I had my share of feeling run-down during December but right now I am suffering from a full-blown flu. I’ve been to the doctor, but apparently they don’t have a cure for that yet! I live in 21st century America. I want to take a pill and be all better!
I’ve been writing a bit on both Astrid Maxxim and 82 Eridani and both are coming along well. It’s a little Jeckyl & Hyde going from one to the other, but there you go.
I finished re-reading Blood Trade and have fixed about a dozen typoes and quirks that popped up in translating from .doc to the various ebook formats. If you have purchased this book, you should be able to download the new version free. The new version had “Revision 01-02-13” on the copyright page.
Vegas is going to hell– literally. Werewolves run through the streets and the vampires are taking over. Former army ranger/Goth tattoo model/private eye Xochitl McKenna doesn’t like it either, especially when it comes between her and her clients. But are the vampires and werewolves the greatest threat, or is it something or someone much closer to her? Warning: Adult Content.
I’m just finishing reading Blood Trade. I really like this book, and not just because I wrote it. 🙂
Seriously, reading this again really makes me want to get to writing the sequel.
I’m really happy whenever somebody buys a copy of the book, and there are a few sold each month. Since I have yet to sell 200, I like to think there is still quite an audience for a gritty vampire book.
If you haven’t read it yet, read the sample at Smashwords or Amazon or iBookstore and see if you like it.
I always keep pretty tight track of the passing of time and days in my stories. In some, like Senta and the Steel Dragon, that got pretty complicated because I also created my own calendar with new months.
When I started writing Astrid, in 2010, I began using a 2012 calendar and kept track of the events in the story.
Astrid Maxxim and her Amazing Hoverbike takes place from March 3 to April 7.
Astrid Maxxim and her Undersea Dome takes place from April 22 to May 26.
So there are just a few weeks of character time between each story, even though for me, about a year and half has passed.
Astrid’s grandfather was the founder of Maxxim Industries and the Maxxim Campus. I haven’t actually given him a name yet, but I like Ralph Maxxim. He and his wife had three children– Roger and Carl, who are a year apart, and then 17 years later, Penelope.
Roger married Kate and it was they who inherited the company and became Astrid’s parents.
Carl married Loren, whom his parents apparently never warmed to, and they had Gloria. Though Carl and Loren were amply taken care of in his father’s will, he and Loren were unhappy that they were “cut out” of the company. So they used the majority of their inheritance to puchase Maxxim stock– enough that they both have seats on the board.
Penelope is unmarried. Like her brothers, she is a genius. She has her own fortune and a large block of Maxxim stock (more than Carl, but only half as much as Roger). However, still young and carefree, she spends most of her time jetting around to clubs and parties around the world.
There are a few other characters that I haven’t talked about in Astrid Maxxim.
Gloria Maxxim is Astrid’s Cousin. She made a brief appearance in book 1, and was a bit more prominant in book 2, but we can expect to see her more and more.
Gloria is in many ways the polar opposite of Astrid. Gloria cares nothing for intellectual pursuits and dreams of being a model. She thinks of her brainy cousin as nothing but a nerd, and isn’t afraid to say so. Gloria is vain and pretty obnoxious, so she makes a great foil for Astrid, and since they are related, Astrid can’t really get away from her completely. Though Gloria’s family lives in Socketburg, in book 2 she transfers for part of the year to Rachel Carson High.
Mark Coker at Smashwords reports that Smashwords authors have enjoyed a 76% increase in sales through Apple iBookstore after Christmas. See the original post here. This is aggregated from 125,000 Smashwords titles, so it’s too early to tell if that has had an impact on my books, but it sounds good. Apple has been my best selling outlet for a while now.
On a related note, sales are up for my books at Amazon’s Kindle Store too.
Obviously having a small sales increase (of the amount that I might hope for) won’t immediately make me wealthy or allow me to retire from teaching and focus on writing, but anything that makes you feel good about writing can be a great motivator. And getting my books out into the hands of readers makes me feel good.
At the beginning of 2012, I set a goal to write an average of six pages a day. I had fallen behind by Spring, but had gotten way ahead by the end of Summer. Then the days slowly caught up with me, with so much to do in the Fall at work, leaving me little time to focus on my writing. But over Winter Break, I’ve been writing my ass off and I managed to get back on quota and meet my goal for the year with one page extra.
So for my only New Year’s Resolution– I’m going to try and write an average of 8 pages a day in 2013.
I really want to get all 5 books on the previews page done this year. I published 5 books in 2010, but two of them were already written before the year started. As this year begins, Astrid Maxxim is almost done, Blood Trade is about 10% done, His Robot Wife is about 25% done, 82 Eridani is about 15% done, and The Sorceress and her Lovers is about 1% done. I can do it….
City of Amathar 