Next Fempiror Status

Last week was not a good week for writing anything. It sounds like an excuse, but when it comes to the previous weeks of my life when I just wasn't writing anything, I could at least say I was choosing to do something else. Last week was a bit of a mess. I did get in a few thousand words, so I'm up to 18,000 at this point. I'm shooting for at least 60,000.

I also find that I'm moving through my source material a lot quicker than I anticipated. I'm just shy of halfway through, which will definitely make me come up short if I don't find some untold story in there to fill it out. I'm not talking about fluff. I'm talking about something relevant that will enhance the story that is already there. I'm starting with what amounts to a script for a TV show on this one, so it is intended to move quickly from point to point, but in a book, while you want brevity and movement, you also have the time to tell a story more completely.

This is akin to what I did with the third book and the backstory of Vladimir. That whole 17th century sequence was not in the original screenplay. I recognized that it would be good to back up a few steps and tell a second story that filled out Vladimir's backstory, and in doing so, I expanded the size of the book from a bit short to the longest one to that point.

That's what I'm looking for in this one. I mean, there is a significant untold story in there, but I have to decide which of the untold stories are good for right now, and which should be saved for later. We are dealing with 2004 in this one, and David is in the United States. We do have the untold story of how he arrived, but I sort of wanted to do that as its own tale...if there is enough there to make it so. There are quite a few other characters in this new series, so tangents with any of them are more than possible. I just have to see which ones best fit the overall story arc of the moment.

The Armor of Belial

The third of my present writing endeavors is unrelated to the others...well, except that I wrote it while procrastinating on Fempiror 4. Fempiror 4 procrastination was really good to me. I'm glad it's written, but I did a lot while avoiding it.

So what is this about? Well, originally, it was an exercise in screenwriting. I took a screenwriting book that had a screenwriting template, and I decided to follow it to the letter to see how a screenplay would turn out while using it. It turned out to be very good. Of my own works, this is one of my favorite stories. So naturally, while searching for something to procrastinate on Maze 2 with, this came up.

On some other planet in some other time, a ruler has his workers searching for an ancient artifact. Not ancient, really, but just somewhat old and really powerful, of course. Well, he never said what it was, and his minions should have been keeping an eye on the workers because one of them found it, and accidentally activated it for his own purposes. His own purposes being to use it against the bad guy, of course. Well, the bad guy doesn't much appreciate it and takes advantage of the fact that the guy has a family.

It's a big sci-fi adventure story where the good guy gets support along the way in a quest to the bad guy's stronghold to take him down while fighting against this Armor of Belial that he has come into the possession of. Some cool characters and some great drama in there along with a fair amount of imagination and clever stuff going on. I admit to being partially inspired by a video game, but that's another topic entirely.

Date for release? Well, I really should concentrate on the other two, but this one keeps drawing me in. To be fair, I've only barely started it, so I'll put it in the third place of October 1.

So there you go. At least three new books for Christmas, though I want to get through more. I've been complacent here, and I need to write.

Whatever happens, if I fail to meet those deadlines, I'll have some bad excuse as to why, and you're not obligated to accept any of them.

The Kursas

So if you know me, you know that the fourth Fempiror book took forever. While I wasn't writing that, I was procrastinating as only an author can: by writing a completely different book. Not just a different book, in this case, but I conceived of an entirely different series (that my wife prefers over Fempiror). This series is The Maze.

What is the Maze? Well, imagine if you actually got to the point of following through on suicide. I mean, that's as bad as it gets. For the record, I never have, so I can't say I know, but I have a vivid imagination. Well, there are people out there who have "almost" committed suicide, but they turned it around at the last minute.

In The Maze, these people followed through and instead of dying, they were transported into another location where they are tasked with going to different worlds in different times to complete some unknown task. When they've finished what they've come to do, they are eventually allowed to go home with a better perspective on life, starting back where they left off.

The first Maze book introduced us to this concept as well as showing us that they get around time and space in an elevator that opens a portal to another world, and they get randomly picked up when they're "done," whenever that is. Thus far, no one in the Maze story is actually controlling where they go, not even the one who is designated as the "Guide." The Guide is some kind of sentient consciousness that hangs out in the head of one of the Maze inhabitants, storing the knowledge they pick up as they go along.

Book one took us to a city on a planet in the distant future where some experiment had set everyone "out of phase." After the quest took them to the brink of losing everything, they were able to go back to the Maze hub, for lack of a better term, to wait for the next adventure. It also teased stories to come since time travel in The Maze universe is a series of fixed points meaning that they've already done what they're going to do, so they discovered they're part of a past event that they haven't experienced yet.

Book two takes our travelers to another planet in another time that has some unwanted visitors. A race of people resembling lizards, or dragons, has besieged a planet looking for a device that was in the cargo bay of one of their own ships that crashed decades earlier. These lizard people are called Kursas, and we find their interstellar military are some mean people. So it's up to Blake, Michelle, and Perry to sort out what this device is and get the Kursas off the planet without wiping out the local populace.

When do I want to finish this one? Well, it's the most precarious of the three. The Fempiror one is based on an existing teleplay, so it's outlined to the end already. The other one is also based on an existing screenplay, so I know where it is going. I am now about 35,000 words into this Maze book, so I should have a ways to go. I'll give myself till September 1 to finish writing it, revise it, and put it out there. Hopefully, I don't regret that. I actually wanted them to be a little quicker than that, so here's hoping.

It's a Birthday

You know, my birthday was on June 5. It was last week. I didn't post anything because I'm getting back into blogging. Also, 41 is a non-event. 40 is bigger, but that was last year, and who wants to talk about last year?

Today is actually my oldest daughter's birthday. She's 17, and that's more significant than 41. At 17, you can finally go to R-rated movies by yourself.

Not that she's vying to do this, really. I mean, movie ratings are there to let you know about the content of a film as it relates to children, and honestly, once I was an adult, I stopped paying attention to ratings entirely until I had children. Even then, they're more or less guidelines. Heck, we accidentally watched an R-rated movie the other day. Who knew the Extended Edition of the third Hobbit movie was rated R? I certainly didn't until it popped up. We watched it anyway, and it was just some violent stuff in it that took it over the edge.

Anyway, happy birthday to my London. Best wishes as she enters her senior year of high school and moves past that to work towards an Astrophysics degree. She likes space that much. And she's going for the doctorate, and is amused by the idea of "Dr. London."

The Modern Fempiror Chronicles

I don't know if that series title will stick or if it'll just the "The Fempiror Chronicles" with another number. When I started The Fempiror Chronicles, the intent was never to attach numbers to them because I designed the series to be very fluid and with the ability to plug stories into the gaps. In fact, I have an idea for a storyline to fit between books one and two involving Beth. If you've read them, them you'll think that's a cool idea. If you haven't, seriously, you should be reading that instead of this...no, finish this first, and then read that.

Anyway, I had once envisioned sorting out the series order by cracking open the front cover to check the date or by assigned a date number for the core story to the spine instead of a flat out 1, 2, etc. So book 1 would actually be 177506, book 2 would be 178510, book 3 would be 181902, book 4 would be 188808 or 188906 (I'm kind of on the fence), and book 5 would be 200410. I use book 5 very loosely because I had another idea which would have a number of maybe 191005. Of course, the trouble with this numbering system is that it only has the month, meaning I'd have to drill down to the day for the Beth story idea since it would start as 177506 is ending, meaning that it is also 177506. I'd have to go through the whole idea and make the numbers 8 digits instead.

I digress.

You want to know about the one I'm actually writing. The 200410 story. Yes, that does mean the date on the story is October 2004. Non-spoiler answers since I'm dealing with an established series here. Is David Taylor still in it? Yes. Is he a major character? Yes. Is he the main character? Hm. Here's the thing. This particular aspect of the Fempiror storyline was written as a bit of procrastination from writing the fourth screenplay (at the time), and it was written as a virtual series. This means there are many characters to follow, and it keeps going after this one is over.

This is a reason I'm considering a different series name, but it is also still The Fempiror Chronicles. It's also why I'm considering the date based numbering system. It could get really confusing really quickly.

Anyway, that's the first book on my writing desk. The Modern Fempiror Chronicles, or The Fempiror Chronicles: The Modern Era. Not sure yet. But the book title, itself, departs from the "This of the That" title format, and is just called "Lost and Found."

Probably.

Date? Well, this one should go quick since it's based on an existing teleplay (or three, depending on length). Let's say August 1, and I'll really try to fulfill that or have a good excuse if I don't.

Three New Books In Process

Next on our agenda of up and coming books from yours truly finds me working on three of them simultaneously. I want to apologize for being so aloof on writing more. It took an eternity to get from Fempiror 3 to 4, and now, I have this Maze thing out there as a series promise and only one book in it. Anyone with half a brain will tell you that one story does not make a series. If you put up a TV series with one episode, you'd be sent home packing. Can I get away with calling it a pilot?

Anyway, the point here is that in the coming days, I'll be talking about the books I'm working on right now, and do I dare project a completion date for any of them? It would be wise, actually, so I'll have a date to hold myself to. Three makes it a bit more complicated, but it's not as bad as it might seem.

Just gotta, you know, be responsible here.

So the preview for the coming books is this: more Fempiror, more Maze, and something else. Stay tuned.

Print and Digital

So there is always the question of distribution when it comes to books, since a book isn't worth much if no one reads it. I started out with Createspace back when it charged you an extra $40 a year to knock the price down a little and make more off the sales. Now, Createspace doesn't charge anything for the same service, so I save a bunch a year now that I have seven books up. Those paperbacks are all available on Amazon and of course, on Createspace's site.

But digital distribution is another question. One struggle was whether to make the books Amazon exclusives through the KDP Select program or to make them globally available in nearly every eBook store know to mankind through Smashwords. For a little bit, I had them on KDP, but I finally decided to kill the select and go everywhere. Select has some advantages, to be sure, but I'm not sure they outweigh the overall bonus of global distribution in nearly every ebook store out there.

So if you have a Kindle, you can still buy it. If you have a Nook, you can get it.  If you want to shop the Apple store, you can get it. If you have any random eReader from about anywhere, you can read it. That's the advantage of global. I do miss out on per page reads, but that is only for those in the Kindle Unlimited program or Prime people who own actual Kindles. It is actually very restrictive. I also miss out on the Kindle Countdown deals program which was good for a bit. Still, the global distribution for eBooks is far better.

So the transition is happening now. Grab the paperbacks always because they'll outlast all of us. But if you have an eReader of any kind, in a couple weeks, you can read it no matter what brand it is,

Vengeance

The first screenplay I ever wrote was a slasher called Vengeance that changed a lot over its life cycle. Basically, I was learning to write something new, and through lots of feedback, the script and story changed into what it is now. I novelized that script, and it is presently available as a Kindle book. Once I get the cover I have in my head completed, I'll release a print version as well.

While it began life as a slasher, it turned into something much better, and the novelization takes it one step further by painting some pretty decent characters and ensuring that the heartstrings are played at least a little anytime one of them meets an untimely end. It still possesses some tropes of the slasher genre, and the end does indicate a sequel (though I'll need to reconstruct it as I lost that draft when I accidentally reformatted the hard drive it lived on).

But overall, I think the novel turned out better than the script, and while someone did option the script once, it came to nothing as these things often do. I do hope you enjoy the book though.