Nathan Howe's Blog, page 12

Works in Progress

Since Derek and I started writing together we’ve had a lot of different ideas for books. I’ve started to work on several of them over the past year and a half. But currently I have been focusing on finishing some of the story lines and books we want to write in the Cretun world. I’ve been working on a series of shorts that I mentioned before. It’s going slower than I hoped. Mainly because Derek has moved, he hasn’t been able to write. Without him writing, it’s just me and It’s tough. He just started back up the other day. Hopefully I’ll pick of the pace. Because after I finish the shorts. I’ll work more on Mason (my first go through is done, just need to add some scenes) then move one some other stories we have planned for the world, then finish the third book, O. After that I plan on taking a break from the Cretun world and work on a few other ideas I have, namely the Emerge story, which the first set of novellas will total 5, followed up with 2 more sets. Looking at 6 novellas in the second set, not sure about the third. Only in the beginning stages in the planning process for the second and third set of novellas. I also have a book that my nephew gave us the idea for that I want to get out soon (it’s a middle grade Zombie story) and a world that I’ve spent a lot of time building that I just love. It’s a high fantasy story set in a world with a magic system that I created based around gods  and rings. I hope to get to it before long. Among the hundreds of great stories and worlds that Derek has come up with.

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Top 10 Marvel Heroes

I’ve been watching a lot of marvel stuff recently, from the movies out this year. To the movies I own and watching both movies and cartoons on Netflix. Growing up I was a big comic collector, mostly Marvel, more specifically X-men. So I figured I’d do a top 10 this week on my favorite Marvel Heroes. The list is based on the all media, movies, TV, books and comics.

 

 

 

Gambit
Wolverine
Iron Man
Deadpool
Jean Grey
Blade
Hank Pym (Ant-man)
Janet van Dyne(the Wasp)
Psylocke
Spiderman

 

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It’s raining, it’s pouring

This past Monday a storm hit the metro Detroit area. The worst one in my lifetime, for actually rain. There have been many storms that have caused a lot of damage. But this was poured more rain that any of them. It started to rain in the morning and continued for most of the day. At one point it was coming down that it equaled in just one hour what it does in a normal month. Unfortunately for me, that was after I decided to leave my home and drive across metro Detroit to help Derek out with a few things at his new place.

I left my place at 6:30 pm. It was raining, but nothing to bad. The roads in the area had a little build up of water, but I didn’t take too much notice of it. I wish I had. By the time I entered the expressway five minutes later, the area had flooded to epic levels. I was stuck in traffic on the expressway for over an hour. That was only the beginning of it. Once I left the highway, I almost got stuck in several different mini lakes on the roads. After an hour leaving the highway, I made it another 5 miles towards Derek’s place. At that point I gave in. I knew I wasn’t going to make it to his place. And I wasn’t even sure I’d make it back to my place.

I parked and waited for it to pass over. Once the rain let up some, I decided to try to make it home. It took almost any hour, and following many cars through the flooded roads to get to the intersection closest to my home. But I couldn’t actually get home. The road leading to my neighborhood was flooded. I ended up trying three different way in. Totaling over an hour of trying. Before I found a way to get around the water.

This was the worst experience I’ve ever been in while driving on the road. I’ve driving in blizzards and ice storms that were this bad. I pulled into my driveway a little before 11 pm. Thankful to be one and that my car hadn’t been damaged (I just got it back from the shop).

Many people were not so lucky, 1000′s of cars have been abandoned in the area. Many of the major roads closed Monday night and remained so on Tuesday. Which continued to awful delays for many people. Thankfully the area is better today. But the damage done will take a while to fix.

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Renaissance Center

With Aiden being out now for a little bit I thought I’d give you some information about the Renaissance Center. It is the location as many of you know that Aiden takes place in. A little background on why we chose that as the place for them to live. We wanted it to be in the metro Detroit area. Since we know the area better than any other. Also we didn’t want to big some of the other large buildings across the country, wanted to use a tall building that people might not recognize. With that in mind, other building in New York, Chicago, Los Angeles, etc wouldn’t work for us.

So Aiden was set in the Ren Cen. Having lived in the area for most my life, I knew of the building. But truthfully I had never went to it. That is until I started to write Aiden. I’m glad we did. Both Derek and I were in awe once we stepped inside. We had no clue that it was that open on the bottom floors. That trip was interesting for us. We saw many things that we weren’t prepared for. It lead to a major rehaul of certain parts of the story.

Unfortunately I didn’t get to take the trip up to the hotel or the restaurant that occupies the top floors. But I hear it’s amazing. Someday I hope to be able to visit it. Maybe I’ll travel down to downtown Detroit  for a tour and go up to see the upper reaches that I couldn’t during my visit. During our visit we also went to the Spirit of Detroit statue. It wasn’t as large as I expected. You hear 26 feet, but it didn’t look that big. 

Anyway I’ll bore you now with some facts and history about it.

The Ren Cen was conceived by Henry Ford II and announced in November 1971. At the time, it was anticipated to be the largest private development with a cost of $500 million. The project was intended to help revitalize downtown Detroit. Construction began in May 1973, Phase I.

The first town opened July 1, 1976. In 1977, the central hotel tower of the Renaissance Center opened; it was a Westin at the time. It became the world’s tallest all hotel skyscraper in the world, passing its architectural twin in Atlanta, currently it’s the tallest hotel in the western hemisphere. Phase II opened in 1981. The Renaissance Center now consisted of a 73-story hotel tower, four 39-story towers, and two 21-story towers. It is the tallest building in Michigan, and the 101 building in America, currently.

The Detroit people mover (rail transit), began operation in 1987, it includes a stop at the center.

GM purchased the center in 1996. They planned a $500 million renovation, which was completed in 2004.

The total square footage of the center is 5.5 million. The Marriott Detroit is one of the largest hotels in the world with 1,298 rooms, ranks 118th.

Hope you enjoyed Aiden, and this brief history lesson on the Ren Cen.

 

 

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The Cretun Chronicles

With Aiden‘s release we’ve been working on several stories in the world. Most notably the follow up Mason.  But we have been working on a novella Philip as well.  Recently Derek had some great ideas for some short stories in the world. I’ve been working on those.  I like what they add to the world. They give some insight to some of the people and incidents that happen in Aiden.  Currently I plan to release five shorts along with Philip.  For a little guess at the stories here are the titles: Jeremiah, Deimos, Miles, Rachel and Jameson.

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Aiden Release

Derek and I are pleased to announce that Aiden is now available on Amazon.

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Aiden

Exciting news, yesterday our editor sent Aiden back. We have to go through and check the changes that she made, which are a lot, but I was expecting it. To be honest, I was expecting even more than she did. So the once we finish our first pass through, we’ll go through and make a few minor, and I mean minor changes. After that we’ll send it back to her, it shouldn’t take her long to glance over those changes. Once that is done it will be ready.

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Top 10 Current TV Shows

Top 10 Current TV Shows

Arrow
Doctor Who
Elementary
Person of Interest
NCIS
Perception
Criminal Minds
The Big Bang Theory
Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D.
CSI: Crime Scene Investigation
Sherlock

 

This list is based on shows that will be airing this year that I have seen recently. These are shows that I either watch, or will watch when I’m bored.  I also felt the need to add an extra, had some trouble with picking between the last few. I know there are some great shows that many people love that I didn’t include on the list, but as I said I haven’t watched enough of them to make an honest assessment of them.

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Aiden/Mason information

We had some contact with our editor the other day. If everything goes to plan we’ll get the Aiden back by the end of the week. Then we’ll have to see what we need to do from that point. It shouldn’t be much longer, I hope. I’ve been working on the first draft of Mason I’m happy with the progress. I’ve completed my first draft of it. I can’t wait to see what Derek does with it. We are making progress slowly on Cataclysm and Philip editing and trying to figure out the finial details.

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Top 10 Sport Video Game Series

Top 10 Sport Video Game Series

MLB The Show
Madden
NCAA Basketball (March Madness)
FIFA
Fight Night
NCAA Football
NBA 2k
NHL (EA)
PGA Tour(Tiger Woods)
WWE(I know it’s not really a sport)

Been playing some MLB The Show and NBA 2k14 recently. Figured I’d put a list together of my favorite sport games series. The NCAA Basketball series isn’t around anymore, but I loved it. I enjoyed a few of the games in each of these series. I haven’t played every year of each. Nevertheless, I’ve played multiple years of them all.

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