Share Joy
What more could a writer want than to share the joy of reading with the next generation. When I was growing up, we didn't have easy access to T.V. and the internet didn't even exist. Both of my parents were avid readers and while I didn't start that way, my dad...
Attitude of Gratitude – Free Books
On of the fun things I get to do as a writer with Amazon is to offer free books. I believe in approaching life with an attitude of gratitude, and I'm grateful for you, my reader. Instead of the airing of grievances, an idea made popular by the fake holiday of Festivus...
First Year, Lessons Learned – Part 1
A year ago, when I started writing in earnest, I read the advice of several successful authors that warned that writing was the easy part of being an independent author. For someone with no released books, this seemed like an oversimplification to me. In my untrained...
Success is not a destination
One of the blogs I follow is written by Seth Godin. He posts easy to digest, common and uncommon wisdom. Every once in a while he comes up with a jewel and this one spoke to me. In his blog, Seth posits that often times success in difficult ventures is a matter of...
New spaceship – Hotspur
Visualization is critical for me while working through a story. At the end of Parley, Sterra's Gift ran into substantial problems. Without turning this into a spoiler, Liam, Nick and Marny found themselves in need of a new ship for Smuggler's Dilemma. The ship they...
Lesser Prince – To Beta Readers
Lesser Prince is a tale about three youths who discover that they are anything but ordinary, and that the universe is much stranger than they could have ever expected. In a significant departure from the Privateer Tales series, Lesser Prince is a fantasy work,...
Big Pete Released!
Big Pete Released, Saturday, October 18th One of the great joys as an author is releasing a new work. Untold hours go into even the smallest works and by the time it makes it to the store, over a dozen people have had their hands in the work, from editing, artwork and...
October Progress
I periodically get the question, "when will the next book be available?" First, let me be clear, it's a flattering question because it shows me that whoever is asking either wants me to read the next book, or is interested in my path as a writer, or hopefully both. I...
Short Story Big Pete
The short story Big Pete will be the fourth installment in the Privateer Tales series and should be available on Amazon in October, 2014. This story starts well before Rookie Privateer. Big Pete is a Marine Sergeant in the great Amazonian war and just happens to...
Rookie Privateer, Best Seller
As an independent writer and publisher one of the most difficult challenges I'm faced with is how to get the word out about my books. Like most writers, I would prefer to write the books and hand off everything else to someone else. I could lament the reasons why this...
Parley Release Sept 5th, 2014
Fans of the Privateer Tales series have good reason to be excited. We are getting very close to the release of Parley (Privateer Tales Book 3). One of the fun things that Liam does when setting out on a new voyage is to pick out theme music. Unfortunately for the...
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...