It's April, After All That.

All That being six weeks of high, high heating bills and 106 plus inches of snow... but as they say in Vermont: God put it there; God'll take it away. The snow's gone. Temperature's rising. Don’t even have many April showers to contend with; a few wispy clouds are drifting by this morning.

Connections is done. Put aside. Ready to publish. 93100 words. I’d value any thoughts about the description I plan to use:

Everyone has connections they take for granted, and others of which they are unaware.

Beckie's training as a nineteen year-old apprentice in Ian Jamse’s mercenary team emphasizes marksmanship, hand-to-hand combat and most importantly, teamwork to protect the team, the client and civilians, in that order. But after  a summer saving London, it’s time to start her sophomore year at Miami.

Piero fell under Goldfarb’s blackmail easily; sex and money are powerful motivators. However, winning the Peruvian Presidential election seems within his reach when he recalls the videos that Goldfarb controls. Videos documenting the conspiracy to pervert the course of justice both he and his chief opponent engaged in years ago would cement his victory or his defeat.
Throwing his blackmail back at Goldfarb, he threatens the loss of their smuggling revenue. So threatened, Goldfarb loses control, and attacks Ian’s team, starting with Amy Rose, Beckie’s young friend.

To save Amy, to keep the team safe, Beckie must put her wants on hold. It’s one helluva one-semester course. Pass-fail means live-die.

Connections is the third in the Mercenaries series, a YA/NA thriller recommended for 15 and up.

I’m cleaning up the cast page and the other things (updating About the Author, for example) so I plan to go live across the board this weekend, including POD at CreateSpace, though that will require approval of the proof, so will follow by a week or so… If I don’t screw something up!

On the fourth and fifth books, my first reader has pointed out holes, nay, chasms to either fill or bridge over. Fortunately, fewer in the next one, Coda?, but some of the ones in Served Cold reflect back into Coda? since together they cover a continuous roughly ten month period. While Coda? completes its arc, it also segues into Served Cold with no delay.
I had thought that Served Cold would finish the series, but the characters are unwilling to be set aside so easily. As I sit here in my comfy chair, three characters are pushing two different stories at me. It will be interesting to see how they see their lives progressing. The parts they are willing to share, at least!

Comments are welcome, as usual.

Hello, Saturday

If you follow my twitter, you'll know that I started NaNaWriMo really well, 5400 words in three days. Unfortunately, the next three days were pretty sucky; not even 1000 words combined. Can you say catch-up?

Fortunately, the tile laying is finally complete (pictures later) and yesterday and today--so far--I've put over 7500 words in the file; I'm at just over 14000 words total, which is only a thousand behind!

However, as I tweeted last night (or early today, I guess, to be accurate), I've come to the end of what my pre-planning covered; my characters are now staring into a very dark place, and they haven't figured out how to use their headlamps (figuratively), so I'm not sure exactly what they'll see once they recover from not one, but two important... That might be too much of a spoiler. No matter, they seem important to me; have to see what readers think.

Coda (working title) is an action story, and so far, I have too much exposition, I'm sure. But that's okay for the first draft, if I can bring out the garden shears and hedge trimmer when needed.

Monday, we crawl up the stairs (Kona is allegedly the only international airport that still uses portable stairways to debark/embark passengers) for the trip back home. Via LAX. Hopefully we won't encounter a tragedy similar to the one last week. Lots of work to do back home, too, so this has been fun, if tiring.

Time to add more words to today's total. Comments always welcome.

I Pulled the Trigger Today.

No, this isn’t a gun control rant.

Freedom Does Matter should be live at Amazon, Smashwords and Kobo as you read this. I have the paper version in process at CreateSpace, but due to proofing and shipping, that will be longer.

Now, on to complete the third Mercenaries book, Background Check, which I’m thinking of renaming Love, Consequences, Love, or Unintended Consequences, or something I’ve not yet considered.

Finally, to prepare for NaNoWriMo, I’ve been researching the story after BC; named Coda. I feel pretty confident in that name sticking, and hope to get more than half of it done in November.

Update October 5: Added the link for Kobo. I expect the paperback version to be available next month, due to my schedule.