A Merry Crystal Christmas

Overall, this has not been a terribly productive day.  Meant to do more work on the sequel to Crystal Eyes, ended up accomplishing almost nothing - apart from making a Christmas card from Crystal!

Yes, this is how I spent a good chunk of my day, faffing about with an art program called ArtRage!

It's meant to be in a kind of anime style, not sure I pulled it off...
And if you're wondering about the burning building...well it makes sense if you've read the book (still available, hint hint) 

Anyway, my dad's coming to stay tomorrow so I doubt I'll get much more writing done before the new year.
Here's to a more productive 2013!

Oh, and have a Merry Christmas!

(also posted at my other blog of randomness - A Thousand Words)

So...what next?

So, yeah, life changing stuff in the past week – whether it’s for the better or the worse remains to be seen!

I can say that right at this moment in time, I’m a lot happier than I was. If that’s still the case months from now then I’ll call it a success.

Basically, I’ve abandoned the world of full-time employment in a bid, perhaps foolhardy, of making it as a writer (and possibly occasional furniture restorer, landlord and maybe French guesthouse owner – I’m nothing if not filled with wild ideas and terribly indecisive).

It’s not quite as mad as it sounds. Over the last four years there has been a certain amount of…let’s say loss, in my life.  Though it in no way makes up for what isn’t there anymore, it has left me with enough money in the bank to chase my dream and try to make a go of this whole writing business, much to the relief of my former colleagues, I suspect, who were probably getting rightly pissed off with the grouchy, misanthropic bear in their midst.  

So here I am, wondering if I can make a living from my books.  And also this website and my other blog (A Thousand Words) – those of you who’ve visited my sites before may have noticed that adverts have suddenly appeared, the result of a money-induced panic attack.  The timing is not a coincidence.

Now, I’m not saying you have to click on them or anything (suggesting that might even be against the terms and conditions), nor am I saying that you have to buy my book (Crystal Eyes, a sci-fi adventure, available at all good eBook retailers – ahem), but I certainly wouldn’t object if you did.

Passive aggressive marketing, it’s the way forward!

Time to stop blathering on and do some actual writing – I’m working on the sequel to Crystal Eyes and doing final polishing on a fantasy novel called Heroes Wanted, which should hopefully appear in the new year.

Until next time,

Allen.

P.S. Thanks to everyone who gave me feedback about the covers (the blog post below this one) - number 1, with the red background, emerged as a clear winner.

Cover Story

Evening all!
How the very devil are you?  Glad to hear it/that's a shame (delete as applicable).

On to business.  I was hoping to be able to do a poll kind of thing here but if there's a way to include it on this website then the method is eluding me.
I have an almost finished fantasy novel, currently titled Heroes Wanted, that should be ready for release in the next month or two and I need a cover for it.  To help me decide between the four concepts I've come up with in Adobe Photoshop Elements 11 (PC/Mac) , I thought I'd canvas the opinion of the interwebs.
So please, take a butcher's at these and tell me what you think.  Obviously, these aren't finished but I want to get a feel for which one's best before I really try to polish them up.

On Writing and Talking

Wotcha all, it's been a while!
I kinda suck at this blog writing nonsense, I'm afraid, but I have been spurred into action by the approach of the month of November and the annual NaNoWriMo (National Novel Writing Month) event.

Once again I intend to hurl myself into literary battle with obstinate word counts and recalcitrant plots.  I'm even less well prepared than normal this year, which is to say I've done no preparation at all.  This could end badly.

Saying all that, there's a chance that the earth will have opened up and swallowed me whole before then, or at least that I will have wished this to be the case - in my position as an accomplished author (hey, stop laughing!), I will be giving a talk in Cardiff Central Library on self publishing an eBook on Saturday the 27th of October.  Should you be at all interested in seeing me make a pillock of myself then you should totall check it out (and there's always the chance that I might accidentally impart useful information, though this seems unlikely).  Should be interesting if nothing else.

Anyway, I'm still trying to finish up Heroes Wanted (last year's NaNo novel - gods above I'm slow at this) and I've made a start on a sequel to Crystal Eyes (which is still available at all good eBook retailers - hint hint).

Public Service Announcement!

Just a quick blog to let people know that a new version of Crystal Eyes is now available on Kindle and via the Smashwords site.  Versions on Nook, iTunes and any other site will take longer to appear, depending on mysterious and invisible approval processes over which I have no control!
Hopefully it should automatically update when the new version becomes available.

No major changes, I just fixed a few of the errors that people had pointed out - big thanks to Kent Peterson and Craig P. Kelly for that (I've not fixed everything yet, just the ones that were easiest to find - I suspect there are some that will remain until time itself comes to an end).
There will still be some in there, and if you find them I would be thrilled if you let me know what they are and where they could be found.  You can do this either on the Forum Section, the Contact Me page or via Twitter 
If you do let me know about any issues then you'll get an acknowledgement in the dedications section of the next version to be released!  Fame and fortune will then be yours*, what more could you ask for? 

*Fame and fortune not guaranteed