What the Azathoth is Going On Here?

Posts have been few and far between for a while now, culminating in a long period of seeming silence. I haven’t updated anyone on what’s going on with the books or posted anything of use on the blog, facebook, twitter or tumblr. A few particularly astute readers have taken the time to track me down and demand answers but I’ve been cagey even then.

The truth of the matter is, many nasty things have happened in the last six months or so added up with recurring bouts of problems with my hands and fingers that have really put a hurt on my writing work. Not all of what’s happen only concerns me and my affairs so I’m not even at the liberty to divulge them all (except for the knowledge that my Grandmother had a stroke earlier this month – and we’re lucky that she’s recovering nicely) that have left me psychically and mentally fatigued.

I keep trying to put off saying that I’m exhausted, depressed and looking at a complete rewrite for “Tasting Ash.” Shortening the projected story line has ruined the flow and it needs serious work before I can release it to anyone. Meanwhile I’ve lost one of my first readers to mysterious (and worrisome) circumstances. I’ve also been casting about for a new editor to go over the second books in both the Eldritch Elysium series and The Four Horsemen series, in preparation to committing them both to paperback.

All in all I’m a bit overwhelmed and tired, I had some awesome plans for the new year (setting up a proper newsletter, taking the site to it’s own page, offering up a few ecourses on self publishing) but now I’m cutting my project list waaay back and just trying to keep my head above water for the nonce. Books will be published, stories will be written – it’s just going to take a lot more time and right now I feel like I’m at the bottom of the hill looking up with a giant boulder in front of me that needs pushing.

Two Steps Forward and Three Back

So my monitor died some time ago and I didn’t realize how much of a ginormous hit that was to my productivity until I got it replaced and immediately felt like a weight was lifted from my writing that I’d never even dared contemplate was there before. Which should mean that I’m cranking out chapters like no one’s business – but. There’s always a but isn’t there? Just as I got close to replacing my monitor I lost large chunks of my Scivener project for the Eldritch Elysium series.

As in giant chunks of my manuscript for “Tasting Ash” were gone. Poof. Vanished into the aether.

Again.

This is the second time I’ve lost work thanks to using Dropbox coupled with Scrivener. Every now and again giant chunks of text just seem to vanish no matter what I do. Yes I was working on a different computer but I wasn’t opening the project on them both at the same time – at all – plus I lost bits of my notes from much older sections of the project (book 2 level old) which was both frustrating and utterly unacceptable.

Thankfully I have backups of my backups and now that I’m able to use the desktop again it wasn’t too hard for me to dig them out and get everything recovered. Unfortunately so frelling much was lost (that I really need) that instead of writing all kinds of awesome new stuff, I’m sitting around reentering old stuff.

Good news though, going through so many vital character notes has really helped clear away lots of my previous confusion with the manuscript for “Tasting Ash” bad new is I have parts of that to recover too and I’ve not gotten there yet.

Happy New Year!

It’s 2015 already so I suppose you guys deserve an update.

Laptop has been repaired, my work on “Tasting Ash” has finally resumed (slowly with many false starts and general malaise) and I’m hopeful that I’ll be able to release the novel sometime this year. My main workhorse computer is still down for the current count though so I’m not at all sure what I’ll be doing when it comes time for me to do the book covers, hopefully by then I’ll have the desktop back up to speed.

I’ll get back to finishing my series on using Scrivener to write series as soon as I’ve gotten my word count up to satisfactory levels. Stay tuned.

Alright, update complete. Back to work!

I’m Back?

Bit nervous to actually say that I’m back to writing and Mom is doing well, seems like every time I do that she ends up right back in the hospital and I face a writing block to end all writing blocks. Hopefully this time she really is doing better but I am experiencing the hell of nothing that is popularly called writers block and which I’d normally swear doesn’t exist.

Since Mom’s last exit from the hospital I’ve settled down at my computer every day and opened up my Scrivener document for the next installment in the Eldritch Elysium series which I’d just decided to name “Tasting Ash” before the last round of hospitals. I open it up and I stare, stare, stare. I stare till it’s about 10 pm and then I give up for the night.

If I remember correctly I was just about ready to start working on the outline before the heart attack but after all my notes make absolutely no sense and my characters won’t let me get back in. Worse, some of them have been laughing at me. Tried writing something else, anything else and it’s gotten a bit better though the nightmares are actually getting worse.

It feels like I’ve forgotten how to do the thing. You know the thing. That wonderful thing that’s part way between magic and skill where you slip sideways through reality and words flow from your fingertips, if not well at least on demand.

This – lack of words – more than anything else seems to mean I’ll be lucky to make my usual deadline for release of the next book. I will, of course, keep beating my head on this brick wall till something comes out. Anything (please gods anything).

Free Friday!

Ah weather. Last week there were ice storms bad enough to knock the power down in my area for three days of frozen hell and today it’s scheduled to be in the 80’s. That’s going to be hell on my herb garden.

Anywho, enough of my domestic misery – I’ve got a present to make up for all the downtime! On Friday, I’ll be giving away copies of my first novel, “The Uncertainty of Death,” for free on Amazon.

The-Uncertainty-of-Death-cDeath… it is the most frightening unknown to us all. For centuries people have personified and anticipated the horror and majesty of this unavoidable reality. We even invent legends to avoid it.

Unfortunately, she is someone we cannot escape.

No one expects a harried, overworked, and socially awkward business woman to become the deliverer of their fate. Death has never been good at games of skill or chance and is keenly self-conscious, always going the extra mile to make others comfortable. But in The Uncertainty of Death, two mortals, Leo Kaylor and Jules Harper are about to meet Death for the first time, and she is not what they imagined in. Together, Leo and Jules embark upon a chaotic journey that will test the very meaning of life and friendship in the first of this apocalyptic Four Horsemen series.

See you Friday, enjoy the freebie!

While You Were Sleeping…

If you signed up for email alerts you already know this but for the rest of you, I went ahead and released “Toxic Ash,” updated the blog, Facebook and all the relevant hoodads – and then just because I wasn’t feeling like enough of an over achiever I went ahead and made this:

Ash-of-Ambitions-Createspace-RC1-for-sharing Continue reading

Book Review: J. L. Bryan’s “Jenny Pox”

I’m still in the noman’s land of those without internet. Looks like it’ll be anywhere from 3-6 more weeks. Trust me, I’m hating it more than anyone but it’s been a marvelous opportunity to get a lot of work done. I’ve read more books, edited more pages and actually buzzed around the house like a busy little cleaning bee more than ever before.

Thankfully there’s still a mountain of things for me to do around here and a pile of books in my ‘to read’ list or I’d have to face the horrors of being cut off from the rest of the world in a more concrete way. The good news is that when all of this is over I should hopefully have “Toxic Ash” finished it’s first run of edits, though it remains to be seen if I can get it into final polish phase in time for me to hit publish as soon as I get back – but I’m sure as hells going to try. So bear with me readers!

Since I’ve been reading so much – I have a ton of book reviews to hopefully tide anyone coming to the blog for updates over with. Sadly my facebook, twitter, pinterest etc are all going to have to wait for me to get back into full force (Ah, how I miss the random blather and pretty pictures!) bear with me everyone!

First up is J. L. Bryan’s “Jenny Pox,” a paranormal fantasy novel with a very different tone than the usual vampires and werebeast angle. I was super excited to read this one since I’m also an author of very unusual paranormal tales and it was really exciting to see what new ground someone else was exploring in the genre.

Continue reading

Updates All Around!

Hi Hi! I’ve been a little quiet for a while. First I was sick (I know, seems like I’m always sick) and now I’ve realized that I’m sooo close to finishing up the draft for “Toxic Ash” that I can taste it.

How close is so close? Two chapters. I just have to write: Two. More. Chapters. And the book is done. That’s only about twenty thousand words! I can totally do this shit!

Eldritch-Elysium-Logo-1So, I guess you can see how I’ve been focusing all my writing energy towards the book right now. This will be the first time I’ve had two releases in a single year, so I’m super psyched about it.

Of course there are some who really don’t care about the new book – they just want their free shit. Well, not to worry, I haven’t forgotten about Free First Friday. Tomorrow will be a free day for you guys to go ahead and snatch up a  copy of “The Uncertainty of Death,” hopefully the freeby will help tide the rest of you over until I can release the new book!

For the rest of you, those who really can’t wait till “Toxic Ash” hits shelves and you can get your voracious little claws on them: consider signing up for an email alert and I’ll personally let you know exactly when the release hits Amazon!