Writing


19
Feb 09

Next Book: The Unfortunate Expiration of Mr. David S. Sparks

My debut novel, The Trouble With Being God, has been out for a few months now and, while I am spending some of my time promoting it, I’m also busy with writing my next book. The Trouble With Being God was absolutely a great learning experience. In total, it took me nearly eight years to create, from inception to final publication. During that time I learned a lot about people, life, and writing – but in the time since publishing it I’ve learned a lot more about how to write a great book.  Mostly this is due to the feedback I’ve been receiving from readers and fellow authors (in particular, Monica Valentinelli), and although I feel The Trouble With Being God was by no means a bad book, I am absolutely certain I can do better.

This brings us to what I’m doing now. As you may recall, back in November I mentioned that I was working on a book called The Grabbing Hands as a project for National Novel Writing Month (NaNoWriMo). Well, that project has grown a lot from where it originally started, and has since morphed into something I am extremely excited about: The Unfortunate Expiration of Mr. David S. Sparks. This new book is definitely a departure from the dark gore that spattered the pages of TTWBG, but it still very much feels like a “me” kind of story – heavy with philosophical questions (in particular environmental and biological ethics, as well as my usual themes of questions of self, soul and purpose), and in its current state falls quite firmly in the realm of cyberpunk fiction.

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15
Dec 08

Debut Novel on Amazon.com / Switching from Freemium to Premium

As already stated on the official book site, my debut novel, The Trouble With Being God, is now available for purchase at amazon.com.

Due to this wider availability of the book, the book is no longer available as a free download.  Previously I suggested that content creators offer their material as free to build up a fan base, and I still stand by this suggestion.  One thing I failed to mention, however, is that once you’ve achieved that base, if your goal is to sell a product, then you need to switch gears.

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9
Nov 08

New Project: The Grabbing Hands (NaNoWriMo)

If you were a fan of my first novel, The Trouble With Being God, you’ll be happy to hear another project is underway.  Previously I mentioned my next novel would be Three Bricks Down and To the Left (book one in my Horizon Trilogy), but I’ve decided to partake in National Novel Writing Month (NaNoWriMo), which means I need to crank out a 50,000 word novel by the end of the month.  Considering I didn’t decide to actually participate until yesterday, that gives me just 22 days to do it – and since Three Bricks is going to be a pretty massive undertaking, writing the whole thing in a month doesn’t make much sense.

So, what am I working on?  The Grabbing Hands (A Ghost Story).

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30
Oct 08

#1 Reason to Buy an Amazon Kindle

The other day I wrote a post about seven reasons to buy a Kindle from Amazon.  Today I’m adding one more reason to the list – and as far as I’m concerned it’s the most important reason of all.

No, it’s not Oprah’s recent recommendation/endorsement.

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28
Oct 08

You As a Brand vs. A Popularity Contest vs. Just Plain You (Twitter)

I’ve been on Twitter for (logs on to personal twitter account and looks at history) for four months and nine days as of today.  So even though I wasn’t an early adopter to the service, I definitely have been on for long enough to as where I am really starting to see some trends in use and misuse of Twitter.

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26
Oct 08

First Trailer for My Debut Novel

If you haven’t already seen it at the book’s official website, here’s the trailer for my debut novel, ‘The Trouble With Being God.’

This is my first trailer for a book – so I’d love to hear what your thoughts are on it.

httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8fZWrEsRRRE