Questioner's Shadow, Writing

Questioner’s Shadow Progress

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I made some decent progress on Questioner’s Shadow today. It may not really look like much, but I cut a few hundred words before tacking on new ones.

I’ve had a couple issues with making progress on it. First, the workshop interrupted it. I’d hoped to have it done before the workshop, but couldn’t make that happen. Then, when I came back, I had Shattered to get out the door. I’m going to need to do some better planning around the publishing part. I really can’t seem to edit one book and write on another at the same time. Or maybe it was just hangover from the workshop. I have no idea.

Eventually, I realized I’d left it in a spot that would have been difficult to get through if I hadn’t interrupted the work on it. I feared being able to do the scene justice (I still do). But in the absence, that fear had grown debilitating. So last night, while lying in bed, I told myself, “Mark, you are going to write something on QS tomorrow, even if it’s crap.”

So I did. And I think it’s better than crap, which is a bonus.

Now, the current plan is to finish Questioner’s Shadow, and then immediately get to work on Fragments, the second book in A Wizard’s Work.

I am going to make the attempt to edit QS while writing Fragments, but if push comes to shove, the edits will wait until the first draft of Fragments is complete. I’m not going to interrupt a draft in the middle again, if I can help it.

Software, StoryBox, Writing

Links From StoryBoxSoftware.com

If you are a registered owner of StoryBox, and you have published work that was even partially created in StoryBox, I would love to link to it from StoryBoxSoftware.com. There will be a “recent success” in the sidebar, and then a page with links to everything submitted to me. Success is defined as having something for sale, not whether it actually sells anything.

I prefer Amazon links, if you have them (I have to do less work to put them up).

Please send them to support@storyboxsoftware.com. If you are not sending from the email you registered with, include that address in the email so I can verify your status. Eventually, I hope to automate this so that I don’t have to update it by hand all the time, but at the moment, I’ve got better things to do 🙂

Shattered, Writing

What I learned publishing Shattered: First Weekend

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The first weekend has come to an end. I’ve learned a couple things that will change the way I release books in the future.

First no matter how thorough you thought you were in editing and proofing the work, you will inevitably find something wrong five minutes after you hit the “publish” button.

Second, making a professionally formatted paper book is a lot of work. You must do far more than set margins and headers. Widows, hyphenation, drop caps… None of them are as simple as they look.

Third, you will find a large number of errors while working on the paper book because you aren’t reading it word for word, but are instead scanning the “look”.

So, in the future, I will be formatting the paper book before I publish any format. There won’t be a two week wait for paper after the ebook is out. They should all be out within days of each other, depending on queues and other issues. All the formats should benefit.

Software, StoryBox

StoryBox 1.3.105 Released!

So, this is a large update. There are at least 25 changes, additions, and bug fixes.

I know there is one crash in this release – it was there in 1.3.104, as well. If you are using the outline, and you change text or values, make sure you click somewhere else in the outline grid to make sure the changes is confirmed before you click elsewhere in the application. I’m working with the vendor of the grid to get this fixed, but I can’t say when it will be.

But, I decided to release this build despite that issue because there are so many beneficial changes that I think it’s important to have them out so that you can use them.

You’ll want to read the release notes on the download page.

http://www.storyboxsoftware.com/download.htm

Shattered, Writing

Shattered – A Wizard’s Work Book One Now Available

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Shattered Final Cover

Shattered is now available at Amazon, Barnes & Noble, and Smashwords.

Four Apprentices
Robert remembers little of his life before Master Wizard Monteous Roarke rescued him and made Robert an apprentice wizard. Angela holds secrets about her life she fears to tell anyone, especially Robert. Gerard wants Angela for himself, and tires of finishing second. Wallace just wants to learn… everything.

A Work Gone Wrong
When an unknown assailant attacks Monteous as he steps through a portal, the portal collapses, cutting the apprentices off from their master.

A Desperate Search
The four must put differences aside and learn to work together to save Monteous, all while keeping his disappearance a secret.