Saturday, October 15, 2016

Decorating, Working, and Reading

Hey Everybody,

Well, just wanted to let you know what's new and what is going on.  First of all, I'm finally almost finished decorating my house for the Halloween Party.  I'm very excited about Halloween this year.  We have our costumes ahead of time and are better organized than we were last year, so I think the party will be a success.  I've also vowed not to overdue the last minute preparations so that I enjoy myself more this year and won't make myself sick.  (Since I'm constantly getting sick anyway, there's no guarantee that I'll be well for the party and for Halloween night, but I'm not going to make myself worse by pushing myself too hard.)

In other news, I've started reading Clockwork Angel again.  I'm 127 pages into it, and so far it's pretty good.  Unfortunately, this is a story that switches perspective from one character to another, and that annoys me, but so far the story is good enough to hold my interest anyway.  I'll write a full review once I finish.  I've been using the exercise bike and reading at the same time and then reading while I catch my breath, which lets me enjoy at least a few chapters a day.  The problem is, I read obsessively and basically read up to this point in about two days.  While I love reading, I need to balance it with my other work as well.

In terms of writing, I'm in the process of editing "Blood Rain" again.  I realize that the original copy that I published needs a grammatical makeover.  I'm changing the mistakes that I know are there and sending it to someone more qualified to catch my errors.  Once that is done I'm going to make the changes to the travelling times that I mentioned previously and, hopefully, those will be the last edits I will have to make before I open it up to be a "print to order" novel.  Wish me luck.  I'm working hard, but I'm thinking it will take at least another few weeks before it will be done.  If you have already purchased the book, just re-upload it when I update the e-book version.  And if you want to buy a hard copy, that would be nice too.

Anyway, I'm off to do a little reading.  I'll keep you posted on my progress.

Thursday, October 6, 2016

I'm on it!

Hey Everyone,

Sorry it's been a little while since I've blogged.  I've had a busy couple of weeks.  First of all, I was sick with an upper respiratory infection for about two weeks and am finally over it.  Then, when reading through Blood Rain and Blood Moon, I found some discrepancies with distances to various parts of the world that I really didn't like.  I also found out that there are certain grammatical mistakes in both novels that I really need to fix.

So, long story short, I'm sorry for the delay in releasing Blood Moon, but it isn't ready yet.  Rest assured, though, when the book is ready it will be worth the wait.  I will also be releasing an updated version of Blood Rain soon with travelling time corrections and better editing.  I apologize for these issues in the earlier version.  I might also be including a map of Lacern for those that are interested, but it might have to be in another update when the map is more "polished" than it is currently.  (I created a basic map for my own reference, but it could use a little work...)  Also, when the edits are complete, there will also be a "print on demand" option for those of you who prefer a print copy of the novel.

In between editing, creating maps, and formulating correct distances, I've also started working on Blood God again.  I've decided, though, that Blood God will be my project for NaNoWriMo (National Novel Writing Month) this year.  Every November, many of my friends try to write a novel for this event.  Writers living in the same general areas get together and bounce ideas off of one another, do writing exercises, and basically attempt to finish a novel by the end of the month.  Even though I already have characters and ideas, I might just use this as an opportunity to spur myself into seriously concentrating on this novel and trying to reach my goal of having it finished by Christmas.  Wish me luck.  I'm exited about the idea of approaching this story again and this time finishing it.  The outline is ready, and so am I.

Anyway, I wanted to let you know that I'm on it!  I haven't stopped working, but I did have to slow down for a little while during my recovery.  This was a very nasty virus that turned into something just one step shy of bronchitis.  I haven't been this sick in a long time.  I knew that having two kids meant that there would be illnesses when school started again.  It comes with the territory.  Anyway, I'll keep you posted about the novel and about my progress when I have more to report.  In the meantime, please check out Blood Rain, and when the update comes out, please reload it.  Thanks.

Hopefully, I'll have a book review for you soon as well.  I've started reading Clockwork Angel by Cassandra Clare.  I'm working it in for at least fifteen minutes a day while I exercise, but if it can captivate my attention like I think it can, I might chew through it much faster.  We'll see.  I'll keep you posted.