Been Awhile...

This is the trap of maintaining four different blogs--one or two always seem to get neglected.  I've lately been focusing on my movie review blog, Overpriced Popcorn, and my gaming blog, The Wasted Lands, so I haven't had much to say over here. If you're not following those two blogs as well as this one, you should be!  Overpriced Popcorn in particular is a major new project for me, as I've always wanted to be a film reviewer, and I spend a lot of time griping about the current state of movie critics.  At some point, as I told my wife, you have to put your money where your mouth is and show that you can do it better. Am I doing it better? Who knows? I'm far more forgiving than most film critics and sci-fi/fantasy geeks are, so you'll likely see as many positive reviews from me as you see negative ones from your average "hates everything" critic, but in the end it's all subjective.

So, what's going on in the land of writing lately?  Well, there's the film reviews.  I'm working on editing a project for Elf Lair Games, my game publishing company, but that's coming along much more slowly than either my author or I would like. I have several novel projects in various nebulous stages of beginning, but nothing's gelling to the point where I go full-steam ahead.  So long as I am writing, however, that's what's important, and I am writing.

I am considering self-publishing my next novel, The First Battle: The Chronicles of Charlie Morning and Mr. Night Book 1, which is a middle grade/young adult fantasy novel concerning two creatures of ancient evil who have battled throughout the ages for the souls of children; these battles are fought through champions chosen by Mr. Night, the force of evil, and Charlie Morning, the force of good. Past champions have been named Alice Liddell, Dorothy Gale, and Wendy Darling.  Currently, Charlie's champion is twelve-year-old Becky Bradford, who due to her ability to see faeries and goblins has been diagnosed with childhood onset schizophrenia. Unfortunately, because of her medication, Becky can no longer see Charlie Morning, and she will need his help to defeat Mr. Night, so she goes on a quest, aided by past champions, through the ruins of a once-beautiful fantasy realm. Her mission: to find Charlie and understand what exactly is happening to her.

I've had little luck finding an agent for Charlie Morning, and if I'm going to indie publish, it strikes me that I may as well self-pub; the only problem is coming up with the money to get an ISBN and cover art.  I don't feel that I have enough of a following to pull off a kickstarter, plus I have precious little to offer in the way of incentives for higher levels of donation there. Money at home is tight so every time I get a few bucks squirreled away, something comes up and I have to use the cash for some other emergency.  Ah, well, nobody ever said trying to be a writer would be easy.

As always, let me take some time to (re)-plug my first novel, Broken Gods, which is available from the publisher at Reliquary press:

http://www.reliquarypress.com/

It's also available for the Nook, Kindle, and the iBookstore.

If anyone out there wants to support me in this endeavor, that's the way to do it--buy my books, and spread the word--the more followers I have here and at my other blogs, the more visibility I have, the more sales I can make, and the closer I get to my goal.  Also, if you have read and enjoyed Broken Gods, by all means PLEASE write a review of it at Amazon, Barnes and Noble, or the iStore!  Good reviews do translate into sales; if you take the time to give it a 4-star rating, also take the time to write a few words about WHY you liked it!

Okay, I've rambled on and self-promoted enough for now.  Thanks for reading!