Tuesday, April 28, 2015

FM5 Dramatis Personae Sneak Peek

Since the growing cast of characters in THE KING HENRY TAPES will only continue to grow in the future, I decided it was time to add a Dramatis Personae at the start of the books.  Mostly to provide a small reminder for your poor little brains.  It serves as a halfway measure between nothing at all and the Traditionally Approved method of info dump after info dump polluting the first third of every novel, a tactic I loathed as a reader and refuse to use as an author but sparingly.  Especially in THE KING HENRY TAPES with the way time actually moves between books and you needed caught up on what's happened since the last page you read anyway.

Too much dumpage!

But on the other hand I realize that a complete Dramatis Personae has a bad habit of spoiling just who might pop up in this specific novel and we wouldn't want that to happen, would we?  Which is why I'm only updating the Personae to the characters we're aware of and what they've done by the end of the last novel.  Spoilers for FM4 if you still haven't read it though, obviously, you horrible fan, you!

DRAMATIS PERSONAE

(When we last left our heroes)

KING HENRY AND HIS ALLIES
King Henry "Foul Mouth" Price – Geomancer, Ultra? – The Foul Mouth, Artificer for Hire, Wielder of a World-Breaker, Chosen of Meteyos, the Dirt King
Valentine “Boomworm” Ward – Pyromancer, Ultra – A Recruiter, Ceinwyn Dale’s Heir Apparent, King Henry’s Girlfriend, The Fire Queen
Tyson “T-Bone” Bonnie – Electromancer, Ultra – Electronic and Online Security Consultant, Video Game Geek, Keeping King Henry Out of Too Much Trouble for Ceinwyn Dale
Ceinwyn Dale – Aeromancer, Ultra – Head of Recruiting for the Asylum, The Last True Dale, King Henry’s Former Financial Backer, Friend of Annie B and Ward of Nii-Vah, Likely Candidate to Replace the Lady
Miranda Daniels – Aeromancer, Ultra – A Teacher at the Asylum, The Ginger Nemesis, Valentine Ward’s Best Friend and Roommate
Jason Jackson – Corpusmancer, Ultra – A Recruiter, Best Friend of Heinrich Welf
Estefan Ramirez – Electromancer, Ultra – A Junior ESLED Agent Assigned to Northern California, Married to Debra Ramirez (nee Diaz)
Eva Reti – Sciomancer, Ultra – ESLED Agent, Learning Council’s Fixer, King Henry’s Ex
Naomi Gullick – Floromancer, Ultra – A Teacher at the Asylum, King Henry’s Ex, She Doesn't Like Talking About It
Old Man Price – King Henry’s Dad, Works in a Warehouse, Finally Began Dating Again
Susanna Belle Price – King Henry’s Eldest Sister, Whereabouts Unknown, Last Heard About in Seattle

THE VAMPIRE EMBASSIES
Nii-Vah – Vampire Divine, Mistress of Justice, Guardian of Ceinwyn Dale, Friend of Humanity?
Inanina – Vampire Divine, Mistress of War, the Headless Hunny, Sister and Slayer of the Divine Eresha
Pwent – Vampire Divine, Mistress of Coin and of the Great Bank, Plays All Sides
Moshi – Vampire Divine, Master of Flesh
Annie B – Vampire Baroness, Wears the Shell of Anne Boleyn, Had a One Night Stand with King Henry, Killed Joannie D, Knows the Truth about King Henry Price
Moore – A Gentlewoman Vampire, Assigned to the San Francisco Embassy, Has Trice Crossed Paths with King Henry, Offered Information on “The Fall of Atlas”
Linebacker – A Gentleman Vampire, Security for the San Francisco Embassy
Eresha – DECEASED, Vampire Divine, Slain by Inanina with the Help of Mordecai Root
Joannie D – DECEASED, Wore the Shell of Joan of Arc, Vampire Countess, Slain by Annie B with King Henry’s Help

THE WERE NATIONS
Horatio Vega – Werecoyote – King of the Coyote Nation, a Poly-Were, King Henry’s Brother-in-Law
Jordan Josephine “JoJo” Vega – Werecoyote – King Henry’s Sister, a Poly-Were
Hector Vega – Werecoyote – DECEASED, Vega’s Nephew, Attempted to Kill King Henry, House Burnt Down by King Henry, Accidentally Slain by King Henry at the Auction of Illicit Wonders
Zoey Vega – Werecoyote – Hector’s Maybe Wife At Least Baby Mama
Overcoat – Werecoyote – DECEASED, One of Hector’s Boys
Tatterdemalion – Werecoyote – Assigned by King Vega to Guard Hector, Current Status Unknown
Sharp – Werepython – Vega’s Bodyguard and Enforcer
The Tsar – Wereraven – An Information Broker and Major Underworld Figure
Jarvis Washington – Faunamancer, Intra – Head of the Pitbull Nation, Lying About Being a Were, Officially Recognized by the Asylum
George Joseph “Go-Joe” McKenna IV – Wereotter – Vice President of the Otter Nation, Owns a Club, Total Mega Douchebag

THE CURATOR AND HIS ALLIES
Obadiah Paine – Geomancer, Ultra – The Curator, The Broken One, Thought Dead by the Asylum, Once in Love with Ceinwyn Dale, Wants King Henry as his Apprentice, Seeks to Save the World
Conan Sapa – Corpusmancer, Intra – Gunman for Hire, Kidnaps and Procures Missed or Passed Over Mancer Children for Paine’s Purposes

OTHER POWERS
METEYOS – Dragon – Lord of the Geo Realm, The Killer of Fools, One of the Thirteen, Imprisoned
POUGPAELLIETH – Sawaephim – Templar of Meteyos, Friend of King Henry, Imprisoned in the Geo Realm

Saturday, April 25, 2015

FM5 Mini Tease #2

"I got this shit.  Assuming I can get through the casino without licking the wall for thirty minutes cuz of how tasty it looks."

Wednesday, April 22, 2015

FM5 Mini Tease #1

"I don't hate you because you're rich, Welf.  I hate you because you're an asshole."

Thursday, April 9, 2015

FM5 First Draft is Done

Give me a hell yeah!

So...that took longer than I thought it would.  But, some great scenes in this book.  Can't wait to get your reactions.

For those fans who weren't around last time for FM4 or FM3 (I don't think I had fans for FM1 or FM2) what now begins is Edit Hell.  (after a week off, because i'm pretty close to being committed after that last 30k in one week)

EDIT HELL
1.  OMG I FINISHED IT EDIT - First readthrough of the whole book as you will see it with timelines flipping back and forth.
2.  OMG I'M A HORRIBLE WRITER EDIT - Rewrites and tone fixes, character changes, all the serious stuff.
3.  OMG I'M THE BEST WRITER EVER EDIT - Formatting the novel into an actual ebook formatted novel with pages breaks and "about the author" pages and other boring stuff.
4.  CRITICAL EYE EDIT - where I cut extra fluff, trim phrases to be more succinct, change vague worlds like "thing", etc.
5.  WORDS THAT SUCK EDIT - where I check on a huge list of words I know I use to much and synonyms I know I flub up in the speed of writing.  One of these words is "fuck" believe it or not.  Yes, the release version is less vulgar than the first draft!
6.  KINDLE EDIT - where I load the book onto a Kindle for the first time, this new reading experiences helps me see it anew and helps me make decisions on paragraph length and how the story flows as it looks on the page.
7.  BETA READERS - associates, family, and people I've know forever get to tell me what they think while pointing out how much I suck at noticing typos.
8.  I JUST WANT TO DIE, I HATE THIS BOOK SO MUCH, IF I HAVE TO READ THIS THING AGAIN I'LL NEVER WRITE ANOTHER ONE, BUT IF I DON'T DO THIS THEN SOME ASSHOLE WILL MAKE AN 'AT LEAST RUN SPELLCHECKER HUR HUR' JOKE BECAUSE THEY NOTICED A 'YOU'RE' INSTEAD OF 'YOUR' ON PAGE 405 EVEN THOUGH I'VE GOT THOUSANDS OF YOUR AND YOU'RES IN THE BOOK EDIT - So...self explanatory?

Then we get release.  Edit Hell usually lasts one to two months.  So release in this case can at this moment be estimated to May-June 2015.  As editing progresses I will have a smaller and smaller estimation window, until the release date is decided.

As always with Indie publishing, one of the great parts of it is that the book doesn't sit around for months waiting for copies to be printed and shipped, as soon as it is done, you will have it on your ereader!

Saturday, April 4, 2015

Still Alive

Survived my family, survived the flu I got from my family.  Writing, writing, writing.  Not much else to say.  Have 3 and 1/2 chapters left to write.  Just passed 600 manuscript pages (these are shorter than normal pages usually) and 158k words.  Feel really close to the end.  Some resolutions and one climax left to get through!

Then Edit Hell.

But let's not get ahead of ourselves.

Because I will probably be a broken mess of a human being after I push to finish this first draft.