new book – Mindflight

Daybreak – a new trilogy begins

In my last entry, I mentioned using an early start to the day as a way to use the natural creative period many of us have in the morning. As followers to this blog know, I am an author, so it makes sense that I spend part of my time working on a novel.

Even if I only get a page or so done before work, those bits of effort add up over time. I’m roughly 120,000 words into a new science fiction trilogy. it’s a little unusual in this day and age, but this trilogy is going to be illustrated.

Part of the illustrations are going to be done by me, taken from the pages of the main character’s sketchbook, but part of them are going to be digitally rendered. If you’d like a sneak peek at some of the concept art, feel free to go here to my good friend and CG artist’s site. I’m sure she’d appreciate a hello.

This trilogy is set in the present day, in a world that might as well be our own. It follows the adventures of three friends who discover that they are the heirs to an alien heritage that goes back many thousands of years. However, being just normal people, they have their own unique ways of reacting to this new and strange reality.

We have an utterly normal young woman working as a medical claims analyst, who is a flight student and an artist in her spare time, her friend who is a lead vocalist in a very small and obscure heavy metal band, and his girlfriend who is Japanese but on long-term stay in America. This unlikely trio is cast into ever-deepening mystery coupled with danger.

It has been a real pleasure working with my friend the CG artist, and it feels amazing to see some of the craft and scenes from the books take life before my eyes!

Our goal is to have the first book out sometime this summer.

Stay tuned for more updates!

New eBook: “Self-Publishing Made Easy.”

Books and Stories, Tips for Self Publishing

Within the next few days, my new eBook will be available. In it is all the material on the “Self Publishing” tab on my main site, plus a lot of additional information, clarification, and suggestions. I hope everyone likes it and finds it useful. It’s short, easy to read, and to the point. Best of all, it’ll be sold for only 99 cents!

Stay tuned, I’ll make another announcement when it’s available for everyone.

From Tradition to Book – Holiday Anthology

Books and Stories, Tips for Writers

When my parents and I started living fairly far away, we still had a desire for closeness, particularly around the holidays. We started a tradition where my mother would write a story and email it to me, I would create illustrations for it then send the finished pages back over to them, then my father would help bind and ship the story. Usually with sparkly yarn and a fancy cover. They would go out to all the friends and relatives as their Christmas present.

There were so many advantages to this. The extended family would start calling each other and discussing the story. I got plenty of chance to illustrate things. We all three had the feeling of continuing a holiday tradition that drew us together.

Now, for this year, my dad is the one who wrote the story. I had the idea to publish the last twelve or so stories into one big volume. I also would re-illustrate the stories that needed it. So “Yuletide Lights” was born. It’s fifteen stories, each one born of personal experience, and filled with the central themes of the holiday season. They stories are in general heartwarming and filled with generosity but in some truly touching ways. Each story is a slice of life, a pair of magic glasses with which you can peep into another life, another way. The story I wrote is about a lost cat in Japan, but even it happens around the Holidays. The little girl in the book my dad wrote might as well have been me, and I remember versions of many of events in these and other stories. Many times I’ve been moved to tears, working on this project.

I had fun preparing, editing and illustrating these stories, as much fun as I hope you have reading them.

If you’d like to see this volume, it’s available both in paperback and Kindle.