The Creative Process

So I'm puttering around the kitchen, having just made the missus her lunch. Thoughts of where I'm going with the new book are foremost in my mind as I work on the ramifications of what I did to this world in my prior alternate history novel.

I find some leftover grilled hotdogs and elect to make them into my lunch. I grab two and toss them on the cutting board I just used to make the wife's lunch.

I grab a paper plate and stuff it in the reactor. *beep-beep* 30 seconds cooktime. Start.

Turn around as it starts to count down . . . and grab the hotdogs that are still on the cutting board, sitting on the counter... *sigh*

Warping History

SPOILER ALERT!

If you have not read Sherpa Holmes, do not read this blog post!

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So in Sherpa Holmes, I ripped the western half of the United States from the hands of the budding nation and gave it back to the Indians.

Now I'm firing up my research for Sherpa II. And the Great War, the War to End All Wars, World War One, whatever you wish to call it, is underway.

What have the two to do with each other? One might certainly wonder! Well, after the petroleum rush in Pennsylvania and Ohio petered out, it moved on to Texas, Oklahoma, and California. All three of those regions are now firmly within the boundaries of the Indian Nation. *GASP* What to do, what to do...

Will I have to accelerate petroleum production in the Middle East? Will that move up the timeline of the Balfour Declaration, and as such the Mandate for Palestine? How will the Arabs and Zionists react as I make this happen earlier? Will it affect the Indian Nation at all?

Will Shalik's rule of the Indian Nation, and her part in its creation affect India? Will they throw off the British rule and declare their own independency at an earlier date due to her success in the Americas?

*sigh* I tossed a pebble into the time-stream in Sherpa Holmes. Now I have to deal with the widening ripples of that effect. Oh, bother.

New book!

Everyone likes FREE stuff, right? Sure we do. Free is wicked awesome! So skip on down to Smashwords and get a FREE copy of my new SIXTH book, Things that Go Bump in the Night.

Yon 'fore the now, the then was a'here.
The beasties, an' ghoulies, an' ghosties ran freer.
Amok an' away, we hid from the day.
Runnin' at night, we doled out our fright.
Twas not of our own strife; we were spoken to life.
I be one o' the beasties what goes bump in the night!

Are our nightmares things of fantasy and imagination? Or does that which we dream of become real? What happens to a small girl when her nightmares do become real?

A short single.

Sure is dusty in here!

Oh yeah. I have a blog. Well, I don't call it my MUCH NEGLECTED blog for naught. It has been since September of 2013 since I took this thing out and fiddled with it.

Since then I have finished and published my first full length novel, Sherpa Holmes. To date she has earned 3 reviews, all 5 stars. Quoting the most recent, she wrote: One of those books where you are sorry that it ends...

And if you're waiting for an excuse to get your own Kindle copy, it will be on sale for only 99 cents starting April 16, 2014!

I've been working on what thus far is a short story called Things that Go Bump in the Night. My wife told me I needed to quit with the short stories, since they don't make me any money. Well, this one definitely won't, since I am planning on releasing it as a free single when it publishes.

Why? she wanted to know. Well, I spent almost 3 years researching, writing, and rewriting Sherpa Holmes. I was steeped in the language, history, and heritage of the Wild West, as well as that of the Navajo Indians (along with several other tribes) during that entire time. I had my characters with me at all times, even to the point of having conversations with them as I sat in my truck. (My coworkers still think I'm nuts.) (No, belay that. They're positive I'm nuts.)

So when it came time to move on to the next novel, I was still enmeshed in Sherpa's time frame and region. My cultures that I was now writing about kept sounding the same as those in Sherpa's time. So I needed something to cleanse my mental palate, as it were. Thus, Things became my mental cracker.

Where do I go from here? Finish Things, trot her off to my Alpha readers, then rewrite, back to the Alphas, rewrite again, then off to my editors. Will I begin to work on something else within that time frame? I hope so. Sherpa Holmes was fun, and I have begun to flesh out Sherpa II, but it is time to play with some different characters. I may even go with a totally different genre. I've been working in the fantasy genre for so long, I believe it's time to go with some military scifi.

Who knows? It all boils down to, "What if?"