Gunpowder and Ink!

16,000 word written this month.

That might actually be a high score for me. Although, I may have done just as well back in June 2018 when I started writing. But to be fair, most of that was garbage that was either thrown out or heavily rewritten. (I originally had a point of view from the Big Bad Ape in West of Prehistoric… it was…laughably bad…) These 16,000 words are all useable, just need a little editing.

And I absolutely could not have done it without my daughter’s health improving. We’ve still a long way to go, but there is a noticeable change for the better. Yay heavy antibiotics hidden in ice cream for the win. And a major thank you all for your prayers, they worked!

Conquering Prehistoric sits at 55,000 words right now. The minimum goal is 70,000 words for a full length book, and I try for 100,000… but I let it end where it ends between those numbers.

And I think seeing that I wrote basically over a quarter of the book in a single month shows just how difficult writing has been this year.

At this rate though, plus with my PTO I need to burn before the end of the year, I might actually finish it by New Years. Then I can start sending out copies for proof reading while I get back to work on the WWII book.

Will there be another West of Prehistoric book?

I don’t know. I’ve talked before about wanting to start another series in that world about 20-30 years later. The concept resides in my head right now. There aren’t any notes or outlines or such yet. I also know of a great way to continue Jed and Skyla’s story, the villain for that will be set up at the end of Conquering Prehistoric.

It just comes down to sales and what the publisher wants.

And I’ve currently got my 5 book contract signed with Conundrum… They’ve been nice enough to not give me a strict deadline. But I don’t want to abuse their hospitality by doing more WoP books while owing them.

All I can tell you is… tell your friends about these WoP books if you like them. Spread the word, buy them for your kids, post about them on your various web forums, help them sell so the publisher wants more.

And buy the future books I write. Help me stay a relevant writer.

My broken down Jeep Wrangler depends on those royalties. 🙂

I almost forgot.

Audiobook for Raiding Prehistoric! I think it’s wrapping up now. I know my buddy took a week off from work to get some audio time in his sound booth.

He even sent me a picture of himself working on it.

Then he dared to text me asking if I intentionally misspelled a word.

The audacity!

Anyways…

I hope you all had a magnificent Thanksgiving. And I’ll update you again around Christmas.

Erik

To everyone who complains today…, go suck a deviled egg.

I’m thankful for my ancestors, who were explorers, conquerors, inventors, and ultimately… better fighters. They came to this continent with little more than an axe, a sword, faith in God, and started an empire.

Bless them for giving up a life of comfort and safety to seek out a better existence for themselves and their descendants at the risk of their own wealth and lives.

We owe them a lot.

It was through America that the world was modernized. And it was not the native Americans who did so, but the white man who took a great continent, reaped its many resources, and developed technology that set the world on fire. In less than 250 years, we went from horseback to the moon. That could not have been achieved without the great freedom our ancestors provided for us, knowing that they’d never see it, but trusting in Divine Providence to see their hopes and dreams passed on to future generations.

I won’t go into how we’ve squandered their sacrifice. Because today is a day to be thankful.

And my cup runneth over.

I am thankful to have been born in America and know my Lord and Savior.

I’m thankful for my family and their mostly good health. (BTW my daughter’d health is improving! Praise God!)

I’m thankful for my friends, my enemies, and the many people who work so diligently to keep this great country running. (No not politicians)

I’m grateful for the skills and abilities I possess, including being able to write books and score Expert Rifleman 5x in the Marine Corps. 😉

I’m grateful for you. Without you, my writing would be empty words on a page. You give them meaning by being entertained.

And I’m grateful for life. It is a noble thing to be in the trenches of a fallen world and struggle mightily to spread the Gospel.

I hope tou all have a marvelous Thanksgiving. And a wonderful nap afterwards.

Check out this fun review by RetiredUSNChief, posted on Carolina Firearms Forum… the premiere firearm forum of the Carolinas. 🙂

https://carolinafirearmsforum.com/index.php

https://carolinafirearmsforum.com/index.php?threads/cmon-you-apes-do-you-wanna-read-forever.70436/page-6#post-2468136

***

OK, I finally got through enough books to get to this series and I’m currently on book 4.

I’ll start off with my biggest gripe about the entire series, which galls me to no end:

THERE ARE ONLY FOUR FRICKIN’ BOOKS!

You, sir, are a SLACKER! It’s taken me THREE FRICKIN’ YEARS since your initial posting for to get through the backlog of other books in order to get started on this series and YOU ONLY HAVE FOUR BOOKS?!? You have exactly until I finish reading book 4 to come out with book 5…and that pretty much means after this weekend! But I’ll be generous and give you until the week after Thanksgiving, because the kids and I are going to Universal Studios Orlando next week and I won’t have time to do much reading until after we get back home. This “Spring 2024” date ain’t gonna cut it!

😉

Seriously, I read a LOT, both from established authors and authors published through more traditional means as well as newer authors publishing through less traditional venues. Your Prehistoric books have come across as very well written with respect to character development. story line, plot complications, grammar, etc.

In fact, the only detractors I’ve found (and no, I haven’t kept track of them for editing feedback) involved the occasional anachronistic use of “Ms.” and the odd misspelling. The term “Ms.” was nearly two decades away from its first linguistic use (1901) in the era your books take place in, and several more decades later (1970s) before it came into popular use in the English lexicon. And the occasional misspelling was very few and far between. None of which, by the way, actually detract from the stories, mind you. Just some things I noticed

The firearms in use were historically accurate, too, so far as I understand them. Well done on this!

When I said well written character development, I mean the characters did not read as shallow. They had purpose (perhaps only as a snack), they had lives (however short some may have been), and the longer a character was present, the more their character took on depth.

I see that you’ve been laying groundwork for other potential story arcs, as well, with hints of potential shimmers located in other locations/eras. I’d be most interested to see story arcs from the differing perspectives of other cultures and peoples as well.

The, of course, there’s the question of the origin of the shimmers as well, which so far you’ve only treated as “they exist” with no hint towards how or why. Perhaps this is all that they’ll ever be, but then who knows what evil lurks in the heart of the author?

As I said, I read a lot. Mostly SciFi and Fantasy, but a smattering of other genre’s too. When you’ve read enough different material from enough different authors, you can kinda “taste” the style/flavor of the various writers and get a sense for how seasoned they are, how mature their writing is, etc. Your writing does not come across, in any way whatsoever, as that of a newbie or an amateur. It comes across like that of an established and skilled writer.

(About that publishing date…family comes first. I’ll happily wait however long it takes for the next book(s) while you take care of your little girl.)

Keep up the good work. I’ll be looking forward to your future contributions and will be happy to shovel some of my hard earned money into your pockets for books like these.

***

That’s pretty cool. I’m just disappointed that it took him so long to give them a read. 🙂

And if you get a chance to head over to the Carolina Firearms Forum, check it out. Lots of good gun deals, like minded folks, and knowledge to be found.

Everyone have a great weekend!

Erik

Hot dang, two more years and we’ll hit a quarter century. That’s pretty awesome.

I love the Marine Corps, even though it failed to give me deployments and a battle field commission, it changed my life immeasurably for the better. I went in as a 26 year old man child with no real discipline, direction, or drive.

And came out a Marine.

With all the ego and confidence that entails after being degraded and beaten like a rented mule for three months in Boot and then another three months in School of Infantry and SURVIVING IT ALL.

And if you want to know how ingrained it becomes in your life, after being out for EIGHT YEARS, I still have dreams of re-enlisting (usually naked) and nightmares about losing a piece of gear. (usually a rifle)

I remember in Boot Camp, standing Fire Watch in the back of the squad bay, and hearing some poor kid screaming, “AYE SIR!” in his SLEEP and snickering. That’s how much of a mind screw they do to you in their conversion of the weak modern American male into warriors.

Anyways, I don’t drink anymore. But if I did, I’d have been plastered by 8am. Instead, I’m just going to drink a Monster and eat some crayons.

And wish the most magnificent cult of warrior degenerates the world has ever seen a Happy Birthday.

I miss you all.

SEMPER FI!

I tried to stop writing it. I really did.

But I just kept -thinking- about it and all cool things I wanted to add in and the direction I wanted it to finish in… and I couldn’t.

There is too much awesomeness in it to stop.

Current publishing goal – March 2024.

Which is later than I wanted.

But my daughter is sick. Very sick. After four years of knowing something was wrong, and going everywhere from Genetics to Psychiatrists to Rheumatologists to getting brain MRI’s… we finally found out last Thursday that she has PANDAS. (Simply put, she has a leaky gut full of bad bacteria and a leaky blood/brain barrier that lets antibodies through to cause havoc in her head…. leading to pretty much every symptom below.)

CLICKY LINK HERE for more information, it’s not exactly rare… but it’s not really known about either.

So, as you can tell by the symptoms, it sucks.

I won’t go in depth into the struggle, but let’s just say, it’s been an exhausting roller-coaster of a ride and a lot of times by the end of the day, I’m too tired to write. Or my mental state is such that I just don’t friggin’ feel like it.

Which has put me WAY behind this year.

Good news is all that suckyness that my daughter is experiencing is curable with a LOT of hardcore antibiotics. Yay.

We start the regimen Monday.

Please pray for us, it’s going to be difficult to get her to take all of this stuff. But we are finally seeing a light at the end of the tunnel. 🙂

In other news, we got a new puppy.

I don’t even know what to say about that… except this Hispanic preacher in an American flag cowboy hat with a gold tooth showed up to the city park one day with a MalChi (Maltese Chihuahua mix) in a basket while my daughter was playing, and it came home with us.

We named her Peaches.

And holy cow, how could you not love her? (Well, she pooped in her crate in the truck yesterday morning and rolled in it… that wasn’t lovely…)

She’s been a help with my daughter’s anxiety, and she’s pretty cute to boot.

And did I mention how tiny her pees and poops are? SUPER TINY. I could step in one barefooted and not even notice.

Compared to our two Mastiffs…. those are like softball sized cow patties.

That previous picture is her at 6 weeks old (so we were told). Below is her at 7.5 weeks playing with Bear, our English Mastiff, the monster dog who is in my not-so-professional author photos.

Not sure what else is worth mentioning.

It’s been a good few days with my daughter’s diagnosis, a new puppy, and a little bit of writing on Book FIVE today.

I can’t wait to get it to you.

It’s gonna be awesome.

Oh yeah, the world is pretty much aflame with war. I gotta get back in shape before the shooting starts. (Smaller mass equals smaller target and I’ve been working on my ‘author body’ for far too long.)

My best guess? China is going to pounce on Taiwan as Israel and Ukraine sucks up all of America’s money and equipment. And there won’t be squat we can do about it. I hope I’m wrong, but it seems like the perfect moment under pathetic American leadership, a recession, and woke military….

I leave you with this meme.

Stay strapped friends. Get right with the Lord. And watch your six.

Good news is that it’s fall. Beautiful leaves, cool weather, deer season… and you can dang near hide a FAL under a proper jacket or hoodie. So there ain’t no excuse to not be armed.

Much love,

Erik.