And This Is Why I Seek Critiques…

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Real tough critique of Patriots and Tyrants today at my writer’s group. I’m grateful for it. Still reeling, of course, but grateful. Thing is, I knew this going in. I knew this chapter was an info dump, but rather than do something about it, I delayed and chose to let the critique group tear into it.

In all fairness, I’ve received nothing but praise from this group for the last fifty to sixty chapters. I’m deliberately including the chapters from Spirit of Resistance because they were loving the story that far back. So I’m certainly due for a criticism.

Of course, all that previous praise went to my head, and now I’ve got the emotional gunk that comes with a tough review. Not a big problem, though. I’m a big boy. I can handle it (cries into coffee).

The real problem, of course, is figuring out how to fix this chapter. It’s integral to the whole narrative of Jefferson’s Road. Naturally, it’s the chapter on Cultural Marxism, the one that explains the whole justification for the coming war. It’s central to the entire series – if readers don’t understand Cultural Marxism, they won’t understand why the Civil War is necessary (I’m speaking fictionally, of course).  But now I have to find a new way to tell the story of Cultural Marxism without resorting to an annoying info dump.

I’m toying with a prolonged dialogue between Peter Baird and the members of the militia campground he’s just met, which means that not only do I have to rewrite the chapter, I also have to expand  and probably add a new one as well. That’s okay, of course. Patriots and Tyrants feels a little lean right now anyway.

My natural instinct is to cut away what doesn’t work, but this time I genuinely can’t do that. I want this information out there. And the story isn’t quite long enough as it is. So adding is the solution, not cutting. Changing the lecture Peter gives to a dialogue will do that, certainly, but I also have the arduous task of keeping it interesting and active-less cerebral than it is now.

I can do this, but I do feel a little depressed about it right now. Oh well. I’ve got two weeks before the next group. That’s time enough to fix it and print out a new set of chapters.

On a related note, I finished the edits to The Coppersmith yesterday, and I spent the bulk of my morning typing them in. I’d hoped to get the rest of the changes in before the end of today, but it doesn’t look like I’ll make it. Frustrating. Once I finally get all the changes in, I have to find someone willing to give it a read and give me honest feedback. ‘Course, I need the same thing for Patriots and Tyrants, and I can only take two chapters at a time to my crit group. Just not sure who I can go to.

And in my heart, I really just want to spend more time exploring this new world I’ve created and the characters who inhabit it. Editing and rewriting is boring! Oh well. I’ll man up and get it done.

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It’s been awhile since I’ve written fantasy – a couple of decades, to be precise – and I’ve forgotten how much I love it. This new series I’m working on is a bit of a psychological breather for me from the darkness of Jefferson’s Road, which is kinda crazy because it’s got a darkness all its own.

I came up with the idea about a month ago, driving back to the house I work at after dropping off one of my guys at his parents’ house. I took Lake Road back, and was treated to a beautiful full moon glistening on the water. I have to say again how marvelous it is to live where I do. Just being able to see the incredible blues and greens and whitecaps on the water from my front window is a daily blessing. Anyway, as I enjoyed this scenic respite, I began thinking of the different kinds of stories I’d developed over the years. Writing a psychothriller like The Coppersmith is very different from writing fantasies about elves and wizards and dragons, etc.

That’s when it hit me: why not combine the two? Imagine a Sheriff in some fantasy land (think “Sheriff of Nottingham” type Sheriff) who uses a skill set resembling forensics to solve crimes while being surrounded by magical creatures. His forensic skills would be a magic all their own to those used to relying on incantations and spells.

So I’ve started the book – as yet untitled – and my lead character, Lucas, is an ex-Sheriff with one eye. His other eye he keeps hidden behind a patch, because it has been enchanted. He can scry with it, but only if he uses the blood of a victim. Moreover, he is no longer Sheriff because of it, for the king in the land issued an edict banning all sorcery from the realm (for political reasons, etc.). He still serves his king, and has to resist the urge to use an ability others might crave, because of the personal cost to his soul every time he does so.

Now imagine this Sheriff is tasked to finding a serial killer in this magic land, while all around him the townsfolk are blaming the magical creatures, such as faeries or witches or what-not. That’ll give you an idea of what I’m putting together.

I’ll post a suitable excerpt as soon as I come up with one. At the moment, I’m near the end of chapter three and still loving it.

And, of course, I’m still editing Patriots and Tyrants as well as preparing The Coppersmith for release this month. And writing The Tree of Liberty, too. And finishing The Elixir of Life. Yes, I really do intend to get all this done!

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And just like that, Patriots and Tyrants is finished! I’m actually quite surprised and rather pleased with the ending. It’s a nice, solid hook into the third installment, The Tree of Liberty, which I will start shortly.

I do, however, have at least one scene left to write. However, it’s something that has to happen earlier in the book–commentary on the actions of the Federal government related to the crackdown on civil liberties. I’m taking something along the lines of the infamous Janet Napolitano memo to watch out for right-wing terrorists and applying it to this situation.

In doing so, I can once again point out that Jefferson’s Road is a caricature, of a sorts. I am deliberately magnifying and diminishing aspects of our political climate–both to tell a compelling story as well as to highlight the rampant fear-mongering which has so overwhelmed the nation.

To that point, I’m especially grateful to Christopher Truscott’s excellent review of the first book on his blog. I guess the only thing I’d take issue with are the four stars. Four stars, Chris? Really? You didn’t think maybe it deserved one more? (I’m half-kidding, of course! He called it “Frightful,” which is kinda the same reaction I got from Gordon Ryan on his Amazon review. He called it “A Furtive Read,” and said, “I write political thrillers myself, and have considered creating a scenario where killing a president might be justified, but I have refrained on the basis that such discussion is tantamount to insurrection, or, at the very least, ill-considered. Jefferson Road has not absolved me of that trepidation.”

I suppose that’s a good thing, because I don’t intend to resolve anyone of such trepidation. I fully intended Jefferson’s Road to be frightful and furtive, because I don’t want it to fall into the same category as something like The Turner Diaries, which were read by Oklahoma City bomber Timothy McVeigh and used as justification for his terrorism.

I am not endorsing nor recommending terrorism. Far from it! What I am doing is laying the case that heated political rhetoric causes terrorism, and may indeed cause terrorism in the future.  However, it isn’t the rhetoric of the Left that causes leftists to be terrorists, nor is it the rhetoric of the Right that leads right-wingers to contemplate terrorism (and yes, that statement is very carefully phrased). Rather, it is the rhetoric of the right that motivates the Left to action, and it is the rhetoric and policies of the Left which may eventually cause the right to push back. Jefferson’s Road is the story of that push-back.

I’ll give a more succinct explanation in the Author’s foreword for Patriots and Tyrants, and I hope you enjoy reading the novel.

Updated March Sales Figures

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So here are the numbers for March, the first month that Spirit of Resistance is available in print: 11 e-books and 12 p-books. Total, so far: 71 books since last July. This is 57 electronic and 14 print, and does not include the 61 sample downloads from Smashwords where people did not pay.

Admittedly, the sales aren’t nearly as good as what I’d hoped for. Broken down by sales channel, this is what it looks like:

Amazon 42 $93.16
Barnes & Noble 1 $1.28
Sony 9 $14.64
Kobo 3 $4.97
Apple 4 $7.24
Smashwords 2 $4.61
e-store 10 $50.12

The Amazon number includes four paperback sales as well. If, however, we look at the aggregate sales since the beginning, we see this:



Plotting this on a trendline gives me this hope:

Still, the solution to earning decent money from this is going to come from more books driving more sales to each other. And I’ve already got the strategies in place to pull that off. In summary, it’s not as good as I’d hoped, but certainly better than it’s been. And it’s going to be a long climb before we reach the tipping point.

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This is going to take a little longer than I thought. Editing The Coppersmith, that is. My big frustration – going as far back as 2006 when I first finished the book, is that my characters just don’t come off strong enough. The main problem is with the main character – Janelle Becker. She’s just not compelling, I’m afraid.

I’ve started giving her a problem – hinting at something dark within her past that gives her panic attacks now, but the problem is that I haven’t fully told her story within the novel – and in order to do so, I’m going to have to radically rewrite these parts of the narrative.

Anyway, based on a dream I had just before waking up this morning (Hey, it’s when I do my best thinking!), I’ve decided to remove her from being an FBI agent, and just have her be an FBI consultant. This will give me the option of removing her from the investigative “heavy lifting,” and allow me to explore the more darker aspects of her personality – which all center around fear of abandonment, etc., something that will hamstring her from really being able to solve this investigation. It will still pivot on being able to identify the killer through the Bible, which is a wonderful device in the story, but her fears need to get worse as she gets closer to catching the killer.

So I’m going to continue with the basic edits I’ve been doing right along, and then I’m going to have to go back through the story, identify all the parts where Janelle is actively interacting or reacting, and rewrite those to reflect her darker character.

This isn’t going to be easy.

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Oh I’ve been busy lately. Last night I found two additional e-book reader forums, and I’ve been actively posting on both, as well as breathing new life into my presence on Kindleboards.com.

The two other forums are mobilereads.com and booksummit.com. Also, I’ve posted a pair of adds on Bookbarista.com for both the e-book and the print book.

In the meantime, I’ve collected a list of some 275 book review blogs that I have to start culling through – ’cause not all of them will read my genres, of course – before contacting them about doing a tour. That’ll be fun! Of course, I’m hoping to have The Coppersmith finished and uploaded before then, and maybe Patriots and Tyrants as well (if possible). I don’t want to wait too long, but I know I have to have more material available.

As of April 1, I will check again to see how the sales of The Spirit of Resistance are coming along, and then we’ll have a better sense how this is all taking off. It’s quite a bit of work though, I gotta tell ya! (Still, I’m loving it!)

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Now that’s a cover! I’ve spent a few hours now tinkering around with various ideas for The Coppersmith‘s cover art, and I think I have a winner. I’ve uploaded it below. Let me know what you think:

Likely cover art for The Coppersmith

Now that I’ve got this out of the way, I can get back to editing the book to have it ready for release, soon. My wife still thinks I should try and release this traditionally. Great to know she still believes in me, but I’m convinced that I need to bring these titles straight to you, my readers, rather than trying to go through a middle man. But if it picks up and starts to sell really well… I guess then we’ll see.

Anyway, this story isn’t for the faint of heart. It’s a gripping, edgy thriller about modern day martyrdom. Like always, I’ve kept it reasonably clean, but it’s still quite violent. Somehow, toning that down feels wrong not only for the story, but for those who suffer as Christians. Anyway, I hope you’ll get a chance to enjoy it, soon.

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Okay, so writing 10K words a day is harder than I thought. Heck, writing 5K words a day is harder than I thought! All my calculations on how quickly I can finish a book are out the window (though I’m still committed to trying harder!). My only hope now is to be able to finish Patriots and Tyrants before April 7th. That would mean it took me precisely one year on the book from start to finish. Been working steadily on it, too, which is more than can be said for most of my efforts. About the only other book I worked consistently on, from start to finish, was The Coppersmith, now being edited heavily.

Part of the reason–a large part that Ms. Hocking hasn’t had to deal with (to my knowledge), have been the “interruptions” of family. Not that I consider my family an interruption, mind you, but they do take up a much larger portion of my time than Ms. Hocking’s singleness does.

But the real reason is that I am genuinely struggling not only to maintain the quality of Jefferson’s Road, but more importantly, my interest and passion in it. This, I think, more than anything else, is the hard part about writing so many words a day. It’s not that I get bored with it. It’s just that I get tired easily, which leaves me thinking that I need to either learn how to ramp up my endurance levels – exercising my creativity the way I might exercise my muscles – or I have to accept the notion that I may never be able to produce at the pace of Hocking, or King, or many other authors.

There is a serious downside to the latter, though, and it is simply that I don’t want to spend a year writing a single book – or even two books, as has been the case in 2010/2011. It takes too long, and I still have wa-ay too many stories to tell to accept that pace.

Thus, I have to jump back into the fray and try again. Burn-out is a real worry, I suppose, but a necessary risk, too.

On a positive note, Patriots and Tyrants has passed the 67K word mark, which means I nearly am done (probably around 10K or less remain, I suspect). And I haven’t exactly been slacking on editing The Coppersmith, either. I’m easily 50% done with the red pen, and maybe 15-20% putting the changes in. I still don’t have any suitable cover art developed, but I’ve been working on it. As always, the hard part is coming up with a suitably quality image that will reflect something of the content or tone of the book (and you can imagine the “fun” of finding cover art about a serial killer!).

Oh well. Back to work!

What a Tangled Web I Weave…

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Had me an epiphany of sorts regarding the Jefferson’s Road saga–something concerning one of the major characters which I won’t get into here (you’ll have to read the books to find out!). But what was exciting was realizing that I already had laid the groundwork for this particular development in The Spirit of Resistance. Looking into the text, I confirmed that the development could easily extend from a tiny detail I’d unwittingly written in, extrapolated into a bit of foreshadowing for what is to come.

The thing is: this is a major plot twist in the whole conspiracy–not something I’d really foreseen from the beginning, mind you, but something that will look like I’d planned it all along, which is the part that’s just so stinking cool! It totally adds multiple layers to the twists and turns in the series, and takes the believability of the series to a whole new level.

The only bummer is that I really can’t tell anyone about it, because it will ruin the surprise! Oh well. I’ll just have to chalk this up to a bit of fortuitous inspiration. It’s definitely keeping me engaged in the series, though.

Rescuing An Old Friend…

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As interested as I am in finding more and more material to publish, yesterday I picked up the first manuscript I ever finished and dusted it off, and took a look.

It’s called The Coppersmith, and it’s a psycho-thriller. A religiously oriented sociopath is systematically murdering church pastors in Upstate New York. His methods keep changing, and his hunting grounds are a mystery. The FBI’s Behavioral Analysis Unit sends in Special Agent Janelle Becker to solve the mystery and catch this madman before he strikes again, but can she unravel the puzzle of the Coppersmith before her own family falls prey?

I was actually quite surprised by what I found. Aside from the massive overwriting, the story itself is still pretty good. It needs some work here and there, and some stuff should be cut altogether. Other parts require a bit of rewriting, but the core of the story is solid.

Last night, while working, I was able to sit with the manuscript and a red pen, going through it page by page, line by line, and hacking it to shreds. It’s a little like excavating something, or completing a half finished sculpture. Of course, it helped that the intranet was down, and I didn’t have access to any of my current WIP’s (otherwise, I’d have knuckled down and worked on them, of course), so there really wasn’t much else to do (if you’re wondering how why I could do this at work instead of, say, working, then let me propose that working with disabled adults is not a constant, on-the-go activity. When half of them are sitting in the living room and they just want to watch Wipe-Out, while the rest are in their beds already ’cause they’re early risers, it’s okay to sit there with a book and a pen).

I figure I’ve gotten about a quarter to a third of the way through it, and my hope is that, with a few day’s worth of effort, I’ll be able to breathe new life into The Coppersmith and independently publish it.

Now if only I could figure out some suitable cover art…