Late-Season Rambling

It's that time of year once more, day is the same as evening is the same as day. Inspiration is hard to come by so I work on gathering my research and plotting out my future tales. The holidays are tough to navigate, as the day job sucks the energy from me and the cold darkness depresses imagination. I have started the first glimmers of an outline for Cloak a bit early as I have found some intriguing research to fuel the trials our protagonists will be put through. And I continue plotting out the comic I have in mind to actually draw one of these years.

I watch and read the precarious situation across the Korean Peninsula with concern and anticipation, or is that anxiety? I can only hope the Kims get what's coming to them, either via more sanctions or their masters in China furtively pulling on that unraveling leash.... Oh and that piece of Wikileaks theater.

It's more and more apparent ebooks are the independent's new modus operandi, so I must get into the mindset for digital content and begin shifting my focus towards them. The Mrs has acquired a NookColor (in addition to her original Nook) and the avenues open to furthering ebook content on the device are astounding. Merging text and visual media will soon be commonplace, leaving big-time publishers in the dust if they don't get on the bandwagon and stop charging ludicrous price points for simple epubs while pooh-poohing multimedia e-reader content.

And one more year piles up under JauntWorld's belt here at Blogger!

First off, Happy Halloween! You may notice the reformatted JauntWorld blog. I needed to freshen it up a bit, as even I was getting tired of the same design. So, a little redecoration project after three years.

Next up, as of August, I've rebranded EJK Publications into jaunt publications! Along with a nifty new logo, jaunt publications identifies JauntWorld as the flagship series in my CV, as well as other titles and series I will be publishing in the future. When I self-published Jaunt with Lulu back in 2007, I was a novice at this, and didn't foresee the potential stigma associating my publishing company name with my own given name. Now this rectifies the issue, allowing me to brand everything under an umbrella as well as associating with other authors in the future, directly or indirectly. 

What other projects are in the works under jaunt publications? Well, for starters, I've had a long love of comics, and have a small stable of characters I created, starting back in 1985, at my disposal to populate a comic title. I've been designing this universe and when the time's right, you'll see art, old and new, for this project.

Of course Maya and her cohorts are still in my sights, I just don't know when I'll zip over to that Solar System anytime soon.

I have been gathering reference for Cloak, maybe starting an outline sometime next year. I have several set pieces I'd like to include and the best ways to put my heroes and villains through the wringer. Should be fun.

Ether Third Quarter 2010 Update

All right, everyone, sorry for being gone for so long. Summer's flown by fast—I finished the first draft of Ether almost two months ago! So, while the missus has been reading the first bits as my official First Reader (when I can pull her away from her Nook) I've been finetuning the Ether book package, all the presentation details and such. It's work of course—I'm my own worst critic and nothing satisfies me for long. But I labor with love and purpose, nonetheless.

Meanwhile, I'm putting together an ebook companion to Ether that'll star Doctor Richard de Lis himself in a little side adventure that takes place towards the end of Ether, while our heroes are otherwise occupied. It'll be a bridge between Ether and the last book in the JauntWorld trilogy, called (for now) Cloak. A second ebook starring Agent Greg Mason before the action of Ether is also in the works, when I'm not busy writing a dozen other things.

Here's a little picture of the cover (again, for now) to whet your appetite:

Enjoy.

Ether Second Quarter 2010 Update: Coming Into Focus

The rough draft is coming along nicely, with the final sequential scene finished. However, it's not done yet, as I still have a gap or two to fill, scenes to rewrite, edit or beef-up and a few minor, minor details to put into place. But the entirety of the book is set: beginning, almost all the middle and the ending. The toughest part is putting on my editor's cap and reading with a jaded eye, cutting out the bits that don't quite work or just go nowhere.

Having a complete rough draft is exciting and the next best thing to actually holding the finished product in my hands. I think creating a book must be akin to filming a movie; write a screenplay, film the scenes, edit the best bits in and throw out the chaff.

At the end of a long road, it's good to see the destination coming up over the next hill.

Look Who's Seen The Light

I will admit upfront about being a Russo- and Persiaphile; their histories and cultures are so profoundly different than the Classical Western tradition one can't be helped but be intrigued by every cryptic move either one makes. So it's a bit of a surprise to these eyes to see that President Medvedev, in decidedly non-cryptic terms, spelled out that the Iranian regime of Khatami and his puppet Ahmedinejad are moving closer to possessing a nuclear device.

I suppose the questions are, how much does Russia fear Iran, and what does this mean for US and Russia relations? The Bond-style spy swap last week wasn't exactly a warm handshake, and the typical eastern mode of saving face seems to be more of a pie in the face for Russia after the incident. Does Russia want to invite the Western nations to its corner to show that they'll behave from now on? Maybe a little "Look at us, we're nice guys now?"

One thing's for sure, being a Russia and Iran watcher just became much more interesting.

Further Reading:
'Iran nearing nuclear bombs' Russia warns

The 'unraveling relationship' between Russia and Iran 

A Decade Ago (This Past May)...

I began the first draft of Jaunt. Extrapolating from the (sadly, misplaced or lost) handwritten teleplay "Temporal Retrieve" I scrawled out in 1995, I recreated the first dozen pages of the half-baked idea, fleshing them out into what would become Chapters 1 through 5 of Jaunt. Mixing in dashes of The X-Files for inspiration, I chucked out all the Trek fanfic tendencies I'd picked up and unlocked a new avenue for my writing. Not technically the first novel I've written (I have one and-a-half complete Trek trunk novels hanging around here), it was the first wholly original long-form work of mine. I owe it all to the Pocket Books' Star Trek editors' FAQ, which, in paraphrase, said, "Don't bother submitting a first-time work."

And what would become my own playground, JauntWorld, was born.

Now, an Ether update. Two months later, and I'm nearly done with the first draft. My biggest obstacle is just pulling all the strands together to make the story end right. Ether certainly isn't as unwieldy as Jaunt's first draft, which tipped the scales at 160,000 words, and I think it's somewhere in the neighborhood of 70,000 to 80,000. But I'm still under the hood tinkering with the mechanics.

I'm definitely eager to get this book in the bag!

1928-2010