Carmilla from Castlevania
In the shadows deep
Beyond the sight
And touch
Of those who dwell within
A ghostly whisper
Carried on the faintest wind
The rumor of her
Fades from the mind
As if one never heard it said
Only those chosen
By her spectral embrace
Can tell the truth
That there truly is
a Vampire Queen
I am proud to announce that my book, Let me be Frank, has been released in audiobook format. This is the second book in the Frank Rozzani detective series.
Here is a synopsis:
A young girl is senselessly murdered. The police believe the murder to be a random homeless casualty until it is discovered she has ties to Fat Sam and his mysterious past life in the Big Easy.
Join Private Detective Frank Rozzani and Clifford “Jonesy” Jones as they travel to historic New Orleans and other areas in the Gulf Coast to search for clues in the girl’s trek to Jacksonville, Florida, that will help them uncover evidence implicating those responsible for the murder so they can be brought to justice. They soon discover that things are not as they seem.
As the case progresses, the evidence uncovered has ties to the tragic events that drove Frank from…
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War of Nytefall Cover Art by Alison Hunt
As long as everything goes smoothly, I gearing up for my first release of 2019 and it’s going to be War of Nytefall: Rivalry. It’s been awhile, so I might be a bit rusty at this hyping thing, but here we go.
First, I’m always looking for people to help promote the book when it goes live. Feel free to send an email or comment if you want to help. I have my basic promo that I put up here and can do some guest posts. Due to time issues, I don’t think I can do a back-and-forth without only working on it during the weekends. I’d much prefer being given a topic or discussing one then writing up a quick one. Again, I always have the basic ‘Book is Live’ post that can work in a pinch. Let’s get to the origin.
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This one had a stranger origin than many of the others. Keep in mind that Clyde and the other Dawn Fangs began as Earth-based characters. When I began using sunlight immune vampires in Windemere, I decided that I should just switch him over. This helped clear up a lot of issues I had with his series, which ranged from tone to not being excited about the real world setting. All of the stories got changed such as Lost being around from the beginning and a few characters being dropped due to not having enough meat to make it in Windemere. War of Nytefall: Rivalry stemmed more from this change than any of the others, which is weird considering Lost got a major overhaul. So, what makes this one stand out?
Originally, the Vampire Queen character was a good guy that joins Clyde’s gang and becomes his equal. I’ll go more into this when I do her origin story in April, but she was going to be a more constant and major player. This might have been the thing that irked me because I did it primarily to have her be a catalyst for Clyde being shunted to Windemere at the end of his original series. It was a terrible reason to exist and it blocked Mab from evolving beyond the former lover/current partner. There was always this sexual tension between Clyde and Mab, but the Vampire Queen’s existence stood in contrast to this plot point. So, I made her a villain.
This is where things got really screwy with several outline attempts. First, I kept having her go head-to-head with Clyde and act as his new arch-enemy. This never worked, so I put her on the shelf and worked on the other volumes. Upon going back, I considered that her real rival would be Mab. As much as I wanted to draw out the ‘will they or won’t they’ thing with Mab and Clyde, it was clear from the first outline that I couldn’t hold that in reserve for very long. The Vampire Queen would be the perfect catalyst for these two to either evolve or permanently cut off their relationship. Not going to say what’s going to happen since there are so many options. If you thought Nyx was resistant towards a relationship then Mab makes her look like Sari. Once I focused more on Mab, the story really began to open up.
War of Nytefall: Rivalry has a lot of growth for various characters, but it was hard to balance the multiple locations. I can’t go into too many details, but I had to balance 3-4 areas at once because of the divided forces. There’s also a fairly straightforwardness to this story that made things over fairly quickly for me. The Vampire Queen is a threat to Mab’s life and future, so she has to do something even though this is a character on Clyde’s power level. It really helped me push Mab back up to the heroine level that she had in War of Nytefall: Loyalty. This book is also where I began to wonder if this series would be more about her than Clyde. If not one of them then both of them because a lot of attention falls on their relationship.
I will admit that once I settled the series into what it is now, this was the only outline that remained relatively untouched. No new characters or twists were added to the original concept. Focusing for so many years on the Vampire Queen and where she will go helped lock in everything around her. She is ambitious, dangerous, conniving, and incredibly vain with an army of devoted followers. That’s oddly simplistic compared to some of the other villains, especially since Xavier and Nadia haven’t always come off as fully evil to me. This book might not help there since the Vampire Queen is going to be a threat to Nyte and Nytefall. All I can really say now is that it’s going to be a fun adventure.
It’s not easy to promote a book, and for self-published authors on a tight budget, it can be especially challenging.
Reedsy —a U.K.-based publishing startup that connects authors with editors, designers and marketers who can help them with their projects—has announced a new service to help them called Reedsy Discovery. Reedsy Discovery, which launched today, will let readers know about books its expert reviewers have recommended every week. Those who join are able to look through curated “bookshelves,” preview chapters and connect with other readers. Reedsy Discovery will also issue a weekly newsletter of top books in popular genres and books curated by trusted reviewers. It will also offer a leaderboard where readers can vote on their favorite titles.
Read the rest of this story HERE.
In the…
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This is a guest post by Nishil Prasad, a passionate writer, hungry for innovation and new trends and with tons of enthusiasm for uncovering hidden topics. Nishil writes because he loves it.
This post contains a list of some great audibles to help your children enhance their listening powers as well as be a great tool for passing a boring weekend afternoon. These audibles can also be useful in improving the storytelling skills of a child. If you are interested in a wide range of titles, you may wish to consider Amazon Audible, which provides a 30-day free trial.
In this technological era when every child is a technocrat, the internet brings numerous audiobook sources at your fingertips. However, this also means that you have to screen and select quality audiobooks for them. Audiobooks help make lives easier. They also help…
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Fonts matter. Source: Reddit
In my previous post, I wrote about DIY Book Design; a website that lets you create 3D mockups of your book for free. But that implies you’ve already designed your book cover. And sometimes you need just the right font to do so.
Alternatively, you may be preparing an Ad or banner for your fantasy or mystery or crime or romance or children books and you feel that no font in your regular application can convey the feeling correctly. Or you need a cursive and you find that all the Microsoft office cursives are practically unreadable. Has it happened to you to end up with the same, old, readable few fonts you use time after time?
Again, you need the right font to convey the right feeling. Because, you know, fonts matter.
So, here’s another awesome resource, also courtesy of Krystallia. And if you want…
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This project, like many formidable tasks, began as a casual conversation after my wife and I watched the movie ARGO in 2012. The action thriller kept us on the edges of our seats, and at the end of the theatrical rendition of the otherwise discreetly executed CIA mission, my wife suggested that I write down my tour experience during the 1989 Tiananmen Square incident. I had told the story numerous times to friends and families, but had never documented in words.
At age 25, I was the tour leader with a group of sixteen American tourists caught in the nation-wide unrest in China. Like most twenty-five-year-olds, I was fearless and senseless. My wife reminded me that my hour by hour account of those five harrowing days attempting to move my tour group to safety was not only exuberating but factual. So the seed of a writing adventure was planted. By…
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This has been a busy week with a lot of appointments and tasks. For some reason, it feels like it’s been longer than it actually was. On Monday, we had enough snow for a school delays and that feels like it was a month ago. I’ve been trying to figure out what caused this weird time event, but it might just be a busy life. This week had everything from faculty meetings to the regular weekly events to doctor appointments. At least it started with a blast last Sunday.
I don’t have any pictures to share, but my parents and I took my son to ‘Aladdin’ on Broadway last Sunday. This was his first Broadway show and my second, so we were both excited. Had a nice lunch beforehand and then got on line. It was an autism friendly showing, so they had people walking around giving out sensory toys. My son ended up getting 4 because he would hand one to me or my mom then be offered another by a different person. The last volunteer was told that he had a few of the toys, but he asked for a purple one anyway. It was okay and he forgot about them once the show started.
‘Aladdin’ on Broadway has many differences, but it was cool that Jafar was played by the original voice. Just wanted to throw that out there. Abu and Raja (monkey and tiger) weren’t in the story. Although, they showed a picture of Abu at one point. Instead, they were replaced by three friends and three handmaidens respectively. Honestly, they were so good and entertaining that I forgot they were in place of previous characters. The changes to the story worked really well and there wasn’t anything out of place. Genie was fantastic and the songs were memorable. It is a challenge not to sing along with the familiar ones. The carpet ride was a great setpiece too because they’re on a giant carpet that goes up into the air.
Another big change that I’m giving its own paragraph is Iago. In the movie, he’s a parrot, but they made him a person in the show. At first, I wasn’t sure how this would work, but he had to be my favorite part of the whole thing. The actor’s delivery of lines and voice was what I would imagine a human version of Iago to be. He was hilarious and the way he moved had me focusing on him every time he was on stage. Don’t get me wrong. The entire cast did a great job and this is coming from a guy who isn’t a fan of Broadway shows. Yet, I think Iago really stood out for me. Guess I do tend to become a fan of sidekicks and secondary characters a lot.
I wish I had more to talk about, but I had a lot of busy days that left me drained by the time I got home. Only managed to write 2 blog posts for April and didn’t touch my books at all. Friday night was supposed to be the start of a writing weekend, but that life event took a turn. I needed to just settle back and talk to friends with the hope of clearing my head for tomorrow. Next week doesn’t look very promising for writing at night, but I might be able to do some more blogs. I have a list of topics to cover April and May, which still takes some of the edge off.
Oh! I did reach 1,000 posts in a row on Thursday. I’m going to keep going. Tomorrow might break it though since I’m going to be posting my War of Nytefall: Rivalry blurbs then deleting them Monday morning. Just hoping to get some insight since I’m rusty there.
Got a new messenger bag too. It’s smaller than my previous one, which I’m retiring due to the bottom starting to fray. That and there a few too many memories tied to it, which are starting to sour. Think I need to do some more fresh starts in some aspects of my life that aren’t at my core. It’s hard to explain since I can’t go into details. Look at the bag:
Seven Deadly Sins Messenger Bag
That’s the symbol of Meliodas the Dragon Sin of Wrath from Seven Deadly Sins. He isn’t my favorite, but that’s the only bag from the anime/manga. I’m hoping to find patches or pins of the other 6 symbols then attach them to the bag. Probably put Ban, Diane, and King on the back. Escanor if I can fit him. Merlin could go under the leather flap and then Gowther can go . . . somewhere. This plan might fail if the patches are too big since the bag is smaller than I expected. Pins might be better and then I could possibly add other anime symbols. Might be overdoing it since this is something I’ll be carrying around school.
Well, that’s really it. Feel like I’m not doing much to report. I was thining of talking about my superhero series since I’m eliminating a few characters and that changes the overall dynamic. I haven’t had any time to look into the whole thing so it would be sloppy to present it to the public. Let’s dive into the goals of the week:
Add-on: So, I woke up this morning to being told that there are issues with one of my books. Specifically, I do not have a Logical Table of Contents (NCX). Yet, I’ve checked the Word file and the Kindle file. The ToC that I have works with the links sending readers to the proper chapters. Anybody able to clarify this? The book in question is Legends of Windemere: Allure of the Gypsies. The strange thing is that this book was put out with its ToC back in 2013, so I’m surprised Amazon said something now. Is this something that was reported by them or a reader?
Philip J. Fry
Don’t we all wish at times to be able to see even a little into the future? Guess not everyone, but it could have some advantages. You’ll definitely know about the weather or traffic. Waking up will tell you if it’s worth getting out of bed. No more paying for movies since you can see the ending . . . Well, I guess we already have the Internet for that one. Still, this would be a fun power, but with a lot of danger. Maybe one needs a few guidelines to using precognition.
Legends of Windemere 