Blog on my wayward son!

New month!  

In 2010, I made only two blog posts (Also I realize that I had made that long ago.) 

In 2011, I made only two blog posts. (I thought I made the site in 2011) 

In 2012, this will be post 3! (Goal 24 posts) 

I’ve added myself to goodreads.com. I can’t tell you how giddy I have been the last few weeks to see other sites recognize me an author. Puts a little boogie into my walk! It's a great feeling to say "Hey I'm an author!"  It's even better when other people say "Hey he's an author." 

It's a nice ego stroke to be sure. I mean it don't really sound like much but when the mail came through that said "We have upgraded your account to author." I had to be pealed of the walls. There is something to be said about being easily amused. 

The week of the 16th found myself spending a lot of time at home because of the bad weather and because of it, a lot of time in front of my computer. I worked a little on my Facebook timeline picture, I wanted something that showed how my mind feels sometimes. I like how it turned out. I may remake it down the road with a much better camera. What you are seeing are all my author notebooks with the laptop that I write on stacked atop. If I were to add one more layer it would have been a kindle. :)  

Also during the winter storm I finished the last page of my manuscript for "The Devil n Jack" it ended up at 97,300 in it's current form. It needs another read through where I can clean things up and blend the chapters together. I like how the story ended and I think that all the characters stayed true, once that's done I start the fun of looking for an agent for it. I'm still a little lost on where the best place to start will be, but that will come a little later, for now it gets put up to marinate. I want to put my focus into getting Corporate Policy ready then this fall's release. Then I'll come back to work on Jack again.  

This means that I start work on the rewrite of Corporate Policy, the exciting next chapter of the Electric Disease story. It's only been a few months but I too, am starting to miss the high jinx of Dan and Clara! I think that this next book is going to go a lot smoother than book one. One, I have learned a lot from the many rewrites of book one. Two, I've been able to see what more affective for getting things ready.  I'm currently finishing this blog post in Vegas and I'm also editing the Vegas scene in my book. I've been sitting out on benches where the scenes happen to get the feel of the ambiance as I work through these first parts. SO DAMN COOL! 

One of the comments that I get when I talk to people about Electric Disease is that everyone really loves the cover. It's my wife that did it and she's always been awesome with art. She has agreed to be the artist for book two so I'm super stoked. I'm sure she'll feel the same pressure for the second cover the way I did for writing a sequel that is at least as good as the first. 

I always say that sequels can never be as good as the original. For one, you don't have the same shock of NEW. You have a set world, set characters, and a history you have to stay true to. That leaves you having to build out new experiences that will keep the reader turning pages. It was a daunting task for me this time around. I talked with one of my teachers and she gave me some pointers that make me feel much better about what I wrote.  

We have some goals that I should update!  

With the grand help of my good friend A'mee I was able to get a press release made! I'll put a link to it on my website soon, it will be in the about section. While getting this ready to go I made a "about me"  doc that I want to clean up and add to my website as well. 

I'm setup to do my headshots with Candice on Feb 4th, so once I have that I'll be able to add them to my bio and I'll have as good a press kit as I can have right now, I think.  

While I was working on all this, I found that I could put an ad in the book that will be handed out at Norwescon. As I'm paying for the ad out of my own pocket I had a little fun with it, I'll post it soon too. I hope that it works out to get me a few sales from new people.  

I don't think I'll add any more goals for now, that is about all the advertising I want to push before I settle in for a long rewrite and edit. 

On one last note I was going to try out for an MLS team, the Seattle Sounders, but because of the weather it was canceled. I'm a little bummed about that, I was looking forward to the experience. Not many people can say they tried out for a professional team before. If they do it next year, I'll have to try then. 

See you all in a few weeks!

Robert