The Journey

Sword of Kings: Available on Amazon!

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Hi Friends –

My short epic fantasy tale, Sword of Kings, is now available for just $.99 on Amazon.

This is an original fantasy of about 4,000 words and includes–as all my stories do–a Story Notes section that details the background and motivations for how I created the tale.

Description
King Andreas was confident, bold, courageous…until his sword–the living symbol of his power–began to die. With his brother Jon by his side, Andreas has little time to find out why the sword, passed down through a hundred generations, is failing now.

Excerpt
Had you been a courtier or a guard or a supplicant that day at the first court of the Harvest in the Kingdom of Mercia, with a sharp eye and a clear view, and had you been watching the young King Andreas Thad as he moved to end the assembly by lifting the sword of his ancestors from its black iron rack and placing it across his knees to signal that the justice dealt that day had the strength and power of the throne behind it…

You would’ve been witness to history.

.   .   .

The burnt gold of autumn was rolling across the land and plaintiffs filled the King’s Hall, eager to make good on claims before the snows of a harsh winter buried villages and crimes alike. King Andreas, in the second year of his reign, dispensed justice from his throne while his sword, the symbol of his right to rule, lay in its rack within arm’s reach. His brother Jon–named to the office of King’s Sword, his most trusted advisor for life–stood to his left. Three steps lower on the dais stooped the aged Chancellor Tallus, councilor to Andreas’s father and grandfather before him. A crowd filled the hall with a steady buzz which had, in turns, swelled and faded as the audience dragged on.

When the God’s Bell finally tolled three times to signal the end of court, Andreas gratefully stood to draw his blade and lay it across his knees. The court had lasted for hours and the entire hall was drowsy and bored, as was its young and impatient monarch. Andreas was a man of action, not thought, and he’d already been through more courts, audiences, and balls in his young reign than he could stand. Each interminable function seemed to require the ceremonial flourishing of the king’s sword, so it was with near boredom that he reached over, put his hand on the hilt of the weapon, and pulled.

He gasped as he nearly dropped it.

“Andreas?” Jon asked, taking a half-step towards his brother.

“Don’t,” Andreas said, gritting his teeth as he tried to lift the sword. A King of Mercia could not be seen receiving aid in his own court, but the surprise had made him clumsy. The sword clashed against the iron rack like a scullery’s pots being dropped. The buzz of the hall took on an edge as the crowd watched the King’s discomfort; heads turned to watch what was normally an unremarkable part of the court ritual turn into a struggle. Tallus turned to look over his shoulder at his liege, his sleepy eyes widening.

The blade was a deadweight. It took both hands and all of Andreas’s strength to lift it, stagger to his throne, and place the bared blade on his thighs. It required the rest of his composure to dismiss the assembly calmly. Tallus, sensing a crisis to be avoided, herded the crowd along, waving impatiently at the guards to chase the stragglers craning their heads to see what had left their liege shaking with effort. The court melted away, glancing back at the King’s pale face and sweat-slicked brow as they left.

“Andreas,” Jon said once they were alone. “What’s wrong?”

Andreas said nothing, instead running his hands over the sword that was his birthright. The blade, wider than a big man’s palm, was corroded and pitted;  the day before it had been as brilliant and sharp as a barber’s razor. Andreas had been able to see his reflection in it—a young king in his prime looking back from the mirror-like steel. Now he saw nothing but a pocked and frowning monarch late in years and he was frightened. He tried lifting the sword again, swinging it as he had a thousand times, but even with his veins standing out in his neck and his arms straining with the effort, the blade rose no more than a foot off the floor. He let the point sink to the ground, panting and staring at it as a sick realization washed over him.

The sword was dying.

We Interrupt This Program

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Happy Valentine’s Day, everyone!

Two events are going to put a slight zig in the zag of this blog over the next week. Even if you follow my blog religiously, you may not notice either one of them, but I think it’s good practice to have full disclosure.

Facelift
After some careful consideration and advice from friends and family, I’ll be testing out a new theme (MistyLook) and layout for the site this week. The aim is to increase readability, improve access, and to speed up the reader experience on the site. Thanks to WordPress’s almost seamless theme integration, the only thing you may notice is your own sigh of relief as you read my 600-1200 words post in regular black-type-on-a-white background instead of reverse type.

Major changes will be:

  • Black type-on-a-white background for easier reading
  • Wider central column for less scrolling
  • Homepage will be the blog (like the rest of the universe), not fluff text
  • Post summaries with “read more” links instead of entire post
  • Nicer serif to sans-serif font changes for titles vs. content areas

Nothing to do with the theme, but planned-for changes in the future:

  • Richer, more meaningful masthead graphic
  • A side-bar “Best of” list of my better blog posts for easier finding

Hiatus
My wife and I will be taking a short trip to Key West next week. I’ll be scheduling blog posts to keep up the conversation, but may not be able to thank you for commenting or add to the chatter myself. But please know I value each and every comment, “Like”, and pingback!

We’ll be back to our regularly-scheduled commentary by February 24. Thanks for your patience and thank you for following my blog.

Three Shorts is free!

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Hi folks –

My first crime fiction collection, Three Shorts, is free for a limited time on all the major eBook channels and readers (Kindle, Nook, iTunes, Kobo, Sony). Please take advantage and grab your copy today; I’d love to know what you think about it, so feel free to comment here or on the collection’s page.

This is my first foray into a free promotion and I’m excited to see where it takes me. On the first day it went free (last Friday), it jumped from #377,721 (or so…) to #1,844 on Amazon. Still far from Top 100 material, but exciting nevertheless. Sales of other titles have remained level, but I’m after exposure and reach at this point. We’ll talk money later 🙂

A novel idea

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After several years of working on my craft but poor showings with my short stories, I decided it was about time to try my had at writing a novel.

The funny thing is, for such a mundane and commonplace object, the novel is fairly poorly defined. It’s one thing to stroll through a library or a bookstore, running your hand along spines, and say “these are novels”. It’s quite another to sit down in front of a computer, fire up a word processor, and start to type.

[Read more…]

Get in your saddle and ride…now

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My journey to digital self-publication is far from original but it almost didn’t occur due to an almost fatal (to my career) ability to procrastinate.

I’d wanted to “be a writer” for almost as long as I can remember, but the proof is in the pudding (to daisy-chain two clichés together). For years, I managed to write a paltry short story or two a year. I’d toss them in the mail with little market research or editorial diligence, then wallow in self-pity when the rejection slips came back. The wallowing was made worse by my firm belief that I, indeed, had “it” and just needed to be “discovered” by a Big Six editor (before I knew what that was) while pausing at a rest-stop on I-95 or by chatting up a NYT best-selling author as I stood in the lunch line at Subway.

And I didn’t bother bolstering whatever natural talent I had with a scrap of education or self-edification. I figured I could always get my MFA (ha!), but why bother? Hemingway hadn’t gone to school for writing, Melville barely left his farm after returning from the sea, Bukowski was a postman for Christ’s sake. I’d eventually get around to the act of writing…and when I did, watch the hell out world, because life would never be the same. They’d make Hallmark calendars centered around the day I published my novel. Animals would come up to me in the forest to sit on my lap and eat out of my hand. Weather patterns would form around my house as the creative power of my brain caused a micro-climate to form in my neighborhood.

Needless to say, actually sitting down and writing something didn’t figure into this equation. Since it was understood that you had to write to be a writer, I glossed over that small fact and thought a lot more about hypothetical acceptance speeches and book signings than I ever did about creating anything. Writers call this irony.

By the time I woke up (mmm…around 30?) I realized I not only had to start writing, I had to start writing–and learning–now. I had serious ground to make up. There were writers my age who had finished two or three novels in college…and considered them “drawer novels”, not fit for anything except propping up a table. And writing had to begin with learning and re-learning all those things I’d ignored or given short shrift to for years: plot, character, pacing, theme, rhythm, voice, point-of-view, continuity.

Long story short, for the past ten or twelve years I’ve been applying myself as much to learning the craft as working towards publication (of any sort). It’s been frustrating watching others catch success along the way while I’m re-reading Elements of Style, but I’m not going to write anything I can’t stand behind and that’s going to take patience and a dedication to the craft.

There are only two important rules in this game: are you writing? And, is what you’ve written the best it could possibly be? The second rule implies immersing yourself in the creative art of writing. But the first requires the act itself.

If you’re not actually writing, you’re not a writer. Please don’t make my mistake. Get in your saddle and ride…now.