Dragon Lake Books

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frozbie

Back to work?

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I’ve been in the fortunate position this summer of being able to stop looking for work, to spend more time with my family and also work on my next novel.

I knew I only had a limited time, but am now wondering if that time needs to come to and end sooner than expected.

I had two phone calls yesterday, both asking if I was interested in contracts. One was only a short job – a couple of days working for an organisation to modify an application I developed. The other role could go up until March next year. There’s no guarantee I would get that role if I went for it, but I’m also very aware that there is no guarantee another role will become available.

If I start work in the next week or so, it will take me longer to finish the sequel to Fallen Warriors. That might not be a bad thing. I have been wondering if I need more time for research.

I’ll need to make a decision today whether to apply for the second role or not…

All that we can achieve

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I was pulled up short this morning. I’ve continued reading past the two books of Samuel and am now half way through the first book of Kings.

The last few chapters have been quite a slog, king after king who did evil in the eyes of the Lord, each one failing to learn from the mistakes of those who went before them. Israel divided in two and for a time it seems like the new nations of Israel and Judah are being led by leaders who are as evil as each other.

Then I read this: “As for the other events of Baasha’s reign, what he did and his achievements…” 1 Kings 16 v 5

I generally consider achievements to be a positive. I have 100 goals and as I make progress towards achieving them I feel good about that. Yet if I gained the whole world and lost my soul…

All we can achieve may be worth recording in a book some day, may be worth people remembering, but if those achievements are side by side with a legacy of disobedience to God, of a life spent following whatever evil our hearts find to do, then what ultimately was the point?

What if none of it was fiction?

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I published last Sunday’s post knowing that a good many people consider Genesis to be a work of fiction. I don’t. I believe it all happened as recorded, witnessed by the one doing the creating – God.

There are other portions of the bible I’m less sure of. I think that most people believe that Jesus was comfortable sharing made up stories, parables we call them about shepherds and muggings and lost coins and farmers. There is the book of Job which I suspect most people dismiss simply because it starts in a place no human observer has ever been – Heaven.

The Psalms are simply songs, there are a few books that simply contain words of wisdom: Proverbs, The Song of Songs, and potentially one of the most depressing books of all: Ecclesseasties… So, neither fiction, nor history. Perhaps you could even class them as the first Dummies Guides To… Well, The Song of Songs would be the first Dummies Guide to Sex. I really should re-read that…

There are a lot of books of prophecy in the Bible. Kind of hard to classify that using the Dewey method. Non-Fiction that hasn’t happened yet? Alternative Future History? Actually, that might be exactly the right classification as the impression given throughout the Bible is that whatever the blessing promised through the prophecy, it can be lost if we insist on rebelling against God and whatever destruction is warned against could potentially be avoided if we seek our creator, turn from evil, start showing love and kindness to those around us, especially the poor and the weak.

Back to the original question though. What if none of the Bible was fiction?

Genesis and Job share one common factor, they both begin from God’s perspective. Recorded outside of human experience. It shouldn’t really surprise us that the God who is so involved throughout the rest of the Bible would share a little of events outside of our experience, especially since the entire direction of our history seems to involve God trying to lead us back to a place where he can walk and talk with us as he did in Eden.

I wonder sometimes if even Jesus, when he told those parables, was actually using illustrations he’d witnessed. It’s not hard to imagine him turning real events into generalised stories in order to make a point.

Regardless, the Bible remains the most powerful book available to us today. Are you reading it?

Going backwards

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Well, yesterday was a bit of a disaster writing wise. I’d been going so well, 3,000 words a day on the Fallen Warriors sequel for a whole week and then – bamm! 789 words. Not only that, but I’ve decided I need to delete 300 words from another section.

On the plus side, I think that loss of 300 words allows me to do something that will be much better in terms of plot, making the story more interesting. I’m going to try and write some more today (Saturday) so I may yet get closer to my target. I’d hoped to be at 25,000 words by yesterday and I’m still 2,000 short.

So what actually happened? Why did I fail to hit my word count goal?

I did what I promised myself I would not do, I spent time on admin in the morning and got caught up in that, putting off writing until I knew I was going to struggle to hit my goal. Then when I started writing, I felt under such pressure that it took me longer than it should have to write anything.

Yet, I’ve been putting off the admin all week and I really needed to do some advertising. I called some more book shops and while I didn’t get any sales yet from those calls, I also had a followup from a previous contact which is looking promising.

I’m not going to spend all day writing to try and catch up. It’s the weekend and I’m in one of the most beautiful villages in the world on Regatta day. I’ve got kids to look after, ice-creams to buy and water to avoid falling into…

Refusing to Rush

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I confess that I am impatient. I’ve been wanting to order new business cards for over a year, but have prioritised completing Fallen Warriors, marketing Fallen Warriors and recently writing the sequel.

When I decided yesterday to have a go at a new design for my author business cards, I wanted to order them straight away. (I felt a bit of pressure as there was a “33% off” offer from the printer I was planning to use…)

I was happy with the front image, but I knew the text on the back wasn’t working. Posting the front and back images yesterday was useful. I got helpful feedback which I’ve tried to listen to.

I had no-one suggest a different front, which is encouraging. The latest version of the back is below:

I had tried Tempus Sans font on the previous version–which I use on the cover of Fallen Warriors–but have now changed that to Antonio.

Thinking about what I’m trying to do with this card, I want to primarily use it as a marketing tool, something I can give to people I meet to advertise my novels. It tells them where they can buy or order, from selected bookshops (only four so far, but I need to keep working to expand that) and online.

Also, currently I’m giving away a short story to anyone who signs up to my mailing list, but it would make sense to offer samples of both novels since Book One of The Great Scottish Land Grab and Episode One of Fallen Warriors are both available for free already online. I can bundle the opening chapters and the short story into one sampler and it means that whether someone is interested in either novel, they can try it out in exchange for signing up to my mailing list.

I wondered if white as a background was too sparse and so have added a photo.

I’m going to hold off ordering new cards until next week. If you’ve any more feedback for me, do let me know.

An author business card

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I’ve had two different author business cards over the last few years and haven’t been happy with either of them.

I didn’t like the cover image for book one of The Great Scottish Land Grab on the first one and replaced it with the cover I had designed for the full novel.

The second business card looked great, but the text on the back was confusing and didn’t tell people how to buy the book.

I’ve wanted to design a new card that I could use for both Fallen Warriors and The Great Scottish Land Grab.

This is my current draft, Front:

Back:

Thanks to Mark at http://covervault.com/ for the template I used for the book mock ups!

I’d appreciate any feedback on the designs.

[Update] After just a couple of discussions I’m now wondering if I’m trying to do too much with this card. A business card is normally used to share contact details, but I hope/intend to use this as a marketing/advertising tool, to give out to people I meet who may be interested in reading my novels, not getting in contact…

So, should I include an email address, a phone number even? Or just focus on where people can buy the books?