What's next on the list. . . .

I'm sure that anyone reading this blog is tired of me talking about The Green Door but I have one more thing to post about it before I move on - The Green Door is now available on Amazon.com for $0.99!

Now, on to other things. I have already started my second short story, Dust and Bones. The title is tentative. It may end up just being called Bones. I don't know yet. What's interesting, and I think I wrote about this before, is that The Pumpkin Princess, which will be the second book in my Secret Doorway Tales series, actually started out as a short story idea. It became The Green Door as I thought more about what I wanted to happen in the story and then it became a series.

My process in creative writing has always been to come up with an idea, write a basic outline and then write from beginning to end. Sometimes I'll write an ending first but usually my brain works in a linear fashion when I'm writing. I have little bits of ideas and fragments I'll add in along the way.

But Dust and Bones is the first story that has come to me in fragments and impressions. Dust and Bones is being written now and I'm actually starting from the middle and working backwards and forwards to the end. One day I'll write from the middle (a game that is being played for money) and go towards the end and the next day I'll start near the middle and go to the beginning. I have never written my stories this way before and I am surprised by this new process.

So, I'm spinning this new story and I'm thinking that the first draft will be done near the end of the week. I'm hoping to have Dust and Bones completely finished and ready for publication by the week after next. Designing the book cover for this short story will be interesting, if not downright troublesome. I downloaded a free vector image for the cover and it took an entire day to be able to port it into my old version of Illustrator - Illustrator 9. I had to download a free trial of Illustrator CS5, open it in that version, save it for an older version then open it in my copy. It was a headache, all for this illustration and I don't even know if it will work out in the end. We'll see.

The good thing I got out of that farce was a free Illustrator like program that looks powerful - Inkscape! I downloaded it in hopes that it would open the vector image. it didn't until I opened it and re-saved it in a trial copy of Illustrator but I'm glad I have it. I plan to play around with it this week.

After that, I'll get started working on The Pumpkin Princess.

The Green Door

The Green Door, the first in the Secret Doorway Tales series is nearly ready for publication. It will be formatted and published to Amazon and Smashwords by then. I'm uploading an "in progress" version to Scribd tomorrow. By Sunday you'll find the necessary links to this ebook to the right. Sorry about the disarray but I'm scatterbrained. I have a million things going right now but I just can't wait to release this book!

Be aware that since the Scribd version isn't the final draft, that there may be very minor changes between this version and the one you'll find on Amazon and Smashwords this weekend.

I love the concept of previewing future work. Both Jim Butcher and George R.R. Martin do this and so I have taken up the practice with my new book series.

This is my first book series and I'm excited. Hopefully you enjoy reading it as much as I enjoyed writing it. And it is free!

Almost done!

Holy of holies!! I have finished The Green Door!

Actually, I have two more run-throughs this week (I promised myself I'd do this. I want to make sure it is truly ready for live action by next weekend) but all I really have to do now is work on the book cover, which I will start tomorrow. The heavy lifting, however, is done!

It's exciting because this is my first novelette - or my first something-bigger-than-a short-story-or-short-poetry- collection that I will publish. It's the first in a trilogy. After The Green Door I'll be writing another short story. Then it's on to the next in the trilogy, The Pumpkin Princess.

Side note: When I first started writing The Green Door, I assumed it would be a novella. As it turns out, it's a novelette. Perhaps the next two will have a large enough word count to be counted as novellas. We'll see.

What is interesting about the evolution of this trilogy is that I have always wanted to write a story about a pumpkin princess. My little niece inspired this story. In fact, the story has been brewing in my mind for a number of years now but only as a short story. It never occurred to me to make it the middle part of a trilogy. It's fascinating how an idea can brew and change in your mind over the years. The Green Door really is the first part of The Pumpkin Princess but I found it necessary to introduce readers to my little protagonist first, hence, The Green Door.

Hopefully if things go well, The Green Door will be out of the gate by next Sunday.