books – Page 4 – Gunpowder and Ink!

I got to caress a Civil War cannon this weekend… But I didn’t get to fire it. :(

I stayed the Hilton in Marietta, GA this weekend for a family emergency.

Lovely place. Nice chandeliers.

There was a screw-up with the reservations, so I ended up sitting alone in the lobby for about an hour. Thankfully I shaved the night before so I didn’t look completely homeless with my duffel bag and laptop bag. But I still felt a bit out of place.

Oh, and to the kid who pulled the fire alarm at 10:30 pm when I was sound asleep… Thanks. My ears are still ringing. I had no idea how loud the in-room fire alarm sirens can be. But now I know!

Whew…

Anywho…

The hotel had an original cannon from the Civil War in the lobby, manufactured in 1851 and captured by Federal troops in 1864.

That was kind of neat, since I used one in the end of my book during the FGB (Final Great Battle). I took some pictures and got to run my hand across a piece of American history. They also had some pretty great civil war art work, which I didn’t get any pictures of. But you can see a little behind the cannon in the pictures below.

On a side note – did you know in North Carolina, black powder weapons are not considered ‘firearms’? You can buy/sell/ship them direct to your door. Never mind the fact that they pretty much wiped out multiple civilizations before metallic cartridges became common.

A deleted dream. Some Art.

I ended up taking this out of the first book. After several revisions, it wasn’t needed.

But I like it.

***

I dreamed that I walked amongst death and destruction as a storm poured out its wrath overhead.

Bodies were strewn everywhere as the remains of the town burned. Pierced, crushed, mangled, and some, gnawed on. Smoky fog drifted from dozens of fires that rain struggled to quench.

Lightning crashed, momentarily blinding me, before rolling thunder pounded my senses from above.

I stepped around carnage as in the rain-soaked street. The slaughter had been complete. Women. Children. Horses. Livestock. Nothing lived. The only sound was the hiss of raindrops falling amidst flames.

Stopping, I dropped to my knees in the muck. Of all the massacred bodies that lay trampled in the mud, scattered on the boardwalks, and among the flickering flames. It was hers that gave me pause.

A little girl lay in a pool of blood, her white dress soaked with crimson from the spear sticking from her chest. Her light blue eyes were open and unblinking as rain fell onto them. Strands of blonde hair plastered against her cheeks. A homemade doll clenched tight in her tiny hand.

I didn’t know who she was. I didn’t know who any of these people were. But I recognized the town. It was mine.

Closing her eyes, I gently tugged the doll free. Wiping blood off with my thumb, a small buttoned face smiled back at me.

The puddle of blood from the girls body rippled.

My eyes flicked to it. I watched it ripple again as the ground trembled.

I looked up as a massive four-legged beast lumbered through the thick gray smoke at the end of the street, and stopped.

It was an odd-looking creature. Two large horns above its eyes jutted out and a smaller one rising lower on its face. A bone shield flared out from the top of its head, giving protection to its neck and shoulders, and behind it sat something vaguely human.

The rider was bigger than a man, with thick dark hair covering most of its body except its painted chest and face. It reminded me of the apes from my childhood picture books. But this one wasn’t cute and cuddly with a banana. Instead, it was large and terrifying.

The ape raised a stone club above its head and roared, jerking on the reins. The three-horned beast reared, shook massive horns, then splashed heavily to the ground in a spray of muddy brown water.

I felt it in my chest, a primordial challenge that honor and justice demanded be accepted. Trembling in rage, I gently tucked the doll back into the girl’s hand and stood, drawing a pair of matching revolvers.

As rain dripped from the brim of my hat, I thumbed the hammers back.

I was going to cut the ape’s heart out and eat it.

The three-horned mount rushed forward with a bellow. The ground shook as it bore down on me.

The ape roared, raising the club to strike.

Jerking the pistols up, I pulled the triggers.

***

So, some art, right?

This is the initial sketch that the talented Mike Katoglou sent me when I was shopping around for someone to create a banner for me. (Which I still need… hmmm…)

western dinosaur

I loved it so much that I asked for a sketch style drawing. That awesomeness turned into this:

FalPicWOP

Not much else going on. It’s just been a week so I needed to post something.

The writing continues – The world still spins.

Hope everyone has a great week.

My Main Character is not me. Plus, writing, writing, writing.

Before I get to that… the Rough Draft, minus the Final Giant Battle (FGB), is done for the sequel. I’m now working on filling it out and fixing things.

The FGB is gonna be awesome, just like the last one. And it’s always the most exhausting thing for me to write. I don’t know why, I really enjoy writing action more than anything else. I think it’s because it’s such a culmination of so many characters and moving parts, and there’s a brand new faction for the book that… geez… I want to talk about but I really shouldn’t because it’d ruin the surprise.

But let’s just say the battle is going to include Pterodactyls.

There.

That’s enough of a hint.

So the FGB includes giant leathery birds… Cause, why not? Seems cool – and my motto is that if something seems cool, you should always do it.

Speaking of that, I went out to eat at my favorite Mexican restaurant with some close family friends. And there was a truck parked outside the door with an empty giant metal cage in the back.

It took my wife’s adamant restraint to keep me from getting naked and climbing into the cage to terrorize people coming and going.

Seemed cool. Should always do it.

Unless your spouse doesn’t want to be embarrassed. And in retrospect, it was probably kind of stupid.

Now I’d just like to publicly state: My main character is not based on me.

Yes, I’d do a lot of things that he’d do. But he does a lot of things that I wouldn’t do also.

In real life, I’m 6’4″ and 245lbs (hey! I’m bulking…) and good with a Glock and AR/M16 platform (I shot Expert Award every time we qualified in the Marine Corps, so I’m no slouch, and YES – my first time was with Iron Sights.)

Jedidiah is a stumpy six feet tall and 185lbs and pretty good with revolvers and a badass Winchester 1886 rifle. And a Bowie.

See. Not the same.

But I did base the Love Interest off my wife.

Cause she’s a total babe.

Edit – In case you’re interest what I’m talking about. Here are the excerpts. If you like it, I’ll send you the entire thing for feedback.

West of Prehistoric

A Few Random and Unpopular Opinions.

First – “Your allegiance should be to the Constitution, not to a person, President, or political party.”

I love Trump, he tickles me. He’s one of the greatest Presidents we’ve ever had. He deserves his place on Mount Rushmore.

But he sucks sometimes too. Especially when it comes to his waffling back and forth on firearms. If he wants to see his almost guaranteed 2020 win evaporate, he needs to allow an Assault Weapons Ban to go through. He’s already ticked us all off over the Bump-Stock ban.

I’m also a Republican, well, really a Libertarian, but I know a losing side when I see one and prefer to work within the system rather than sit outside the gate kicking my boots against it hopelessly. But the Republicans really suck sometimes.

(Also – That is not my quote. I can’t recall where I read it, if you know who said it, please let me know so I can give credit.)

Second – I think Greenland would be a pretty sweet buy. Vast, open spaces, low population density, huge and untapped resources, and access to the arctic that would make Russia jealous. It may take some time to sway the Greenlandies to our side, but once they reach our obesity levels… we can trust them.

Besides, why would the Danes still want it?

According to Climate Change specialists it’s going to melt into the sea in the next dozen years. So we’re looking at diminishing returns here on our investment. The Art of the Deal man should be able to use this to his advantage.

Speaking of climate change activists, why did the Obamas just buy a mansion at Martha’s Vineyard that is dang near sea level?

Won’t it be under water shortly?

Rhetorical question, because they don’t believe in it anymore than I do, they just see the POWER that comes from using FEAR to gain political advantages and force economic changes that benefit them and their goals for America.

Third – I’m not that big a fan of Chic-Fil-A. I like that they’re a Christian company who non-apologetically sticks to their guns, and I’ll support that by eating their food… but really… other than the lemonade and chicken nuggets.. not a big fan. And for the love of all that’s good, please stop putting pickles on my chicken sandwiches and put some mayo on it instead.

(I do hear their frosted lemonade is the bomb-diggity though.)

Book Update.

Let’s see. When it comes to Publishing Houses, I’m doing well. Several have shown strong interest so far, plus the one offered contract. When it comes to Publishing Agents, I’m at 22 rejections. So, all in all, pretty good. 22 is still a pretty low number of rejections, and considering how genre-blending this book is, it’s going to be a hard sell. Folks keep telling me how it’s unlike anything they’ve ever read, which is awesome, but that also makes it more difficult to interest agents and publishers. But the interest is good enough that I’m confident it’ll sell.

For the sequel, I passed the 60k word mark over the weekend. That’s half-way to my goal. For my first sequel and second book ever, it’s considerably easier than the first now that I’ve climbed the learning curve and most of the world building/characters/villains etc have been built and established.

If you’re curious as to what I’m talking about. Here’s the first 15% of the book, if you like it, I’ll send you a copy for the sake of feedback.

West of Prehistoric

First Publishing Contract Offered!

I was offered my first contract last week. YAYYY! Then I turned it down because I didn’t feel like it’d be a good fit… NOOOO!

So, that kind of sucks.

But my ego is happily boosted.

It was a hard choice, after all I’ve been querying publishers and agents for a couple months now and finally got a hit. But I’m also confident that it was the correct choice.

As for an update on the sequel…. Things are going well. Extremely well. Except I accidentally erased about a weeks worth of writing last weekend. That was a terrible moment of realization… Luckily, I periodically email myself a back up copy and had done that recently. Once I dusted that file off, I realized I only lost a couple days worth of writing. (So always make sure to backup your writing folks.)

I’d guess I’m about half way finished. There’s a lot more to flesh out, then the 60-70 or whatever complete edits to make my sentences not suck. I’m telling ya, I can write the daylights out of action scenes, but dialogue and description? Ugh. That’s like doing chores, necessary but not fun.

I know all those edits sounds like a lot. And I know that Heinlein’s Rules for Writers says that you must refrain from editing, except to editorial order… but he hasn’t read my rough drafts. And really, I consider it more of a refiners pass to make it better. Why should I stop at mediocre writing? I’d rather do the hard time and make it my best possible work.

As an aside, I did kill my little brother off in one of the more pivotal chapters of the books… because red shirting people you know is fun. (That’s a Star Trek reference, all the main crew wear different colors, but all the extras who get killed off are wearing red shirts.)