Tag Archives: update

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So Much Going On…

Allan here with some big announcements and an apology to make. First the apology. Sorry it’s taken so long to get back to the current story, which I feel may be one of the most important ones we’ve ever undertaken because of the subject involved. Please rest assured that the story will be continuing shortly, it’s just been a crazy two months over here.

First of all, Fibromyalgia reared its ugly head and flattened both of us badly for several weeks. At the same time, we were also getting ready to launch Helen’s first solo novel “Forever’s Too Long” which is the first of an all new series she’s calling ‘The Forever Detective Series’. It revolves around a 1940’s private investigator in NYC, who’s first two cases runs him smack into the middle of a nest of vampires led by a certain historical figure from Russian history. If you’ve been enjoying Nathan and company, then I highly recommend checking out Rafael Jones and his friends in this all new truly  supernatural series at the links below.

Nook:

Amazon: 

AmazonUK:

AmazonCA:

AmazonAU:

Smashwords:

I spent a great deal of time helping Helen prepare and promote her novel going as far as to creating my very 1st book trailer for her novel.  Anyone wanting to see the results can click on this youtube link: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wNoPA_ytUvc.  While not 100% perfect, I was quite happy with the results, especially the voice-over you hear in the trailer. The response to the video was so good, it got me thinking about going back and making trailers for both “The Vampyre Blogs – Coming Home” and “The Vampyre Blogs – One Day At a Time”.

However, before that could happen, we had to prepare a book launch party for “Forever’s Too Long”, wherein I did something I’ve been thinking about for some time but never tried, namely loud readings using the voices of character’s appear in the scene. Once again the reactions were much more positive than I’d expected. Now I’ve done theater in the past, and I’ve done loud readings in person for family and friends who have all urged me to get to start recording the books. But after hearing people’s reactions at the launch party, my reaction was to buy these puppies…

This is the Blue Yeti USB Microphone and the Samson SR350 Closed back stereo headphones. I’m already working on what I’m calling my “Voice Library” so I can have a set of distinctive voices I know I can recreate at any time and start making some of your favorite characters come to life.

My goal is to start sharing some audio samples here on the blog within the next 2-3 months. Possibly sooner. I hope to have a full audiobook of “The Vampyre Blogs – Coming Home” in the not-to-distant future (yes, I am an MST3K fan and proud of it).

In the meantime I am still slowly working on the 2nd full-length novel “The Vampyre Blogs – Family Ties” which takes up two-three weeks after the events of “TVB – Coming Home”. I’m not predicting a release date for that one at this time I’m sorry to say. But we will be bringing you all more short stories here on the blog in the meantime, as well as updates.

Now for my final piece of news, there was one other thing that happened at the launch party that had me doing some serious re-thinking about Nathan and company. One of our guests at the part has been a beta-reader for all the Para-Earth novels, including “TVB – Coming Home”. She is also a professional librarian and seriously urged me to re-market Nathan’s adventures as Teen/Young Adult to reach a wider audience. I gave it some serious thought, but didn’t do anything right away. Instead I checked with a couple of other people I knew had read the book and agreed with the librarian. So I am currently in the process of getting both of those books shifted over to the Young Adult sections of Amazon and other outlets. Needless to say “TVB – One Day At a Time” will join it shortly.

Currently, both books are part of KDP’s Select program which means that the e-book versions are sold exclusively at Amazon. But at the end of August this will end and I will make the books available to Barnes and Noble, Kobo, Apple, the works. At that time I will also do a re-release with the book being promoted for Young Adults and older. I hope to have trailers for both ready by then, as well news about another anthology and an update on “The Vampyre Blogs – Family Ties”.

So that brings you all up to speed. There’s a lot coming on the horizon so please stay with us here, and I expect to have the next installment of  “Nadine’s” adventures up within a week. I thank you all for your patience and hope to keep you all entertained and fascinated with new stories and adventures featuring Nathan and his friends.

Also I’ll be updating you all on “The Door” which is well under way and focuses on our other cast of Para-Earth characters (Alex Hill, Police Sgt. Veronica Ross, heiress Cassandra Elliott, and her girlfriend/shamaness Julie Cloudfoot).  For within the pages of that story Nathan will be making more than one appearance along with some familiar faces from “TVB – One Day At a Time”. The events of “The Door” will lead to the first major crossover between the two casts and leading all to face one of their strangest encounters from a Para-Earth yet in the form of a haunted mansion known as Harlequin House.

Until next time, take care and happy reading everyone.

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Novel Update…

Hello everyone, I’ve given Nathaniel and company a break this week because of the holiday.  They’ll be back shortly with more blog entries.  But in the meantime I thought you would all like to know how things are progressing on the actual novel.

I’m sure you’ll all be happy to know that I completed the 2nd draft yesterday, which gave me something extra to be thankful for on Thanksgiving.  Writing in the first person has been quite the adventure for me.  Most authors stick inside one character’s head and they act as the narrator for the entire story.  But I prefer sharing various character’s points of view, so I normally used limited third person, where I give each character a chapter where we see inside only their heads for that chapter.

Doing blog, journal, and diary entries to tell the story, has allowed me to do something similar with this novel.  However, I’ve had to create unique ‘voices’ for each character as well.  I didn’t want a blog entry by one of my teenage characters to sound the same as one of my middle-aged male characters.

I’ve also had a bit of a challenge dealing with past tense vs. present tense.  After all, if you’re writing about something that happened to you in your blog/journal you use past tense.  So I’ve had a little bit of a challenge making the events sound just as exciting as if I were using the present tense like I have in my other novels.  Plus I’m trying to make sure I ‘show’ people what happened and not just have the character ‘tell’ you what happened.  I like to give enough details that my readers can picture the scene and all the action inside their heads like it was a movie.  So I’m going to be paying close attention to what my beta-readers say when they get to look at the book.

Now, that I’ve completed the 2nd draft, the book is getting looked over and the first edits will be under way.  I won’t be doing much new writing for a few weeks because I’m attending university and it’s getting towards the end of the semester.  This means the professors are loading us up with last minute assignments, as well as getting us prepped for final exams.

I will be putting out a short story involving Nathaniel and several characters from my previous novels, creating my first cross-over story.  Being a short story it won’t take me long to put it together.  It will be a holiday piece which I plan on releasing on Christmas Day.  So stay tuned for more detials on that.

In the meantime, Nathaniel, Lisa, and Marisa, as well as a few others will be posting here again very shortly.  So you won’t be without anything new to read here.

With that said, thanks for all your support and feedback.  I’m glad so many of you are enjoying my vampyre’s experiences along with those who are a large part of his extended life.  For those who celebrate Thanksgiving I hope you had a wonderful holiday.  I’m looking forward to this weekend to start decorating as well as study and do homework.

Until next time be happy and healthy.