Occasionally, I offer moral support and solutions that worked for me in the comments section of other writing blogs, but I don’t do a lot of it here. What works for me might not work for you, and vice versa. That being said, I’m seeing certain things come up over and over again in certain places on the web, and I feel like I have to put my oar in. Since nobody asked me, I can’t call them “Frequently Asked Questions,” but I feel comfortable calling this “Frequently Seen Questions…”
Continue reading “Frequently Seen Questions About Writing”Category: Paranormal Romance
Hunter Healer King, Book 2 is Here!
The name’s Chloe Fortebat, and I am in trouble. First I helped Maxim kill a werewolf, then I kissed him, and then I insulted him when I found out that he was roughly twice as old as he looked. Now Maxim is about to be crowned King of the Stormcrows aboard a luxury airship, and he has invited me to attend. But this ship feels more like a cage with each passing hour: a passenger’s horse has turned up missing, a crewman has turned up dead, and before it all started, I heard noises in the cargo hold. But Maxim has a mind as sharp as my banishing dagger, and between us, we aim to put an end to whatever monster lurks aboard the ship, no matter how awkward we feel around each other right now…
My name is Dr. Maxim os Storm, and I hunt the beasts that haunt the night. With my coronation mere hours away, something stalks the shadows of this vessel: a monster that answers to a human being..but who? And for what purpose? Despite our recent…complications, Chloe’s courage and loyalty make her my strongest ally as I pursue our enemies, and brace for the dreadful pomp and circumstance of my own coronation. The crown of the Stormcrows may await me, but first, we have a mystery to solve – together.
State of the Author, 4Q2024
-First off, I think my books are all in Kindle Unlimited now, free to anyone with a subscription to KU. If you see any sign that they are not in KU, please let me know in the comments.
–Undead Flight (Hunter Healer King Book 2) is now in the hands of my proofreaders. Barring complications, should be ready to publish by Christmas time. Ebook cover is done; blurb is done with AI help (stay tuned, my post on the blurbing process will be out tomorrow. Print cover is dependent on my final cleanup of the manuscript to determine page length.
-Also started Hunter Healer King Book 3 by writing a fairly dark and distressing scene from the last third of the book. This is kind of suboptimal, because stitching together scenes written out of order tends to add (wo)manhours to the first draft process, but I hadn’t figured out the opening scene at that point. I don’t know when it will be released but I know that I am aiming for Christmas of 2025.
-I have had a sci-fi Pride and Prejudice retelling in development for a long time; finally got the first scene down. No projected completion date at this time. My main inspiration for this concept was, weirdly enough, Star Wars: A New Hope. If you dig deep enough into the filmographies of the supporting cast, you will find one with a Pride and Prejudice connection in his earlier career. Regrettably, the catchy working title explicitly references Star Wars, so the official title will probably be something rather sedate of the “Pride and…” format.
-New ebook covers using AI art for Shadow Captain and Spider Star are done; still need to do new paperback covers for them, and ebook/hardcover for the 2 in 1 volume for the duology. Projected release date for the 2 in 1 is first/second quarter of 2025.
-Early stages of AI art covers for the Jaiya Series and Ancestors of Jaiya series. No text layout yet. A four in one of Ancestors might come out in third quarter of 2025; a seven in one of the full metaseries might be sometime in 2026 but a lot could go sideways between now and then.
Writer PSA
Always try to collect all your notes on a particular story in one place somewhere. I was reading some books about writing mysteries, remembered a failed mystery idea(1) I had done a lot of world building for, went to look up the Scrivener file I had for it, and discovered that a). it took me an embarrassingly long time to find it because I’d named the file after a relatively trivial story element I wasn’t interested in using anymore and b). although I had successfully corralled the setting notes om scriv(2) and some general ideas on the two detectives, I did not have notes on my plot ideas.
And okay, when I did a deep dive into the notebooks I was using around the time I was brainstorming this, I found that my plot ideas were mostly pretty lame, and that was why I hadn’t taken them seriously enough to put them into Scrivener, but I would have saved myself a certain amount of trouble if I had.
(1) it was one of the iterations of the Feisty Girl/Posh Guy concept that eventually led to Wolf’s Trail, would have been maybe 3a or 4a on this list or this list.
(2) Incredibly important because I had zeroed in on, and even mapped, a tiny bit of Slovenia in an alternate post-WWI, with history on why it was previously its own principality going back several generations and including an alternate wife for a guy who saved Emperor Franz-Josef from an assassination attempt and an additional daughter for Queen Victoria.
EBookDaily is Featuring Slaying a Tyrant
This website spontaneously decided to promote the permanently free Slaying a Tyrant today, and asked that I link to their site, so here’s the link: https://ebookdaily.com/free-kindle-ebooks/2024-03-16/B07WDSZRV2
Final Episode of Hunter Healer King
To claim her inheritance, Chloe Fortabat has to leave her ranch and come to the Old World, where she mingles with monster hunters. The most dangerous of these doesn’t look the part: a quiet, sharp-dressed medical man. Dr. Maxim os Storm’s mission is to destroy those monsters which feed on human pain. He is drawn to Chloe, but she is being slowly transformed into the exact type of monster he hunts. He does not know if he can cure her in time, or what she will do when she learns his secrets…
The final Vella episode of Hunter Healer King is now live. I am collecting the Vella episodes into book form, and will release it to Kindle Unlimited under the title Wolf’s Trail (Hunter Healer King Book 1) in late December 2023, barring catastrophes. If you are interested in learning more about Vella, keep reading.
Continue reading “Final Episode of Hunter Healer King”New Episode for Hunter Healer King
To claim her inheritance, Chloe Fortabat has to leave her ranch and come to the Old World, where she mingles with monster hunters. The most dangerous of these doesn’t look the part: a quiet, sharp-dressed medical man. Dr. Maxim os Storm’s mission is to destroy those monsters which feed on human pain. He is drawn to Chloe, but she is being slowly transformed into the exact type of monster he hunts. He does not know if he can cure her in time, or what she will do when she learns his secrets…
I plan to drop new episodes for this serial every day in the Kindle Vella store for the foreseeable future. To learn more about Vella, keep reading.
Continue reading “New Episode for Hunter Healer King”New Episode for Hunter Healer King
To claim her inheritance, Chloe Fortabat has to leave her ranch and come to the Old World, where she mingles with monster hunters. The most dangerous of these doesn’t look the part: a quiet, sharp-dressed medical man. Dr. Maxim os Storm’s mission is to destroy those monsters which feed on human pain. He is drawn to Chloe, but she is being slowly transformed into the exact type of monster he hunts. He does not know if he can cure her in time, or what she will do when she learns his secrets…
I plan to drop new episodes for this serial every day in the Kindle Vella store for the foreseeable future. To learn more about Vella, keep reading.
Continue reading “New Episode for Hunter Healer King”New Episode for Hunter Healer King
To claim her inheritance, Chloe Fortabat has to leave her ranch and come to the Old World, where she mingles with monster hunters. The most dangerous of these doesn’t look the part: a quiet, sharp-dressed medical man. Dr. Maxim os Storm’s mission is to destroy those monsters which feed on human pain. He is drawn to Chloe, but she is being slowly transformed into the exact type of monster he hunts. He does not know if he can cure her in time, or what she will do when she learns his secrets…
I plan to drop new episodes for this serial every day in the Kindle Vella store for the foreseeable future. To learn more about Vella, keep reading.
Continue reading “New Episode for Hunter Healer King”New Episode for Hunter Healer King
To claim her inheritance, Chloe Fortabat has to leave her ranch and come to the Old World, where she mingles with monster hunters. The most dangerous of these doesn’t look the part: a quiet, sharp-dressed medical man. Dr. Maxim os Storm’s mission is to destroy those monsters which feed on human pain. He is drawn to Chloe, but she is being slowly transformed into the exact type of monster he hunts. He does not know if he can cure her in time, or what she will do when she learns his secrets…
I plan to drop new episodes for this serial every day in the Kindle Vella store for the foreseeable future. To learn more about Vella, keep reading.
Continue reading “New Episode for Hunter Healer King”
Jaglion Press 