Progress and Update on New Rising Dawn Saga Novel

Had a great meeting with my editor on the Rising Dawn Saga, Amanda DeBord, regarding the upcoming 4th installment in the series.  I am happy to say that she really likes the balance and pacing with the various character threads in this one.  That was something I really focused on, as there is a lot of action and many big revelations, twists, and turns in this book.  I wanted to keep a good solid pace with moments of high-octane action and some reflective passages that offer fertile ground for character growth.

We are going to have a busy November as I make the final tweaks to the manuscript and send them back to Amanda to look over.  I should also be starting on the artwork side of things with Matthew Perry in about a week.

The book itself, page-count wise, is going to be the largest yet, but I think readers are going to find it the fastest paced and simply loaded with content that really advances the plot and grows the characters.  In a way, I hope it makes up for the slightly longer time period between this book and the last.

For those who have read the short stories Temples Rising and the recently-released Desert War, expect a "connect the dots" moment in the new book that brings both short stories and the novel into a continuum of sorts.  I think readers of the short stories and novels will really love this, and those who haven't read the short stories will be able to get a whole lot more background on something major that occurs in this novel.

It is definitely going to be great to get a novel out after the recent flurry of short fiction, with Hellscapes, Volume 1, Chronicles of Ave, Volume 1, and the short stories that appear in the anthologies Thunder on the Battlefield: Sword, Vampires Don't Sparkle, and the latest Harvey/Solomon tale Gift of Light in Dreams of Steam III: Gadgets.  Quite a trove of tales, to be sure, but having a novel release once more is something I'm looking forward to and I'm doing everything I can to make this one the best yet, in all aspects, including the writing itself, as well as plot and character development.

This novel is also the hardest-hitting yet, in my opinion, regarding the struggle between freedom and tyranny.  It looks a little farther down the line than where our world is at right now, but definitely illustrates the dangers that a soft tyranny can evolve into.

All in all, it was a very productive meeting, setting the course for a very focused November to bring this all to the finish line.  Stay tuned for more updates!  I'll be keeping everyone posted as we get nearer to what I hope is a release close to Christmas.

Keep Moving Forward

To say the past few months have been difficult is an understatement.  Truthfully, I'm still going through what is, without question, the most challenging time I've ever been through.

Every day is a battle.  Life as a small press author is a constant struggle, with lots and lots and lots of work to make small incremental steps.  Painstaking doesn't begin to describe it.  Added to that is the fact that I can say with all certitude that at this point I have been dealt more than I can handle, as the loss of my mother back in June really put things over the top (In a seven year stretch when I lost my dad and other family members).  I've never recovered from these kinds of instances, because in each of these instances another part of me is taken away.

At this point, my heart is overwhelmingly on the flipside of the equation, with those I was closest to and most loved in another state of existence.  Oddly, I find myself fearing that Veil much, much less.  The sooner it gets here the better, as I see it now.  A lot of blows tend to do that to you.  

I've soldiered on as best I can.  I'm working loads of hours again, writing, etc, and finally got back on the release track with the two single-author collections that came out a few weeks ago, Chronicles of Ave, Volume 1, and Hellscapes, Volume 1.  On the horizon is the 4th Rising Dawn saga book, which I hope is on the street before Christmas.  I had a new character, Rayden Valkyrie, debut in Thunder on the Battlefield: Sword, a great new anthology from editor James Tuck.  But in all these instances, I wasn't able to share any of this with the person who really got me on the road to being a creative writer.  Not having my mother see these books get released really zapped the entire release experience for me, to be entirely honest.

I hope to blog more often.  It definitely does not help in lifting the spirits to see that things in this country and around the world are accelerating right on course with the themes I deal with often in my work (and especially the Rising Dawn Saga).  I'm one of those people who saw their health insurance premiums skyrocket as the insurance companies adjusted to the looming (un)Affordable Care Act, taking my premium far beyond what I can swing bill-wise.   Believe me, I'm far, far from alone in this.

As of now, I intend to just pay the fine (Great, isn't it? That you can't fit the bill for health insurance into your budget and the government fines you because you don't have it).  Nevertheless, this was a major line crossed in this country as we slide farther and farther away from the things that made us strong and successful, with an unprecedented empowerment of the individual, risk/reward, the ability to lift your station and see ensuing generations do better than the one before, and all kinds of things that are not going to be the norm in what's ahead.

So what does one do?  Workload is immense, heavy of heart and seeing a very ominous situation brewing nationally and internationally.

I suppose you just gotta keep moving forward.