Got to Hate that Plot of Convenience

From my review of the Puppy Love Film.  Writers, please, just don’t do this:

Save yourself a jaunt down into boredom, and don’t turn this film on. A film done by Hallmark, the company famous for its sappy, predictable, and often times unrealistic plot lines, Puppy Love, does not deviate from the mean. In perhaps the most unrealistic plot line I’ve heard of in 2012, a woman adopts a dog who already belongs to another. That’s right. That’s what a writer like myself calls “a plot of convenience.” What do I mean by this? If you want to get from point A to B in your script or novel, sometimes you force the plot. If I go so far as to call it “a plot of convenience, then I mean it is very unrealistic.

Read the rest of the review. [LINKED CONTENT TO BE IMPORTED.]

Happy Birthday The Age of Merrik

Another year, another birthday (or anniversary) for The Age of Merrik.  September 7th or Novem 7th in The Age of Merrik timeline terms is also the birthday of Merrik of Tyera.  I look forward to writing more in the series and the prequel that serves as background for the Sword Masters.  The sequel should be a challenge to weave everyone together, especially what I have planned for Sethane (Kingdom of Malik).  Perhaps a great question is, if you are already Malik’s General, what is to stop you from taking his head and becoming the new king?

Fan Favorites:

Miriam and John have always been a fan favorite.  Areya and Miriam will be in this one, plus the new addition, Miriam and John’s child.

First Review on Amazon

The Age of Merrik: The Anointing (Book Cover)
The Age of Merrik: The Anointing (Book Cover)

I just looked at my The Age of Merrik: The Anointing page on Amazon and saw I got a review, 4/5 stars.  I am very happy that someone not only read my book, but reviewed it.

It was done back on April 16, 2012, but I had not noticed it before.  I have no idea why it did not appear sooner, but I am still happy to see it.

Now that the bar is over, it’s been an uphill battle to get back to the books – my books – but a lot of feedback from readers and friends lately have been really encouraging.

I know, I published the book back in 2007, and it has been 5 years, but if you’ve never been to law school, I don’t think you can understand how much it consumes your life.  But in the end, it’s worth it.  Especially if you can get a job.  Hard to do in this economy, but working on it.  In the meantime, back to books!

And for those of you who would like to support my book by buying it (thank you!), please do so if possible via the direct link as I believe I get more royalties with this link.

[IMAGE HERE]

Help Promote The Age of Merrik. Put this code on your webpage, blog, livejournal, or myspace:

<a href="http://bookstore.iuniverse.com/Products/SKU-000043292/The-Age-of-Merrik.aspx" target="_blank"><img src="https://i.imgur.com/bH5w2Rq.png" title="source: imgur.com" / border="0" alt="Buy The Age of Merrik"></a>

Thanks again everyone for your support!

Getting Back To It All

I’ve done a lot of outlining, notes, and summaries these past two weeks, mostly centering on Rise on the New Masters and the Phoenix (title TBA) novel.  Of all books, I have made the most progress on my Phoenix (title TBA) novel.  I always knew the general idea of the book, and the main characters.  I even have a few drawings of the dragons.  Yes, I said drawings.  I’m not good at many things as I would like to be in the drawing world, but I think I did pretty good on the dragons.

So, I get to the ultimate question, if you have gods in the novel, how do you make those gods bland bleed?  How do you make then vulnerable to an enemy?  You could have their army vs the enemy, but that’s not what I want here.  I want the actual god in its weakness.  So, I’ve got a lot to flesh out on that, but I am making progress.

I’ve been writing a few scenes for this book, not in chronological order.  The best one I wrote this week was for a character who had one last moment with her mother before another slit the mother’s throat.  It was quite the best of the scenes this week.  She was just reacquainted with her mother, whom she did not believe for a long time was in fact her mother.  Finally, that truth was revealed only to have the mother ripped away from her.

Big simplification, but I don’t want to give away spoilers so early.

Surviving Isaac

For a Florida Resident. having a hurricane is nothing new. Probably many of us would not get worried until it is at least a Category 3 or 4, but if you are facing a hurricane, you should be prepared.  Have supplies, food and water that does not require refrigeration or cooking, batteries, flashlights, weather emergency radios, and all of the over the counter medicines or prescriptions you may take and any important documents close at hand.

In my hometown, we narrowly escaped huge amounts of flooding and a tornado.  I’m grateful things have been okay here, but my thoughts go out to those who were affected.

Some good advice:

Have some common sense.  Don’t go “surfing” in the flooded street*.  If you don’t really have to go out while everything is flooded, don’t.

* Actually happened.  Not joking.

Picking Up the Web Dust (Mature Content)

ood morning loyal fans and readers.

Another end to a long week approaches.  I’ve done a little more planning on some writing projects and revisited my romance book.  Yes, yes, you all out there know how much I hate them.  But, surely a romance novel that I write will be much better than those awful ones I read last weekend.  I have the perfect title for it, but I don’t feel like sharing.  Keeping it under wraps for now.

Meanwhile, this HIDEOUS piece of software known as Microsoft Office 2010 Starter Edition is really giving me some problems.  No, make that a lot of problems.  I don’t think it can handle dual install with prior (and better) Office Suites.  I am serious thinking about taking it off, but have no idea if I can put it back on in case I actually find a need for it.

Yep, not really seeing a need right now.

Sometimes I just want to scream, “Microsoft, keep your crap off my computer!”  I know I have their OS, but I don’t think that means I need to get flooded with the rest of their stuff.

Please, no Apple fanboy comments.  Apple just isn’t in my budget.  PCs are in my price range.

It’s That Time Again

It’s December and that means exams. Thankfully, this might be my last December of exams ever. What a milestone.

I’m sure a couple of you readers out there are wondering, “Where have you been?” I’ve been pretty much antisocial the last month, diving into the books even more than usual and finishing up a writing assignment. It’s at this point I could be jealous of well-established writers that don’t even have to write to make money and can take whatever time they want to turn our their books. I could be but I’m not.

I’m still working on various writing projects, but they are taking a big backseat to everything else in my life. I do work on scenes here and there, and I am coming up with a very awesome finale to Shinigami #1.

Expect to see more in about 2 weeks when I may or may not move the blog to my own server. My new host for the auxiliary sites seems to be reliable – aside from that wiki hack. Spam bots are pretty tough now. But I think I’ve found some lock out methods for mediawiki.