Stephen Burckhardt's Blog: My Blog Ramblings, page 75

Chilly Monday Greetings

Today is a somber day in the Burckhardt home. I'm going through a few emotions today after learning of the death of a family member. Yesterday, my mother's sister passed away. It was not a surprise as she was in her 80s and had been battling Alzheimer's for many years. We were not close. She was a stern woman who was not what I would ever characterize as "touchy-feely" but I know her passing will be difficult for many people in her family. For those relatives, I am sorry for their loss. For my mother, I am sorry she didn't have a sister who wanted a close relationship with her and that she was not even acknowledged in her sisters obituary when every other member of her family was. This is all very sad on so many levels. This family loss is, of course, distracting from my writing but now I feel like channeling some of that emotion into my work. It seems like a perfect time to write seeing as how a few of my characters were also dealing with their losses at the end of book two. Doc Pete and his wife had not thought of adopting a child until they saw Conner, who closely resembled the son they had lost. Tim Ruth had come to the meeting at the church with the idea of adopting a sister for his son Timothy. At one time, Timothy had a sister but she too was lost to the harsh realities of living in the wild west. I think everything that is going on personally with my family right now will help me write a more realistic story when dealing with these emotions of loss. I hope to have something share for a sneak peak this weekend. Keep watching the blogs for more updates and if you haven't already, sign up for the mailing list to get all the latest information on book releases, contests, and so much more. Thanks for joining me on this ride! Stephen

Happy Saturday!

I hope everyone is having a good morning. I'm finally starting to feel like I've accomplished a few things. I have the new covers and edits for part one and two all uploaded and am just waiting for approval on the final few covers. This weekend I will actually start writing part three, Into the West: Sharon Springs. I'm excited to finally get the words on the screen. The characters have been waking up more in my head and are ready to continue on with their story. We will open up back in the meeting in Sharon Springs but, like in the beginning of Into the West: A New Home, we will see the end of the previous book but from a different perspective. It will give new insight into the thoughts and motivations of other characters. Keep watching the blogs for information on sneak peaks of what I'm writing. I will post the spoilers on a section in the members only area so only those who want to read them can and no one will have to avoid reading the blogs. One sad bit of news, I'm going to stop producing the special editions until I get to the final book. The publishing site I have been using has increased their prices and it just will not be feasible to produce a combined issue with all books in the serial after every new edition to the saga. I'm considering making it available in ebook form but not in print until all the book have been written. Keep watching my social media sites for the next book trailer. It will go up before I put Into the West: Sharon Springs on sale. Thanks going on this ride with me!Stephen

Almost There . . .

I just finished reformatting and uploading Into the West: A New Home - Special Edition. As soon as this is approved and goes live again, I will have finished with all of the reedits and redesigns! Hallelujah! Que the heavenly chorus! Moving forward will be so much easier now. I have a clear plan and have learned so much the last two years. It's definitely been a learning experience for me. My plan is to release Into the West: Sharon Springs this spring or early summer at the latest and then release Into the West: Most Wanted in the fall. I would like to have book five, the last book in this serial ready for release for Christmas but I think that might be pushing it. Mostly because I haven't figured out how I want to end this saga yet. I have a general idea but it really needs some more fleshing out. I hope to have all final approvals done for the reworked books by this Friday. I may take a day or two to relax then hit it hard to write Into the West: Sharon Springs. I need a bit of a breather. Besides, I think my mind works when I step away from the stories once in a great while. In the meantime, Dianne is back at work on trying to set up audio books for me. I'll keep you posted as I know more. We will most likely post some more audio sample on the Members Only page in the saloon. It's free to be a member, just sign up here. If you would like to see teasers as I work on my next book, be sure to sign up for my mailing list. Just go to stephenburckhardt.com and fill into your information to join my Posse. Keep watching the blog posts for more information about upcoming contests and special offers. And as always, thanks for following my work! Stephen

So Much Going on . . .

Where to begin? I wrote a short story that will be part of an anthology of western authors. The title is going to be, The Shot Rang Out. Fifty-two western authors were given 18 words and they had to write a short story around them. It was a lot of fun and I'm looking forward to the book coming out. P.R.'s birthday surprise was a big hit. It was hard to keep the cake hidden for two days while I made it but I pulled it off. I was actually surprised this came out as nice as it did. It is a chocolate cake with cherry jam mixed with cherry liquor between the layers. It's iced with a homemade buttercream icing and covered in fondant. P.R. and I are both huge Star Wars fans so this was a fun cake for both of us. Dianne and I have been working like mad to get all the new edits up for books one and two in the Into the West Serial Saga so I can move on to book three while she works on the audio books. We've added a 5x8 paperback version exclusively through Barnes and Noble. They should be live by the end of the week. We have a book trailer for Into the West: A New Home. It will be up on my website soon but if you go to my Facebook page you can see it now. I'm glad I cut back my teaching schedule the last two weeks. It really gave me a lot of time to devote to my books so I could get all of this sorted out. I'm already completely booked for classes the next two weeks. I guess my students missed me. I got two boxes of proof copies of Into the West: The Orphan Train. I plan to offer up a few autographed copies in contests here in the near future so be sure to watch my social media for details. I hope to have the new edits up for the Special Edition of Into the West: A New Home by the end of the week. If you are interested in this issue I suggest you buy it as soon as it goes live again. It will be going off sale as soon as book three, Into the West: Sharon Springs, is released. I think that covers most of the news right now. If there is something I forgot, I'll write another blog tomorrow. Thanks for following my work!Stephen

Such a Long Day

I'm tryin to post from my tablet. We'll see if this works. I am so dead. P.R. and I got up and went to our meeting then we headed off in different directions. P.R. came home to do a conference call while I headed out to buy things for P.R.'s birthday tomorrow. I had decided I was going to finally make a cake I had been wanting to make P.R. for a while now ... I may regret it.I took $110 out of the bank. I thought for sure the stuff I'd need to buy for the cake would only cost $40 and I could buy us a new Soda Stream while I was out. Ours broke but it still works, sort of. After going to just two stores to get most of (not all) the stuff for the cake I was already down $56 and still needed to get the groceries I needed to make it and we were out of the basics like bread, butter, and eggs. By the time I was done I was down $90 and no Soda Stream. This cake better turn out fabulous. I could have bought P.R. a cake and the Millennium Falcon Bluetooth speaker we saw online and it would have cost about the same, my back wouldn't be killing me right now, and I could have spent at least part of the day writing.But it will all be worth it if it makes P.R's birth great. And if it doesn't make P.R.'s birthday great ... well, you know ... live and learn. Stephen

We are Getting Closer to Book Three!

So, I've mentioned I recently hired an editor, Greg Wood. He has all ready reedited books one and two for me (and corrected a few habitual mistakes I make). I have gone through book one, Into the West: The Orphan Train, and uploaded it to all of the sales platforms now and redesigned all the advertising for it (not to mention the amazing trailer Dianne created you can see in this blog). Now, on to book two, Into the West: A New Home.Greg sent me his edits for book two several days ago but I haven't had a chance to look at it until today. I will be working on the edits and formatting them for all the different sales platforms and hope to have those live again here in the next few days. I'm not sure how much time I will have to work on my writing Monday and Tuesday. P.R. and I have a meeting to go to in the morning on Monday and then I have to go shopping for supplies for Tuesday. Tuesday is P.R.'s birthday. I have big plans for this birthday and they could take a while. The rest of my week will be pretty open. I have cut back the classes I'm teaching this week so I can focus more on my writing. I'm only teaching two classes a day so that will give me most of the day to write. My goal is to have at least a few chapters written by Friday. So, now for a question, do you want to see hints at the story as I write it or do you just want the whole book when it's finished? I'm up for doing either. I promise when/if I do give snippets for you to read it will not be the major scenes. It will be part of the build up or the aftermath and you will have to use your imagination to fill in the rest, until you buy the book and read it all for yourself that is.Let me know in the comments how you feel. In the meantime, why not check out my Facebook page and follow me there. Stephen

So Very Tired . . .

[image error]I have worked my little fingers to the bone lately. I am so tired, I only hope this will all make sense. I have been getting up at least by 9 am, prepping classes, teaching classes, writing reports for the students, then working on my books until about 3 am, go to bed, get up and start all over. On days I don't teach, it's just work on my books all day. I so very much need sleep! I have been working with my new editor, Greg Wood, to reedit books one and two in the Into the West Saga Serial. When they were first published, I could not afford to hire an editor. My mother, Sharon Stephens, and my friend, Sharon Durmaskin, tried to help me with editing but both women had full-time jobs and trying to edit my work for me (for free) in their spare time was a daunting task. I had recently come to the conclusion that if I really want to make a go of my writing career, I was going to have to break down and invest in my own future. I took the money I had been saving up to buy a very nice touring bicycle and invested it in hiring a professional editor instead. Greg Wood, has already proven to be worth the money (and worth having to continue to walk everywhere). He has reedited Into the West: The Orphan Train and Into the West: A New Home. The new edits, coupled with the new cover art Dianne Burckhardt designed, has almost made these brand new projects. I just finished uploading the new edits, including some additional material, across all the sales platforms for Into the West: The Orphan Train. I am hoping the paperbacks will be available again for purchase as soon as this weekend, the ebooks are all ready available for download. I plan to take a little break tomorrow and work on another project I was asked to join. Fifty-two western authors are working together to create a "reader" of sorts, with fifty-two 500-word short western stories. I was the 52nd western author to come on-board the project. It should be fun. As soon as I get my contribution written tomorrow, I'm jumping back into my own work and finalizing all the new edits for Into the West: A New Home this weekend. My plan is to spend most of next week working on part three Into the West: Sharon Springs. Though I will have to take a good part of Tuesday off, it's P.R.'s birthday and I have plans!Keep watching the blogs! As soon as I get into the meat of part three, I'm going to share a few blurbs here for those who like to have a sneak-peek. Don't worry, I will give spoiler alerts when I post things in the blog for those who don't like them. We are also working on more publicity things too. Watch for the trailer for Into the West: A New Home which we hope to have ready this weekend as well. Dianne is doing such a great job for me on all of this. I don't know what I would do without her. I will let everyone know when all of the new edits are live for part one and two so you can download a revised version of the ebooks or purchase a new paperback. However, for those of you who do not want to buy a new paperback but would like to read the new edits, just send a picture of you holding your paperback to Stephen.Burckhardt@gmail.com and I will send you an PDF or ePub version of the book.I've said it before and I'm going to keep saying it, THANK YOU! Thank you to all of you who are sticking with me as I work to become a good author. There is so much a person has to do when they are self-publishing. I spent about six hours today just working on getting the formatting correct for the paperback. If I had a publisher, this would all fall to them and I would only have to worry about writing. But having all of you reading my work makes all the this behind the scenes work worth while! With deepest gratitude,Stephen

Busy, Busy, Busy!

So many things are going on right now. Probably the best announcement I have is I have hired an editor! (Cue applause!) Please welcome Greg Wood to my team. With Greg around, I think you will see a vast improvement in the quality of the work I'm producing. He's already reedited book one and is reviewing book two at this moment. There are so many things he has helped me correct already that will make the reading experience for all of you so much better. I do want to take a moment to thank Sharon Stephens and Sharon Durmaskin for their help trying to catch all of my mistakes the first time around with these two volumes. I could not have gotten to this point without you ladies.The other exciting thing that has happened is, we have a book trailer. This is all still in the beginning stages for us but we are figuring it out. I've wanted to do trailers for the books for a while now but, like with most everything else, I did not have money in my budget for that. Dianne was doing more research on book trailers, trying to find something we could afford, when she found an article explaining how to make simple book trailers using PowerPoint. She made one last night just to try it all out and then refined it today. It's not too bad. I think this will work until we can get some advertising money to pay someone to do more live action trailers for us. Good things are happening. Be sure to sign up for my posse so you will get all the up to date information. Let us know what you think!Stephen

Live, Laugh, and . . . Love!

I just wanted to take a moment before I go throw some serious romance at P.R. to wish everyone a wonderful Valentine's Day.I hope you all know how much I appreciate each and every one of you who have continued to follow me as I find my way in to becoming a legitimate author. Keep watching my website for some exciting announcements coming soon. I'm working hard so one day you can all say, you knew me when I was a struggling unknown. We can have a big party, laugh about it, and play "remember when."With gratitude,Stephen

Catching Up and Hiring an Editor

I was actually able to catch up to my timeline I had set for this weekend. Due to actually being able to have quality time with P.R. for a few days, I fell behind my timeline before Friday was even finished. But here it is, Sunday night and I just finished re-reading part two, Into the West: A New Home. I didn't go crazy and add pages worth of new material to this book as I had with part one when I re-read it. Which makes sense.With part one I was a lot more nervous about writing a western for myself and I think I was hesitant to really dive into the story head first. By the time I got to part two, I was feeling more comfortable and confident in my writing. I'm hoping this trend continues as I work through the story. Now that I'm done re-reading parts one and two, I'm ready to start typing part three into the computer. With any luck, I will have an editor by this time tomorrow who can review one and two for me while I write part three. I actually have three great candidates all of whom I would be extremely lucky to work with. If I could afford it, I would hire them all. But tomorrow I will have to choose one who can do a good job and yet I can also afford without having to go into debt to pay them. Fingers crossed!Be sure to keep watching my blogs and website. When I am ready to release part three, I plan to do a few special promotions. I haven't really decided exactly what just yet, so keep checking in so you don't miss out when I announce everything. Have a great week,Stephen