Marcus Richardson's Blog, page 7

Freehold Friday: The Shift update

Howdy muchachos!

I wanted to drop in and share with y’all something about which I’m really, really pleased. ��The first draft of The Shift, sequel to Apache Dawn, is nearly complete. ��That’s right! ��This month, through about 5 minutes ago, I have written a grand total of 94,886 words. ��Add the 30,000 or so words I wrote in February and you can see we’re getting real close to that 150,000 word goal I set for myself.

My previous one-month writing record was 72,000, set back in January when Dragon really clicked and I was on fire. ��Now? ��I blew past that a week ago. ��And there’s still nearly a week left in April!

Been spending some time fiddling with cover designs for The Shift, as well–maybe I’ll post some sketches for you soon. ��As for now, I’m starting to get together the outline for the sequel to Sic Semper Tyrannis (and the planned series conclusion to the Alea Jacta Est storyline).

Hey, I said planned. ��As in not definite. ��Erik Larsson has a way of surprising even me. ��We’ll see what the future has in store for him next month, when��begin to write book 3.

Is there something in particular you’d like to see happen or explained in Book 3? ��If so, let me know!

In the meantime, if you want to know the latest greatest about me or my books, when new releases hit the shelves or when big sales launch, join the Freehold Update!

Until next time…

Freehold Friday: It’s all downhill from here…

Howdy muchachos!

Got another scintillating update for y’all. ��It’s April 17th (I know, that ain’t news, y’all can see that in the corner of your screen with the time and everything) and that means we’re past the middle of the month.

Really?

Yes, really. ��It means we’re past the halfway point in April’s Camp NaNoWriMo��and for me it means I’m officially halfway through writing The Shift (sequel to Apache Dawn). ��Holy smokes—right? ��I have written a chapter a day (keep in mind this is the first draft folks, there’s bound to be some changes) since April 1. ��I already had 4 chapters in the books before April 1, so we’re 21 chapters in (planned 38 34). ��For you word-hounds out there, Apace Dawn was about 145,000 words, give or take a few thousand. ��I plan on The Shift being at least that many. ��So far in April I have written about 65,000 words. ��We’re approaching my single month maximum (set in Jan 2015: 72,000 words). ��My goal for April–publicly declared for NaNoWriMo–is 100,000. ��Add the 25,000-30,000 I wrote before April started and we’re knockin’ on the door to 100,000 already. ��I’m estimating by the end of the month if I hold the course I’m on, The Shift will end up around 150,000, right where I want it.

How’s that for some good news?

If this little experiment works, I’ll attempt to write AJE3 in the month of May, and hopefully release The Shift by the end of June. ��Keyword: hopefully. ��That’s the plan at least.

What about AJE3, you ask? ��I’m hoping to get that wrapped up sometime during the end of the summer (hey, I got 3 little kids and I’m a stay-at-home-dad. ��It’s gonna be a busy, exhausting 3 months for me). ��

The rest of the year is already stacking up like planes over O’Hare. ��I dabbled in Sci-fi and HF (Historical Fiction) before I published Apache Dawn, and those books are itching for some newly honed editorial skills. ��I might be releasing them later this year, though they’ll likely be under a pseudonym so no one gets confused and think’s Erik Larsson is flying a spaceship or something.

I’ll post more on this later.

I must say, that I’m happy to be dictating my work! You see, earlier this week, I had a run in with a potato peeler. I bought a coconut for my kids at the store and attempted to open the sucker without power tools.

Actually surprised myself that I didn’t cut my hand off while using the meat cleaver to crack the shell. Once that was open, I used a butter knife to scoop out the innards. Still without injury, I decided to tempt fate one last time and use a potato peeler to scrape the inner shell off of the meat.

Thinking I was home free, I took my concentration away for a second and when I looked down I noticed there was blood in the coconut.

That flat part there is round on my other thumb!

When all was said and done, I slathered the wound with Neosporin, wrapped in a bandage, and realized that if I had tried typing a chapter that day it would not have happened. That would have ruined my week and broken the pledge to get The Shift written during the month of April!!

Luckily, since I dictate, my fingers are actually rather useless for writing! I was able to continue writing as if nothing had ever happened… Doing everything else around the house, well, that’s another matter… It’s been a long week, but my thumb is finally on the mend and it’s even regaining some of its original shape!

For now, it’s time to get back to work. ��Gotta wrap up today’s chapter!

Thank You!

I wanted to say thank you to my fans—Sic Semper Tyrannis debuted at #80 on the Top 100 Military Thriller Ebook list over at Amazon! ��Fantastic achievement! ��I couldn’t have done it without you. ��Thank you very much!!!

 

On another front, I’m now 10 days in to the Camp NaNoWriMo challenge and I’ve got 38,170 words down on paper so far! ��I am well on my way to reaching my goal of 100,000 words by the end of the month, which will complete the book (I already had a handful of chapters roughed out from back in February). ��It’s a bit of a grind to get time in to crank out a chapter a day (except for Easter Sunday, but I don’t think anyone will grudge me that), but I have a detailed outline set up and I’m happy to dive into the story each day.

Here’s to another week of chapters!!!

Sic Semper Tyrannis is published!

The latest chapter in the Future History of America has been published. The wait is over!  A big thank you to everyone who supported and encouraged me on this journey.  I hope you’ll like the finished product!

You can get a copy of Sic Semper Tyrannis on Amazon for Kindle devices and reading apps.  I’ll be offering the paperback version soon.

In the meantime, I’ve written a chapter a day every day in April so far on the Apache Dawn sequel.  The plan is to have the first draft finished by month’s end.  I Will attempt to write the third book in the Future History storyline in May.  With any luck, I should have a few books published this summer.  It all hinges on this month…can I write a book in 30 days?

We’ll see…

Freehold Friday: SST update and news!

Well hey there, muchachos!�� It���s been a while, eh?

I haven���t been spending my time drinking Coronas and praying for warm weather���ahem.�� I really haven���t.�� I���ve been working my tail off to finish up Sic Semper Tyrannis for ya.

And I���m here to give y���all a little status update.�� I have only a little over a hundred pages to go.�� That���s right.�� I spent a while (over a week) reading through the thing (all 531 pages) and doing my last markups.�� This week, I have edited 418 of those pages and they are finalized.

I���m starin��� down the barrel of the end of this book.�� Here���s what that looks like, by the way:

I prop up the pages I���m working on with my law school book stand (little dusty) and make the changes in Scriviner.�� Page comes off the top, goes into the done pile.�� Bit by bit, I���m whittling away at this monster and I have to say, this process is pretty smooth.�� I���m going to do this again with the next book.

This will be the fastest book, from start to finish, that I���ve ever written.�� My beta readers have been kind enough to let me know that it���s not my worst, either.�� Which is a good thing.

Because next month I aim to top my record.�� See, it���s Camp NaNoWriMo month.�� For you non-writers out there, that���s where you sit down in a chair and crank out a set number of words every day in a given month and write a book in 30 (or 31) days.�� Not edit and polish, mind you, just write a first draft.

The National Novel Written in a Month contest occurs each November.�� However, in the spring (sometimes summer) there is ���camp���.�� For people who want to just dip their toes in the process, or for folks who can���t get enough in November.�� I���ve heard about it for years and finally decided I���m going to give it a go.

I started work on Sic Semper Tyrannis back in November of 2014, I believe.�� I ended up not touching it for the entire month of February due to all kinds of sicknesses in my house and birthday season (Dec 18, Jan 31, Feb 18, Mar 18) really wrecked things.�� Lots of parties to plan, invites to mail, thank you notes to write, etc.�� It eats up the little free time I have.�� So, start to finish for me is about 5 months.���� Apache Dawn took 8 months from the first idea to ���The End���.�� Alea Jacta Est���that one took ten years.�� Yeah.�� Years.�� But hey, I graduated law school, moved���uh, 3 times���got married, and had a kid in the meantime.

Granted, False Prey only took three months, but it���s also only half the size of Apache Dawn and a third the size of AJE.

Aaaanyway.�� My aim for April is to compete in the contest (yep, there are prizes for the winners—ie, anyone who completes a book in the month of April or hits their word count goal).�� What���s that mean for you?

I���m going to write the sequel to Apache Dawn in April.�� 30 days, 37 chapters, about 5,000 words a day.�� Oh hells yeah.�� Let���s do this.�� Part of the great motivating factor behind the contest is the fact that the authors are public about their goals and accomplishments or failures.�� Most of them will post daily word count goals, with the hopes of inspiring others to get cracking and maybe earn praise (which really spurs us on to accomplish more!) from our peers.

It���s a win-win.�� I get to do something incredibly hard and fun at the same time (how many people out there have written a 160,000 word, 400 page book 30 days?).�� You get to reap the rewards—a new book in the Wildfire Saga—way faster than normal.

Does this mean Apache Dawn 2 will be out in May?�� No guarantees, muchachos.�� See, this is to create the first draft.�� Then there���s the editing and revisions—that might take a month too.�� We might be looking at a release in June���but hey, that���s still 60 days, start to finish.�� That is like���well, it���s really damn fast, I���ll put it that way.

To prep for Camp NaNoWriMo, I���ve worked out the outline for AD2���.don���t believe me?�� Here it is, a classified picture taken at great risk of personal harm, smuggled out of the author���s lair.�� Many Bothan spies died to bring us this information���

So there you have it! ��Pardon me while I dig back into the last segment of SST and try and get this puppy out to you. ��If you want to know the second it’s ready, join the Freeholder Update!

2 pounds of awwwwwesome.

A little light reading… All top secret, of course.

Sic Semper Tyrannis update and cover reveal!

I just finished the second draft of the sequel to Alea Jacta Est.  I’ll be sending it off to the printer for one last read through and then it’s publishing time!

This is really exciting.  I think we’ll be about a week away from publishing once I get all 531 pages (you read that right but that count is paper pages and not indicative of how big the ebook will be) back from the printer.

Its been a hard slog through the edits with all the craziness that real life threw at me in the last 2 months.  I really want to thank you for being so patient! 

So as a reward, here’s the cover for AJE2, which I will refer to it’s title from now on: Sic Semper Tyrannis:

Remember, if you’d like to know before everyone else when SST is ready, join the Freeholder Update! Sign up before the release to get the book at a deep discount.

Freehold Friday: Sometimes you just need to step back and think.

Okay, I had to post something different this week. ��Getting kind of tired writing about…well…writing…I guess. ��I’m in the home stretch now editing AJE2 (once I’m finished revising the last few chapters, I’ll send the manuscript to Kinkos and get a hard copy, then read through it one last time before publishing) and I can totally see the light at the end of the tunnel.

That said, I’m finding it increasingly hard to focus on a particular chapter. ��I know what I want to say, I just don’t know how to say it to make it…flow…with the story. ��It’s been giving me a headache for a week now and really slowing down my progress. ��It’s like the reverse of writer’s block. ��Editor’s block? ��Is that even real? ��I don’t know. ��All I know is it’s frustrating as all get out. ��I’ve re-written this one chapter maybe 4 times now.

So I decided to try a tactic that worked for writer’s block the one and only time I suffered from it–do something else. ��Anything else that is meditative and let my subconscious shift gears out of the write (or in this case edit) 24/7 mode. ��Before, it was a day of woodworking (back when we had a heat wave in January and the temps outside hit the teens!). ��I stepped away from the computer during my valuable 2-hour nap-time/writing time window and locked myself in the garage (not really, the door remained unlocked at all times–I had a sleeping baby in the house, remember?). ��No computer, no cell phone, no digital recorder, no notes, no writing.

At first I felt incredibly guilty. ��After I picked up my favorite Japanese saw and smelled that first whiff of freshly cut wood, the tension melted away, the frustration vanished and I lost myself in the rhythm of the woodworking. ��Two hours later, my project was complete (I can’t even remember what the hell I was doing out there now, but it worked!) and I had the solution to my writing problem. ��I cranked out 40,000 words over the next 3 days.

This time, I decided to pick up my paintbrush. ��Among the things I enjoy doing, I count art near the top. ��Definitely top 3. ��During the course of my renovation of the hobby area in the basement a few weeks ago, when I transformed it from a storage dumping ground into my subterranean office, I discovered this:

It’s a simple watercolor painting I created in 2009 when we lived in Texas. ��I was bored one day, home from work (I worked at a big box craft store at the time) and dreaming of vacations. ��Next thing I knew, I had an old photo albulm of the time my dad and I made a wild-ass trip through Arizona and New Mexico. ��One of the pictures was of Bell Rock, Arizona. ��On a whim I decided to try and paint it with the crude watercolor set I had–hell, I ran an arts and crafts store and had seen people give demonstrations on how to paint I don’t know how many times. ��How hard could it be?

Four sheets of watercolor paper later, I found it it’s a lot harder than it looks. ��And this thing that I created didn’t look…well, it wasn’t bad…but it certainly wasn’t all that good either. ��But it was the first time I’d seriously tried my hand at watercolor and I was happy with it. ��Just looking at it brought back memories that made me smile.

And then it got tossed in a box and lost to me for six years. ��Until two weeks ago. ��Digging through everything in the basement to clear space for my office, I found it, framed it and hung it on the wall to give my writing space a splash of color.

So by now you’re asking yourself, what the hell does this have to do with anything? ��Right? ��Well, plenty. ��As my editing progressed in the last two weeks and I crashed headlong into the aforementioned chapter-from-hell, I found myself staring at that painting trying to muddle my way around the problem in the story. ��Finally it hit me–I need to step away, unplug, recharge and come at this from a new angle.

I closed the laptop, dug out my paints and paper and headed topside to the kitchen table. ��A few hours later, I had this:

This is my crude attempt to recreate a photograph I took when my wife and I toured Scotland in 2008 on our long-delayed honeymoon. ��One of our favorite castles was Dunottar, south of Aberdeen. ��It’s out on the rocky crag that juts into the ocean off Scotland’s east coast, accessibly only by what looked like a goat path from the mainland across some steep, rocky ground. ��And there were no hand rails or warning signs. ��We’re talking hundred foot cliffs, stiff winds and failing light.

Awesome!

We arrived at 5:15pm local time and struggled to make our way through the buffeting wind down the path (passing motorcyclists��wearing neon racing gear emblazoned with BMW over every square inch of their bodies) and finally clawed our way to the castle gate (or what was left of it–it’s a ruin, you know). ��The curator was just locking up. ��We were free to climb around on the outside, but sadly we could venture “nay further”.

Fine by us. ��We were happy to clamber around on the rocks and take pictures of the lonely ruins from a distance. ��One of those pictures I decided to paint this week.

And you know what? ��The moment I was finished and stepped back to admire my work, a light bulb turned on above my head and the solution to my editing impasse presented itself. ��That opened the floodgates and here I sit with only 7 chapters left to edit!

So there you have it, how a watercolor painting helped put AJE2 back on track. ��Kinda weird, but not really. ��No one can focus on one thing 24/7 waking and sleeping and not burn out. ��I think writer’s/editor’s block is just the mind’s way of putting on the breaks and making you take a step back to recharge before complete burnout sets in. ��Too bad my oven can’t do that…but that’s a different story.

Now I can feel the excitement building, just like when I wrote the very first words of this book. ��I can see the goal, it’s in sight. ��Time to hunker down and grind this sucker out!

Freehold Friday: A new office!

Has it been two weeks already? I’ve been so deep into editing Alea Jacta Est 2 that the passage of these frozen days seems to be a blur. I am currently 2/3 of the way through the book and have finished the design on the cover as well. Progress! I don’t have a definitive time when the book will be 100% ready, but I am hopeful that it will be soon. We’re talking weeks now.

At the same time, I’m dictating chapters of the sequel to Apache Dawn in my down time during the day. For example, at 10:30am, my one-year-old son goes down for his midday nap. At that point, I take our��five-month-old puppy ��� a vizsla named Princess Trinity ��� out for a brief walk in the sub-Arctic weather and back inside for some ball throwing and tug-of-war. She is finally reaching the point where I’m able to sit and throw ball across the room and she will run and fetch it, then chew on the ball for a few minutes before bringing it back to me. I repeat the process again, and in this way I can have a couple hours to myself to write. At the moment, Trinny��is content chewing on one of her toys next to my chair. Luckily, I dictate most of my writing now and Dragon has progressed in its capabilities to the point where the loud obnoxious squeaking from her toys are no longer registered on the microphone. I don’t know if it’s something I did or something the software did or if she’s just far enough away that it can’t be detected, but thankfully the squeaking is not transcribed.

Sometimes though, if she’s in an especially calm mood ��� which seems to be about every other day or so ��� I’ll actually be able to sit with my laptop and edit AJE2. I’m noticing as I progressed through the story that the later chapters are much quicker to edit ��� these were the chapters that I started writing using DNS. The earlier chapters, have taken me much longer because of the multitude of spelling mistakes mostly. Dragon does not misspell. Ever. It sure does give me some amusing occurrences of improper words, but they are never misspelled.

As far as the sequel to Apache Dawn is concerned, I get the bulk of my writing accomplished while waiting in line at my daughter’s school. I learned that a certain grandmother shows up approximately 15 minutes before the kids get out. I have an understanding with the teachers that my daughter will be the first one out so that I can race across town to pick up my son at 3:30. Of course, this understanding came about back before my son started riding the bus. However, since the teachers have been so accommodating with me, I haven’t had the heart to tell them that she no longer needs to be the very first child ready to go. In order for me to be the first car in line to pick up my child, I therefore have to have a daily race with the unknown grandmother and get to school approximately 15 to 20 minutes before she comes out. The bad news, is that I also have to get my one-year-old son ready to go 15 minutes earlier than normal. The good news, is that the 15 minutes that I now have sitting in my car can be used to dictate the sequel to Apache Dawn! It’s fantastically efficient and so far the combination seems to really work.

I tested this process throughout the month of January and was able to bring home an impressive 72,000 words. Now keep in mind the 72,000 words written in January includes approximately 65,000 words to wrap up AJE2. Last 7000 words I wrote in January went towards the sequel to Apache Dawn. And the 20,000 or so words that I’ve written so far in February are all in Apache Dawn 2.

Which leads me to the next topic of this blog post. I was averaging something along the lines of 15 to 20,000 words a week in January. Why the disparity with February? For starters I ended the month of January with a nasty intestinal bug, that quickly rate made its way through the entire family. Then we had the baby’s first birthday party at the end of January, followed by visits from relatives and friends and family. Then we had preparations for my daughter’s 4th birthday, this week. I can give you a whole host of excuses as to why I didn’t get as much done as I needed to or wanted to, but other main factor was that the space that I have to work with in my house has been completely lacking. And so I have been focusing the last couple of weeks on cleaning out an area in the basement and carving out an office just for myself.

When we moved into this house my wife commandeered the dining room as her home office. I had no objections over this, as she is the sole breadwinner. However, the room that we then established as our dining room (after laying down hardwood flooring and ripping up the nasty old carpeting) became my office. We purchased a small desk some time ago that I made my writing workspace. Trying to work in the middle of the dining room, which is in itself near the middle of the house and in the main walkway between the garage in the kitchen and the back deck, proved to be nerve-racking to say the least. Interruptions were almost by the minute. With 3 small children and be in the house I got almost no peace. When I started dictating in the car in my daughter’s school, and editing in the basement with the puppy in the mornings before everyone got up, I saw my productivity skyrocket. That led me to the conclusion that if I wanted to get some work done, I need to stay in the basement.

As luck would have it, we had an area of the basement ��� two thirds of which is finished ��� that we simply called the hobby area. In this room, I had grand plans of setting up my studio/home office/model workshop, to satisfy my various and sundry hobbies and pursuits of downtime. Ah, the road to hell is paved with good intentions, isn’t it? Within a month of us moving into this house ��� now for almost 3 years ago ��� my hobby area quickly became the storage something ground. Anything that we brought into the house, or discovered in storage that we just simply could not find an immediate use for or place for, was dumped unceremoniously into my hobby area. This included my stuff of course, the kids schoolwork that was brought home (we had grand plans to sort all of their stuff get rid of the busywork and keep things with memories attached or things that were uniquely theirs because oh my goodness, the schools send home a ton of stuff with our kids!), Sets of weights unused picture frames, piles and piles and piles of family pictures are growing collection of wine, and the wine fridge. Keep in mind this is on top of all of my astronomy gear, my genealogy research and family history trunk, some exercise equipment like the treadmill, etc., etc., etc.

2 weeks ago, I decided I had had enough. This was supposed to be MySpace, my man cave, my personal retreat in the house. And it had become a disaster area. I decided to draw line in the sand, and reclaim what was supposed to be mine. So for the past 2 weeks, instead of writing and editing is much as I possibly have done, I decided to spend what little free time I could scrape together between feedings and dog walking’s, diaper changes, and shuttling kids back and forth to school, and clean out the hobby area once and for all. It took an entire week just to sort through all of the kids schoolwork! I ended up throwing away almost 3 garbage bags full of stuff, and kept the best for posterity. That said, I still had to sort through everything else. Well, I can tell you now with some satisfaction that I am finally finished! I have taken back what is mine!

in this blog entry is being dictated sitting at my brand-new unfinished desk, in my still somewhat cluttered, but well on its way to being perfected writing space!

One thing that I’m especially proud of ��� you can tell I don’t get out much ��� is the conversion of a scrapbooking storage/filing system into a writing filing system. The bars on this metal cage ��� acquired when I worked for a major big-box arts and craft store ��� were perfect for hanging file folders. However it was designed to hold 12 x 12 scrapbook sheets and it was definitely too large to suit my purposes and hold my files and research notes. So what I did was rated the old toolbox grabbed some bull Connors remove the offending bar, slid it a little bit closer and reattached it just this morning with some steel epoxy. 60 minutes later, and I have a perfectly usable and clearly solid regular sized hanging file system! Yeah I know, it’s not very much, but it completely made my week!

So, now that I’ve probably given you too much insight into my personal life, I’m going to wrap up this post and get back to editing!

Remember, if you want to know before anyone else when AJE2��is finally ready, sign up for my mailing list here.

Until next time, muchachos…

Freehold Friday: I love Photoshop, or, see the new AJE cover!

Since I am closing in on the half-way mark with��editing Sic Semper Tyrannis (AJE2), I figured it’s time to update the cover for Alea Jacta Est. ��I was never really happy with it, other than the simplistic design:

I mean, that pretty much sums up the story right there, doesn’t it? ��America on fire, burning from within.

Anyway.

That cover took me all of 15 minutes to throw together back in the day. ��I found some stock imagery of a ring of fire and a flag and boom, black background, some text, and Richard’s your uncle. ��Or is it Bob’s your uncle? ��Whatever. ��You’ve got an uncle, ok? ��And I had a decent, if stark cover design.

This time around, after doing some actual research on cover design for False Prey, the theories I’ve read and studied��finally clicked. ��Here is the result, a more movie-like poster for AJE:

 

What do you think? ��I’d say it’s a step up from the original cover. ��And I’ve got a real doozie of a cover worked up for the sequel. ��One less thing to distract me from editing. ��I won’t give it away yet–I’ll let you all be the first to see it, don’t worry, but that won’t happen until it’s done editing and about ready to publish. ��But I’m not cruel, I’ll give you a teaser: there’s blood, shadows, and a knife. ��Nice.

Anyway–seriously–let me know what you think of the new cover. ��It’s going to go live soon in preparation for the launch of the sequel, to be titled Sic Semper Tyrannis.

Speaking of the new book, if you’re interested in getting your hands on it faster than everyone else, sign up for the Freeholder Update, where I announce the release dates of all my books in advance and even gave away copies of False Prey to celebrate its release. ��Who knows, maybe the Freeholders will be getting more stuff? ��Hmmm? ��Only one way to find out, muchacho. ��Man up, sign up. ��Here.

Okay, enough procrastination. ��Back to editing before I start sniffing around for more free fonts to use in my covers. ��I love fonts. ��Fonts, fonts, fonts…