Grab three of my ebooks for free this week!

With the beginning of the holiday insanity, I figured I should offer up some of my ebooks for free.  These would be great for that long drive to the in-laws or while standing in line for some big Black Friday deal.  Or if you’re just looking for something to read.  So these three ebooks will be free from Tuesday November 26 through Saturday November 30.

Lonely Phoenix

Partway to a new colony world, board member Geoffrey Ames is woken from hibernation by the caretaking crew of the Lucian. They require him to look into the matter of their fellow crewman Morgan Heller. Morgan’s claims – such as being over 1500 years old – would normally land him in the psychiatric ward, except he can back up some of his other claims.

A Man of Few Words

A Man of Few Words is a collection of fifty of my flash fiction stories. What would really happen if a “T-Rex on steroids” attacked a city? Why do science fiction writers make the best lovers? How does a company get to Second Base with VIPs? These questions and more are explored using less than 1000 words and in various genres from humor to horror and general fiction to science fiction.

The majority of the stories were previously published (most on my website) but all were revised for this collection. In addition, each piece is accompanied by some background information on the origin of the story or a funny tale about the writing of it to give a fuller experience.

The Future is Coming

As a science fiction writer, I’ve spent a lot of time thinking about how technology will change the way we live.  I’ve come up with these ten short essays about science fictional elements that will – almost certainly – one day become science fact as a way for people to start coming to terms with them.  Because I’ve spent time thinking about clones and AIs, I feel that I’ll be okay when they do finally show up whereas most people will probably freak out.  I hope these essays will get people to start thinking about the future because, no matter what we do, the future is coming.

1,000 days of writing

It was probably almost twenty years ago that I read a “Writing Advice from a real Author” article in a writing magazine that said that to get anywhere with writing you need to treat it like a job and do it every day.  Part of it is that the only way to get better at writing is to write, but the main thing is that the “job” of writing is to put words on a page and one way to rack up the word count is to do every day. 

I thought that was brilliant advice and tried to implement it.  It just took time.  First I wrote every day for a week, then I was busy and missed a day.  Then I wrote every day for a month, then I was sick and didn’t feel like doing anything.  I eventually wrote every day for a year, but then my computer died.  I forget what exactly my old record was, but I think I was in the 930s when I got home late from work one night, and I just forgot to hammer something out before watching YouTube videos.  It wasn’t until about 1:00 AM that I realized, I didn’t write anything yesterday.  Fuck.

I think I took a short break after that, but then I started again.  And early this morning I spent a few minutes to make some notes on a scene.  Which means that today I have written for – you’ll never guess – 1,000 days!  Now I admit too few of those days were me really hammering out the pages of a story.  Many of those days were me just taking a minute to make a quick note, but that still counts.

Anyway, on to 2,000!

To blog, or not to blog

Years ago I started a blog because that’s what a writer needed to do.  A blog was a place for you to connect to potential readers and let your fans know when you had new stuff coming out.  I understand all of that, it’s just … difficult for me.

For a while I kept my post count up by recapping/reviewing shows, movies, fairy tales, etc.  And I’d put up some on my ideas on writing.  But I’ve really dropped the ball.  This will be my sixth post of the year (on this blog, but I haven’t posted much on my other blogs as well), but two of those were me just reposting stories, and two more were about books sales I was having. 

Now if I were spending my time working on my various projects, I wouldn’t feel so bad.  But I do spend a lot of time binge watching shows and playing solitaire.  I am writing, just not that much.

I’ve been in a bit of a writing slump for the past year or so.  I know that if I put the effort into to connecting with potential readers – through things like interesting blog posts – and keep it up, in six months or so I’ll see improved sales.  And if had a fan base breathlessly waiting for my next work, that would add gas to my smoldering writing fire.  It’s just the first six months of hard work with little direct evidence of benefit. 

But who ever said being a writer was easy?