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I’m right around the part in the novel where it’s time to introduce what I think is going to be an unpopular decision (I hope I’m wrong). But it needs to happen. And I hope I wrote it in such a way that it makes sense to everyone, even softens the blow somewhat. I admit, I’m a little nervous. Beta feedback should be a fun time. 🙂

This wouldn’t have been the first time. I remember when I first put the words down breaking up Kevin and Rachel, the main female character from A Witch To Live. I don’t remember every single scene I’ve ever written (I’m just not that good 🙂 ) but some of my favorites (and not so favorites) stick out. That scene is one of them. There was nothing terribly special about it. No action happening, just a conversation between Victoria and Kevin in a mall food court. A vampire and a witch, talking about life, and Kevin drops the bomb that Rachel and he are no longer a couple. Nothing dramatic, nothing Jerry Sprinter worthy. They’d simply grown apart when she went to college. That scene felt very real to me. I don’t think it’s common that a couple fresh out of high school stay together forever. Adding a supernatural element to the mix can only make things harder.

I got quite a few emails from people about how that affected them. No one likes a breakup. Hey, it affected me, too. 🙂 That was tough to write. But for those who happened to have read the Damned and Cursed series knows how that turned out.

To be honest, though, I still toy with the idea sometimes of bringing back Rachel. Not in a oh-no-love-triangle-who-do-I-choose way (I hate those). I just like her character.

So, Witch’s Kurse, I hope the direction is liked, or at least understood.

Even if it’s not, we’ve got Jack being Jack, a new character I’m having a blast with, who happens to like howling at the moon, and a certain witch may show up. Good stuff. 🙂

I’d been getting so much spam from the website (comment spam) that I tried to tune my Gmail rules a bit to cut some of it out. The problem is that also blocked the website contact form. I happened to look in there today and saw a bunch of legitimate emails I hadn’t responded to. That will be fixed today. 🙂 So please, don’t think I ignored you if you sent me an email.

Just wanted to drop an update. I’m trying to do better than the “once a month” thing. As a writer, you’re supposed to try to keep your name out there as much as you can. Not always easy to do. 🙂 I’m one of those shy guys, keeps to myself, so “marketing” yourself is definitely not easy.

I’m at the 28K words mark now on the novel. Got a lot done in a short amount of time. Always a nice thing. I hit a bit of stumbling block that I’m trying to work through. Some scenes I’m in to now directly set up the climax in the finale, and now that I’m actually putting the words down, something is a bit off. It’s funny how that’s happens. Basically, without spoiling too much, one of the reasons I like Jack so much is that he’s usually ahead of everyone else. He’s old, smart, and his morals (or lack thereof) means it’s very difficult to get the jump on him in any way. But I “need” that to happen where I am now to set up the finale, and that’s giving me a problem. I thought I had something believable, but now I’m not so certain.

I am having a good time with this novel so far, though. Jack is still an awesome character. It’s fun to watch him interact with Tiffany, and then everyone else. 🙂 I think Marie is a strong enough character to have her own novel, if I ever wanted to go that route. I almost accidentally set up the possibly of another spin off, too, if I wanted to head that direction.

Now I just have to get through this hurdle, and off we go again.

It’s been a month since I posted anything. Sorry about that. You gotta love summer. 🙂

I haven’t talked about Witch’s Kurse too much on purpose. This is another series novel, and didn’t want to talk much until Demon’s Doorway was out for a bit. Certainly don’t want to spoil anything for those who haven’t read, but I figure the people who see these posts have already read it anyway. I also just wanted to reflect on Demon’s Doorway for a while, get reader feedback on what worked, what didn’t, thoughts on where they think the characters might go, all that fun stuff.

I’m only 10K words into the novel, but I can give some hints. Witch’s Kurse is mostly a Jack Kursed novel (kinda obvious from the title), with a smidgeon of Kevin Mishnar tossed in for good measure. I’m also introducing a new character that I think will pop up now and again through other novels. Hopefully the readers respond well to him (or her 🙂 ).

As always, Jack will be the ever-present difficult character to work with. His time with Tiffany (plus a magical trinket) is certainly the catalyst for some positive changes, but Jack will always have that edge to him. 🙂 He is not your typical hero, and I want to make sure he stays that way. Kevin has his own challenges as well, and the scenes I’ve got in my head for him are definitely fun.

Thanks, everyone, for reading my stuff so far.

It’s been about a month since Demon’s Doorway hit the shelves. I’m actually waiting for the print copy proof to hit the front step now, then after a quick review, that will be available in paperback. I’m trying to comb through the reviews and feedback now, to figure out what went well, what didn’t, what people are looking for next. 🙂 Handling reviews is something that always makes me nervous. To be honest, they’re very rare, but the “This author should never write another word” reviews are painful. But I have to try to push through those to get to the good stuff, honest criticism in which I can improve upon. Hopefully I can take Witch’s Kurse and make it an entertaining read. It certainly sounds awesome in my head, and the first 10K words I like very much. 🙂

From the few reviews over at Amazon, it seems Jack is the most popular character, with Kevin just behind him. People seem to want more of Victoria, but strangely, I haven’t seen much mentioned of Alex yet. This is interesting, as his set of characters are the ones that participate in Demon’s Doorway (with a little of Tiffany).

So, thanks to everyone who’s checked out my work. I appreciate all the feedback (even the negative stuff 🙂 ) I’ll keep trying to pound out good novels.

Wow. Well, first thing’s first. I thought I shared the cover of the next book, but I guess I didn’t. Anyway, there it is on the left. A simple cover, but if you think about the cover and the title I think you can come up with an idea of who and what might be in it. 🙂

It’s been about a week since Demon’s Doorway came out. So far the reception has been pretty positive. It seems from the early reviews that Jack seems to be a favorite of many readers. It figures, as he’s the hardest to write for. 🙂

I haven’t worked on Witch’s Kurse in a while. The summer time as well as promotion for Dead Living has slowed me down somewhat.  I’m in the middle now of the blog tour for Dead Living. It’s been fun, but I find myself dreading every review. No one’s tougher on their own work than the author.

Back to Demon’s Doorway. I’ve seen some comments about “I wish such-and-such character was in it more.” I wish I could have given certain people more face time too, 🙂 but I didn’t want to overload the novel with too many characters. I’m sure when more solo novels come out I can get more of the familiar characters in once again.

Another issue I’ve seen with Demon’s Doorway that I agree with 100% is that I need to do more with my villains. Demon’s Doorway was all about the interactions between the four main characters, but I’m hoping to give the villains in Witch’s Kurse more life. Thanks for reading, guys. 🙂

Demon’s Doorway, the first acknowledgement of the Damned and Cursed series, is available now on Amazon. The Barnes and Noble version should be ready as soon as Smashwords does its thing. In a few weeks I’ll have the paperback version ready to go.

This was the most fun, and challenging, novel I put together so far. So many “firsts” for me. I never thought I’d be involved in a series, much less a novel that pulled in characters from other works. It was great to revisit Alex Teague and his crew once again, but I had to make sure one character didn’t overshadow another. We’re talking about four main characters that I feel can each hold their own in a novel, and I wanted to try my best to make sure they all had equal time. Then there’s Jack Kursed himself. It’s always a challenge to put him just on that edge of unlikable, but somehow not push him over.

Some seeds I’d planted throughout the other books finally sprouted in Demon’s Doorway, and it was fun to put all that together. I planted a few more in this novel, throwing some hints at some ideas I want to tackle. 🙂

I think Demon’s Doorway turned out to be another fun novel. I imagine everyone has their favorite characters, and hopefully I did justice to them all. Thanks again to the beta readers who helped me clean up and tighten the novel. I couldn’t do this without you. Let me know if you enjoy the ride.

Alrighty. First of all, you can win a free copy of Dead Living by signing up using the form on the right of the page. Ignore the width, I’m trying to figure out if there’s a way to narrow it down to fit in the sidebar. 🙂

Next week the blog tour for Dead Living begins. Here is the schedule. It looks like it’ll go on for three weeks and contain reviews, interviews, and guest posts (by me!). Hopefully this will raise the awareness of Dead Living, what I think is a cool zombie tale. 🙂 It was a lot of fun participating in the interviews. Some of the questions really had me thinking.

Last, but not least, Demon’s Doorway should be out tomorrow. I’ll do all the Scrivener funness of putting together the .mobi and .doc files tonight, and off they go. I’ll write up another post when I see it’s live and toss a few words out there about Demon’s Doorway.

It’s been a while since I’ve posted any updates. Demon’s Doorway is pretty much ready to go, I’m just putting a few final finishing touches on it. I’m about 9K words into the next novel, which I’ll talk about soon. We’re actually putting together the cover for it now. The novel is called Witch’s Kurse (want to guess who it’s about? 🙂 )

I’ll try to pick up the pace on Witch’s Kurse, but I admit it’s a little rougher this time around. Summer is here, which means yard work, trimming the trees, trying to enjoy the sun a bit, all that fun stuff. 🙂

I imagine most people who check out this site occasionally have already read Dead Living, but I’ll be running through a blog tour for that novel pretty soon. Here’s the link for it. It’s been a pretty fun experience. I wrote Dead Living two years ago, and it’s been interesting to revisit that novel, dive back into it. Talking about it makes me want to come up with a sequel. Aaron and Samantha are two of my favorite characters. I’d love to write more about the man the zombies don’t touch. But I’m having a severe block when it comes to the zombie world. It’s all Damned and Cursed for me right now. 🙂

I want to talk about Witch’s Kurse some more, but obviously can’t until Demon’s Doorway is out there getting read. 🙂 I’ll be back soon with some more info.

Okey dokey. Soul Insurance is out now, hopefully being read by 100 million people as you read this. 🙂 It’s out for Amazon and Smashwords, and thanks to Smashwords, will be out for other channels in a few weeks. In the meantime I have to get the paperback version ready, always a fun process. Then I’ll shift on over to Demon’s Doorway, edit, and toss that out for beta.

I have a few ideas that keep bouncing around in my head. I’d love to revisit the zombie world, but I can’t really come up with anything right now to base 75K words around. The idea that seems to have the most traction at the moment is another Damned and Cursed novel (I’d better get used to saying that). But I need to get feedback on Demon’s Doorway first. I don’t want to write half of another series novel, only to find out I did something very wrong in the previous novel. But I might be able to get started, say something like 20K words.

I’m curious as to how readers will take Demon’s Doorway. Another first for me, a group novel. I tried my best not to have any one character dominate the novel, and think I’ve succeeded, but the feedback will tell. I’m guessing I’ll get quite a few “You need more/less Jack” and “more/less Victoria” type statements. The good news is that I finished Demon’s Doorway much faster than I thought, so there won’t be a long delay in between novels.

Thanks for reading, guys.