Good news bad news...

Good News Bad news... I hate that routine, but here goes.
In the Good news, I've finally 'finished' the cover to Plague Planet.

 

If you are wondering about the ships... I'm not telling. :D

I am also up to page 133 of 168 in writing the book. Chapters 1-11 are completed. I am hip deep in Chapter 12 right now, which is near the middle of act 2. The epilogue/last chapter are already finished as well, as is part of the climax. Right now the last 30 odd pages are a mix of notes and completed scenes. Mostly notes. Each page of notes can translate to 3-5 pages of finished text so I've still got my work cut out for me, though the light at the end of the tunnel is in sight. lol
I am still on track for getting this done by Mid March.

I also have several more Federation short stories blocked out, 54 in the 4 time periods as of this morning. Several are in various stages of completion.

I also have a doctor's appointment Friday to check out my arm. Yeah, it's still bugging me, though less now. It sometimes hampers my writing ability.

Now for the Bad News.
Unfortunately, I jumped the gun on giving a release date of Ghost Station, it will not be released tomorrow. I am not certain when, hopefully by mid March. It's my fault not Rob's, he's got his hand's full and I guess I got excited about announcing it. Sigh. My bad. Sorry folks. (Yeah yeah, Gibbs, I know, don't say your sorry. :P I'm not you)

Also, a friend of the family was hospitalized Saturday. She was rushed in Saturday night by ambulance. She's going in for emergency Surgery today, they discovered a tumor and they are fairly certain it is cancerous. I spent part of my afternoon helping her daughter clean her kitchen yesterday to lend them a hand since she is going nuts dividing her time between the kids and the hospital. I am keeping my finger's crossed Julie will pull through okay. This is her second round of this form of cancer, but they think they may have caught it in the early stages. Here is hoping anyway, sigh.

Best laid plans of mice and men...

Don't you just hate it when you get into something, plan it out, and then something unexpected hits you and it all goes to heck?
See, Irons and his officers would say you have multiple plans and anticipate, and adapt. I'm all for that but I'm sidelined by something annoying and out of the blue, my right arm.
I'm not sure how I injured it Tuesday, pulling weeds, push ups, or lifting something heavy, but I did. I so far haven't managed to make a doctor's appointment to figure it out either. (nothing available until the last week of the month)
Fortunately it doesn't seem to be broken, though it felt that way for the first couple of days. A wrist brace my sister loaned me seems to have helped, I'm no longer in constant pain anyway. I'm hoping that by keeping it braced for a couple more days will give my body a bit more time to heal... but it makes it rough to type. sigh.

It's aggravating, I got to 104 pages in Plague Planet and I've been forced to stop. The first 8 chapters of Act 1 are almost finished.

So, I'm puttering around with other projects in order to cope. Interestingly, I came up with another (hopefully final) short story titled 'Hauling Freight' for that short story book. It ties a lot of stuff together, which is cool, and it has ties to the beginning of book 5, near end of Jethro 2, and hints at stuff in book 6. :)
But again, this is where the plan issue comes in, in blocking out this short story it caused a chain reaction of plot point shifts to occur in Jethro 2. lol Not a big pain, I hadn't gotten to those parts yet, but enough to make me rethink a few things there.

I'm going to do a bit of rendering and minor plot clean up the next day or so. Speaking of the former, here's a Zoid image I did the other day.

I am also working off and on on another one, this of my Liger Zero 1.5 model. It's not working out that well though. And for some strange reason it's the first image to set my temperature alarm off! I've got liquid cooling, it's a simple scene... I'm confused! I think I need to do a bit of PC cleaning here too.

I also want to get the Phoenix modeled for the cover art of Plague Planet.

But first, time to rest the arm... again! grrr

Federation story arches

There have been several questions about my progress and my future books.
I have a lot of books planned, and a many are in various stages of completion.
Here are the books for the Federation Universe.
The Federation Universe is broken into 4 story time periods. (arches)

 Founding of the Federation:
Just what is sounds like, this series deals with the founding of the Federation. It will touch on a lot of various subjects. Here are the titles:

1 First Steps -completed
2 To touch the stars (Forthcoming, 1% complete)
3 AI war (Forthcoming)
4 First Contact (Planned)
5 We the people... (Planned)
6: Short story book (Forthcoming 10% complete)

Twighlight of the Federation trilogy: (Gottenburg)
These books take place during the Xeno War. None of these have been written, just blocked out.

1 Sparks
2 Inferno
3 Embers
4 Bonus: short stories book (Forthcoming 1% complete)

Wandering engineer:
This is the main series (for now)

1 New Dawn New Dawn -completed
2 Fools Gold -completed
  A: Jethro goes to War -completed
3 Destiny's choice  -completed
4 Ghost Station (Rough draft complete, currently undergoing corrections before 2nd proof read)
5 Plague planet (Forthcoming, 25% complete, undergoing research)
  B: First to Fight (sequel to Jethro, currently in production, 25% complete)
  C: Short story anthology book  Currently in production, 12% complete)
6 Pirates Bane (Forthcoming, 10% complete)
  B: Jethro 3 No place like home (forthcoming)
7 Ghosts of the past (Forthcoming, 5% complete)
  B: Jethro 4 (Forthcoming) Recruiting drive

Federation reborn:
(books 8-12 of the preplanned Wandering Engineer story arch, and then others)
These books take place right after book 7 and Jethro 4 (no timeskip) and will detail the new Federation and the start of the Horathian/Federation intergalactic war. I had planned them as part of the Wandering series but then broke them off when the focus changed to the bigger picture.

8 New beginings, POV book (Forthcoming)
9 Pirate Rage (Forthcoming)
 B: Jethro 5 Ares god of war(Forthcoming)
10 Enemy of my enemy
  B Marines of the reborn Federation (2-3 stories)
  C: short stories (Forthcoming 10% complete)
11 Federation Academy (Forthcoming)
12 Short stories (anthology) 2% complete
13 spec ops

The short story books are recent additions. (well some are, book 12 and the marines were planned) I've been juggling them around to the right time periods and breaking them down in order of priority of writing. (right now I'm focusing on those that take place in or right before established books or before book 6 and 7)

If you are wondering about my system, it's just something I made up to keep me going. Anything as a treatment is 1-2%. Usually that means it's at least a page or 2 of plot with a bit of dialog as well as notes. Anything above 15 pages is 10% (that means I've got a handle on the plot and am comfortable enough with it to proceed further),  75 pages or more is 25%, above 150 pages is 50-60% and rough 1st draft is 75%. The remaining 25% is me editing, cleaning things up, doing rewrites, and doing my own proofing and spell check passes before I pass it on to the proof readers. (yes this is where I am having trouble, I'd much rather write then edit!)

Other books:
I recently came up with a book (sequel/parrellel) idea for Bootstrap, and a couple other series down as treatments as well as a bunch of short stories for various universes. I also wrote a Terminator Salvation book I submitted to Titan publishing that probably needs to be resubmitted... to who ever owns the rights now. lol
Lets see, the Forgotten Heroes series... The star Empire at war... um... Who done it(working title), Penence alien (working title), Elementals, Last assault of the Emperor, the cull... ugh the list goes on and on.
Don't even get me started about the other series I started writing! lol Let me stay focused on the Federation if you want them done soon!

If you are wondering what the release order... um... I'll get back to you on that. What I can say. Here is what I'm currently going off of:

Ghost Station: Gord (Thank you!) has passed it back to me and I've finished the basic corrections he sent me (the last this morning while also helping my landlord replace our leaking hot water tank) and I've started looking for any additional errors. I'm going to make a few story corrections he recommended (minor things and a loose plot point to clean up) before I pass it on to other proof readers. Hopefully we can see the book hit the stores by the end of the month. (Yeah, hopefully!)

Untitled Wandering engineer short story book: currently I've got 10-12 short stories in various stages of completion for this book. This project has exploded in the past 2 weeks. I've got 2 short stories done and off to the proof readers, with another 2 I'm working on. If all goes according to plan I'll have this done by the end of the month. :) (Hopefully!)
I've been coming up with short story ideas for all 4 (yeah all 4!) story arches every other day it seems. Last week I came up with 7, 2 in one day.

Afraid of the Dark: Mechmaster is currently working on proofing it. He is on chapter 27 of 63. (yeah, my longest book to date!) When he passes it back to me I need to reformat it and add a few bits I've thought of before I pass it on to anyone else. I'd say don't expect this book anytime soon.

Princess Rescue inc: Mechmaster has had it since last summer. I'm dangling it before the other proofers. :)

Plague Planet: Um... I need to do a bit more research here. Still working on it. Hopefully I'll have it off to the proofers by March or April. (Hopefully sooner!)

Jethro 2 First to Fight: I was working on it but then I switched to editing and Plague Planet. I may switch to it since it's a lot less complicated to write. (and there is a ton of action in it!)

Pirates Bane: This is where everything changes for Irons! The begining of the end of the wandering... I've been working on it, Ghosts from the Past, and Pirate's Revenge off and on. Hopefully I'll get it off to the proof readers by the end of summer. The others I dunno. We'll see.

To Touch the Stars: I started it last year but then I put it down in order to do some much needed editing and fixes to other books. Hopefully I can pick up where I left off and get it off to the proofers by the end of the year.

That's it for now! The rest well... we'll see how the next 3 or 4 weeks go!

1st proof read of Ghost Station is in!

In a monumental effort showcasing his willpower and skills Gord has finished proof reading Ghost Station this morning. One week to complete 32 chapters. Wow! He has been sending me corrections daily, I in turn will now be implementing the corrections before I pass it on to someone else to proof read. Thank you thank you Gord!

I have jotted out a half a dozen short story treatments and finished 2 short stories this week. I've also made some progress with Plague Planet. (Few!) I passed the short stories on to the guys to read. (Thanks again!)

I have also started work on the cover art for Plague Planet. I'm having some funny AA rendering issues so Mechmaster is lending me a hand.

I'm about to be invaded so that's it for now!