WriMo, WriMo, WriMo!

It's November! NaNoWriMo is officially here, and after three days, I have written a respectable 5,848 words. At this rate, I will be finished by November 25, which I think will be my fastest win to date.

Here's just some of what's happened so far in The Book of Water:*inhales* Pirates, miniature fleet admirals, giant hammers, naked Janie, smelly Jimmy, and Rocky saves the day. *exhales*

I feel like I'm forgetting somebody though... That's right! I forgot Maya Threads! She's only been mentioned once so far, but has had no scenes or lines. That is one way to boost word count. Another way to boost word count would be to detail (and name) the Pirate captain. Maybe he is out to prove something or is out in the ocean for the experience. Either way, I am going to add another 2,000 words to The Book of Water tomorrow (and there's nothing you can do about it >:3 ).

As far as teasers, I post short quotes on Twitter from time to time, but I do plan on having an excerpt posted on my novel's NaNo page after I cross 25,000 words. I look forward to sharing more with you soon!

Happy Reading!

The Power and The Powerless

It's almost here! Day one of NaNoWriMo! What's that? A hurricane is heading for me? Damn.

That's right. Almost one year to the day after Snowtober, Hurricane Sandy is barreling down on the East Coast. It threatens to knock out power for 7 to 10 days, putting us right into the first week of the writing challenge. Without electricity, my laptop would last less than half a day. Troubling times in Viribia indeed.

On the bright side, this may be an opportunity to use up my stock pile of lined paper. Each year, for as long as I can remember, I disassembled my notebooks at the end of the school year, so I've developed quite the stack. Who knows, if the power goes out, maybe I can give away hand written pages with pre-orders of The Book of Water.

But once again, who knows? One day at a time. If I have power, I'll post on Tuesday. Otherwise, I'll post when power comes back.

Happy Reading! 

The Bridge to Oceana

There's about two-and-a-half weeks until the start of November, so I wanted to start laying out some ideas for The Book of Water.

First off, I want to lay out the military and government. Each Realm has it's own service, and the Water Realm is unique in that it has a Navy. Likewise, it has a Fleet Admiral as its top officer instead of a General. I'm leaning towards a monarchy that has a role as the executive branch. In that case, there will be some sort of congress or parliament to bring laws to the monarch. These details will be smoothed out in November.

Another thing that will be smoothed out in November is the relationship between Janie and Jimmy, more so how the Merlins deal with it. I have a scene in mind where Janie's father and Jimmy go fishing so the father can get more details on the boyfriend. I do have a couple battle scenes in mind for the twins, but I don't want to divulge too much information yet.

I am very excited for this year's NaNoWriMo as I already have a list of plot lines and details written down. This should be a successful year, and I look forward to sharing it with you!

Happy Reading!

Funeral March

This will be a short post. This weekend has been very rough for my classmates and I, as we have lost one of our own. His funeral is tomorrow and most of us will be there. It's definitely not the circumstance we wanted to reunite under.

Currently, I am debating if I should dedicate the next book to his memory. I would have had a tough time getting through college without him, as would many of my classmates. He was a brilliant and witty guy, and I can only hope in dedicating The Book of Water to him, I can honor that brilliance and wit.

I'll post again on Saturday, hopefully with some brighter news. We can only go forward from here.

From The Top!

We're getting closer and closer to day one of NaNoWriMo and the start of Volume Three, on which I am ready to take flight! This post itself is a sign of the times, as it will be my last blog post of the month.

I've been thinking about how to boost sales of the previous two volumes, and the best way to go about it is to take it from the top. The Book of Fire was a learning experience for me as a self-publisher. I learned that I have much to learn about the publishing business. I bought a self-publishing guide that has a timetable in it, outlining the steps for putting out a finished product.

The first step is pretty well handled by my print-on-demand service (all of the title registration, ISBN, the fun stuff), so my top step is to get more people involved in the production of my books. That includes editors, cover artists, beta readers, and people who I know own my previous books. Once I get people involved, I need to keep them in the loop.

But I think between now and then, I'll start developing a dice game to go with my series. This will be published if/when I put out a complete collection for Realms Quintessential. I have many ideas already!

Happy reading!

NaNo Countdown!

Today I want to look at three things: what will happen, what I want to happen, and what needs to happen.

First, NaNoWriMo will happen. I plan to write Volume 3: The Book of Water this year. I've been writing down ideas for characters and story twists for this November. Fun fact: should Water win NaNoWriMo, it will be the second Realms Quintessential book to win (Earth was not entered). Another fun fact: it will be my third consecutive win as an author (I lost my first NaNo in 2009, but I have been 2 for 2 since).

Next, I will talk about what I want to happen. I'm still looking for that 10th paperback sale. Once that happens, I'll get my first royalty payment EVER. I'd also like to see kindle sales start up. In both cases, the books need to be polished into the gems I know they can be.

Of course, if there are things I want to happen, there are things that need to happen. My job search has been at somewhat of a stand-still. I applied for five jobs this week, and next week I go into harassment mode. Imagine, instead of a phone on an employer's desk, I'm perched like an owl poking them repeatedly in the cheek. "Hey... Hey... Hey..." instead of hooting.

All in all, I am confident something will work in my favor. After all, I do have that red poster over my desk.

Happy Reading!

Power of 10?

The number 10 is on my mind right now, and probably for good reason. Yesterday was my fourth "Free Book Friday" and I crossed 100 (10^2) total free copies of The Book of Earth. Though I'm excited to have this exposure, it hasn't translated into much else. There are still no ratings or comments on my books. I encourage anybody who downloaded a copy to leave a rating. It will help me by showing where I need to improve as a writer.

Speaking of improvements, I may scale back on Project M, where I make a new edition of my books when they sell 1000 (10^3) copies. Seeing as The Book of Earth is over 100 distributed copies, Project M will become Project C. This way I can work on improving my books between now and NaNoWriMo.

Also, on the note of 10, I need to sell one more paperback copy of either of my books to make royalty. If you buy the 10th copy, I'll make you something out of Perler beads. Okay? Deal!

Happy Reading!