Here is the link on the Amazon site. As soon as I get a back cover done, it will be out in paperback as well.

As always, let me know what you think. Leave reviews, comments, thoughts. Tell your friends, tell your enemies, tell your pets.

I enjoyed Brady Jones and Lily Ferguson. I had a lot of fun with the people in this book. Even the villain, Donovan, was fun to write. The big challenge was the shapeshifting scenes, something I’ve never done before. I’m not going to claim shapeshifting is a new idea. It’s definitely been done before. But there isn’t enough social awareness, like there is with vampires and werewolves. Describing a vampire or a zombie is easy. Describing a shapeshifter, not so much. 🙂

I’ll give a more detailed post later, after we’re out of spoiler territory. This novel was very close to being another Damned and Cursed novel, but I’ll go into that later.

Done editing. Wow. Sorry it took so long. I was hoping to have this novel completely done by Christmas, but that didn’t happen. The good news I guess is that it’s ready for “beta” before Christmas, which is better than nothing.

So, as is common by now by readers who know me, it’s time to get this novel into the hands of four to six readers that would like to check out the latest work and offer feedback. As I always say, any feedback is welcome. 🙂 Some like to critique the story elements, plot, characters, etc. Others take a technical / grammar approach. If anyone would like to read Shapeless and let me know their thoughts, just send me a message using the contact form or comment on this post.

Ha, important note: This is not a Damned and Cursed novel, so I’m sure that might sway people who might read it. 🙂 Don’t want readers to go “Bah, this isn’t a Damned and Cursed and he didn’t tell us”. Still, I think it’s a fun read, and any fans of my “style” (assuming I have one) would probably enjoy this novel.

I’ll look over any possible takers over the weekend and send the novel along.

Other thoughts about Shapeless:

Such a challenge to write. I hope the “action” scenes translate well. It’s unlike anything I’ve done before.

This is the longest novel I’ve written. The crazy thing is I had more planned. I had to cut some things out, entire subplots. Another reason why editing went so long. I had a subplot foreshadowed for the first third of the novel that I never got back to.

I still have to put a sample out there. I just don’t know what, to be honest. Maybe I’ll take the easy way out and include chapter one. I’m not a great mystery writer, but I didn’t want to sample the later chapters in fear of giving anything away.

Draft done, which is always the longest part. We’re clocked in at 103K words, which for me is a massive novel. Only Demonspawn was longer. I’m going to work on the website a bit, then get to editing. At 103K, I’m not sure if there will be any trimming or not. I’ll let the early readers decide if it’s just too long, or some scenes don’t work, etc. I know already that I have to rework some foreshadowing early on for a planned scene that didn’t make it in.

This was a fun novel to write (I always say that. I guess all authors do. It would be weird to hear “I hated writing this piece of trash”.) This was definitely very challenging. I’m not sure if this novel was my most difficult, or the delicate balance that’s involved in handling Jack Kursed.

The issue is getting the scenes painted like I see them in my head, and it was tough for this one. We’re talking about a dude that is normal, has two legs, two arms, some eyeballs, a nose. But he can become a steel wall, a tiger, a puddle of goo, your mother, a normal dude with ropes hanging off of him, a bird, a normal dude with an object made from him, a normal dude with four arms. Sometimes he does all of this in one scene. You get the idea. So the challenge behind Brady alone was tough. And that doesn’t even touch Lily. 🙂

This might be the longest gap between novels I’ve had, so early readers might be entirely new this time around (hoping some fans have stuck around 🙂 ). When that whole thing starts I’ll make another update.

I’m adding “oh my God Glenn, nice book” type stuff to the book pages. I was just going through Amazon reviews, and I’ll do some of that, but I’ll probably add some comments from this very site as well (you guys have said some very nice things 🙂 ). If I happen to use one of your comments, and that makes you upset, just let me know. Or, just comment on the bottom of this page with a “please don’t quote me” remark. 🙂

On the final chapter of Shapeless now.

As you can tell by now, I’m working on a new look for the website. Hopefully it will help me sell quadbillions of books. Because of that I’m sure Facebook has sent out some notifications I didn’t mean to. Sorry about that, once again. 🙂 Hopefully it wasn’t as bad as last time.

I didn’t realize that me experimenting with a new theme for the website would broadcast a zillion Facebook messages out there. Sorry about that. My wife told me, and I was like “Huh?” I’m a freaking network administrator by day, very good with technology. But Facebook and social media scare me. 🙂

I’d probably drive an agent crazy. “We need pictures of you.”   Me: “Nope.”   “You need to be more outgoing, market yourself more.”  Me: “Nope.”  “Are you even alive?”  Me: “Maybe.”  🙂

I had a few rough spots on Shapeless, but we are cruising now. The scary thing when it’s all done will be the length. I’m 76K words in now, and I’d say halfway done through Act III. The rest of the novel is done in my head. Four, maybe five more scenes, and it’s all done.  I’m thinking that will put it close to 100K words, which is FAR more than I thought this novel would be. May end up having to do some trimming before release. I just had a fun time writing about the two main characters. It kind of snowballed.

The challenges have all come from writing something that isn’t exactly common. Not to say shape-shifting hasn’t been done before, but I’m trying to be very concise in describing what is happening when the main character alters shape. In writing about a vampire, I can say “vampire” and “fangs”, and a picture is already painted. I don’t have to go into the details of the fangs, or the origins of the word vampire. I’m sure this is where some of this novel’s length has come from.

I’ve been thinking about a sample, but to be honest I’m not sure what part to use. I don’t want to spoil plot points, and I certainly don’t want to bore readers with dialog between two new characters. But I’ll see if I can come up with something.

What a fun challenge so far, but definitely a challenge.

Haven’t created something really new in a while. A lot of the past work has been in Damned and Cursed. The last standalone I did was Soul Insurance, and now I’m reminded of some of the pains I went through creating that novel.

When you say “vampire”, or “werewolf”, immediate images come to mind, one of the joys of writing supernatural work. I don’t usually have to describe what fangs are, or that werewolves are covered in fur.

But if you say “shapeshifter”, well, that takes a bit of work, and could mean a lot of different things. 🙂 Brady has a very unique skill-set, and it’s been fun bringing that to life. I guess you could draw some comparisons to someone like Mystique from X-Men, but he goes beyond that, as you’ll see. I just hope the words I’m throwing down are describing the scenes like I see it in my head. Really, how would you describe someone using part of their body to create a chain-link fence? 🙂

Brady and Lily are also perhaps the most “broken” characters I’ve ever created (Jack would not accept being called broken). Their stories have been just as fun to explore as Brady’s powers.