Craig Brummer's Blog

Much Better & Back to Writing

It's taken four months but I'm back on my feet, literally. I'm able to do most things again but still have to wear the torso brace for another couple months, I'll be so happy to get it off! More good news is that I'm back to working on Sol Station, rewriting certain sections and working on the final chapters. It will take a few months to finish that up and then I'll be sending it to the editor and beta readers, so I'm not sure exactly when it will be released yet. My apologizes for the delay and lack of updates but I had to focus on my physical recover these last few months as that was all I could manage. It's wonderful to be back to writing and creating a story that hopeful you will enjoy.

I've also starting outlining, at least in my mind, book 3, which will be in the first in the series to feature alien contact.   

Sol Station Release Delayed

Sol Station, book 2 in the Federation Series, was due to be released in June, but has been delayed. I hope to be able to release it late this year. I broke my back-shattered the L1 vertebrate by falling 18 feet off a ladder in early June while cutting down a tree that had been struck by lightning during one of our Georgia storms. The doctors replaced it with a titanium cage and rods and I'm on the mend, but the physical therapy portion will take several months and I won't fully recover for a year. There is a lot of pain involved, and of course all the muscles have to re-learn everything all over again. Right now, I am still wearing a full torso brace, and will be for several more months. My wife, Susie, has been wonderful in helping me through this difficult time and I don't know how I would have managed it without her. Thank you, love!

The cover illustration was in process before the accident. The book is about 80% complete, and then I'll still need to go through and do the final touch ups before sending to the editor. I'm including the cover below so you can see what the book will look like. The illustration features the novel's lead character, Justin.

I apologize for the delay, but obviously I did not foresee falling off the ladder. If I had, I'd never gone up on it! Thank you for understanding, and thank you to everyone who has supported the first novel, A New Beginning.

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Merry Christmas

Merry Christmas! We had a wonderful holiday here with just the three of us. My daughter is down visiting for a week during the holiday, and that of course always makes Dad happy. Santa outdid himself this year so everyone was extremely pleased with their gifts. But even better was just having the time together without the normal daily distractions. We did two of the new Sony PS4 game consoles, one for us and one for our daughter to use when she gets back home. All of us enjoy the games such as Oblivion, Fallout, Assassin's Creed, FarCry, etc. The graphics on the PS4 are outstanding so if you're a gamer and haven't already, you probably want to consider upgrading your system when you can. I hope your holidays were as delightful as ours, and that you were able to spend time with your family and friends.

Again, Happy Holidays, and best wishes for the New Year!

Glad to see the holidays

After a couple months of getting no writing done I am again making some progress, which is nice. I'm glad to see the holidays arrive as that tends to be a slower time for me, as far as travel and stuff, at my day job. My daughter will be coming down to visit for Christmas so that's always great. She's working on her second Master's and teaching, so she's got a pretty hectic schedule as well. We've got most of the "must do soon" stuff done to the new house to give it the feel of "our" home, but of course there are still projects to work on as time permits. We do love the new house - it's quiet and in a very private setting. Our previous house was in Silver Spring, Maryland which of course is a busy town with homes on small lots. Here there are only nine houses in our little community, with each house having about a two-acre lot.

I'm testing advertising on Google's AdWords to see if that generates more awareness of A New Beginning. Getting the word out about a new book by a new author is always a challenge, so we'll see how that goes. I ran a sweepstakes on Goodreads with ten free copies of the paperback edition. About 900 people signed up for the sweepstakes, but only one of the ten readers did a review. It was a nice review, but I was hoping for a few more reviews from the event.

I hope everyone everyone has a great holiday season and gets to spend time with their family and friends. 

Happy Holidays!

Glad to see the holidays

After a couple months of getting no writing done I am again making some progress, which is nice. I'm glad to see the holidays arrive as that tends to be a slower time for me, as far as travel and stuff, at my day job. My daughter will be coming down to visit for Christmas so that's always great. She's working on her second Master's and teaching, so she's got a pretty hectic schedule as well. We've got most of the "must do soon" stuff done to the new house to give it the feel of "our" home, but of course there are still projects to work on as time permits. We do love the new house - it's quiet and in a very private setting. Our previous house was in Silver Spring, Maryland which of course is a busy town with homes on small lots. Here there are only nine houses in our little community, with each house having about a two-acre lot.

I'm testing advertising on Google's AdWords to see if that generates more awareness of A New Beginning. Getting the word out about a new book by a new author is always a challenge, so we'll see how that goes. I ran a sweepstakes on Goodreads with ten free copies of the paperback edition. About 900 people signed up for the sweepstakes, but only one of the ten readers did a review. It was a nice review, but I was hoping for a few more reviews from the event.

I hope everyone everyone has a great holiday season and gets to spend time with their family and friends. 

Happy Holidays!

Working on Book 2

Well, the last six weeks or so I've accomplished very little writing. Four weeks of it was spent working on the editing and book formatting. Yes, that was done by others, but it required a great deal of my time, including me going through A New Beginning four times proofing editor changes and such. That included reading it once from the back forward hunting out those last little errors. No book, even from the big six publishers, is ever perfect, but I don't want errors to disrupt the reading experience. The last two weeks were occupied by setting up marketing for the book, including doing a giveaway on Goodreads and an ad campaign there as well. But now it is time to get back to writing. I have the storyline plotted out for book 2, and I've completed the first chapter and a half of the second. Like most writers, I also have a day job, so my writing is mainly on the weekends, with a little done at night during the week - and most of that is tweaking what I wrote during the weekend. So, book 2 will probably take 10 months or so. My personal target is to have book 2 completed by January. That is a long way off, but that's how it goes with life's other demands. Right now book 2 is untitled. Most of it takes place on Sol Station. The protagonist this time is a 17-year-old-boy, Justin Sizov, the son of Steven Sizov. That's all I will tell you at this point, but I will keep you updated on my writing progress.

Interview with Debra Martin

My recent interview with Debra Martin can be read here: http://twoendsofthepen.blogspot.com/2013/05/interview-with-craig-brummer.html

Nice Week

My mother-in-law has been visiting us for this past week. It's always nice having company, and she's a wonderful lady. We went to the Atlanta Aquarium, which is billed as the largest in the world but had fewer fish exhibits than the Baltimore Aquarium we used to frequently visit when we lived in the DC area. The GoodReads Giveaway contest ended yesterday; 754 people entered for the 10 trade paperback books, which are being mailed out tomorrow to the winners. I'm thinking about running two separate contest, one for UK readers and one for Canadian readers, but limiting each contest to 5 winners. The cost of postage is a consideration as it's $20 to mail the book to Canada and $25 to mail them to the UK, so the postage would be a couple times the cost of the book. GoodReads does not allow eBook giveaways, so I have to stay with the printed version.

I've been struggling with how to balance my time between the "day job", writing, and promoting A New Beginning. The writing has suffered over the last two months and I need to get that corrected by reducing the amount of time I spend promoting. A byproduct of that, though, has been developing some nice friendships on Twitter. There are some really nice and interesting folks on there, and I'm fortunate to get to know them.

Fire in Denver

It's been a busy week but a nice one. I had a business trip out to Denver and got there while they were fighting the big fire. You could see it as we landed and even see the smoke off in the distance from the hotel. I'll be heading to San Diego on Tuesday, six hour flight out there and then back on Wednesday. Just bought a book, Big in Japan by Jennifer Griffith, to read on the trip. It's about an American who becomes a sumo wrestler which I'm interested in reading since I lived in Japan back when Jesse James (American) won the top division tittle. The weather here in Atlanta has been a bit hot but that has made it very nice for enjoying pool time with the wife. Finally got the trailer done for A New Beginning and posted on YouTube. Overall a very nice week.

Hardcover & Audio Versions Soon

It's been an exciting week. LSI finally completed the hardcover edition of A New Beginning, and two days later I signed the agreement to have the audio version done. The hardcover should show up on Amazon and other outlets soon. The audio narration is being done by actor Jack Nolan, who has had appeared on television shows: Star Trek Voyager, Star Trek Enterprise, The X-Files, Galaxy Quest, NYPD, etc. as well as multiple roles on the big screen. The recording and editing is scheduled to be completed in late July and the audio books themselves will hopefully be available on Amazon, iTunes, and Audible.com by mid to late August.

For those wondering why I did not record the narration myself, I believe that is a special skill and talent that I simply don't possess. I didn't want my delivery of the narration, which I'm sure would have been poorly done, to be a distraction to the story, or to be less than your expectation for a quality audio version. 

I'm starting to make progress on book 2 now that most of the setup and launching of book 1 has been completed. My goal is to have book 2 (untitled) completed by March. I know as a reader that is a long time between stories, but that's about the best I can manage.

On a personal note, the weather here in Atlanta has alternated between perfect summer days and sudden thunder storms. Those sudden storms have caused a few quick changes to plans to spend some time with the wife out in the yard or pool to, "Well, I guess we stay in and read." Overall, the summer has so far been very enjoyable so far. We love the new home and the area. It's so much quieter and more peaceful than the highly congested area we lived in up in Maryland. We're still going through the process of making little changes to the house and yard to modify it more to our lifestyle and taste. That will probably continue for the next year or two as time and money permit. There is no shortage of things to do when you settle into a new home!