Launch Day!

Yes, I'm all excited. I feel like I've been on a sugar rush all morning. *Looks at pile of cakes* Okay, maybe I have been. Brought cakes into work and as it was to celebrate three events, book launch, birthday and final day at work before I start my new job on Monday, I had to bring in a lot.

Anyway, the copies of my novel arrived on Wednesday. I took one box home and locked the other up at work ready for launch day. I was included on the last staff newsletter so there has been quite the buzz at work about it. I've already sold a fair few copies this morning, at knife point. I've been getting photos of people with the book to make into a collage when I get home. I'll add it here when it's ready.

Here is the book trailer, although I have already linked it here before, it's good to have everything in one place.

And, for people wanting to buy a copy it is available from the following links:


Amazon.com

Amazon.co.uk

Smashwords

Foyles


Or you can order it from your friendly local high street bookshop using the paperback ISBN : 978-1-909845-59-6

Anyway, I'm very excited. This really is an amazing moment. I've been writing novels since I was 16 and finally here is one in print. Although, I will admit that I never sent the first two novels I wrote for publication owing to getting stuck in the continuous rewrite loop.

Editing Complete and Kickstarter Project

The editing is now complete on my novel Atlantis and the Game Time. My thanks goes to Caro for all her hard work, despite having a number of family issues during the process to cope with. Half of the novel was written as part of NaNoWriMo, so there were a lot of mistakes to find. Anyone who spots one in the final version, don't blame Caro, blame me.

Anyway, how did I find the editing process? To be honest, I was dreading it to start. I had all these visions of receiving a document longer the the manuscript with all the mistakes in it which needed correcting. It actually wasn't that bad. I did try to catch as many of the mistakes as I could, in my own editing phase, but spotting mistakes in your own work is ten times harder than spotting them in someones else, as you tend to skim read sentences as you intended them and end up completely blind to many mistakes.

Caro broke the editing down, sending it chapter by chapter and each chapter was easily correctable within my one hour lunch break. I'm not going to deny that she found some very stupid mistakes in there which I am quite mortified at not spotting before hand but at least I know those particular mistakes won't be in the final version.

As well as the editing, I have also handed over the final digital version of the cover so that is also now with Sammy and Kristell Ink ready for publishing. I was a little concerned with how close we were getting to the launch date but I am very happy now everything seems to be read, on my end at least. I'm sure poor Sammy will be stressing for a few weeks in my place.

Also, Kristell Ink is running a Kickstarter project to raise funds for 2015's releases. This publisher has helped a number of  first time authors, including myself, and with the Kickstarter funding could help many more. So please, if you can spare even just a pound or two then do pledge as there are many more authors out there. There are also some very nice hoodies as rewards for pledgers, one of which is already earmarked for me, and a host of other rewards; so you can get more than just that warm fuzzy feeling of donating- which is obviously very good on its own but... hoodies!

Really, I'm not obsessed with the hoodies... okay I am. I really want one. Please pledge as if we don't hit target then I won't get my hoodie and I will  cry myself to sleep in disappointment. Nobody wants that right? Yeah, okay, probably the answer to that is a yes. But I still want my hoodie!

Back Writing Again: Atlantis Sequel

Now the trailer for my novel is complete, I have finally been able to get back to writing. I've done pretty much no writing so far this year, with the time sapped by doing my book cover and helping out with the Finchley Literary Festival and then my book trailer. It's been a real busy year. And, you know, I have enjoyed doing all those things, but there were so many time when I just wanted to sit down and write. Last Saturday that time finally came and I started on a new novel. Yes, I do have plenty of other novels that need completing and should probably be finishing one of those but with the editing work I've been doing on 'Atlantis and the Game of Time' it left me really hankering after another time travelling adventure.

I've been planning the sequel in my mind for over a year now. The reason I haven't started writing before is that I only have the first half of the novel planned with little idea where the second half is going, but I guess that's fine. When I started the first novel, I had pretty much no idea where that one was going and it somehow managed to organise itself. After all, in writing, I find that discovering is half the fun. Just so long as it's not discovering a problem that means you have rewrite the whole novel, that is... Anyway, hoping that's not going to happen.

So, here comes the big question; how much can I reveal here on the sequel? Well, this novel is set not just in the past and present but also the future (relative to the book timeline not our own). There will be more pranks, popes beware, and more time travelling, back to the Aztecs, Babylon and some new time periods...spoilers! I will also reveal the title which is 'Atlantis and the Daughter of Chaos'.

Anyway, I'm currently one and a half chapters in and I'm having fun already. Here's hoping that fun continues.

Review - In Search of Gods and Heroes - Sammy HK Smith

I have just completed reading In Search of Gods and Heroes written by Sammy HK Smith, and I have to confess I would have finished it sooner had I not started to ration it when I realised I was nearing the end. I've never seen fit to ration a book before but just couldn't bear to finish this one and be faced with the realisation there was no more left to read. I have to say, I'm impressed with my self control that I managed to stretch it out the extra week. 

Anyway, on to the actual review. I really enjoyed this novel. It has a real air of mysticism and a feel of Greek mythology, with the kingdom of the Gods and the underworld battling against each other. The world is vividly painted both in description and in its history, with detail lavished in all the right areas. I’ve read many books before where the richness of the world is created at the expense of pacing. I glad to say this is not a problem here, which is one of the aspects I admire most about the book, as the detail is carefully woven in with the action and kept relevant to the current scene/ character. I never once found my attention wandering, and that really is something for me as numerous times I’ve sat down to read a book and flipped several pages then suddenly realised I had no clue what had happened in them as my mind was on something else completely while reading them. My attention span isn’t so bad that I blame myself, as when I rescan the pages I usually find that nothing much happened anyway. But this book does not hit that snag and I have to say I found that massively refreshing as I’m so used to my attention wandering at least once during a book.

The characters are strong and match well with the world they live in. I really enjoyed the contrast between Adley and Nathan, and the way the two personalities managed to enrich and draw the other out. There are a lot of threads to the story, all held together with sometimes rather tenuous interactions, and yet the overarching plot manages to keep all these threads ordered and coherent, which shows real skill from the author as the more threads a plot has, the more likely it is to unravel. I can’t really say too much more without releasing spoilers, but I will say that I found this an absorbing and exciting read. I strongly recommend it to anyone who enjoys a good fantasy read. 

Novel Editing and Trailer Update

I'm now a few weeks into the editing process of my novel, and it's going well. My editor, Caro, is really nice and due to the fact that my novel is mainly a NaNoWriMo novel, there are plenty of mistakes for her to sink her teeth into. I have to confess the volume of mistakes is no where near as bad I had predicted. We're going through it chapter by chapter, and I'm easily able to do the corrections within my hour lunch break. So all is good.

Due to Kristell Ink instating new publishing guidelines, it has been necessary to go through the whole manuscript and change the formatting around. All the dialogue tags have all had to be changed which is quite the task and that did set us back a bit with the editing but things are picking up speed again now.

As for my book trailer the model of the eternal library is almost complete. Here is the most recent render:

Just missing the spiral staircase down the center and a few things on the ground floor then I can render out the video. This is only part of the trailer. There are a number of other scenes I will be modeling.

Anyway, all in all, this is a very exciting time. I'm looking forward to sharing first the trailer and then the book with everyone.

Book Trailer Update

I've been working really hard on the new models for the trailer for my upcoming novel. Not really made a whole lot of progress to be fair. I've been working on a model of the eternal library.

I started by modelling the skylight window. The eternal library is circular, which I regret now as circular things are always more a pain to model, and is spread over three levels. The only window is the skylight, the rest is lit by gas lamps. Here is my first render:

Yes, it's dark and it really isn't much but it was a start. As of now, I have the confines of the top floor modeled with a quarter of the books in place and the lights are modeled and have the relevant lighting/glow effects. I'll have to confess that texturing the book was a pain as it involved unwrapping and arranging the textures the same way 15 times in a row. I didn't make all the books the same out of laziness or to conserve texture space but because this the main library of an official organisation and they would have a certain uniformity in their book binding. There will be different colours for different sections but all the books in one section will be the same with the exception of the thickness of course.

Anyway, here is my latest render:

Anyway, true there is still along way to go, but I think it's heading in the right direction. I'm slightly worried as to if my computer will be able to handle all the books once they are arrange across the three floors, but I guess we will cross that bridge when we come to it. I think once all the other items are in the scene it should look fairly decent. Here's hoping, anyway.

Atlantis City Model - Areas Cut

With two months left until the release of my novel I have just started on the process of creating a trailer for it. Unfortunately, I have decided that the majority of the areas of the city I had planned to feature will now not be included. This is due to a few considerations, the aim being the need to create a gripping not to show off all the work I put into the model for the back cover of the book. Also, because I ended up modelling such a large area, I had to compromise on quality, due to time constraints and the processing capabilities of my hardware.

The trailer will now feature only one outside area of the city, possibly, the main dock. As they have been cut I have rendered out some images of the areas cut as they are, many were not full completed anyway, due to lack of trees and in the case of the university. no door, with a window left in its place as a temporary holder.

Here are some renders of areas not in the trailer:

Here is a full city render, so you can see the size and structure of the whole thing:

Anyway, it was all good practice in getting to know a new modelling package, seeing as I trained in another at uni and hadn't touched this one. I'm not too upset. Onward and upward!