October 2014

Last night I designed the cover and all the other graphics for book 14 of the series, Conspiracy.  Today I wrote the first chapter and I’m really happy with how it came out.  It ended up way more involved than I’d originally planned, and it’s time like that when I get the most excited about writing.  I started out with a rather basic idea and turned it into something far more complex, and even included a development that I wasn’t planning on doing until some point down the road.

Anyway, it’s in process now.  Companions was released one year to the day from when I started writing the first book, Origins.  If I can finish Conspiracy and have it published by November 23, which is exactly one year from the day I published Origins, I’ll have written and published fourteen full length novels in one year.  Can’t beat that with a stick, huh? 🙂

I’m very happy to announce that Companions, book 13 of the Unseen Things series is now available.  It’s currently published or in the process of publishing on Amazon, Smashwords, Google Play and OmniLit.  It’s also available for purchase right here on the official site.

Synopsis: Since Alarwyn had been an orphan and Stephanie never had any real family to speak of, from the moment they met they latched on to each other, developing a sisterly bond that made them almost inseparable.

In an effort to get out there and prove themselves to the others, they head off to the reptilian dimension to do a little exploring, but things take a serious turn when they discover a Zethichtalarin plot to destroy the Nathalis homeworld.  Together they have to figure out a way to stop the plot, recover the zero point bombs and kill the Zeths who were planning the attack before it’s too late.

Also, when Derek and Jarrod decide to make an “old school” run to the prehistoric dimension along with Tina, Sarah and Patricia just to add a little excitement to their lives, what starts out as a boring trip soon turns far more exciting and potentially deadly than they’d bargained for.

Last night I finished the first draft of book 13, Companions, and today I’ll begin the editing process.  The first draft came in at around 107K words, so by the time I’m done editing it the final count will probably be around 110K somewhere.

You’d think an author wouldn’t be all that surprised by what he writes, but there were a couple of scenes in the final two chapters of the book that did in fact surprise me.  It was one of those things where you’re going along great, and then when you get down to the last two chapters of the book, you sort of sit there thinking to yourself, “I’ve got two chapters left.  What the hell do I do now?”

What I ended up doing was filling those two chapters with scenes I never intended on writing.  One ended up being rather emotional, while the other introduced some intrigue that will be rarely mentioned, but will carry through several books until I feel the time is right to bring it to a conclusion.  I did actually have plans to do something major involving some creatures from another dimension, but this book didn’t feel like the right time to bring that into the story.  Everything has a time and a place, and its time will come, I’m just not sure when.  If I’d have introduced it in this book it would have felt rushed, so we’ll see how things go in the future.   What I have planned is both nasty and disastrous, so I want to make sure the timing is right for it.

Something else I included in the last couple of chapters was a scene that I’ve wanted to do for a while now in some form or another that indicates a bit of a shift in the attitudes of the characters, and how they view themselves in relation to the rest of humanity.  It’s something they’ve been denying about themselves for a while now, but it’s reached a point where they had to make a choice on whether to keep denying it, or to embrace it fully.

This book is entirely about the people in Washington.  There are a few small cameo appearances from the group in Scotland, as well as the folks down at Jarrod’s family’s house, but in general the entire focus of this book was on the group in Washington.

I’ve also made another major decision regarding this series that comes out in this book, but will probably not happen until the book after next.  So that’s coming…eventually.  Like I said…everything in its time. 🙂

That’s it for now.  I’ve got a long and very tedious editing process ahead of me that I’m going to get started on today, so I’m thinking the book will be done and published by the early to middle part of next week.  That’s just a rough guess though.  If I feel like it needs a second editing pass, then it’ll probably be out by the weekend after next.

Just wanted to say thanks to whoever it was that purchased the entire series on Amazon over the past month or so.  I hope you’ve enjoyed it. 🙂

Book 13, Companions will be out in the next couple of weeks at some point as well, so keep an eye out for it.

I’ve started an album on the Facebook page, and I may duplicate it here as well after I get more images into it, but I started looking around for pictures of people that at least somewhat closely resemble the characters I envision in my head as I write them.  You can view the album here.  So far I have Derek, Jarrod, Tina, Sarah and Patricia (pre and post serum).  I’ll add more as I come across them.