Decisions suck, writing is awesome

Whew!  I just finished revising through almost 9k words in Desert Stars.  I’ve only got three more chapters and an epilogue to go, and man, I am so excited about this story!  I have no doubt it’s my best work yet. Of course, I might be biased. 😉 Star Wanderers is also coming along very… Continue reading Decisions suck, writing is awesome

New upload and thoughts on ebooks

Yesterday, I reformatted Genesis Earth and uploaded the new version to Amazon, Barnes & Noble, and Smashwords.  Basically, I took everything I’ve learned about ebook formatting in the last few months and brought it up to date. Here’s the complete list of changes: Revised author’s note to include Facebook and Goodreads links, mention of newsletter,… Continue reading New upload and thoughts on ebooks

Coming along nicely

First things first: the latest post for the Bringing Stella Home blog tour is up over at Michael Offut’s blog; you can find it here.  Michael asked me to blog about Brandon Sanderson’s English 318R class, so I recapped some of my experiences, including the best advice Brandon ever gave me.  Go check it out!… Continue reading Coming along nicely

To publish or not to publish?

That’s what I’m wondering about right now with my latest project, Star Wanderers. The full-length novel isn’t complete yet, but the first part forms a self-contained novelette that has been sooo much fun to write. The story takes place in the Gaia Nova universe, about five hundred Earth years before the events of Bringing Stella… Continue reading To publish or not to publish?

Part I of Star Wanderers is finished!

That’s right–I was up until about 2 am last night finishing it.  Man, time goes by fast sometimes.  This is probably just the first part of a much longer novel, but I hit a good stopping point so I’ll probably put it on the back burner for now while I finish Edenfall and do a… Continue reading Part I of Star Wanderers is finished!

Just following my bliss

They say the way you know you’re a writer is if you can’t not write.  Well, last week I had the gratification of experiencing that again firsthand. For all of August, I was more or less betwen projects and not writing a lot of new material. I’d just epublished Bringing Stella Home and was busy getting… Continue reading Just following my bliss

Character DTRs and other such stuff

Just a quick post before I go to bed. The two main characters in WAFH just had a DTR (Define The Relationship discussion) and it was, well, kind of rough.  I don’t know what’s harder: having one in real life, or writing a fictional one that actually works. I also don’t know which one I… Continue reading Character DTRs and other such stuff

WOTF rejection

So a couple days ago, I got a phone call from my Mom.  A piece of mail had come in from the Writers of the Future contest. Yeah, it was a standard form rejection. Well, everyone puts in their time.  I guess this counts toward that.  A modified version of this story did well in… Continue reading WOTF rejection

Hellish week (and I’m still crossing my fingers)

Holy cow, this week was insane.  INSANE. Two papers (13 pages and 8 pages respectively) in one week, hours and hours wrestling with Sambanis’s Civil War dataset and Excel (I wish I knew STATA–it’s so much more useful for analyzing ginormous datasets), 33 tests to grade (of which I’ve only graded about 11), peer reviewing… Continue reading Hellish week (and I’m still crossing my fingers)

Polishing is harder than it looks

It is.  This is the final revision of Genesis Earth before I submit this novel everywhere, and it’s tough.  I’m changing a lot more than I thought I would, and it’s going a lot slower than any other process so far. Plus, on my way to Murray for my mission reunion, the service light for… Continue reading Polishing is harder than it looks