Tee Ayer's Blog, page 5
May 21, 2018
Dark Sight
Dark Sight: A Dark Sight Novel #1
Three months until humanity is annihilated.
That’s what Allegra Damascus’s visions tell her. Seeing into the future should have been awesome. Instead, it’s all blood, horror, and the end of the world. Worse, discovering her true identity as a descendent of the famed Oracle of Pythia puts Allegra squarely in the government’s sights—and the New Germanic States will stop at nothing to control her newfound power.
Maximus Vissarion offers Allegra safety from deadly attackers, killer storms, and worse. But once he starts questioning his own general’s motives, Max realizes that not only the world but also his heart are on the line. And he’s not even certain where his loyalties lie.
Allegra’s Dark Sight is the key to saving the world—but only if they can find the right lock. The clock is ticking.
Three months to figure it out, or everyone dies.
CLICK TO BUY THE BOOK
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From the Author
T.G. Ayer — tgayer.com — Fantasy
Toni Vallan — tonivallan.com — Contemporar
Dark Sight: A Dark Sight Novel #1
Three months until huma...
Dark Sight: A Dark Sight Novel #1
Three months until humanity is annihilated.
That’s what Allegra Damascus’s visions tell her. Seeing into the future should have been awesome. Instead, it’s all blood, horror, and the end of the world. Worse, discovering her true identity as a descendent of the famed Oracle of Pythia puts Allegra squarely in the government’s sights—and the New Germanic States will stop at nothing to control her newfound power.
Maximus Vissarion offers Allegra safety from deadly attackers, killer storms, and worse. But once he starts questioning his own general’s motives, Max realizes that not only the world but also his heart are on the line. And he’s not even certain where his loyalties lie.
Allegra’s Dark Sight is the key to saving the world—but only if they can find the right lock. The clock is ticking.
Three months to figure it out, or everyone dies.
[image error]
From the Author
T.G. Ayer — tgayer.com — Fantasy
Toni Vallan — tonivallan.com — Contemporar
May 20, 2018
May 19, 2018
May 18, 2018
May 17, 2018
May 16, 2018
May 1, 2018
April 27, 2018
Blood Moon Preoder is Live
COVER REVEAL!
Book 5 in the SoulTracker Series BLOOD MOON now has a stunning cover by Daniĕl Priègo
PREORDER BLOOD MOON (SoulTracker 5)
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Melisande Morgan must do everything in her power to save Saleem. Enlisting the help of Kailin, Nerina and the team, Mel must enter the djinn plane, risking the lives of those she cares about in order to save the man she loves.
But betrayal and lies lurk everywhere, and Mel most of all knows her own guilt. But first, she must save Saleem. Then she must face the consequences.
Note: If you are reading SoulTracker and SkinWalker series please note that Blood Moon (SoulTracker 5) should technically be read before Grave Debt (SkinWalker 7) as it is Saleem’s story. If you read Grave Debt first, you will go into Blood Moon with major spoilers.
Previously I advised you read the SkinWalker novel first and then the SoulTracker novel, mainly because it was all about Kailin’s missions and Mel popping in to help out when needed. For Blood Moon and Grave Debt, it’s the other way around.
For more information please check out the Reading Order at my web site.
April 20, 2018
Write like a demon!
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I’ve been writing since 2009. In 2010, my first completed book took 11 months to write 98000 words- not the book I lost when my PC crashed – let’s not even go there. It still hurts. Half a book, poof!
2010: My second took 3 months and I wrote 3k every weekday late into the night, religiously. The story was there, but I just struggled with getting it down within the timeframe I had with fulltime work and preteens.
2011: My third took me 3 weeks. 5k a day, 5 days a week to a full first draft. What I learned through having a great editor (for my first book to reach a readers’ hot little hands) was that each edit taught me so much about my weaknesses, my bad habits, my crutches. When I revised using those editorial comments I was practising. Each fix forced me to become aware of those problems and to create a better sentence the next time around.
And when I wrote the next book, that first draft was so much cleaner. Again, 3 weeks to a full draft. My red-inked MS looked a damn sight cleaner too. I was learning my craft through editing and revising. And I think this is the part that a lot of people aren’t aware of. Whether you write the book slowly or fast, you learn nothing until you revise that book. Nothing. You can write 20 books and they will all be just as bad if your editing doesn’t teach you anything or if you don’t learn from your editor *you need a good editor, but that’s a different post*
Every year since then I’ve increased my wordcount, and now I can write 8k a day comfortably, 12k at a push and releasing 8 to 10 books a year. But I’m not there yet. I know so many authors who punch our 12k to 15k a day of amazing writing. That’s what I’m aiming for. Get my regular output to 10k is my current goal. A million words for a goal this year. You keep writing, keep getting better at it.
The more you write, the easier it gets to put a sentence on a page and make it as clean as it can possibly be. Not that it would necessarily be perfect. There are many proponents of releasing without revising – and if you check them out, they usually have years of writing, millions of words written, under their belts. They’ve done the hard yards, have been revised a bajillion times, have nipped all their bad habits in the bud. They’ve passed the novice stage and they write super clean, clean enough that an editor may not have much to fix.
But not every writer is there. And certainly not when we start out writing. We’d be arrogant to think that we can walk into a job and perform to perfection from the first moment. And yes, there are arrogant writers who have gone far by whatever luck came their way. But that’s not every writer’s path.
We must write. But first, we learn. Everything is craft, experience, repetition, muscle memory. We learn the rules first and then we can break them.
The thing is, we create story faster than we can type it. (I am not a good Dragon user so that’s never been able to help). By the time a thought hits the paper (screen) we’ve already mapped out the next few paragraphs, or probably even know how the next chapter will go. We’ve already written in, it’s just not in words yet.
When the story flows, the writing flows, and when the writer is pulled along by the story the writing flows faster. The thing about fast vs slow writing is that when you write slow, you allow your logical brain to question what you’ve written. Writing fast gets the story out in it’s cleanest creative format, which means way less revision because you captured most of it on the first go. Some people call it flow state, and I suspect the term fits. You’re in the zone, channelling the muse, in a writing trance, possessed by the story, stream of consciousness. Take your pick.
We no longer live in the age of the typewriter where each sentence must be perfect before you type it out ‘cos nobody likes having to go back and white out the errors (especially if eraser ribbon is too expensive). Today we just hit backspace. Or Select All and Delete!
We aren’t held back anymore, so writing fast is the best way to get that story out as true to the characters and world as it can be. And stop with the misconception that publishers don’t want fast writers. They do: I know a lot of trad authors who whip those books out in weeks, if not days. And plenty more who write under a number of pen names and are rotating writing and releasing all the time (I can already hear some writers saying ‘Eh? Isn’t that a description of the indie world?’ And yes it is.)
So, write fast, with abandon, write to a ticking clock, or try Write or Die, or Pomodoro. Get the pure story out as fast as you are able. Then hit the revisions. Rinse. Repeat. After a few books, you’ll see the words get easier, the speed increases.
And quantity WILL equal quality.
