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Tag: Lone Wolf

I’d like to thank my editors

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As I sit here waiting for my first shipment of The Lone Wolf to be delivered to my house (UPS’s website tells me it’s currently “out for delivery”), I’m still kind of amazed that I have a published novel. I started writing it in February 2010, so it’s been quite a long journey from initial scene (which actually didn’t even end up in the final draft) to the book (almost) in my hand.

I’ve had a ton of help with it, especially from my great editors at Evolved Publishing. Lane Diamond and Mishael Witty pored over my manuscript for five months, getting rid of superfluous proper nouns and I-bombs.

Both Mishael and Lane are also writers, and I highly suggest you check out their books.

Lane also has several short stories available: “Devane’s Reality,” “Paradox,” “The Well-Suited Sentry,” and “Wind Tunnel.”

Book sell sheets

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Earlier this month, Indies Unlimited had a great post on book sell sheets, which are basically flyers with all your book’s relevant info on them: author name and contact info, ISBN and price, description and genre, etc.

Click for a bigger view

My first novel, The Lone Wolf, is launching in about a month. It’ll be available through Amazon, Barnes and Noble, Smashwords, and my publisher’s website, but I want it available locally too – and a lot of bookstores are willing to sell local authors’ books. So I made a sell sheet.

And I’m really glad I did. It was great to walk into a bookstore and hand the order person all the information. They had the ISBN right in front of them to enter into the computer, and any questions they had were answered by the info on the sheet.

It paid off, too – Barnes and Noble agreed to stock my novel, BAM was a maybe (not a no!), a mall chain said they’d stock it if they can find space, and another said they’d most likely take it on consignment (but the guy I need to talk to is on vacation). And the library is getting a couple copies for circulation!

If you have a book you’d like to get into stores, I highly recommend you make a sell sheet too.

Weekend Writing Warriors 10/27/13 #WeWriWa

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36 days until my novel, The Lone Wolf, launches – that’s only 5 weeks!

After her husband’s infidelities are revealed, Kasey Sanford just wants to rediscover who she is. After an abusive childhood and years as a career soldier, Andrew Adams just wants someone to tell him that he’s doing the right thing with his life. When their paths cross, Kasey and Andrew embark on a tumultuous journey that demonstrates just what they’re willing to do to save the ones they love.

Last week, Andrew made the decision to move with his girlfriend to North Carolina. She moved right away, and he joined her a couple months later. In this chunk, he just got to her apartment for good – and found her in bed with another guy.

“What the hell, Lauren?” I said as I stared at her, pleading for this not to be happening, not another relationship ending this way, not after I’d just given up everything in Kentucky for her.

“You can hate me, if you want,” she said to me as she fidgeted with the hem of her shirt. “I wouldn’t blame you, but he was just fun in bed. You’re the one I want to be with, Andrew.”

I pulled her door shut behind me and calmly walked down the hall out to the parking lot; calmly pulled out my keys and carved “WHORE” into the driver’s side door of Lauren’s car; calmly got into my truck and drove off.

I was in a new town, with no place to live and no job for another week. Just me and a cat and a trailer full of all my shit. What the hell was I supposed to do now?

Post a link to your eight sentences blog entry, or join the fun at the Weekend Writing Warriors website.

Weekend Writing Warriors 10/20/13 #WeWriWa

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43 days until my novel, The Lone Wolf, launches – that’s only 6 weeks!

After her husband’s infidelities are revealed, Kasey Sanford just wants to rediscover who she is. After an abusive childhood and years as a career soldier, Andrew Adams just wants someone to tell him that he’s doing the right thing with his life. When their paths cross, Kasey and Andrew embark on a tumultuous journey that demonstrates just what they’re willing to do to save the ones they love.

Last week, Andrew argued with his girlfriend Lauren over whether they should move from Kentucky to North Carolina so she could take a new job. She informed him that she was going, with or without him.

Nine months ago, when I’d gotten back from my latest deployment, I’d resumed my job at the police station. One weekend we’d had a basketball tournament against teams from the hospital and fire station, and Lauren had been there. A mutual friend introduced us, we’d started talking, and we just clicked. A lot of people assumed it was just sex, but there was more to Lauren than her looks; she was smart, funny, and great with people. We’d been together for six months, and I liked her. A lot.

I wasn’t sure if it was love, if she was The One, but I would never know if we ended things now. “Fine, I’ll go.”

Post a link to your eight sentences blog entry, or join the fun at the Weekend Writing Warriors website.

Weekend Writing Warriors 10/13/13 #WeWriWa

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Just 50 days until my novel, The Lone Wolf, launches!!

After her husband’s infidelities are revealed, Kasey Sanford just wants to rediscover who she is. After an abusive childhood and years as a career soldier, Andrew Adams just wants someone to tell him that he’s doing the right thing with his life. When their paths cross, Kasey and Andrew embark on a tumultuous journey that demonstrates just what they’re willing to do to save the ones they love.

Continuing on from last week, Andrew had a fight with his girlfriend Lauren and stomped out. It’s the middle of the night, and he’s gone back to their apartment to try to patch things up. She wants him to move with her from Kentucky to North Carolina, but he’s concerned about how difficult it’ll be for him.

“This head nursing position is a really good thing for me, for us, for our future,” said Lauren. “I’m taking it whether you move with me or not, but I want you to come with.”

That woke me up. “You’re accepting the job? You said you’d wait until we agreed on what we were going to do, that we’d figure it out together.”

“Well, when you told me how selfish I was and stormed out, I decided you were right, I am selfish. So I called the hospital and accepted the job, which means either you’re coming with me, or you’re staying here by yourself.”

“You woke me up in the middle of the night to give me an ultimatum?”

Post a link to your eight sentences blog entry, or join the fun at the Weekend Writing Warriors website.

Weekend Writing Warriors 10/6/13 #WeWriWa

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Holy hell, it’s already October, and my novel, The Lone Wolf, launches in less than two months (57 days, to be precise)!

After her husband’s infidelities are revealed, Kasey Sanford just wants to rediscover who she is. After an abusive childhood and years as a career soldier, Andrew Adams just wants someone to tell him that he’s doing the right thing with his life. When their paths cross, Kasey and Andrew embark on a tumultuous journey that demonstrates just what they’re willing to do to save the ones they love.

For the past month I’ve been posting about Kasey, but she’s only half the story. In this chunk, Andrew and his girlfriend Lauren had a big fight, and he stormed off to his brother’s house for the night. Lauren called him and asked him to come back, to try to work things out.

It felt good to be outside, just me and the night. I glanced up at the full moon high in the sky as I drove. A poem I’d heard as a kid popped into my head: I see the moon and the moon sees me; God bless the moon and God bless me.

I laughed under my breath. God and I didn’t have much to do with each other anymore.

I hesitated outside our apartment door. When you’d been kicked out of your place, should you knock, or just go right in? Either way, Lauren would find a problem with it.

Post a link to your eight sentences blog entry, or join the fun at the Weekend Writing Warriors website.

I got this covered

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As I’ve mentioned several times, I’m currently in grad school, working on a master’s of social work. The program I’m in is great, but it’s basically a professional program, and while there are a couple research classes, it’s generally pretty light on methodology and stats and all that fun stuff. I’m strongly leaning towards a doctorate in educational policy, and so I’ve decided to do the optional thesis (also, because I love research papers).

I recently met with my thesis committee. I have two of the profs for class this semester, but I’d never met the third prior to our meeting.

We fleshed out my brief proposal outline (PTSD and educational response to intervention in socioeconomically-disadvantaged high school students), and the third prof expressed concern that I’d be writing the lit review without first taking any graduate-level writing classes.

“I was first author on a couple academic articles I published with a professor as an undergrad, and my thesis won the psych department’s award for best senior thesis.”

She nodded.

“As for creative writing,” I continued, “I have a novel coming out in December.”

Everyone stared at me. “A novel?”

“And, uh, I’ve had almost two dozen short stories published.”

They all smiled and agreed that yeah, I have the writing part of the thesis covered. Now to just do the actual research and hope my proposal gets past the review board next year.

Fall goal review

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Every three months or so, I take a look at the progress I’ve made on the goals I set for myself at the start of the year.

  1. Publish my novel, The Lone Wolf.
  2. Average a short story acceptance each month, with the majority of them in paying markets.
  3. Put out a short story collection.
  4. Get another novel ready to query – either 2012’s NaNoWriMo novel, or the one I’ve been working on for a couple years, A Handful of Wishes.
  5. Read 100 books this year.
  6. Kayak the entire length of the Hennepin Canal.

So, how am I doing?

  1. Yes! Evolved Publishing picked it up, and release date is just two months away, on December 2nd.
  2. I’ve pretty much sucked at this. Grad school is taking up a lot of my time (“ambitious” is how one of my thesis committee profs described my academic aspirations), and between reading, class papers, and thesis research, I haven’t been writing as much as I’d like, and I don’t even currently have any submissions out.
  3. Us, Together: A Short Story Collection came out in June. I’m really hoping to have another one, The Futility of Loving a Soldier, out by the end of October, and definitely by the time The Lone Wolf launches.
  4. The first chapter of A Handful of Wishes will be included in the back of The Lone Wolf, so I guess I have to keep moving with it. The semester ends at Thanksgiving, so I’ll have a month to really focus on it, then 3-4 months for edits, before the April deadline for a Christmas 2014 release.
  5. I’m at 57 books this year – 16 books behind. Again, I’m hoping to knock a bunch out when the semester ends. I currently have hundreds on my Kindle to choose from, so this shouldn’t be difficult.
  6. Yeah, not happening. No fulltime permanent job = no new vehicle to transport a kayak = no kayak. Grr.

If you’ve set goals for yourself, how’re they going so far this year? 

Weekend Writing Warriors 9/29/13 #WeWriWa

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I’m continuing on with my soon-to-be-released women’s fiction novel, The Lone Wolf, out December 2nd from Evolved Publishing.

After her husband’s infidelities are revealed, Kasey Sanford just wants to rediscover who she is. After an abusive childhood and years as a career soldier, Andrew Adams just wants someone to tell him that he’s doing the right thing with his life. When their paths cross, Kasey and Andrew embark on a tumultuous journey that demonstrates just what they’re willing to do to save the ones they love.

Someone slipped Kasey some pictures of her husband David in bed with another woman. She had all afternoon to freak out, and last week she confronted him about them when he got home from work.

“I never meant to hurt you. She was there, and I was stressed, lonely, I guess. She provided an outlet; I don’t know. She didn’t mean anything though, because I love you and only you.”

“Who is she?” I asked, my voice still cold, my fists clenched, fingernails cutting into my palms.

“The one in the pictures? She was—”

“As opposed to who, the one taking them?” I pounced on his choice of words; after years as a lawyer’s wife, I’d learned the importance of paying attention to the nuances of someone’s speech. “What do you mean, the one in the pictures – there were more?”

Want to read more? Sign up for my publisher’s newsletter in the next week, and you’ll get a 5 chapter sneak peek! (And sign up for my newsletter too – link over there on the left – for updates and giveaways – plenty to come as the launch approaches!)

Post a link to your eight sentences blog entry, or join the fun at the Weekend Writing Warriors website. 

The 99-day plan

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I’ve been a bit swamped the past week, between reading for class and papers and a big project and a thesis proposal and a brief trip out of town. So for today’s post, I’m copying author Christopher C. Starr’s post about ninjas following their dreams in the 99 days left this year.

Basically, it comes down to three questions:

  1. What results do you want to get over the next 99 days?
  2. What sacrifices will you make to get these results?
  3. If something is going to stop you, what will it be?

1. What results do you want to get over the next 99 days? I want to sell a ton of copies of my novel, The Lone Wolf, which comes out December 2nd. I also want to sell a ton of copies of my other stories,”Tim and Sara,” Us, Together: A Short Story Collection, and The Futility of Loving a Soldier, which I’m still editing. Possibly another longer short story as well. Which means I need to write.

2. What sacrifices will you make to get these results? Basically, it comes down to time management. I need to stop wasting so much time on the internet and just write and edit. And I especially need to get this down because after my novel comes out, I’ll need to focus on finishing and editing the next one (due the end of May), as well as really hitting the research on my master’s thesis (due in August).

3. If something is going to stop you, what will it be? Two things, probably: procrastination and just too much going on, especially when I start working again. I’m taking two classes this semester, which generally aren’t bad if I stay on top of them, but that’s the problem; the readings can pile up very quickly.

What’s your 99-day plan?

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