Book 5 finally released!

It's the moment you've all been waiting for!

Book 5 is called "Capitol Punishment" and in it, Jeremiah finds himself on an entire planet that is the capital of its star system.  On the run from several enemies with differing agendas, he must team up with new and old friends to save his life and theirs.

It's a lot of fun, and I hope you enjoy it!

Only $1.99 from Amazon US

Or £1.49 from Amazon UK

Finishing Book 5, Beginning Book 6

Hey all.

Book 5 - "Capitol Punishment" - should be out in a week or so.  By this point, I ought to be close to getting the first draft of Book 6 done.  Or at least well on my way.

So why can't I start?

It's the last in Volume One - the final installment in the first phase of Dr. Jeremiah's star travels.  There will be a pause while I write other things, projects I've wanted to work on for some time now.  So I want to get this right,

There are things the book needs to accomplish.  The ending is fine (I've know what it is for a very long time now) but making it count is harder.  Earning it, letting it develop naturally and satisfactorily.  That is what the key is going to be.

I could start writing now.  Easy.  All the details aren't worked out yet, but I could make it up as I go along - I've done it before.  So why not do that?

Because I know it won't work.  Won't work well enough, at any rate, to be satisfying as a semi-conclusion to the series.  I need to make sure this one hits all the right notes, and in the right order.  There's a hundred ways this could mostly turn out okay, and only a few that will be really good.

It's one of those latter that I'm aiming for.  And so I keep hunting.  Keep searching, keep outlining.  And soon (with any luck) I'll hit on the right approach and start writing.

Any day now...

Keeping busy

I'm almost ready to start on Book 6 of "The Star Travels of Dr. Jeremiah Fothering-Smythe".

Right now, while I'm getting it outlined (and figuring out who some of the guest character are) I'm trying to keep the writing muscles exercised not only by redrafting Book 5, but by writing some short stories.

I've got a lot of ideas, and some of them might even be good!  If I decide to publish them, keep an eye out.  It could be something readers of this series will enjoy.

But either way, it won't be long until I can begin the first draft of the final installment of Volume One of Dr. Jeremiah's adventures.

I can't wait!

Four words

The old adage is that a writer should write at least four pages a day.

Not an average of four pages a day.  At least four pages a day.

Why?  It's all about building discipline.  About making writing a habit.  Forcing yourself to sit on your butt and actually write - not just doing it whenever the moon is right, and the auguries are good.

And yet, it's nonsense.

I don't mean it's bad advice.  Not really.  But it doesn't work for me.

Why not?  Besides the vagueness of the amount (four of what kind of pages?  At what font size?  Double spaced?) I frankly don't think it's any kind of great investment of my time to pound out four pages of absolute crap that I will just delete the next day to rewrite,  There are better things I could be doing with my time.

Like outlining.  I'm not a seat-of-the-pants kinda guy.  I (generally) outline a story to absolute death before I even put pen to (virtual) paper.  (Seriously, in the past I've hunted through sheaves of notes finding where I had which scraps of dialogue scribbled down, as the entire section of banter was pre-written over months of development, and over many separate pieces of scrap paper.)

So here's my compromise:  four words per day.

Yeah, I know.  But for me, just opening Microsoft Word and getting something down is discipline enough, for now.  Even if the last thing I want to do is write, I'm trying to force myself to at least open the program and bash out my four words.

Cause you know what?  Sometimes four words lead to forty.  And sometimes those forty lead to four hundred.  And once in a while, when everything aligns, those four hundred lead to four thousand.

And it never would have happened if I hadn't written those four short words - whatever they are.

If I don't have my next novella (or, soon, novel) ready to begin, then I will start (or continue) a short story.  As long as I am writing something.

At least four words of something.

Preparing for the end

Now that I have finished the first draft of Book 5 ("Capitol Punishment") with still a lot of work left to get it into shape, it is time to prepare for Book 6 (which currently is a very bare bones outline - a fact which frightens me a little).

In doing so, I am forced to confront the fact that Book 6 will definitely be the last book of what I am calling "Volume One".

The character's story arc will effectively resolve by the end of that novella, and it feels like the perfect place to rest the series for a while.

Book Seven begins a new story arc that I am actually quite excited about, so Jeremiah will definitely return for a Volume Two, but there is most certainly a need to pause after Book 6 is released.  (This will also allow me to focus on some other projects which I have been developing.)

I think once you, the readers, get to the end of Book 6 (which, of course, will not be released for almost another two months) you will see why it is a great place to press the 'pause' button.

There is still a lot of excitement to go before then, however, and I hope you will be looking forward to the adventures in Books Five and Six which still lay ahead of us.