Brief writing update

I've been having some productive and some not so productive days on Book 24... In other words, normal.

Some days are writing gold and some just don't happen.

The best part is making progress. Book 24 has about 26K words or nearly 2/3 done.

This is another episode in the Starfire Angels: Forgotten Worlds series that's not an easy story to tell... but I feel like a broken record on saying that. Each book of this series has been different. I've tried not to get into a pattern. My goal has been to write a wide variety of story formats and plot types in this series but with the same characters and in the same general setting and building to a series finale. It's been a challenge at times to pick the plots to use and make them work within the framework of the series, but it all works.

I'm aiming to finish the first draft of Book 24 by the end of June so I can then edit and publish Book 22 by the end of August, but I would guess it'll be closer to mid-July for finishing Book 24. I could still publish Book 22 by the end of August. I'm giving myself a cushion in these estimates. I haven't encountered the problems I had with Book 23, so that helps; but Book 23 worked out much better than I had expected at each rewrite. The extension of writing that one was worth it. As usual, the more I struggle in writing, the better the story tends to turn out.

It's all coming along well, but I won't rush anything. Barring any problems, I can see me finishing in July.

In other news, I'm leaving Substack behind already. I may keep my account for a while just to see if there's a need for it (aside from the Based Book Sale), but so far, I've had to force myself to use it. That's usually a reliable indicator that I don't need it. Social media and I generally don't like each other. I prefer to stay away from the negativity that proliferates in most public forums. I'm getting too old for all that. It's also a big distraction from writing and a place of sin--pride, envy, mockery, gossip/detraction/calumny, vanity, etc.--and noise.

Some days I can tolerate it, but as I grow in closeness to Christ, I more disgusted I am with social media.

This will remain my main online home.

And I'll continue in the final stage of Starfire Angels: Forgotten Worlds. You can find all my updates here.

Thanks for reading!

A greeting for the day

I cut up some potatoes to boil for mashed potatoes as a part of a late lunch and found this friendly greeting:

Book 21 of Starfire Angels: Forgotten Worlds is getting the hammering it deserves, so the story makes sense. I just have to resolve a small timeline glitch, or I think there's a glitch. After that, barring the discovery of any major issues, it goes into final copyedits. This weekend will be a busy one for me. I have a whole round of edits before that final round. Last night, I just started the third of (what I hope will be) four rounds of edits. As I posted yesterday, I expect it'll only be a couple more weeks before it's finished.

In the meantime, Mr. Potato says "Smile! It's Friday!" (That is a real picture, not AI or altered in anyway. I cut it just right under an eye and a bit of rot starting.)

Thanks for reading!

A new start on Book 23

I was so stuck on 23 for a while, after it was getting worse since my last post about it. It was to the point of trying to swim in cured cement--not happening.

I started over. It took some stepping back, but that's what the story needed. Within two days, I had over 2,000 words on it. The last few days, I was a bit busy and writing slowed a little, but right now it's around 4,000 and a much better opening. It'll keep some elements but is much closer to what I had in mind in my original notes.

You can't force a story. It has be feel natural for the setting and characters, although it's not about feeling. The creativity is a bit of... exaggerated parts of oneself, sometimes grotesquely exaggerated as to be pretty much something else, but it all comes from within and what we've absorbed of other stories, other books, our culture, etc.

I feel much better about this opening, because the other was missing that hook or mystery and then I just couldn't give some of it enough of a reason for happening. It was forced and I could feel that too. That's why I got stuck at 10K words.

I would rather it take a bit longer to write the right book for the series than try to force myself to write words that didn't fit the pieces.

Anyway, it's moving along very well. It was a rough start the first time, but this time, it's flowing easily, like it should.

And here's the old man. He still has what I call his bracelet from the vet when he had his teeth cleaned a short while ago:

He's losing weight, but in his old age, he's sleeping a lot and not eating as much as he needs to. It's especially tough because he has to be on a super special diet or bad things happen. On the good side, he's not acting quite so odd like he has dementia. He's back to being more of himself. I'll take what I can get, because I would bet, from my experience, that he won't make it to sixteen. I'll enjoy what time we have left together.

God bless!

Book 23 update

I made some great progress on Book 23 of Forgotten Worlds lately. I changed the setting, and now the whole plot I thought I wanted is different but in a good way. I had some difficulty with the original idea.

Those reading through Starfire Angels: Forgotten Worlds know that the characters are an ensemble of misfits of a wide range of backgrounds. They form what I would call a sort of clean, Christian mash-up between Guardians of the Galaxy and Star Wars.

Back when I first announced this project, I had outlined more plot ideas than I would need and eventually settled on 25 books. As the story evolved, I decided on the storylines I wanted to write into the series arc. While each episodic book is a complete story, each is like a chapter of a larger book, planned out in the same way that Babylon 5 was.

This has been a monumental undertaking for me that required an outline with notes for each book, but I left room for changes on the fly and there have been many that helped the overall series arc tremendously. Book 23 is proving to be no different, and I like that it can still surprise me. They're fun surprises that keep me going. In this case, Zaer gave me something entertaining and is jumping into the foreground again. She can be quite a spitfire yet do a complete one-eighty to being motherly, or vice versa, on a moment's notice. Her personality has always been interesting and her background even more so.

With this cast of characters, I have a lot of options for how to make the stories interesting, or at least I think they do. I hope readers are enjoying them, because this one is developing into another interesting adventure in a way I hadn't expected, the last big one in advance of the final two books, which will be a combined two-punch climax of everything that has been building in the series. The first draft of book 23 has 8,600 words as of tonight.

I'm excited to see how the adjusted outline of the book plays out. The writing is as much of an adventure as reading is.

Thanks for reading!

Exciting updates

I'm finishing up the final details of Book 22. I "finished" the final stinger scene but have a few details that I've thought of adding and just need to figure out how to fit them in so they best fit the story. It's sort of a developmental edit before I put it aside to work on Book 20.

I've also been reading through the earlier books of the series a chapter at a time (while on the treadmill) and am into book 13. SMH... Oy! I hate finding plot holes. I found a big one, sort of. It looks big to me now but I had kind of spackled it over at the time. It doesn't appear so smooth now, though, so I'm working on how to adjust that with as minimal explanation as possible. I think I have the right idea. It doesn't need much, but it needs something. At least it's not a big oops like I found in Book 6.

And for the final three books, I have also been working out those plots. The surprise development that came about at the end of Book 22 gave me a tool for the final book, so I'm keeping that.

Because of the extra attention to details for the final books of this series and wanting to get some of the details down now, I'll be pushing the release of book 20 into August. 

It will be worth the wait when I take my time and plug in the details for the series ending.

Plus I will have some exciting news for readers and authors of indie SFF in the upcoming months. 😁 I'm putting something together that I've wanted to do for at least a couple of years, but the idea was never quite right and needed time to mature. That idea finally blossomed this past month (like my new roses) and everything is coming together. Say prayers that this is God's will to happen, because I'll be investing a lot of my own money to get started (can't quit the day job, not that I was going to, but, well... you get the idea). It has the potential to really grow into a nice little side business, hopefully by the time I finish the Forgotten Worlds series.

Thanks for reading!

And stay tuned for more details to come!

Check-in - editing

I hope visitors to this blog are finding the Halloween-suitable religion topics interesting. The truth that demons are real means God is real and that frightens some people more than demons. 😱

Seriously, the videos are new ones coming up in my feed that I find interesting and that seem appropriate for this month.

In the meantime, aside from finding and sharing spiritual warfare videos, I'm editing. Book 18 is coming along well. I've had some busy days where I didn't get much work done, but I still expect to have it done by the first weekend of November, just in time for the holy days of All Saints' Day and All Souls Day, a perfect time for this particular book.

There's another aspect of sharing religion with Book 18 coming up--the title... SINS OF THE FATHER.

Yes, it's a theme building up to the publishing of the book, although that doesn't mean I won't post other videos, just that it's especially suitable right now.

Have a blessed day!

COMING SOON

Thanks for reading!

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!

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!)

update and a question

SINS OF THE FATHER

It's taken longer than expected, but I only have the final scene to write on Book 18, and can then move on. On the other hand, I might even leave it until after edits on Book 16, like I've done with others. What's left is that stinger outside of the main action of the story. I've had those in most of the books to add a series depth where it wouldn't otherwise fit into the main episodic story.

I'm still discovering little things to tweak of the plot in this too, like last night after laying in bed to go to sleep. I had to pop back up when something struck me. It was brilliant! It didn't take much--probably less than 100 words--but that little bit added a whole new dimension to the story. It was exactly what had been missing.

Presently, Book 18 of Forgotten Worlds is just over 47,000 words, and the final scene (or maybe even two short final scenes) should wrap up the story at around 48,000 words.

So, that's what's going on in writing.

New covers

After updating Shards, I decided to take on the whole Starfire Angels: Revelations expansion series and updated covers on all to make the series more consistent. It's not perfect, but I kept the same basic title, series, and author typography and design. The cover art itself was more difficult to figure out, but I made up or found some images appropriate for the stories.

Because I liked the general look of NEMESIS as it was, I only tweaked that and then used it as the basis for the rest of the series. Here are the books in order with the new covers. I also updated the formatting on the ebooks and cleaned up some details in the books. Full edits would take too much time, but I fixed the issues that I encountered which were, fortunately, few and far between.

ps- NOW I can get back to working on Forgotten Worlds. And this was an excellent time to take on this little project. Since Nya returns to her homeworld in HOMECOMING (tell me that wasn't obvious by the title), the refresher was very helpful!

pps- I was also pleasantly surprised by how good they are. Sometimes I think I'm going to cringe when rereading some books, but these are very good (aside from finding those few typos), although this is a series that is very character-driven. They each get very in-depth into a particular character. Overall, an excellent series that deserves more marketing attention than I've given it up to this point.

Another update done - Shards

That didn't take much work.

And it was refreshing to go back to Leksel's backstory in Shards. I was afraid I had some things in the story that I would be ashamed of, but it wasn't as bad as I thought. I really haven't written any sex scenes that weren't glossed over, but there was some heat to it. I toned that down to focus on story instead of sex, even if that was how Leksel and Korali started out their relationship.

But while I was afraid of what I had written between Leksel and Korali, I forgot how much of his story wasn't about their physical relationship. It is a good, satisfying short read to revisit.

And now it's been updated so the TOC functions properly. I also tweaked the cover. It's more similar to Nemesis in style, and Nemesis is the standard that I want for this series.

At some point, I need to update all the Starfire Angels: Revelations books. They're a bit outdated in formatting and covers. I want to figure out completely new covers for Soriel, Deception, and Phantoms. And I'm debating whether I should just include Deception at the end of Soriel or not. Plus, I might like to even create a new cover for Shards. The only cover I don't like of this part of the series is Nemesis. I love that image, which is why I used it for my author branding on my website, blog, and Amazon.

So, when you end up reading Starfire Angels: Forgotten Worlds Book 17, if you want to know more, this book is all about Leksel's backstory. You'll want to read Nemesis, however, for some things mentioned in HOMECOMING that happen after Shards.

Reminiscing and writing

I hope you enjoyed yesterday's post. Baxter Black was a rare treat when I was growing up. Where I live, we had Rodney Nelson as our local cowboy poet. I recommend anyone looking for a good story and a laugh look up more on Youtube.

So, what else have I been up to, besides reminiscing? Working at my day job for one.

Buddy with his new saddle after a long trail ride.

And training Buddy. It's that time of year when ranchers in my area brand, vaccinate, and castrate calves. (Don't want a bunch of little bulls running around.) Buddy is ready to help round up cattle now. He's becoming a real cowhorse, as I posted a couple of weeks ago. The big test is coming up. All the commotion and comraderie of neighbors gathering to help each other becomes a working party. It's a simple life well lived. But for a horse, it can be a bit frightening initially. We'll see how he handles his first branding roundup this spring.

And I'm excited that my brother and his family will be home for the branding also. Farm families are some of the closest knit families you'll ever meet. We rely on each other. Granted, like my brother and his family, who live in another state, I don't actually live on the farm/ranch anymore, but it's still in our blood. My sisters still live and work on the farm with their families, and my brother and I both wish we could too. Alas, our lives have taken different routes, but home is home. There's a peace about the open country where the closest neighbor is a mile or two away. There's real freedom in that, and it's a balm to the soul. Getting back to my roots has provided the greatest healing for me.

It's that peace that lets me regain my writing focus. The long drive to and from the farm of my youth gives me lots of time to think and clear my head. I've been using that to work out details of whatever story I'm working on. Because of that, the writing has been going well on #4 of Starfire Angels: Forgotten Worlds. Yes, #4 already! I like being two books ahead of the one I plan to release. And the shorter lengths keep me from getting bored.

I am really enjoying the way this series is going so far. The first draft of #4 (title TBD) is halfway done already. As I mentioned last week, I met a new character in this one who really intrigued me. He was exactly what the series needed, and I plan to keep him as a regular character from this point forward. I have a working title and a cover image, but I'm not sure if the title will fit by the end of the story. If I was as sure as I was with Vault of the Celestials, I would announce it here, but it looks like that announcement will have to wait until the end of June. Ironically, VotC (SA:FW #3) was an easy title and cover but a hard book to write; now, #4 is pretty easy to write but difficult to title. That's writing.

Speaking of June, THE RULE OF YONDER will be available June 20th. I'm going into final edits on that this week to have it ready in time to go out to all the retailers. I hope you're as excited as I am!

Despite their narrow escape from the Issan, Zaer's starship, the Da'Nelgur, was severely damaged. Vel and Shen have tried to fix the hyperdrive, and Nya is sound asleep. Their only chance to repair the ship to continue their journey to Ethal is a crime-syndicate-run remote city in interstellar space.

Yonder Station is not a place where anyone with sense wants to stay long, but it has its advantages. A home to salvagers, dealers, hustlers, and assassins, it is also a valuable trading post for the fringe of the galaxy, especially for information. The latest news is the Da'Nelgur's involvement with the Issan and the mysterious portals.

When Zaer is taken by one of the crimelords seeking what she knows about the portals, it's up to Nik and Nya to rescue her. But that same crimelord wants them too. To rescue Zaer, they'll need to avoid being captured while tracking where she might have been taken. What they discover could get them killed, or it could gain them powerful new allies. What could go wrong?

Pre-order your ebook copy today from major retailers:

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