Happy Easter!

Peter Cottontail, hopping down the bunny trail... :)
   I hope everyone is enjoying your Easter, whether you are religious or not. (I'm not, it's family time)
Okay, on to the news:
   Gord and Jacob passed Princess Rescue Inc back to me, I passed it on to be proofread by another person. That person will pass it back to me for corrections and then I'll pass it on one more time. Hopefully you will see it by the end of April, if not sooner. :)
   I'd like to welcome Thomas to proofreading, he just finished proofing the short story "Nohar" aka "The Adventures of Nohar PI." An immediate prequel to Plague Planet. He said he'd shoot it back to me next week. :)

   Speaking of Plague Planet, I finished the rough draft on Monday, then Tuesday I cleaned up PRI and sent it off, then did a spellcheck of PP. When I was finished I started the read through. I usually take 3 months to do a read through, spell check, edit, read it again, then spell check with Word, then pass it on to the proofers. (I hate it. It takes longer for me to read it and correct stuff than it does to write it)... I really buckled down though this time (with Gord and Jacob asking for it) and got about half way through and then started slipping into scan mode on the third day. On advice from a couple of the proofers, I passed it on to Gord to have a go at it. Like they said, I can always add more later, and fresh eyes will see what I've overlooked.
    Gord of course has already thumped me about how little I did in corrections. Actually the has/had one is the biggest 'oops' so far. lol

   I'm planning on playing Heart of the Swarm later next week, but Friday and Saturday I had a bit of free time and started pecking at Jethro 2, First to Fight. I cleaned up some past tense errors and added 3 pages to it. It's funny, that book is already nearly 80 pages long and it's got a lot happening in it. I'm going to have a lot of fun writing it. :) Even the simulated combat has me grinning. The real combat is going to be... fun. >:D

   Oh, for those of you asking or talking about Irons and why he does what he does, some of the psychology comes to a head in Plague Planet. But I will leave you with these two paraphrased missives.
1 You cannot govern without the consent of the governed.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Consent_of_the_governed

2 An officer doesn't give an order he know won't be obeyed.
http://everything2.com/title/Never+give+an+order+you+know+will+not+be+obeyed

Okay one more,
There is a method to my madness. Muhahahaha....

Princess Rescue Inc

Wow!
Gord my alpha proof reader sent PRI (Princess Rescue Inc) Monday, I made his recommended corrections and then passed it on to Jacob who just finished and sent it back to me a few minutes ago. COOL! lol (giddy here)
In anticipation of this I fixed the cover art scaling, cropping the left side to form it into a rectangle. (and getting rid of the 6 legged rat that took hours to render... grrr)

The cover art has material from various sources. The animals (except the horse) were sculpted by me in Sculptris, the marines are from Mixamo? Most of the outfits are from Renderocity and ShareCG and are owned by their creators (who generously released them publicly) Some of the props were made by me, some like the buildings in the back came from ShareCG I think. Textures are from various sources including the web.

 

If you are wondering down the road (after the book is released) Princess Zara is the woman in the left corner, the soldiers and others I don't remember off the top of my head, but on the right is Eugene Ryans the protagonist, and Princess Diedra.

I will be making any recommended corrections the first week of April, and then I will see if someone else is willing to take a go at it... or if I can put it out as is. We'll see. Either way I'd like to release it by or before May 1st.

Last week I finished the rough draft of another short story: "Hauling Freight". That's 6 out of 13 stories for the short story book, I'm almost half way there on that front. So far 3 have been proofed, 1 is up for proofing for who ever wants it, and the other 2 (including Hauling Freight) are unfortunately going to have to wait until after PP and Jethro 2 are released before I let them be proofed. They have wwaaayyy to many spoilers in them. :D

I also added a couple more treatments for other short stories in the other time blocks. The stuff after book 7 is... wow. 14 stories planned so far, and a lot of them have combat in them. They are going to be fun to write... when I get around to them. Some are already partially finished, though raw. :)

This upcoming week is Spring Break for most of the family... which means I'm pretty sure my productivity is going to take a nose dive. I am on chapter 19, it's 1/3rd finished, a mixture of notes and finished writing. I'll try to get the last 4 chapters of Plague Planet completed... but no promises. Sigh. I so want the rough draft done though! (do you have any idea how hard it is to keep from getting nauseated with Andrew Bordaine talking about eating awful things in the background.... yuck!)

In other news Mechmaster finished proofing Chapter 32 and 33 of Afraid of the Dark, I'm not sure if I reported that in the last blog post or not. ... and I'm too lazy to check. The good thing is that he is finally half way through the book. :)

I finally received the collector's edition of Heart of the Swarm from Amazon, and they finally shipped the strategy guide yesterday. As soon as I send PP off to Gord I'm taking a sabbatical to have a bit of fun with the Zerg. :)

That's it for now!

Ghost Station Finally Released!

Yup, I finally went and did it.

You can find the book on Amazon here:
http://www.amazon.com/Ghost-Station-Wandering-Engineer-ebook/dp/B00BSG0LF4/ref=sr_1_7?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1363100654&sr=1-7

And Barnes and Noble:

http://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/ghost-station-chris-hechtl/1114821961?ean=2940016297781&itm=4&

I still haven't gotten onto Smashwords, Google, or anywhere else. Sorry. I keep meaning to work on that, but reading the directions to convert things to each preferred file format is a bit like reading VCR instructions. Clear as mud. lol

Besides, I'd rather write. :D

-In other news, no, my arm wasn't broken, though the doctor did say I strained a ligament. Resting it helped. I'm back to normal now.
-Plague Planet has entered Act III. I have part of Act III written already, I just need to fill in the rest. Right now I'm doing a bit of research and talking with Jacob about things. :)
-Speaking of Jacob, he's taken it upon himself to proofread the entire Engineer series starting with New Dawn. His last progress report said he was a bit over half done which is cool.
-Gord informed me last night that he is half way through Princess Rescue Inc. Hopefully I can find someone else to proof read it as well before releasing it.
-I've finished 2 more short stories. 13 Degrees of Seperation (no nothing to do with 50 shades of gray) now has 5 completed short stories, 2 of which have been proof read. The other 8 are in various stages of completion, hopefully I'll get around to them soon. :)

I haven't heard anything about Afraid of the Dark from Mechmaster. I'll check in with him this week.

Future Plan: Once I get PP (Plague Planet) done I plan on doing a bit of 3D work and some short stories, then get my existing books into Smashwords before I dive into Jethro 2. Jethro 2 and Pirate Bane have been partially written already, Jethro is already 74 pages. In fact I've been working on Jethro 2 off and on for a while now, even before I finished Jethro 1. (Jethro 3-5 aren't nearly as finished)
I'm also coming up with scenes for the next series after Wandering engineer. (some of those books are also partially written) The latest scene takes place even further from them though it's about....
Oh, nope, sorry, forgot, no spoilers! :)