Parley (Privateer Tales Book 3) – Blurb
As a self-published, independent writer, there are no shortage of jobs that need to be accomplished to release a book. Some tasks come naturally, like outlining and writing. Then there are some things like editing and cover design that I simply can't do and am smart...
Parley, Privateer Tales #3 – Cover Complete
One of the joys for me as an author is working with artists. Every new book requires a new piece of artwork to adorn it's cover. When you really think about it, it's kind of an odd practice. We put a single picture on the front of a novel. The novel most likely...
Lesser Prince – The lost manuscript
I dusted off an old manuscript that I've had sitting around for almost ten years. It was my first serious writing project that I never quite completed. I'm thoroughly enjoying reading it through and fixing it up. I'd expected that it would remain forever mothballed...
Fool Me Once – Hanging on the Wall
I've mentioned a few times how much I enjoy working with artists. If there was a skill that I could just have for free, it would be the ability to draw like the people I work with. Patricia ( Sicilian Valkyrie ) graciously agreed to ink drawing of the book cover of...
New writing project, Henry Biggston
I'm in the fun, in-between space, where I've finished the initial draft of Parley (Rookie Privateer book 3) and it's in other peoples hands. My wife is currently reading it through before I send it off to my editor (and sister) who also is the author of Bellingwood...
Parley – rough draft complete
Finishing the rough draft of a manuscript is both exciting and scary for me. The exciting part is pretty obvious, the creative work is done and simply needs to be fine tuned. The flip side to this is that self-doubt starts to creep in. I start to worry about the...
Free signed copies – Privateer Tales
What is it about the word FREE that gets our attention? I have heard it said that if you can't figure out what someone is selling online then they're selling you. Well, heck yeah! I couldn't be happier that Facebook has given me the opportunity to tell you about your...
Parley (Privateer Tales #3) progress update
Is your mind distracted by funny details? I am working on Parley, book #3 in the Rookie Privateer series and I'm plugging away when I notice that I've paused on word count that is an anagram, 64846. As you probably know, I have a math and technical background and...
Privateer Tales Replicators – Already here?
When my son headed off to engineering school, one of the "must-have" items we sold to my wife was a 3D printer. Two years later it seems like a poor substitute for a toy when compared to the consumer level, state of the art like I've attached to this post. In...
Real science seems like fiction
One of the fun things about being a science fiction writer is coming up with things that seem possible and introducing them as real. Most of the time I am balancing the conflict between realistic and over the top. For example, in the Privateer Tales series, gravity...
New look for website
My blog started out as a Wordpress.com site. For whatever reason, I mistakenly thought that if I got a site there that I would have the full wordpress content management system. It is a repeating theme in my life where I will look at something and decide it is what it...
Parley- Book #3 progress!
When will Book #3 be Ready? One of the questions I regularly get is; 'When is the next book coming?' So far the answer has been; 'Sometime this this fall.' The fact is that I really don't know when Parley (Privateer Tales #3) will be ready to go. What I do know is...
Rookie Privateer, Fool Me Once – Goodreads Giveaway
One of the fun things I get to do as an author is give away my books. It is a great way to get the word out and generally people enjoy getting something of value for free. The giveaway I'm hosting is for signed paperback copies of both Rookie Privateer (#1) and Fool...
Map of Puskar Stellar, Mars
One of the major cities in Privateer Tales Series is Puskar Stellar. Purely out of self defense I drew this map.
Fool Me Once (Privateer Tales #2) – BOOK RELEASED
Fool Me Once has been released to amazon.com in both print and kindle format. This was a different type of project for me as an author as I decided to depart momentarily from Liam, Nick, Marny and Tabby to follow one of the pirates they ran into in Rookie Privateer....
Sterra’s Gift Drawing Completed
Here is the final product from Roberto. I am very pleased with his drawing of Sterra's Gift. I am an extremely visual person and find tremendous value in being able to finally get a good picture of how the ship could look. As a bonus. Roberto included a technical...
Drilling in on Sterra’s Gift drawing
Sterra's Gif - choices about external missiles vs. torpedo tube stye Working with Roberto is a joy. I continued to be impressed by his ability to cleanly draw excellent looking high-concept spacecraft. The above image was part of a conversation we had about moving...
Fool Me Once – Beta readers complete
Saturday evening I had a pleasant surprise from my beta reader group. They all finished their work early. During the beta reading process my work is paused for a fairly long period of time (two and a half weeks). Up to that point I had been writing and working with...
Sterra’s Gift artwork commissioned
I present dah dah daaaa, Sterra's Gift. At this point you should appreciated that I am not a gifted charcoal artist. It turns out that I have almost no capacity to draw, paint with anything smaller than a 2.5" brush, or sketch anything more than a grocery list....
Fool Me Once (#2) and Parley(#3), progress!
Fool Me Once is book #2 in the Privateer Tales series. The book is a 32,000 words long which puts it in the category of a novella. For those of you who don't know how all that works. 80,000 words is a normal length for a novel so as you can tell this will be quite a...
FreeBooksy readers welcome! – Rookie Privateer Giveaway
Today starts a giveaway at freebooksy.com. If you'd like a chance to win a free signed copy of Rookie Privateer head over there and put your name in the hat.
Looking for that sweet spot as a writer
Those wonderful people who take time to provide a review on Amazon or Goodreads have no idea just how much new authors read and reread this feedback. As a writer you have to be somewhat self-delusional to begin with. The idea that tens, hundreds, and just get crazy...
Fool Me Once – Privateer Tales #2 off to Beta Readers
I hope I will always have this same sense of excitement when I release a manuscript to a group of beta readers. I am still in the process of learning the craft of creating a book worth reading. I am fortunate to have people in my life who have skills and perspectives...
Words of Encouragement
Growing up, my father was a pastor to small churches in the mid-western United States. Unlike a number of other preacher's kids that I have met, I don't have any salacious insider information about the evil inner workings of church organizations. Much to the contrary,...