Author: jspeet

Yep, still here. Busy, as is usual. While I’ve been working mostly on Explorer, I took a few days off to write a cookbook. Yes, you read that right, a cookbook! Having walked the Camino de Santiago in the Spring of 2018 in support of my wife, I decided to do the entire thing on my own this upcoming summer. Being mostly sugar-free vegan (I call myself a reluctant vegan – I do eat fish on occasion, but only cold-water varieties) I had enough difficulties last trip, so I decided to come up with a cook-book that I could make meals using locally obtained food. Just wrapped up the first draft this morning, and hope to have it out in the next couple of weeks.  As Curtis asked in Santa Clause 2, “Did you eat your vegetables?”

If interested in a free e-copy, let me know and I’ll send you one when it’s ready. I’ll be putting it on Amazon in both print and e-book version for as cheap as I possibly can (just because).

Finally, after a couple of hectic months fighting fraud, I’m back in the writing saddle (which is actually quite funny, considering the scene I just wrote about in Openings was about saddles).

I got kind of stuck on Explorer, so decided to vent my writings on Openings. I’ve actually got that plot more developed in my mind, so I figured I might as well get it out. Over 12K words so far (put in about 3500 yesterday, but had to backtrack and delete a bunch – that whole continuity issue, so only advanced about 2800 words). For those that don’t know, putting in 1000 words in a day is what most professional authors do (Steven King apparently does about 2000 words a day, while Hemingway only wrote 500-1000). So, yeah, pumpin’ it!

I know I should be working on Explorer, particularly for those of you interested in the future adventures of Lewis and Clark, but, for some reason, I got a bee under my bonnet and decided to work a bit on Openings tonight. Either way, writing got done 🙂

So, along with Explorer, I’m working on two other books right now. The first is the backstory, which I’m calling Openings. It’s about when Dr. Bowman opens up the gate for the first time (the prologue in Surveyor was actually the first draft of Openings). Great plot line and really sets up for Surveyor and the YA novel I’m writing.

I’ve never written a YA (Young Adult) novel, but I’ve read enough. Those of you whom have read Heinlein’s stuff, like Tunnel in the Sky, Have Space Suit, Will Travel or other similar works, or Harry Turtledove’s Crosstime series will have read some YA novels. They’re enjoyable, and I wanted to try and spread the whole multiverse concept to young readers, especially those in the 13-17 age range (although I’m sure many adult readers will enjoy it). One little tidbit – Meri is 13!

My goal is to write books that are at least 80,000 words (for frame of reference, Surveyor was 102K and Trekker was almost 83K. Today, Explorer passed the 28K mark. I hope to have over 30K written before the weekend is up (but, first, Christmas lights!).

Today I received an email from IngramSpark, with the subject being “Happy Book Birthday!” This means Trekker is now available to all book resellers. So, if you want a copy of Trekker and you would prefer not to send money to Amazon, you can trek down to your local bookstore (avoid all Smilodons) and ask them to order it for you.

For those of you who are local, please visit Mike and Sue of The Sequel on Enumclaw’s Cole Street, or Evelyn of A Good Book on Sumner’s Main Street. Both stores are great, the owners are amazing, and it helps support a local business.  If you’re really lucky, and you visit A Good Book, you might meet local author and publisher Mark Teppo (I’ll probably do a blog post on him in the near future).

In case those of you who actually read my books are interested, my third book is about 1/4 of the way done. I’ve decided to up my game and put books out at a faster pace, so don’t expect to wait another year for Explorer to hit the market (I’m already discussing covers with my cover artist).

Of course, since writing is mostly limited to evenings and weekends, that means little to no TV*.

 

 

 

 

 

*That’s a joke – we don’t have television reception of any sort, and limited bandwidth on our satellite internet