Praise Report

Almost Done

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So I’m about one to two chapters away from finishing The Music of the Spheres. So glad to have this one (nearly) complete. I’m guessing one or two more days and it’ll be done. I’ll send an email out to those of you on my mailing list, inviting you to take a look at an Advance Reader Copy once I’ve gone through it a bit myself, first. There’s a few characters who haven’t said anything in awhile, and I don’t want them just to be window dressing for the main action, so I have to sidle up to them and listen to their thoughts and words for a bit. Nothing that’ll put me off finishing it, though.

Once I’m satisfied and have sent out copies to the ART (Advance Reader Team), I’ll make it available for pre-purchase on Amazon. Expect this no later than February, though it may be sooner, depending on how long it takes for the team to get back to me.

Hard to believe I started this novel wa-ay back in 2013! I did get stuck somewhere around the middle of it, where my preliminary outline broke down. In fact, if I hadn’t had the time during my trip to Guatemala last August to look at it again, I probably wouldn’t have been able to finish it at all. Sometimes, the ideas just take awhile to simmer.

I do anticipate at least two more Jonathan Munro Adventures in the future. I have no idea when I’ll get at them. I know many of you are waiting for the last mile of Jefferson’s Road, and I promise it’s next on the list. I do work on it periodically, but there’s nothing like finishing a book to keep me distracted. In all fairness, MOTS has been waiting a lot longer than We The People, so it’s only right that I wrap it up.

Besides, looking at the way so many have responded positively to Nicholas, I thought it might be wiser to make available another Christian adventure novel before all that Christmas goodwill evaporates like snow in Spring.

Done!

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I just put on the last finishing touches to Nicholas, my origin story of Santa Claus. Naturally, it won’t come out until we get closer to the holiday this year – probably some time around September. But I had a lot of fun writing it, and I’m relieved to have it off my plate. One of eight WIP’s I’m hoping to wrap up this year! Off to a good start, I think.

I have at least one beta reader all lined up, but if anyone would like to give it a read-through and lend me their thoughts, I’ll be happy to send you an advance reader copy. Sorry, though, I can only do electronic versions (pdf, epub or mobi for kindle). I’ve also got a day off tomorrow from writing, so I can prep up for the next installment of The Dragon’s Eye Cycle.

Oh, and just because it makes me happy, I checked and saw that I’ve regained my number 1 spot on Amazon.co.uk for The Lost Scrolls. The Elixir of Life isn’t doing too bad, either. I think I’d dropped down to number 2 for a day, but after that I went right back to numero uno. Very cool. 🙂

Another Book Finished!

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Tonight I wrapped up my thirteenth novel. A Glass Half-Empty, the long awaited sequel to A Glass Half-EmptySpilled Milk, is now done and being prepared for publication by Createspace. I’ll prepare a Kindle version probably tomorrow, and then get the Smashwords and Google Play versions done shortly thereafter. Of course, those last two will have to wait until the book has run its Kindle Select term.

In the meantime, I reworked the cover a bit. The gun, I think, conveys a little better what the story might be about. I’ll let you guys know once the book is available.

Whew! Now I’ve just got four more to wrap up before the end of the year. Ha!

Cancer Sucks

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Let me just say this as concisely and as compassionately as I can:

Cancer sucks.

My beloved wife is now home after a double mastectomy due to malignancies found in both breasts. Been a helluva week here at the Scott home. For those who didn’t know, just understand that a) we found out about this fairly recently, and b) we didn’t want to be answering a lot of questions over and over again, and c) we didn’t want to do the Facebook thing, either. Guess we’re both just a little too old school and uncool for the social media thing. And some of you are quite busy around graduation time, and we didn’t want to detract from someone else’s celebration. Don’t want to be the rain on someone’s picnic, y’know?

At any rate, she’s now made it through two different cancers–kidney and breast–and yeah, they both sucked. I’m hoping things can get back to something resembling normal, now that the hospitalization is over. We’re still facing a long recovery and the whole reconstruction phase, but once she gets past the initial surgeries, things should start calming down. I don’t believe we’ll be looking at either chemotherapy or radiation, because her lymph nodes were clear. Still waiting for 100% confirmation from pathology, but we may be out of the woods. Yay.

Downright exhausting, though, lemme tell ya. Mostly for her, of course, but also for me a bit, too.

We’ve been blessed to have so many friends bringing over meals and stocking our pantry, and my job has been great about giving me time off. I did put in a couple hours this afternoon, but honestly, I’m grateful my son called with bike trouble, because I think I was pushing myself. Haven’t been sleeping right at all these past several nights. My parents are also in town, and were great about hanging out with the kids while I hung out with my wife in the hospital. Oh, and a shout out to Rochester General, too, for the awesome recovery room. They practically gave us a suite!

There’s a couple of people whose phone calls I’ve yet to return. I’ll get a hold of you, soon, I promise.

As far as writing goes, I’m still plugging away, albeit a little more slowly these days. I’ve got one book almost finished, one 2/3rds done, two about half done, and two more about a third done. ‘Course, that’s also written on the sidebar, so  you can see for yourself. I’m on target to get at least three of these finished this year, if not four. But we’ll have to see how that pans out. I couldn’t have predicted the cancer thing, so who knows what might get in the way of that goal.

That’s all for now. Later!

And Now For Some Good News…

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Just last night, I finally finished Descent, my alien abduction novel. Spent part of today reworking the cover so it would fit, and then uploading the files to Createspace and Kindle.

So if you’re a fan of UFO stories or the X-Files, this one’s for you.

It’s not a series, just a stand alone novel. I have no plans to write more of Christopher James – at least, not in the foreseeable future. And truthfully, I’m relieved to have it finished. Means I can concentrate on some of the other outstanding projects. At any rate, I think it’s a fun story – nothing too serious – and I hope you like it.  I enjoyed writing it. For the longest time, it was just something I tinkered with. Once I realized I had a real story on my hands, it was kind of one of those “you owe it to yourself to finish” deals.

Once it finishes publishing, I’ll set it up on KDP Select and make it free to any who want it for a time. I’ll let you guys know when that is – as well as informing all the usual suspects – so you can grab a copy and enjoy.

Here are the links:

Descent in Kindle

Descent in Paperback

 

An Effective Writing Day

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Now this has been a satisfying day. I worked on three different projects today, starting off with 458 words on The Blood-Eater Coven, Book 2 of The Dragon’s Eye Cycle. That doesn’t seem like much, but the story is progressing nicely. I’m nearly fifty percent done.

Next, I spent a considerable bit of time working on Anarchy, Book 2 of the New World Order series. I cranked out  2358 words on this one, finishing chapter five and at least half of chapter six. I’m sure to get comments from my youngest, Rachel, who is my BETA reader for the book when I see her in the morning.

And after enjoying an episode of Sleepy Hollow, I concluded the evening with another 550 words on Descent, wrapping up chapter thirty-one and starting chapter thirty-two.

All told, I’ve written 3,366 words today. Not too shabby. I’m still way off pace for the month, but it felt good to get back into the swing of things and churn out some content.

In the meantime, books are continuing to sell from the promotions I’ve been doing. This next week there will be three running. One on Wednesday, one on Thursday, and a final on Friday. I’m looking forward to seeing how this turns out.

… And Published!

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Yes, Jefferson’s Road: God And Country is now available on the Amazon Kindle (the paperback version is also available through Createspace).

From the back cover:

“It is important you learn this,” Haytham oozed. “You must learn the ways of Allah. His justice is perfect.”

A City Under Siege 

Abandoned in Detroit, Peter Baird finds himself in a city no longer recognizably American. He is soon captured by the jihadist forces of the evil Caliph who rules with an Islamic iron fist. Horrified by what he finds, Peter engineers his escape and begins a resistance movement.

“It cannot be emphasized too clearly and too often that this nation was founded, not by religionists, but by Christians; not on religion, but on the gospel of Jesus Christ. For this very reason, peoples of other faiths have been afforded asylum, prosperity, and freedom of worship here.” – Patrick Henry 
 
A Clash of Biblical Proportions 

Can Peter convince the citizens of this besieged city to reclaim their rightful inheritance? Or will the new god hold greater sway?

Enjoy!

Done!

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Thank you, NaNoWriMo. Today, I finally wrapped up Jefferson’s Road: God And Country. I have to admit, the ending didn’t quite go down the way I thought it would. I’m a little concerned that it might be too anticlimactic, at least in its present iteration. That being said, I’m done for the night, at least.

I’ll let it simmer a day or two and then take a look. Maybe I’ll spy some other way to conclude this particular chapter. I know so many of you are so invested and hooked onto the story, I don’t want to disappoint!

There are only two books left after this (yes, I know exactly how the series ends), and I’m reasonably confident I can get there in time. But for whatever reason, this book just feels… done.  I don’t know how else to describe it. The major conflict of the story is resolved, even though there are some loose ends that will carry over into the next book – and even form the heart of the plot line there.

At present, however, it’s the first book in the series not to end with a major hook. I haven’t decided if that’s good or bad. In the meantime, though, I’m going to bed. I have work in the morning, and then a lovely weekend home with the fam.

Later!

And… I’m back!

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The logjam of laziness that has captivated my writing ambitions for the past week or so has finally broken (with a little help from my trusty sledge-hammer: Self-Discipline and a heavy application of Butt-Glue (That’s the short name. The long name is Butt-In-Chair-Glue).). Yesterday I plugged away at Descent, my alien-abduction type novel, and cranked out 4,173 words. Today I hope to do something similar with Jefferson’s Road: God and Country. Of course, even assuming I match yesterday’s effort, that will still put me significantly behind toward reaching my goal of finishing all six novels by the end of the year. And here I was doing so well!

Sigh. Nine days of writing very little works out to a loss of 18,000 words. I’d only banked 5,643 extra words with all my previous efforts to get ahead. Less than three days. True, I did manage to write 1,847 words during that time (almost a full day’s work), but that still puts me behind by 10,510 words. Yesterday, I reduced that to 8,337. Maybe I can knock it down below 6,000 today.

God willing, I’ll pull something off before my wife returns later this afternoon and wants to go out on a date. Family first, right? For now, I’ve got to grab a shower and get cranking.

Later!