Ben Bequer's Blog, page 6

My back is messed up, so here's act one of Wayward

I hurt it bad two Sundays ago. Lifting a little girly table. It laid me out for 3-4 days. Then I redid it Easter Sunday...PUTTING ON A PAIR OF PANTS. It's constant discomfort now, marked by shooting pain when I shift or change positions which is great for a guy that spends half the day sitting at a keyboard.

Anyway, everyone has problems, and that's mine. It has nothing to do with book 2, I know. The manuscript is in the hands of the editor and she's already over halfway done. I figure another week, but my figuring is getting me in trouble.
In the meantime, here's Blackjack Wayward act one only. This is before my editor has polished it up, so be warned if sentences just end without
http://freepdfhosting.com/be1892ffd9.pdf

*** corrected link ***

My back is fooked, so here's act one of Wayward

I hurt it bad two Sundays ago. Lifting a little girly table. It laid me out for 3-4 days. Then I redid it Easter Sunday...PUTTING ON A PAIR OF PANTS. It's constant discomfort now, marked by shooting pain when I shift or change positions which is great for a guy that spends half the day sitting at a keyboard.
Anyway, everyone has problems, and that's mine. It has nothing to do with book 2, I know. The manuscript is in the hands of the editor and she's already over halfway done. I figure another week, but my figuring is getting me in trouble.
In the meantime, here's Blackjack Wayward act one only. This is before my editor has polished it up, so be warned if sentences just end without
http://freepdfhosting.com/b58113b2eb.pdf

In the meantime...

While we wait for Ashley's amazing powers of textual polishing, I thought I'd share something with you guys: the first act of the next book, which is unrelated to Blackjack.

It's a fun little book that is inspired by the Indiana Jones movies and the Lara Croft and Uncharted video games. It's my own spin on the subject, and I have a few solid ideas for ongoing stories to tell. I basically wanted to find real archeological and historical relics of significance, things no one had ever written about before, and see what ideas I could come up with.

First off is Heart of the Jungle. I've been working on it, on and off, for almost six months now and I finally have a real good concept to work with, and a bunch of characters that keep calling me to the computer. I posted the cover on facebook a few weeks back, but I've just completed the entire first act of the thing and after a quick read, it looks pretty decent.

So, as a thank you for your patience, I'd like to post it for your review. It's rough, rougher than the versions of Wayward that are out there. I basically wrote it, and gave it a quick read, so it's lacking my editor Josh's polish. Believe me, he makes things so much better. In addition, a lot of the final plot kind of came to me as I was writing it. The final version will need the plot backtracked, several new scenes and a lot of transitions to make the whole thing work. I also want to do a header chapter intro, that gives you the place and time of the scene to come. 

I know it's rough, but if you guys want to take a look at the 80-something page first act, I'd love to put it up (no charge, of course). It'd be my way of apologizing for the delay.

Let me know what you think.

Heart of the Jungle - act one (first draft edit)

http://freepdfhosting.com/b58113b2eb.pdf

Found him!

A huge thanks to Angel for giving me his contact email. Hope you have as much fun reading the book as I had writing it. And stay safe.



“If a man does his best, what else is there?”
-Gen. George S. Patton

Looking for Angel Flowers...

I know you're shipping out in Afghanistan soon. Please send your direct contact info to: fps.editing@gmail.com (mind the period between fps & editing). If I get you before you ship out to the bush, I'll send you a PRE-EDIT Pdf of book 2.

Come on, I'm waiting for you man!

An updated cover and more...

Here's the latest version of the cover...


And the progression for the back cover (if I ever manage to put together a mass market paperback). Blackjack's the little guy, btw...

Update on Wayward

I've been emailing my editor and it's looking more and more like she's going to need another week or two. She needs more time to turn my dunsky English into something that people can understand. Since this is a huge killjoy to you guys, I'm going to give away the first act on what should have been the release date, for free, to give you a nice teaser into the rest of the book.

I'd like to make clear that this isn't Ashley's fault at all, if anything, I'm to blame for writing like a blindfolded monkey. I don't want to do a pre-edit release of the whole thing for $$$ since we had some issues with grammar and spelling the first time. I mean, you look at the thing for so long that the simplest things slip past. It is kind of fun to have Ashley emailing me, "Is the quartermaster of the Lady's Nightmare called Mr. Plancks or Mr. Picklett?" Fun and surreal.

The Contest

I had a contest on Facebook and four lucky fellows received preview copies of Wayward. The first comment is in, and it's positive (I know, I know). I'll have another contest in the coming weeks, so keep a lookout for my posts on Facebook.

Wayward working cover

It's a "working" cover, so don't make fun of the font...

Sequel's release date

I've sort of neglected this blog, and for that I apologize. Today we'll put a few posts, and I'll try to stop by at least once a day to keep people updated here, as well as on Facebook.

On to the news...

First, the last post was in December that I'd be working on a mass market paperback, but unfortunately editing took up most of the last couple of months as my editor and I went at the manuscript with a blow torch and a pair of pliers. I'm proud of the final result, but now comes the real hard part, getting it to you guys.

The timeline is simple. Ashley, my grammer/spelllings editor, will take a look at the manuscript beginning the first week of March, and when she's done, I'll format the epub and paperback versions in Adobe Indesign and publish the same day I have them ready.

In the meantime, I'm working on the paperback to Blackjack.