Category: On Writing

Meet … Geneve

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You might have missed the news that the Splintered Land trilogy is here. With a new trilogy comes new heroes. It’s time to meet Geneve! I hope you enjoy reading her story as much as I enjoyed writing it. Sorcerers are a blight. Knight Adept Geneve must end them. A wizard rumored to hold the Tome of Lost Souls is on the run. This powerful grimoire can destroy Geneve’s order in an instant. She must capture him–and the Tome. Geneve finds truth on her path. Monsters brutalize the world, and her leaders are complicit. She runs from them into the blasted plaguelands. Geneve damns herself through her choice of companions: a Feybrind who keeps his own counsel, a renegade illusionist, and one of the vile Vhemin. Her quest to uncover the Tome’s secret remains. If she succeeds, she will let Read More …

The Splintered Land’s First Draft is DONE

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I interrupt your regularly scheduled scrolling to drop some happy. Requiem’s Justice, book 3 in the Splintered Land trilogy, is code complete as they say (…in a totally different industry). Sure, sure, I’ve about seven years’ of editing to do, but let me hold this one close for a while. It racks in just shy of 120,000 words, which is more or less what the other two are. When editing is done on all three, the series will look like this: Tomb of the Six Blade of Glass The Storm Within Requiem’s Justice The astute among you will notice there are four (4) titles, which seems an odd number for a trilogy. As I’m breaking into the hot new genre (for me) of epic/dark fantasy, you’ll get an on-the-house series prequel when this launches. You’ll be able to judge for Read More …

The Price is Right

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Life’s been hard these past months. I don’t want to be a downer, but the only thing missing from this apocalypse is actual zombies (and I’m pretty sure I saw those at the mall). I know money is tight. Shit is hard. Unemployment’s at record highs, and even “cheap” entertainment like reading is difficult to justify when you’re not sure how to feed your kids tomorrow. Many people aren’t coping, and finding it harder without fantasy worlds to escape to. I have three possible solutions for you. If you’re really hard up for cash, I’ve made Chromed: Upgrade free. This is my homage to Blade Runner. It’s got cybernetics, alcohol, genetically-modified monsters, wormholes, AI, and rock music. This was the thing I wanted to write when I started to do this gig for real, and you can get it for nothing. 85,000 Read More …

The Night’s Venn Problem

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I’ve waxed lyrical about marketing on here before – we’re almost doing it again! Rebekah did a marvelous new cover for Night’s Favor. This book is a huge pain in the ass to do a cover for, because it’s not your usual werewolf book. It’s also not your usual police procedural, thriller, or supernatural suspense. It’s the all-y’all version of those things, and this makes finding readers a hyoooge challenge. What she came up with is the best damn cover it’s ever had. I mean, you can see what’s going on there, right? We’ve got Val, who’s looking a little fucked if we’re honest with ourselves, and the werewolf about to turn him into a Val-sized snack. This particular scene happens before the book starts, but that’s not really important. We want a werewolf, we want it now, and we Read More …

Your Ears Just Got Lucky: Win Tyche’s Flight!

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You got that right – you can snare a copy of Tyche’s Flight in freshly minted audio. I’ve teamed up with Saffron Bryant and Mary O’Paddock to bring you an audiobook giveaway bundle. For a bit o’ variation, the copies of Tyche’s Flight and The Waters will be delivered via authors-direct.com, and Speak will come at you from Audible. That’s just how it’s gonna be. (ICYMI, you might dig on my review of Speak). Win Audiobooks

We interrupt your vigorous holidaying for this important announcement 🔈

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Tyche’s Flight is now out in audio! It’s been Big Huge Fun™️ putting this together, not least of which because I got to work with the supremely talented Tim Paige. I’ve pulled together a massive two-hour audio sample for your listening pleasure. You can put on your cans and drown out the cries of over-sugared children during this festive time: [https://dl.bookfunnel.com/5jr33w65w3] I love everything about this. If you want to hear Nate and Grace kick Ezeroc ass from Absalom Delta, now’s your chance. The complete book is almost ten hours of murderous insects, self-serving Republic military, and a starship running a little low on luck. You can fatten up your audiobook library just about anywhere: [Audible] [Apple Books Audio] [Kobo Audio] [Google Audio] [Nook Audio] [Scribd Audio] [Beek Audio] [eStories Audio]

The Cost of Great Things and The Importance of Libraries

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I had time to listen to an economics podcast while boiling my head in battery acid, because I appreciate pain at many levels. The podcast was interesting though. There’s conversation in there about the cost of entertainment, with the interviewee claiming he feels best (I paraphrase) at the $1-2/hr entertainment level. It’s no surprise this resonates with those who choose reading for leisure. If I open Tyche’s Flight, my Kindle tells me there’s about 7 hours left to go; at USD$3.99, that’s $0.57 an hour. The sequels rock out to $0.71/hour because I’m a price-gouging hack; that’s still pretty decent. The books are a reasonable length (although tend to not feel long, being “page turners” in the parlance of my people). Some people will get more or less value here due to consumption speed. My wife has a reading rate I Read More …

The 1-Star Challenge

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When I read about John Scalzi’s 1-star challenge what feels an age ago, I wanted to grow up to be a Real Author(tm) who had people hate him that much. Life lesson #784: you should be careful what you wish for. After some some folks who were pissed their free first-in-series of mine didn’t conclude every plot loop ever and decided to storm Amazon over it, I needed some group therapy. I talked to a couple author buddies to see they could help peel the Band-Aid off. Man, people have opinions, especially when they’re safe behind John Gabriel’s Greater Internet Fuckwad Theory. These three brave souls agreed to furnish us with the review they just couldn’t understand. Side note: if you want to work on your resilience training, put your work on a public forum. The Nova Chronicles: Books 1-5 What is Read More …

The Storm Within [REDACTED]

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I finished outlining The Storm Within yesterday. Wait, what? This is the sequel to Blade of Glass, the artist previously known as Prince Boundless. We also have a series name (The Splintered Land), and all three books have titles (which my cover artist will be delighted about, as now she has something to work with). Blade of Glass The Storm Within Three’s Boundless Like the original Blade of Glass outline, all the important parts are missing: Sorry about that. Writing starts … today!

Audio Test – Check One, Check Two…

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Hey y’all. I’m experimenting with audio at the moment. There’s been a few requests for various of my books in audio format. I’d love to do this, but also love to not be bankrupted by the process (audio’s expensive to make!). To that end, I’ve been thinking things like, what if I got a local narrator, or what would happen if I took some acting lessons and tried it myself? One of the big challenges is the New Zealand accent on the untested ear. Most audiobooks I’ve listened to have North American narrators; is this the expected norm? Do people dig our accents from down under, or are we bad to listen to? I’ve put together a quick audio test – have a listen, and give me some feedback on the accent: I’m aware the video’s a bit shit (ancient Read More …