Category: Status Report

A word from the Author

With the third book being released, I’m certain there are a few wondering what all this is leading to. A snarky author would say, a climactic last book! Well, snarky or not it’s true. At some point in the future, this series will finish up and a new one will begin. I expect this series to be five or six books long. ( I know which the publisher would like  )

As it continues, I will be adding more and more about what’s been going on, and back-linking to the earlier books. There is a reason for everything. The bad guys may seem like they’re not motivated by anything other than being bad, I can tell you that’s not true. Each has a reason that they have behaved the way they have. with only two or three books left, it is now my intention to start pulling back the curtain, and showing you what’s behind it. Not fast, mind you, that would spoil the suspense.

And, to all those that have read these books, thank you from the bottom of my heart. I’m honored you took a chance on me to entertain you, and I appreciate it so very much that I had the chance to make your reading fun and enjoyable. Now, back to NaNo, and stay tuned for more books, more stories, and more fun!

Beguiling Words

The manuscript for ‘Beguiling Words’ is now on its electronic way to Paper Angel Press.  I’m excited to have it done, and am waiting already for the edits and suggestions to come back from the editor.  Paper Angel Press has three really good ones; Steve, Kim, and Laureen. If you’ve got a story you want to submit, send on to them. Their link is to your right on the page.  Try it, new stories are always welcome.

 

The revelations of collaborating on an audio book

One new experience I’ve had since being published, is the creation of an audiobook of ‘Best Intentions’. To say it was a learning experience, catches the essence, but it was way more than that.

One thing I’ve learned is that what sounds great in my head, comes out on audio and my first thought is, “What the hell was I thinking?” There were more than a few places that got past me, the editors, and publisher that the audio found loud and clear. I’d read to myself before, but hearing another person put her words to the book brought out and highlighted every flaw in my writing tenfold.

That gave me new incentive to get it right the first time. And I had to learn how to listen all over again. To hear the mistakes, and mark the places to clean up. The narrator had to put up with my mind erratically catching and missing corrections. I made it a lot harder on her, and everyone involved, than it needed to be.

( more about the experience on the next post )

A few thoughts on what I’ve learned about writing

What I learned about being a writer is that

a) it’s hard work,

b) there are long days of struggle with few sentences, and occasional bursts of inspiration that can cover pages,

c) the stories are what drive the writer, the desire to see for themselves, what happens next, and finally

d) there is nothing like seeing the end of the story so another can begin.

New Amazon author site, and thoughts on ‘branding’

As stated in the title, I’ve an Amazon author page. It is difficult as all get out to find, unless you use the link here. There are a LOT of J Dark out there, authors, parts of names, etc. One very important part of sales, both books and nearly everything, as sales people will tell you is ‘branding’. What is it that makes you unique, or intriguing. With books, it’s the cover, and your name. Niki has done great things with the cover, but my name isn’t terribly unique. it may be that a pseudonym would help make me and my books easier to find, though I’m not certain what all that would entail.
For those of you curious about the author page, here’s the link:

The New Year, and a skill plateau

Hiya, as you can tell it’s eight days into the New Year and this is the first post.  it’s been a little slow, and for that I apologize.  To get to the situation, Book Three, (current working title “Beguiling Words”) is stubbornly refusing to finish.  It may require a rewrite of the last portion again to find that elusive path to the end.

Frustrations aside, things feel like when a person is moving from conscious thought to a more instinctive reply.  There’s a point in practice, where, at the start you have a steep learning curve, and then a plateau, where movements you have to think about to perform, struggle to become a learned response one doesn’t have to think about.  This is where I’m feeling my writing at the moment.  It’s like I can see more of my weaknesses, and I can get around them by thinking about each word and situation, but there’s the struggle to push on and let the words flow, which then loses some of the descriptive emotional color, or vibrancy of the background.

The job now is to let the lessons I’m seeing in writing sink in and become part of the learned response so I can add more to the story while the instinctual flow can add more color, description, and emotional impact without the conscious part interrupting the creative flow.

Apologies for the disappearance

Hi there, all of you who still check in to see what’s going on.  My apologies for disappearing without explanation. There were a few things I had to take care of and that didn’t leave time to update this site as faithfully as I’d hoped to.  So thank you all for hanging in there. I’ll be updating Monday-Wednesday-Friday for the rest of the month. Thank you again for sticking around. Please comment too! I do love comment and critique. They only help me to improve!

JD

State of the Submission

Currently, Glass Bottles (or whatever the eventual name will be), is in review.  It’s expected that there will be two more edits and reviews to iron out any logic gaps and story bumps.  In the meantime I’m going over book two, and doing some short story writing for fun.  I don’t think any of the shorts will be published, but you never know.  I just like the chance to try out ideas.