Short Snippet

Because Mist's Edge releases one week from today and because some of you asked for it, here is a short snippet.

Snippet

“You are diabolical,” Trenton remarked after Shea left a false trail pointing into a nest of stinging thistles. The flower’s petals would leave welts and rashes on any unsuspecting victim that chose to brush against them.

Shea shared a smile with him as she backed away from the nest, careful not to brush up against any of the yellowish, green petals.

“I learned from the best.”

“This may end up backfiring on you,” Trenton said with a skeptical glance at the stinging flowers. 

“He will not be happy when he catches up to you if he has welts and a rash all over. He might even find a nest to throw you into.”

She shot Trenton a grin. “If he’s arrogant enough to get caught in this, he deserves what he gets.”

She’d decided she liked this game. Liked outwitting Fallon and making him chase false trails. The only way it would be better is if she could ditch Trenton and do this alone. He made their trail a little too easy to spot.

She stared at him in thought.

“Oh no, don’t even think it. You’re not ditching me.”

She sighed. Such a stickler for the rules.

Mist's Edge Teaser

Now that I've worked through the edits in the beginning part of Mist's Edge, I feel more comfortable sharing another chapter. Previously, I had posted what I was calling Chapter One. Edits showed me this was really a prologue. This will teach me to wait before sharing chapters that aren't finalized :-)

Below are links to the former chapter I had shared as well as the real Chapter One. Hopefully there are no further big upsets to my plan. Enjoy!

Prologue

Chapter One

Cover Reveal, Excerpt and Preorder

The pathfinder, Shea, has chosen to make a place for herself among her former captors, leaving behind her people and the life she once knew. However, not all welcome this outsider in their midst. Shea will find that surviving alone in the wilderness is child’s play next to navigating the politics that come with her new position. Especially when it becomes evident that there are those out for her blood.

As a new danger looms on the horizon, Shea and her warlord will need all the allies they can find. Because something is stirring in the barren lands from which all beasts are born. Something old and not seen since the last cataclysm.

Can Shea protect her people from this new threat or will it be the dangers from within her own inner circle that destroy her?

Preorder on Amazon

I will have links from the rest of the book sellers up when they go live.

Excerpt

Cover Piece 2

Here is the second piece of the cover. The preorder and excerpt will be up later this week/weekend so stay tuned. 

Oh, and the website has been updated with my publishing schedule for the rest of this year

and half of next year. See where your favorite series fits in. 

Website

A Cover in Pieces

Things are coming together with the next book in the Broken Lands series. I'm not quite ready to unveil the full plan for this book as it is still a ways from publication, but I wanted to give you guys a sneak peak of what is coming. More to follow over the next week or so.

What's in a Name?

Now that Pathfinder 2 is off to the editor and I can finally think again, I thought we'd have some fun. That means it's time for a contest. More on that below.

Anyone who knows me, knows how much I hate naming things. While writing, I usually leave an xxx where a place/beast/person's name should go. This allows me to come back and spend more time coming up with a suitable-ish name. Though rarely, do I find one I am totally satisfied with. In Shea's world, it feels like every other page needs some type of creative name. That go me thinking. Why stress out about every single beast/plant/place name when my fans are brilliant, creative people all on their own? Some (most) of you would probably come up with a much better name than myself.

Now to the contest

I have two species of beasts that need a name. I'm interested in seeing what sorts of names you, my reader, comes up with. If you have a name you think might be awesome, comment below or on Facebook. On Monday, I will pick two names from the entries and use them in the book.

Ready, set, name away!

Checking In

Since we're over the half way point of the year, I wanted to resurrected my post from January that laid out my game plan to see how I've fared in achieving my goals

• Pathfinder's Way audio book and print version Published in January
• Midnight's Emissary Published Feb. 7 in both print and ebook
• Dragon-Ridden 2 Published as Of Bone and Ruin on May 18 
• Short story set in the Dragon Ridden World Written and released through the blog. Ebook coming soon
• Pathfinder 2 - Written and in the editing stages
• Revamp of website and blog - Not even started
• Writer's conference in May - Didn't happen 

New items to add to the list

• Create marketing plans for the different series
• Short story in the Pathfinder world
• Begin planning Aileen 3

All in all, I think I have been pretty successful so far cutting through the items on my to-do list. I still have a ways to go, but I feel confident as I work through the back end of the year. I'm excited to see what's in store for me in the coming months.

The Journey

I decided to take a short break from working on the ending for Pathfinder's 2 and write a quick blog post since I've been a little absent of late.

My real world job has had me a bit busy with traveling for work over the past couple days, but that doesn't mean I've stopped writing. Since I've traveled for work a lot more this year, it's meant more writing on the road or while waiting for a flight in an airport terminal. I've even cut evenings short to go back to the hotel to get a few thousand words in before bedtime. A writer's life never stops it seems.

Let's see. Below is a list of some of the places that I've visited while writing Shea and Fallon's story:

• A few thousand words written on multiple trips to Chicago
• 5000 words written on the trip too and from San Antonio
• 2000-4000 while driving to North Carolina
• 3000 during a two day trip to Pittsburgh
• A little less than 4,000 on the trip too and from Seattle
• 113,000 words written while home in Columbus, OH

Sometimes I take inspiration from the places I've visited. Either way, it's nice to get out of the house though it can be a bit distracting. Hopefully, I'll be able to finish Shea's story before I add to this list, but you never know. There might be a place or two added before I'm through. Wish me luck!

Discipline and Laziness

I admit it, at heart I'm an extremely lazy person. The kind of person who spends more time figuring out new and brilliant ways to luxuriate in doing nothing productive than it would take to finish a task. Unfortunately, this type of behavior isn't conducive to writing books. It can lead to whole tangents of distraction as my brain tries to escape the herculean task of putting words on paper. This is why I've developed a process designed to prevent or delay my worst trait from derailing my progress.

The first step in my process, and the one that I've finally managed to bring to a close today after two weeks of work, is rereading the previous book and taking notes on all the characters and world devices I created. You would think that as the writer I would remember every detail I put down, but that is far from reality. Many times I've come across passages or nuggets of information that I've totally forgotten about. Sometimes that forgotten passage lays the seeds for future plot threads. 

I do this by creating note cards of character sketches or details on the world and putting them up on my magnetic wall. Right now my wall is papered over with the notes that now need to be sorted through, and these are only for Pathfinder's Way. I can't even imagine what this wall is going to look like once I get a few books in the series.

Oh man, I just gave myself the chills thinking about it.

Hello 2017

2016 was a good year for me. I released two books, both of which doubled the goals I set for them. My real world job is going great and I'm dating an amazing person. As great as 2016 was, I'm hoping 2017 will be even better.

I have a lot of goals for 2017 so it's already shaping up to be a very busy year. I'm hoping to publish three books and a novella. Just typing those words has me stressing out about being behind.

To give you an idea of what I'm facing, here's a glimpse at what's coming this year.

Pathfinder's Way will be out on audio book on Jan. 18. I'm also planning a print version of this book sometime in January.

Midnight's Emissary, the sequel to Shadow's Messenger, will be published on Feb. 7 in both print and ebook.

Dragon-Ridden 2 is already written and I'm working on the second draft. A novella set in the Dragon world featuring the character of Jost has been plotted out. Both of these are looking at a summer release.

I'm also intending to write and release the sequel to Pathfinder's Way in late fall. This is the item I'm really worried about. The story for Shea tends to be a lot more complicated than the other worlds. Pathfinder's took me three years to write. Trying to cut that time down to six months for a first draft is giving me nightmares. Granted, I took an extended break in the middle of writing the first book, because I got so stuck that I couldn't figure out how to end it. Hopefully, I've learned from that experience and can stay on task this time.

I also need to move my website and blog to a different platform as the functionality in my current platform is not as robust as I would wish. I meant to get it done before the first but it just wasn't happening with all the other things on my plate.

I'm also contemplating attending a writer's conference in May. I'm waiting to hear back about my travel schedule for my real world job before I register.

That's it. That's my road map to making 2017 even better than 2016. It's going to be busy and stressful, but I think worth it at the end.

House Keeping Items

I’ve recently started receiving questions about the status of various sequels, which is something I love getting asked about. It means that someone out there is enjoying the worlds I created enough to want to spend more of their precious time reading about these characters. That's an awesome feeling. I could do that all day, but to make things a little easier I thought I’d answer the question in a place everyone can read it.

The good news is I plan sequels for both Dragon-Ridden and Pathfinder’s Way. The bad news is this may take time as I have two books in a separate series scheduled next. The first, Shadow’s Messenger, is already written and will be released in fall of this year. Its sequel will be released early 2017. From there, I plan to write the sequel to Pathfinder’s Way and after that the sequel to Dragon-Ridden. The sequels may change places based on reader responses, but for now this is the plan I'm going with.

It may seem strange that I’ve decided to go with another series before revisiting my two previous ones, but I feel that Shadow’s Messenger is a very strong book. Quite frankly, the characters in that book shouted loudly enough that they drowned out both Tate and Shea’s voices, making it almost impossible to move forward with their stories.

I’ve found I can only push my creativity so far, and while I probably could write one of the sequels first, I do not think the books would be as strong as if I had waited for the characters to start speaking to me again. Because I write in part based on that inspiration, that means this schedule may change depending on if another book shouts loudest. I am going to try to stick to this schedule though.

Once the cover from Shadow’s Messenger comes back, I will post the synopsis and an excerpt here on the blog so make sure you check back.

 I hope this sheds some light on any questions you may have. As always, feel free to contact me through one of the various platforms I’m on or email me. I will be happy to answer any questions you may have.

Happy reading.