7729

That's how many words I wrote yesterday.  7,729.  Let that mull in your brain for a minute.  That's a really good sized chapter by itself, but no, I added that to an existing 5000+ words for a grand total of 13,005 words, and I'm thinking of adding more this morning.

This is all for the first chapter of the sequel. A new first chapter.  Those of you who have stuck with me through this know that on the eve of publication of the last book I did the same thing, added a whole new prologue and chapter one, so this is old territory for me.

It's a big chapter in more ways than just wordcount, however.  It takes place (mostly) in ancient Egypt.  It's a Hokharty based chapter and it establishes a lot of backstory, metaphysics and groundwork for the whole sequel, and the whole chapter.  It's stuff that I had floating around in notes, but somehow, it was just better to tell it in a story of betrayal, death and carnage between two ancient Egyptian vampires than just having Lucy explain it to Nephys, or vice versa.  It has Hokharty, a mummy, a royal embalmer and attendants, Hokharty's most trusted servant, and hey, even a couple of Egyptian gods thrown in!  One is the enigmatic and stonelike Anubis we've met before, the other is Sekhmet, lion-headed goddess of revenge that comes off as a snarky anthro.  All that and Miles, Sky and Nephys make a cameo appearance at the end.

It's insane.  And long.  Yep, it's a genuine Hewitt production.

And I'm going to be putting it up here.  No guarantees, but hopefully by this monday it will be available to download here, FREE.  It will be pretty rough, so no snarking on my spellings, but I hope you will enjoy it.

Flying. Zombies.

Writer's block is principally about motivation and discipline, not a lack of ideas.  I've heard of plenty of writers who can't get motivated, but I've never known one who would give you a blank stare if you asked them what they were working on.   The problem is not a lack of ideas.  They usually have at least a dozen projects going simultaneously.  That's the problem.    The ideas poor out of the walls like leaky plumbing and flood up the room to your neck.  Which ones to give precious access to your limited time and mental energy?  You work on the ones that won't leave you alone.  The ones that pour out the cracks you can ignore for now. The ones that run up your nose and shout "Me! Me! Me!" you have to deal with or they'll drown you.

I've been working on the sequel to Limbo's Child and this idea only happened last night, but it's been running up my nose so hard I had to sneeze it out.

So I wrote up a piece of flash fiction, just to set the characters, setting and ideas for now.  It's happy for the moment and I can come back to it later.

What's it about?

Flying. Zombies.

No joke.  It's called Risen and it's here, on Google Docs.  It's short and a little rough but fun.  Check it out.  Let me know what you think.

Blog shutting down

I hate to do this but the blog will be effectively shutting down over the summer.  I have writing to do on the book and more importantly we will be re-launching the website with a new domain name and all new graphics. (To tie in with the release of the sequel!) None of the old content will get lost and there will be plenty of new graphics as well. 

Thanks for all the support!

J.

Another five star...

Ok, now my ego is getting involved, which is bad, but I got another good review, and I do love sharing them.  Here's just a snippet but be sure to read the whole thing here.

Limbo's Child has vivid imagery, a relatable setting, and characters that are easy to love - and several that are just as easy to hate at the same time. It's well-paced and gripping, though the chapter lengths (and the fact that each chapter is a change in scene) are perfect for a break where you don't have a lot of time, but want some solid entertainment. My favorite parts of the book are the underlying dark humor surrounding so much of the content, and the touching scenes of difficult decisions and forced choices.

Thanks again to the reviewer and remember, the sequel is coming out this Fall.  All the characters you love and all the ones you love to hate will be back.

J.

Scrapple.

I was tickled by this addition to the book's Shelfari page.

The book takes place in and around the environs of Southeast Pennsylvania. The specific places are mentioned are Chester, Harrisburg, Ephrata and Germantown. All of the places are based on real life locations. The vampire's den, "Rivenden" is based on the famous 18th C. Manor in Germantown called Clivenden. The author lived in the area for twelve years and accurately describes the climate and locations, right down to Scrapple.

Ah Scrapple.  The taste of authenticity.  Love it. And thanks to whoever updated the page.

J.

OVER 9000! (Almost)

8824.  That was the final tally.

Never in my wildest dreams did I ever think we'd have that many downloads.  For a time, we were even number 2 on the top 100 contemporary fantasy fiction free downloads on Amazon, and thirty-seven on the overall top 100 free downloads list.

Ya gotta hope that those people will help spread the world.  If I can't get another 30-40 reviews out of that many downloads...I don't what I'll have to do.

Thanks to all those that helped spread the word about this free promotion.  We will have another just before the release of the second book.

Thanks again everybody,

J.

Free on Kindle!

Today, tomorrow and Monday, the book is free on Kindle. 

Check it out:
http://www.amazon.com/dp/B005XHABAO