I was fortunate enough to receive a review from the book review website Opinions of a Wolf. The author of the site, Amanda McNeil, gave my book 3 out of 5 stars! All reviews are appreciated and if any of you have purchased and read my book, then please feel free to post a review on Amazon. All reviews are helpful as they give me something to build on for my future works.
Here’s a direct link to the review for my horror novel at Opinions of a Wolf:
Some of you may be wondering why I’m switching from horror to fantasy for my next book. The simple answer is that I originally wanted to write a fantasy novel, but had an idea for a horror novel that I wanted to jump on right away. I felt my first novel should be short so I can get my feet wet in writing. My fantasy story is going to be huge, so i wanted to start off small at first. I may have only one good horror story to tell, but you never know. I could come up with another one some day.
I really love fantasy and science fiction stories. I’ve had this idea for a fantasy novel for a very long time now. I’ve covered it in previous posts last year. As this year comes to a close I feel that it’s finally time to work on my fantasy series. I have notes and ideas written down in some notebooks and will be referencing the outline and character sheets I started on last year. I already have a world map created for my fantasy world. I’m really excited to get back to working on it and I’m aiming to have it ready by Spring/Summer of 2014. I’ll be posting progress updates just like my last book over the coming weeks.
I want to thank my readers that have already downloaded or purchased a hard copy of “The House of Azareal”. There’s a few reviews on Amazon for it and they’re greatly appreciated. If you’ve read it and haven’t posted a review for it on Amazon, then I encourage you to do so. If you liked it or not I’d definitely like to know about it. Any input is important as it will help me going forward to my next book. Thanks to all who are supporting me and I look forward to sharing my next book with all of you.
After taking some time off from writing, it’s time to start on my next book. I discussed previously about writing a story based on some ideas I had years ago and combine them with a story idea my wife had. Well, I’m going to put that one on hold for now. Instead, I’m going to pick up where I left off on the initial story I was going to write. This is definite and I will not be changing my mind this time.
The next book I’m writing will be a fantasy novel. All the characters and the plot points have already been laid out. However, I’m going to go over the things I’ve already completed and see if any changes are needed. After that I’m going to do the chapter summaries.
My next novel will be part of a series I plan to write. It’s based off of a story I’ve had on my mind for many years now. I already have a complete outline of the story from notes I made when I first came up with the idea. I’ll be expanding on those ideas and hope to create a great story for my readers. Be looking for updates on my progress as the weeks pass by. I’m aiming for the first draft to be ready by Spring of 2014.
Ok, so I’ve changed my mind about the next story I want to write. After a few weeks of consideration I’ve decided, for certain, to write about an idea my wife gave to me a few years ago. It’s a pretty cool concept and I hope to work with her in fleshing out the details for a great story. There’s a few notes about it in an old notebook and we’ll be running off that to spark some new ideas.
The story will be a combination of sci-fi and fantasy. In fact, there’s another concept I made many years ago that might fit into the idea she came up with. I may end up combining the ideas, but haven’t decided yet. I’ll discuss it with her to see what she thinks. Should be fun!
So I’ve been thinking about what my next book should be about. Should I go with the fantasy novel I started last year or should I go for another “one shot” story. I decided to go with the latter because my fantasy story is going to be a series and it’s going to be huge. I’ll need a lot of time to work on it, so it will probably be next year before I start working on it again.
What I’ve decided to do is work on a science fiction story based on an old script I made back in college. It’s one of the only original stories I wrote back in my younger days. Most of my writings back then were fan fiction of Japanese Anime I used to watch. It inspired me to write my own original anime story and I made it as a movie script.
I dug into some of my old things and found the script I had made. I took a quick look over it and was amazed at how far my writing has come since then. It’s definitely going to need a lot of improvement. The characters need more depth and the story needs to be expanded quite a bit. I absolutely cannot wait to get started!
I plan on starting on the story in October. In the meantime I’m working on marketing my current book, “The House of Azareal”. I want to thank all of those that have bought and read it so far. I do appreciate the support, but still need to work on exposure. Being my first novel I knew it was going to take some time to get it out there, but I’m so glad that it’s finally available. I’m inspired to keep writing and am looking forward to changing gears by writing a different type of story.
This is my debut novel! It is a short horror novel that takes place in a mysterious house that seems to have a mind of its own. You will see everything that happens through the eyes of the main character, Christopher Porter. Put yourself in his shoes as he uncovers the mystery behind the house as well as trying to get his family out. If you are looking for a new horror paperback book or horror amazon kindle book to read, then look no further!
From the back cover: “Christopher Porter lives a peaceful life with his wife and twin children in the mountains of Tennessee. Christopher’s life is about to be turned upside down as he and his family are drawn to a mysterious, old house deep in the woods near their home. After entering the house, he struggles to keep his family safe and try to escape the mysterious creatures living inside.”
The House of Azareal is available in both print and eBook formats.
As I write this I am awaiting the physical proof of my book, “The House of Azareal”. I can’t believe that my first novel is about to be published. My family and I are very excited. I should receive the proof in the next few days. If everything looks formatted right I’ll give the go ahead and it will be available for sale. Pricing hasn’t been determined yet, but that will come once the proof arrives.
Now I can start thinking about my next project. I have decided to do another “one shot” title. I’m simply not ready to delve into my fantasy series just yet. I’ve talked it over with my wife and we both feel that writing a few more “one shot” books will help me establish a firm ground in writing before tacking such a huge project as an entire series.
My next story will be based on an idea I’ve had for a very long time. In fact, the original idea came to me when I wanted to make my own video game. I’ve dabbled in game creation some, but nothing ever came of it. This story will be in the fantasy genre instead of horror. I won’t delve into the details just yet because I still need to flesh out a few things. It will be very different from my last book.
As I continue to write I will not be sticking to just one genre. I’m a fan of many genres, but the main ones I love are horror (obviously), fantasy and science fiction. I’m moving onto the fantasy genre, but will probably mix in a little sci-fi as well. That’s yet to be determined, though.
Well, it’s almost here. I’m very close to publishing my book. I’m going through a final read to correct any spelling or grammatical mistakes that may have been missed. Once I finish that I’ll create the cover and convert everything to a PDF format for publication.
I will be self-publishing my story through Amazon. I had only planned on selling it through the Kindle store, but I found out I can also make hard copies available through CreateSpace. I still need to familiarize myself with the whole process, but my goal is have my book ready for sale within the next couple of weeks. I haven’t decided on pricing yet, but will once the text is ready to print. I’ll have a page in the Books section of the site linking to Amazon once it’s published.
This morning I finally completed the second draft. After all of the revisions the book has expanded to 15 chapters and 157 pages. It’s still short compared to other novels, but I’m pretty satisfied with the result. It’ll probably be nothing more than an afternoon read to the average reader.
I had given thought to reading it over one last time before handing it off to my readers, but have decided not to. Instead I’m going to have my wife read through it first because her opinion matters greatly to me. She’s my most important critic and I want her to have first crack at it.
I’m really looking forward to hearing what she has to say. I’ve said it before that she doesn’t like scary stuff, but she’s willing to look past that and give my story a read. I really appreciate it and hopefully she likes it.
Quick update. I’m now in the final stages of revisions. I have reached the final chapter and am in the process of splitting it up. I’ll be doing major revisions to it because I feel it need a lot more detail. I like the ending, getting there needs to be beefed up. I’ll be outlining what I want to happen before I start revising it, but that won’t take very long. I already know what I want to do, I just need to get it out of my head and on paper.
I will have the manuscript ready for review by this Friday. I’m so glad to finally be at this point. Very exciting!