Alexander C. Hoffman's Blog, page 3
February 15, 2015
Book sale
Hi everyone, my book (A Knight's Journey: The Apprentice) goes on sale for the Kindle tomorrow on Amazon (http://amzn.com/B00RYHOXUK). If you haven't already bought it, you should check it out. It's a fantasy novel about a young boy named Rowan and it will be on sale for only $0.99.
February 1, 2015
Fans
So I was looking at the pages for my book on Goodreads and Amazon (I know, I'm vain) and I found that I have fans/followers. I am irrationally excited about this and it's super cool. To those of you out there who have read The Apprentice, I am grateful. Someone even asked when they could expect a sequel, to which I responded that I am going to have a draft done by the end of the year. That may be optimistic, but I like to be optimistic.
Anyways, it's really cool to know people are interested in the series and it's really fun to be able to talk to fans. So if you've read my book and make comments or ask questions in a thread on Goodreads or Amazon, I will probably respond. Also, for those who are interested, I posted a world map on the Goodreads page.
January 18, 2015
New storytelling game
A while ago I picked up a copy of Winter Tales, a storytelling board game by Fantasy Flight. For those who don't know, a storytelling game is one that relies heavily on the players to create and tell a story to give the game life. It's a really fun mechanic that is quite approachable.
Anyways, I originally picked up the game because it had some great artwork and a really cool theme. Winter Tales is all about two warring factions (Winter and Spring) trying to gain control of Wintertown. I recently sat down with some friends and played the game, and it was really interesting. We created a great story involving subterfuge by the old woman Dorothy and a failed bromance between the Tin Man and Pinocchio.
I played the writer, a role that tries to make the game evenly balanced and keep the story on track. It was a fun experience and I expect I will play again. Maybe next time I'll record the story that we create.
June 30, 2014
Making Final Edits to the Book
So I finally went through and made all of the edits I was given by the editor. Reading through the book again, I didn't see a lot of spelling of grammar mistakes, but a number of sentences and paragraphs had a tendency to be lengthy. So I'm making a final run through to rephrase any sentences that disrupt the flow of the text. The good news is that most edits are minor and there aren't many areas that seriously require edits. Most edits have been small and they are few and far between.
Once I'm done with my final edits, hopefully by the end of July, then the Knight's Journey will be done and ready to be printed and published. At that time we will have Kickstarter campaign to print books and try to get it published.
March 29, 2014
Gaming
Playing so much has made me want to play some board games that are themed for books. I have played the Game of Thrones board game and even the Bioshock Infinite games. They are great games, but I would much rather have a game created that is not a war game. It would be really cool to see a co-op game for something like the Mistborn books or the Wheel of Time.
Maybe once I am done working on my book series I will be able to focus on creating a game for my own books. It would be really fun to work on and it would let me show so much more of the world.
World Building
My world is called Eos, and the two main countries of my tale are Atlea and Lauratrea (you can visit theknightsjourney.angelfire.com to see a map). Much of my second book is going to take place in Lauratrea and this has led me to elaborate on my world. There are a lot of aspects of the land that I have already built and defined, but there is still much that needs to be created. For instance, in the capitol of Lauratrea I developed an arena where the public gathers to watch as fighters are pitted against each other. I always planned to have an arena, but now I am developing the rules and traditions that go with it. It is really fun, but it can be difficult to work out a history of traditions that establish rules that make sense and perfectly fit my needs. Its hard to build a world that is the way you envision it while maintainimg consistency and plausibility. There has to be a reason things are the way they are. There has to be a history.
I really enjoy building my world, but I feel bad that most of what I create will not be placed into the books. On my website, I made a page about the various countries of my world. It lists some history and some of the major cities and places. One of my ideas (for when I have time) is to turn the list of cities into a set of hyperlinks so that I can create a page for each city so that readers who are interested can read about all of the histories and the unseen aspects of my world. Maybe I'll one day create a history book for my world.
March 8, 2014
Alex Writes His Thoughts
A lot of things have been happening with the Knight's Journey series. I found an editor (with help from my girlfriend Carissa) and she is now in the process of working on my story. I don't think that I could have edited my own story. I tried to read through it but it's really hard to read something that I wrote (though not because the story or the writing is bad). I find it very hard to focus on my own story because I know how it goes. Because of this, I continually overlook small details and continuity errors. After rewriting the whole first part of the book (as well as a large chunk of the middle) I found it difficult to notice the small errors that occurred where the revisions and the original text overlap.
Anyways, I have been working on the outline for book 2. Writing a book series certainly is a large project (though I enjoy the work). It has been very difficult lately to focus and work on book one. After all, I had already finished the book and then gone back to drastically edit and rewrite large sections of it. Once the story was complete, I thought that the work was over. I did not realize how much more would be required after the completion of the novel in order to make it ready for publication and in order to spread the word about the book. It will probably sound naive, but I had hoped that I could publish the finished book and that readers would gradually recognize its potential. So I worked on creating a website and a Facebook page and a Twitter and this blog, and the maintaining them all has been difficult. But there are some fun aspects as well. The website and the blog will allow me to post fun information about my world that I wouldn't otherwise get to share with readers through the books. I look forward to that because there was a lot of worldbuilding that went into the creation of Eos. There is much more to the land than just what you see in the books, and it will be interesting to see how readers like such information. I look forward to compiling it all and making it accessible (don't worry, there won't be any spoilers).
Now that I have a website and stuff and my novel is out being edited, I finally have time to sit down and outline book 2 and book 3. I am very grateful to be able to return to working on the actual creation of my stories. While it has been fun and rewarding to prepare book one for publication, my true passion is the actual writing. It is fun to plan and see where the story goes. I know how the story is going to progress, but there are a lot of small decisions that seem to change the story, like where the characters go and how fast the story should progress. But the work is fun and it is going well. I cannot wait until the outline for book two is ready and I can begin work on a draft of the story.
I want to get back to working on my story, so I think this will be the end of my post. But I will make sure to write again soon.
March 2, 2014
Updates for The Knight's Journey
As of right now, I am happy to announce that the cover art for the novel is currently in process and the manuscript has been sent to an editor to be professionally edited. The editor should have my manuscript back by the end of May at the latest, meaning that sometime in July or August I can expect to have a finished product.
I am excited to see this work finished and I will continue to provide updates on the book series as time goes by.
