Archive for the ‘writing update’ Category

A New Project – Of Dust and Gold

Posted: March 28, 2013 in steampunk, writing, writing update
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The first annoucement that is coming out of the changes previously announced is a new blog – Of Dust and Gold.  This is a collaborative project between my fiance and I, based on a steampunk setting we are planning to write in.

The website is still in the very early stages of construction, but will be regularly update, wtih a serialised story starting to appear soon, we hope.

Of Dust and Gold centres around an old tramp freighter airship, Aria, and her eccletic crew, as they travel a region modelled on the Colonial Australia gold-rushes, with a steampunk flavour to it.  Hence why I found the old gold rush photos so interesting, and relevant.

We hope to give it a really Australian feel, which is somewhat different to most current steampunk.

A New Year and a New Book

Posted: January 6, 2013 in fantasy, writing, writing update
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After a long period of absence, I’m making a return to the blog with the new year.  It is my hope to post more often – and of course write more.

To mark the new year, I have a new book out – Stonemaul.  It is a collection of eight short stories about Nhaqosa the white minotaur.  Six have previously been published but the final two are brand new, rounding out the end, and the beginning, of Nhaqosa’s story.  With the compilation complete, it is time to move onto new projects.

The book can be found at Smashwords and Amazon.

 

NaNoWriMo Aftermath

Posted: December 4, 2012 in writing, writing update
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This year I had a real crack at doing NaNoWriMo, the National Novel Writing Month.  The aim of it is to write a 50,000 word novel in a month.  I fell a bit short, making 42,000 words.  Still, not a bad effort given the last couple of weeks were spent on doing the final major project for the course I am doing, so it understandably took priority.  The story I am calling Stormraven, and is the introductory story to a fantasy series in the work.  It was always meant to be a novella length story rather than a full novel, so it fitted in well with NaNoWriMo.  Hopefully it wont take too long to finish off.

Writing Update

Posted: May 2, 2012 in fantasy, The Commonwealth Chronicles, writing, writing update
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Just a quick update on things.

I’ve finished the rewrite of The Rose of Nakunwe, the followup to Dawn of Wolves and next short story in the Frontier Wolves collection. I want to finish off the one after that, an as yet unnamed short story that has been plotted but not yet started, before releasing them both.

And then it is two more short stories, another novella, and the collection is done. Hopefully before the end of the year as well…

Writing Update

Posted: February 14, 2012 in fantasy, The Commonwealth Chronicles, writing, writing update
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The first rough draft of the next story has now been completed. The Rose of Nakunwe is a planned novelette which is next in The Commonwealth Chronicles series, forming part of The Frontier Wolves sub-series.

The rewrite should be done by the end of the month.

However I’m still debating what exactly to do with it. It may be a little short to release as a stand alone story. I may end up waiting until the following novelette is done and releasing them together – or maybe wait until the entire Frontier Wolves story is told and releasing them all together as one volume.

That decision can wait for now, at least until the rewrite is done.

Dawn of Wolves Rewrite Complete

Posted: January 16, 2012 in Dawn of Wolves, fantasy, writing, writing update
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I have finished the rewrite of Dawn of Wolves, ending at around 49,000 words, which is slightly over what is normally classified as a novella, but close enough I’ll still call it one.

Now comes the next step – formatting, editing, proof reading and of course cover design.  Hopefully that will not take too long.

For the release I’m going to do something a little different this time around – I’m going to enrol it in the Amazon Kindle Select programme.

Kindle Select is a programme where by it is enrolled in a lending library and Amazon fork up a bunch of money (currently at 500,000 a month).  Those enrolled get a percentage of funds equal to the percentage of loans they make.  In addition you get 5 days per free months where you can offer your book for free.

There is a but through – there is always a but.  Firstly a lot of people are signing up – and it is the big names that will get the most lends.  Secondly, you can’t sell the book anywhere else.  Not even on your own website.  It is for that reason I’m leaving my old books out of it, as they are elsewhere.  This one is going to test it out, to see if it makes much of a difference.

The Year Ahead

Posted: January 7, 2012 in Dawn of Wolves, writing, writing update
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With another year just started, it seems appropriate to look forward and try and set some goals.

Basically it comes down to write more, publish more and promote more.  And post more to the blog.

On the writing/publishing more, it is off to a good start.  I am up to the final rewrite/edit of Dawn of Wolves, though it seems to have blow out a little in size.  The aim was for a 40,000 novella.  It is looking to be around 50-55K when done.  At the current rate I’m writing it should be finished well before the end of the month.

Once it is done, I hope to add it to the new Kindle Lending Library programme, to hopefully help promotion wise.

When it is done, it will be time to press on with new projects.  The main two are to finish the last stories for Nhaqosa to complete his story arc and then bundle the new ones and the old ones in a single compilation, and to write the rest of the Frontier Wolves collection, of which Dawn of Wolves is the first part, and Tomb of the Tagosa Kings comes towards the end.

After that?  Well, we’ll see.

 

Winter Wolves Redone

Posted: December 8, 2011 in winter wolves, writing, writing update
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I have finally finished the re-edit of Winter Wolves.  In addition it has received a new cover as well, in keeping with the others of the series.

In addition to trying to fix up all spelling and grammatical errors that I could find, I also re-wrote the last 10,000 words.  I had never been entirely happy with the ending, given I felt it had too much in common with the ending of Tears of the Mountain.  And there was a good reason for that.  I had started work on Winter Wolves first, plotting it out and writing about half of it.  Then, as is my way, I switched projects and starts on Tears.  This time I actually stuck through to the end and finished Tears.  However I had never had an ending for Tears planned and in the end borrowed the one I had planned for Winter Wolves.  When I went back to Winter Wolves I found myself without an ending and tried to cobble one together, one that I felt had too much in common with the ending of Tears.  The re-edit gave me a chance to re-write the ending into one not so similar, and one that I fell makes more sense – at least for me.

The new versions are kicking around at Smashwords and Amazon.

Plans For The Rest Of The Year

Posted: November 23, 2011 in Dawn of Wolves, General, winter wolves, writing, writing update
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End of the year is rapidly approaching and I still have a few things on the list that I want to see done by then, so I’d better knuckle down and get them done.

First up is to finish the re-edit/re-write of Winter Wolves. I’m down to the last 2K to go, so hopefully won’t be long. After that I need to work on a new cover for it, like the others of that series.

Secondly is to finish off Dawn of Wolves – it has been sitting there for a long while now. At 40K down, there is about 10K to go for it.

Lastly is to do another short anthology of short stories – somewhere between 3 and 5 of them. I’ve got a couple of collection in the works – just need to work out which to finish first.

Tears of the Mountain Redone

Posted: October 14, 2011 in fantasy, Tears of the Mountain, writing, writing update
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The re-edit of Tears of the Mountain is now done, fixing up various little grammatical and spelling errors that hadn’t been caught previously. It also now has its new cover. The edited version is now up and working on Smashwords and is currently being published on Amazon, so should be ready to go in a day or two.

Now to start on Winter Wolves.

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