Showing posts with label scuba diving. Show all posts
Showing posts with label scuba diving. Show all posts

Wednesday, July 31, 2013

Milestones

We're getting close, Peeps! The Winds of Heaven and Earth is about halfway through the editing process, and I'm wrapping up the formatting for the print version this week. Work on the sequel, The Dark Paths of the World--which stands at about 24,000 of the projected 150,000 words--is on hold while I put the finishing touches on WHE.  We're looking at a September launch date for both print and Kindle versions.

My big news is: I'm launching a website tomorrow. It will be my Grand Central Station for all my online author presences, like this blog, my Facebook Fan page, Twitter, etc. But it will also feature showcases of my writing, a bio, contact pages, and links to where you can find my work--and most importantly, a showcase and samples from my books and novellas. I'll post again tomorrow with the website address.

I will be providing a link to a sample excerpt from WHE--more than 100 pages from the beginning of the novel, free, in a pdf format.  If you like what you read, please start the buzz.  September is just around the corner.

Switching gears: I had the pleasure this past weekend to scuba certify (I'm a PADI intructor) local radio personality Preston Elliot and his family. Preston has been the anchor of the long-running morning show "Preston and Steve" on the iconic classic rock station WMMR (93.3 FM) in Philadelphia for as long as I can remember. On Monday morning. Preston and the other members of the show talked about his experiences and scuba for a good twenty minutes, and I got a nice plug.

You can hear the show's podcast here; the scuba discussion starts around the 1 hour 23 minute mark.


See you tomorrow when I launch the website.

Friday, July 12, 2013

On the Road and Going Deep

Just a short post; in the North Carolina Outer Banks on the road to Beaufort, NC for a long weekend of wreck diving.  For those of you who don't know--but could probably infer from my ubiquitous profile pic all over social media--I'm an avid scuba diver and a PADI instructor; I've been diving for over 25 years. (Yeah, since I was 10, right?) I love the thrill of seeing a wreck emerge from the gloom on a descent--it never fails to raise the hairs on the back of my neck.  There's something about seeing a ship on the ocean floor and knowing the history behind her, and in the case of natural wrecks (there are many sunk deliberately as artificial reefs and scuba diver attractions), the story behind that particular ship's demise.

The Dark Paths of the World (DPW), the sequel to The Winds of Heaven and Earth (WHE), stands at 20,000 words, but I'm setting it aside for now. My editor, Rebecca T. Dickson, has started throwing chapter revisions for WHE back over the wall and I'm head-down on that incorporating her edits. We have 5 chapters in the can now (of 55), and I may post the first few chapters online in the near future as a teaser.

A publication date for WHE is hard to extrapolate, but a decent guess based on the current revision rate would put it around early September. I'll be doing a giveaway promotion for a free autographed paper copy (an Advanced Reader Copy, ARC) on Goodreads in the near future, so if you're not a Goodreads member, sign up for a free account.  (The book will be available on Amazon in 6" x 9" trade paperback and Kindle eBook format.)

If you're a reader, Goodreads is a great site to get and give book recommendations and stay plugged in on updates and news about your favorite authors and genre, and it's also a social media site where you rub elbows with friends with similar interests.

Now time to blow bubbles . . .

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