Another Year of Worldbuilding

Worldbuilders ends tomorrow. I just posted my last set of pledges, and I'm feeling pretty good about it.

You see, every year I donate all the profits from my book sales to Worldbuilders, because Pat Rothfuss is awesome, and because Heifer International is awesome, and because helping them out makes me feel pretty awesome too.

This time around, that came to just over $2,530.00. I know, not really a big deal in the grand scheme of things, but hey, it's just over double what I brought in last year.

When I think about how The Will of the Elements started - as a story that I told my fiance every night while we were a state apart - it kind of boggles the mind. I mean, that's like 5 cows and 5 water buffaloes for people who need them in 2 years. 

From a story. 

That I related over the phone. 

Two hours at a time.

You know what? That does feel kind of awesome.

So, to anyone out there reading this, thank you for taking a chance on my books. Thank you to the people who reviewed them, to the people who recommended them to friends and family, and to the people who kept me having fun along the way. And thank you for helping to make the world a better and more awesome place.

Wow, that sounded kind of final... don't worry though! I've got stories and surprises aplenty to come. Maybe I'll even post something more than once every six months!

Child of Lightning

One year ago today, I started a little trilogy called The Will of the Elements. I figure it's about time I finished that up.

The Will of the Elements, Book 3: Child of Lightning is now available on Amazon and Smashwords.

Thanks again to everyone who has given my books a try. I know you have a lot of options when deciding what to read, and I just cannot even begin to convey how much I appreciate that you took a chance on the stuff I wrote.

Here's another little promotional video.

Well, I haven't been sufficiently discouraged from writing yet... So I guess I'll keep doing it. Stay tuned, I have more stories to tell.

Book 3 Update

20 minutes of just passing and shooting nearly killed me... I apparently took water polo for granted. At least I can still skip a backhand shot cross pool...


In other news, 123k words, and I still have 8 chapters to write and another 5 that need a full re-write... which makes this my longest book. As a series, I think I'll be pushing 380-400k words. But I've heard the first million are a warm up... and I intend to sprint.

Book 3 Progress

I guess I should post something about my progress on book 3...or something...


Anyways, Child of Lightning is coming along nicely. It's all plotted out and broken into chapters (at the moment there are 70 of them). I am writing full time. And by full time, I mean whenever I'm not at work. Or swimming. Or playing video games. Or wasting time while I think of a reason to not write... Look, I'm sure that I'm spending some time writing. I anticipate it'll be done (i.e. edited and ready for release) at some point in August. The Kirsten O'Donnell chapters are pretty fun, if I do say so myself...

Thanks for giving my books a try, I'll post more updates as they come.

W is for...

Worldbuilding! Specifically in how it relates to The Will of the Elements.

Okay, so once upon a time, I sat through a lecture or two on The Lord of the Rings and the Inklings in general. One of the concepts I really took away from there was that in order to create a good book you need three things. First, you need to inspire a love of the world. Second, you need a catastrophe. Third, you need a eucatastrophe, or a catastrophe for good (get it? because Tolkien was a linguist, so he played fast and loose with the English language and was wont to slap things like "eu-" onto words).

So step one is obviously building a world that people will become invested in, that they will want to see preserved because there's something special about it. So I took our world and found a catastrophe... specifically some truly horrible episodes of Heroes. Now yes, they were painful to watch, but they got me thinking. I asked myself, "What if these random people with elemental powers evolved into something more? What if they became living incarnations of the element they were associated with?" So I thought this over. Maybe they would feel compelled to overthrow the civilization that tore the earth asunder, drank her blood and reshaped her bones. Maybe they wouldn't be so cool with the way mankind enslaved lightning and chained fire for their own benefit and comfort. Maybe water and wind should be paid a little homage, being necessary for life and all.

And thus began the War of the Elements. Oh man, let me tell you, it was epic. Earth awakening when he got pushed off that building, Wind manipulating Fire into blowing up that oil tanker to secure her aid, and all of them coming together to bust Lightning out of that cell where the government was milking him for electricity. And then their offensive, it was... oh, wait, I haven't actually written any of that yet. Basically, I came up with this story and realized that an urban fantasy adventure wasn't something I was comfortable writing just yet. But sci-fi, now that was a different story. I mean, I was triple majoring in math, physics, and chemistry for a little while back in the day, until I decided that I'd rather graduate than spend 60 hours in lab a week. Psuedo-science I could do. So I jumped forward by about five hundred years.