Submission

A few moments ago, I submitted my work to a publishing house. This isn't the first time I've sent my work to a publisher but it is the first time in a long while. Back in the last century (ok, 1999), I sent off a query letter regarding my then current project to over a hundred literary agents and publishers. Most of them were located in NYC. I received letters back from two of them. Two. I admit that - for a while - I was bitter. But I got over that a few years later when digital technology flattened the playing field, so to speak, and gave us independent authors a chance to get our work seen without having to jump through hoops.

I've toyed with the idea of submitting my work to publishers on and off over the past few years. I've read and heard stories both fantastic and nightmarish about working with publishing companies. In that sense, publishing is like any other field - there are some good companies out there and there are some stinkers. I had the opportunity to meet some of the staff members of this company in person and was impressed by their honesty and experience. That's why I decided to send my current book to them. Even if the work isn't for them, I'll know that they gave it a fair shot. Since the book is out for review, I'll hold off publishing via amazon for a few weeks yet.

For the time being, it's on to the next project.

Nova Sol now on Noisetrade

I've recently added Nova Sol to Noisetrade.com. The site facilitates authors sharing their material with readers. You can now download all of Nova Sol for free. You do need to leave an email address in exchange for the the book. I will be adding some of my short stories to Noisetrade in the next month or so, too.

You'll find the link for Noisetrade on the right of the blog.

Bad Author

Once again, my focus on writing and re-writing has turned me away from making regular blog entries. I'm sure glad blogging wasn't a new year's resolution for me because I would have failed miserably. Alas.

Enough of that. On to the important news.

I'm releasing a book in the next couple of weeks. Yes, it's finally done. And it's completely different from what it was when I posted last. Writing, re-writing, writing, re-writing, etc. Time Swerve Terminal and its variations are on the back burner for now. I will get back to them some time (next month? next year? I don't know).

The cover for the new book is below:

This is what I have so far and I don't think the cover will change much between now and the release. If I do change the details (i.e I've been playing around with variations of the title for the past few days), I'll let you know here when I post the amazon link to the book.

So, there it is. I haven't been not posting because I haven't been writing. No, those are untrue rumors. I haven't been posting because I have been writing and re-writing and writing....okay, you know what I mean.

And so it continues....

Writing, re-writing, re-doing, re-setting, re-booting. This is what i've been doing for the past several months. Time Swerve Terminal has changed. It's not the same book anymore. It's gone through at least two major overhauls. I've kept the names of some of the characters but changed others. I've changed the starting point of the story. I've changed its guts, its bones, its blood.

And it's all for the better.

As I went back through (what used to be) TST and tweaked a section here, changed the pace there, added a detail then took out some others, I saw the story anew. It shifted. It morphed. It faded to black then reappeared as a different beast. One that I had to write from scratch.

That's what I've been doing since the last post. I meant to write this post a while back. In fact, I'd convinced myself I did write it. That I'd sat down at the computer and posted it. But I didn't. Because when I sat down, I opened up the (what used to be) TST file to go over what I'd written that morning. An idea came to me. Then another. And another. I had to take notes. Then I had to write a paragraph. Then another. Then I lost track of the reason I'd sat down. I forgot about the blog entry. Then kept forgetting about it. Now, here I am months later.

I don't have a title for the redone book (Evo-Earth is the working title). It won't be out for a few months. I'm debating whether to make it a long book (c. 100K words, maybe 120K) or to break that down into two shorter books which I would publish at the same time. For all the talk about people having shorter attention spans these days many of the longer books published are the better selling ones. When we find something we like, we don't mind reading longer books. But maybe offering the public a shorter, cheaper start to a series (this will be a series) is the better way to go. I still need to think about it.