Notes from the Edge 6

I decided to write about what I have written. It might surprise you to know what I have written and published, and what I have written that remains unpublished at this time and may always remain unpublished…

Outrunners: I would love to start out by saying I am done with the first Earth’s Survivors Outrunners book, but I am not. It has about 50 pages to go, maybe. I say maybe because I have cut the story down twice and it has still ballooned, right now about 111,000 words. With 50 pages left to proof, and the ending as yet unwritten, only suggested with a few hundred words, I am unsure where it may end up. I do know that it will finish up some time tomorrow, I will do a read through, and then it will go to the editor when she is ready for it. I would say some time toward the end of the month it should be ready. I will give it away for a weekend and then it will settle into its place. That will determine whether there will ever be another Outrunners book. But I am sure there will be though. It is a really good story.

The story-line (No spoiler here) will take us back to March and the beginnings of the whole thing. We will not be back with our familiar friends, Mike, Candace, Patty, Ronnie, Bob and the rest of the eight though. Instead we will be somewhere else with other characters. By the end of the book we will have come up to current series time, IE: to the same place that Earth’s Survivors Book Three ends, and a little past that. So that when Earth’s Survivors Book Four comes out this fall the Outrunner team will be in place and known by you, whether you read both book series or not. That is because you could get by with the description and brief introduction of some of the characters from the Outrunners book at the end of Earth’s Survivors Book Three. You could pick enough up through the balance of book four to get an idea of who they are.

So, the upthrust is, you do not have to buy one to understand the other. There are other books planned where they will bleed together. There are two that I can think of where they will be in the same time line exactly. But, with very few exceptions the characters are their own. The exceptions are Mike, Candace, Ronnie, Patty, Bob, Janet, Lilly, Annie and Tim, Tom and occasionally a few other minor characters from the Earth’s Survivors main series showing up in the Outrunners books. This is because the Outrunners work for the Nation. They are part of the Nation. They protect the nation, and so there will be some back and forth. Of course Donita will be in both series as she plans to kill the nation and bring them into her own armies, and she will be in constant conflict with Bear and the other Outrunners.

The main focus of the Outrunners series will be the battle with the dead, the other living factions, and keeping the Nation resupplied. These are meant to be fast paced action based stories. There are six more Outrunners Books written at this time.

As you can imagine, Bear, Cammy, Beth, Billy, Pearl* and Donita will be in the main Earth’s Survivors series as well. I believe I explained that well. At least I hope I did not confuse you. *As yet you have not met Pearl. She is from the UK and is introduced in the first Outrunners book near the end. I can’t say much more about the circumstances, except Pearl is a permanent character in the Outrunners series.

America The Dead: America The Dead is the third leg of the Earth’s Survivors series. It is written. Six books worth of it. America The Dead was available for a very short time but was never actually sold. This is a series that occupies the same timeline as Earth’s Survivors, and they do eventually meet one another, but a very long way into the series for both series of book. There is approximately a half million words written for this series. I have not firmly decided whether the series will ever be released.

Rebecca Monet: The Rebecca Monet novels follow a young woman as she works her way up the corporate ladder in the Television News business. There are six books written (Seven or eight outlined), and two more outlined for this series. My next project, in just a few weeks, when I am am finished with the first Earth’s survivors Outrunners book, will be finishing Mexico, the first novel in the series. Then I may as well finish Hurricane (Done but not yet published), the second Rebecca Monet novel, because a few months back I spent quite a bit of time working on first one then the other. They are ready to be written. There are four other books written, Alone – Kat and Pat- Rebecca, and a second Billy Jingo novel to cap the series.

Rebecca, the lead character from These novels, is in the Earth’s Survivors series. Her name is changed, but she gives herself away.

Candace, Patty and Mike, main Earth’s Survivors Characters, all have cameos in the Rebecca Monet books, which are set in the before times.

Earth’s Survivors: Book four will be out in the fall of this year. Book four, and the books that follow, will concentrate more heavily on the community and the lives of the people as they rebuild their world. Yes, there will be dead, wars, action, but the main overall focus will be on the people and their lives in the valley and wherever else they may find themselves.

Other Projects:

Eve: Eve is a small two book series that really focuses on the struggles of a small party as they try to stay alive in the changed world. They are in the same circumstance as Earth’s Survivors, except some ten years in the future when we come to know them. These two books are intense people books. They never cross lines with the Nation unless there is some point in the future that I have not yet written.

Yeshua: One of the things time alone will do for you is cause you to examine your self. Your motivations. What you truly believe in. I did that. I found there was a great deal of myself that was not worth keeping. I found that I had fairly strong beliefs. I also found that I don’t believe everything I am told. So, I sat out to be able to understand enough Greek, Latin, and Chaldea to be able to read the actual biblical translations and decide for myself what they said. Easy. That is sarcasm, Sheldon.

Ten years later I had a book. My own translation of the bible. It took a very long time to write. It deals only with the New testament and nothing else. I do not know if I will ever publish it. I do know that before I do three ministers I know will read it. I do not want to be mistaken when it comes to God.

Short Stories: Dozens and Dozens of them. I will publish them in volumes. There are currently 24 books of writing that has to be transcribed. That is not counting Lyrics, Poetry, etc.

Space Travel: I have a series of short stories that lead to a space novel. It’s there, someday I’ll finish it. (Star Dancer)

Dreamer’s Worlds: Three more books in the Dreamer’s Worlds series are written. I currently have no plans to publish them (Dreamer’s World Books Published: Dreamer’s Worlds (2 book series) Kindle Edition) .

The Editor: Yes. There is an editor now. She is very good. She has the right to put her name in the books as she edits, I don’t know that she will do that though. You may never hear about her again except as you read you should find no mistakes in the books. I had hoped for this solution a few months back, waited, but it did not happen. It actually has happened now. She is working on Earth’s Survivors One right now and will go down the line, including new books as I finish them. I will not bug her, hurry her, I will just be grateful for her.

And, the last word on writing: I will attempt to answer the why of the writing, or at least the most often asked question.

“Why, if you have written all of these novels, don’t you simply publish them?”

A few reasons. The first direct answer, is that all of them are written, but they are written in longhand. In composition notebooks. At the time it worked for me. But the problem now is to get them from that long hand and into a word processor format that can be published.

I have tried a few ways of doing this. I thought the easiest would be Speech to Text. (You can’t hear me but I am laughing). (I am laughing hard). Let’s say that if the speech to text software improves at some point in the near future I will try it again, but thus far my experience has been poor to say the least. (I think you can find more on that in one of my blogs)

Second, more involved answer: They are complete novels. Start to finish, but, as I re-write them into the word processor, I jump right back into that story and the story grows. It is a creative process. There is not much I can do to speed it up. I can sit down and write a fresh story in about two weeks start to finish. I mean a 75k to 100k novel. It may not be perfect, but it will be complete, in need only of editing and regular re-writes. Reading my own crappy handwriting, and then typing the story in with revisions, however, takes me about a month. I sometimes think it would be better to just write a whole new book. IE: That is exactly what I did for the first Outrunners Book you will get in a few weeks. There was no Outrunners book that explained the characters origins. I wanted one. Two weeks ago I sat down with the first Outrunners Mission book to write it, instead I wrote the new story that introduces the characters. I was pretty happy with it, but you can see how the time gets spent.

The third thing is, what to write? Should I write only Earth’s Survivors books because there are fans and the books pay the bills? ‘Yes, I tell myself, do that.’ but then there are other books that speak to me. So, I am trying to fairly split these books up. Most authors offer one or two books a year, I have given three Earth’s Survivors books this year, and you will have the Outrunners book, which is also an Earth’s Survivors book, and you will get one more Earth’s Survivors book before the year is out, so, five. And, as long as there is a demand from you for those books I will write them. In fact, if there were no demand I would write them. That is how I wrote the first twenty.

There were two guys who gathered to listen to my stories about the end of the world. Two guys. That was it. Before them there was only me. I had to like it, get into it, to write it. In a creative writing class I took, there were about six people that showed up on a regular basis to class. We read each other stories, short stories only, and encouraged each other to write.

My point is, I think some people who read books, think writers sit down and write for them. And, in a sense we obviously do. If you didn’t like what we write we would be back working our old jobs, mine would be a carpenter, singer/song writer, in a minute. But, we don’t really do that at all. Our first fan is us. I have to like what I write or it will not come to me. I think a blog I wrote a week or so ago gets into the creative process and how it works for me. It really comes to a miracle. I have no real way of knowing how the process works. I only know it does work. And I know the first fan is me. Then maybe a few people I trust, and it goes outward from there. And then, once the process has come to fruition, I try to write for you, try to write what I believe you want to read, but it comes out as it comes out.

So, that is the longer explanation. Because, when I sit down to write, what comes to me comes. Like sitting down with the first Outrunners book and then writing a whole new novel. Just stick with me though, I will write it all out, and I will listen.

Other Things: IE, A little humor

Rain and New York: The rain in New York this year has been ridiculous. It seems that the only time it isn’t raining is when the humidity is 98% and the temp is 89 to 99 and it’s getting ready to rain, and you can’t move without melting. Arrgg. Oh, and when it’s drizzling, which I believe is rain, but I was warned is not called rain, but drizzle, so therefore may not actually be rain. Hmm. And…

Six billion cable channels: I have noticed that although I have six billion cable channels there is nothing at all to watch. Unless I like cooking shows, selling shows, reality shows, basketball baseball football Girlfriend/Wives shows, guys with 70’s hairdos selling music from the, surprise, 70’s. Um sitcoms from the 60’s 70’s or 80’s, oh and 90’s too. Um, tractor pulling, Bear hunting, NASCAR racing, witch hunting, alligator wrestling, speedboat racing, and some stuff that I pause and go What the Hell is that, as I’m going by. Doctor Phil, Price is Right, Jerry Springer, Katie, Holy God, the list just goes on and on.

So, I said to myself, why can’t I find something out of all of that to watch? But the answer is clear, IDHTC Envy. IDHTC Envy is a very real thing. It is propagated by the cable network of course, because it pays them to do it. IDHTC Envy, (I don’t Have That Channel Envy) is a rough deal. Here’s how it gets me.

I know I don’t get HBO, CINEMAX, ENCORE and a sixty two thousand other channels. Okay. Great. I don’t get them. I’ll just go look at the ones I do get. But, on the way to the channels I do get, I happen by the channels I don’t get, and I see all the really great stuff they have that I don’t get. Never mind I get all the Showtime channels. Sundance. IFC, Free Movies on Demand, The Movie Channel and the LMN movie channel-More about that channel. I mean, how many movies can there be about a guy who screws over a woman and she ends up paying him back? Tracking him down and bringing him to justice. I mean, do all men do these things? Apparently dozens and dozens of them do, because that is all that LMN shows. Oh, and I get the second LMN channel that shows all the other movies like that that the first channel doesn’t have time to show, because, alas, there are only twenty four hours in a day, thank you God.

Where was I? Oh, so, I do get good channels (Excluding that channel and channels I like to think of as the wacko channels. I’ll just shut up about those channels, but we all know they are there). But, I get good channels too. However, every time I go by HBO or Cinemax I tell myself… DON’T LOOK! DON’T LOOK! And I try not to look, but I have to know what channel I’m on as I pass, right? And I see it… It doesn’t matter what, only that it’s something better than what I get on the channels I can watch.

So then I get depressed and dive right in. Torture myself going through all of the channels I don’t get. I click on them anyway. “Click to buy !,” the screen says. I chicken out. I have better uses for my $7.95 I tell myself. But, I have looked. Now I can not go back to the same old same old.

Oh, I will go and watch my sub-standard movie on the channel I get, but all the time my heart is lusting after the movie I saw the description of on the other channel I don’t get. Why, I ask myself? Why Why Why!

So, I decided in the end, I have plenty to watch, I am simply suffering from IDHTC. I take an aspirin and watch Grapes of Wrath for the fifteenth time. I can really feel for the Joad’s, I’m suffering too. If Henry Fonda only knew.

That’s my week here, except the rain, which never seems to stop. I am pretty sure it will though about the time the snow starts flying…

Have a good week…

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