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The New Year Brings New Books

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It’s 2014 now and back in the summer I promised that I’d be releasing two books this year and so far it seems like all it going (kinda) to plan.  Can Stuart Henry Zhang Save the World? is getting more and more polished and if I wanted to, it could have it ready at Amazon.com in the early spring.  However, one of the hardest things about self-publishing is knowing when something is done, as opposed to when you just want to see it released.  So, in the coming weeks I’m going to put it aside and let it rest for a couple of months while I start revising Love is not free.  The price is 99 cents.  Compared to a sprawling CYOA written by two people over a three year time span, this book should be much easier to revise.  I’m hoping that it will be ready in the summer, but again, there’s no need to rush.  For those of you who have signed up to my mailing list, I’ll sent out a newsletter detailing when preview editions of each of these will be ready.

Should be a busy year with revisions and releases and then (hopefully) plans for a new book.  Like I’ve said before, there won’t be any more choose-your-own-adventure books, at least not for a long time.  It’s all up to me now.  I’d actually really like to write something in the science-fiction genre.  Have some ideas for a book (very) tentatively titled The Sacrificed.  We’ll see if it ever comes to be.

Stuart Henry Zhang is Getting Closer to Saving the World

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Things are coming together for Can Stuart Henry Zhang Save the World? which will complete the not-so-great choose-your-own-adventure trilogy that Daniel and I started with The Adventures of Whatley Tupper.  Soon I’ll have the artwork complete and in not much longer I’m hoping for a pre-release version that will be available for free or at most 99 cents at Amazon.  I really can’t see how the final version won’t be ready too far into 2014.

And below is the first section and initial choices.  If you see any typos, either ignore them or make a comment below.  It’s amazing how errors can slip past me so easily…

    Stuart Henry Zhang’s pharmacy was as tranquil as a man on Paxil until someone started rattling the locked front doors.  Alarmed (and a little annoyed), he stepped out from his alcove and attempted to peer through the window at the opposite end of his long and narrow store.  Someone was pounding on the glass, although at this time of night he couldn’t tell exactly whom.  And frankly, Stuart wasn’t in a rush to figure it out.  The townsfolk hadn’t always been particularly kind to him in the three years since he’d moved to New Blackpool—especially when drunk, especially at night.  Just two blocks down Mainstreet was The Black Lung, the only bar in town, and surely this person was just another inebriated and disreputable citizen who thought that calling a man of Chinese decent “Chop Stuey” was equally witty and gratifying.  Stuart shook his head and waved both hands to ward the person away.  “The pharmacy is closed!”

    The person did not listen, now striking the window with both fists while yelling something unintelligible like an ape.  Stuart pulled off his glasses and winced, still unable to make out anything but a frantic silhouette of what he presumed to be a man.  “Come back at ten in the morning.  Otherwise…” he stopped.  He was about to inform this stranger that the Walmart pharmacy was still open but quickly decided against this.  The last thing Walmart needed was any more business.

     After one last and feeble knock on the door, the ruckus abruptly ended and the Zen-like calm of Stuart’s pharmacy was restored.  Surprisingly, his words had worked.  He slid his glasses back on and returned to the bottle before him, secure in the knowledge that as a pharmacist, his work was pivotal to livelihood of the community.

    A second later a scream shattered this fleeting calm.  It was quick and jagged and most definitely a desperate cry.  There was then the unmistakable sound of shattering glass and Stuart feared for the worst; someone might have damaged his truck.  He questioned why he didn’t have a gun on the premises—sure, he had some powerful narcotics available, easily strong enough to pacify the wildest man, but unless he could jam them down the perpetrators throat (or insert them anally) they would be of little use.  He grabbed a carbon-fiber cane from the shelf and marched down the center aisle, past glossy cold remedies and pastel colored allergy medications, and buttoned up his white lab coat before twisting the deadbolt.

    He swung the door open.  He stepped out into the darkness.  Mainstreet was deserted, quiet, and barren.  No one was around.  Just a few feet away, his jacked-up Ford F-150 pickup truck, as red as a Tylenol eZ tab, was thankfully untouched.  He breathed a sigh of relief… until noticing a handprint of blood that streaked across his storefront window.

 

What should Stuart do?

Should he call the police? 

Should he investigate further on his own? 

The End of Love

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So, this past week I finished the draft of Love is not free.  The price is 99 cents.  I feel pretty good about it, but it’s always so hard to tell when I’m still so close to it.  A couple of days ago I found some of my old (never published) novels written more than ten years ago.  The pretension was as obvious as the many typos, but at the time I remember feeling quite confident about them.  I guess this is a good thing–I wouldn’t want to look back and realize that my best work is destined to be long behind me.  But right now, Love is not free… needs to sit in a dark room for a few months before I can come back to it.  I’ll return to Can Stuart Henry Zhang Save the World? and focus on that until it’s ready to be published.  It seems quite certain that Stuart will be ready some time next year, hopefully not too late in the year–Daniel and I started working on that more than two years ago and thought it would be ready in under 12 months.  And I’d hope that Love is not free… should also be ready sometime in 2014.

Anyhow, it’s nice to have two drafts complete and ready to be revised over the next months/years.  The revision process is far less demanding, and I’ve already got a good start on Stuart.  So, all looks good for next year.

 

The End of the Summer

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The summer is coming to an end, and I was hoping to have completed my draft for Love is not free.  The price is 99 cents.  Well, I’m close.  I probably just about another 10 000 words left, so perhaps a couple of weeks now that I’m returning to work.  I think I’m pretty happy with it, but it’s really hard to tell until I’ve had some time to let it sit.  I wanted it to read like a dark comedy and I think it’s turned out like I hoped.  It’s definitely much lighter than my last couple solo offerings.  It’s about a pair of estranged brothers, one of whom is socially inept and yet programs an app that finds people their perfect mate with 99.97% accuracy.  From there, the book pretty much writes itself.

But, once that draft is done, I’ll return to Can Stuart Henry Zhang Save the World? and hope to have that complete by early 2014.  Like I’ve said before, that will be the last choose-your-own-adventure that Daniel and I will be able to work on for some time.  They’ve been fun to write, but they sure take up a lot of time and with Daniel so busy now with two young daughters, they’ve haven’t been the collaborations they once were, which was what made them so fun.

Well, the clouds are returning and depositing rain to the dry and wanting ground here.  Here comes the wet season…

2014

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I remember that I used to be pretty good at keeping to a plan.  I bought advertising for the release of The Redemption of Mr. Sturlubok some two months before we even finished the first draft.  But, that was life without dependents.  Although I’m really making an effort to write each day, especially in the summer, I’m learning that it’s pretty much impossible to plan too far ahead in terms of when I’ll be done with any piece of writing.  I used to think that Can Stuart Henry Zhang Save the World? would be complete in 2012, then for sure in 2013.  Well, I’ve already stated that won’t happen.  Not that I couldn’t–in fact, that’s the problem with self-publishing.  It’s too easy.  It’s just a matter of clicking a button and it’s done.  The difficult part is doing this when you know you’re happy with where it’s taken you.  And that’s pretty much impossible without stepping back a little.  When I step back and look at Can Stuart Henry Zhang Save the World? (which Daniel is currently reading over but likely won’t be able to aide with any major revisions) I realize there is a lot of work to do.  I’m still hopeful on 2014, but I’ve been wrong many times before.  And to think that we had originally thought of having a sequel to The Adventures of Whatley Tupper out by now.   If that ever happens, it won’t be for a long time.  Who knows what form the entire book publishing industry will be in at that point.

Love is not free.  The price is 99 cents. has been progressing pretty well, although it seems like it will be longer than I expected.  Still won’t be an epic by any means, but compared to my last two solo outings, it will considerably more.  That said, The Year We Finally Solved Everything was originally twice the length it ended up as being, and I’m still not 100% it was a wise idea to hack it down so much.  Goes back to the whole idea of never really knowing when a piece of writing is finalized.  I don’t think I’ll finish the draft of Love is not free… this summer, but surely this year.  Think then that I’ll go back and forth between it and Stuart.  So, hopefully both will be out in 2014.  That year still sounds futuristic to me.  I have to remind myself that it’s not long at all.

Oh, and here’s the link to my interview with The Cascade, the University of the Fraser Valley’s student newspaper.