Ghost Station cover art Wip 1

     I decided to take a little break from writing Ghost Station to get a start on the cover art. I probably won't need it until next year, but getting a start on it couldn't hurt. I could also use the change in pace... and I needed to get the idea out of my system before I forgot it agian anyway. :D

     This is the very first rough draft. The Ghost Station is in the background, in the foreground is the Kiev 221, a bulk freighter the admiral is traveling on.

     I'll probably use a lot of stuff from my archives for both models. I may also toss in a shuttle craft and maybe some people on the Kiev to give the entire scene a sense of scale. The station is 400km in diameter. The ship is 1km in length.

Progress and plans

     It's warming up here, keeps bouncing up and down but every time it comes back up it doesn't go quite so low the next time the cycle starts over. Grr.

     Memorial day was interesting. My mother wanted to go out for our usual walk after we ate. We went for one inside my sister's housing tract as usual, then came back after 20 minutes. She decided that wasn't long enough so we went out for another... and since she wanted to go in a different direction we got LOST. lol

    I bet we did 4 miles easy. It was interesting. We saw some pretty houses. We went waaaay out, further then we should have. Took us an hour and 40 minutes to find our way back to my sister's house. Surprisingly neither one of us were sore. A little foot sore, but that went away the next morning. She called this morning hinting about doing it again this weekend or on my birthday next week. Or both. Groan!

    It seems like this month and next are the party months. We had Mother's day, Memorial day, and now we've got my Birthday coming up next week..., then Mercede's graduation on the 15's (BBQ party on the 14th) and then Father's day BBQ on that Sunday the 17th. Sigh.

     Then we're going to Sea World sometime the last week of the month. On a Tuesday through Thursday. (they haven't selected a date yet) I am determined to go, despite the threat of the heat, crowds, sun, and high prices. I've wanted to go for years but each time I suggest it they ended up going to Florida. Go figure. Finally everyone's too broke to travel far so we're going to see if anything's changed in San Diego. That has some of the family tripping out, that I am determined to go. If the jaws get any lower I'm going to watch them catch flies. Or stuff something in them. The kids are excited that I'm finally going on a trip with them. lol

      I've been plugging away at Ghost station. I'm up to chapter 14. It's mostly done, I just have a few scenes to turn over and clean up and it will be done and then on to Act II. Just about a third done. Well, a bit more, I've got the last 4-5 chapters already written as well (most of Act III). 223 pages and counting I think. :) Every time I cross a centennial page marker I feel elated.

      I am hoping I will have the rough draft complete by the end of June. If all those parties and activities don't get in the way. I know the kids will want to go swimming and spend the nights soon. Not sure I'm looking forward to that or not. I still haven't gotten in my pool. lol

 

Don't forget to watch Sharkmen tonight on National Geographic! 7pm EST.

Plugging away...

First off, Happy Memorial day weekend. Enjoy your time with your family as you reflect on the sacrifices our men and women have made to protect freedom and democracy.

I'm plugging away on Ghost Station. I just started chapter 12. The book has swollen to 194 pages and counting. I'm starting to get a handle on things, I think (think mind you!) that I can get the book roughed out completely by the end of June. I hope so at any rate. Call it another month of spell check, editing, and stuff before I upload it to Mechmaster for final proofing. Then maybe I'll play with the cover art. :)

Who knows, I might get it done sooner. I doubt it, I've got a birthday next week (with party) and since the brats are out of school now and it is near summer I'm probably going to be invaded at least once or twice a week so they can go swimming. Lol

Oh! I like to listen to music as I write and work on the computer. I trolled Youtube for something to get the creative juices flowing and ran into this. It's truth in advertising... Epic.
Epic mix

Progress report

   I am plugging away at Ghost station. I'm up to Chapter 9, 109 pages out of 166.  A couple more pages and Chapter 9 will be done. Chapter 10 will be interesting.
    I bet you're wondering about those numbers. Confusing no? Well... I have a... possibly unique style of writing. I start with a general outline that has notes and scene ideas or dialog snippets in it. Usually I write the outline out fast when a muse strikes and then go back and polish it a little, adding tidbits over time while working on other projects.
   When I dig into it to finish it I start somewhere comfortable and just let loose with the muse. Once I am in the groove I get all sorts of ideas. Scenes start to pop up and I add them as I go along, or I'll place them where they belong in the timeline. Sometimes I get the ideas at the oddest and most inconvenient of times! Like oh, say sleeping, going to the bathroom, taking a shower.... or cooking! More then one dinner has suffered because of it. lol
    With Ghost station I had an idea for the ending while writing Destiny's choice. I opened the outline and just let loose. I managed to do three chapters before it ended. Then I went back to Destiny to finish it.
    This time I'm trying a more coherent method. Instead of jumping all over the place I took what I've got and then started from chapter one and started working my way through it one chapter at a time. Hopefully that will make the plot a lot more consistant and enjoyable.
    As I was saying... Chapter 9 is mostly written. It has scenes blocked out, some are partially written, I just need to clean up the beginnings and then tie them together. That's been my bad habit lately. I start jotting an outline for a scene then as I get into it I start flowing into dialog. Then when it tapers off I have to go back and figure out how to turn the outline into a coherent begining. :P
    At least that's better then another habit I hopefully have broken or at least gotten control of. Sometimes I would get an idea, write it out, then move on. It would be anywhere in the manuscript, sometimes completely out of order with other scenes. Sometimes I would think of the same scene twice and write out both versions at different points. That's incredibly annoying. Running into stuff like that while I do the rough editing pass is tedious and makes me grumpy. >:(
    I'm projecting the book to be about 300 pages or more. I'm about a third of the way into the story. I'm trying to not be repetative and tedious but it's difficult. I'm trying to keep a light brush to the detail and keep the story moving along. So far I think so good but we'll see what the readers have to say when they get their hands on it.

    I've also been working on other projects. Or trying to at any rate. I came up with a couple more short story ideas. Each of them are a 2-3 page mixed outline. The one I just jotted out is called Bounty.  I also started to try to make the neo powered combat armor for my reference and for the cover of First to Fight. I did say try right? So far not so good. See I sculpted Jethro and the team in Sculptris and then sculpted Jethro in a suit. Sculptris and I are not quite up to the task though.
    The suit is okay, but not great. It's also not quiet what I had in mind so I decided to start over with hard modeling. I figured I'd start with bits from my SC2 Terran Marine and then work from there. Buuuut... Well, Inspire isn't cooperating. It's old, yes I know. It turns out that when I updated to Windows 7 something got bollixed and I can't import files. Since Inspire has to be completely re-installed and I've got oh... 6 or 7 gigs of stuff in it's folders... Stuff I don't want deleted.... And Windows has locked up my D drive from being altered.... let's just say I'm in no hurry to do it anymore. Sigh. So... that project is tabled for now.

What the future holds 1

       Some people have asked me why it takes so long to write a book. I've released four, but I'm sitting on others. Some are because I can't release them out of order. Some are because I don't have the license to release it. (Terminator Salvation) I wrote to Titan publishing but have yet to hear back from them. Apparently the licensing to the Terminator franchise is up in the air so I have no idea who to submit the story too now.
     But that's the Terminator book. I also have other books I'm sitting on. The problem isn't writing a book, it's the editing, proofing, and such. Even the cover art isn't as hard for me as proofing a book. (Hence my first 3 books and how terrible the grammar is.)
      Currently I am sitting on several books that are in various stages of editing, and one book that is ready for launch. I've even done the cover art for three of them.

Princess Rescue Inc:

    A current one off book similiar to Bootstrap Colony in theme. (Exploration) I thought I was finished with it.... thought it was ready for the second stage of editing but then decided maybe I should add an alternative view point to the book. That's messed me up a bit until I sort it out. Since I'm working on book 4 (Ghost Station) of the Wandering Engineer Series I'm not going to get back to it anytime soon. There is a sneak peak in one of the other up coming books though. Here is the cover art:

Destiny's Choice:

     The third book in the Wandering Engineer series. I finished it in August of 2011 and sent it off to Mechmaster with Jethro goes to War. He managed to finish Jethro (more on that later) and sent it back to me on new years of 2012 but hasn't gotten far on Destiny. He keeps getting swamped with other projects. :)

Jethro's goes to War:

Jethro is a neo pather first seen in Book 2. Jethro goes to War is a short book parelleling book 2 and 3 of the Wandering Engineer. It tells the story of Jethro and his marine comrade in arms as they go through bootcamp and prepare for war. A sequel book is in the pipeline. This book is finished and ready for release.... but I give away too much of the ending of Destiny's Choice in it so I've got to wait on release until Destiny's Choice is out. Grrr...

Afraid of the Dark:

This is a stand alone alien invasion book set in or near our time period. I based it in Socal. Think David Decoveny's Evolution but world wide and more conventional. There is a tidbit in one of the other books. I've finished my editing passes and sent it off to Mechmaster for proofing a month ago.

      My current project is Ghost Station, book 4 of the Wandering Engineer series. I have also started Jethro 2, First to fight. I've had to force myself to put it aside though, it takes place over books 4-6 of the Wandering engineer and sets the stage for the climax of book 6. I've even started the cover art for both books. More on that later.

I also have about 30 other books in various stages of development.  Again, more on them later. :D

My current books

Plugging away on Ghost station. I just finished Chapter 5 and I'm on to Chapter 6. 6 will be slower going, I'm pretty sure we're going to be invaded this afternoon. I also don't have as much jotted out there as I did for the previous chapters.

It occured to me that I don't have a link for my books. Here it is:
http://www.barnesandnoble.com/s/chris-hechtl?store=ebook
I have done all the cover art in 3D. Some of the props like the Trees and textures were downloaded from the web. The rest was modeled by me.

The Current books are Boostrap Colony:
http://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/bootstrap-colony-chris-hechtl/1028104776?ean=2940011946943

Bootstrap Colony is a stand alone book. It is my first attempt at professional writing and has very poor grammar and editing. (Eventually I will go back and fix that... or so I keep telling myself.) I may do a follow up book someday.

The other three books are part of the Wandering Engineer Universe. There are currently 2 established story archs. There will be 4 eventually.
The first is the Founding of the Federation series. (I had thought of it as a trilogy but I might toss in an anthology book since I've got some short stories jotted out.)

The first book is First Steps, telling the story of Admiral Irons ancestors and how they not only explored but also settled on the Red planet.
http://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/first-steps-chris-hechtl/1028501336?ean=2940011839207

I wrote and released that book after I wrote New Dawn. First Steps and New Dawn also have grammar and spelling issues. (Again I'll clean them up eventually. I hate editing. I love to write and model.)

The other current story arch, the main story arch is The Wandering Engineer series. I've projected it out as about 7 books. Currently there are 2 released, 1 is being edited by my good friend Chris "Mechmaster" Smith, and 1 I'm currently writting. I have the other books and spin off books in various forms but more on that later.

New Dawn the start of the series:

http://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/new-dawn-book-1-of-the-wandering-engineer-chris-hechtl/1028104774?ean=2940011946936

New Dawn describes how the Wandering engineer is picked up by the female crew of the good ship Io 11 and begins his Wanderings. The story started after I got into watching Vandread and sort of evolved from there. lol

The sequel to that book is Fool's Gold:
http://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/fools-gold-chris-hechtl/1104533692?ean=2940013143395

Fool's Gold takes up where New Dawn left off. It explores Irons continuing journey and sets the stage for later books. More on them in a later post. :D

Testing 1...2...3....
I've had several requests to start a blog or restart a site. I've finally gotten around to the blog part. :D

This blog will have a bit of my ramblings and rants as I work on writing various books, make 3D models, and render scenes and possibly movies.

Right now I'm working on book 4 of the Wandering Engineer series. I've got it blocked out and now I'm filling in as I work through the manuscript. I've just finished chapter 4 and I'm half done chapter 5.