Yesterday, 11/6/16, I uploaded my latest Corrosive Knights novel, Foundry of the Gods, to Amazon and their ebook/Kindle services.  At sometime around midnight, the book went “live” and available for everyone to purchase.  You can do so at this link:

Foundry of the Gods

What was so wonderful to discover at a little after midnight and what must have been minutes after the book was made available was that some people already purchased the book!

To them I must say: My deepest, most heartfelt thanks to you.  This is the first time a book of mine has gone live and already found an audience willing to buy it.  This certainly encourages me to continue my work.

For those others who have given my books a try or will experience them for the first time, I also offer my deepest thanks.

Spending one’s hard earned money on what amounts to an author’s flight of fancy is something I take incredibly seriously.  This is the reason it takes me as much time as it does to release my works.  I want to make sure they’re worth spending your money on.

As for today, I’ll finish up the work for the paperback version of this novel and that too will be available very soon for purchase.

In the meantime, I hope those who have the book -or will soon get it- like what I’ve written.  If you do, please take a moment to offer a review.  There’s nothing that makes me happier than seeing you were happy with what I wrote.

In the meantime, have a very pleasant day.  For those living in the United States, hang on.  The election is tomorrow and by Wednesday the insanity levels should finally ease…

…one hopes! 😉

The day has finally come.

As of yesterday, I completed the latest draft (#12) of book #6 of the Corrosive Knights series.  I took five days to re-read the book and add notes/corrections in pen.  It took only four days to take those corrections/notes and put them into the computer.  When I was done with that, I felt there were still three chapters that required one more read-through, “just in case”.  One of the chapters was part of the original three I worked on in draft #11, the other two just featured more corrections this time around and I felt I should go over it one more time to make sure all was well.

I did all that on Thursday, finishing the entire novel by shortly before noon.

Since then, I’ve been preparing the novel for formal release.  I’m working on both the “print” version as well as the e-book/Kindle version along with such necessities as creating ISBN numbers and submitting the work to the Copyright Office.

As those who have read my entries here know, I’ve kept the title of the book secret.  I did this mostly because of the later point listed above.  I don’t feel comfortable releasing specifics such as book titles until I’ve done the copyrights and, now that they’re done, here you have it:

As you can see, the title of Book #6 of the Corrosive Knights series is Foundry of the Gods.

I might still tweak the cover a little bit but regardless, by sometime next week the e-book will be available for purchase and, once I review the print/hard copies, they too will be available.  Give that another week.

In the meantime, I’ll get all the other busywork done and give you a head’s up when the latest novel is indeed available for purchase.

It’s been a long, long road to get here but I couldn’t be happier.  Foundry of the Gods, for those who have read this series to this point, should knock your socks off! 😉

Incredibly good news: I’ve just finished my latest complete re-reading/review of book #6 of the Corrosive Knights series aaaaaaannnnnddddd…

This will be the very last full book review of it I’ll do.

The novel reads extremely well and the “problems” I found in the latest re-reading amounted to grammatical issues which shouldn’t take much time to clean up on the computer.  Now, there were two chapters (out of 80) that I feel will require a little more than just grammatical clean up and I might give them one more read through before officially finishing, but even these two chapters were well on their way to being finished.

Which means I can say with stone cold certainty that this novel will be released by later November or, at the very worst, very early December.  After doing the corrections on the computer, all that’ll be left to do is format everything on PDF for print and Kindle e-book and we’re off.

So, ladies and gentlemen, thank you for your incredible patience.  My next update will be the last regarding this book and will not only give you this book’s title, but it will tell you the novel is ready to be purchased.

Before I go, I wanted to reprint the following Corrosive Knights FAQ.  It offers insight into the series and the timelines of each novel.  If you haven’t yet read it, do so.  It’ll give you an idea of how this series progresses (I originally posted this here).

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Writing these (Corrosive Knights) books has been a blast even as they’ve also been a mighty struggle.  I’m working with a series I feel is unique in many ways.  To begin, the scope of the story is incredibly large, taking place over the course of some 20,000 plus years.  Readers are offered events in different epochs which, when put together, form a much larger story.

While there have been plenty of stories featuring flashbacks and flash-forwards, I think its safe to say no series -at least none that I’m aware of!- features entire novels that take place in sometimes vastly different times, past and the future, while (hopefully!) logically building up the larger tale.

The five Corrosive Knights books plus the one I’m currently working on have been/will be released -and ideally should be read- in this order:

I say “ideally” but I’m not being entirely honest: The first three books of the series, Mechanic, The Last Flight of the Argus, and Chameleon could be read in any order.  They feature unique characters and take place in vastly different times and therefore if one wanted to one could read them in any order they choose.

However, by the time you reach Nox, Ghost of the Argus, and the so-far unnamed Book #6, the continuity established in these first three novels kicks in and, while I think the later books could be enjoyed on their own, I HIGHLY recommend you read books 1, 2, and 3 before venturing into the ones that follow.

Now, if I were to tell the Corrosive Knights story in chronological order, i.e. each book’s main story occurring “one after the other” and ignore whatever smaller flashback elements are presented within said novels, the story order would go like this:

That’s right: The book I’m currently working on, #6 of the Corrosive Knights series, actually takes place before the events of The Last Flight of the Argus and Ghost of the Argus.  In fact, they take place a couple hundred years before those books!  Yet I would absolutely NOT recommend anyone read that book when it is released before already reading the rest of the series and, in particular, The Last Flight of the Argus and Ghost of the Argus.

Why?

Because the events of those two books in particular fill in story concepts which have a big payoff in Book #6 and propels the reader into the Corrosive Knights series finale, which will be Book #7.

Fear not, thought.  There will be an epilogue to the series, a Book #8, which will wrap certain things up that weren’t/aren’t wrapped up in Book #7.  Book #8 will also offer what I hope is a great long view of the heroes we’ve followed for so long while focusing on one in particular.  To further screw with your head, I’m already finished with the first draft of Book #8 but only have a chapter or so written (along with a general idea of the story) of Book #7.

Not only is my series presented in a quirky temporal way, so too it would appear is my creative output!

We’re in the final stretch.

Before heading out for my mini-vacation, I went over those three chapters of my latest Corrosive Knights novel that I felt needed particular attention.

I had just enough time to go over those three chapters twice, both times reading, revising, then fixing them on the computer.  Quite literally as I was about to go to sleep that final night before leaving, I printed the entire novel out and had it ready for when I returned.

Starting today, I intend to give the entire novel one more/final read-through and revision (draft #12, for those counting).  I anticipate adding one more little bit to the novel’s conclusion but otherwise what I’m hoping to find this go around are nothing more than grammatical errors and a finished book.

Deciding a novel is finished and therefore making it available to readers is, to me, something I take very seriously.  The reason this novel took me two years and to date 12 drafts to complete is because I refuse to put any of my works out there for people to spend their hard earned money on without feeling those works are the very best I could make them.

Luckily, I don’t have any publisher or accountant or investor behind me forcing me to get my latest work out there quick, quick, quick.

For better or ill, when book #6 of the Corrosive Knights series is released, it will be the very best novel I could do at this particular time.

And I think it’s terrific.  I can’t wait to allow you guys out there read it.

Stay tuned!

Yesterday, after much delays (thanks, Hurricane Matthew), I finally finished up the revisions for draft 11b of my latest Corrosive Knights novel.

Last update I noted that I thought everything was good and that after that draft was done I’d probably do one more full draft and be done with the novel.

Not so fast.

As I’m writing the revisions into my Word file, I’m essentially doing another revision of the novel as I go along.  Things were humming really nicely until I got to the last chapters of the book and realized there was some stuff that needed further clarification.

Now, for those eager to get their hands on the book -I know you’re out there, right?!- don’t despair: The problems I found amounted to only 3 chapters of the book’s nearly 80 chapters and a total of 8 pages, single spaced.

I strongly suspect I’ll get through these revisions, which I’ll label draft 11c, in the next few days and then its off to the full, and final, draft.

So we’re dealing with at best a minor hiccup here.

Stay tuned!

Yesterday was a very good day.

I finished reading and writing my revisions to draft 11b of the latest Corrosive Knights novel, #6 of the series, now will turn to putting those written fixes into the computer.

The reason I labeled the draft 11b (and the previous draft 11a) was because these were not full novel revisions.  In the case of 11a, I read/revised a little over one half of the book, mostly the second half, because I felt the first half of the book was good as is.

With 11b, I was able to cut down the number of pages even more and found myself reviewing just a little under 1/2 of the book this time around.  I could have cut that page count even more but I wanted to read a “block” of the book to make sure one chapter flowed into the next.

As I was about to start draft 11b, I worried there might be a need for an 11c review.

This is where the “very good day” thing I wrote above comes into play:

After finishing up this latest draft, I’m happy to report the novel is pretty much done.

I found a few things that needed clarification/elimination but overall I feel the second half of the novel, the part that needed this extra look, is finally ready to be “locked down”.

So, what’s left to do?

After putting the corrections into the computer, I’m going to print the whole thing out and give the entire novel one more read through which will be draft #12.  Hopefully, following this read through and after correcting whatever grammatical errors are left, we’re done.

Finished.

Finito.

Not long now, friends.  Just have to get through Hurricane Matthew and we’ll be fine…

Quick update here: I’m done with draft 11a of book #6 in the Corrosive Knights series (I still want to keep its name hidden)…

The journey’s been long and hard but I truly believe this book is tantalizingly close to being done.  It’s also, if I do say so myself, an amazing novel.

I labeled the current revision 11a because I didn’t feel the need to revise the entire novel, focusing instead on roughly half of it (mostly the second half) that I felt needed cleaning up.

After doing this, what’s left to be done is even less.  I’m going to look over exactly what I’ve done today and print out what I feel still needs further scrutiny.  I wouldn’t be surprised if I’m down to needing to clean up only about 1/4 of the book for revision 11b.

I’m really hopeful after this revision I’ll just need to give the entire novel one last, quick read-through, mostly for grammatical/spelling issues, and be done with it.

It won’t be long now, and I couldn’t be any more excited.

As of yesterday I read through the material I felt needed to be reviewed in my latest Corrosive Knights book, which will be #6 in the series (still keepin’ the title a secret)…

As I mentioned in my last update, I felt roughly 1/2 of the book was ready to go but needed to focus on the other 1/2 and this is what, as of yesterday, I did.  What excites me is the fact that apart from maybe 4-5 chapters which I will go over again, I feel much of this half of the novel, after I finish the latest revision, will also be good to go.

So the process moves along and we get nearer and nearer to me being satisfied with the entirety of the work.

For those counting, I consider myself doing draft #11a.  I designate is “a” because I’m not doing the full novel.  I’ll type up my revisions in the next few days, print out the sections I feel still need another look, and its off to draft #11b!

Whew.

Just finished the last pages of the 10th revision of the latest Corrosive Knights novel, Book #6 (I’m keeping the title a secret for just a bit longer)…

Unlike the previous drafts, this one was very significant in that after getting it done, I now have a much stronger idea of how close I am to finishing it.  Or, to put it another way, I can now very distinctly see the light at the end of the tunnel.

Before getting too excited, however, the book isn’t quite done yet.  However, over 1/2 of it is completely fine.  The book clocks in at 101,000 words, give or take, with this draft and, in my opinion, its an incredible (pardon the language) mind-fuck of a novel.  When it is finally released, I think readers will be surprised and shocked and intrigued by what I’ve presented.

At least I hope!

So what’s left to do?  I no longer need to revise the entire book but will instead focus on the sections I feel still need work.  In that respect the latest revisions have moved the ball forward tremendously and I suspect I’ll give those pages two quick revisions (I don’t think it should take more than three or so weeks) before going over the entire novel one last time and then…ta da!…releasing it.

While its still hard to predict a solid release date, suffice to say we are just about there and I couldn’t be more excited.

So I head out the door early this morning to do some errands and before me appears a school bus.  Its picking up kids for their first day of the 2016/17 school year.

Around these parts, obviously, today is the official start of the new school year and for many parents I’m sure its a day to finally relax.

For me, the summer was alternatively fun and frustrating.  I didn’t get a chance to take any day off and let’s see when I can actually do so but it was pleasant to have my daughters around.

On the other hand, it was difficult to focus as I wanted to on my latest Corrosive Knights novel, #6 in the series.  I’ve made progress on it and will get into more details in just a second, but suffice to say I’m not as far along as I was hoping to be by today.

So, where exactly am I?

By later this morning I’ll be finishing up reading and jotting down notes/improvements to the latest draft of the book (this is draft #10).  When last I wrote, I was finishing up draft #9 on 7/16/16 and therefore it took me a month to read through this latest draft, a period of time larger than it should have taken me at another point in the year.

On the plus side, the book is rapidly approaching the end.  After I finish my latest read through today and because I can now focus much better on the book, I anticipate it will take me not much longer than a week/week and a half to put all those corrections into my Word file.

As it stands now, the book is just a little north of 100,000 words in length.  The first half of the book, after this revision, is all but done.  The second half has some areas that need attention but after I finish this draft, that’s where my focus will be.  In other words, I’ll no longer need to re-read and revise the entire book.  We’re down to just parts of it.

And the parts that need revision aren’t all that bad.  They just need a little more clarification and editing.

So, when will the book be ready?

I hesitate to make any guesses but at this point and barring any more delays/interruptions to my schedule, it will be soon.

Very soon.