Slow But Steady...

Well...bad news and good news!

The bad news is...I haven't finished the edits on Arizona State Guard: Target Terror yet as I had hoped I would. 

The good news is...the story is actually turning out better for me taking that extra time...to get it right!

Along the way, I've discovered some minor plot, grammar, and spelling issues that needed to be addressed. Nothing major, just some little things. I changed a character from male to female and I'm still realigning some of the pronouns. The grammar and spelling issues are commonly found in areas where I wrote late into the night. Sadly, I don't type as fast as I think and sometimes I leave a word unfinished on the page because my brain has moved me on to the next word in the sentence. The thoughts are there, if not all of the words to go with them!

I've also tweaked the cover idea a little with a change of viewpoint. Worked up my pre-visualization (pre-vis) for Sean and spoke with him about it. (Side note: Sean has been busy coaching T-ball this Spring (along with Kyle) and grandsons Tristan and Jeffrey are on the team. The kids are fun to watch and I've taken a few afternoons off to go watch them play.)

So, I'll take this week to finish the edits (for real this time!!!) and Sean can rough out the cover and we'll see where we are next weekend. I'm still on track for a June 2015 e-publication! 

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I'd really like to thank Jimmy Badgett for recommending the Glossary for my e-novels. I've built one for the new e-book and will use it as a core document for the previous e-novels when I release the second editions of them. That project is still in the future as Sean and I will need some time for new covers, edits, and such.

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Going to keep it short this week. I still want to do some edits this evening!

Stay safe out there, folks!

Jeffrey

© Jeffrey M. Fortney - 2015

A Great Weekend for Editing!

Hey everyone!

Hope you are weathering the wet weather in safety! Sorry...a truly terrible pun! Just goes to show that I'm all wet! Buh dum dum!

Okay...enough about the weather. And the attempt at humor!

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Just a quick update on the new e-novel:

The edits are progressing very nicely. I'm about 80 pages and 10 chapters in! And I hope to get a couple of more chapters edited tomorrow! I should be finished with the edits by June 1st.

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Don't forget to tell all of the action/adventure fans you know about my other e-novels:

Chaos on Terra-Prime ($2.99)

Foothold on Terra-Bravo ($2.99)

Crisis on Terra-Bravo ($2.99)

The Arizona State Guard: Bloody Border ($3.99)

Each e-novel is available at the following online stores:
- Amazon.com
- Smashwords.com
- Barnes&Noble (bn.com)
- Apple iBooks Store (via iPad or iPhone)

Smashwords.com offers each of the e-novels in a variety of formats!

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That's enough for tonight. Please be careful out there, folks. Drive carefully and please don't drive into flooded streets. 

Jeffrey

© Jeffrey M. Fortney - 2015

Oops...I did it...

With apologies to Ms. Spears, I'm borrowing part of her song...but I didn't do it AGAIN!

Sometimes writers run into a snag with the internal timeline of their story. Yep! So did I...

I'm trying to keep the timeline and action in Arizona State Guard: Target Terror very tight; one event flowing after another. Sadly, this time I did not plot out a detailed outline for the story and thus hangs the tale! In going back through the story doing my edits, I found gaps where the story bogged down. Not terminally, but enough to throw off the action.

Have no fear, dear readers! I've taken a step back and developed a timeline of events and action with has already proven very effective. I even had to write a brief chapter to plug a hole. I do have one piece of the story, about 3 pages worth, that I may yet move up earlier in the story. And, I have another bridge to write in another chapter. Again, no fears! These are easy fixes which make the story better! 

It also means I intend to go back to Page 1 and start the edits over to get a true sense of the flow of the story. I still feel very good about e-publishing next month!

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On another topic:

After I finish ASG: Target Terror, I need to pay a short visit to Terra-Bravo and update the series "bible" to help Kyle with writing the next sequel. I'm hoping this won't take long as I really want to get back to the murder mystery in space.

Speaking of which:

It now has a tentative title...Seven Parsecs to Camadin! 

Julie and I went to southern Arkansas a couple of weeks back to bring the youngest home soon from college. We spent the night at our daughter's home in Camden before driving to Arkadelphia to pick up Gary and his stuff. Along Route 7 between part of Camden and Arkadelphia there are seven bridges. When we lived in Arkansas, my duties involved a lot of travel and I drove Route 7 frequently. Driving home, I would count the bridges because I knew there were seven bridges to Camden...and my family!

So driving this route the other day, I thought 'seven bridges to Camden'...hmmm, there could be a book title in that. But what story??? Then I thought, 'what about the murder mystery in space?!?!' Okay...seven somethings to...Cam...a...din? So I kept running the idea through the old gray matter, trying to keep the idea fresh...and how for some insight.

So we get home and I'm thinking...distance, distance. The star I chose previously to be the destination for the starship was over 20 light years away, so light years was out. Then I thought of parsecs. Now, anyone with astronomy as their college science (me! me! me!) would know that in Star Wars: A New Hope, George Lucas used parsecs as a measure of time (ehn! WRONG!) instead as a measure of distance (ding, ding, ding! We got a WINNER!)

It turns out that a parsec equates to about 3.26 light years and, if I multiply that times 7 it equals 22.82 light years which is roughly the distance I chose for the star in the story!!! Serendipitous!!!

So, once ASG:TT is e-published, I'll take a quick detour to Terra-Bravo then return to the murder myst...er...Seven Parsecs to Camadin! And, I've thought of some interesting twists and turns for that story!!! Whee! It's gonna be fun!

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I hope everyone is taking the appropriate safety precautions during severe weather events this Spring. Be careful out there!

Jeffrey

© Jeffrey M. Fortney - 2015  

Moving Right Along!

It's been an interesting week! Heavy duty thunderstorms and rain in Stillwater, a trip to and from Camden to bring Gary home from college for the Summer, and editing of the new e-novel! Lots of editing!

Spring is always full of serious storms here in north central Oklahoma. The Native Americans used to say that the Stillwater area was sacred ground and that tornadoes and really severe weather did not touch here often. Severe weather coming at us from the southwest often diverts northward or eastward just west of town. Occasionally, we do get large hail, bad lightning storms, and...yes...a tornado! The terrain around Stillwater has a lot to do with it...and no small amount of good fortune!

This week we got a LOT of rain in Stillwater! The house is dry but our yards are swampy! Yeah, no need to water the lawns. But...and this is a BIG but...we're only going to a have a couple of dry days before more rain. By the time everything dries out and I can do some mowing...it's gonna be DEEP!

The trip to and from Camden and Arkadelphia went very smoothly. I think we got Gary's stuff loaded up in record time this go around. It helped that he'd disassembled his TV stand and had everything boxed up ready to go. We had rain while driving there but nice weather coming home!

The new e-novel (Arizona State Guard: Target Terror) is coming along nicely. The edits are going super-smooth with just the right amount of corrections and additions. I've got a really good handle on the characters, who they are, and how they act. Once I get done with this blog post, I expect to get one chapter (possibly two!) edited tonight. I also need to spend some time working on the Glossary that Jimmy Badgett suggested for my books. 

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Going the route of so many other authors who love to have their picture taken with their pet for their "About the Author" part of their books. Here are Remi and I hamming it up for the camera!

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So if you're experiencing the lovely Spring weather we're having this year, stay safe! If you weather is peaceful, stay safe anyway!

Jeffrey 

© Jeffrey M. Fortney - 2015  

Phase 2 of ASG: Target Terror

Greetings my friends!

After taking a week away off from working on the new e-novel in order to recharge the ol' batteries, I'm just about ready to start Phase 2 of work on Arizona State Guard: Target Terror!

Tomorrow night, I will be editing and tweaking (a highly technical term used by writers) the new e-novel. This phase always finds me:

1) fixing typos, grammatical errors, and formatting errors.

2) fixing any timing or continuity issues.

3) making some minor (and some major) changes.

4) wondering if the story has evolved beyond my initial intent.

It can be fun and frustrating, but it will make the story better, stronger, and fast...(Oops! Started to fall into a Six Million Dollar Man opening monologue!) Let's just say that the story becomes more than it was before!

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Wow! April must have been tough on everyone. Oh, yeah...Tax Season. Well, here's hoping May and the latter months turn out better. Sales flatlined last month but every so often I have a month like that. Hope for an uptick during May and will have a sharp uptick in June with the release of Arizona State Guard: Target Terror!

In the mean time, please share with your friends:

The Arizona State Guard: Bloody Border

Book One of The Arizona State Guard e-series is now available at Amazon.com for Kindles and in a variety of formats at Smashwords.com for $3.99.

Torn from today's headlines:

- Growing divisiveness in the United States
- Federal policies destroying the American Dream
- U.S. military stretched to the limit- Illegals flooding our unsecured borders- Drug cartels terrorizing the southern border states- Danger of pandemic within the United States- The growing threat of Radical Islamists around the globe

War weary Major Marcus A. Roman returns home to Arizona, ready to move on with his life. The former Special Forces operative finds his home state besieged on many levels. When the Federal Government fails to protect its citizens along the border with Mexico, Arizona's governor and legislature take steps to protect the citizens of the Grand Canyon State. Marcus and his family are drawn into the crossfire when he and his father are recruited to help form the state's new first-line of defense...the Arizona State Guard!

The Terra-Bravo Saga

The Terra-Bravo Saga involves a mixture of military adventure, science fiction, and alternate history. The series currently consists of three books:

- Chaos on Terra-Prime
- Foothold on Terra-Bravo
- Crisis on Terra-Bravo

Each e-novel is available at Amazon.com for Kindles and in a variety of formats at Smashwords.com for $2.99.

Chaos on Terra-Prime
Chaos on Terra-Prime is set about a decade ago on an alternate Earth (Terra). There we meet Major Kent Morgan (U.S. Air Force) and Captain Cord Morgan (U.S. Army) who are trapped in South Korea when their version of the United States of America devolves into another civil war. The Morgans and other U.S. military personnel must escape a North Korean invasion into South Korea in order to return home. But home is not what it used to be.

Foothold on Terra-Prime
Several years later, the absence of the U.S. on the world stage has allowed a growing Global Islamic Caliphate to overrun much of Terra...and the U.S. is next. Military scientist discover number of alternate worlds in parallel universes, one of which is hospitable. Terra-Bravo is a world just coming out of its last ice age. Humans never colonized the North American Continent and have only a limited presence and civilization in Europe, Asia, and Africa. A crash program is created to send teams to Terra-Bravo to build a colony for a later influx of colonists. Brigadier General Kent Morgan and his brother, Colonel Cord Morgan, lead the teams to Terra-Bravo and battle time, the elements, and the local fauna to prepare a home for the colonists.

Crisis on Terra-Prime
After being cut off from Terra-Prime, the colonists continue to expand their foothold on Terra-Bravo. As the colony grows, a hidden plot is discovered. Sleeper agents have been with the colonists since the start and try to destroy the colony from within. Once again, Brigadier General Kent Morgan and Colonel Cord Morgan and their friends must fight to survive.

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Hope everyone has a great May! 

Stay safe!

Jeffrey

© Jeffrey M. Fortney - 2015