Over - Winner

Over won the coveted Cygnus award for best Science Fiction 2016.

https://www.chantireviews.com/services/#!/Fantasy-and-SciFi-Blue-Ribbon-Awards-Writing-Contest/p/21521218/category=5193080

I have to admit, it was a surprise to me. I knew there was some great competition and this was my first science fiction novel. Nevertheless, against the odds, it won the top price for overall science fiction, including all of the sub-genres they have. Very proud.

It has prompted me to get back into writing. I've been lax the last year or so as life events have intruded. It is time to get going again.

Over is almost here

My next book is almost out. Yay!

This is a science fiction book about an AI using the love of an immortal Over and a rebel Under to incite the world in order to make things... better.

We are in the final stages of editing and preparing the marketing material.

The plan is to have it out within the first quarter of 2016. I suspect it will be in February, but if we hit issues, it may be March.

Cover art was done by Amanda Yoshida. If you are interested in utilizing her services, let me know.

Restart

I am going to restart this blog. At the end of the last post, I said I was almost there. Well, that happened. Propositum has now won multiple awards and has over 18,000 followers on Facebook. I am about to release my second boo, Over (more on that in the next post). Unfortunately, for various reasons, it took me three years to get my second book out. I have to increase that pace even while working full time, maintaining a home, and being a single parent, oh and having some kind of social life. :)

Almost there and damn proud!

After five years of effort (on and off, mostly on), the first printed proof of the book is supposed to arrive in the mail today. I can hardly stand the suspense. I published the Humanism for Parents book, but that was totally different. It was non-fiction, which is monumentally easier to write than fiction (for me) and it was a topic that I could write about off the top of my head. The novel took 1.5 years of research before I could even start and then a little over half-a-year of reviews for me to realize my "craft" wasn't good enough. Then two years of higher education before I felt comfortable rewriting the novel.

In many ways, this book is my single biggest accomplishment in my life to-date. I've done hundreds of projects (technical/software), lived overseas twice, raised four kids, have three advanced degrees and my BS, and this book beats them all.

What is making it feel like such an accomplishment is that writing fiction is just not something I am a natural at. And yet... this book was so important to me that I ignored that, wrote it, and then went and did the work to become better. Now I am at the point that people see the first chapter and there is no doubt in their mind that I am a serious, professional writer. That, to me, is an accomplishment for someone as analytical as me, and I'm finding that I am quite proud of it.

See http://curley.me/propositum or http://fb.me/propositum.novel

Two steps forward, One step back

In so many ways, this process of writing a novel is making progress only to find that there are still issues to be resolved. I just recently completed the major revision of the novel I had been planning since starting the DU graduate program in Creative Writing.

However, near the end I realized that there were too many of certain words I had been using. Then a couple of writer friends of mine who were reviewing the book told me the dame thing.
So, even though I am done with the major revision, I decided to go back through the entire thing to look for these words. Then when I started doing that, I found other improvements I could make. Now I am back to doing another edit of the book.

I do admit that each full edit makes the book better, but there has to be an end to it at some point. I am really hoping this will be the last one, especially since I want to get this released to the public in September.

The good news is that pretty much everything else is in place. The website is up and running and taking pre-orders and requests to be on the mailing list (http://curley.me/propositum). I have trial marketing runs going on Google and Facebook to see how the ads perform. I have a FaceBook page up and running (http://fb.me/propositum.novel). And, PayPal is all set up to take payments. Even my personal web site and my humanist web site have been updated.

My mind is partly on the sequel, Tamdiu, so I really need to get this one out there so I can start on the next one...

Dropbox

I have been using Dropbox to share my files with reviewers of my book and it has been awesome. So good in fact, that I have moved all of my documents into it and use it for my regular repository. That way everything I add/edit is immediately uploaded there as a backup.

Twice now I have overwritten a file accidentally and was able to go onto Dropbox and recover the previous version. It is like having source control, if you know what this is from computer science, on all of my documents only it is seamless.

Really awesome tool/site. The only negative I know of is that it is pretty costly if you want to buy more space. Their lowest paid upgrade is 50GB for $100/year. I don't need that much space and it is way too expensive. I'll stick to the free account and get as much space as I can through referrals.

So, if you are going to use Dropbox, use this link and we both get extra space: http://db.tt/FfAXzVTH.

Copy editing...

A late dilemma in this process... One of the things I learned researching self-publication is that the author should always get professional copy-editing for the book. So, I budgeted that in (at about $2.50 / page, which is what my research showed it cost).

However, reality is sinking in. I looked at a professional editors site for Colorado. Of the 16 (or so) people I have contacted, most of them were too busy to even consider more work. Of those that would consider it, three have supplied a sample edit. Unfortunately, two of them went way too far and the third did not go far enough. I want a copy-edit, not a deep dive and 6 comments in an entire chapter isn't really worth the $1100 (or so) I would have to pay. Ugh!

Since the package I am planning to get from Wasteland Press includes 20 hours of copy editing (that they admit isn't really enough), I am considering using them as my final editing. I would like to find the right level of editor out there, but it doesn't appear to be happening and so far my daughter has proven to be a superb editor (good thing that is going to be her career).