5/26/2015 – Over 20,000 words now. Research is going well. My only complaint is that I appear to have lost my Toy Story mousepad. Rats!
4/20/2015 – Spent most of afternoon working on plotting for The Candidate.That’s a little unusual for me, but the tale has sufficient complexity and enough threads in play that I need to spend some time coordinating before writing any further. I prefer to let the story unfold as I write, but this one’s not going to happen that way. It’s also going to help on character development. Only 12000 words into the story, and I am already seeing some fascinating characters take shape.
4/6/2015 – I am delighted to report that the top-secret C. H. Cobb Sermon and Book Production Facility, located in an undisclosed location in the Midwest, resumed production today with renewed vigor, with particular attention being given to “The Candidate.” We anticipate a full day of writing tomorrow as I’ve taken a vacation day.
There was a brief attempt to move production into the backyard, but it was aborted by rain. The meteorological outlook for tomorrow is not encouraging, thus I suspect tomorrow’s activities will be an inside job. Nonetheless, I look forward to throwing numerous wrenches into the life-gears of my main character, and coming up with all sorts of diabolical conundrums to test him. Wish me luck!
2/23/2015 – Writing update: spending most of my writing time researching. My next novel (The Candidate) is a political thriller about a presidential election, so I am coming up to “campaign speed.” I’ve read “Primary Politics” by Kamarck, I’m working on “Campaign Craft” by Burton and Shea, next up is “The American Campaign” by Campbell. I’m also doing a good bit of “issue” reading, and will be reading The Federalist Papers, as well as the Anti-Federalist Papers.
So far I have only about thirty pages written, but that’s because of the amount of reading I am doing first.
IF you have read one of my books, and IF you enjoyed it and found it worthwhile, please consider recommending it to a friend, or getting a copy for your local library or your church library. As an independent author, I can’t afford the sort of marketing that a large commercial publisher can do – the only way I am able to develop readership is by word of mouth–one reader to another. Thanks for thinking about it!
2/9/2015 – Status update on The Candidate: ‘Twas a productive afternoon. I now have my Moriarty, and as importantly, I know why he is doing the dastardly deeds in which he is engaged. I have landed upon his evil motivations, and they are quite authentic.
A point of trivia: his initials in the story are BG and they come from my typing page after page of schemes, only to toss them and start over. So I used the initials BG as shorthand for my antagonist, rather than typing out a name over and over as I story-boarded my tale. BG? Though I have now fitted him with an appropriate appellation employing those letters, BG really stands for Bad Guy.
1/19/2015 – Finished Primary Politics by Elaine Kamarck, as research reading for The Candidate. You can read my review on Amazon, or here. Copies of Falcon Strike have been purchased in both the UK and Canada, which is encouraging.
1/5/2015 – Research reading for The Candidate has started.
1/1/2015 – The Kindle version of Falcon Strike is now available.
11/24/2014 – Falcon Strike released!
10/13/2014 – The release date for Outlander Chronicles: Icarus is being pushed back by one year–now scheduled for December 2016. It has been bumped by a story I have been toying with for about six months: a political thriller titled The Candidate, about a plain-spoken, non-lawyer, conservative/libertarian blogger who is talked in to running for President. I am hoping, Lord willing, to publish The Candidate in December of 2015–just in time for our real presidential election coming up in 2016.
I apologize to those of you who have been urging me to get the next Outlander Chronicles tale done. I really enjoy the Outlander series myself, so the next book will get done. The only reason I have bumped it back is because I am hoping that The Candidate will do well in an actual election year.
None of this affects Falcon Strike, which is on schedule for a release this December.
9/30/2014 – My editor is now doing her last pass through the completed manuscript of Falcon Strike.
8/30/2014 – Chapter 37 has been sent to my editor. Word Count is now 133,796. THREE MORE CHAPTERS – and I will be done with the draft! Continuing to get good reader reviews on Amazon for all my novels!
8/19/2014 – Chapter 35 is off to my editor. Had to spend a good deal of time going back over chs 32-34 and making changes. Word-count is now 129,000. Still on schedule for a December release.
8/8/2014 – Chapter 34 is off to my editor. Was a very difficult chapter to write; went through multiple rewrites. Slow going.
7/28/2014 – Chapter 32 is complete. Word count is 119,000+
7/25/2014 – Chapters 30 and 31 are complete. The book cover and back-cover blurb are done.
7/14/2014 – Chapter 29 is done.
7/7/2014 – Chapters 27 & 28 have been sent to my editor. Word count is 109,000+
7/3/2014 – Ch 26 of Falcon Strike is on its way to my editor. Word count 103,000.
6/28/2014 – My writing place, my Thoughtspot. Finished ch 25 today. Word count is now at 99,435.
