Princess Rescue Inc!

I received PRI, Princess Rescue Inc from Mechmaster a bit over an hour ago. I've made the corrections he suggested, caught a couple bugs, and I've added the scene and page breaks.
In other words, trucking along, full steam ahead!
You may see me publishing this book by tomorrow.

Look for that cover this weekend. (It takes a day for Amazon and B&N to process the manuscript before publishing it)

Write up:

   Eugene Ryans had it all. Money, fame, power. He had created a multibillion dollar company from almost nothing and turned Ryan's Future technology inc into one of the forefronts of technological innovation.
   He had it all, yet he gambled it all on a crackpot idea that Earth had it's own wormhole.
   He'd proven it too, and now he was in for the adventure of his life. No, he wasn't going to sit back and let others go in his stead, he was going to be on the forefront of this grand adventure.
    To move mankind one step further closer to the stars.
    He'd found adventure all right, all that and more as he found his team cut off, trapped in the middle of an invasion.
     Princess Deidra and her younger Sister Zara were having a series of bad days. When the neighboring kingdom of Duluth suddenly invaded they found themselves on the front lines and swiftly in danger. But will the dashing Gaijin save them? Save them from the wilds of their world, the invaders, and more importantly, themselves?
                        Princess Deidra isn't so sure she wants to be saved!


This book was written around the time of New Dawn and the others. I sat on it, then did a rewrite early last year. Gord, Jacob, and Mechmaster each had a go at it, so hopefully the editing isn't going to bother the haters too much. (wishful thinking I know)

This, btw is NOT a sequel to Bootstrap Colony. That is coming later. (Way later) This is a stand alone book... for now. Though I did leave some threads in it for future sequels and prequels. :)
Think of it as a reboot of the basic Bootstrap adventure concept. I wrote it as 1 part what if, and 1 part dream scene I needed to get out of my head. lol

Oh, and for Adam:

This is the map I created for the book. :) I was going to improve it, but I thought I'd leave it for now. It's mostly legible.

-And I just checked, yes I created a bunch of simple maps for Bootstrap Colony years ago. Very simple maps. No I didn't create any for First Steps, though I did create the 3D model of the scene for the cover art. :) I'll look into posting both sometime... unless I forget. (feel free to nag me if I do forget)

Edit 9-6-2013: and it's live on Amazon! B&N to follow soon. (Out of my hands)

Federation Aliens part 1

    Well, I was going to work on the 2.0 version of Jethro's armor, but I ran into a snag, Inspire 3D doesn't want to be fixed. I can't reinstall it either because it's ancient (32bit 1995-7) and I have Windows 7 64 bit... which refuses to let me do it! GRR

    So, I'm working on ideas for a work around. But since I didn't want to spend my day surfing and hemming and hawing about this or that, I decided to throw this together I modeled these over the past couple of years, plus a ton more I haven't gotten around to rendering yet. I've been rendering stuff for a while before summer hit, I thought I should put them together as a show and tell.

    There are a lot of aliens in the Federation (Wandering Engineer) Universe. Some you have seen, some I have mentioned, some I am going to mention in future works. Here is a look.
I based a lot of the models on concept art I found on the web. Credit for the design goes to the original artist, I just took the idea and ran with it, throwing my own ideas into the mix as I went along. All models were made in Sculptris. Most of the textures are placeholders I dropped onto the base mesh to keep me from going insane. (or more insane)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BZ-A4JIU494

Let me know what you think in the comments!

Firefly and RIP

Okay, finally an update on Firefly.
I've taken some 'artistic licenses' with the ship. In the book it has smart paint, it's base color is an inky black. Obviously I can't have that on the cover, you wouldn't be able to see it!
So, I went with a more traditional pallet. Shrug.

Getting all the pieces to fit was a pain. I finally called a halt on adding detail. The good news is, now I've got Firefly done for both covers. (Jethro 2 and another) Plus, these parts are now in my library so I can model other ships like the North Hampton class cruiser...

You have no idea how tempted I am to do a flyby movie of this ship. Just a quicky, but I know I'd want more. Stuff with the turrets moving, etc. lol No, no, not happening now. Maybe after the heat breaks and I'm in a good mood. I dunno.

EDIT: OOPS! I forgot to add the turret image I did. DUR!

I am looking ahead beyond modeling Jethro's armor to the cover of 13 Degrees of Separation. I am so not looking forward to it now. There are 14 scenes (1 for each story plus the scene with Trinity watching them) so there are a lot of models and scenes to do. UGH! I think I bit off more than I can chew with that one!

In other, sad news:
Rest In Peace Snowflake. 12 years ago I was there when my sister and nephew picked you out at Petsmart's adoption center. You were a bit hard to get to know for the first few years but after a while you warmed up to everyone and became a mellow, lovable cat. We will miss you.

On a roll...

    Just a quick note, I just finished roughing out the 6th short story of the week... the final one for 13 Degrees of Separation!

    Yup, I started Monday by passing Jethro 2 off to Gord, then went on to work on the cover art for the book. I roughed out the Skyhawk/Warhawk in Inspire 3D, worked on Pirates Bane a bit, but then I got sidetracked by taking dad and the family out to a steakhouse for dad's 63rd birthday, and then a short story got stuck in my head and just wouldn't go away.
    One thing led to another and I ended up first roughing it out... and then writing it out. It is in the Founding of the Federation timeline. (The First Steps series I have yet to get back to) When I had it roughed out I picked up on another story in that time period I had half finished and finished it. Then I jumped to the Gottenburg timeline and finished 2 stories there! Finally today, I finished the last 2 remaining stories in the Wandering Engineer timeline, (despite having to listen to dad snore through 9 hours of Barrette Jackson) thus finishing 13 Degrees of Separation! I even got all the stories in the manuscript, the front matter, and most of the back matter! It's all ready to go to Gord!

Wow! Cool! I am so on a roll! lol WOOT WOOT!

   So, I am so psyched! And no, not because it is my 13th book. (Yes I know, I have 8 published and now 4 in the pipeline. There is another....GRRR Go away Yoda!)

    Any who, I really am pretty jazzed. I'm going to go hit the Ice cream and kick back. Tomorrow is another day. Dad's actual Birthday. :)

EDIT: I forgot to mention, Mechmaster is down to 80 pages of Princess Rescue Inc. Since he's off for the next 10 days he (and I) are hoping he'll get the rest done... and get more of his climactic battle to his Dalek comic done. (I know, ambitious) Well, anyway, here's hoping!
Gord just told me he's half done Jethro 2! Cool!

Hopefully next post I'll have more to show regarding the cover of Jethro 2!

Woot Woot!

Finally! After a couple months of work I have just finished the first rough cut of Jethro 2 First to Fight! YES!
It wasn't easy writing about a cat with a certain feline "helper" of my very own.

(yes I know it's horrid picture, the lighting is low and what can I say? My camera phone is only 2meg)
Now I have a few things to tidy up before I can pass it on to Thomas, Gord, Jacob, and the other guys. :)

1: I need to finish adding my notes. I've got 2 and a half pages (front and back) of notes to add. Some of them are from Thomas who related to me stories of when he was in the corps. :)
Problem:

A certain furrball has a thing for paper and pens. He loves sitting on them and holding them hostage.
(Yes that's a roll of TP in the corner. Don't ask.)

2: I've got a bit of light reading ahead of me, I want to add a few more things to the book. A little um... more detail?

I've already been pecking at the NCO guide and the Light infantry guide. The Making starships and Stargates was a little disappointing. I've got some notes in the Energy weapons book. The alien book I skimmed twice but I have my own aliens really. :)

3: I've got a consistency edit to do. I need to make sure I've got the names of people, places, and things right, plus the names of weapons, tech, and what not within shouting distance of what I had before. Always fun.

4: I do a quick editing pass of my own, first with a spell check, then mostly with 'Find', looking for the usual culprits.

5: Add the Appendix, Author's Afterward, and clean up the other stuff. Oh, and add another sneak peek. :)

Then I can pass it on to the guys and turn my attention to the cover art....

That is if a certain someone will let me. lol

I am hoping I'll have this all done and off to Thomas by the first, but don't quote me! lol The family is out of school and making plans for the next week. I am playing things by ear. Then there are the birthdays... sigh

Still, I am a bit giddy and in an awesome mood. YEAH!

Grumpy, tired, sore...

No, I'm not renaming the 7 dwarfs. Tempting, but no. It is what I am right now after going to the dentist yesterday. It was my 5th visit in my entire life, 1st in 10 years. The doctor had fun, he did 1 filling, the nurse did a cleaning, and then the two of them ganged up on me to pull the roots of one shattered tooth (#32) and then they spent 15 minutes yanking out my upper molar. (cusbid, bicuspid, whatever) I bet a lot of you know the disconcerting sound and exquisite feeling of teeth cracking in your mouth as it is yanked around. I have that memory stuck in my head now. That and the fun of spitting blood for the past 24 hours. Ugh.

He offered Vicadin, I'm too stubborn (IE pig headed) I turned it down in favor of my Acetaminophen... which is barely working. GRR

Eating is fun. Sooo much fun. I am glad he insisted on just the one side. Though it might have helped me loose more weight...

The fun thing is I get to go back later to get another upper molar removed, and a filling, these on my left side. Joy. Happy go lucky, joy joy. I so can't wait. NOT.

So, you know I'm going to take revenge and make some poor sap of a character go through that too eventually. Hey, If I have to suffer, someone else might as well too. Learning experience. Hmm... one of the cats maybe... (oops! Telegraphing, sorry Rick)

It's hot (105) here the past week or so, it's currently cool. humid. and raining right now though. The heat has had the family come over almost daily to swim or play board games. That's sort of put a crimp in getting any writing done. I did get a few things done though.

News:
I had a doctor's visit 2 weeks ago, I have lost 17 pounds and I am trying to loose another 17 by my next visit. It's hard though, with the heat I just want to sleep or watch TV. My octocore PC likes to overheat when the afternoon hits, I usually have to abandon it. Since dad's home by that time and being a general pain in the posterior, I guess it's okay. (NOT)

I finished roughing out another short story for 13 Degrees of Separation. That's 11 down, 2 to go. Unfortunately I can't let the volunteers have it until after they see Jethro 2. lol (Ain't I a stinker?)

Speaking of the other 2 shorts, I have both blocked out, and I've pecked at Leo a little.

I also finished chapter 5 and parts of 6-9 of Jethro 2. I have received a ton of research material from Amazon over the past couple of weeks, I'm going to be reading a lot. I got stuff on Bootcamp, Military culture, NCO guide book, um... Oh, Effects of Direct Energy Weapons, an alien book, that make a planet book, and a bunch of others. :)
So, even though I may be vegging I will be doing something semi-productive. :)

I've pecked at book 6 of WE some more, generally cleaning up a few plot points. I'm going to have to do a bit of a rewrite on some things, I mean, I wrote the plot for that book long before I finished New Dawn. (yeah that long ago) So, things have evolved since then.

On the editing front:
Good news: (I think) Mechmaster reported that he's around the 200 page mark of Princess Rescue Inc. He has a 100 pages left. I don't know if he made progress or not. I'm too lazy to check my previous post. lol

Bad News: After 3 weeks my 'niece' has given up trying to edit Afraid of the Dark and passed it back to me. She hasn't passed on editing Plague Planet, but scifi isn't her cup of tea. She said it was too hard working for family, with everyone riding her about the project. She did say there were few grammar errors but only got about 100 pages into the 600 page book. I hope that's a good sign, since 3 people other than me have had a go at it.

But, that leads me to good news, I'm tired of waiting, and I've been patiently thumped over and over that 'gee, maybe 4 volunteers reading the book got most of the bugs out'. and "You can always update it with corrections later" (thanks guys) So, now that I have my own copy of MS word 2007, I will fix the TOC (again) and do one last read and then release Plague Planet, hopefully within the next 72 hours. (no promises, I may get invaded again)

So look for this cover:

EDIT: I just finished uploading it to Amazon and B&N. Nook users may have some issues, Nookpress looks funky and I haven't figured them out yet. But it's on it's way...

Coming in 12-48 hours!

Some more progress...

Okay, lets see... minor things really.
I've been free writing a lot, which isn't productive short term. It does however sometimes come in handy, after all, Bootstrap colony, New Dawn, Princess Rescue Inc, and Afraid of the Dark are all a product of my 'what if' free writing, so who knows what the future may bring?

I have also been working on book 6, I've cleaned up some of the raw notes (getting rid of present tense mistakes) and I've doubled, nay tripled (okay almost) it in size. I'm still having trouble with the structure, so I may need to bug someone about it. :)

I also did a bit of pecking in "Alive" another free write what if book. It's solidifying a bit.  Let's just say that.

I also blocked out one of the short stories for 13 Degrees of Separation, and I added a bit to Barkeep. :)

Edit: oops, forgot to mention, I went and started putting the pieces to 13 Degrees of Separation together into the final manuscript. I've added the 7 edited short stories, with 1 outstanding and the other 5 I'm still working on. So far the page count is 262... but I expect it to be close to 450 by the time the others are added.

My 'niece' took a hand at AD. She's been bugging me to have a go at my books for a while. I said okay. I pestered her for an update, she grumbled and growled at me. Then she said something about I have too many ellipses (...) and I ramble. She's fixing it. Um... Okay...

On the home front, dad and crew went to the memorial in New Hampshire. Dad called me at 5am this morning. (Gee, thanks dad. Fortunately for you Baby beat you by 20 minutes with my wake up call) Anyway, he said it was a quick ceremony, with about 100+ people there Saturday.
I'm not quite ready to strangle Baby for his 4am wake up calls... getting there, but not just yet. Soon though if he keeps it up for much longer. Luckily dad will be back on Thursday. Then he can stumble around like a bull in a china shop and wake me up too.
Baby is cute when he's begging for food. It's also funny to feel him trying to whack me with his tail to get me awake (he likes to tickle with it too... and don't get me started on the cold nose!) ... but it's really funny when I'm all sweaty. (hot night Friday) He got all pissy when his tail stuck (he had to tug it off) and then he has to go clean it. :D lol The disgusted look as he sat there cleaning it made my morning. :)
He's also a ball when he's hyper, he may be an old man, but that hasn't stopped him. He's been full of piss and vinegar all morning.

Usually you can set your clock by him, early in the morning, and around 8pm each night, the hyper train comes roaring through, all arched back, curled tail, eyes dilated and full of mischief, running all over the place... The sound FX he does are priceless. (think Chomps) lol

 

And then of course there is the duo together:

You gotta love that haughty expression. :)

 

Oh! I added scene transitions to all the books, those out, and those coming out. I also cleaned up some errors I found and some that Amazon's new Auto-spellcheck feature pointed out. That's a nifty thing.

If you see this:

...*...*...*...*...

That's my version of a scene transition.

I was going a bit squirrely near the end. (it's easy but tedious to do) Oh, if you notice the TOC (Table Of Contents) and links are messed up, that's because I did the fixes in Open Office since I don't have Word anymore. I need to deal with that later.

 

Also, I ordered a TV stick. Or box. The G-box midnight MX2.

http://liliputing.com/2013/05/g-box-midnight-mx2-tv-dual-core-tv-box-is-made-for-android-xbmc.html

This looks like a winner, but I'll know more when it comes in later today. I'm going to have fun playing with it. (I hope)
It's not just for fun, it's also so the family can finally Skype with family back east here on holidays and special occasions... and so I can do some research. (yes, I did say that) You'll know why when you read... um, telegraphing... sorry Rich. :)

Anyway, I'll have fun until Thursday when Edison shuts my power off all day for an upgrade to the system. ALL DAY. When it's supposed to be 96 out. Joy. It's going to be a hot week, more of the 100's for days and days.... ugh.

Seriously. I am so going to be climbing the walls right along side BABY! :P

 

 

Progress report

Over the past several weeks I've been a bit distracted with family issues. (see previous post) I'm finally getting back on track. This weekend was my birthday, I finished the first draft of a short story "A Matter of Breeding" on my birthday.
I also got to meet Thomas on Sunday for the party, one of the great guys who have given up their time to help me with my copy editing issues. Thanks Thomas. Hopefully your lovely latina lass lets you out of the doghouse soon! ;)
Anyway, Thomas got a bit of a sneak peek at some of my thought processes in my writing, as well as a quick look at the concept material I've gathered for several of the books I am working on, along with upcoming books. :)

He and I also talked a bit about Jethro's armor design. Here is his skinsuit WIP 4, textured. I still need to fix a few bugs, and I need to get the rigging sorted out.

This was going to be his full suit, but I think I went a little too far overboard with the Halo motif so I decided to start over with a more bulky StarCraft 2 look later. (You'll see it for the cover of Jethro 2 First to Fight, and most likely it's construction here and in my Deviantart gallery)
We also talked about the shipyard, 3D printing, TV sticks, and some things I'm not going to get into. >:D

Anyway, his trio had a ball playing with the trains and in the pool. I hope to have them (with his latina lass hopefully!) over again soon. Their kids are incredibly well behaved. I am looking forward to introducing them to the rockets the next time they come over. Seeing the kid's faces when they launch one should be fun. Thomas and I hit it off pretty well, he and I are alike in some ways and talking with him was fun. His talks with Jeff seemed... interesting. lol

I have also been testing Natural reader:
http://www.naturalreaders.com/
I wanted to see if it would help me with my editing. Many people suggest (or demand in some cases) that people read material out loud to themselves or have someone read it to them to see if it makes sense. Some writers are now using narrators. I've played with the idea before, but I gave up. I tried it again with "A Matter of Breeding" Sunday and yesterday.
It's an interesting program, the free version has it's faults though. It trips over some words, and it has an incredibly annoying pop up. The program halts every 3-4 paragraphs and it asks if you if you are ready to buy it yet. There is a 5 second countdown before you can hit the later button. That is aggravating.
I know Windows has a built in narrator that this program builds off of, but it's even worse. The voice is horrible. I've also used UltraHal in the past, but the site and software haven't been updated in years. It also has a virus on the site so BEWARE. I warned you.
I'm going to keep exploring I guess, though I'll try the reader one more time with the short story "The Last Round Up." I'll peck at that later tonight or tomorrow. (most likely tomorrow, it's getting too warm in my room)

With the kids out of school and the summer heat beginning, I am expecting more calls to play board games or go swimming. (or both) I am not sure how much that will impact my schedule. (No plan survives contact with the enemy!) Take yesterday for example, we got the call and spent the afternoon playing games with the kids at my sisters. (and everyone had a coughing fit and watery eyes from Jay's spicy pork concoction!)

I have also been working on spinners, rendering them during the morning when it is cool out. I've rendered about 3/4 of the aliens from the Federation universe. (those without fur or feathers) and I've been rendering my 3D Zoids. (those I've finished)
I'm debating retexturing my Blade Liger (or finishing it's textures) and rendering it again. Maybe even animating it.

I'm trying hard NOT to telegraph any story bits (spoilers) here and I am looking into expanding my exposure on the web as recommended by a few people including Rich. (It's hard, I hate having my picture taken! I may use a 3D image of Jethro as a place holder)

Oh! Almost forgot, Brandon finished AD over the weekend, and I'm waiting on Jim to finish PP before I make any more decisions on the editing front. :) I need to look into the mentioned POV shift issues too.

That's it for now!

News

I'd like to congratulate Brandon Schell (not to be confused with Proof reader Brandon) for graduating High School this evening. Good job kid!

In other news, I'd like to say a sad good bye to my dear Uncle Richard. He passed Tuesday morning with most of the family present. He will be sorely missed.

He will live forever in a lot of hearts and memories.

Spinners!

First off, Happy Memorial Day! We salute our men and women in the armed forces who have given their lives so this country and it's freedoms shall live. Thank you for your time and sacrifice. You will forever be in our hearts and memories.

Okay, I've been, well, not really writing, but I have been taking advantage of the cool weather to render, at least in the mornings. I've rendered the Afraid of the Dark aliens:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=juMxWwGUDZ0

Sorry it's so long, I'm relearning MS Movie Maker.

As well as the Marines from Valenko's Squad in Jethro Goes to War:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_6bMAK7NPRM

I just finished putting that together and uploading it. See? I am getting better. :)

I've also been rendering the Federation aliens, most are untextured. I'll upload those later. Right now I am focusing on the aliens that lack fur or feathers. I have 19 finished, with quite a few more to go. Most may end up being shelved.
I can only render in the morning, when the temperature in the house is below 72. Anything above that and I start setting overheat alarms off, even with my liquid cooling. So I try to get as many done as possible in the morning.

I've also been working on texturing and rigging Jethro in his Marine Skinsuit. I'm having issues getting the rigging to turn on, so I'll work on that later. I am planning on making his powered combat armor soon. (the skinsuit was going to be it, but it's too much like the Halo Mjolnir suit in some respects for me to use it. I always thought of the suit as bulkier.) I'll need to make the suit for the cover of First to Fight. :)

Progress reports:
Brandon has AD, he said he's 1/3rd or 1/2 finished. (I'm not sure at this point, I forgot)
Jim has PP, no progress reported.
Thomas has been having fun with my short stories, including the old ones I've managed to dredge up for him to edit while I putter around in Cinema. lol
Mechmaster said he is 1/3rd finished PRI, despite a terrible bout of stomach flu. I'm glad he's better.

I am hoping a book will be ready to publish by the end of the month, but I have grave doubts. We'll have to wait and see what the week brings. Don't hold your breath though.

I have been talking with a couple of friends about renewing a video game making studio. It's just talk, we have done it before and haven't gotten far beyond that, though we've tried a few times. I'd love to see some of video game ideas (like AD) made real. (or as real as video games get, lol)

If I don't have any more family drama/distractions I should get back into writing and other things tomorrow.
Uncle Richard is stable though he had to go through a series of brain surgeries. He's lost his memory of the past 3 weeks. It's going to be a long road to recovery, but from the reports he's back on it.
I'm still campaigning for dad to go out to NH this summer to see him and the family. I'm not making much headway though. Sigh.

Have a safe holiday!

"Sasa fraken no good..."

Hey! I finally figured the origin of "Fracken" out. I thought they did it on Battlestar Galactica to get around the F bomb. Or Freaking. Now I know Sam the man cussing is the origin! or at least I'm running with that. :)

Yeah, I reblogged this from indydemocrat.blogspot.com

What can I say? Sorry mom for the cussing, and yes, I am a dork. >:)

Anyway, an update:
The first 4 copy edits of PP (Plague Planet) have been completed, Thomas just sent me back PP this morning. I'm looking into adding a few things before passing it on to someone else for their shot at it.
Thomas sent me back AD but had an auto-correct error and is fixing the fix. He'll get that back to me sometime soon.
I haven't heard anything from Mechmaster lately, (I'm guessing no news is good news?)
Congrats on Jacob loosing weight! Cool!

I've been working on Jethro 2 First to Fight. I tabled finishing the Gustav. I've added another 12 pages and some new plot points. I finished cleaning up chapter 9, but there is a lot of unresolved notes and details that need to be added ahead of it so it might not be chapter 9 for long.
I've been firming up my notes and tweaking some of the interconnected short stories to keep the details in synch. That is a necessary and tedious pain in the butt.
For some reason I keep getting attacked by viruses when I do research. That's annoying and time consuming to get rid of them. They also throw me off my game, blowing my concentration. That's annoying. GRRR.

I also have a bit of drama going on. 1 Mother's day. I'm hosting it again. and 2, my uncle Richard called Thursday, he had brain surgery yesterday. That's had the family walking on egg shells and hanging by the phone and net.

It's hot here, already 90. I suspect the nephews will be wanting to swim soon. Definitely tomorrow. They had fun in the pool and hot tub last weekend when they stayed the night.

To my Mom, Gram, Sister, and other mom's, have a wonderful day tomorrow ladies. You've more than earned it.

Now I get to go clean my house before you show up tomorrow. Gee thanks. lol

Oh, I almost forgot: My answer to the Dove-Cat wars:
Hang on dag nab it, I gotta get my phone out and transfer the dag gum picture...
Ah! Here it is:

That seems to have solved the problem, I haven't seen (though I've heard them) since. :)

(I told you I'm a dork)