On Schedule for Book #2 in January

So far I'm on schedule to get book #2 in the An Untimely Error series (titled: Merlin's Travels) published in January. I recently received the cover for book #2 and I thought I'd post it here and see what people think. So here it is:

Click on the image to see a larger version.

Let me know what you think.

Tom...

December has Arrived

So, November is over and done with. There is, for those unfamiliar, a writing effort made by lots of writers in November. It's called NaNoWriMo (National Novel Writing Month). It encourages writers to put added effort in during the month of November. I didn't participate although I did consider it. I've yet to manage to pin my writing down to a specific time slot every day, something recommended by quite a few authors and guides to writing. Because of that, I wasn't sure how productive I could be.

I discovered that I could be fairly productive even without a set writing schedule. I'll set one at some point and give it a try. I'll compare output in word count and quality and see what I think. But for now I'll settle for the 40,000+ words I managed to write in November, as well as the 30,000 of those words that I did a first proofread on.

Due to those efforts, I'm guessing that Merlin's Travels - An Untimely Error, Book #2 is roughly half written. After I finish writing it, there will be multiple proofreads, beta reads, and edits but I feel good for having a substantial portion of the effort completed already. I'll continue as I have been and see if I can finish the first draft during December.

Tom...

This Blog

My name's Tom and I'm an author. I know it sounds like the start of a confession but that's appropriate. I seem to be addicted to writing (even on the days the words don't want to flow). Although I've only published one book so far (Merlin's Awakening - An Untimely Error, an ebook out only on Amazon as of yet), I have the second one well underway. This blog will be used to talk about both my writing and myself.

For those who may not have seen my About the Author section on Amazon, I'm 46 years old as of this post. I live in the foothills of the Rocky Mountains with my wife, two daughters, three cats, and a variable number of chickens.

My interest in fantasy books began when I was still in my single digits. I stumbled across copies of Stephen R. Donaldson's Thomas Covenant books and devoured them. Shortly after that I acquired copies of The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings, which I also devoured. My reading tastes have only changed slightly over the years. I prefer reading fantasy, science fiction, and the occasional non-fiction book.

My favorite authors (currently) are probably Jim Butcher (Dresden series), John Ringo (Live Free or Die series), L.E. Modesitt, Jr. (Imager series), and Robert A. Heinlein (whose works I go back to at least once a year despite having read them all repeatedly already).

I live a relatively boring life (by my standards at least, I had a wild, misspent youth to compare my current life with). My days are spent with my wife and kids, plus my pets. I'm a house husband so I do the cooking, laundry, part of the cleaning, running the kids around, etc... I also write, and make chainmail, (not the junk you get in snail mail or email but the armor type which can also be used to make jewelry and a variety of other things). I've written for quite some time but only recently decided that I should start publishing what I write.

I managed to set up my blog here after a few hours of work. I wasn't quite satisfied with any of the default options so I used the blank book cover from my first book for a tiled background.

More later, but I figure that's a good start.

Tom...