Ark Ship: Found releases February 1st! Available for Pre-order now!
Category: amazon
Now Available in Amazon. Kindle, Kindle Unlimited and Audible!
30 minute shivers: A collection of macabre tales.
Here it is, my next project! 30 minute shivers: A collection of Macabre tales! If you have been following me here for a while, you may already be in the know, I have had this project in my back pocket for a while and I have mentioned is more than a few times.. But I am finally ready to pull the trigger on it.
October is my planned release, though no specific date has been decided as of yet. Stay tuned! As always feel free to like and or comment!
Emergence Collective on Audible!
Grab your copy now!
Emergence Ascended is currently in production!
Audible update: Major announcement!
As promised, I did not abandon you!
In the “you win some, you lose some” category, I added my Audible project to the list. I will summarize the story for the new folks (Hi, I do notice and appreciate it!) Being poor and starving author and artist with a goal of have my books on audible, I decided to record my books myself (because I am free labor, I can exploit all I want). So I bought some equipment and made myself a nice little corner in the closet to record.
I started recording and was horrible, sight reading is a skill that I didn’t know I needed. I got better, improved my sound quality, and started to feel pretty good about my narration (I was even told that I am pretty good, translated to my ears are “you don’t suck”). Skipping ahead, with slow progress, I uploaded a sample to ACX (Audible production) to test the audio quality. I got 4 out of 4 flags on my audio, I could almost hear ACX asking if I was deaf or stupid) It seems that my minuscule knowledge of audio engineering was not enough. Go figure.
On a side note, Amazon prime credit should have never given me a card. I signed a contract with a narrator to produce Emergence Collective! Tentatively, it should be released sometime in May 2024. So stay tuned for more on that!
Thank you for taking the time to read my blog. As always, please like or comment! I love comments and do my very best to respond to every one!
Audible update: Chapter 2 and 3
If you are new to my blog you may be wondering what is the Audible updates I keep posting. I get a fair amount of requests to have my books available on Audible. I am poor, my books do not sell enough to pay for a narrator to record them (or even a nice dinner) so as with most things I do, that I need done and lack resources to do, I learn how to do it, and do it myself. While it is not a perfect solution, it has worked out so far.
I started the “Audible project.” I scrounged enough money to buy a decent microphone. I employed a friend to do the recording (but that did not work out) so I decided to do it myself. I started recording in my dining room, the only space available. That began a crash course in acoustics and learning to use the recording software (I am still learning but figured out enough to pass.) My first episodes were a disaster and I apologize to the brave souls who endured that. Little by little I improved both the sound quality and my terrible narration. Narrating is a skill that does not get enough credit so give Kudos to your favorite narrators, the unsung heroes. I got used to hearing my own voice and I think my sight reading skills are improving.
I graduated from the dining room table to a cozy closet space that has drastically improved the overall sound quality, although there is nothing I can do about the murder of crows that live in my neighborhood. I had previously recorded up to chapter 21 of Emergence Collective, but decided to start over with the improvements. I had originally planned on replacing the episodes one at a time to maintain continuity with the story, however I got heavy handed deleting drafts and organizing Anchor for Spotify and accidently deleted some of the recordings (I mentioned this in a previous post.) That forced the decision to scrap everything and start from scratch.
I do not mourn the loss of those hours recording and editing. That time is served well by giving me practice and a learning experience. Here I am now, Chapters 2 and 3 published yester and I am back in the saddle so to speak. My intention is to record every Sunday morning. That being said If you are reading this blog, you get to have free access to the Audio version of my books, narrated by me. So I toss my ego aside and try not to cringe at my voice, I hope you enjoy the story. If you do, The best way to support me is to buy my books (of course) and leave a rating and review on the platform that you purchased it. I am now published world wide on Amazon, Barnes & Noble and others. The reviews are very important (Not just to give me the warm feels) but it helps get me noticed and helps readers find new books to read.
Emergence Ascended now on Paperback!
Just a quick promotional blurb. Finally, After dealing with Amazon’s horrible publishing software, Emergence Ascended is now on paperback. Also Soon to be Available, Emergence Collective and Emergence Ascended will be published at Barnes & Noble and other digital bookstores internationally!
Emergence Ascended is to be featured on a podcast December 8th
Free Writer reviews is a podcast by T.A. Walker. She reviewed Emergence Collective, and I am happy to announce that she will review Emergence Ascended! T.A Walker (a.k.a the Bookie) has over 25 published works. Her work can be found on Spotify T.A.Walker audiobooks. Check out her work, its great stuff!
If you haven’t already read Emergence Collective, buy it now! So you can follow her read-along before Dec 8th, where she will read and review Emergence Ascended on Free Writer Reviews.
buy it here. Get the whole story experience.
NanoWinner 2023
I completed the NaNoWriMo 2023 Challenge a day early! But I am not finished with the novel. I succeeded in meeting the fifty thousand-word minimum, but there is still a lot to do.
My takeaway from completing the challenge: First of all, I have been a member of NaNoWriMo since 2012. I have started it but never got anywhere. This year I officially registered for the challenge, (it has been on my bucket list of things to do at least since 2012)
Dedicating time to write every day and write enough to keep up with the daily word goals had developed into a habit. And when I am writing I am writing more, faster. Remember it too almost two years to the day to complete Emergence Ascended from starting it after Emergence Collective and that is a little over sixty-thousand words. So to do comparatively the same in thirty days blows my own mind.
It is changing my writing ‘style’. I was a ‘pantser’ as they call it, I write by the seat of my pants, making up the story as I go, typically. But For Yellow man I did write an outline, cast of characters, notes and fair about of research before starting it. So The value of the outline for me has increased substantially. Honestly I never wrote outlines because I am lazy. I will use outlines on future books, (Oh the bigfoot story is probably next FYI)
So, what now? Now, I am going to keep working on Yellow Man and finish it. I dread the editing phase that is coming. One of the reasons why it takes me a long time to get the story on paper is that I tend to edit as I go. During NanoWrimo, I didn’t. I ignored types, wrong words, grammar and punctuation to get complete the challenge, but now I have a nightmare to clean up. I am also taking the weekend off from writing, and prepare to start recording Emergence Ascended again. I have some projects that I set aside during NaNoWriMo that I desperatly need to attend to, Laser engraving projects for myself and a couple clients (Custom laser engraving stuff) Check out my etsy site to see what I am talking about.
All in all I am proud of accomplishing NaNoWriMo, (I get to call myself a novelist now) And I am glad os the skills that NanoWrimo has taught me. If I can do it, YOU definitely can, so I expect to see you next year!
NaNoWriMo:Final countdown
NaNoWriMo 2023 is on the last four days! I kept up on the word count this weekend, and I am currently (as I write this) 42554 words. I did just under 5000 yesterday and around 2000 on Saturday. Thursday the 23rd was an American Holiday, which put me in a bind to keep up, and I was already behind and still am. The good thing is that I have less than 8000 words to finish. 2000 a day is doable, so I have high hopes of completing the challenge.
How is the actual story going? Yellow Man, my ghost story is turning out pretty good. I am on track with the elements I wanted to get into the story. It is nowhere near finished I will be writing on it after NaNoWriMo for certain, but it’s getting there. Not that I have really established my writing style or found my voice as they say since I am new to writing, NaNoWriMo has upended my comfort zone. I have no idea how the pacing is (A personal struggle), are there long drawn out boring parts, did I slip in that nugget of info to keep you guessing? I who knows, I do know that writing at this pace there is going to be a lot to fix, and the editing is nightmarish and I don’t even want to think about that now.
Oh Yeah, just a reminder, I do have a new book out, Emergence Ascended is out on Kindle. Be sure to get you copy! I look forward to seeing your ratings and reading those reviews!
Hand-prints of Darkness 