Planning for Victory

It's the last Sunday before NaNoWriMo 2018. For the past couple weeks, I've been making notes about Senator Space, my project for this year's feat. Today, I'd like to share some strategies for preparation.

• Use a Timeline: A lot can happen to your characters in one year. Senator Space is going to take place over a five-year period, during which my main character goes through many personal changes, including career changes, new children, and physical improvements. 
• Relate Your Characters: Besides my main character, other characters include his wife, his son, and his father-in-law. The president, vice president, and senate majority leader will also play major roles in this novel.
• Re-imagine Your Surroundings: A casino recently opened in my hometown. Part of the construction involved moving a landmark church out of the casino's footprint. I figured that I can make the casino even bigger in my novel, or even move all of the churches. I also made a short list of other places I want to re-imagine.
• Use Templates: My character is joining a military branch after his political career sours. Soldiers have uniforms, weapons, bases, and rules. Make sure to take time to discuss what makes a group of characters special.
• Anything Goes: Ultimately my NaNoWriMo project will be a rough draft. If I have a silly idea, I'll put it in as long as it gets me to my word count goals. You could be lucky enough to hit a word count gold mine!

I hope you find these tips helpful. If you have any useful advice, leave it in the comments below.

Happy Reading!

A Return To My Domain

It's been five years since my last post? That's crazy!

What have I been up to since my last entry? I earned a preliminary teaching license. I've worked various teaching/tutoring jobs. I came to the conclusion that those jobs aren't my cup of tea. I was a data entry clerk for about a month and then spent the ten months following that working on and off in a candle factory. Following my last layoff there, I went back to data entry work and eventually landed my current full-time job.

Also, I moved! It was from one parent's house to another, but that's still a sizable change.

Now on to the important stuff: NaNoWriMo 2018!

Here's a list of a few developments:

• The tentative title for my book is Senator Space. In short, a Massachusetts senator has to go to great lengths to clear his name.
• I plan on doing some live streaming via YouTube every 10,000 words. These streams will be announced on Twitter.
• As for the Realms Quintessential series, books 4 and 5 have yet to be finished. With "Real Life" being a thing, I plan on having both books finished by 2020.

Thanks for stopping by, and happy reading!

The Game Maker

Often times when making a novel, the author fantasizes about his or her novel becoming a movie. I feel I am on the opposite end of that spectrum.

Instead of a movie, I feel my series of novels would better suit a video game. The characters can change classes, use weapons, and rank up, just to name a few things. The stories already allow for plenty of boss battles and mini-games. All I would really need is a team of kick-ass programmers and an epic musical score and we could have the next big RPG on our hands.

Deep Breath

I'm getting ahead of myself, of course. I'm still months from writing another book, and my programming skills are novice at best. Nonetheless, I think this is a cool idea and I'd love to get advice/collaborate on this if possible.

Please leave any suggestions in the comments. I look forward to any opinions you have!

Kindly Requested

Thanks to everyone who got a copy of each of the Realms Quintessential books during Free Book Fridays! On average, 36 people picked up a copy of each book.

If you were one of the people who downloaded any of my books, I ask that you head back to the Amazon page and leave a review. What did you like about the books? What can I do differently? Are there any technical issues with the file? All of these are very important to putting out a quality product for my readers.

Also, if you are looking for a guest blogger, I am available to write for you until September 5th. Please contact me if you are interested.

Happy Reading!

Free Book Fridays!

Hello everybody,

Today I am announcing Free Book Fridays! Starting July 12th and through the rest of the month, one volume of the Realms Quintessential series will be available to Kindle users.

To make sure everyone gets the full story of Viribia, FBF is starting with The Book of Fire. The Book of Earth will be free on July 19th. The Book of Water wraps up the promotion on July 26th.

Stay tuned for when these free books go live! Get the latest news from my twitter feed (embedded on the right).

Happy Reading!

Book of Water Released!

Hello Readers!

I am happy to announce that Realms Quintessential: The Book of Water is now available in print and digital formats.

Print copies are available via Amazon and CreateSpace. If you buy through CreateSpace, you can take 20% off your order with discount code UXB9AX46.

Digital copies are available for Kindle via Amazon. It is exclusive to Kindle for 90 days. If you want it from another retailer after that time, please leave a suggestion below!

Again, thanks to all my readers and fans for making this possible. I hope you enjoy reading the book as much as I did writing it!

Happy Reading!

The Sub Kit

No, I'm not making sandwiches. Although, that sounds delicious right now.

I'll soon be starting a new job as a substitute teacher. During orientation, we were encouraged to assemble a "Sub Kit." It's basically an office in a box. My mind has been locked on making one since I've been home. The first thing I added to it was my graphing calculator, which hasn't seen the day of light since graduating from Lowell. The batteries were dead and corroded. I'll have to replace those soon.

But I've digressed from my point.

I wish I had this creative flow for The Book of Water. It's been hard to find with all of the job searching I've had to do. Tonight my goal is to plan out the course for the book between now and the end of June. Hopefully everything will be set for a mid-summer release.

I'll post here more frequently. Until next time, Happy Reading!