Friday, January 31, 2014

Never Kiss a Vampire on the First Date released

I just realized that I forgot to make a post about this when I published this back near the beginning to the month. But the first novella in my Rainstone Series, Never Kiss a Vampire on the First Date, is up and available for purchase on Amazon's Kindle Store.

Plot Summary:

A new school year has begun and Alice Dalton is ready to begin her second year of high school. Things quickly turn for the worst though when her best friend Jessica Kreuger meets a boy that turns out to be a vampire. Now Alice has to figure out how to save her friend or lose her to the undead.

I hope people will give it a chance, especially as it is only .99USD. (And the equivalent of that for Amazon's overseas stores.)

And I also want to thank the people that have already purchased it. I hope everyone has enjoyed it.

Sunday, December 22, 2013

Keep Crawling

So, this finishing the second draft is taking a bit longer than I had expected. I really only have myself to blame as I have been putting off writing for other things. But as of now I only have the final chapter to re-write and then I am done. I know I need to go back through it once more before finding someone else to read it and see if I missed anything and just get some general feedback.

I have come to the conclusion that I probably will not get this out before the end of the year. I still want to believe that there is still some slim hope but as long as I can get it out in the first half of January I will be happy. Either way it will be published within a month no matter what.

Right now I am refusing to let myself see the new Hobbit film until I get this second draft done and now that I am seeing others talk about it I find my motivation returning. Just got to figure out what to use as my motivation for finishing it up should be.

Then I get to start from the beginning with what will be the third book in the Rainstone series and get that first draft done before finally going back to finish up the second book. I think going this way will help in getting into a good pace in getting these books done in a timely basis. So hopefully the second book will be done and released within the first half of 2014 with the third in the second half.

Saturday, December 7, 2013

Thoughts as I approach the finish

So I have not abandoned this blog, just felt I had nothing of interest to add to it.

I am still working on rewriting my first book, Never Kiss a Vampire on the First Date, and I keep hoping that I will finish it off any day now. I am well past the halfway mark and feel so much better about it now with what I have written. But because this has meant doing some massive rewriting it has taken me a bit longer than I had hoped. I still want to get it out before the end of the year, but I do also want to have someone read it first at least and do some more revisions to a few parts I am not completely happy with.

That said the next one should not take as long with the rewriting but of course I do want to write that first draft for the third in the series first. But I feel confident that all three will be completed before the end of 2014 and I would love to get out two to three of these out each year. It definitely helps that I am aiming more for around the 25,000 word range and not the 50,000 word range for them.

Because of that length I figure when I get it up on Kindle as an independent published novel I will try to have the price .99USD. I do not think I would feel right to charge more for something so short, and not to mention by a rookie author. I just hope people will be able to find it and give it a chance.

Saturday, October 26, 2013

Another first draft done.

Just realized that I was about to go to bed without making sure I congratulated myself on finishing the first draft for the second book in my Rainstone series. Of course it could have been done a couple of days ago, but I got lazy. Either way it is done and I now will be turning my attention to the rewriting process for the first book of the series, Never Kiss a Vampire on the First Date.

I am really glad I decided to write this first draft for the next book, as not only will it help as both books are set to happen at the same location around the same time, just different characters and events they are involved in, but because I figured out how to make the first book better. There were plenty of places in the first draft that I did not feel worked but after mulling over them from time to time as I worked on the other book I figured how to make them work. I feel much more confident about this book being something I would want others to read. Of course I need to get those thoughts written down still, but that is what the whole rewriting process is.

My hope is that Never Kiss will be done so I can publish it sometime in December. Then I want the second book in the series, which I am currently calling Come For the Demons, Stay For the Hell, to be published in the first half of 2014. Of course I am talking about self-publishing as these are only going to be around 25,000 words each and the average novel is 50,000 words. But I am aiming for these to just be light reads and at that length I hope to get two out a year.

I have no idea how long this series will be, I have yet to figure out when I should end it, but so far I have enjoyed writing for it and have plenty of ideas to last me a few years with my planned schedule.

Sunday, October 6, 2013

October update.

Figured I should make some kind of post now that it is almost a week into October. I am still mainly working on the second book in what I am calling the Rainstone series. Or the first draft of the second book as I plan on having it sit once I am done with that so I can focus on rewriting the first draft of the first book of the series, Never Kiss a Vampire On the First Date.

I am doing some rewriting already for Never Kiss, and now that I have a much better idea of what I am actually going for with the book it is much easier to write for it. Though I doubt I would have ever figured that out if I did not force myself to finish the first draft and start working on the next book. I am so glad I got over the hurdle of just quitting when I am not liking what I write or I would be forever stuck with a lot of starts for things but nothing finished.

So I feel confident in getting Never Kiss out sometime this year and I hope to have the next out in the first half of 2014. If anything it looks for that one it will be more in the way of shortening things instead of having to do the massive rewriting of the first.

Sunday, September 15, 2013

Moving along.

Decided to take a bit of a break from writing the first draft of the next book in the Rainstone series. I will still go back to it afterwards though as I feel like I am on a roll with this.

Unlike Never Kiss this draft I have been able to keep ahead of the word goals I have set. I was hoping to have it done by the end of October, but if I keep the pace I have been I could finish before then.

I can only assume this is going easier than the last time because I have had more time to mull over what I wanted to do with the characters. With Never Kiss so much changed with the characters as I was writing it the first draft looks a mess with how things were switched up to match my later ideas. I have yet to run into that issue with this other draft and I think it is that which is making the difference.

I have also begun to do a little bit of re-writing for Never Kiss. Nothing major yet as I do want to focus on one book at a time but I already feel better about it with what I have done so far.

Friday, September 6, 2013

The first step completed!

I actually finished up the first draft for my first book, Never Kiss a Vampire on the First Date, last night but was too tired to write up a blog post. Not that I am all too awake currently either as I am about to turn in for the night.

In any case it is finally complete so I can move onto the next step, writing the first draft for the next book in the series. This is partly because I am having both books set in the same time frame and location as each other and partly to ensure that I take a good break from looking at Never Kiss' first draft before I set to start rewriting it. So for the former it would be good to get them both going around the same time so I can figure out how and when they should overlap with each other and the latter is just a must for the writing process.

Hopefully I will not take as long with the first draft for this second book as I do want to get Never Kiss out before the end of the year.