Just wanted to give you a quick update. We’re doing the Nanowrimo again this year. Currently we’ve written about 30,000 words. Our goal is 2k words per day, so far we’ve been able to hit those goals consistently.
I think we’re going to have some ebook giveaways, maybe next week (note to self, make that happen).
I love writing, as you guys know. The book I’m writing is a little different for me. When I’m finished I’ll send you some bits from the story.
Enjoy your week.
I have talked before about writing a book that tells the story about what happened to Dad. Well we now have an Indiegogo campaign.
The main reason is to see how many hard copies that we need to purchase. If you’re interested make sure you join, if not then we should be live in Amazon sometime in October.
I took a road trip with Dad yesterday to Lexington and we had a visit with his spine doctor. Everything went well and the doctor released him, said that he didn’t need to see him again unless there was some kind of problem, which was wonderful news and we did a happy dance all the way back to the elevator.
If you have any friends that might want a copy of the book, you can forward this link along to them and I hope you have a wonderful week!
This summer has been rough, especially July. Today makes the third and fourth funeral visitation we’ve been to. None of them were immediate family members, thankfully.
My barber who cut my hair from when I was a toddler till I left to go to college passed away. I have a whole lot of fond memories of him and the barber shop full of manly smells and gossip. Ladies, don’t think that men don’t gossip too. He was a veteran and as I grew older I asked him about those times and he was happy to share them.
One of my best friends father in law passed away after a battle with Alzheimers. An interesting thing is he always remembered his dog’s name. I’m not sure if that is common, but he did. He was one of my teacher’s in college.
One of my Father In Law’s best friends (and mine too) died. Again many wonderful memories of him and his family. He was one of those guys that had you laughing from the moment he arrived until he left. I laughed so much many times that I cried. He also cared a whole lot from my daughter, always buying her a nice Christmas present. When his garden ‘came in’ he would bring us loads of fresh beans and other things. Again he will be missed.
My dad’s room mate while he was in the nursing home passed away. I talked to him for many hours while my Dad was still out of it.
I tell you this not to depress you, but to remind you that life is short for all of us. Spend time with your family and friends while you have a chance. Don’t take them for granted. Dad’s incident has been a grime reminder to me that your life can change in an instant.
This coming weekend is memorial day! I wanted to give a big shout out to all of the brothers and sisters that served in the military past and present. I will always treasure the time that I spent in Germany guarding the ‘wall’ between the East and the West. I made some of the best friends I’ve had while as was there and visited almost 20 countries. Speaking of Germany, I revisit some of my old stomping grounds in one of my future books. I think it was book 8 (although don’t quote me) takes place almost entirely in Germany. I won’t tell you why, but it is definitely an exciting book.
I’ve been taking a couple of weeks off from writing. I’ve been busy working on a big project for my main job so that should be finished by the end of May and then I’ll hop back in the saddle and also start editing the next book in the series.
I hope you get some time off to spend with your friends and family and remember those who have passed on before you. I have a long list of those and it seems that every year the list grows.
Hope you had a great Mother’s Day this past weekend. We gave some books away, not as many as we would have liked, but that could have been because everyone was spending time with their Mom.
I continue to enjoy watching AD. In doing research for my books I read the New Testament’s Gospels probably 25 times. Watching the scenes unfold in the TV show gives me goose bumps.
We’re continuing to write book 13.
I have finished Book 12 – happy dance 🙂 I’ve also started writing my next book. I’m not sure what the name of it is going to be yet, but I have written about 16k words, which I think is a pretty good start. In May I’ll start reading the 12 Guardians from the beginning, taking notes etc, by the end of the summer all of the books should be reviewed, edited (by me) and I should know of any gaping plot holes that I might need to fix.
If you haven’t watched the new show AD on NBC you should be. It is a 13 part series that starts with Jesus crucifiction and follows the events that happened after that. The focus is mainly on the early church. The first episode this past Sunday was about the death and resurrection. I really liked how they portrayed the resurrection. If you didn’t watch you can can catch up with it on Hulu.
http://www.hulu.com/ad-the-bible-continues
Enjoy your week!
Continuing to write Book 12. I try to get in about 10,000 words a week. I hope to have it finished by the end of the month. Why? Because I want to participate in Nanowrimo’s April camp. I think probably that for that camp I’ll be writing something different, not sure what yet, but we’ll see. Also beginning in April I’ll be starting the editing process.
Book 12 has been a blast so far to write, but it is also sad. After all I’ve been writing about these characters for a couple of years. I just want to try and make sure to wrap all of the loose ends up. Nothing I hate more than reading a story and having one of the questions I have not answered. I do understand to that some questions won’t be answered, it would be impossible to do that, but most of them will.
My Dad continues to improve. We’re still doing therapy a couple of times a week. The therapist say that they’ll reevaluate him again on the 28th (for the insurance purposes I think). My sister works in speech therapy and she mentioned that as long as people are improving the insurance will keep paying for it. I hope that’s the case. He does still need to work on a few things, mostly balance related.
I hope you have a wonderful week. If you want to join my camp for the Nano, just let me know and I would be happy to invite you.
My Sister Dawn has a new children’s book that she has just published (with a little help from me). You can find it here — Children’s Book
Her husband James is a great artist, and she created a book similar to this for Christmas last year. I told her that she needed to publish it and so began an interesting journey.
A children’s book with images is different of course than writing a novel. I am long winded and I have no idea how someone can compile an interesting story into 30 pages, but she has managed to do it. She created the pages, printed them off. I scanned them into jpeg files. I then used Adobe Photoshop to crop the images and then optimize it. Optimizing your images are very important, otherwise you’ll have a book that is several megabytes. Since Amazon charges you by how big your book is, the larger it is, the less profit you’ll get.
I’m sure that I probably could have tweaked the images even more but I was satisfied with the resulting files. I compiled the book using a tool from Amazon called, Kindle Kid’s Book Creator. It is a free tool and was super simple to use. Import the images into the tool and then arrange them according to the pages that you want.
It was fun and she is already working on her next book.
I hope you have a wonderful week…we’re supposed to get another snow storm tonight.
Hope your week has been going well. It’s been cold and snowy here. We had two feet of snow last Monday and then the temps decided to bottom out around zero. One note if you’re a writer then this would have been a wonderful time to promote your book, people that are snowed in are looking for something to do. Today we received another couple of inches of snow, compared to two feet that is nothing.
I am reminded though of what God told Noah after the flood, he reminded us that no matter what happens that the seasons will always come. Spring will follow Winter. I will be doing the happy dance this year when Spring comes.
I have been busy helping my Dad who is recovering from his incident. He won’t call it an accident because he says with God there is no such thing as an accident. This has kept me pretty busy, but I have kept writing, just have to find the time write. I’ll give you some more tips about doing that in the days and the week ahead.
I just hit 100,000 words for book number 12. I wanted to let you know because you and my other faithful readers are the reason that I have kept plodding on. With the Lord’s help I will continue to do so.
I wish you and your family a wonderful week.
I’ve almost hit 60,000 words for Book 12. This book has been an interesting journey. I started the book when my Dad was in the hospital, as a way to take my mind off some things. When I started it, I had an idea for another story. The story was based in the hospital, so it was easy to write, as I wrote the story just drifted into the beginning of book 12.
I wrote the first part of the book, then I wrote the end, or almost the end, now I’m going backwards from that point. This book is different because I want to make sure I tie up any loose ends from the story. I’m not sure how long it will be, I’m thinking well over 100k words, since I know I’m not halfway finished yet. I also want to make sure that I wrap everything up in a nice package and put a bow on it for all of the people that have followed the story for 12 books.
After I finish the story – I write 2k words, 5 / days / week, I plan on going editing the books, making sure that I don’t have any plot holes and then starting the intense editing process that finishes a book. I hope that will start in the summer, but we’ll see.
Enjoy your week.