Me

What I've written and where you can find it

"Once A Hero, Always A Hero":

It started out a visit to buy brandy for their bar, but now it's an adventure.

Robin Thase and Viktor Blue, retired soldiers and former heroes turned bar owners and family men, land right in the middle of a situation that leaves them fighting for their lives and the lives of thousands of innocent souls once more.

Can two men with cheap blasters taken from beaten thugs, some knives, and decades of fighting experience defeat a Dichidian and his goons by themselves?

Available at Amazon, iBooks, Nook, Kobo, and Smashwords.  (Free everywhere but Amazon.  Please help make it free there by reporting that it is elsewhere.)

The Crown of Eldrete:  Kavaliro Cousins, Book One:


Darrien's Daggers, the tri-galaxies' most famous band of freelance freedom fighters are doing what they do best: fighting for freedom alongside a rebel force.

The First Neo-Imperialists and the Krishodi have banded together, and the whole galaxy will be affected if the Daggers and rebels fail to stop them in time.

Lyndsey Kavaliro-Blue, Dagger swordswoman and fighter pilot, chances into a meeting with her long lost cousin. Soon the pair are fighting side-by-side for their lives and the freedom of dozens of worlds. Their first adventure in this saga of rebellion against the invading tyrants is to recover the legendary Crown of Eldrete, a sacred artifact of the Marohni which had been entrusted to Taliza Kavaliro's Faeshild temple. With it and other stolen treasures, the Krishodi believe they can gain the power to conquer all of Galfarra. Whether the ritual will work or not, they must be stopped before their terrible rule spreads too far to be stopped.

Available at Amazon, iBooks, Nook, Kobo, and Smashwords

Jake's Last Mission

Jake just wanted to retire. He'd been in the Sweytzian Defense Force for forty years and been the commander of its fleet for fifteen. He was on his final patrol when suddenly he found himself having to explain to the new emperor of an allied government why he destroyed one of their ships.   And he’s never been good at diplomacy.

Unlike most space opera, this isn't about a big, epic war. It's about trying to prevent one.

Available at Amazon, iBooks, Nook, Kobo, and Smashwords

Intertwined Lives

There's more to life than being a hero.

Intertwined Lives isn't your typical space opera.  It's a look at ordinary life in a space opera setting.  It's about what heroes do when they're not saving the day.  It's about the younger siblings and kids of heroes and their struggles with everyday problems . . . with futuristic twists.  It's about love.  It's about family.  It's about life.

This web serial is able to be read at: http://intertwined-lives.universal-nexus.com and wattpad. (Comments are presently not working on the main site, so if you have commentary, please leave it on wattpad or email it to me, or even post it here.  Sorry for the inconvenience.  The problem is on my webhost's side, so I can't fix it.)  Fans are encouraged to support me via Patreon.
Me

Authorial whining

Serial chapter should be posted tomorrow.  Didn't remember this until Saturday night.  Spent Sunday at a friend's.  Didn't expect this to be a big deal as I'd remembered the chapter as being in pretty good shape.

I was wrong.

It's in "nuke it from orbit and then burn it just to be sure" shape.

Odds I'm going to have it ready to post sometime tomorrow are approaching zero.

I'm pissed at myself because the whole reason I switched to every other week instead of every week was to stop this from happening.  A big part of the problem is that response to the serial has been, pretty much, non-existant.  Even harsh criticism would give me some incentive to go on -- people read it and didn't like it which is not that big a deal, you know?  They still read it!  Nothing but silence is depressing.  
  • Current Mood: depressed depressed
  • Current Music: Sia - Chandelier
Me

Damn!

Didn't make writing or editing word count goals for the month.  Fuck anxiety and sinus infections and hayfever.

(Please no suggestions on treating the hayfever.  I have tried every over the counter medicine.  The one that works the best for me dries my sinuses out so well that I get nosebleeds, which are possibly more annoying than the damned allergies!)
  • Current Mood: annoyed annoyed
Me

Self-confidence failure

I have decided I detest all variants of the question "Do you have a job?".  I'm an author, yes, and a professional one in that I devote at least a few hours five days a week to working on things DIRECTLY related to writing . . . editing, research that's actual research instead of random wiki crawling and pretending it's research, marketing, reading writing/marketing blogs for advice, and, amazingly, writing . . . but I still feel guilty answering "I'm an author" when asked what I do because, to be bluntly honest, the only story of mine that's sold in months is the one that's free.  So I find myself in this awkward place where I treat writing like a career, but know that to the rest of the world it looks like it's just a hobby.  So today I stammered over my answer before saying, "Well, I write; I guess that counts." with absolutely no conviction in my voice.  Way to go, me.
  • Current Mood: aggravated aggravated
No More Lies cover

Which of these is a better beginning?

Opinions, please?

Option 1: This is exactly what I needed, I thought, as I leaned back against a tree in Thil Park on Sarglerich and began tuning my loothin.  A break from sneaking around listening to things I could get killed for overhearing, worrying every piclano that somebody’s gonna figure out what I’m up to and kill me, and all the other shit that goes along with my job.



Option 2: This is exactly what I needed, I thought, leaning back against a tree and beginning to tune my loothin. A break from sneaking around listening to things I could get killed for overhearing, worrying every piclano that somebody's gonna figure out what I'm up to and kill me, and all the other shit that goes along with my job.  Thil Park on Sarglerich was about as far from Anerix as I could get on my pathetic salary.  I'd been saving my money for ages and was looking very much forward to spending some time relaxing . . . hopefully in the company of a beautiful woman.

  • Current Mood: curious curious
Me

Today's question only an author ever has

"Should I start with his unknown daughter showing up at his door step, or keep it where it is with him breaking into Special Forces HQ, I wonder?"

I've been pondering this for half an hour.  The first version started with her showing up; the current one with him breaking into the HQ.  The first version stalled so I still need to figure out what to do about the transiton from soap opera to thriller plot that's needed, but the second might not have the emotional impact I want because you don't actually see chick arrive and screw up the protagonist's life.  ~sigh~
  • Current Mood: amused amused