Ramblings of an old man with pretensions of authordom
Done in DAZ, of course. In the new story, she has, so far, worn the two outfits on the right. In fairness, of course, they interchange when she shifts forms.
The left outfit, well, we’ll see if it has a place in this story. (The truth is, I’ve had that dress in the inventory for a while because it was on sale, and hadn’t used it so far.) But our Valkyrja cleans up nice, doesn’t she?
I should probably stop screwing around with DAZ and write…
I said August and I meant August…even if August is tomorrow 🙂 (And strangely enough, Amazon seems to backdate the publication date by one day, so it will say it was published on July 30.)
Oh, and for my one three-star reviewer of The Lion of God who said “too much political proselytizing” — this hasn’t got much politics at all. So maybe you’ll be safe to read it.*
Anyway:
Kindle-only, available either to buy for 99 cents, or to read for free via Kindle Unlimited. It is being published without DRM.
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* But seriously, that sort of review just makes me think I was right on target. I figured I’d get complaints about how I (a civilian) handled military subjects. Or about how there wasn’t enough action. Or how I was full of shit about how timelines work. If the complaining is going to be about the pushing of right-wing politics, yeah, I’m good with that. And if you think that was bad, man, you should have seen the stuff I left out.
…that I’d probably not be writing any more fantasy after Saving The Spring, unless something moved me to do so?
Damn it.
It’s not done, not by a long shot. But it’s coming at some point, maybe in the fall. And that’s just the working cover, so don’t get too excited.
Update, 25 Dec 2020: All the errata in this post have been corrected in the latest download from Amazon. If you have the book in your Kindle, simply delete the download and re-download it. (Worked for me, anyway.)
Of course I am re-reading the book, now it’s been published, and of course I have found a couple of bone-headed errors.
Using Kindle page numbers (which are not the same as the page numbers in the manuscript:
Location |
As published |
Correction |
| Time Will Tell, Page 22 | “… I didn’t go back to school until … hmm … until, well, 1986.” | 1996. His Timeline 1 counterpart went in 1986, when he left the service. In 1986, Timeline 0 Wolff was still in the Marines.
I think this was a late change when I was trying to reconcile timeline events, and the change to the timeline document just didn’t make it into the book. |
| Chapter 5, Page 115 | Wolff was a little taken aback. “Reserve commission or not, I’m smart enough to know I got out as a shot-up E-7 who’d been bucking for First Sergeant, and that was forty years ago.” | It was fifty years (fifty-one, to be precise, but we’re not going to worry about that). |
| Chapter 6, Page 138 | He glanced at the keyboard — in Latin characters, laid out QWERTY-style (apparently nothing had changed in 25 centuries) | He glanced at the keyboard — in Latin characters, laid out QWERTY-style (apparently nothing had changed in that department)
Just bad continuity on my part, they don’t know how far forward the invaders are from, yet. |
| Chapter 8, Page 167 | He shook his head, clearing it of the forty-year old memories he didn’t need to deal with, right now. | Same as above. Fifty, not forty. |
| Chapter 13, Page 235 | “Look, Commodore, I haven’t been an officer very long, but forty years of civilian life…” | Same as above. Fifty, not forty. |
Apparently I can’t subtract 1993 from 2044 very well.
These fixes will be in an update at some point. Table will be added to as I find more things to fix.
(Added erratum in Chapter 6, page 138, on 24 Dec 2020.)
(Updated 15 Jul 2020 20:37)
For now it will be Kindle-only, available either to buy for $2.99, or read for free via Kindle Unlimited. It is being published without DRM.
At long last it looks like I have a cover…thanks to my DAZ3D mentor and friend from ancient times*, Geoff Edwards, who worked out how the words needed to go on the art he’d advised me on.
There are a couple of things left to do in the text, but I’m hopeful of a release by the end of the month.
Meanwhile, the short story mentioned in the previous post has been honed and the cover is being worked on…and the second novel has been started.
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* Freshman year in high school. We had the same drafting class. You know, mechanical drawing, with T-squares and triangles and cool mechanical pencils, back before AutoCad. Damnit, Jim, I’m an engineer, not a graphic artist.
I have another short story in draft, started it last Thursday, finished the first draft just a few minutes ago after work. It’s a Timelines story, really a prequel, intended to provide backstory for The Lion of God, and it’s called “The Reason”. It will follow the release of The Lion of God, which will happen either later this month or some time in July, depending on whether I decide to wait for the new graphics computer to be delivered, or not.
Anyway, “The Reason” is another 11,790 word long short story like “Saving The Spring” (which was over 10,000 words). Apparently I don’t know how to write a standard short story. On the other hand, it isn’t edited yet.
The likelihood is that I will put it on Amazon for 99 cents, or read for free on KU. But again, it will go up after The Lion of God.
Yes, the title is not a misprint. SIGH. I have a mentor who keeps kicking my butt about design. The cover art I’ve been doing for The Lion of God is in DAZ 3D Studio, and our discussions have been … complicated 🙂 Worse, the more involved the cover vignette has been getting, the more it’s become clear that I need to drop $BIGCOIN on a machine that will actually do the render (and take less than 8 hours to get only part-way through before DAZ stops rendering…yeah, I know, I can set that higher, but I have to use this computer to make real money at my day job).
So anyway, this is where we are with the cover. Ariela’s face has changed a little, as I stopped fighting with Genesis 8 female characters* and redesigned her as a Genesis 3 female. This necessitated a change of hair, but I’m happy with it.
The lighting has improved, the three US Space Force Marines who are actually on this recon mission with her are all in the frame now, and she has that fetching maroon beret which still needs to be properly adjusted for size. Everybody’s feet are at floor level. I’m playing with adding unit insignia to the Marines’ shoulders in place of that stylized “7” with crossed daggers. Ari’s jacket may get a caduceus on the left breast (she’s an MD/PHD).
I told my mentor that Ari now looks like a Queen Bitch with her Wolves checking and protecting her perimeter. Or a Queen Lioness with her Lions ditto. Depends on how you want to look at it.
The title font is acceptable to me (whether or not it’s acceptable to my mentor is still in the air, but I’m just playing with the design at this point).
The book itself is done, though I probably need to have someone else look at it, and my wife is definitely not interested this time 🙂 Well, I have some other folks I can line up for that. If I were to hazard a guess, the book will be out around the end of June if I don’t wait for the new computer to generate the cover, or sometime in late July if I do.
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* Which purely suck after you work with them for a while. Any changes you try to make end up taking a minute or two to register, and don’t even try to move her unless you know EXACTLY where she’s going. My mentor says the same and says he’s sticking with G3 until they get G8 right.
I’ve just set up the RSS feed from my author blog to my Amazon author page, so this post is to “activate” it, as it were.
I’ve been pleasantly surprised (and somewhat dumbstruck, to be honest) at the reviews and comments received about this little story. It was literally a dream, subsequently written down on paper (or the electronic equivalent thereof). It gave me a break from the novel I’m finishing up, which has absolutely nothing to do with Saving the Spring, and got me re-focused on getting that done.
I’m not sure I have more fantasy like this in me, but if I have another dream like that, it’ll certainly be written down.
Thanks to all who greeted my publishing debut with such lovely sentiments. They were and are greatly appreciated.
I’ll try to keep up the good work and get you a science fiction novel in June. It will be titled The Lion of God and it’s…hard to characterize. Time travel, both linear and sideways, Alcubierre warp drives with singularity generators based on a broken 6-meter ham radio amplifier, six frigates (those with a good knowledge of American naval history will appreciate this), a man with two wives (not really) and a daughter who isn’t technically his (really). Surprises all along the way. Even for me — and I wrote it.
Just bumping this a bit. Well, fresh post, but bump. 🙂
There is one review which in the spirit of full disclosure is from a friend, a local writer and blogger with five award-winning books to her credit, but she has raved about it and says her husband loved it too. She says,
If you’d like to take a chance for 99 cents (or read for free on Kindle Unlimited), I hope you enjoy my little story. At this very moment it is ranked:
If you read it and like it, please give it a rating, and reviews are also appreciated.
Only $0.99 to buy, or free to read with Kindle Unlimited.