Red Wolf Blogs

  Okay, so last week I was taking some time off from editing The Dragon of Doughton Park , my laptop was acting up, I’d promised myself I would catch up on my reading, and I shared a review of Red Tash’s Troll or Derby. (BTW, I’m not the only Tash fan. Hits on my blog doubled last week after the review.) Then, on Sunday, I left my Kindle unattended at the laundromat. Of course it was gone when I returned.   So much for plans.   Losing the Kindle was a bit of a setback. I had a bunch of editing notes on it for Dragon which can’t be recovered, and I was in the middle of reading Richelle Mead’s The Golden Lily . A new Kindle is being shipped as we speak, so at least I’ll be able to re-load all the books I’ve purchased. (One of those thank-god features from Amazon.) But I’ve had to ( gasp) resort to reading paper for the entire week.   And I returned to editing Dragon.   Since David had already returned the first sixteen chapters to me, printed, double-spaced, and red marks

    First of all, I want to announce that, in preparation for the release of its sequel, The Draculata Nest ebook for Kindle is available this Saturday and Sunday (June 23,24) for FREE DOWNLOAD. Click on the link to get your free copy. You can have it read and be ready to buy The Dragon of Doughton Park when it comes out in a few weeks. The Draculata Nest   So, besides waiting for my editing team and cover artists to complete their assignments for Dragon, what have I been doing? Stephen King suggests an author take some time off from writing/editing his work after sending out the draft to readers, and I’m trying to take his advice to heart. While my editing team pours over the first draft of The Dragon of Doughton Park , I am doing my best to refrain from touching it in any way until all the feedback is in. I’m being assisted in that effort by my laptop, which has suddenly begun overheating and shutting down. My know-it-all-friend David (told you he really does know a lot) is hel

   First of all, I’m pleased to announce that my first novel, The Draculata Nest , is featured in First 5 Chapters, Volume 4 . First 5 Chapters is a wonderful concept, wherein the first five chapters from six novels of a particular genre by promising new authors (that’s me!) are put together into a single work. For nothing, or next to nothing, you can download the ebook, preview the novels, and decide if they are worth reading. Right now it’s available on Lulu. Follow the link… First 5 Chapters, Volume 4    , and on Amazon... First 5 Chapters on Amazon Soon it will be available on Barnes & Noble, as well.    So, enough of that. Let’s get down to the subject of this week’s blog, my editing team. Editing of the first draft of The Dragon of Doughton Park is in full swing, and while my friends pour over the approximately 110k words I gave them, it only seems fair that I pay homage these three dedicated individuals.   First on the list is Caren, my ex-wife. Yeah, I know wha

   I’m very excited to be able to say that I finished writing the final chapter of my next novel, The Dragon of Doughton Park , this week. I’m really happy with how it ended, and I can’t wait to see how folks react to what’s going on with Clifford Crane, the Red Wolf of Prophecy. It’s taken me about eight months to get to this point, but there’s still some work to do before Dragon can be published. Now comes the editing process.    My Facebook friend, Karen Dales, a professional editor and author of the not-half-bad Chosen Chronicles (I’ll throw in a brief plug for her books here, but that’s all. This blog is not about her; it’s about me!), has convinced me through a number of messages, Facebook postings, and blogs, that every book should be professionally edited. It would be pointless for me to argue with her about that, not only because she’s a woman, but because she’s right. I’m a voracious reader, and in my experience, nothing kills an otherwise great story than a poorly e

   For this week’s blog, I thought I’d provide a little background on the character readers of The Draculata Nest seemed to be most fond of, Nicole. I have to admit, she’s my favorite character, too. She’s so down-to-earth and real to me, the kind of person I like to have as a friend. Following is an excerpt from the soon-to-be-published Dragon of Doughton Park , which illustrates my point… “Wait. Hold on, Nicole, just calm down. I’m on my way home, and if you want to talk, let’s sit down and talk. I… I’m more ready now. Um, you want to meet somewhere, get something to eat?” “I don’t know. How close are you?” “Pretty close. Maybe five or ten minutes?” “Just come on home, then. I need to pee.” “Okay. I’ll hurry.” Chuckling, he closed off the link. Nicole was standing by her car when he pulled into the parking lot. She wandered over to his truck as he cut the engine. He couldn’t resist the urge to tease her, so he made a pretense of cleaning the trash out the cab, slowly.