Blogs

The picture this time is from the grassy bank outside my house. All the Texas spring wildflowers have been sizzled away under the relentless summer sun, leaving just a couple of hardy sunflowers. The first book in the second series will be released in a month, on August 25th. I'm looking forward to the release date with the book already in its final format. A new map is still in the works but will be added after the release. I'm hoping to have it ready before the second novel

We've met our goal, and I thank everyone who backed this project. This has been an enlightening trip for me, and I appreciate the support I've received for the second series in the saga about the planet Vosj with its magical powers available to a few men and women. This has unlocked the first stretch goal: a signed color copy of the original map, created in 2018 when the first volume of the series was drafted. At that time, I needed the map to understand where everything was

With the end of spring, I decided to include a recent picture of the Texas wildflowers outside our door. Like spring these will soon be gone under the relentless heat of central Texas. The audiobook for The Fifth Kingdom is now available on Amazon which is quicker than I expected. Clicking on the home screen will send you to that page on Amazon. Meanwhile, Linda McDade has recorded a third of the audiobook for Return of the Defenders, and it remains part of the Kickstarter ca

The picture is the meta advertisement for the Kickstarter that launches my new book, Return of the Defenders. Clicking on the cover on the Return of the Defenders page will send you to my Kickstarter site, which is currently the pre-launch page. From there, you can select the Notify me on launch button to be added to the list of emails to be notified when the Kickstarter launches, when there will be some early-bird specials. I've completed the second round of revisions for Wi

The picture this week is one of the pieces of graphics I've created as I prepare for a Kickstarter campaign in June. I will be launching the first book in the Arise Defenders series with a month-long Kickstarter to offer early ebooks, special edition hardcovers, my handwritten drafts of chapters, and even naming characters after them. In the next newsletter, I will have the Kickstarter start date firmed up. I hope to have a new map ready for the Kickstarter, but if not, then

The picture this week is the cover for the second book in the series, Arise Defenders. It shows little Tresela reacting to the fire, knowing her mother is trapped inside. The first version had the five-year-old facing the other way, which I didn't like. The second book, Withered Wizard, in the second series, Arise Defenders, is 90% complete now and should be finished in May. It continues to be a challenge that I have enjoyed solving. Meanwhile, my beta reader, Mysterious Henr

The picture this week is from my son, Mike, who has just returned from Japan. This was from a colorful temple he visited with his wife, Alexa. The second book, Withered Wizard , in the second series, Arise Defenders , is 75% complete now and should be finished by the end of April. It's been fun writing chapters from the POV of a five-year-old girl, who is a wizadry prodigy. Magic for her is natural compared to her grand wizard parents. However, she is naive about the world

Chris Hattan has finished the audiobook and ACX have approved it, so it’s available on Audible and Amazon. I listened to it from beginning to end, and was surprised at how easy it is to consume a book by audio alone. I had asked for three distinct covers to the first book in the second series. I received them last week and conducted market research to see which one has the most appeal to readers. The winner is now shown on the Return of the Defenders page on this site. This

Chris Hattan is continuing to work on the audiobook for Defender of Vosj. As of Sunday, he was at chapter 40 of 74. The final copy is due at the end of February, and I'm keen to review it. It should be available on Amazon in early March. Well, the opening book to the second series took a tumble after I finished making the revisions I had in mind. The editor took exception to where the story ends, and after a week of thinking, I had to agree. So, now I am moving the ending up

Chris is continuing to work on the audiobook for Defender of Vosj. The final copy is due in February, and I'm keen to hear it. Austin is at the southern limit of the winter freeze hitting the USA, and this week's photo is the view down my street on Sunday morning. This is the third time I've seen snow in the 15 years I've been here. I'm in the final phase of revising the first book in Arise Defenders . I am anticipating publishing the first book in the series in the summer o

Last month, I reached 280,000 pages read on Kindle Unlimited, a sum I never expected to see. I may reach 2 million total pages sometime this month. Thank you to all those who have read my books; it is for the readers that I put in all this effort. I have made an about-turn on my audiobook. For now, my skills are not adequate, so I've found a nice narrator on ACX who has agreed to provide the audio file for the first book by the end of February. Chris Hattan's picture is this

As usual, I'm writing this blog on the Sunday before I add it. However, today is my 72nd birthday! Today, I received some wonderful life-affirming texts thanking me for surviving this long. And my wife went with me to see the Nutcracker in Austin - my first ballet! Altogether, it was a memorable day. The fourth book has been out for a fortnight, and the reaction has been encouraging. For this month, I'm on track to reach a quarter million page reads on Kindle Unlimited, which

The fourth book was released on 12/9. Its revised cover is shown in the photo, and it is available for review on its page on this site. That is it for any new releases for several months, while I concentrate my time on the second four-book series, which I have tentatively dubbed "Arise Defenders." I've begun working on the audiobook for the first volume after getting my sound studio back. Over Thanksgiving, my daughter and I experimented with her doing the female characters'

The first three books are doing well, with the fourth book available for preorder. It will be published on December 9th. This week's picture is of its cover. This is the first draft, and I am interested in people's thoughts on it. The bad guy is dressed as a knight in armor, but I don't have any knights in the story, so do people find this misleading? I'm keen to begin working on the audiobook for the first volume and hoped to begin last week. But my daughter is visiting for

My anthology's ninth short story, Lastin's Blizzard, is ready for my beta reader. The tenth story requires significant reworking, as...

The Rhubarb Queen is ready, but the cover isn't. With the tax season taking more time than I expected and me being in the office each...

It's been a busy week. It was the first week back in my company's offices, so I had to get back into the routine of getting up before six...

It's been a quiet week during which I've made good progress with my anthology. I've completed the fourth story, What Comes Before , and...

Our weather has done another Texas two-step on us, dropping 20+ degrees overnight. Otherwise, things have been as quiet as world events...

It has been an uneventful week here in central Texas, so I've included a photo from the previous week when we had our first snowfall in...