Summer Start-Up!

Welcome to June. Here in Colorado, the pine trees have about finished released clouds of pollen that turn everything a dingy yellow. We’ve also about gotten through the annual Miller Moth migration without driving everyone insane at night. The cats haven’t liked our success at keeping them out of the house, but we can’t make them happy all the time anyway, right?

What else has been going on? Well, quite a bit. Here we go.

Cover Art Release

If you’re following me on social media, you’ve seen this and if you’re not following me hit up the buttons at the bottom of this email, will you?

Here’s the cover art for Book One of The Buzzer War series STEEL ON TARGET!

From The Cover:

“First Lieutenant Mike Sandhurst led an elite infantry platoon on a rescue mission to Tycho-3. Wearing state-of-the-art ATLAS powered armor, Sandhurst’s unit faced down a relentless, wasp-like enemy who tore through them and left Sandhurst for dead.

Rescued by ground forces, Sandhurst gets reassigned as humanity races to war against what they call the Buzzers.

To fight the Buzzers, humanity turns to the modernized Centurion main battle-tank. Sandhurst must quickly learn the lexicon of “shoot, move, communicate” and lead his fast, self-sustained, and very lethal armored forces.

When the Buzzers appear again to threaten colonized worlds, Sandhurst’s regiment moves forward to hold the planet Heske by force. But they aren’t alone. The orbital carrier Yorktown and its space-capable wing dominate the skies while tanks take the fight and put Steel on Target.“

And guess what, the book is available for pre-order now at a limited time price of $3.99. STEEL ON TARGET releases on September 24th. Mount up, troopers! I could really use your help with this. Pre-orders often give publishers an advance idea of how well a series will sell, and I’d love for all of you to pick it up at this introductory price and then tell a friend or two. Thank you!

What I’m Working On

I’m working on a new solo Four Horsemen Universe novel titled BEGGAR which starts off a new storyline with the Peacemakers as the endgame approaches. The stakes are getting higher and putting pressure on the Peacemaker Guild and their allies. Who’ll survive when war comes knocking on their doors?

Also, I was asked into an anthology about mecha, those large lovable fighting robots who kick monster and alien ass, so I decided I’d write a Guardian Covenant story during the time of The Last Stand where a lone Guardian pilot covers the final evacuation from New York City with a host of Gimfa barreling down on him. The title for the story is “One If By Land, Two If By Sea.” When I get more information about the anthology, I’ll share it here.

Books You Should Read

The first trilogy in the Ashes Of Entecea storyline from Kacey Ezell (with Chris Kennedy) is complete. If you like sweeping space opera and intrigue, this is the series for you. Seriously one of my favorite series of the year thus far and well worth the price of admission.

I’m a bit behind with this one, but I’ve known about it for years and call both of the authors friends. Bill Fawcett and Casey Moores have combined forces on the Blood & Armor series. The first book is cued up in my audio library and I’ll probably start listening to it today or tomorrow. I’m seriously jazzed about this story and I hope you’ll dig in and enjoy as much as I’m sure I will.

Process

I recently had a question while I attended the Pikes Peak Writers Conference about how I capture ideas. For years, I used pages in different notebooks and then had to tear them out and gather them together as I formed a plan. I went to cahier-style notebooks from Moleskine for a long time as a gathering place for topics and stories, particularly if I were writing them longhand. I have another notebook for long-term ideas – the snippet of story or images that I know will develop into greater things but they’re something I can’t tackle right now.

But the question was how do I centralize my ideas when it comes to short stories? Is there a way to gather everything in one place? Well, it got me thinking and I’ve developed a story sheet.

It’s still a work in progress, but you can see it lets me gather the title and synopsis ideas, a basic reverse seven point story structure flow, an idea of the characters goals, and even an area where I can draw a map or enter any notes I need. If you’re interested in seeing it when complete, please let me know. I might even be able to put together a little how-to video for it.

Wrap-Up

That’s it for this month. I’ll catch up to you in July with an update on the rest of the Buzzer War books and updates on current projects. Is there something you’d like to see more of? Let me know. I look forward to hearing from you.

Appearances