Young Adult
I've scheduled some promotions for the next month.
January 11-15 the ebook of "Shooting Stars: A Teenage Vampire Love Story from a Boy's Perspective" will be free on Amazon.com
https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00S98RVO8/ref=series_dp_rw_ca_1
January 25-29 the ebook of "Flypaper Boy: Coming of Age" will be free on Amazon.com
February 1-5 the ebook of Shooting Stars 3 "Blue Moon" will be free on Amazon.com
https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B07CTDZKFQ/ref=series_rw_dp_sw
These are not new years resolutions, only the things I currently have planned, coinciding with starting a monthly news letter and email list. With the way Amazon, Facebook, and other platforms may change their policies over night and cut my exposure down in an instant, it only makes sense to create a more intimate source, a more individually captained source, for contact with people who might be interested in my fiction.
So, if you're interested, here's what I have planned:
A monthly newsletter updating the status of each of my projects, sharing personal successes in writing, running, and family life, probably sharing an absurd observation or two, and sharing a short story from one of my fictional environments which shouldn't be available elsewhere.
Projects I currently have going are:
The Price of Friendship (ebook). It is through edits. I'm working on the book cover and formatting. It should be out by the end of February 2019.
The Galactic Battle Base: Space Dust (ebook) It is also through edits, the cover is almost done, and it needs formatting. Also should be out by the end of February 2019.
The Pariah. Episodes 15-20 are ready to be recorded and released as podcast episodes. After that, they will be released as the fourth novella/chapter book. I'm editing Episodes 21-24. When they are recorded and released as podcast episodes, I will re edit the entire novel and then send it to an editor.
Shooting Stars 4 needs another major edit with another 10K words.
Next week I'm taking a day off from the day job to outline my short stories for my monthly new letters with the first news letter due out at the beginning of February.
Girl in Pieces, by Kathleen Glasgow, starts out with a nameless, silent girl in a mental hospital sharing her mental observations. Silent Sue, one of the other patients calls her. All the women on this floor are the self-harmers, the NSSI--Non Suicidal Self Injury, the cutters and burners.
We learn her story is small slices--the chapters are short, some a single paragraph. But the author's ability to pack so much information, characterization and emotion into the each sentence is one of the things that makes this novel so great.
Left on the lawn of a hospital, freezing and bleeding to death, her own story comes back to her in pieces. Charlie begins to open to her doctors and fellow patients as she begins to remember who she is and what happened.
I felt her anxiety as she has to leave the safety of the hospital and enter the public world in the care of her mother whom she fears.
That's all the plot I will share, because the discovery of herself and of her capacities, scraping away the surface and finding the abuses and fears below is what kept me reading, (or listening in my case).
I have written a novel where my main character is a teenage girl who cuts. It's science fiction, set 800 years in the future and I've shared some of the chapters on my blog. I've written it as "the other", as it is called in literature--writing from another's point of view, position of experience, not having lived it myself. I hurt for these girls, and the growing number of boys, who have suffered so much at their own hands, whose only break from depression and anxiety is to create their own physical pain. I wanted to say something that would bring their plight more awareness.
Kathleen Glasgow comes at this novel, not as the other, but as the person who has experienced this life first hand and hearing her own words at the end of the audio version brought the impact of the novel to an even deeper level to me.
I loved this story for the author's beautiful, some call it poetic, writing. For Charlie's ceaseless striving for acceptance and love, and her eternal struggle to overcome her weaknesses and doubts.
Note: This novel contains strong language, violence, and sexual situations.
I know. I've tried podcasting before, and believe me, I intend to finish the Pariah Podcast. I'm recording episode 11 right now, with 12 ready to record right afterward. I'm editing episode 13 and am writing 16 which will fold Nit into the story completely.
This new podcast is supposed to be my effort at doing something for the community. Whether you are readers of YA fiction or writers of the same, my hope is that you will find interesting interviews with author you read or want to emulate.
I want to interview authors of all types of YA Fiction: Science Fiction, Fantasy, Urban Fantasy, Horror, Romance, Mystery, even Literary.
I've done about ten interviews so far and have launched the podcast with the first four episodes.
It's available on iTunes at https://itunes.apple.com/us/podcast/yabookspodcasts-podcast/id1044942015?mt=2 and on Libsyn.com. However, if you go to Libsyn, download the episodes. If you try to stream them they...well, they don't after 28 seconds.
I'm meeting lots of great authors and am having a blast talking with them about their lives, their books, inspiration and their writing methods.
Come by, check it out, and, by all means, subscribe and leave me a review. I don't care if the review is bad...that's what I need to get in front of more listeners: subscriptions and reviews.
Thanks,
pec
I just want to document this event in case it goes terribly against me.
I just posted a 2 star review for a book I tried to read. No. I'm not talking about the one I reviewed earlier today. I gave Water So Deep 4 stars.
This other was by an author I've run across on Twitter. I thought I would give her book a try and write a review. She had a number of 5 Stars on Amazon and Goodreads, and she claims to work in secondary education.
I thought about saying nothing, just letting it go. But, you know me. If I can't take every opportunity to shoot myself in my foot, I'm just not me.
Honestly. After five pages I stopped and sent an email to my editor telling her how grateful I was for her hard work. I don't believe this other author used an editor, let alone beta readers.
I'll admit, I only read 10% of the book. I couldn't take much more. I couldn't tell who the POV character was, (maybe it was all of them), the description was obscure and verbose and dialog was circuitous and redundant.
It's books like this that gives self publishing a bad name.
pec
As all of you regular, imaginary, reader know, I'm trying to find my was as an author, and specifically, an author of Young Adult Fiction. I'm trying various ways of connecting with people and building my platform. I tried reviewing a book for a 'Virtual Book Tour' and as you know, reading a book someone else asked me to read and review was a lot more like work than recreation.
So, this time I decided to read and review a book of someone I've met at the LDStorymakers Conference. Someone who writes YA and seems to have a pretty good foundation as an author. This review is completely voluntary, so I can say what I want, with no expectations to meet and no strings attached.
Here is my review I am posting to Amazon and Goodreads:
I just finished reading, "Water So Deep" by Nichole Giles.
This is the story of Emma, a senior in high school with a mysterious side. The story introduces her problem immediately--she's got mermaid issues. But, you know that already. You've seen the book cover. We just don't know how big of a problem that is until we see how erratic it make her life. She can't have any real friends; that would require honesty and trust; and she can't be honest with anyone, including her family or her best friend, Heather. The only one who knows the reason for her periodic need to get into the ocean is her grand-mother, on who's porch was left the baby Emma seventeen-odd, years before.
Enter, James, the amazingly handsome, totally buff, loner, with emotional needs of his own.
The story unfolds for us through these two perspectives. We are privy to their individual, inner turmoils which result in the majority of their relationship conflicts. As an adult (read that as old) man, I felt like if they had only followed through with their resolutions from one paragraph to the next, most of their problems would have been eliminated through a little simple communication. But then, we would have missed Chapter Three of, "The Book of Love", where, "You break up and then you give it just one more chance." (See, that's how old I really am... I'm referencing 1950's Rock and Roll.)
I'll admit, much of what I've read in the past which has been labeled, "Young Adult" was more fantasy than romance, and wonder if this book's plot is typical of creating romantic tension. As an old man, again, I enjoyed the romantic elements of the story, while I appreciated the development of the "Mer Lore" the most. I didn't expect a simple resolution to Emma's dilemma, as this is admittedly, "Book 1". But, I did enjoy the ending for the extent of its resolution and foreshadowing of the expected conflicts in the next book.
I happily give this book four stars and look forward to book two.
This is where my review will end on Goodreads and on Amazon. What follows is fraught with plot spoilers and addresses some of the things that came to my mind while reading that weren't resolved in this book. So, I would recommend that you read the book before you read further on this post.
I mentioned above that I thought both main characters were inconsistent in their resolutions and that if they had followed through with many of the things they had just thought out, their conflict would have been resolved and they could have moved forward with more important things, such as, preventing Emma from permanently becoming a mermaid and finding out why Keith was now stealing so much.
It bothered me that her parents seemed so unsympathetic. I mean, the first time we see her father he is absent mindedly blowing off the safety of his son. Even her high powered lawyer mother only seemed engaged when there was a legal threat to her kids. Granted, this is YA and we need to get them out of the picture somehow and focus on the youths.
Maybe I'm threatened by physically strong male characters, but I felt like James was a little too buff for someone his age. To have biceps so rock hard that blood vessels shift between them and the skin seems unrealistic to me in someone so young, unless he's doing steroids or spends all of his time in a gym. It didn't sound like James had that much time, or money.
I got the idea that contact with salt water would cause Emma's physical change, yet, when they took pizza to the beach she got her feet in the water and nothing happened. If there was an explanation given why this was an exception, or that it didn't happen all the time, I didn't pick up on it.
I was a little surprised about Emma's sudden recognition of her love for James. It was like it was a brand new realization and only the page before she had giggled at his allusion to having sex with her in the back seat of the car or right there in the sand of the beach, whatever it took to make her undesirable to Merrick.
Then there's Merrick. Granted, his motives become clear at the end of the book. Before that, I felt like his behavior was more animalistic and less rational thinking than I would expect of a creature which is part human--and longer lived than typical humans.
Finally, some mention was made to the siren call or the mer people. I wasn't clear if this was an intentional allusion in the story or if I read into the the comment that it had to do with why boys were so attracted to Emma and then she "Iced" them and shut them down.
I read the story on my tablet and I read it somewhat faster than I would have, wanting to get it read so that I could do a review for Nichole while the book was still newly published. Because of those two conditions, I may have misunderstood, or completely missed something which the normal, more intelligent, reader would have picked up.
Again, I hope you read this, if you haven't, and enjoy it as much as I did.
pec
Alright. Episode 2 is up for my young adult fantasy podcast. If you want to download it or other episodes, just click on the words in the top right corner, "The Pariah Podcast", or you can go to iTunes and subscribe. You could also become a patron at www.patreon.com/Norvaljoe and help me get more episodes out, and faster, while earning some rewards.
Scott Roche gave me a bit of a reality check when I was complaining that no one had given me an iTunes review yet. He told me to just be patient and get a few more episodes up... No kidding. I'm just too impatient.
Episode 3 will be up on the patreon site in a few days, and will come live on my blog and at iTunes about a week later.
pec
What's Happening Now.
So. In trying to find out if writing a blog every day was something that would help me sell books, I found out that it has no short term effect. I found I would only get new people reading my blog if I advertised it on twitter. The only person who came to my website and read my posts consistently was my daughter. Thanks, Lisa. Maybe longterm blogging will have an effect. Trying to come up with an idea every day was too hard. Maybe once a week.
In the last week I have finished editing the text of six episodes for the podcast novel, "The Pariah". I've recorded the first episode and I'm edeting it right now. I want to have at least three episodes completely done and ready to play at the end of the month (January). I want to post my first episode on Feb 6th.
I've signed up for the Grape Con, in Lodi, California for the 8th of Feb. It's a pretty small comic con, but it's a place for me to get used to taking to people about my books.
I got 25 copies of "Shooting Stars" to add to the 23 copies of "Flypaper Boy" to have at the con and I'll sell them for $9.99 instead of the regular $12.99. I ordered a iPhone credit card reader for Paypal, that I will have there so I can take credit card payments. I'll also have flyers about the Pariah Podcast and the Patreon.com compain for it.
"Shooting Stars" launches on January 26th. It's really already on Amazon, but I'd like to have people buy it on that day if at all possible. I have a Kindle Countdown starting on that day for "Flypaper Boy" so it will be selling for 99 cents. It will be 99 cents until Wednesday, when it will change to $1.99 and then back to $2.99 on Friday.
I paid for an advetisement for the first three days. I also paid for an ad for "Shooting Stars" whichi will be 99 cents for those first two days as well. I'm hoping the two books cross pollinate each other and boost sales over all. I'm also doing a book giveaway for Shooting Stars at good reads from now through launch day.
Finally, I'm giving away a Kindle Fire HD7 through a website that will administer the drawing and collect email addresses for me from an opt-in form they fill out while entering the give away and generating likes for my author's page on Facebook.
I added an author page on Amazon.com.
Trigger Warnings is still will the editor. The picture book idea sounded too risky for a publisher I talk with about it. I may try doing it for the Kindle with an application they have developed for picture books on the kindle.
pec
The Pariah Podcast
Last year, 2013, for Nanowrimo, (National Novel Writing Month) I wanted to expand on a short story I wrote over the summer. It was in a fantasy world and featured a boy who believes he is destined to get a Tiger-Hawk on his King's Service selection day. Every third child in the kingdom is given into the King's Service. There are roughly 13,000 who enter every year. Each is tested to see if they have an empathic ability to connect with a fighting creature. About one half of one percent are able to do this, so there are roughly 500 who go into the creature handler corps ever year.
Keo, my hero is the ninth child of his family, which is extremely rare. Both his older sister and older brother were chosen for the creature handlers and both raised a Tiger-Hawk.
2013 was the first year that I used a detailed outline to write the story. However, it was so detailed that it turned into three books. I wrote the first of the three that year with 100K words written in 28 days.
So, what I've decided to do is break that into twenty episodes of about 5k words each and podcast the story, two episodes every month until it is done. If it goes well, I will work on continuing the remaining two stories as soon as the first ends. I need four episodes done to launch. I've edited the first two and hope to have this rolling by the first of February.
I'm looking at doing something with Patreon.com to generate a little monetary motivation for me to stay focused on this project. If you're not familiar with Patreon.com, there are a lot of wonderful artists, musicians, etc, there whom you can support and help them produce more content. (Specifically Peter Hollens. I support him.)
pec
I was working on my Character Motivations this morning. I finished my outline yesterday and ended up with over 7K words.
David Farland's Daily Kick in the Pants yesterday talked a bit about writer's block for him was usually that he hadn't fleshed out his characters and their motivations. I figured since I had another day before the madness would begin, I would do just that.
My story this year is called, "Shooting Stars 2: Drawn into the Mist". "Shooting Stars 1: A Teenage Vampire Love Story from a Boy's Perspective", will be released in early to mid-December. I thought it would be good to get started on the second in that "Trilogy", in the odd chance that someone, other than family and friends, actually buys in and looks forward to the next in the series. I will admit, up front, that the first book ends, but it is obvious that a second must follow. And I'll clue you in now, it will take a third to resolve. I will probably write that book in the summer, just as soon as I get #2 published.
So. Back to the Character Motivations. I know my primary characters well and am pretty clued in on what they are after. It's the secondary characters that they interact with in this book that I wanted a better clue about. While I was working on the motivation of these background people, and what brings them into contact with my primaries, I fell upon the plot for the fourth novel, (in this trilogy). (I know that jokes been used, but I like it to much to not apply it to my own story.
Look for Shooting Stars on Amazon in early December. This has been a favorite story of mine since I began it and all the feedback I've gotten from beta readers has been equally as positive.
Check out "Flypaper Boy: Coming of Age" available for Kindle and Print-On-Demand at Amazon. And get on my mailing list by sending an email to norvaljoe@gmail.com.
Thanks.
I started this on Twitter yesterday and added to it on Facebook. I thought I'd put the list of them here for anyone of you non-existent followers to read in the future.
Burgerslovegan Fun Facts:
Burgerslovegia is a fictional country within the boarders of Ukraine.
Considering actual recent events in the eastern Ukraine, they moved their fictional borders as far west from Crimea as possible.
Their primary export is fictional wool products.
Their fictional sheep have a absurdly soft wool which commands a fictionally high price internationally.
Their fictional form of government is Socialism.
Vladamort Krompkitch is the fictional dictator or Burgerslovegia.
Vladamort believes his fictional daughter is safely hidden at Rosencranks.
Rosencranks is a fictional exclusive prep school north of Santa Belinda on the Southern California coast.
Rosencranks was named for a fictional General who retired near Santa Belinda after the Mexican-American war.
Esmeralda Flinch of the Women's Trade Federation knows the Krompkitch girl is at Rosencranks.
I want to bring some excitement to my book launch next week so I'm sweetening the deal.
I'll be giving away Trade Paperbacks of "Flypaper Boy: Coming of Age" through a contest on Goodreads.com and I will be giving away the brand new Kindle Voyager ebook reader.
Here's where you can find details about the reader. If you are making the leap into reading ebooks, this is the reader to get. http://www.amazon.com/dp/B00IOY8XWQ/ref=br_imp_ara-5?_encoding=UTF8&nav_sdd=aps&pf_rd_m=ATVPDKIKX0DER&pf_rd_s=gateway-center-column&pf_rd_r=12A10K3JZQJDMZSFYNPE&pf_rd_t=101&pf_rd_p=1924735102&pf_rd_i=507846#lost-in-story
Here's how my contest is going to work.
1) Buy Flypaper Boy: Coming of Age from the Kindle store at Amazon on September 29th. If you buy the paperback, the ebook is free until October 31st.
2) Read it.
3) Write an HONEST review on Amazon.com.
The first person to write a review will get five entries. Sorry family members and beta readers. It wouldn't be fair to let you have a head start.
But, if you're not first, don't despair. Anyone who gets an HONEST review posted in the first week, (by Sunday, October 5th at midnight pacific daylight time) will get three entries. After the first week reviews will get one drawing entry and I will accept entries until midnight, October 31st, 2014 pacific standard time.
I've already ordered the Voyager and because of demand it won't ship to me until November twenty something. But the winner should receive it shortly thereafter.
What is an HONEST review? I don't expect or want you to write a five star review just to try and win the reader. If you don't like the story, or superheroes aren't your thing, I expect you to say so in your review. II have to hear how you really feel to be able to get better at what I do or write something you do want to read.
If you haven't done so already, stop by my author site at www.facebook.com/AuthorPhilipCarroll and get the lowdown on launch day. Follow me there to get more regular updates as well as absurd observations about life.
Thanks for stopping by and keep checking back for news.
Here's the invitation I posted on Facebook. Everyone is welcome. Please come by and like my author page. It is: https://www.facebook.com/AuthorPhilipCarroll
Facebook Friend:
Please forgive this spam. It's the only time I will ever spam my personal friend list on Facebook. But, right now, you're the only friends I have and I really need your help.
You may have seen that I've been working on publishing my first novel for about the last year. Well, "Flypaper Boy: Coming of Age" is finally happening on September 29th on Amazon as an eBook for Kindle and as a publish-on-demand paperback through Createspace.com (An Amazon company).
If I can get enough sales on September 29th it will push my book onto other lists which will make it more visible to people I don't know.
The eBook for Kindle will be just $2.99. If you don't have a kindle there are free Kindle apps for every kind of phone and tablet in existence (probably. . .the big names for sure.) The POD paperback will be $12.99 and if you purchase it, you can get the eBook for free for the next thirty days.
What I need you to do:
1) Like and follow my author page. (This way I can spam you when my next book comes out.) That's https://www.facebook.com/PhilipCarrollAuthor.
2) Share this with your followers, your friends, enemies, family members, anyone with a pulse and an internet connection.
3) Stop by Amazon on Monday, September 29th and purchase a book. I should have the link up on my author site no later than Sunday the 28th. (You could just search for Flypaper Boy. I searched it on Google and didn't get any hits with those two words together. . .Big surprise?)
And that's it! Simple, huh?
The story is about a sixteen year old boy with a lame superpower. . .he sticks to things. He gets manipulated into believing he's actually a supervillain and agrees to help kidnap the teenage daughter of the President of an Eastern European nation called Burgerslovegia.
If you've read this far, thank you. I hope you'll join me on the 29th. If you have any questions or suggestions, I'd love to hear them.
Whenever I have started one of these blogs I have done so to update all my unknown and non-existent fans about what I am currently working on and where I am on the various projects.
So, here's how it stands.
1) Fly Paper Boy: Coming of Age. I just completed my third full edit. It now stands at over 99.5K words and I believe it is complete. I have a ten minute pitch session with an agent at the LDStory Maker's conference later this month. But, unless he actually begs me for it, my plan is to self publish it as an ebook and audiobook concurrently at Scribl.com. They have a new approach to selling and pricing self published books. I figure if I can get a few YA books on the site before anyone else does, I will have a toe hold in their market that would be advantaous.
2) Shooting Stars: A Magical Teenage Love Story from a Boy's Perspective. I just got rejected by Tor YA. I had decided a week after I sent of this submission that I wanted to switch my attention to self publishing. So I started recording this one last week, figuring I would be getting my rejection soon. I've noticed is my 100 Word Weekly Challenge stories that I had an echo going on. So, I set up my recording booth and I've recorded the first two chapters three times now. I think I've finally got the feel I want the narration to have. Now I just need to keep charging through the remaining 300 pages. This will be my first submission to the Scribl.com system. As I am recording this story, which I thought was complete, I'm finding a number of things I need to edit. Therefore, I'm making this my fourth and final edit. I'm marking down the corrections I make while recording and will go through the ebook manuscript again before formatting it for download.
3) What I'm working on next. I'm aiming to release Shooting Stars by June 1 and Fly Paper Boy by Aug 30. I'd like to have one more released by Dec 31. The three I have in the background are Galactic Battle Base: Knife Cuts, Galactic Battle Base: Family Ties and this last years Nanowrimo, The Pariah. I think the story most ready to fine tune is Pariah, but last month I got a wild hare and started re-writing Knife Cuts. I think it is the one which is the most emotionally charged, and the most meaningful to me.
I crossed another milestone today. I'd submitted my YA urban fantasy to my first choice of a publisher, and apparently they didn't think it was as good as I did. Actually, I thought they would reject it, but I wanted the LDS fiction market to get the first choice.
I got my first "Rejection Form Letter" today. I believe authors used to paper their walls with these. To do that now, I would have to print it out. Instead, I think I'll just copy it into a Word Doc and start a file for them.
Onward and upward. I've already sent it off to another publisher. There was a third publisher I found who I think is my best bet for getting published. They are using the newer method of, No Advancement, but 50% of the sales. They also accept simultaneous submissions, so if it comes to that, in another 90 days, I can shotgun it out to a few of these new wave publishers.
Other projects right now are a short story for an anthology, my 2011 Nano is still out to Beta Readers and I'm getting some good feedback. My original plan was to do my first edit on my 2013 Nano rough draft, but I've had some experiences recently that pointed me to 2010 Nano and I've started to read/edit that one.
We'll just have to see what actually ends up as my next novel.
My wife and I watched "Hunger Games: Catching Fire" last weekend. Don't tell her, but I've made a commitment to myself to go out with her more often. We haven't done that a lot in the past. But more than a month ago we went out to a movie. It was the first weekend that Hunger Games 2 was out and I frankly didn't want to see it.
My daughter was a big HG fan and I listened to all three of the books long before the first movie came out and I though each book was better than the next. In fact, I hated the third book, and it was based on that feeling that I chose to not want to see the second movie. But at that other movie we watched, they showed a preview of Catching Fire and said, "This movie was made to be experienced on the big screen." And from the preview, you could see why, and deep down, I believed them.
The following day I overheard some people talking about Catching Fire, saying it was so much better than the first movie. My problem with the first movie is that people who hadn't read the book often totally missed the premise of the whole story. I didn't think the directors did a good job of telling the story. I believe they did do a much better job with the second. In fact, there were some things that I thought were much clearer than the book.
I listen to most books. My family keeps Audible.com financially sound. I can listen at work, while driving, and when I want to tune out the kids. It would take me years to find the time to physically read as many books as I would like. So listening suits my needs well.
Finally, I will go see the third movie. There were some things in the third book the author did that I didn't agree with, that weren't necessary to the plot and I felt were only designed to elicit emotion. Also, as a reader of speculative fiction, and defining Hunger Games as a distopian urban fantasy I felt some duality when the author treated the story as a romance. From what I've heard from those who read romance novels, it appears that our heroine must make stupid decisions to perpetuate romantic tension. Again, I felt these plot twists were gratuitous.
I can only hope movie directors will improve the third installment of The Hunger Games as well they did in the second.
In the last quarter of 2013 I stepped up my writing career to a new level. I feel like I made some significant progress. Here are my four successes of that quarter:
1) Submitted a novel manuscript to a publisher. This was the major turning point for me. After five years of practicing it's time to start playing the game.
2) Purchased my dedicated website. If you are reading this, you're at my site. That's good.
3) In November I took my sixth Nanowrimo challenge. I've completed at least 50K words each year, but never really felt like I had a complete novel in that amount of time. This year I finished the story in 28 days with a total of 100,138 words. That was almost 3600 words a day.
4) I edited my 2011 Nano, "Fly Paper Boy: Coming of Age" before January 2014. That ended up with 93K words.
What I believe this shows is that I can create a rough draft in a short period of time. With this years Nano, I did outline heavily in October, but ended up only covering the first third of the plot in this novel. It also shows that I can take that rough draft and smooth it considerably in an equally short period of time.
Goals for the first quarter of 2014 are:
1) Edit "The Pariah" (2013 Nano)
2) Write a short story for Jeff Hite's new anthology about a magic portal beneath the kitchen sink. I'll look for the link.
3) Fine tune Fly Paper Boy for submission. It's currently out to several beta readers and I've asked them to read it and get back to me with in 30 days.
Other things on the back burners are outlining the second and third books for "Shooting Stars", outline for the final book of "The Price of Friendship", a first edit on "Human Magnetism", my Nano from 2012, and finally, the second book after "The Pariah".
That should be enough to keep me busy.
Norvaljoe