Updates to the book page

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I’ve updated the books page to include a coming soon image for the third Bastard Cadre story and I’m so pleased with the way the books line up that I thought I’d share it here too:

The cover for A God-Blasted LandTBC#2_300x450The Dead God's Shadow cover

I’m still a way off from publishing the third book. The second draft is almost done (only two chapters left to beat into shape) and then I’ll be editing my way through the entire story. Which means I’m currently on target to beat my usual nine months production schedule (no baby jokes please, I’m not one of those writers who equates writing a book with giving birth; writing books is hard but not that hard and don’t let anybody kid you otherwise) and I’ll certainly beat the 18 months between books one and two in the series (d.evolution came between those books).

If you haven’t read any of the books, A God-Blasted Land is available as a free download from many ebook stores. I’ve also posted an early preview of book three as a sneak peek for anybody who is waiting for it.

Take out the boring bits

Or better yet don’t write them in the first place.

Now more than ever, there is no reason to pad your stories with filler just to get them across the publisher-defined minimum-word-count line. Unless of course, your goal is to attract a traditional publisher.

I’ve read lots of traditionally published novels that I have enjoyed, but have still felt suffered from too much filler. Stories that would have been perfect at say 50,000 words, but needed to reach 70,000 or 90,000 words to find a home in their publisher’s list.

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The Bastard Cadre #3 – early preview

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I’m making progress with the third book in The Bastard Cadre series, the sequel to A God-Blasted Land and The Godslayers’ Legacy. I haven’t quite finished the second draft yet, so there are still a couple of holes left over from the first draft, but I’m getting close to the point where everything that needs to happen is up on the screen (as opposed to down on paper). As soon as the second draft is done, the only thing I’ll have left to do is work on the writing and the delivery.

The first chapter has been through a couple of edits (with a few more to go) but for now I’m happy with it, and have posted it as an early preview of The Dead God’s Shadow: The Bastard Cadre #3.

Befriend obnoxious jerks

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It took me a long time to learn that stories aren’t about events, but about how characters react to events and interact with each other, and much more than that, who the characters really are when the shit hits the fan.

Marion Zimmer Bradley said, “The secret of a story, to me, is a likeable character going through almost overwhelming odds to win a worthwhile goal.”

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Think like a drug dealer (or competing with free)

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There’s so much free content online it’s possible for people to be entertained for the rest of their lives without paying for another book, magazine, newspaper, song, movie, TV show, or game ever again.

I’ve read lots of blog posts, articles, and a couple of books about giving content away for free. The opinions I’ve encountered range from:

Have some self respect. Your work is valuable, don’t give it away for free or nobody else will value your work.

to,

Give it all away for free, baby. Give and you shall receive. The universe provides.

With various levels of indignation in-between from both the information-wants-to-be-free hippies and the burn-the-theiving-pirates-at-the-stake crowd.

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My writing rules #2

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Have you ever gotten stuck on a story you’ve been writing?

Wait, let me rephrase that.

Have you ever worked on a story that you didn’t get stuck on?

It’s happen to me a couple of times, but only with flash fiction pieces that some people might claim aren’t really stories anyway. On those rare occasions, the story came to me almost fully formed and just needed typing up. Once when a good friend told me in jest (I like to believe) that he was coming up to his ten year anniversary and he was thinking about upgrading his wife. I told him he was a dog, and that evening I went home and wrote Skin Deep in one go.

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I plan to only send out a newsletter when there is a new book coming out, I have promo codes for free or discounted books, or I have exciting news to share. The newsletter will probably come out once every two months, but never more than once a month, and of course, I promise not to sell your email address.

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