Jason Halstead's Blog, page 31

The Ultimate Zero Calorie Desert

This article has nothing to do with food. I apologize to all the sweet-craving and fad-diet mongers out there, but read on anyhow, you might like this. This is about persistence and setting (and achieving) goals. And it’s about picking up heavy things. What about writing? Well it applies there too, just read on to see why.

I used to be a competitive powerlifter. Back in 2009 I suffered a catastrophic injury that made my world come crashing down around me. I ripped my left pectoral muscle off of my left arm during one of my final training sessions for a powerlifting meet. A month later I had surgery and was told I would never bench heavy again. Even worse was that I was moving in another month after surgery, so I wouldn’t be able to go through insurance-based therapy. That meant I had to put my own therapy program together at my new home in Utah. I couldn’t just give up lifting – part of who I am is centered around being a big and strong guy. I had to find another way.

I can’t say whether my version of therapy was better than a licensed physical therapist’s or not, but I do know that I started lifting seriously six months after surgery. I’d been doing all sorts of other exercises up until that point to try and teach my body how to use the reattached muscles and build up supportive strength as well as shore up the reattached tendons and connective tissue. Within eight or nine months of my surgery I was back up to 90% of my previous strength as far as my upper body was concerned. I’d also gotten my lower body strength back up to my previous competition best.

It’s been a couple of years since then now and life complicated things by getting really busy. Recently I’ve redoubled my efforts in the gym and I’m happy to say I’m back up to where I peaked post-incident. As a matter of fact I’m even reaching new personal bests when it comes to my lower body strength. I’ve accepted I’ll never bench press what I once did, but that doesn’t mean I’m still not hoping to trick my body into working its way up there again!

The moral of story is one of persistence and setting realistic goals. Sure, maybe one day I’d like an impossible dream, but that’s not a realistic goal. It doesn’t mean it won’t or can’t happen, it just means I have to break down the path and create smaller goals along the way that are achievable. Like the tortoise and the hare, success for 99% of us is achieved through hard work and determination. Whether it’s benching over 400 pounds of learning to surf with one arm, there are examples all around us of people that have done what somebody said was impossible. And if one person can do it, than so can I and so can you.

What does all that have to do with desert? Simple, after each achievement I’ll look back and have a warm and fuzzy feeling not so different from a great piece of cheesecake (or whatever favorite desert). I’ll know I accomplished what I went after and I never failed something because I didn’t try or work hard enough for it. And when I’ve done all I can do and the end is near I won’t have any regrets for things I didn’t try. I think that’s more fulfilling than any combination of sugar and flavors. And who knows, if the goal is lose a little weight than maybe basking in that triumph helps keep the calories off too.

How would this apply to writing? That’s easy too. Setting goals applies to everything in life. My goal is to be a successful writer. I’m doing okay right now, but nowhere near good enough to hit the numbers I need. I’m trying different things to make that happen, from some marketing and promotion – including a three month promo campaign I just started on Monday (which I’ll share the results of as I get them. Ultimately my path to writing success involves writing though. I just keep on writing more books. Life has slowed me down a bit over the last few weeks but I’m still hard at work on my next book. Since your curious, my current project is the third book in the Wanted trilogy.

And after I finish that one I’ll start in on the next – I don’t believe in wasting time between novels. I’m not sure what the next one will be, unfortunately, but I’ve got several options. Presently I’m leaning towards a sequel to Child of Fate, which is a fantasy novel that should be released late October or early November. My third Wanted book will hopefully make it out shortly after that, mid to late November.

And now back to your regularly scheduled day. Just remember as you go about it to give yourself a goal to accomplish with some challenge to it. Enough to make you feel good about accomplishing it and once you’ve done that, do it again (new goal, not the same one). There’s power in victory, and once you become addicted to it the sky’s the limit!

To learn more about Jason Halstead, visit his website to learn about him, his books, sign up for his newsletter, or check out some free samples of his books at http://www.booksbyjason.com.

The Mob Mentality

I watched a special on the Discovery channel a few months ago about how people can easily be swayed by the beliefs of others. I watched alleged scenes where people were tricked into believing a snake was in a tree because a couple of people were staring up into the tree and pointing out where it was at. The power of belief and faith is impressive. A few people, even when they were let in on the experiment, still believed they’d seen a snake in the tree.

Other things the show explained the contagious effect of a yawn on others. I had the extreme misfortune last night of experiencing something along those lines. My son and daughter came down with whatever crap happens every year when school starts. It turned into into an ear ache and by the time we had her at the urgent care it was a full blown ear infection that had her as miserable as I’d ever seen her. Last night we decided to let her sleep on her mattress on the floor of our bedroom so we could keep an eye on her. She ended up vomiting in the middle of the night, although thanks to my wife’s foresight to have her in our room it was a controlled event with minimal mess.

The group mentality effect came into play when we had to clean it up. A fan was blowing and the way I was holding up the soiled blankets to protect the mattress while my wife started to clean up the nasty part. So I couldn’t see or smell anything, but simply knowing it was there had the group mentality effect. My wife was under the same effects I was, but we both held it under control.

So it works for snakes in trees, lines on floors (another scene from the special), yawning, and being sick. Let’s see if it works for books too. Spread the word about your favorite books. Do it with conviction and belief. Faith even, but not like an L. Ron Hubbard convert into Scientology faith. Do you think Twilight and 50 Shades of Whatever sold millions of copies just because they found it on a list at Amazon (or wherever)? No, they sold because of word of mouth and intriguing others to make them curious. So my friends, tell people about the books you like. I suggest starting with mine, purely for the sake of scientific experimentation, of course! Check out the graphics of my books on the right to be taken to one or view the link to my website below.

To learn more about Jason Halstead, visit his website to learn about him, his books, sign up for his newsletter, or check out some free samples of his books at http://www.booksbyjason.com.

The Hardest Part of Writing

To a non-writer the act of sitting down and writing thousands of words seems more than a little daunting. I can remember the groaning of fellow students even in my MBA classes at the thought of having to write 500+ word essays. Heck, I’ve got a co-worker who once offered to pay me to write his quarterly company newsletter articles and those are only a couple of paragraphs! And no, I didn’t take him up on the offer, but not because I’m afraid of writing.

As any writer knows, writing the book is actually the easy part. What comes after, the publishing and marketing, is a far more grueling and difficult task. It’s not a matter of “if you write it, they will read.” Sure, we’d love for that to be the case, but if nobody knows it’s out there how could anyone possibly read it? That’s the tricky part. Tricky and, depending on how you go about it, expensive.

But all of those things still may not be the hardest part of writing. I’m sitting on a very complicated dilemma at this very moment while I’m finishing up a self-edit of my most recent fantasy novel, Child of Fate. I hope to finish the self-edit today then send it off to Lisa Shalek for content editing, then my proof reader, Faith Williams. And of course my favorite cover artist, Willsin Rowe. As excited as I am to get that book going I’m having a bit of a rough time. You see, in the back of my head I have two books fighting each other for the right to be heard, or at least read. Do I jump into the sequel for Child of Fate right away while it’s still fresh or do I step away and undertake another long overdue project?

What long overdue project? Well I’m glad you asked! It started out with some plans my wife and I have to go to Vegas without the kids in a couple of weeks. We’re meeting some friends out there and the plan is, for a night or two, to go clubbing. Now when I think of the word clubbing I flash back to either romance in the caveman era or being mugged in a dark alley. My wife corrected me and pointed out that I needed to be on my best behavior because if I let my irritation show on my face while waiting in line or in the club, I could very easily be asked to leave. I was thinking about this Friday night while my wife and I were out with a different couple (yes, we’ve got at least four friends). My wife and her friend were out dancing while the other guy and I were sitting there watching them. It was entertaining. Her words flashed into my head though, and that started an unexpected moment of inspiration.

I have a character in the books I’ve written that shares some traits with me. In him they are amplified to levels that are admirable. Sort of like the movie Braveheart where William Wallace is considered an uncompromising man and it’s a good thing. Well Carl, of Wanted / Ice Princess fame, would be just as annoyed or more so than I would be in such a situation, and he wouldn’t be upset to show it. Add in somebody putting their hands on him to escort him out and, well, it would get messy.

So with that scene in mind I chuckled, then I realized I might be on to something. Was this, at last, the segue into the third and final book in the Wanted series? I dug deeper and soon it just started pouting into my brain. I had a plot and a premise. I had scenes. I had ideas. Now all I need to do is write it out!

But I’m indecisive. When I wrote Wanted I got hung up for a long time on it. I ended up cutting back and dropping around 15,000 words at the end and rewriting the ending. My original plans lay shattered for the trilogy and I considered leaving it at just one book. Eventually I found inspiration to do Ice Princess, but I had a rough time with that one too throughout it. So now I’m nervous that the third one would be equally troubling. I’ve come a long ways as a writer since those books, but that doesn’t stop the fear of failure from creeping in.

Nonetheless, I think I’m going to proceed with the third Wanted book. Like I said, I’ll be in Las Vegas in a couple of weeks so what better time to write it then when I can do live research on the place where I plan for most of the book to happen in? Granted, it’s a very different Las Vegas. The third book will take place several years after Ice Princess has ended. The United States government has moved back in and reclaimed the western states from the neo-anarchy that plagued the world for several years, but their presence is limited and quite often quite martial. With all the sparks from that kind of environment going on what could be more fun than adding in a little gasoline?

Stay tuned, I’ll be sure to post progress as I get started on it. I’m not sure if I want to title the book “Sin City”, “Vegas”, or something else altogether. Not to worry, I’ll figure it out!

To learn more about Jason Halstead, visit his website to learn about him, his books, sign up for his newsletter, or check out some free samples of his books at http://www.booksbyjason.com.

Can’t Keep a Good Book Down

As a fellow reader I’m sure we’re all aware of the books that we have a hard time putting down. I can think of quite a few over the years, ranging from authors like Dean Koontz, Michael Crichton, Terry Goodkind, and Raymond Feist to many others. As a writer I can’t tell you how much it thrills me to have received feedback from readers who claimed they had the same “problem” with my books.

As much as I’m happy to boast about my books, there’s more to it than just being a reader who can’t put a book down. For me when I’m writing I get so sucked in to the book that I can’t put it down either, and that’s from a writing perspective! How else could I crank out 3000 to 8000 words a day? Certain doctors might insist it’s an escape mechanism designed to help me cope with reality, but I don’t buy that – wouldn’t alcohol be a lot easier?

When there’s something about a book that just has to come out of me it’s burning in my brain and it needs to be released. I’ve had characters over the years that demanded emancipation and they turned into great books. In other cases, like my Vitalis series, I had something terrible happen to more than a few characters, but they wouldn’t accept their fates. They couldn’t accept them. And so the next book in the series was born. Vitalis: Resurrection, is a full novel length book released today that continues the story of Vitalis six months after then end of the Vitalis Omnibus. New characters join the fold and old characters are redefined and reintroduced. Relationships are expanded and explained and there’s a lot of time spent in a complex of dark caves fighting Vitalian monsters that draws people closer together.

Vitalis: Resurrection is a story about surviving impossible odds and proving that nothing can quench the human spirit – even when the very essence of the world is pitted against them.

Here’s the blurb:

Vitalis is more than just a new world outside the fringes of Terran space, Vitalis is greater than anything humanity has ever encountered. And it’s getting fed up.

The time has come for humans living on the world to be judged. What better way to understand the colonists than to become one of them and see how they live, fight, and love?

Vitalis: Resurrection on Amazon

Vitalis: Resurrection on Amazon UK

Vitalis: Resurrection on Kobo (coming soon)

Vitalis: Resurrection on Barnes and Noble (coming soon)

Vitalis: Resurrection on Smashwords

Print version Vitalis: Resurrection (coming soon)

To learn more about Jason Halstead, visit his website to learn about him, his books, sign up for his newsletter, or check out some free samples of his books at http://www.booksbyjason.com.

The Writing Machine

I haven’t blogged much as I should have recently. I’ll make no promises that I’ll step it up to a few posts a week in the immediate future either. My dayjob has been kicking me between the legs so much lately it’s becoming repetitive. I hope I get used to it and build up a tolerance. Although I hate to imagine having callouses “down there!”

Anyhow, in spite of the day to day burdens of life at a tier 1 auto supplier, the write must go on. I try to squeeze some writing in on lunch since I never leave the day job except to go home at the end of the day, but even that’s been denied to me this week. The answer? headphones.

One of my wife’s favorite shows (perhaps her current favorite altogether) just started back up, “The Voice.” I admit, it’s kind of catchy at times and I do enjoy the train wreck that is Christina Aguilara’s outfits. The problem is it comes on when the kids go to bed and that’s prime writing time. Enter the headphones. I fire up a selection of music I’ve loaded for inspiring creative genius and go to town. Sure, there are still some distractions with the Voice in the background and my wife occasionally laughing or talking to me (I keep the volume low enough to hear what’s going on around me).

In spite of the distractions the music helps keep me more focused, even if it only serves as white noise. Monday night, for example, I cranked out 2000 words on my current work in progress (Child of Fate, a fantasy novel beginning a new series). Last night I shocked myself by managing over 3000 words in an even shorter time frame.  With Child of Fate I’m shooting for an average of 3000 words per chapter and I’m some in the early to mid 20′s for chapter count. Two more to go and I expect the book will be finished.

So what’s next after Child of Fate? I’m tempted to launch into book two right away, but I’m considering my options. I may branch out and try something completely different from my usual fair, but I remain undecided. Whatever it is I’ll keep plugging away like the writing machine that I am. That much is certain.

To learn more about Jason Halstead, visit his website to learn about him, his books, sign up for his newsletter, or check out some free samples of his books at http://www.booksbyjason.com.

Living My Fantasy

I’ve been quiet lately. Too quiet, perhaps. After a flurry of blogging a few weeks back I dropped off the face of the earth it seemed. All is well, I just got busy. I had to write a host of blog posts for an upcoming promotion I’m doing for my Vitalis book, plus I’m finalizing the sequel to Vitalis (Vitalis: Resurrection) for release in a couple of weeks. I’m also going out of my way to coerce people into writing reviews for Vitalis and other books of mine. Between all that and a labor day weekend long road trip kept me pretty incommunicado.

But wait, there’s more! I’ve been hard at work on Child of Fate, my new fantasy novel. This is going to be a long one and it’s a lot of fun. Hopefully I’m past the halfway point by now but I keep coming up with more things to add into it that I can’t resist! That’s great news for readers because I have hundreds of ideas for things to do down the road as well, which will lead to many sequels. What can I say, I lead a very active fantasy life.

A high level sample of what’s going on right now involves the hero and his friends trapped in a large complex of caves. They’re trapped between several clans of goblins intent on killing them and a small army of trolls and ogres that have been sent to find and butcher them. They’ve managed to escape immediate danger, but only at great sacrifice. And the main character, a farm boy turned warrior before his prime, just opened a door and was greeted by something large, green, and toothy. And Mr. Toothy just invited them into his home…what can go wrong? Did I mention the goblin in the corner named, “Bonky?”

Admit it, you’re a little curious now… hang in there, I promise to finish it as soon as I can! I’m still shooting for an October release on it, although it may be late October at this rate.

To learn more about Jason Halstead, visit his website to learn about him, his books, sign up for his newsletter, or check out some free samples of his books at http://www.booksbyjason.com.

The Ultimate Betrayal

Long time readers of this blog will remember the story I posted one chapter at a time called Betrayal’s Hands. I stopped posting a few weeks back because I got busy and because I was done to the very end and, to be honest, the end sucked more than the rest of it did. I had my suspicions, after trying to rework it as I read through it, but it wasn’t until I sought some outside assistance to be sure of it. The feedback agrees with my hunches: Betrayal’s Hands is going into the slush pile that shall never again see the light of day.

I apologize for anyone who was enjoying it in spite of the many flaws it contained. There is a decent story to be had in it, I believe, but rewriting it would be more work than writing something from scratch. Perhaps someday I’ll get around to it but I doubt it very much. I’ve got too many other projects that rank higher in my mind’s eye.

Speaking of those other projects, the current one is a new fantasy novel destined to become a series. It’s called Child of Fate (the first book), although something about the title doesn’t feel quite right to me. We’ll call that the working title for now until it’s too late for me to come up with something different. Anyhow, it’s a story about a farm boy turned mercenary, although right now he’s still far more farm boy than warrior. I’m on chapter 9 and around 120 pages into it. I’ve got a lot of plans for the first book so I might be a third of the way through – it promises to be a long one!

But wait, there’s more. I had an idea just this morning that came out of the blue. It involved Wanted and Ice Princess. A concept for a third book smacked me in the back of the head. I’m going to let it sit there and rattle around for a while to make sure it sticks, then who knows, perhaps Carl and Jessie have enough left in them for one more run through the meat grinder!

To learn more about Jason Halstead, visit his website to learn about him, his books, sign up for his newsletter, or check out some free samples of his books at http://www.booksbyjason.com.

You Want Me to Write about WHAT?

I’ve been a writer on the side for several years now. Officially, that is. Unofficially I’ve been writing since I was…well, a lot younger than I am now (let’s not get hung up on details). I’ve gone through the stages where I wrote tried to figure out what to write and who to write it for. I’ve scoffed at some genres then been knocked on my butt when I found out how well some of those genres sold. Through it all I have been write about one thing – writing a book about basket weaving is not going to make me rich!

A while back I read a study that indicated the majority of e-readers were owned by women. It wasn’t a big majority, but anything over 50% counts. Conversely, the majority of tablets were owned by men (or in my case owned by me but used by my children to play games on). That made me begin to understand why some of the genres were so successful (e.g. romance and it’s many shades). So all I had to do was write romance-ish books, right? Well… not exactly.

My wife recently picked up 50 Shades of Grey. I was torn on the decision. On the one hand it’s a book with loads of bad reviews, written by a writer that made me grimace when I sampled the blurb and some of the text within, and it’s very poorly edited. Professionally speaking, I just couldn’t condone it. But then there’s the sheer volume of copies sold, not to mention the promising secondhand mention of the affect its had upon women reading it (one friend recommend I “nip down to the shops and get some plastic ties, cuffs & a whip”). With advice like that, how could I deny her?

To continue the tangent, my wife is most of the way through it and her opinion of it is that it’s not her thing (the BDSM), the writing seems immature or inexperienced, and there are countless mistakes throughout that are driving her crazy. But she’s still reading it. And no, I haven’t needed the ties, cuffs, or whip.

So I asked her what the deal was. The movie Magic Mike was a big success amongst women and the most regular review is that there’s too much plot and not enough dancing. Similarly, books like 50 Shades are light (at best) on plot and long on smut. Is this a sign that (like usual) most men have no clue what women want? Do you ladies want sexy, fun, light, and humorous entertainment without the burden of plot and story behind it? Oh sure, there needs to be enough to make it look good if somebody should glance over and ask about it. Think of it as a beard covering the steamy parts hidden within.

I asked my wife that same question and I got a half smile and a shrug. That’s it. What the heck is that? How do I, and other writers, provide the kinds of things you’d like without being able to get any clear guidance or data? Maybe that’s just my man-brain and the quest for something that makes sense, but throw us a bone here. Ladies, you’ve been dating and marrying us for years. You know by now us guys don’t do well picking up subtlety. Help us help you…

To learn more about Jason Halstead, visit his website to learn about him, his books, sign up for his newsletter, or check out some free samples of his books at http://www.booksbyjason.com.

What Really Happened on Vitalis

For those not familiar, Vitalis is a world I created in a futuristic science fiction series. It starts out with a crew on a space transport that have a run in with some inter-stellar salvage experts (read: pirates, matey). Things don’t go so well for any of them and the long and short of it is a new world is discovered outside of the Terran Coalition of Systems (aka known space). Sounds pretty cool, right?

I thought so to, and I released them one part after another. The average length was 20,000 words to 30,000 words and I priced them dirt cheap at $.99. Seven parts in all and sales skyrocketed earlier this year. I had a couple of months with over 5,000 sales for the series and people emailed me and tweeted me and Facebooked me to tell me they love them. Life was good!

Then a handful of people took it upon themselves to get upset with the length of the books. They spent $.99 for something hey liked – something they admit sucked them in – and they were pissed off about it. So they wrote essentially the same review on each book and gave them all a rating of 1. This sunk the series practically overnight. The positive feedback to me was great, but since it wasn’t placed on Amazon on the books themselves, it didn’t do any good. Instead the haters down-rated the stories into the abyss. The lower the rating the less interest Amazon’s algorithms have in it – and the less it’s shown to potential buyers. Thus you see the power of reviews and the power of readers.

All those blog posts and other times when I’ve told people how important reviews are to authors like me? Yeah, I meant it. This entire series and a substantial portion of my financial ability to write new stuff has been sabotaged. It had nothing to do with greed on my part, it had to do with getting new stories in people’s hands as quickly as possible. The pricing of $.99 each was actually detrimental to me, rather than a pricing scheme. And the Vitalis Omnibus, which contains all 7 of the stories is longer than the vast majority of published novels out there and half the price – so no, I’m not trying to screw anybody over financially. As a matter of fact, I kind of feel like the exact opposite has happened because of this.

Whining aside, I’ve taken Vitalis parts 2 – 7 off sale. Yep, they aren’t out there anymore. I left New Beginnings up because it’s free and how can you bitch about free? My desire is for people to check it out and enjoy it as a sample of what’s in the Vitalis Omnibus, then they can go and buy that. Sometime next month I plan to release Vitalis: Resurrection, the novel in the Vitalis series. For the record I said novel, not novella, not novelette, and not short story.

My friends and loyal readers, I thank you all for the support an for continuing to read my books. I also beseech you to remember my story when you read a book (no matter who the author is) and please leave a review and a positive rating. Who knows, you might just be helping them make sure their kids can get into college.

To learn more about Jason Halstead, visit his website to learn about him, his books, sign up for his newsletter, or check out some free samples of his books at http://www.booksbyjason.com.

Taking A Step Back to Go Forward

My current writing project is pure fantasy, as I alluded a few posts back. It’s going to be vintage sword and sorcery, completely with any scary critters to make J.R.R. Tolkien proud. Don’t worry though, I’ve no intention of invading Middle Earth. No, this one is going to follow band of characters along an unusual but still familiar fantasy storyline.

Many years ago (more than twenty but not quite 30) I learned about a game called Dungeons and Dragons. I was young and impressionable when I was introduced to it, and it’s safe to say it may have been my first love. This is back in the day when special effects were hardly special and the thought of medieval entertainment was the furthest thing on the mind of entertainment companies. Thus my imagination, aided with the rules set forth by Gary Gygax (may he forever Rest In Piece) and TSR (a few years later) provided countless hours of entertainment. These days I still remember it fondly. It’s been years since a break out gaming session occurred amongst old friends and I, but I wouldn’t be opposed to it if the opportunity presented itself. And for the record, I’m talking about the classic first or second edition of the game, none of the newfangled D20 rules that over-complicate things.

So for this newest story as I was stumbling around with character ideas it occurred to me that I already had great characters that had lived countless adventures and endured loves and losses beyond my ability to remember. Why not use them? And now I’m nearly 10,000 words into my next fantasy book, which I anticipate becoming a series with ease. I’ll even share a touch of the characters in the hopes that it wets more than just my appetite.

Alto – A farm boy turned warrior who learns nobility. Eventually he’s destined to…yeah, like I’m going to give that away!

Kar – Fiesty wizard who encourages learning and insists his companions to constantly challenge everything.

Karthor – Kar’s son, a priest of Leander, the god of growth and light. Karthor and Alto are the same age and quickly become fast friends

Patrina – Northern warrior princess (or at least daughter of a chieftain). Hmm, two good looking and competent young men from a neighboring and sometimes hostile nation to choose from…what could go wrong here?

And did I mention the increasing raiding from (mostly) goblin tribes into both realms? What about the possibility of a greater power behind it with its own ulterior motives?

So much potential…and that’s just the first book!

To learn more about Jason Halstead, visit his website to learn about him, his books, sign up for his newsletter, or check out some free samples of his books at http://www.booksbyjason.com.