Steve Umstead's Blog, page 11

I've cursed an entire cruise ship…

Funny, unrelated-to-books story I had to tell. Well, not funny exactly, as there were some injuries, but funny in an ironic, coincidental, cursed sort of way. Many of you may know my "day job" is in the travel industry. A couple of weeks ago, an opportunity came up from one of our suppliers for an [...]

The super-secret project revealed – another addition to the Gabriel universe!

At long last, what you've all been waiting for (well, okay, what no one was really waiting for, I admit), I can reveal the super-secret writing project I've been working on the last month or so. And here we are: Gabriel: Zero Point is a prequel novella (~22,000 words) that goes back to the man [...]

Could I have written 3 additional novels last year instead of tweeting?

This morning, I noticed that I sent my 19,000th tweet, which is honestly an absurd number when I think about it. Nineteen thousand tweets, in just over a year on Twitter? Seriously? What the hell have I been blabbering (and probably annoying people) about? How much time have I spent "writing" on Twitter that perhaps [...]

Excerpt from Gabriel's Revenge – Shuttle Launch to Mars

Gabriel had just cinched his straps when the Marcinko's engines ignited, pressing each of them back into their seats in the shuttle. He heard Olszewski mutter a curse from next to him. He looked over at the private with a raised eyebrow. "Sorry, sir. I'm a ground pounder. I hate this shit. Necessary evil to [...]

Gabriel Trilogy Week at Daily Kindle Bargains (no, that's not an oxymoron)

If you've been holding off on e-book purchases, and are jonesin' for some science fiction adventure, this might be a good week to skip the McDonald's large coffee and grab one (or more) of the Gabriel trilogy. In conjunction with the respected Jeremy Shipp and his site Daily Kindle Bargains, each of the four books [...]

Excerpt from Gabriel's Revenge, Finale of Scifi Trilogy – Ambush on Mars

Gabriel could hear the thin Mars atmosphere whipping past his combat helmet's visor. Visibility from a thousand yards altitude was excellent, enhanced by his helmet's optics, but no matter how hard he stared, there was simply nothing to see. Even the approaching dust storm barely visible in the distance held no interest for him. Ordinarily, [...]

My thoughts on a lost era: Encyclopedia Britannica to stop printing books

Wow. I read this headline yesterday while taking my daily CNN.com cruise (I do have to see just how the silly GOP primary season is going, after all – it's like a slow-moving train wreck, and I just can't look away…) and stopped short. As crazy as it sounds, I had this massive flashback. Me, [...]

Gabriel covers getting a tweak – take a peek (hey look, my first foray into poetry!)

I spent a few hours yesterday doing some tweaks to the Gabriel scifi series covers. Nothing with the images – I'd never touch the incredible original artwork from Josh Powers, but I wanted to clean up the font size/style/color a bit, perhaps give it more of a pop. I'm not usually a fan of serif [...]

I got snookered…by a "free short story"

I just wrapped up a great read over the weekend (plug: Crystal Rain by Tobias Buckell – muy excellente), and was in the mood for a quickie. Stop it… No, a quick read. Nothing too deep; I'm in the midst of my own writing project, and it's difficult for me to read and write at [...]

Finally got some serious writing done..thanks to ignoring the Twittah

Very productive weekend on the super secret project. In and around 10k words written, which combined with some previous chicken scratch puts me approximately 15% into my target book length (and based on my outline sketch, that looks about right). It's been quite a while since I was able to lay down some uninterrupted word [...]