Monthly Archives: January 2012

Update: The Young Sorceress

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I just finished chapter 8 of The Young Sorceress.  My enjoyment of this project has waxed and waned, but it is high right now as I get to some of the more exciting parts of the plot.  Originally plotted to be 17 chapters, I’ve combined a few things as I write (something I always do) and right now it’s looking like 14 chapters which will make it the same length as The Dark and Forbidding Land.

A note: My son, who is the world’s biggest Senta and the Steel Dragon fan, having read each book (including the unpublished book 5) six times, tells me The Dark and Forbidding Land is his favorite. 

I think when I finish Book 4, I’m going to go back and read 1, 2, and 3 before editing it.

Facelifts: Coming this Summer

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One of the things I have planned for this summer is a facelift for my complete line of books.  I don’t plan on a re-edit, though I have a few error corrections to make.  What I plan is changing the margins and indents to work better with ereaders.  I did this with Astrid Maxxim and her Amazing Hoverbike and I like the results.  I’m also going to add more book informtion, sample chapters, and coming soon features in the back of the books.

There will also be some price changes in the works.  Pricing is always difficult to judge.  The way that royalties work at least at Amazon, I get 30% of a 99 cent (or 30 cents) book, but 70% of  2.99 book (or 2.03.  In other words, I have to sell 7 times as many books at 99 cents to make as much as selling one at 2.99.  If lowering the price to 99 cents would guarantee a 700% increase in sales, I would lower them all.

Finally, I’m going to make sure that all my books are available in paperback.  I’m getting Astrid Maxxim out because I think some kids might actually buy them.  In all other cases, it’s just for additional exposure, though I have been selling a few paperbacks of His Robot Girlfriend lately.

Nook Friends

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If the number of people asking to be my nook friends is any indication, Barnes and Noble sold a LOT of nooks this Christmas.  This is great, because the more ereaders there are out there, the greater my books’ exposure.  I think the nook is a great little reader and I’m glad that B&N is doing well.  I don’t think it serves anyone for the last major bookstore chain to go under.  So good luck B&N, and welcome all you nook readers.  You can find all of my books on your new readers by following the store links.

Brechalon: Magicians

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Spoiler Alert

And finally, we have our last characters from Senta and the Steel Dragon Book 0: Brechalon.

Madame De La Rosa: Madame De La Rosa is a very old seer. She is an expert in divination, and it is she that Smedley Bassington comes to for information. This is her only appearance in the story.

Amadea Jindra: In Brechalon we meet Amadea Jindra as Madame De La Rosa’s apprentice. She is a major part of the storyline in Book 3: The Drache Girl. I’ll fill in more about her when I get to that book.

Professor Merced Calliere: Calliere is a brilliant scientist and inventor. He is Edison, Westinghouse, and Babbage all rolled intellectually into one, but his attitude is all Tony Stark. He is a happy go lucky academic, who is clearly smitten with Iolanthe, though whether she thinks of him as anything more than another resource remains to be seen.

That’s it for Brechalon. In a day or so, we’ll start looking at the characters from The Voyage of the Minotaur. Many of them are the same as this book, but two years have passed and things change.

Update: Astrid Maxxim and her Undersea Dome

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I am currently nearing the end of chapter six of Astrid Maxxim 2.  I am working on it and The Young Sorceress, which means, when I get stuck in Sorceress, I write for a while in Astrid.  Astrid is easy to write and I imagine I will finish it first of the two.  There will be 20 chapters in all, so I’m just shy of 1/3 way done of the first draft.

Brechalon: Very Minor Characters

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Spoiler Alert

Here are the most minor characters who appear in Brechalon.  Though all are minor, some of them have more importance to the plot than others.

Barrymore: Barrymore is one of the butlers in the Dechantagne household.  I needed a name that conveyed a kind of patrician dignity (think Lionel, not Drew).

Marni: Marni is one of the Dechantagne maids.  There are quite a few household servants, but not all of them get names.

Blackmoore: Blackmoore is a drug dealer– Terrence’s go to drug dealer.  He is fairly influencial (feared) in his world of Black Bottom.  I don’t know if Blackmoore is his first or last name, I assume, last.  His name is an homage to Blackmoor, the D&D adventure by David Arneson, who passed away while I was writing this book.

Mika and his brothers: Mika and his brothers are street toughs, who though they are minor characters, create an interesting chain of events in the story.  I tried to write Blackmoore and Mika with an Irish brogue.  I don’t know if it came through or not.

Update: The Young Sorceress

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Still on chapter 8 of The Young Sorceress.  This is a particularly tough part of the book, as a few plot lines start to come together.  Look for another update next month.  I’m working alternately on this and Astrid Maxxim 2, but I’m going to have to give this one my all, or I can’t get it done.

Brechalon: Flashback Characters

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Spoiler Alert

There are several characters in Senta and the Steel Dragon Book 0: Brechalon that appear entirely or mostly in flashbacks.

Smedley Bassington: Wizard Bassington appears mostly in flashbacks though he appears in the present in one chapter.  Bassington is an important character in the series and plays a large part in Books 3 and 5.  He is a paramour of Zurfina and he is a government wizard.  He is also, as we find out, a great manipulator.  I had a very clear image of what Bassington looked like.  His appearance is based on Stephen King.  I set up my copy of the Dark Tower to the author’s photograph whenever I was writing him.  I had been carrying the name Smedley around for a while, and it just seemed to fit.  Except for his final scene in this book, he’s not that interesting, I don’t think.  He has his part to play, and plays it.  I really enjoyed writing him in Book 3: The Drache Girl.  He is a great foil for Senta.

Master Akalos: Master Akalos was the Dechantagne tutor, a cowardly little man, and not very important to the story.  He is referenced once or twice, but Brechalon is the only place we see him, and that in a flashback.

Iphegenia Dechantagne: The mother of Terrence, Iolanthe, and Augie is murdered by her husband, as we see in a flashback in Book 0.  I don’t think she is ever mentioned again, but she plays an important role nonetheless, in shaping the Dechantagne siblings.  I love the name Iphegenia, and have always been fascinated by the myth of Agamemnon’s sacrificing her.  I would have used the name somewhere, but it fits here.

Lucius Dechantagne: The father of the Dechantagne’s, he is only spoken of in the later books, having died some time before Brechalon, and having lived without facing real punishment for his wife’s murder, though it does apparently cost him his standing in society.

Jolon Bendrin: As we find out in book 0 flashbacks, Jolon Bendrin is a rapist.  He is mentioned only briefly in book 1, but finally makes a satisfying appearance in the flesh in book 5.

Simon Mudgett: The man who was in bed with Iphegenia Dechantagne when her husband kills her.  He is mentioned once more in the series.  I pulled Simon out of nowhere, but Mudgett I have been saving for a while.  The name comes from Herman Webster Mudgett (aka H. H. Holmes), America’s first serial killer.

Brechalon: Prisoner 89

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Spoiler Alert

Prisoner 89 is Zurfina the Sorceress.  We find her at the beginning of book 0 imprisoned in Schwarztogrube, the prison for magic users run by the Kingdom of Greater Brechalon.  During the course of the story, we see her capture and the events surrounding it in flashbacks.  Of course, Zurfina’s sole goal in the story is to escape the prison any way she can, and of course the first way she tries is magic.  The fact that she manages to pull together some pretty intense magic in a supposedly magic-proof location hints at her true power.

The story here is an example of one of the problems with writing a prequel.  Zurfina’s imprisonment isn’t disclosed in the regular story (books 1-5) until well into book 5, but readers of book 0 know it all before hand.  This would be a big clue to one of the major secrets in the series.  Fortunately, it isn’t revealed until book 5 either.

Zurfina is prisoner 89 because I was writing it while working on my master’s degree and I used my student number.  I accidental transposed it.  I was actually student 98, but I think 89 sounds better.

Brechalon: Augie and Company

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Spoiler Alert

Augie Dechantagne
Augustus P. Dechantagne is the third of the Dechantagne siblings in the Senta and the Steel Dragon saga and is probably the least important.  He is least important to the story and he is least important in his own life.  Augie is a happy go lucky rake– the kind of guy that everybody loves and who can get away with anything.

Augie plays a big part in Book 0 and Book 1, particularly the latter.  When we meet him in Book 1, he is in Birmisia.  This is important because as a result of his knowledge, his family decides to build a colony there.  Augie is a lieutenant in the artillery, so he is obviously intelligent, but being in the son of a wealthy family, he is generally unambitious (the exact opposite of sister Iolanathe) and is never serious about anything (the exact opposite of brother Terrence).

Lt. Arthur McTeague
McTeague was created for Book 0, and he doesn’t appear again in the series.  He is Augie’s co-commander and friend.  We don’t learn much about McTeague, other than he is a likeable friendly guy, like Augie.  The name Arthur comes from my own family– a cousin and a grandfather, both of whom I am very fond.  McTeague comes from the book McTeague by Frank Norris, about a sociopathic dentist.  I read it in college and liked it.

Colour Sergeant Bourne
I needed a sergeant for my two lieutenants, and who better than Colour Sergeant Bourne.  He is named of course, for the character (based on a real person) in the movie Zulu.  This is especially fitting, since Zulu is not only one of my favorite movies of all time, but was an inspiration for the combat scenes in Book 1: The Voyage of the Minotaur.