A very good week.

This has been a very good and productive week. Yesterday I sent out the completed manuscript for Templars Gate and this morning I finished the final edit and sent out Dark Awakening. I met my goal of having these stories out by the end of the month. I’m feeling very good about their prospects.

Next week I leave for a convention on Tuesday and even though I am bringing my new netbook with me, I doubt I will have much time to write. Also I will probably not have an update here on the blog until after next week. So I guess I have to consider next week a vacation week.

The plan now is to work on a story I’ve titled There’s no such thing as Werewolves which is a companion story set in the Templars Gate universe. Not really a sequel  the two stories happen at about the same time, and there are a few points where they converge. It’s shaping up to be a really fun story, not quite as dark as Templars Gate. I hope to have it finished by the end of September.

So a busy but fun vacation week ahead, then it’s right back to work, if I survive…

Steve

A bit of naughty fun

Okay, I know it’s been a while, and I really apologize. I have been working hard on the final edit of Templars Gate. That’s not an excuse, but I’m hoping the following will make up for it.

Recently I took a day off of my editing to answer a challenge on the Absolute Write boards and had a lot of fun writing a sex scene using as much Purple Prose as I could cram into it. If you don’t know what Purple prose is, I think it will be painfully obvious by the time you read the passage. I would link you to it, but it’s so deep in the boards it would take 2 different passwords to get to it, so I decided to post it here.

Warning – if you do not want to see sexually explicit prose, or are under age please don’t click. For the rest of us, there is a new heading above called Purple Passion .

Enjoy,

Steve

Settling in

It is a wonderful Sunday morning. Rain is dripping off the roof and I am just about to jump into a two to three hour editing session on Templars Gate. Over the past week I have been settling in to a routine that seems to be working. Being a morning person anyway, I have begun to carve out a two to three hour block of writing time starting right around 8:00AM. I feel I’m making good progress on my projects.

I have to send out big Thank You‘s to my Templars Gate beta readers. Tammi, Mickey, Don and my wonderful wife have all given me some great insights into the weaknesses and short comings of the story as it stands so far. My wife, of course, has been pointing out my weaknesses and short comings for years, so she is a natural at this.

In any case, I am very grateful for all the input. I am hoping to pull apart and rebuild two to three chapters this morning. The goal is to have the story ready to submit by the end of the month.

Onward…

Steve

A new day dawns

The storms have been washing across northern Wisconsin today. My wife and I got hit hard driving home from Green Bay this afternoon to the point I had to shelter under a bridge for a time. Thunder showers continue into the evening, and yet it’s a wonderful day. As my two week vacation comes to and end I am looking forward to my first day on the job as a new writer.

Up to this point it’s been a hobby.  I’ve been playing around on the edges. Tomorrow morning it becomes my job. I’m looking forward to diving into the deep end of the pool. So many stories to write…

Steve

Work continues

Just time for a quick update today. I have started to receive input from my Beta Readers of Templars Gate. I hope to have the editing done in the next two weeks and have it into my agent. Thanks again to my wonderful Betas.

A personal note to my ex-co-workers. There’s a pass around copy of Templars Gate floating around Social Services. You are more than welcome to read it if you can find it, and if you have any comments I’d love to hear them. Just send me an email.

I also posted an additional part of Dark Awakening on the Absolute Write boards. Their comments there caused me to change the entire story from 3rd person to 1st person. To get a look at my writing process, more of the story and comments I got there go to: http://www.absolutewrite.com/forums/showthread.php?t=184889

WARNING: This was to get some input on the story’s sex scene and may not be ‘work friendly’. Hopefully you’ll find it hot and steamy.

Until next time…

Steve

Dark Awakening

I had a great writing session and finished up Dark Awakening. I’m getting ready to send it out to my Beta readers and I thought it would be a good idea to stop by here and give you all just a taste. I’m very happy with the way it turned out.

Here’s just a snippet:

***

Heather Corbin awoke confused. It was either pitch black out, or she was completely blind. She couldn’t feel her body. Perhaps she wasn’t awake at all, but just drifting in a dream. The last thing she remembered was the crash. God, was she paralyzed and blind?

“Greetings, Mrs. Corbin. How are you feeling?”

The voice was cold and mechanical but at least her ears seemed to be working.

Confused was what she wanted to say. She thought it, willed it, but she couldn’t speak.

“That is understandable,” the voice said.

Can that thing hear my thoughts? she wondered.

“Yes, your body is not yet fully functional. I am communicating with you over a neural network connection. Please be calm. You will have full functionality shortly.”

Heather thought back to the crash. That idiot must have been drunk, swerving in and out of traffic. She remembered slamming on the brakes and skidding as he cut in front of her. Still he managed to clip her front end and nudge her off the road. Her car had hit the ditch and flipped. That was the last thing she remembered.

Was I hurt badly? She asked the voice.

“You were killed,” the voice replied flatly.

Images flashed through her head. A newspaper article, with the picture of her wrecked car and the headline: Three dead in multi car pileup. An obituary, HER obituary! A scene of a casket being lowered into the ground.

“It broke my heart to lose you.” It was another voice, a familiar voice.