Summer of 2015

Today I'm more upbeat.  I could delete the prior blog, but it's a good reminder that from time to time doubts creep into these ventures.  I can sometimes be my own worst critic.    While there's no doubt my writing could use some improvement, the majority of readers made no comment in that regard and still enjoyed the story.  And that's really my goal.  Read...enjoy!

Ok, in regards to a couple of comments.  At times I'm not descriptive enough, yet at times my world is too complex.  The complexity is sort of my way of adding description.  I've always wanted to create an immersive world filled with all the dynamics of our real world.  Some writers will give you flowing paragraphs of beautiful prose that will paint every inch of the canvas.  I tend to give you a sketch, paint the areas of focus and let the reader fill in the background.  That may bother some people, but it allows me more time to add more nuanced detail to the world and keep the narrative flowing.  At least that's the goal.  I was never more cognizant of this than when I finished my last review of Volume 3:  Heroes of Bardoom.  I've read the ending of the first major arc at least ten times and I can still feel it start to race towards a finish line.  I'm afraid more description would just slow that down.  

Well, at the end of the day the reader is right.  If you love it, then it was written just the way you like it.  If you hated it, then it obviously needed some work.  I wrote this for myself and I love it.  I just hope my tastes are not all that different from others.  We'll see.  Enough on that topic.

My world is complex.  I've had the advantage of several documents to aid me when writing.  I've thought about capturing some of them and putting them in the books, but I just couldn't get my scanner to work.  So I'm going to give you what I can.  To that end, here are 3 ways to help you enjoy the Chronicles of Verdan.

1.  The Book 1 page includes a map of civilized Verdan.  It's crude, but I think it gives you a good idea of the world I'm playing in.  Just click on the thumbnail there. 

2.  The Book 1 page includes a glossary of names by location with which they are associated.  The format still needs to be cleaned up, but I will also start to add a similar list for each book.  Yes, I have created a lot of names.  A lot of people live in this world.

3.  Into each "Book" tab I'm going to attach a 2-3 page document that discusses the entire story.  It will be filled with spoilers and if you read it before the book, it will give everything away, including the ending.  But I also want to record what each book really means...what I was trying to accomplish.  I will give a synopisis of the major plot points and often discuss why I resolved them the way I did.  I really only recommend you read this either after you finish the book for more insight or if you can't make up your mind on whether you'll like the story. 

#1 and #2 are there for Book 1 now.  Enjoy.

Oh, and why did I label the blog Summer of 2015.  It's Memorial Day and besides celebrating the sacrifices of our veterans, my writing usually goes on hiatus over the summer.  I'll be attending three conventions this summer.  If you run into me, please feel free to say "Hi".  I'll be at San Diego Comic Con starting July 8th.  I'll be at Gen Con starting July 30th and I'll be at Wizard World Chicago starting August 20th.  And if you're at Gen Con, also don't hesitate to stop by Amy Nagi's booth and let her know what an awesome job she's doing on the covers.  I expect she'll have some initial sketches of the cover for Volume 3 for me to look at in the near future.

As for when you might see Volume 3:  Heroes of Bardoom available for purchase, I'm hoping no later than October.  The book is ready to go now.  I just need a cover and then I need to find enough funds to publish it.  Oh the joy of self-publishing.  I hope anyone reading this has an awesome summer.  Oh, and if you're looking for a good book to read, might I suggest the Verdan Chronicles?  :-)

Nothing to See Here, Keep Moving

So, just a warning.  Today's blog is unlike any other blog I've written.  It's kind of like my books, it's written by me and generally for me.  I find sometimes that writing things down helps me put them in perspective and allows me to move on.  If you're still reading this, you're probably going..."What the hell is he talking about?"

Well, this blog is about being a self-published author and some of the doubt and challenges that come with that.  Although I suspect some of it applies to any author.  And while I've blogged in the past about why someone should give the Verdan Chronicles a chance and read the books, this blog will probably give you plenty of reason not to read them.  In other words, just keep moving.

I've been at this for several years now.  It started as a "bucket list" item.  I'm not a spring chicken any more and before I pass from this realm, I want to tell my story.  And I want that story to sit nice and pretty on a shelf in my office so I can look at it and take personal satisfaction that I actually did it, I finished the story.  I'm not ashamed to say that I'm doing this for me and to that end, I'm making good progress.

But along the way I shared with some friends and coworkers how I was spending my weekends.  They became very supportive and a few of them wanted to actually read it.  Some of them wanted a physical book and some of them wanted to be able to download an ebook to their Kindle or Nook.  My son suggested I try Lulu, and so far it's been a decent choice.

Early on the feedback I was getting was pretty positive.  Keep in mind that only about 4 people actually read the first book or two, but comments were good to "one of the best books I've ever read in this genre, and I read a lot."  Yes, I put that last comment in quotes, because someone actually said that to me.  Don't worry, I didn't let it go to my head.  I never really thought my books were that good.  But it did make me wonder, how good are they?  Are they any good at all?  Or do they suck?

It's a few years later.  I've taken some of the feedback from the first half dozen people to read it and tried to improve the books.  The first book has been edited nine times.  Finally, still having no idea if its really any good I decided to commission an artist for the covers and pay Lulu to professionally format the books and push them out to several distribution channels.  I don't need to tell you the cost, you can check that out for yourself on Lulu.com.  Let's just say that for someone who doesn't have a lot of savings, it's a considerable amount of money.

So now more people have read it, I'm probably up to a dozen or so now, and I'm getting more feedback.  All the feedback I'm getting is well-intentioned.  And I'm being very honest in that I really appreciate getting the feedback; good and bad.  Yes, there still is some good.  So far the comments regarding the story have all been positive.  Ok, so there was a comment about one plot point begin contrived, but when I explained to the reader that they misinterpreted where the story was headed, they felt much better about it.  No, people generally like the story to one degrree or another and just about everyone wants to keep reading to see what happens to the characters.  If I stop there I feel very good about the books.  No, I feel ecstatic.  Heck, I do a happy dance every time I hear someone actually bothered to procure and read it in the first place.  I'm still amazed when anyone takes the time and effort to read something I wrote.  I can't say thank you enough.

So yeah, then there is the well-intentioned constructive feedback.  I think most of the genuine concern is around grammer and punctuation.  When asked, "who's your editor?", my reply was "the worst person possible, myself."  And I mean that.  If I do something wrong, what are the chances I'll correct it?  Or even know to correct it?  So how bad is it?  I think that's hard to say.  Two people have taken exception to some inconsistent use of tense and some of the punctuation.  Both are English majors, so I would not argue with them.  No one else has expressed a concern, so maybe if you're not an English major it's not so bad.

The truth is that their comments are dead accurate.  Even I saw some of the issues with my overuse of past tense or 'passive voice'.  I tried like crazy to correct that in my writing, but I think what ended up happening is that I corrected it in most situations, but not all, thus creating examples of inconsistent use.  In terms of punctuation, I'm still waiting to see some of the examples the person is sending me.  I would not argue the claims, but in my defense, if Microsoft Word grammar check didn't underline it, i assumed it was ok.  I'm thinking a lot of us are guilty of that.

There have been a couple of complaints that I use way too many characters and it gets too complex.  But for every complaint about that I've had a compliment regarding how much the reader enjoys the complexity.  There have been a few comments that I'm generally not as descriptive as I should be and in some cases my descriptions are bland.  That's another area I'm working on and would have to agree.  I can see this story unfold very clearly in my head and the vision comes back into perfect focus when I read my story.  But am I translating that in enough detail for other readers?  Probably not.

Of course one reader commented that I should not be afraid to add description and let the story run long; a lot of author page counts are extremely high.  Actually, in my case Lulu does set some page limits depending on the format I want to use and for every single page I add the cost of printing the book goes up.  Since I'm self-published, my books are not mass produced.  They are printed one at a time as orders are placed.  They are not cheap.  To keep reader costs down I add very little markup to my print books.  But that's a weak excuse.  I'm just afraid I'm not talented enough.  And I do find that thought depressing.  In those moments I feel that my books suck and ask myself again why I'm bothering to do this.

So that's it in a nutshell.  I love feedback, but feedback can make me sad.  Sad because it validates my worst fears.  But then I remind myself that I did this for myself.  I take heart that people are digging the story and starting to care about some of the characters.  If I had to pick between a good story or perfect grammer, I would take a good story every time.

So if you read this and are thinking about reading the books, here's the general feedback.  The story is good.  The characters are engaging enough, but there are a lot of them.  The descriptiveness can be lacking and at times not every exciting.  The use of grammer is inconsistent and ranges from average to problematic.  For most it isn't a problem, but if that type of thing bothers you, it'll bother you here.

The other thing that depresses me is that at this point the books are what they are.  Once they are published, there is NO opportunity to go back and fix them unless I want to pay Lulu more money that I don't have.  I'm afraid all I can do is be sensitive to the feedback and try to make future books better.  But unless something unimaginable happens and thousands begin to read the books, the funding just isn't there to publish them again.  Sorry.

So that's it.  Do I feel better?  Not really.  I've always felt good about telling the story and still do.  But I feel bad when a reader is disappointed in what they read and I contributed to that.  I'm always going to feel that way.  As much as I'm happy they took the time to give me feedback (bad feedback is better than no feedback), it frustrates me that I can't go back in time and fix it for them.  So do I continue to encourage people to read my books?  Not feeling it at the moment.  But I am still motivated to get them published for me.  Maybe tomorrow I'll feel better about promoting them.

Dark Passages Available in Print on Lulu.com

That was faster than I thought.  You can buy the print version of Dark Passages on Lulu.com.  The eBook version along with versions on Amazon and Barnes & Noble should be available over the next few weeks.

Note:  The distribution to Amazon and Barnes & Noble is being delayed a few days while we try to see if Lulu can do anything about the online image of the book cover.  If you notice above, the characters robes are very dark, almost black.  In truth, the real illustration depicts them as a deep but obvious red color.  The actual print copy is much better, but still darker than intended.  Thanks to Amy for trying to help resolve this.

In the meantime, I'm about 75% done with a next to last review of Volume 3.  For anyone who read Book 1, I really encourage you to continue with the second volume.  The first book was a balance between moving the story forward while introducing the reader to a whole new world.  With the introductions over, subsequent volumes will spend more time on exploring the main characters in more depth and depicting more creative aspects of Verdan.  It's a lot of fun.

Links to Lulu

I believe I may have figured out how to add a link to sites carrying my books.  I encourage you to try them out.  Below are some of the ebook formats.

ebook format of The Fourth Age at Lulu.com 

 

 Click on the image below and it should take you Amazon.com to purchase the Kindle version.

 And here's the Barnes and Noble version for you Nook.

Alright, so now I can add images and links to their corresponding websites.  Also, please feel free to check out the Verdan Chronicies offering in the iBookstore.

One last note:  Final review of Dark Passages is complete.  It's in the hands of Lulu and I expect it to be available for purchase in the next week or two.  It will likely be next month before it's available at Amazon or Barnes and Noble. 

A Hero's Turn

My last blog dissected the main villain of the Verdan Chronicles.  It gave you a chance to better understand Terek and how I went about creating him.  This time I’d like to pick on what I consider the main hero of the Verdan Chronicles, but before I get into that, let me issue the usual warnings.

1. This blog will be long, probably longer than the villain anatomy.
2. This blog WILL CONTAIN SPOILERS.  I am going to work very hard to keep them to a minimum, but they will absolutely be more extensive, there’s no way around it.

Are you still reading?  I’m not sure if that’s good or bad.  If you’re already sold on the series, I would urge you to turn back now.  This write-up will divulge a number of things not conveyed early in the books.  But if you’re not sure about the series, then perhaps this will give you a more in depth entry into the characters of Verdan and how I went about creating the story.  It may whet your appetite, or perhaps confirm that this isn’t for you.

Last chance, proceed at your own peril.  Still here?  You have been warned.  Let’s start out again with some definitions.

Hero – A hero or heroine is a person or character in literature who, in the face of danger and adversity or from a position of weakness, displays courage or self-sacrifice – that is, heroism – for some greater good.

Protagonist – The leading character or one of the major characters in a drama, movie, novel, or other fictional text.

While there are several characters that can be correctly classified as a hero in the Verdan Chronicles, there is specifically one that I would consider to be my leading character.  That one is Celecia.  Dakoran comes in a very close second. There are probably a dozen or more that could be defined as major heroes.  So that is probably the first major spoiler.  I think the first book makes it clear that Celecia is going to play a significant role in the war against Terek, but her role in the overall story goes far beyond that.  Let’s take a closer look at Celecia.

When we first meet Celecia she is a seventeen year old girl living with her father in a small village.  Her father, Arakon, is a legendary wizard who is currently living in self-imposed exile.  She is described as beautiful with brown hair and brown eyes.  The only life Celecia knows is that within the village.  The village is secluded with only limited contact to the outside world.  At this point, Celecia believes that her mother died while she was small and Arakon is her only family.

Besides taking care of her father, Celecia is a wizard in training.  Arakon has taught her most of the spells he knows.  He fears that the next step in her growth would be to take her out on adventures, but he fears placing her in danger.  Of course circumstances take that decision out of his hands.  While he believes that Celecia has the potential to be a wizard more powerful than he, she exhibits one flaw that limits the power of her spells…she cares.

More precisely, Celecia has a high degree of empathy.  This allows her to intuitively feel the emotions of others, but can be an issue when it comes to magic.  In Verdan, magic spells are cast by those with a special ability to sense a mystic energy field, to draw in that mystic energy, and then to use it to manipulate the world around them.  But doing so requires a great deal of concentration; concentration that is easily broken by intense emotion.  The most powerful wizards learn to control emotion and it is that skill in which Celecia lacks.

That is not say Celecia easily gets angry or cries, but her empathy lets her feel the emotions of others and this too can cause her spells to fail.  But Celecia can also be stubborn and very determined when she wants to be.  Failure is not in her vocabulary and she is definitely a glass half full type of person.

Celecia is independent-minded.  Her two closest friends are Dakoran and Mriccon.  They are two young men about her age and both have a crush on her.  Celecia likes both, but physically finds herself more attracted to Mriccon, the more outgoing of the two.  Yes, even Celecia is not immune to the attraction of the “bad boy” persona.  But don’t think for a minute that she is defined by her relationship to either.  She readily answers the call to do battle against her uncle without a second thought to leaving both Dakoran and Mriccon behind.  Yet she is not disappointed when they both decide to follow.

This is Celecia at the beginning of the series.  I refer to it as her pre-Hamstead days.  Early in the first book the party will reach the halfling village of Hamstead.  Events there will change Celecia’s life forever.  They will change Celecia forever.  She will feel lied to and betrayed by those closest to her.  She will be attacked and will nearly die.  And then she will be left behind.  That one night in Hamstead will cause her to reevaluate her relationship with everyone she knows.  Trust becomes a major issue to her.  And something within her awakens; it’s a special ability extremely rare among wizards and it plays off one of her greatest strengths…her capacity for love.  In some respects, that night in Hamstead is a defining moment for the entire series.

As Celecia recovers from that night, her determination to continue the quest is affirmed.  She initially pushes everyone she knew away from her, but over time she begins to see Dakoran in a new light.  Where he was once firmly in her “friend zone”, he slowly comes to mean more.  The goal is to build a synergy between these characters that will draw them closer and closer.  Their relationship is also key to the series.  I intentionally wanted to build a romance that was solid and would not fall prey to the usual tropes used in way too many stories.   Between Dakoran and Celecia there would be no lies and no withholding of thoughts.  Imagine, a couple that could be open and honest and still stay true to each other.  That’s what I wanted.  They will face trials…many of them…but they will face them together, in spirit if not always physically.

Let me give you an example of what I mean.  As clearly inferred, Celecia and Dakoran will become close; intimately close.  In a future book, another beautiful character will kiss Dakoran in front of Celecia.  It’s intentional and Celecia knows it.  Dakoran doesn’t solicit the kiss and does push the woman away, but it happens.  The two talk about it.  Celecia is not angry.  She is not threatened by the other woman and there’s no thought of Celecia and Dakoran breaking up.  But she confesses that it bothers her and it’s not a sight she can simply erase from her mind.  Furthermore, it happens in nearly the exact same spot where Celecia and Dakoran shared their first kiss, which tarnishes a previously cherished memory.  Dakoran feels guilty, but doesn’t feel insecure about his relationship with Celecia.

The key here is that Celecia and Dakoran implicitly trust each other.  They are open and honest about their relationship and their feelings.  Their enemies understand that individually, both are powerful and together they are nearly unbeatable.  So there are many attempts to crack the foundation of their relationship, but it is also one of their strongest weapons.  I attempt to reinforce that several times throughout the series.  If you’re looking for tragedy or misguided affairs, you’ll find those in the Verdan Chronicles, just not between Celecia and Dakoran.  I want to make that clear as it is a major point in defining Celecia.

But I also want readers to be able to connect with Celecia.  I don’t want her to be thought of as stereotypical, but she does have some traits one might usually attribute to a girl.  When Arakon went into exile, he took along things important as a wizard, but didn’t take much else.  When Celecia learns that their home in Izmira contains quite a bit of treasure, her thoughts turn to shopping.  She looks forward to excursions into the marketplace and especially enjoys checking out some fashion clothing and shoes.  As she meets and makes friends with other women, there are occasions to gossip amongst themselves.  We’ll learn at one point that Celecia is a cat person.  She’s also not averse to being a little experimental in the bedroom.  But she’s also a private person and doesn’t deal well with her future celebrity status as a hero (sorry, another spoiler).

If we go back to the definition, there is no doubt that Celecia is a hero.  No one else in the series will deal with more adversity.  No one else in the series does more to protect others and save lives.  So there you have Celecia; powerful, smart, selfless, beautiful and in love.  It’s her story that drives one of the major themes of the Verdan Chronicles…what is our place in the universe and how much control do we have over our destiny?  I hope you’ll enjoy reading her journey as much as I enjoyed writing it.

My next blog will probably come in a few weeks.  I’m currently going through one final review of Dark Passages prior to getting it republished…yay!  If there are any topics you’d like to read about, let me know.  Otherwise, you’ll just get whatever pops into my head at the time.

Footnote:  I recently "unpublished" all future volumes in anticipation of rereleasing them with new covers and and another round of edits.  Barnes and Noble it appears did not yank the current version of Dark Passages they carry.  My apologies to anyone who purchased it, but rest assured that the edits were not major and the version you have contains the exact same story (no additions or deletions) to the future version.  The biggest difference is that it won't have Amy's amazing cover and the text font is slightly different.