Sam Ryan's Blog, page 2

New Years and Writing Update

Happy New Year everyone, even if I am ten days late. The plan was to make this update on the first but I was so busy writing that I kept putting it off. I figured you all would not mind.[image error]

So firstly, while it has been a bit of a sad year for actual books published and the American Elections has been like watching a train wreck in slow motion, it has been a pretty good year for my writing. This blog alone has gained so much viewership that it actually makes me want to cry. You have no idea how happy it makes me to no only have so many of you wanting to check in and see the new things happening but also giving me feedback, leaving comments and sending me emails(Though most emails at the moment are all asking when the next Dynasty book will be done. So sorry guys.)

I also wrote Clockwork Immortal which I was able to get printed (only for Amazon to start a printing section of its own the start of this year) and while it might not seem like it, I did a lot of work on the Dynasty Saga. [image error]Mostly going back and doing some reedits fixing up a lot of problems mostly with the first book. (And I still have a long way to go with that one.*sob*) And am working on making a screen play for a full length movie, so that should be fun.

Secondly I started writing, what I hope will be, two long running series one high fantasy the other urban fantasy. I know, it’s like I write mostly fantasy

or something. But no promises on when I will finish either of those as I only write in them between working on Dynasty which right now it my main and currently only priority.

As for Dynasty itself, I just finished 86 thousand words this weekend and I am about to start working on it more today. As I feared, I got really busy the weeks leading up to [image error]Christmas and was unable to get a whole lot of time working on it(also got sick and couldn’t think well enough to write, but that was my own fault) but I did spend most of Christmas day working on it and the progress so far as been good.

It is hard for me to say how close I actually am to being done. Part of me thinks that it is gong to be too long and I need to find a different place to end it, extensively shortening it greatly but another part of me doesn’t think that anywhere other than where I had initially planned to end it would work. So for now I’m just going to keep on keeping on and decide later when I have more done.

So a big thank you to everyone for sticking with me through the past year and I hope that this year will be better in all respects. That I will publish more books for you guys to read and that each one will be better than the last.

Writing Update

Alright, know I have been silent for a little while but I am happy to say that I have gotten a whole lot done over the past few weeks. Last night I officially passed 60 thousands words. I have several thousand more words done beyond that but they are limbo chapters at the moment. Chapters I completed of other drafts of the book that I have now started over on but intend to integrate into the story at some other point. But the 60 that I do have done is set. Though the story as a whole still needs a lot of polishing.

It is a little hard for me to say how far I am other than somewhere past half way. This book really has to major arcs in it and I have completed the first arc for the most part. The first arc was also the thing that was giving me the most trouble. This was for several reason.

The first and main reason was that I had always intended the fourth book to be from other peoples perspectives and not Lymee’s. The reason for this was that I wanted people to see and understand how other people viewed Lymee and her actions separate from how Lymee views her own actions. The idea being that this book would have multiple people from every aspect of life interacting with Lymee and being affected by the things that she does. And while I am still keeping to this to some degree I found that it was simply to hard to introduce so many new character, explain who they are, as well as fill the reader in on all the things that had been going on between the third fourth book.

So finally I decided that while I still wanted to have the story told from other viewpoints I needed the main view point to still be from Lymee. Sadly I had not come to this conclution until after four different first drafts.

Secondly progress has been so slow because when I first started writing the first book, I had it mapped out in my head up to the point that Lymee became Empress, and only had a vague idea of how it would end after that. So I did not have a very clear idea how the fourth book would even begin. I new many of the things that had to happen in the book, but had no real idea how I would get to these events. This coupled with my trying to write from multiple perspectives lead to my first and second draft being a lot of nothing happening and was extremely slow and boring.

To compensate for that I tried in my third fourth and fifth drafts to skip ahead to the more exciting bits only to have the story dragged down yet again by spending so much time explaining all the things that had happened before that point. So finally on my sixth, an hopefully final draft, I started much earlier and let the story build up steam from there.

I will say I am much happier with my recent work and for the first time since I started writing this book, I find myself enjoying the writing. Before I had to force myself to write knowing that I needed to get the next one out and it showed.

So what does all this mean for Dynasty 4? Hopefully it means that I will have the book out soon. I have written nearly forty thousand words in the past two weeks and if I can do that again in the next two weeks I should have this book done sometime around Christmas. My plan is to have it done before then but with how busy things are no doubt about to become I might simply not have the time but we will see. I will hopefully be posting further updates in the following days telling you of my progress.

So until then, thank you all again for sticking with me and I hope you find that this book is worth the wait.

Pain, Suffering and a Whole lot of Writing

So been working on Dynasty at pretty much full speed since I got it back. As I feared there needs a little rework  on what I have done but now that some things have been cleared up the writing is coming along splendidly. I have written nearly 20 thousand words this weekend alone.

Sadly I have come across a few complications. Mainly I burned my hand really badly last week to the point that I could not even sleep I was in so much pain. It was nothing serious and is already mostly healed. But for a few days I was doing absolutely no writing, or thinking. Mostly crying.

But I am all healed up now and back at it. I should have better news for you soon.

Writing Update/Book Reviews

So first an update on Dynasty. Been working on it whenever I get a chance. Roughly I would say that it is a little past halfway done. It is coming along and I think I am getting close to the final push before it’s finished. But for the time being I am having some people read over what I have to help fix any problems in terms of story that I missed, or simply didn’t think about.

So while I am waiting for them to get back with me I have been doing a little reading and thought I would share some of my thoughts about what I have read with you all.

The Bridge: Traitor

by Erik Schubach

Alright so this is the second book in this series. You might remember that I rather liked the first book and thought it had some very interesting concepts in it but thought it had a few shortcomings. Mostly thought that it was to short and that it sort of glossed over certain events, and lacked a bit of world building. So the hope is that the squeal will improve upon the things that were good and fix the bad.

So did this come through? Well…

So the plot is actually pretty interesting. One of the the Trolls was murdered and the assumption that most people are making is that it was probably another Troll, hence the name. So now our heroin and her girlfriend set out who it was.

Now here we have a great set up not only for good character development but also world building as they are going to have to go talk to people and learn about them as well as the world that they inhabit. And I was really interested in who the traitor might be because the suspect list was kind of short and most of them were all friends of the main characters.

Sadly the book is a huge disappointment. Firstly, as far as a murder mystery goes it lacks any of the good hallmarks but understandably that was not to be the focus of this so I am willing to let that pass. Secondly, the people in this are pretty stupid. Like it was so obvious that the MC was being framed and it was like the powers that be just simply didn’t care. And that is the third big problem I have. Most of the characters are so cliche, there is the old guy on the council who has the heart of gold and supports the main character but tends to work more behind the sense and not speak up. Then you have the main leader of the council who hates the MC for some reason that I truly do not understand. Like I get it that the MC became a Troll by usurping their normal procedures but I don’t get why they seem to despise her very existence. It’s not like she had a choice in the matter.

Now last thing that doesn’t involve spoilers is the fact that there is actually a chapter that repeats itself. There is literally a chapter where people recount events that occurred and then the very next chapter is those exact events. And it comes across as nothing more than padding as nothing new is learned by the telling from two different perspectives.

But the biggest thing that really urked me was the actual traitor. Partial Spoiler **It turns out that person was someone who we never even met. More than never met never even heard about until they caught them. It could have been anyone and it would have still worked, because all the evidence and stuff that they collected amounted to nothing, meaning the entire book was pointless.**

Final Verdict: I did like this book even with all my gripping about it but I didn’t like it as much as the first. If you liked the first one then give this one a go but if you were not all that impressed with the first book then don’t bother, this one is not going to change your mind.

Darktown

Ryan Love

Alright so first erotic book that I have reviewed and I only read it because someone asked me if I had written this, saying that the voice that the author uses is similar to mine, having Ryan in both our names and the writing style. And to that I say; I severely hope that my spelling is better than this and if not, then I am so sorry everyone. But all that aside… I actually did find myself enjoying this book just a little. Certainly more than I thought I would. There is always a huge apprehension when reading an erotica as most of them are just sex and the story is secondary if even that. But in this the story is actually really interesting and the sex actually feels to be relevant to the story at hand. More on that later.

But ever since I read the Imp Series I have noticed thistrend in Urban Fantasy regarding demons and that is that they tend to be not all that evil. I mean where are all my Evil Demons at? When the Demons aren’t just mindless monsters then they are either misunderstood and only need to be given a chance to be good or some such or they are just regular people that are also demons, some good and some not so good. While there are mindless demons in this there are also very intelligent demons and they are the most nonredeemable creatures ever. They do everything you would think a demon would do and weirdly enough, I think that is a good thing. Next thing you know angels are going to show up and they will actually be the good guys. Now wouldn’t that be a twist?

So the story. Darktown is a city that hides in the cracks of the real city, the real city being some unspecified city on one of the american coasts. It is filled with demons that pretty much do as they please but still remain just under the surface where no one can see them. Our main character is a woman who lives in Darktown and is a former Demon Hunter. Though the reasons for her leaving and coming to Darktown are unclear until later.

The other main character is a demon lady who’s a Seeker which are basically the PI’s of the Demon world and she has been sent to find this thing called the Lotus Stone that had recently been smuggled into the city.

So the sex. Most of it revolves around our two main characters for reasons of plot. Some of it is rather well done, some of it was kind of eh, but most of the scenes were not all that long and they did not actually slow down the pace of the story nor did they feel tact on for the sake of a sex scene. For the most part, this is book porn after all. But in fact, several times they were kind of key in the story as a whole.

The book is a little short, like 150 pages but it told a full story and I’m not sure a 200+ length book would have made things any better as it wasn’t like there were any gaps or rushed parts so it would have only been padding or worse just overly explicit sex scenes. (I’m sorry. I’ve just never been one for erotica.)

So disclaimer: as I mentioned before, these are bad demons and this is an erotica. So yes there is rape. It’s not very graphic and is not actually a big part of the story but it is there. I know a lot of people flamed Dynasty 2 because of that and I was trying my best to be respectful and considerate about the whole thing.

Final Verdict: I found myself liking this book but it is defiantly not for everyone. There is a lot of sex but in a setting like this it is actually expected. The demons are evil and there is a pretty cool fight at the end and an interesting set up for the next book. If you like these kinds of books then hey give this one a shot. If not then just let this one pass you by.

Book Printing Finally Here

So today Clockwork Immortal went on sale on Amazon for $9.99 plush shipping but as promised you can buy it directly from me for $7.99 plus shipping.

I can not tell you how excited I am for this. Just having one of my books in print is a dream come true for me and I do hope that you will enjoy it. Yes the book is all edited and cleaned up now and as of yesterday so is the Kindle Version. Thank you to all the people who helped with the editing with their donations. You are really all the best.

If you want to order the book, you can go to the buy books tab or you can click the button down below.

Writing Update

Alright so just a quick update here. I just finished another six thousand words today and I have written about another 20 thousand words this week.

Sadly, I think it might have been a little presumptuous of me to think I could get this done by the end of the month. This book is already probably going to be longer than any book I have written. But unlike before I am really liking what I have done so far. And maybe, just maybe, this is the best one yet. Or at least that is the hope. But then that is what I hope every time I write a book. No point in writing something if you think it worse than your others.

In related news the (hopefully) final edit of Clockwork Immortal is done and waiting for review before it goes on print. Took a little bit longer than intended but that was mostly because of me having to divide my time between editing and writing. So that should hopefully be done real soon. Just have to have the copy sent to me so I can look over it one more time and then it is up and for sale. As I said before I will have it for sale on this site where you can by it a little cheaper but the time it takes to get to you will likely be a bit slower.

Happy Birthday to Me

So yes today is my birthday and I can not think of a better way to celibate than by announcing this to you all:

That’s right, this is a printed draft of Clockwork Immortal. The only problem is that when I opened it up and looked through it to make sure there were no formatting mistakes it quickly turned into this:

So yeah, it is going to be a little while before that is done but I hope to have it up soon on Amazon, probably in the next couple of weeks if not sooner. The final price should be 9.99 on Amazon. It is a little more expensive than I had intended but I am planning on selling the books directly from this web page so if you buy it from here and not from amazon I plan to sell it for 7.99 plus shipping and handling. Just know that ordering it directly from will probably be a bit slower.

In other new, Dyanst 4 just had a nice mile stone of thirty thousand words. But wait I already hear you saying. Last time you said you were at forty thousand. What happened? Well what happened was the editing process. In polishing up what I had there were several little bits that needed to be rewritten and ended up shorter than the rambling that it was before and other parts just needed to be removed entirely. However, what I have now is pretty solid and I am really happy with it, so for the most part the first 4 chapters of the book are now finished, and with the beginning now truly done I am confident that the rest will start coming together at a much faster rate.

I still do not like putting myself on deadlines or making promises if I don’t know if i can keep them, but my plan right now is to have the first draft done by the end of this month so then I’ll hopefully have the book out by early to mid September.

Again no promises but that is my plan. So please bare with me and look forward to it.

Fun Facts

Alright so I know I have been a little silent recently but I am still chugging away I assure you and I am so sorry that this is taking as long as it is but to kind of give you something in the interim I thought I would share with you some interesting little tid bits about the Word of the Dynasty Saga. Naturally I have taken many liberties with the setting and the world but I have done my best to keep it in the spirit of ancient Asia in terms of style and feel and part of how I did that was by adding some little things to the world.

So fact number one, the use of chopsticks. Now in the first book I mentioned the fact that they used knives along with chopsticks. Well believe it or not at one point in time most of Asia that used chopsticks also used knives but they stopped as the teaching of one man started to spread.

Confucius.

That’s right, Confucius abhorred violence and saw knives only as weapons and as such banned them from the dinner table. He also said that using only chopsticks brought one closer to the heavens and several other religious things but ultimately as his teaching spread through Asia so did the practice of not using knives.

Now since Confucius doesn’t exist in Dynasty or anyone like him they never changed the practice and thus still use knives when they eat. It’s a very small detail I know but an important one I think.

Another fun fact. Card Games. We tend to think of them as common place and probably as old as dirt but the truth is card games are actually fairly recent in human history.  Most of Europe and the Arab Nations did not have card games until the mid to late Middle Ages. China on the other hand likely invented the first card game called Leaf several hundred years before during the Tang Dynasty. Ironically about the time period that I am basing this world on. Give or take a few centuries. So I thought I would add that in to my books.

Now an interesting fact about Lymee is that she studied Shinpu Ren Karate. It was a form of martial arts that was specifically designed by Japan to fight against Chines Kung Fu. And Kung Fu was what I was basing most of this worlds army around, as apposed to Samurai and Bushido as this world is more parts China than Japan. So in some ways Lymee was literally trained in how to defeat most of her opponents in this world before ever arriving in it.

Another fun fact about Lymee is that she is a character from another book that I was writing. In that book she was still half Asain and her father was still a sailor and all that but she was actually a Police Officer whose husband was murdered by a vampire and she was in turn turned into one so she was then on a quest to find the Vampire and figure out why her husband was murdered. It would then kind of turn into a mystery of the week detective novel that was to be this kind of mix between Vampire the Masquerade, Sonja Blue and the Dresdin Files. Along the way she was to partner up with a Huntress as well as have her own Ghoul Secretary. I kind of dropped the book cause I did not know where I was going with it but when I started Dynasty I figured I could at least use the same character and backstory and save myself some time instead of creating a whole new character.

Book Printing… Eventually.

Alright as promised I have got some really exciting news for you all. First and foremost, writing on Dynasty 4 is progressing rather smoothly at the moment. I am close to 40 thousand words already and still going. My hope is that this continues and I finish it soon.

But in much bigger news, I am in the process of having all my books printed to be sold on amazon. Exciting I know. However I would never dream of printing my books before having them professionally edited first. But sadly I simply do not have the money for this. For the sake of easy math and easy averages I basically need $650 to edit each book. That’s $2,600 to edit every single book so far and that is not including the price for editing Dynasty 4 when it is done. And I am being really generous with those numbers so let’s say for arguments sake that it is an even $3000 across the bored. Yeah I don’t have that kind of money. Obviously.

Now normally I hate asking for money. Even the thought makes me feel sick. So please do not think I am trying to obligate any of you into giving me money. At the end of the day I am here to entertain you with my work and you pay me for that when you buy my books. That is all that I would ever ask of any of you. But I do know that there are some people that truly do want to help any way that they can so this is me giving them the chance and asking you all to help by hitting the donate button at the bottom of this page or going to the new donate page I have set up.

But please let me make this very clear. The money that you donate will only go to editing my books. If I raise enough money to edit all four of my books then all additional funds will go to the editing later books. None of this money will go to me directly. And I mean none. It will not even touch my bank account as it will all be stored on paypal.

I would also like to say that regardless of the funds that I do or don’t receive it is still my full intention to have all my books edited regardless and I am working right now to save up the money to do so. This is simply a way to help me speed up the process, nothing more. Basically as soon as I raise the money it is two weeks for the edit and then only a few days for the printing. In other words I can have the first printed copy out in less than a month once I have the needed funds. The cost of printing and having the books shipped is a small enough fee that I do feel I can cover that on my own as it is mostly print on demand and is a pay per order type deal.

The plan is to first edit Clockwork Immortal and have it printed. The hope being that the money received from additional sells will then go into the editing of the Dynasty Saga and so on. If Dynasty 4 is finished during this time then it will be the next to be edited and printed.

Now, I am just asking you to give me money. If you donate I am more than willing to give you all some rewards as thanks in return. The rewards are as follows:

$1: A thank you email from me. And my unending gratitude.

$5: You will receive a free digital copy of Dynasty 4 when finished.

$15: Free digital copy plus a paperback copy of Clockwork Immortal mailed to you. (If you chose you can hold off and ask for a copy of one of the Dynasty Books when they are printed.

$25: Dynasty 4 and 5 Ebooks for free when finished. As well as a paperback of Clockwork Immortal. (Or other book when printed.)

$50: Free Dynasty 4 ebooks and an autographed Hardback of Clockwork Immortal. (Only Clockwork Immortal as I do not know if I will ever make hardbacks of the other books.)

$100: Ebook of Dynasty 4 along with the next 4 ebooks that I write. The entire 5 book paper back collection of the Dynasty Saga sent to you as they are printed.

$500+: You will receive all ebooks that I write for free for life. Hardback copies of the Entire Dynasty saga as well as a Hardbacks of Clockwork Immortal. (Yes, if you donate $500 I will do a printing of hardbacks just to get you your copy.)

All ebooks will be sent to you in Epub format. This is what amazon uses and you should be able to read them using an amazon app or tablet. There are also countless free apps that you can download onto your computer or tablet that will allow you to open Epub.

I am open to a little bit of case by case discussion on the rewards. If you really want a Hard Copy of Clockwork Immortal and you donate $100 I am willing to say you can exchange your free ebooks for a hard copy or something along those lines simply email me and let me know. However I will never give a higher tear reward for a lower price. So if you want that hard back of Dynasty you have to pay at least the $50.

Let me just finish this up by saying thank you all. Regardless of how much money I raise I can say without a doubt that you are all the best. I am continuingly surprised by the love you have shown to me and my work. Every single time you email me asking questions or simply to tell me that you enjoyed my work fills me with joy. I read every single comment you guys make on places like Amazon and Goodreads. And I get excited, and nervous, every time it says that someone added my book. I will continue to write so long as you guys keep enjoying reading what I have written.

So once again, Thank you.

Writing Update… Again

Alright so maybe ranting about my problems on the internet was all I needed because since my last post I have actually made significant progress in Dynasty 4. I am now back up to 20 thousand words and I am a lot happier with it this time around. So  I’m gonna keep chugging away at this for a while. Hope to get a lot more done soon.

I have also been working on some other things. Things that I think you will all like but I think I am going to save this tid bit of news until I have some more definite information and have it a little more ironed out.

Get it? Ironed out? Eh? Eh?

 

So stay tuned for that.