Month: October 2019

Dead Silver Free Today Only!

Max Books! , , , ,

Happy Halloween!

While I work on getting Jungle read for pre-ordering, you should all be aware that today is October 31st! Otherwise known as Halloween! You know, the fun spooky holiday where people dress up in costume and go around shrieking at spooks and looking for candy.

Yup. Hard to miss! Hope you’ve got candy for those ghouls coming by your door! And aren’t tired of hearing Thriller yet!

Anyway, while you wait for the Trick or Treat hour to begin, why not settle down with a free book? Dead Silver, being one of the more “Halloween” books in my collection, is free today and today only for Halloween. Hop over to Amazon to grab it and settle into a spooky, small-town mystery that may be a lot more threatening than it appears on the surface!

Again, Happy Halloween!

Jungle Cover Reveal and Preview!

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Yeah, that’s right, you read that correctly. This is it. The official cover reveal for Jungle. Along with a light synopsis (not at all final, but it’ll give you a good idea of what to expect) and a preview excerpt from chapter one!

Also, folks, in the coming days you can expect to see pre-orders open up, the official synopsis, and the official release date. So get ready! Because Jungle is almost upon us!

Now, let’s get a look at that cover! Are you ready?

Jungle Cover

Now that’s a thing of beauty, isn’t it? Jungle picks up where Colony left off, with the trio—Jake Tames, Annalyne Neres, and Ray “Sweets” Candy—arriving back in the Sol system after the events on Pisces to find things there aren’t nearly as stable as they’d hoped. Their contract extended, the three once again find themselves in circumstances beyond their control.

At least, for the moment.

Yeah, that’s not the official synopsis, but it definitely hits a few of the opening moments. It’s been three years, folks, but the trio is back.

And I really don’t trust myself to say more without dropping spoilers.

So, a few specifications, and then we’ll get to the excerpt so you guys can catch up on Jungle‘s opening moments. First and foremost: How long is it?

Well, brace yourself. Colony was 334,000 words long. With some change. Which, after Amazon refined their page system, ended up around 1300 pages (and too big to bind, at least for right now).

Jungle weighs in at … 457,000 words. For the record, that’s long than the entire Lord of the Rings trilogy. So yeah, if I do my math right, around 1800 pages. Too big to bind. And if you’re wondering why this title ended up such a titan, well … it’ll make sense once you crack it open. Right around eight or nine hours later, probably, when you look up in a daze and wonder where the sun went. Before questioning whether you really do need to go in for work tomorrow.

Okay, so it’s big. What about price? Surely something of such weight and depth is going to cost a pretty penny, right?

$7.99. Same as Colony was when it launched. This is one book. I’m not splitting it into ten little novels and nickel-and-diming you readers. You get the whole thing.

Release date? I’m not going to share that just yet but … I will say this. You will see the trio before Thanksgiving in the US. Definitely a late Fall release (and stretching the definition of “Fall” a bit) but still hitting before winter!

So, we’ve got a cover. We’ve got a price. We’ve got a rough page count. Now who’s ready for that excerpt?

Hit the jump and get to it. And if you’re a Patreon Supporter, congrats! You’ve already seen this! Head on over to Patreon for another supporter preview!

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Being a Better Writer: Consistency Versus Accuracy

Max Being a Better Writer , , , , , ,

Welcome back readers! Thank you, b the way, for letting me have that break last week. I needed it. Last week was a slam as far as work goes. But, there is good news.

The Beta for Jungle is done. Yeah, you read that right. Done.

What’s that mean for you readers out there? It means that this week, pre-orders will open. The cover will be finalized, the draft will go into the Copy Edit … and there will be a release date set.

Yeah, this week promises to be just as busy for me as last week. There’s always a surprising amount of work to do with getting any book ready for the big release day. And well, I doubt Jungle is going to be any different. But being done with the Alpha and the Beta, well … That’s a lot of work. It’s the peak. Sure, there’s still a lot of work to go.

But hey, this does mean that Jungle is still on track for a November release. As many of you might imagine, it going up for pre-order does mean that you’ll all be getting some good news on that end very soon. Oh, and a new preview tomorrow.

All right, so that said, our news out of the way, let’s talk about today’s topic: consistency versus accuracy.

This post was actually inspired by a Reddit post I was reading the other day discussing Science-Fiction, where a poster asked why it seemed like so many posters on the subreddit were so adamant that Sci-Fi stories be confined to real knowledge and hard reality rather than, you know, fiction. As they pointed out, they were quite surprised by the number of posters and commentators on the subreddit who seemed quite incensed the moment any author moved away from hard, hard, hard Sci-Fi into the realm of speculation, and noted that they didn’t like reading page after page of scientific explanation, analysis, and research just so that the author could look at the reader and say (in a nutshell) “It’s real science, yo!”

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Jungle Preview!

Max Books! , ,

That’s right, this week there will be no Being a Better Writer post. Just this week. It’ll be back next week. Why? Well, I could say it’s because I missed a holiday I could have taken off a while back and leave it at that, but that’s not the answer. I miss a lot of holiday’s anyway.

No, the real answer is that I’m just swamped. Impressively so. I’ve got a release window picked for Jungle that I’m working hard to hit … and on top of that, my part-time job has asked for double the normal number of shifts this week because we’re ridiculously understaffed and the bean-counters that deal with the budget can’t count (long story). On the one hand, this makes up for the three-weeks where they cut everyone lose with no warning (and then were surprised when a lot of people never came back), but on the other this just makes my crunch time all the more crunched. Depending on how work on Jungle goes, I may have to skip one of those shifts.

But enough of modern corporate dystopia, let’s talk future corporate dystopia. Instead of Being a Better Writer, how about I give you all a preview chapter from Jungle? After all, with the release window (November, in case you forgot) drawing closer and closer, why not drum up a little anticipation?

And no, the cover in the article image isn’t the final, but the WIP. Still deciding on a few bits of positioning. The image and color are the same as the WIP. Green, where Colony was blue. Is this significant in any way? Well, with a name like Jungle I’ll let you be the judge.

Also, this won’t be the last preview you’ll be seeing. Patreon Supporters saw this excerpt on Saturday, and today they’ll get another, while you guys will get that bit later this week (and accordingly, Patreon supporters a bit more). So keep checking back as the Jungle news grows! We’ve got a final cover reveal, more previews, release date and pre-order … all that is coming! Plus, to go with the launch, a new site color and theme (you can probably guess what it’ll be modeled after, though I’ll miss the Wild-West vibe).

Anyway, on to the preview! Hit the jump!

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Being a Better Writer: Checklisting

Max Being a Better Writer , , , , ,

Hey readers! Welcome back to another installment of Being a Better Writer. Not only that, but it’s a normal installment! That’s right, the Summer of Cliche Writing Advice is over and done!

It was a huge hit too, especially with some of the more common sayings. However, just because it’s over doesn’t mean that if you missed it all is lost. Just check out the tag ‘Summer of writing advice” to locate the whole set once more if you’re looking for them.

So, we’re back to regular Being a Better Writer posts, which means we’re back to discussing the topic of writing and all the various aspects of it we can improve at. So, for today? I’ve got an interesting topic for all you readers and writers out there. Readers, I’m sure, have noticed it, as I myself have found it on display in more than one book. And writers? Well, let’s just say this is a common error that anyone can slip into. Even with Jungle I’ve found this issue cropping up more than once and had to make some edits. Today’s trap is something all writers, novice and experienced, can fall into.

Today, I’m talking about checklisting.

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The Jungle News Megapost: Release Details, Cover, and More!

Max Books! , , , , , ,

That’s right! It’s time for news about Jungle! LOTS of it!

There’s not even any point to holding back or writing a preamble, so I’m just going to dive right in. Partially because I’m pretty tired, but also because this news is just exciting. So are you ready? Here goes.

Release Details

Jungle is currently on track to release in November of 2019. That’s right, next month. Likely before Thanksgiving. I do not have an exact date for you yet, but in the weeks ahead, there will be one, and Jungle will go up for pre-order.

Now, with this news out in the open, Alpha Readers and Beta Readers both! Feel free to talk about Jungle now. I would ask that you not spoil it for folks (please don’t be that person in Sitka, Alaska who got the first copy of The Half-Blood Prince and spoiled it for everyone) but other than that, feel free to talk about it! You’ve gotten the early look! Let people know what you thought!

Cover

Now, with the news that Jungle will be releasing in November, I’m sure some of you are wondering “Yes, but what will it look like?” Well, while the final cover isn’t done yet, I have a test work in progress to give you all a pretty close approximation. You ready? Here goes …

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Being a Better Writer’s Summer of Cliche Writing Advice: In Late, Out Early

Max Being a Better Writer , , , ,

Welcome back readers, to the final entry in Being a Better Writer‘s Summer of Cliche Writing Advice!

Yeah, quick catchup for this, our final entry so that I can jump right to the meat of today’s topic. Being a Better Writer is a weekly series on how to improve one’s writing, from exploring various nuts and bolts and how to use them to addressing common questions. Running for almost six years now, there are hundreds of articles on it at this point, updating each and every Monday (save some holidays here and there).

So then, if that’s Being a Better Writer (or BaBW), what’s the Summer of Cliche Writing Advice? Well, it’s a feature we’ve been running all summer for BaBW focused on the cliche phrases of “writing advice” that follow authors around like ants follow a picnic. All authors, young and old. I wouldn’t at all be surprised at all if Tolkien came back from the grave and went on a speaking tour about his books, and somewhere at his first stop, was cautioned by a non-writer, non-reader to remember that “there’s nothing new under the sun.”

Yeah, that kind of advice. Quick and easy to remember, but as we’ve learning this summer … maybe not that great at expounding or teaching its original intent. Some, as we’ve discovered upon breaking them down and taking a deeper look, really aren’t very useful, the easily remembered cut down versions missing key information to the degree that they can harm young writers. And annoy experienced ones.

That’s what the Summer of Cliche Writing Advice has been all about, and today, we end with a real titan of advice. Because today’s cliche? Well, it’s really only a cliche saying from one particular set of folks and their followers. Because this week’s saying, by request, is from Writing Excuses. That’s right, the podcast that I link on my very own links page. Starring a collection of quite talented writers talking about (what else?) writing.

As I said, it’s by request. Because the hosts of Writing Excuses often repeat a phrase that one of my readers wanted to hear my own analysis on. That saying?

In late, out early.

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The Pitfall with Patreon

Max Misc , , ,

Okay, I realize that this title may be attention-grabbing enough to start people off with the wrong ideas. So I’m going to make it clear right up front: I am extremely grateful and thankful to those of you who donate to my Patreon. There have been months where I’ve only gotten by thanks to the kind and generous donations of my Patreon supporters. Writing is … a tough job. It doesn’t pay great pretty much until it does. But I am forever grateful to those of you that donate a little bit of your income each month as a thanks for the articles I post. I couldn’t do Being a Better Writer without you guys (especially as BaBW is ad and subscription free).

No, this post isn’t to have issue with that. Rather, it’s to bring up something I’ve mentioned before. An issue with Patreon that’s, well, quite prevalent. And ultimately, a death sentence if someone falls into its trap. Which I’ve seen happen more than once.

It’s not the fault of Patreon, and I don’t wish to insinuate that. I believe it has more to do with human nature, and the idea of “being owed.”

Okay, so let me just dive right into things. Patreon, if you’re unfamiliar with it, is a modern take on the “Patron of the Arts” idea. See, back in the old days of history, “Patrons” of artists would basically donate money to various artists, musicians, so that these artists would have money to live while they made their creations. You have to realize the idea of a musician selling records is entirely unique to our modern era. If a talented young musician, say a classical composer, wanted to be a classical composer, they could find a patron who would support them with money for living needs in exchange for the musician creating music. If they stopped creating, the patron would stop funding them.

Patreon is the digital equivalent of this concept. Find a webcomic you like? An artist? A modder? Any sort of creative soul you want to support? You can support this person on Patreon, donating them a sum of money each month. The idea being if that 100 people donate $5 each, that creator then makes $500. So for the cost of a half-price lunch a month, 100 people can support their favorite webcomic creator, for example.

Cool, right? I agree. It’s a modern take on the “Patron of the Arts” formula.

But not one without its weaknesses. And it’s flaws. Some of which are, without mincing words, almost deadly to a creator.

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