOMING release date.

Thanks for reading!

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Edit 3/21/24: Uh, oh! I did it again. Instead of editing Book 17, I jumped into writing Book 19. The creativity slammed me broadside and I couldn't not write (what a wonderful feeling!). It's an episode idea I've had for a while and even influenced something said by a character in Book 17. It looks like I won't be editing Book 17 for a pre-order at this time. Writing is always more fun than editing, but this is like Book 8--I really, really, really, REALLY want to write it! I'm surprised I've been able to hold off this long. In fact, I already have 3,300 words written within only three days.

The Blessed Virgin Mary calls all to her Divine Son, Jesus Christ

In 1531, Our Lady of Guadalupe transformed the world. Because of her appearance to Juan Diego on Tepeyac Hill, in ten years, over TEN MILLION Aztecs converted from their blood-thirsty human-sacrifices to the one true living God of mercy and love. Our Lady's request to (Saint) Juan Diego brought about the end of a murderous cult.

She can do it again.

Join Cardinal Raymond Burke's nine-month novena to Our Lady of Guadalupe to bring the world back to Jesus Christ, Our Lord and Savior. Learn more here--https://novena.cardinalburke.com/--including downloading the novena prayer card... The 9-month novena actually started on March 12 and ends on the feast day of Our Lady of Guadalupe, December 12.

(The website of the Shrine of Our Lady of Guadalupe can be found here--https://guadalupeshrine.org/history-of-the-shrine/.)

Novena Prayer (English):

O Virgin Mother of God, we fly to your protection and beg your intercession against the darkness and sin which ever more envelop the world and menace the Church. Your Son, Our Lord Jesus Christ, gave you to us as our mother as He died on the Cross for our salvation. So too, in 1531, when darkness and sin beset us, He sent you, as Our Lady of Guadalupe, on Tepeyac to lead us to Him Who alone is our light and our salvation.

Through your apparitions on Tepeyac and your abiding presence with us on the miraculous mantle of your messenger, Saint Juan Diego, millions of souls converted to faith in your Divine Son. Through this novena and our consecration to you, we humbly implore your intercession for our daily conversion of life to Him and the conversion of millions more who do not yet believe in Him. In our homes and in our nation, lead us to Him Who alone wins the victory over sin and darkness in us and in the world.

Unite our hearts to your Immaculate Heart so that they may find their true and lasting home in the Most Sacred Heart of Jesus. Ever guide us along the pilgrimage of life to our eternal home with Him. So may our hearts, one with yours, always trust in God's promise of salvation, in His never-failing mercy toward all who turn to Him with a humble and contrite heart. Through this novena and our consecration to you, O Virgin of Guadalupe, lead all souls in America and throughout the world to your Divine Son in Whose name we pray.

Amen.

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If you want to learn more about the apparition and Mary's miraculous transformation of the people of Mexico and the rest of the Americas (she is the patron of the Americas), here are some videos to help you understand the significance of what she did for the world:

Other good videos:

Whee!

New computer arrived. I set it up fresh instead of using the Migration Assistant (which would perpetuate some issues with fonts in Adobe Creative Cloud apps). Then, I put it to the test... The After Effects file that took 2 HOURS to render on the old MacBook Pro (Intel 2.3 MHz i9 processor and 16 GB RAM) and had it running hot took only 20 MINUTES on the new Mac Studio (M2 Max with 64 GB RAM) and that didn't even break a sweat... complete silence at 6 times the speed to render that file. Everything about working in After Effects was much better.

I think I have a winner on my hands. Now to start organizing those character-centric promos I had in mind. 😁

But first, back to edits. I believe this is the last round. So far, nothing major has come up this fourth and, I expect, final round on GHOSTS (Starfire Angels: Forgotten Worlds Book 16).

Very soon, I'll have it done and ready to publish!

Coming Soon!

a story of the horrors of hell

I'm working, I swear, but I keep coming across great videos like this that distract me. The latest round of edits on Book 16 are making great progress, and I expect to finish edits by the end of next week. I had a few more changes I hadn't expected that will require one final copyedit pass.

I can't ignore this but must spread the warning. The warning in this video is chilling. 😱

The only way to avoid hell is in the sacraments of the Catholic Church and eliminating ALL sin (and sin includes writing sex scenes in books or titillation for readers). Lust, envy, gluttony (not just food but lots of needless stuff), greed, wrath, sloth, pride, and every insult to God and his commandments, including cursing others, vulgarities, etc. These and more are offenses against God. Only true contrition and penance through the sacrament of reconciliation in the confessional will repair our relationship with God.

For my writer friends who think God is allowing them to write stories with sex scenes and titillating scenes, glorified violence, etc. that isn't from God but from Satan. He's leading you to sin and using you to lead others to sin. And for that one friend, sex in books between married couples is still sin, because the reader is fantasizing the characters, not their own spouse. Reading a sex scene between fictional characters is no different than peeking in on your neighbors having sex in their bedroom. That is adultery in the mind, a sin of lust. I beg you reconsider the damnation of your soul.

Think of God as discipline and logic, not exciting your feelings; yes, he is joy and love and can even be angry at us (see all the examples in the Old Testament), but he doesn't manipulate our feelings. Rather, unless we truly seek God with all our heart and seek to please Him, there is a veil that blocks us from being close to Him--it's called free will (He will never force himself on us). Satan and his demons feed on feelings and manipulate your feelings, but they can even mislead you with a false light. Learn the sins to avoid and don't listen to feelings. As Fr. Chad Ripperger says, virtue is painful until you reach a certain point of pursuing it. I can attest to this, and God will test you at each level of virtue, stepping back to see how fully you will pursue him. Your writing may suffer to avoid lust/adultery of your readers, but it will save your soul. Isn't your soul worth more than money from leading readers to sin?

The Bible is real history

For many years, I worked for someone who would disparage the Bible and my Christian faith, an avowed atheist. I suspect a part of him knew it was true, but he was mislead by mainstream media (which is anti-Christian (or what could be referred to as coming from Satan)). He was a liberal removed from the faith of his birth by the lies of MSM.

I had no argument then for him, but in the years since his retirement, I've been finding incredible proofs that events in the Bible are REAL HISTORY, although I never had any doubts. I just didn't have anything to support the argument then. I've added those as a section in my Faith Resources tab. (Scroll down to the section Proof that the Bible is real history.)

What he doesn't know is that every time I'd pray for him, the next day he would say something derogatory about faith, religion, and/or the Bible; it wasn't every day, just after I had prayed for him. The real proof to me is that I had never told him I prayed for him... NEVER (unless he reads this post--then he'll know--but he never knew at that time). I could set my watch by it and I knew what was happening. Anyone with any spiritual intelligence will know what that means. The demons knew my efforts to convert him and protect him from eternal damnation in their domain, and they worked overtime to keep him where they want him--believing it's all a lie.

It's because of this person and the lies of Protestantism spouted by a friend led away from the Catholic faith that I've become fascinated with everything I can find about the truth, which has led me closer to God. I thank them for their challenges. Those were what Fr. Ripperger would call signal graces; in these cases, they were graces that I needed to push me to studying my faith, bringing me closer to God, which is where we're meant to be.

If you have any doubt about God being real or think your denomination is superior to the original church founded by Christ on his apostles, I've collected a long list of articles, videos, websites, and channels sorted under the Faith Resources tab. It will take some time, but at least you can start there. I've put in a lot of time and effort to cultivate this list from all that I've watched or read, and I continue to add to it, but there is far more on the internet than one person can consume in a lifetime.

Happy studying!

exciting stuff planned... a few updates

I'm still working on edits for Book 16. I hope to be in the last big round of edits. It's pretty good overall, but needs just a bit more refinement.

The delay is due to a variety of issues. One of them is my age. I'm in that stage of crushing fatigue during the day and sleep disruptions at night. Mornings are good to a point, but without black tea, I'm doomed by noon. Not even a Dr. Pepper can save me, and coffee is way too strong for my tolerance (and disgusting to my tastes). This is part of the sleep disruption-daytime nap cycle I'm in. And forget supplements. Sure, they help my focus and attention, but they contribute to the sleep disruption. Once in a while nothing bothers me, but I can't count on that.

Add that to just having closed out the busiest time of year at work. I'm finally recovering a few days later. Surprisingly, my head is clear for editing. It's just the fatigue/sleep issue. It could be my thyroid, but it's most likely my stage in life, from the research I've done.

I'll find a way to make it work until hormones straighten out.

Another distraction would be book trailers. I want to create more of those, but they take away from writing/editing, so I'll have to balance that. Fortunately, up to this point, my MacBook Pro wasn't powerful enough to do too much of that. After Effects is a resource hog.

But that will be changing. I'm upgrading to a Mac Studio! 😍 

I did some research on what the best configuration would be for what I plan to do and did some budgeting. I have the keyboard and mouse purchased (didn't need that with a laptop). I ordered the monitor (the Samsung ViewFinity UHD monitor on sale from Best Buy currently for $229 was a fraction of the cost of an Apple monitor ($1599)) and ordered Mac Studio with the M2 Max chip (custom configured direct from Apple). I also found a case on Amazon to store the computer, mouse, and keyboard when I'm not using them. I don't have a desk, so I will need to put that away every day; the case will help. Fortunately, I have my iPad Mini for portability.

I'm looking forward one day to trying out the Unreal Engine and maybe creating some animated stories, but that would take an enormous amount of time from writing. I'll find the balance somehow. It sure would be fun to get into scripting my books into animated stories, though! Maybe when I'm finished with the Forgotten Worlds series, I'll dig into animated stories more fully, but that would be at least a couple of years in the future.

The main reason for now to upgrade is book trailers. The MacBook is a 15" with 2.3 MHz Intel Core i9 and only 16 GB RAM and 500 GB hard drive space. I wasn't planning on creating book trailers when I bought it. And when I bought it, my previous MacBook Pro stopped charging on me and I had to make an emergency purchase from what was available locally. (I was working from home at the start of Covid, so it was a true emergency.) After creating a couple of trailers using Ae templates (see below), I found I really like the visual medium. However, I'm running out of hard drive space, and the RAM and processor can't handle After Effects. Premiere Pro isn't a problem, but Ae has the best features, so it's time to upgrade (and Apple financing at 0% for 12 months is too convenient).

It's an investment that will give me the power to create in new ways.

(The 1 minute trailer below took 2 hours to render on my MacBook Pro, and it was running hot!)

Modesty in Speech

Fr. Chad Ripperger has some great lectures, including some that are not focused entirely on religious matters. This is one that we can all apply to our lives.