6/7 – Proof copy arrived today. It’s BEAUTIFUL!!!!! Once I read through it, to make sure the formatting is all good, I’ll publish it.
6/3 – Falcon Down is now available for pre-order.
5/29 – Editing on Falcon Down is complete. Now formatting for publishing on CreateSpace
4/13 – Editing is continuing. Looking now to a July release date. The final tagline of the book has been chosen.
3/18 – Falcon Down is now complete, and in the hands of my editor and beta-readers. It weighs in at 84,000 words.
3/6 – Between tooth trouble and cold, have been feeling pretty lousy. Now just south of 74,000 words. To use a metaphor, the landing gear is down, and the plane is flaring, just about to touch down. Yahoo!
2/14 – Took day off. Kept nose to grindstone. Now have bloody nose. Also have 69,600 words done!
2/7 – 62,000 words!
1/31 – The Falcon Down front cover is complete, so I have added a new Falcon Down page, and updated the Works in Progress page. Falcon Down is now north of 59,000 words. Thank you Dani, for your great cover design!!! A second review of Psalm 90: A Prayer of Moses the man of God has come in, with high marks from the reviewer. We’ve been thinking about the cover for that study, and sorting through possible photographs. At the urging of the first reviewer, I might also retitle it.
1/22 – Falcon Down is now at 58,332 words. Had a funny thing happen. Used an Internet Translation program to give me a Russian word: it was supposed to be, Stop! So I put in what the translation program recommended. Then my editor got a look at it, my editor who speaks fluent Russian and about a dozen other languages. Turns out that I had a bunch of Soviet soldiers running after my hero, shouting Busstop! Busstop!
Regarding Psalm 90: A Prayer of Moses the man of God, the pre-publication draft of which is out to several seminary professors and pastors to review. The first review came back today from one of the seminary professors with high marks. I’m very encouraged.
1/16 – 54,541 words. The action is heating up! Although I know what’s going to happen in the story, in broad strokes, I usually don’t know the details until they emerge as I write. Sometimes major plot twists form that completely eradicate all the planning I’ve done. Several such twists occurred during the writing of Outlander Chronicles: Phoenix, taking the tale in directions I had not anticipated, with the result that the story was altered in major ways from my original thinking. I’m finding the same thing happening in Falcon Down. It’s fun to meet new characters that you had no idea were going to emerge from the story, and to see how they play off your main character. I have the rest of the tale mapped out rather carefully, but who knows, my designs may be overtaken by events.
1/15 – 53,261!
1/12 – Falcon Down at 52,454 words!
1/1/2013 – All manuscript problems have been repaired. Moving forward with the story. Yay! [Later in the day] Completed through chapter 19, word-count now at 50,500.
12/31 – Have had a long hiatus in writing. Christmas season has been very busy, but also had a discouraging problem with Open Office (OO). Something I did messed up the italics in the Falcon Down manuscript. I use italics occasionally for emphasis, but frequently for Russian words, and for a character’s thoughts. Somehow entire pages got italicized, not sure how. Think it has something to do with the styles feature of OO, which I have never learned how to use properly. Consequently, I am spending much of today reading up on styles in OO, and hope to work on correcting the manuscript. Don’t you have backups, Chris? After all, you were an IT guy! Of course I have backups, lots of ’em. The problem is that I did not keep a change log, so I can’t simply switch to a backup without losing other edits on the manuscript. Pain in the neck, but I’ll sort it out. I just hate to lose the writing time to this sort of maintenance!
12/5 – The pre-publication manuscript for Psalm 90: A prayer of Moses the man of God is complete. It is now under review by others, a process which should be complete by early March. I anticipate an April publication date.
11/12 – Falcon Down is now at 47,700 words. The book hook is done, and I trust the cover will be complete soon. I am nearing the end of the semi-final draft of A Prayer of Moses. There was more re-writing than I anticipated, and I will be soon soliciting for readers of this last, pre-publication draft.
10/15 -At 45,000 words now. Reserved the ISBN for Falcon Down today. Almost done with back cover blurb, aka the “book hook.”
10/5 – Put up a new excerpt of Falcon Down. This one is three chapters long, the old one was but a single chapter. Word count is 42000+ words now. Purchased the photo for the cover, by Kris Klop of Clear Sky Photography. See more on my blog here.
09/27 – Falcon Down is now at the halfway point. Doris and I are on vacation this week, and I am trying to average about six hours a day writing. All edits up through chapter 14 have been applied, and the story has moved forward another 5000 words.
09/17 – Have had a bit of a hiatus. Things have been very busy at church. Today I made a second batch of changes to chapters 1-8 given to me by my editor. Later this week I will start with the changes she has recommended for chapters 9-14. Looking forward to a vacation that begins one week from today – expect to get a lot of writing done.
Located a great cover photo, and negotiated with the photographer, but my cover artist (Dani) nixed the shot. So, the hunt is still on for a good cover photo. Will first try to find something else by the same photographer – he’s got great shots of F-16s.
08/27 – Just released today chapters 9-14 of Falcon Down, weighing in at 35,000 words. Very pleased. The story is now about one-half complete. Looking forward to hearing back from my beta-readers. I think I’m going to locate the cover photograph for it, and hire Dani to produce the cover, so I can begin showing it.
08/21 – Doris and I have been in Honduras for a week with a group from our church on a mission trip. Have had a great week. Read all about it (with pix) on my blog. Have not been able to do much on Falcon Down. Tonight was able to do a little writing on it. Still on chapter 11, around 34000 words (may need to carve 11 up). Starting to get a little grumbling from my editor and beta-readers about where in tarnation is the next update. Working on it. Should be out in the next week or so. It will be worth the wait! By the way, got all of Elizabeth’s corrections in, and got a good grade from my military consultant on chapters 1-8.
07/31 – Have gotten some great writing time in the last week or so. The manuscript weighs in tonight at 31,999 words, or about 40% of the way there. My editor (also known as my sister, Elizabeth!) has given me a list of fixes for the first eight chapters, and I know chapters 9-11 need a substantial amount of re-writing before I even let them go out to my beta-readers. Nevertheless, the story is there and filling out. Some of the hardest parts are done. Tomorrow I am having lunch with the friend serving as my military consultant, and I expect he’ll have some changes, too.
07/23 – Working on chapter 10. Am at 27,000 words, just over a third of the way done. Story is shaping up nicely.
07/21 – Been tinkering more with chapter nine, and it is getting much better. A new review of Outlander Chronicles: Phoenix was posted today! It’s very good! Check it out on the Captivated Reading Book Blog.
07/17 – Tough spot in Falcon Down. Spent evening writing and re-writing chapter nine. Still not happy with it.
07/01 – Spent several hours editing A Prayer of Moses the man of God. Also recruited a friend, formerly with the Army Rangers, to help me with the military aspects of Falcon Down.
06/30 – Doris and I celebrated our 34th wedding anniversary! Released chapter 8 of Falcon Down to my volunteer readers/editors. Word count is now 23,455. Approached an independent bookstore in Troy about carrying OCP.
06/21 – There’s a new four-star review of OCP on Amazon, by Dr. John Marshall (teaches history at Eastern University). Check it out here.
06/21 – A promotional piece for Outlander Chronicles: Phoenix will be in the convention bag received by the attenders of the CHEO convention this weekend.
06/19 – Making excellent headway writing Falcon Down. I’m 1/4 of the way done!