Nano Win and Christmas Celebration!

So I decided I needed something to celebrate the completion of #nanowrimo, and with Christmas coming up, I thought this was a nice opportunity for another give-away.

That's right. FREE for Christmas - a sale right up to and including Christmas day. This is so that when you get the kindle or nook under the tree from Santa, you will be able to grab a novel to put straight on it.

And for the magic FREE code... drum roll... It is WE28F

Just head to Smashwords now and grab your FREE copy of Long Days in Paradise!

And so it is complete...

Well, November is drawing to a close and so is #nanowrimo for another year. And this was a good one. I started with an odd premise and an opening death scene, some basic ideas about current society, and came up with a somewhat lurid cover. I wrote notes and plans. I researched vampires a little and the 18th century a lot, more ancient myth even more. I created a world, a parallel earth that was somewhat unlike our own.... All in October, of course.

Then it was a matter of hitting the ground running for November, which worked very well, and the 50,000 words were typed by the 8th. That was easier than I thought, but by that stage the main supporting character, and perhaps the best in the entire novel which was essentially based around her, had not long appeared on the stage. Sure, she had met the main character, picked her up as a very wet hitch-hiker, taken her to New York... Only to walk in on an armed robbery and have this unknown woman take a bullet for her. And it goes downhill from there to the line:

“What would make me most comfortable would be to not have a vampire in my apartment.”

It was clear there was more novel to come. Another 43k in fact, which took until the 14th to complete, with a little epilogue work on the 15th. This has meant that there was plenty of time to do a quick first edit to make the story more consistent - there are always new ideas as you go and you might as well do those while they are fresh. It's a time for filling in the blanks. This is what they call a frangle in this universe. Silvia really did have three pairs of spare underwear. It also means that the release time-line looks a lot better than last year's rebel nano which took until March for the first draft and is still not finished editing.

Hopefully this means Vampire Planet will see an early release in 2012 as one of the more unusual alien invasion stories of the hour. I will leave with the last line of the novel...

“Welcome to Vampire Planet, my friends,” he then said with a smile.

Vampire Planet

Yes. It's true. November will be NaNoWriMo and it will be the beginning of the end for vampire legends everywhere. It's time to end the human propaganda once and for all.

The great cleansing of the 18th century saw the annihilation of a race in more than one universe. Now two vastly different cultures are set to clash between realities previously unknown.

The People of the Blood have lived in a world of peace for almost three centuries, the curse of humanity almost forgotten, the territories of earth now controlled by the the great houses that remain. And yet the terror returns, Sylvia's love slaughtered before her very eyes. Humans. They are a race thought long to have been conquered and absorbed into the blood, a people who had forever been at war with both the blood and themselves. Now a threat comes from a place never expected, and Silvia must face a world where such humans number in the billions in the hope she might save the earth from invasion and ultimate destruction.

And all Emily wants to do is get home, have a good nights sleep, and get to work in the morning. Having to deal with a vampire in her apartment was just never part of the plan.

Be afraid, be very afraid. The fabric of the universe has a hole in it, and you don't want to know what is on the other side...

The Wall...

The wall is something you hit when editing three novels at once. It is made of very hard brick I think. The main rewrite of Haven Earth is done and the editing and polishing has begun. It's about this time that you really start to hate everything you read and need a break...

So... enter the National Novel Writing Month. Yes. What the heck. I need a break, I need to write for a change, and NaNo is a good excuse. I still hope to have Haven Earth out for Christmas, although that will be a stretch. Should still have at least the first of the three ready.

Before that we have... Vampire Planet. That's right, it will be NaNo vampires like few have ever seen. Emily can point all the crosses and throw all the holy water she wants at these guys, but it's not going to help, and sticking a piece of wood through their chest is just going to really annoy these guys. Sylvia has just seen her lover killed by humans, and she is out for blood - human blood.

Be afraid, be very afraid, and be prepared for Vampire quotes starting November 1st 2011 on a blog near you... And on twitter, facebook and google+. That's right, nowhere will be safe.

Coming soon - Haven Earth

The Haven Earth series is slated for release Christmas 2011.

Welcome to the 27th century.

In the 22nd century humanity knows there is only one way to save the surface of a suffering earth, and that is to abandon it completely. Those who remain do so in a primitive state, living at one with their world.

Five hundred years later such things are long forgotten, many of the surface dwellers again developing toward industrialized civilization. Meanwhile the people of the commonwealth view earth as a pristine haven where citizens save a lifetime to venture at least once to a luxury surface resort.

A new battle for the preservation of the surface looms, and the lives of millions, perhaps even billions, are now at stake.

For a hairdresser from the 21st century all it means is a world without towels and toilet paper - or sunblock. As a redhead that just might be an issue. On top of that she is not even altogether sure who she really is.

Cloning, genetic engineering, space stations, people with spears, surfing, outdoor barbecues on Catalina, sharks, pristine resorts in Bermuda, giant space lasers... oh yes, it has them all. Stay tuned. Watch this space. These are the events of just 14 days that will determine the fate of humanity and the lives of billions.

Free Novel September!

Long Days in Paradise is FREE! for the month of September. Just use the Code: YE63E. This is due to a celebration of the fact that the series is now complete and the second and third novels are even more awesome than the first. I even recently received a phone call from a reader of the third novel she was so excited about it. Yes, that's right, someone actually rang me to say just how cool it was. Okay, so it was my sister, but she probably reads about ten times more books than I do, so I was suitably impressed. I think you will be too.

And wait, there's more. I'll even throw in a excerpt from The Face of Destiny, the third shards novel, since you went to the trouble of reading this far. See, it was worth it after all...

Soon the passages were lit by patches and slices of reds and yellows issuing from cracks in the huge and occasionally creaking timber panels above, and there were dusty expanses he could peek at through gaps he passed from time to time. Okay, so he had no idea where he was going, but he was making good time.

Until the cockroach.

At least Jorden assumed it was a cockroach. It had the right shape and it scuttled in much the same way – though sluggishly compared to one of Tasmania. It was just slightly larger. Well, actually it was a lot larger. It was the size of a large dog, although not the same shape. It was lower to the ground and wider and more... cockroach shaped.

It came closer, Jorden backing. He wasn't sure what a giant cockroach was likely to eat, but the size of its serrated mouth parts didn't fill him with any confidence about it being a strict vegetarian. It was almost as bad as facing a polythorn back in Maeruna, yet he doubted he had the advantage of it being repelled by his anger. At the moment he was feeling fear and he hoped it wasn't attracted by that.

Then another shape slid from the shadows and there was a flash of metal in the shards of light. Jorden jumped aside as the metal point of a weapon caught the cockroach on its armoured thorax. He saw it flinch and back; then scuttle away.

Jorden stared and blinked. He had been saved by girl in a bright yellow dress carrying a very large sewing needle. It was over half as long as she was, with a point and eye. Definitely a giant needle. He could only continue to stare. She did much the same for a moment, but Jorden noticed there was something different about her. She was not the same as others he had seen in the House.

He looked carefully. “You don't have wings,” he found himself saying. Normally something like that wouldn't be out of the ordinary, but here...

The Megan Series...

Yes. Due to popular demand there will (likely) be more books in the Megan series, possibly some time in 2012 if all goes well (and it actually gets written). The main core of this series will be three reasonably self contained books covering the fate of the Megan on Zarrellen. There is also a prequel novel which may be released at the appropriate juncture (when I get around to a rewrite), as well as potentially further novels in the series set in a later period of time.

Now, I think I put enough qualifiers in there. Michael green certainly wants to get off of Zarrellen before he is completely cooked by radiation, but getting off might not be that easy. He still has work to do before getting off, and even when he does leave I have this feeling he'll be back. Things certainly look to be heading downhill for Tao-Lani and the girls, and the fate of a new race is at stake. The question remains as to whether the universe is big enough for both megan and humanity.

But that is another story...