Another One in the Bag

Well, perseverance coupled with the lack of a life and extracurricular activities finds me with another finished book. The sequel to Shiva’s Eye, Paws of the Sphinx, is complete. A feat with an added degree of difficulty since the last 20,000 or so words were typed with one hand since my recent reconstructive shoulder surgery. I now begin the editing process where I will add some shit, kill some shit and basically rethink everything as I go. This is also when I fluff it with more descriptive, flowery scenery stuff that I tend to gloss over in my first breakneck pass to get all my ideas down on paper. I am not the best at the descriptives. I’m telling a story, not painting a picture. Hmmm, I just read that back and am sure I’ll get crucified by nerd authors and wanna be writers arguing that I am indeed painting a picture, of a sort. Shut up! You do you, I’ll do me.

On a positive note, however, I am aware of some of my shortcomings as an author (as mentioned above) and will only get better as the words pile up. Trolling nerds and jackasses on the other hand will not because they are too busy busting my balls and not worrying about their own crap.

I would like to thank the couple handfuls of people that have been actively reading my books and giving some very constructive criticisms. These “Eyeballers” are even bringing ideas to the table that I hadn’t even thought of in writing these things. It is amazing how different everyone’s brains work. I will get texts from one of them saying “What about this character or that character? Are they going to do such and such?” or they will guess at what will happen next as I feed the readers only 5 to 10 chapters at a time. Ninety percent of the time they are completely wrong and that is fun for me. One such suggestion has made me rethink a very ancillary character from the first book so I may give that one a bigger roll in an upcoming follow up to Paws.

I now plan on changing gears and getting back to Prepared. A book I started at the same time I was working on Shiva. After about 30,000 words I felt that I needed to narrow my focus and get better as a writer before I could finished it. (Check out the sample chapter on the Projects page.) I have had a hell of a lot of fun writing the first two Indigo Oats adventures. I even feel like the guy is a real person since he has been with me for so long. I’ll come back to him and his pal Googs later. I only have about six or seven more adventures already in the conceptual stages for these guys.

If any of you out there would like to become an Eyeballer and tell me how bad I suck in a very constructive way, drop me a line from the contact page and I’ll send you some chapters to scrutinize.

Now where did I put my agent? Wait, that’s right, I don’t have one. I should start working on that. See you kids later.