Ask Eibmoz!

As The Third Face's publication date draws ever closer, I'd like to announce a very special video event, coming March 28th--one week before the book comes out.

One of the most pivotal, and well-liked, characters in The Third Face is Eibmoz. Eibmoz is a dead guy who's made his way from the Underworld back to the realm of the living. He's really out of his mind, and he loves being silly and making everyone around him uncomfortable. In essence, he brings humor to an otherwise dark and depressing world.

Eibmoz also seems to be very powerful, as he leads the organization, Redhand, that eventually takes Rasuke in. He works to free those seen as evil from the oppression of the ones who call themselves good. How he manages to band together an entire army, with his odd personality and quirks, is anyone's guess.

In fact, there are a lot of mysteries about him, in part because he prefers to just say silly things rather than actually explain anything properly. So, I'd like to give everyone in the audience the chance to solve those mysteries... if they don't give away too much, that is.

Comment or otherwise contact me in order to give me your questions for Eibmoz. Then, we'll take the questions and have an interview with him, which will air on March 28th.

Looking forward to all the silly shenanigans that will surely ensue!

Progress

Lately, I've been talking a lot about the ebb and tide of emotions--the ability to keep moving. I've risen past both doubts and exhaustion, so now it's about time that I really got to work.

That's why I'm getting started on my final offensive, as it were, on The Third Face. After this work, there shouldn't be much left to do on it. I'm not rewriting it again (thank goodness), but some scenes definitely did need to have some big changes made to them in order to get them working in the context of the big plot. I may have to add and delete a few, too.

In other words, you can definitely look forward to things picking up here. April 5th is about a month and a half away, so the excitement is about to start building. Expect me to start bringing it up more often, talking a bit more about what the book is exactly, and throwing more and more tidbits out there.

It's even safe to say that I have a cover artist lined up. I had made a big deal about a cover art contest before, but I had very few entries and nothing really jumped out at me. So I finally decided to be active about it and actually look for a specific artist. Negotiations are going on right now, but I have a feeling the work of that is going to begin very soon. Once that's done, you'll know, because I'm probably going to start showing it off everywhere--this artist is a winner.

But, in the meantime, I can't celebrate until I've actually done the work of it. Every chapter needs to be looked at, both by itself and as part of the whole. I wouldn't be able to do this without a great group of friends and editors backing me up, of course. With their help, this novel is finally going to get done right.

Second-Guessing

Let me put this up front: The Third Face might not be coming April 5th.

Now I know what you're thinking. I just spent the last two months rabidly rewriting it to make it great, then I released a portion of that to the general public. And I still have two more months to polish it. How can I be unsure that I'll be done with it in time?

Second-guessing. Doubt. That which afflicts every writer at some point or another. I'm just asking the same questions other authors ask themselves at certain stages in their writing. Is this going to be good enough? Will people really want to read what I'm writing? Can I even finish it like this? Should I just start over?

These hauntings affect us all differently. Some people give in to them immediately, and they really do start over, writing the beginning to the same story over and over. Or, they scrap it altogether and try another one, only to put that down, too. The worst victims are the ones that decide to end their writing careers and move on to some other dream.

Even when people do finish, they eventually look back at their work and scream in frustration: how could I not see it? This isn't going to cut it! These people often go through the same set of responses that in-progress authors do, rather than face the horror of revising.

I've started over countless times. I think part of it is that I was never truly sure of what I was doing, no matter how many times I wrote it and presented it to the world. When you read a book, it seems like that's the only way that the author could have told that same story, but the truth is, there are an infinite number of ways to "remix" the same characters with the same issues and the same inevitable confrontation. Out of these, only a handful are on a path to something that will be successful.

The question, then, that every author is really asking is: Have I found the right way to tell my story this time?

All our second-guessing and doubt comes from fearing that the answer to that question might be no. And, even after learning from the pros and writing more drafts than I care to count, I still have that fear, too. Until I can conquer that fear, either by confirming that this draft is the right one or by working the story to that point where it is, there's no guarantees that I can make.

Today's question might be a difficult one, but if you can, leave a comment: what doubts are you most afraid of?

Public Beta

Also known as Advanced Reading Copies, except they're PDF files and anyone can see them. Yes, I've decided to release Parts 1 and 2 of The Third Face to everyone.

Two Thirds Face

Yes, I am now officially two thirds of the way through rewriting The Third Face. Edition 2.

Pun aside, I just wanted to say that I'm proud of myself for this. What I have down is already 5,000 words longer than the first edition ever was. It's amazing how much real work I can get out in a couple of months if I just push myself all the time. Some of you will think my progress is insanely fast, and I agree--you'd be right to think that it's eating my life a little. (I can do other things when it's done!)

It's amazing to see how the story is shaping up, too. My main character, Rasuke, is turning into a real character that's worth following. His massive mental issues have evolved from being just one more mystery for the reader to solve, into something that he actually has to overcome in the course of the book. Even the villain, Ius, is getting a little bit of character arc as he struggles with being rejected by the one he answers to. And the subplots? Well, they're all falling into place.

I've packed more surreal and horrifying battles, internal struggles, complex relationships, and of course, hilarious Eibmoz moments into this novel than ever before. I know many of you haven't seen any of the content of this novel before, but let me just say this--there's a little of everything in it, and I trust myself to execute it well.

But underneath all the carefully-crafted alternate world and religion, underneath the powerful magic, this is an adventure, wherein a hero of great untapped power is rudely introduced to an enemy of even greater power. And you have to ask, is he fighting out of a hunger for self-worth--or just for his life?

Cover Art Contest

I've been kind of talking about doing a cover art contest for The Third Face for a while now. While I originally mentioned that I might have it right after the actual novel is finished, I decided that I want to start much sooner, to give artists more time to discover the contest and work on entries.

So, the contest officially begins today, and will last until February 24th, 2013. That's just over two months, and in that time I'd like to promote it as much as possible, so if you have friends that are cover artists, definitely invite them to enter! There's a $50 prize at stake, not to mention the fact that I'll broadcast the winner and do my best to give the artist the exposure he or she deserves. There will most likely also be free books involved.

I'm leaving the contest more or less open-ended. The site with all of the contest information includes a decent helping of information on the book itself, as well. It should give you an idea of what elements you might include. From there, though, everything from the medium to the composition is up to the artist.

 Sound interesting? Think a friend might be up to it? Here's the link. Hope to see that entry soon!

The Revision Journey

 When asked exactly what I was doing in revising The Third Face, I realized that I didn't have an answer. It's kind of like how a lot of inexperienced authors freeze up when they have to explain to someone what their novel is actually about (I had that for a long time and I'm just now overcoming it). Today, I'm going to try to actually answer that question.

Basically, I had three major goals in mind for this edition: to make it significantly longer, to re-center the book on Rasuke as a main character with clear growth, and to get rid of some other major plot issues that were bogging down the first edition.

If you're not too familiar with word counts, this might not mean anything to you, but before, The Third Face clocked in at about 25,000 words. To give you an idea, a lot of people claim that 50,000 words is barely enough to qualify as a novel. A young adult or teen novel can sometimes get away with as little as 30,000, but most readers expect more. In fact, in the paperback version, I used spacing and other cheap tricks to make the book appear bigger than it really was. That's bad, I know. Rather than hiding its skimpiness, I want to actually make it a good length, and my minimum target for it is 40,000 words. (You can see that right now on my little progress bar on the left side of the page!)

Another thing that I tried to do in earlier versions was to just not take traditional story structure seriously. At all. There's no reason for that. I just wasn't really paying attention. And it turns out that you can't just have a bunch of things happening that are related, throw in a few plot twists and lead up to a final battle and call it good. In a story like this one there is a hero, who beats personal challenges more or less at the same time as external ones. There's an overarching conflict that is built from caring what happens to this hero, and that slowly emerges at the beginning and carries all the way to the end. All subplots need to take a backseat to this. Thus, almost all of my jumps in perspective this time around function mainly to support the journey of Rasuke to self-understanding, and into his confrontation with the forces of the universe.

What else did I do to the story in the meantime? For one thing, there aren't as many major jumps in time as there were before. Whereas originally the prologue took place several years before Part 1, which in turn was a few years before Part 2, now these events are either made to happen one right after another, or presented in flashbacks. On the other hand, I eliminated a lot of the times when the characters are simply waiting around for something to happen to them, brooding on the many questions of the world and arguing with each other. Finally, I made sure that all of the main characters are properly introduced in the first ten chapters, rather than giving them only passing mentions until they suddenly appeared much later on.

It's amazing how this all comes together. There are a lot of other details that I'm messing with while I'm at it, but these important things are the focus of my work right now. I've been trying to get out a chapter every day, and to get around 1000 words out of each one. While I haven't been able to do that perfectly all the time, the fact remains that this story is hurtling towards completion faster than I could have dreamed. The end is a lot closer than you might think! I hope this post holds you over until then.

The Bandwagon of the 12

The whole 12/12/12 thing is apparently a pretty big deal, and apparently a lot of people are doing special things as celebration. One blogger I saw had the idea of posting the 12th page of her novel today. So I thought, why not do the same? Thus, here you go, a bit of the new edition of The Third Face.

Endings, 2012

Well, NaNoWriMo is over. Whatever your "done" is, you're done. In a few moments it will be December in the vast majority of time zones, including the one I'm living in. (If you live somewhere that still gives you a little time, come back and read this later!)

That means it's finally okay to look ahead, and that's exactly what I'm doing. I have my writing life pretty much mapped out for the next several months, so here we go.

Starting tomorrow I'm going back to rewriting The Third Face. This time, though, I have a (working) plan for it, chapter by chapter. My goal is to write one every day, and since the plan has around 43 chapters (though I may deviate from it a tiny bit) it ought to be done in the middle of January.

After that, I'm going to start looking back into some marketing things. I'll also try and get some kind of art contest going for the new cover. This will also be some time to plan the other two books in the trilogy as fully as I've done for this one. That should keep me busy for a while, and then I'll be editing and promoting, leading up to the book's re-release on April 5th--the same day the original came out.

Even at that point I'll already be back to writing like crazy, though. That's because Script Frenzy is in April*, and though I've only tried it once, and failed (back in 2010), I'm going to do it this time without fail! The script I have planned is "adapt The Third Face into an anime," so we'll see how that goes! And as soon as I'm done with that, it'll be back to novels for the second book, The Demon's Guardian, which should hopefully be done, in draft form at least, in the following three months. Finally, in August 2013 it's off to Camp NaNoWriMo for the crazy crossover I mentioned a couple of posts ago!

The ideal scenario is that I get The Demon's Guardian published by this time next year. Optimistic? Maybe. I'll be a bit more sure of myself once I see if my schedule for The Third Face works out as well as I'd like!

What are your plans for December and beyond?

*EDIT: I just found out that the official Script Frenzy was shut down due to lack of funds. That's really sad! But I'm still going to do it anyway.

The Man in the Brown Bandanna

Today you get a free short story that doubles as an introduction to The Third Face. Enjoy!

Exploring Characters

So what exactly can you expect from the second edition of The Third Face? I kind of hinted that I want it to be longer, but besides that there's really been little about the actual content of this update.

First and foremost, I want to take a look at each of my characters. Some of them have had plenty of time in the limelight, and others didn't appear at all until the last few chapters. It seemed as if I did that with no rhyme or reason other than what made sense with the flow of the story.

But the book could grow significantly if I gave all those other characters their own sides of the story, in full. I mean, there's been a lot of just vaguely mentioning what people were up to, and that kind of continued in The Demon's Guardian, admittedly. I don't think that's really necessary, because there's definitely a lot of room for expansion with such a short book!

Not only do I want to spend more time on each character, I want to add some smaller things to help them come alive. What's the character's worst fear? Does he or she have a nervous tic? What foods do they like best? I won't just add these things in for their own sake, but when I get the chance I'd like to demonstrate some of them over the course of the trilogy.

There's one other way I want to expand on my characters, but I think that one deserves its own entry, so check back in about a week for that!

Rewrite

Now for the most overdue post in the history of this blog: the one where I announce the thing I've already announced everywhere else.

If you haven't bought The Third Face yet, get over to Smashwords and grab it for FREE this week! On September 29th, the version I originally published is going to disappear forever.

That's because I've decided it needs a complete rewrite. Spending a couple of hours in Creative Writing class, combined with my regrets about the story, confirmed that for me. I mean, in that class, I actually LIKE reading the textbook! It's a good class, and even though we're completely focused on poetry, it all applies to novel writing, too.

Thus, this book is going to be completely unavailable for, perhaps, a few months. But it will be completely worth it for the places I'm going to take it--this time, I can rightly refer to it as a novel, rather than the novella it really is. At least, that's my hope.

First Look: The Demon's Guardian

In The Third Face, we met Rasuke. We learned what he's like, and why. We watched him become part of Redhand, an organization that desperately needs him and yet leaves him ignored until the last minute. We watched him make best friends and bitter enemies, and we saw some of them leave suddenly.

In the sequel, The Demon's Guardian, we see an entirely new world for Rasuke and friends to explore. It's a world completely unlike any they've ever seen, a world of space travel and laser guns. It's also a dangerous place for our heroes to live, because it's completely lacking a substance that they need to survive. They have a week's supply of it on hand, but they'll have to get back home by then. It's kind of like they're stuck in the bottom of the ocean and only have so much oxygen.

Meanwhile, back home, Redhand is looking the worse for wear. Weakened enough by the loss of the kids, it's suddenly under attack by enemies both old and new, those who've been around constantly and those that you never thought would be back. All those seemingly unimportant characters from the past are rising to bring it down. If Rasuke and friends die, Eibmoz's hope of finding the good in the lowest of creatures dies with them.

Of course, that's just scratching the surface. But if I tell you all about the romance, the horror, and the comedy that live beneath this tale, I'll be at this all day. Suffice to say, this book ought to be even better than the last.

A New Goal

The first draft of The Third Face's sequel has been going pretty slow. I consider myself about one-third of the way through it, even though I started writing it only a couple of days after The Third Face was released, over a month and a half ago.

That's why today, I decided that I want to finish it by August 3rd. It sounds like an arbitrary date, but it's perfect for personal reasons. It's also great because I can write one scene each day and I'll be at about the expected length for this new novel, which will be a bit longer than The Third Face.

One last thing. I've finally figured out the name for this new novel: The Demon's Guardian. Expect to see a little more information about it by the end of this week!

Getting Reviews

I always like it when someone not only wants to read my novel, but upon finishing it actually decides to talk to me about it. I can clearly see when this happens that someone really cared about it.

When The Third Face came out, I have to confess that I was actually surprised by how few people actually bought it, based on statistics. But that really doesn't tell the whole story at all. When I started actually talking to people, I discovered that most of the copies were actually being passed around among friends and family. That was because those buyers were the kinds of people I mentioned above: they actually care a lot about my book! That means a lot more to me than sales figures.

One person who received a copy was my favorite English teacher from high school. She shared it with her students, and recently I received an e-mail from her with comments from 5 of them. I'm so pleased with these that I'd like to share them with you now.


"It was a very thorough piece. [...] Although I typically am not a fan of fantasy-esque work, this kept me engaged."
 
"It was clever.  I am a big fan of element bending."

"This was a fresh approach.  It was interesting, even though the plot lost me in a couple of spots early on."
 
"Wow!  This was a lot of work for a high school student!"
 
"It felt like it was written by someone older.  It was pretty serious!"

While I can never thank the individuals who said these things directly (since they were all anonymous), I want to express my gratitude in general to anyone who's given their thoughts on it to anyone. When you do that, you're doing me a personal favor. That's something I thoroughly appreciate.

Kindle Release

With all the promotion done for now, it's time to make one last announcement, in case anyone who reads this blog wants to buy the Kindle edition of The Third Face.

http://www.amazon.com/dp/B007REILGM

After this, things are going to simmer down considerably. I'll most likely be writing a draft or two of Hopedead, as well as reading quite a few books.

Order Paperbacks Now!

It's a couple days early, but you can start ordering paperback copies of The Third Face now!

https://www.createspace.com/3798675

This is a huge thrill for me, and I just couldn't wait any longer. For the Kindle edition, you'll have to wait for the announced date. The main reason I'm doing this is to allow for shipping times.

Interview by Duth Olec

Quick note: The Third Face's website is now up with tons of information on it.

Now to the actual entry. Duth Olec is a fellow author and a close friend of mine. I was surprised earlier today when he initiated an interview with me about the publication of The Third Face, but I'm glad to share it with everyone.

Duth: How are you publishing the book? Is it the same place you got the 5 free copies?

Me: Yes. That special offer is through CreateSpace, and once I got everything ready to print those 5 copies I realized it was a good way to publish it.

Duth: And after those first five you're paying for the publishing of each one?

Me: Not exactly. The process is not your typical publishing. Basically, when a person orders the book, Createspace prints a copy for that person, and the manufacturing cost is paid for as part of the price of the book. They also get a further cut for their service, and the rest goes to me as royalties.

Duth: And would an e-book cost less due to there not really being a manufacturing cost?

Right. E-books typically cost between 99 cents and $3, whereas the paperback edition of The Third Face is set to be priced at $6.99. I haven't decided on the e-book version's price just yet.

Duth: Does this count as self-publishing?

Yes. Createspace is handling the printing, shipping, and transactions for me, but I have to do all of the actual promotion of my book myself. That's why I've been making a lot of blog posts, putting up a website and Facebook page for it, and even making a Twitter--I want people to start noticing it before it comes out.

Duth: Do you think you'll still try to get The Third Face picked up by a publishing house?

If it gets noticed and I get a really good offer from a company that can promote it effectively, then I'll gladly accept. But I don't see myself sending any more query letters any time soon.

Duth: One last question--what are your plans for this summer?

Well, I'm still looking for a job, but I hope to have done quite a bit more reading and writing by then. I'm in the middle of the Inheritance Cycle and The Hunger Games Trilogy right now, and as for the next book I write--well, I've got a half dozen here waiting to get going!

Duth: Thanks for answering a million questions.

The Road to Self-Publishing

Since my last entry on this subject, a month has passed. I've been working constantly to perfect all the details of my book, because although I never intended to make more than 5 copies, I wanted them to be the best they could possibly be.

Somewhere in the process, I made a lot more of The Third Face public than I ever have before. I asked for some basic advice on the cover, and suddenly I was getting tips on all of the colors and details used on it. Then, when I ordered a proof copy to help perfect the layout, everyone who saw it started to get excited. It seems that when you say "I'm writing a book," most people don't really care beyond the conversation. But when there's something visible about it, everyone takes notice.

That's why even though I had pretty much lost interest in The Third Face, it's becoming something much more important now. I'm spending more time focused on it, and its direct sequel, which remains unnamed for the moment, is actually beating out other novel ideas in my mind for once. This isn't just that novel that I've been working on for way too long anymore. It's a real thing, and it's finally about to take its place in the market.

The next proof should be error-free, and at that time I'll be able to approve it, thus finally releasing The Third Face to the public, both in paperback via Createspace and as a Kindle e-book. To allow sufficient time to make sure that absolutely everything is going to be exactly the way it needs to be, the official release date is going to be Thursday, April 5th. I'll update pretty often with the status of things as that date approaches, but for now, enjoy the cover:

Voices, twisted memories, and accusations torment Rasuke, the lone human in an alien world. He can't explain his thoughts or actions, and when the pressure becomes too much to bear he's forced to escape his village. A risen demon and a crazy old dead man hold the pieces to the explanation Rasuke seeks, but he is merely a pawn in a higher war. To find the truth, prove his worth, and survive a battle decades in the making, he must confront the very messenger of his god, and win.

Larger view

Self-Publishing?

Well, sort of. As I mentioned in a previous entry, I get 5 free paperback copies from Createspace just for having done NaNoWriMo. It took some doing, but I added just enough scenes to tie the plot together a little more and satisfy myself. Then I finally decided to get to work on the process of getting my copies printed.

It's a good thing I did. A paperback novel is very different from a Courier New manuscript, and making it look like a professional book is actually pretty difficult. It took me a day just to make the preliminary pages that come before the actual chapters. The Table of Contents was a headache of its own, and that was without the page numbers, which could only be determined after hours of formatting each and every chapter of my manuscript.

Not only that, but I have to come up with a cover. Now I've been drawing characters from this since I came up with the story early in high school, but since I haven't really taken any art classes or anything, I definitely don't trust myself to do this so easily. This is the first time I'm even going to draw more than one draft of the same drawing, and it'll probably take at least a couple of weeks just to get that part right. Then I have to scan it, add color as well as I can, and then add all the elements that make it a book cover.

Doing all of this makes me realize that what I'm doing is completely different from simply printing out the pages. I may only be making 5 copies, but all of this amounts to self-publishing. I'm learning all the elements of creating a book from scratch, and all Createspace is doing is printing copies for me. That's pretty exciting, and it's hard to believe that soon enough I'm going to be holding a professional-looking copy of my book, 100% made by me.

With lots of homework, the constant job search, and some other projects taking up my time, I can't believe that I even had a free moment to make this blog entry. Life is getting surprisingly busy.