New Update

Just a quick update of where I am. I'm in the middle of Ryan's Quest, the follow-up to Ryan's Run. I hope to be finished in a  few short months and have it out by summer of 2016 or even before--late spring? This is of course a bit off from my earlier target date of having it finished by last summer, 2015. I got sidetracked on a another project, my horror novel The Lake Town. Once I finish with Quest I'll finish the revisions for The Lake Town. Hopefully that will be done by end of summer, 2016.

So that's where I am. I apologize to all who have been waiting for the sequel to Ryan's Run to be out by now. I would like to say something about good things coming to those who wait, but as a person who hates to wait (Come on George RR Martin, finish Winds of Winter already!), I know how it feels. And if I was as prolific as Stephen King you'd had have three books by now! But that's not the case.

Have a happy holiday! And a great new year! 2016 will be the bees knees!

Support Free Speech

Don't let the terrorists win when they try to silence freedom of the press and freedom of speech. No matter if you think Charlie Hebdo crossed the line or somehow were "asking for it" by publishing cartoons that mocked Islam--it is NEVER right to answer words and drawings with bullets! A democratic nation thrives on its writers and artists having the freedom to express their beliefs. We should all stand together and support democracy--show that a few deranged and demented individuals  
should never be allowed to silence freedom.

ABNA 2014

Yes, it's that time of year again--time to dip my toe in the literary waters that is the Amazon Breakthrough Novel Award contest. Last year I entered my Young Adult novel Ryan's Run, and made it through to the Quarter Finals. This year I am entering an adult horror novel, The Lake Town. 

I just barely finished it in time of the contest and only had two weeks to edit/proofread/revise it. I know it's not perfect and I rushed the ending. The good news is that you can enter the same novel year after year (as long as you don't win). So if I don't place in the Finals I have an entire year to improve it and enter again.

To give you some idea what it is about here is my Pitch for the novel:

There had never been anything special about the town of Lake DeLayne. It was just one of a number of small, Midwestern lake towns with one high school, a police force of five, and kids who get their excitement drag racing past cornfields and grain silos beyond the town limits.

Quiet, peaceful, and relatively crime free, it has always been considered a good place to live, raise a family, and retire. No one suspected that it would quickly become the center of terror and death.

It begins on a cool March night when an object comes hurtling out of the sky without warning, crashing into the center of the lake. The impact creates a sudden tidal wave that slams into homes, businesses, and people. When everything settles it leaves seven dead and a town full of stunned and grieving citizens. They thought that night was the worse their town had to face. They were wrong.

What was thought to be a simple meteorite turns out to be something far worse, something that can turn simple law-abiding citizens into emotionless killers—but killers with a sinister purpose. Now several people must band together to stop them, including Will Benton, an Iraq War veteran and single father, his teenage son Nick, Amanda, a girl fighting her own personal demons, and her younger brother Teddy, who may know more about what’s happening than anyone, though communicating with him is almost impossible. If they succeed they may not only save their town but they may save the entire planet.

The Lake Town is a modern horror novel of suspense and a frightening tale of survival.

For those who don't know about the contest, the Pitch is the first round of judging. If they like your pitch, you move on to the second round where they judge an excerpt (3,000-5,000 words) of your novel. If I make it to the second round I will post my excerpt. Keep your fingers crossed!

I Need a Clone! (or two or three)

If you're like me, you have way more story ideas than you have time to write them all. A question that writers--both successful and struggling--get asked a lot is: Where do you get your ideas? If you're a writer the answer is simple--your brain is constantly "open" to receive ideas. As writers, we live, eat, breathe, sleep stories. Stories are our nourishment. If your passion in life is telling stories, then it's only reasonable that you are always thinking about stories--or at least programmed to receive stories.

I've been this way for years, and always I have a backlog of stories that pile up. Stories I know I'll never get to and never write. Sometimes it's frustrating. I'll be working on a project--like I am now, trying to finish my latest novel. And Bam! I get a story idea I just have to explore. Then I get back to the novel. Then Bing! Another story idea pops in my head. I have to follow it--like Alice down the rabbit hole. I can't leave it alone. What if it's "the one?" You know what I mean? The one true story that, once it's created, will live on throughout eternity as the greatest piece of literature known to man. Or at least the best thing you've created that you can hang your hat on and say with pride--"Yeah, I wrote that. Pretty good isn't it?" And feel a sense of pride that you came damn close to reaching that pinnacle of self-expression. It's not riches or fame we seek--it's the satisfaction of knowing we wrote a damn good story. That's what it's always been about.

Which brings me back to the clone dilemma. Yes, I need a clone. Not because I'm too busy to finish current projects, but because I have too many ideas floating around. A new story fills me with excitement. It's the excitement of wondering what this story is about, who are these characters, and what will happen to them. It burns inside you and takes you away from what you're doing and in the end you just have to tear yourself away and leave it alone and get back to finishing what you're doing. But it's like Pandora's Box sitting there in a corner (of your desktop). Waiting to be opened. Waiting for the secrets to be revealed. It's tempting. Too tempting. I don't know how other people deal with it. How does Stephen King deal with it? He had so many stories he had to create an alias just to get them all out.
I'm not as prolific as King is yet, mainly because I have to keep my day job, and mainly because, at heart, I'm a lazy bastard who has to force himself to write. But each month and year the stories pile up. At least I'll know the well will never run dry. But there's also the danger of the well spilling over. No one talks about that. The over-abundance. The spillage of ideas. Sometimes you go to the well. And sometimes the well spills over and comes to you.

Part two finished!

Finished Part Two of the new novel. My goal is to hopefully have the rough draft completed by end of October.

Part 1 Finished! (rough draft only)

Finished part one of the new novel--right now titled The Lake Town. It's a horror novel with some sci fi elements (natch). Unlike Ryan's Run this one is an adult novel. Basically it's about what happens when an alien artifact crashes into a small lake and begins to infect several of the town's teenagers--turning them into homicidal maniacs. Homicidal maniacs with a purpose though. I won't give away the purpose right now. Please feel free to guess.

It's planned out to be three parts, the first part is titled "Impact." The second part is titled "Infection." When I have some of the rough edges smoothed out I'll post a sample.

The plan is to have it finished by January and enter it into the 2014 Amazon Breakthrough Novel Award Contest (ABNA). If I make it to at least the quarter-final round I'll get a Publisher's Weekly review. Much like I did with Ryan's Run--and you can read the review in my previous post. If I get a good review (after making the QF round of course) then I may shop it around to some agents or just post it on Amazon and Barnes and Noble.

Once it is finished I will return to Ryan's Quest, the sequel to Ryan's Run. Sorry for the delay. I know I have it posted on the website that it will be available Summer 2013, but I will have to push it back a year at least and have a sample up as well.

Amazon's Breakthrough Novel Award

So it's been nearly a week since Amazon announced those moving on to the semi-final round. Alas, Ryan's Run did not make the list. However, I did receive a good review from Publisher's Weekly. I am including the full review below. Note that everyone's book who made it to the quarter-final round was reviewed by Publisher's Weekly. Not all the reviews were positive, based on the ones I read on the ABNA discussion boards. Also, all the reviews are pretty much the same length and format: a summary of the novel with a few lines of analysis.

ABNA Publishers Weekly Review

Sixteen-year-old Ryan Whitaker and his best friend, Ralph Speckler, are on an art field trip in Chicago when Ryan draws a girl with a scar on her face and then becomes obsessed with finding the girl. Ryan’s brother Jack was killed the year before in Afghanistan, and Ryan thinks of him as the hero and of himself as “just the comic book geek.” Seeing the girl changes his life. He soon learns that she’s real, but in a parallel world, where he soon ends up. Much of this well-written book involves plotting by Ryan’s small group, headed by Mungo, who owns the comic book store. The author’s statements on war, which are presented through Ryan's thoughts, do not slow the story nor do they feel like tacked-on lessons. The protagonist is sympathetic, even loveable. He wants only what is right. Violet is a strong female who puts the love of her people before her own safety. As Ryan rushes against time to save each world, the bad guys get closer. Except for a disappointing ending that feels like a setup for a sequel, this book is a page-turner.

As I said, I'm pleased with the review and I'll definitely use it to promote the book on my website. It's funny though, the one bit of criticism--that the ending is "disappointing" because it "feels like a setup for a sequel" sounds strange. The ending is a setup for a sequel. I don't know how that makes it "disappointing." Unless of course, this reviewer prefers his or her books to be tied up in neat little bows by the end of a novel, with no cliffhangers. *SPOILER ALERT* Ryan's Run ends in a cliffhanger. 

But that's the nature of the beast. Not all critics will like your work. 

Now I'm at work on next year's submission, an adult horror novel with some elements of sci fi. I apologize for those who want the sequel to Ryan's Run--Ryan's Quest--to come out as planned this summer. But unfortunately, also the nature of the beast, is that career comes first. I'm pretty excited by this new novel, and need to get it done so that it is ready to be entered by next January. I think those who liked Ryan's Run will really enjoy this new novel. And I promise I'll return to Ryan's Quest when I can.