‘The Guardians’ Update

Posted on November 28, 2013 by E. R. Paskey

For 08those of you in the US, Happy Thanksgiving! Hope y’all have a wonderful day with family and friends. For those of you outside the US, have a great weekend. 🙂

I have some good news and some interesting news.

Good news? I finally have a title for the third book in The Guardians series. It’ll be called Treason’s Edge.

It was one of two possibilities I’ve been wrestling with for a few months now, but I think it does a better job of encapsulating the essence of Book 3.

Now for the interesting news…it’s going to take me a little longer than anticipated to finish Treason’s Edge. I crossed the 150,000 word mark on Tuesday, and the story needs a good 5-8 chapters yet to reach the end. I confess, that kinda caught me by surprise.

That said, word/chapter count will probably decrease in the second draft as I go back through and clean up sections where my characters are just spinning their wheels. (Sometimes the only way to make it through sticky, writer’s-block-inducing sections is to write the next sentence, and the sentence after that, and the sentence after that, until something finally breaks loose.)

I’d like to have the rough draft finished by the end of the year and the finished book hopefully out by March 2014, but we’ll see.

Part of my problem is the fact that I had a lot of preconceived notions going into this book. I’ve been looking forward to writing TE for at least five years—and I had a number of scenes and ideas for scenes that I thought would make it into the story. Imagine my surprise when the story balked and refused to progress until I let go of those ideas and proceeded off along the completely different course my characters were merrily charting without me!

It was a bit of a shock. 😛

The very cool result, however, is that TE has taken a number of twists and turns that are far better than anything I’d dreamed up over the last few years. I think y’all are going to enjoy this next installment. I know I’ve enjoyed watching it unfold as I write…even if it’s led to a few moments where I’ve seriously contemplated pulling out all my hair.

…which inevitably leads to moments where I’m staring at a wall instead of my computer screen and one of my brothers walks in and intones in a very deep voice, “Ah, the writer at work.”

A pen or two may be thrown at that point… but I’m not admitting to anything. 🙂

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Release News: ‘The Other Side of the Horizon’!

Posted on November 7, 2013 by E. R. Paskey

I am absoluTOSOTH_websitetely delighted to announce that The Other Side of the Horizon has been published! It’s now available at Amazon, Barnes & Noble, Kobo, and Smashwords, and is in the process of rolling out everywhere else.

The print edition will be available from Amazon and Barnes & Noble in a couple of weeks.

Considering that The Other Side of the Horizon started life as my very first NaNoWriMo project back in 2011, it’s fitting that it’s also published in November. *grin*

Here’s the cover copy:

 

In a world of steamships and Progress, no one who sails due south across the Wild Sea ever returns.

No one knows why.

Dale Mortensen intends to solve the mystery. With the help of an old sailor and a reformed playboy searching for his missing sweetheart, he locates a captain and crew ambitious—not to mention crazy—enough to undertake the journey across the Wild Sea.

The ‘Infinity’ and her crew sail south, but the truth of what really lies on the other side of the horizon is more amazing—and terrifying—than anything they can imagine.

It’s the adventure of a lifetime—and it may just get Dale and his friends killed.

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TOSOTH and NaNoWriMo 2013

Posted on October 31, 2013 by E. R. Paskey

Some2013-Participant-Square-Button deadlines, I’m learning, are deader than others. Instead of holding firm, they flop over and let their project slink around the finish line and take a jaunt into the land of further delay.

The Other Side of the Horizon’s publishing deadline turned out to be one of these.

I had hoped to have it out this month, but now we’re looking at an early November release instead.

Oh, well. The point is, the book is still coming. It’s just taken a little longer than anticipated. I should have some very good news on that front in a few days. *grin*

In other news, tomorrow is November 1st, which, as I’m sure most of you know, marks the beginning of National November Novel Writing Month 2013. (NaNoWriMo, for short—you can find it here.) The goal, of course, is to write 50,000 words during November.

I’ve spent the last several weeks debating whether or not I was going to participate this year. It’s a fun, growth-inspiring challenge, and I have a story in-progress I could work on, but I had hoped to be finished with the rough draft of the third book in The Guardians series and well into the editing process by now. Unfortunately, I hit a rough patch when the story took a couple of unexpected swerves, and that slowed things down.

So, in the interests of finishing Book 3 before the end of the year, I decided I might as well do NaNo after all. Besides, so far, this November doesn’t look like it’s going to be anywhere near as crazy as it was last year.

(Of course, I say that now…) 🙂

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‘The Other Side of the Horizon’ Cover Art!

Posted on September 30, 2013 by E. R. Paskey

I’m very happy to finally be able to reveal cover art for The Other Side of the Horizon, my first foray into the world of YA steampunk. 😀

Loved this picture from the moment I set eyes on it.

More information on TOSOTH’s release date will be forthcoming in the next week or so.

TOSOTH_ebook_cover150

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TOSOTH News

Posted on September 2, 2013 by E. R. Paskey

steampunk159__alt_iconsI have great news: The Other Side of the Horizon is finally done! I finished the last few bits of editing and sent it off to the betas this past week. By the grace of God, and barring any unforeseen major complications, it should be published in the next couple of weeks. 😀

I’m pretty happy about that.

TOSOTH was an adventure to write—the story took a number of surprising twists and turns and there were more than a few occasions where I had absolutely no idea what would happen next. That may sound frightening—and I’ll be honest, sometimes it is—but it’s also a lot of fun because it means the writing process is never, ever boring. Plus, it’s my first foray into the world of steampunk. (Which I didn’t know I’d be doing when I started.) That was an exciting and fascinating journey, let me tell you.

Cover art will be forthcoming in the next week or so.

For those of you in the U.S., hope y’all are having a good Labor Day. For the rest of you, I hope y’all are having a good Monday.

 

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Quick Update

Posted on July 13, 2013 by E. R. Paskey

steampunk159__alt_iconsAs some of you may notice, a few things have been changed/updated around the site. Didn’t realize until yesterday that a few sections hadn’t been updated in…longer than I care to admit. 😀

Particularly the Novel Excerpts page. That’s been fixed, so you’ll be able to jump straight to the sample chapters for either Bad Faith or Portal Woes.

Now, back to my regularly scheduled house cleaning…

 

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