Ohlen's Arrow is Now Published!

It's done. Ohlen's Arrow is now officially published, available initially in Kindle Edition at Amazon.com. I have also made a free preview edition in PDF format available for download here.

Ohlen's Arrow is ready for final assembly

The cover design and world map have been delivered to me from the designer, Kristie McClure, who did a fantastic job. The text has been proofread I don't know how many times, and a block of ISBNs have been purchased. All that's left is to assemble the final pieces together using Scrivener, produce the various eBooks, and then test them out in the various e-readers.

I'm targeting Amazon Kindle, Barnes & Noble's Nook, and Apple's iTunes bookstore. I don't have specific plans to print Ohlen's Arrow in a dead tree edition, but am open to that once the eBook versions are all online and available for sale.

The self-imposed deadline is to have the book available for sale by June 1st. I'm very excited to see this effort come to fruition! Now, if I can just make enough money to quit my day job and become a full-time writer, life will be golden...

My Feet Are Killing Me

[This is a short story I wrote back in the mid 90'. I have no idea where this came from; no, I wasn't on drugs, in case you're wondering.]


Once upon a time, around noon, a man sat in a chair thinking. The thought he was thinking was that his foot was going to detach itself from his leg, sprout wings just behind the toes, and fly out the open window over near the sofa. He was afraid to get up and close the window for fear the foot would think he was trying something funny and make a run for it. Both his shoes and socks were in the bedroom, so there was no easy solution there, either. What he decided to do was ignore the foot for a few minutes, hoping that it would relax and decide to stay. Then, when the foot wasn't expecting it, he would stand up and pin it to the floor.

This plan wasn't working out so well, however. He couldn't keep from glancing down from behind the newspaper he was pretending to read to look at the foot. This made the foot very suspicious and it simply refused to relax and let its guard down. "Well," the man told himself, "I suppose I can just try to stand up real fast and catch it by surprise. Maybe it won't expect this and my plan will work."

So that is exactly what the man did. He threw the newspaper to his side, leaned forward out of his chair, and stood up as fast as he could. And then promptly fell face first into the coffee table. The foot, unbeknownst to the man, had decided not to sprout wings, but to sprout legs instead, and quickly ran out from underneath him and hid behind the TV. This course of action, you may well have guessed, left the man with only one foot to stand on, hence his hasty and destructive descent into the coffee table.

After regaining his senses, the man quickly realized what had happened. But he was stuck for what to do. If he scrambled over to the TV, the foot might bolt from around the other side and get away. But, if he ignored it, his foot would wait until he wasn't looking and sneak away.

So, thinking he was going to be real smart, he pulled his other foot up real close and whispered a request for help. It agreed, and after sprouting its own pair of legs, the man set it down on the ground. He went around one side of the TV, while his friend-foot snuck around the other.

The man's hand, however, thought this new strategy was unfair, and decided to help its renegade cousin get away. Just as the man was reaching around the back of the TV, his hand detached itself, ran straight up his arm and stuck two of its fingers in his eyes. The rebel foot saw the lucky break and bolted under his legs and jetted across the room, the other foot in hot pursuit.

Meanwhile, the man was scrambling to get his hand out of his face. Just as he was about to swat it out of his eyes, it made a suicide leap across his back, grabbed hold of his ear lobe, swung around, and did a double finger-flick on the side of his nose. Well, the nose didn't like that too well and immediately began shooting boogers at the hand.

Several particularly gooey ones struck, but many more missed completely, landing on the coffee table. The hand, disgusted at the nose's obvious lack of fair play, and despondent over its lack of support from the other hand, decided to end it all and leapt off of the man's shoulder to its death below.

The foot race was in full force by this time, completely oblivious of the hand's demise. Both feet were racing around underneath the kitchen table, gradually slowing down from exhaustion and the pain of stubbing their toes on the cross-supports under the chairs. Having only one remaining hand and no feet, the man crawled on his knees into the dining room to see what the commotion was.

Just then, both of his ear lobes, seeing the perfect opportunity for freedom, sprouted tiny transparent wings and flew up into the air. They swooped around and around, circling higher and higher and then diving straight down, pulling out of it at the last minute, all the while whooping at the top of their lungs in the shear joy of freedom.

The man mistakenly swung his arm up at his airborne ears a little too fast and ended up sending his only remaining hand flying across the room to crash into the side of the toaster. Having their flight of liberty so rudely interrupted, the ears darted over to the hand to see if it was okay.

Both feet were quite tired and sore by this time, and it was just a matter of time before one of them dropped in exhaustion. Still, they continued around and around the base of the table, each intent on being the sole survivor of what they both knew to be a race of death.

The man tried to shout a plea for peace, but all that came out was a mass of garbled gibberish. Apparently, both of his lips were somewhat squeamish at the sight of violence and had taken refuge inside his mouth. When he tried to talk, the noise just made them even more frightened. Not knowing where to go, they took the first route of escape they saw and dove straight down his throat.

His tongue valiantly tried to grab hold of them and pull them back, but it was too slippery to get a good grip and lost them. Down they went towards his stomach, much to the man's consternation. You see, one lip can pass through, but not two. They were quickly wedged in his throat, and couldn't budge.

Feeling quite whoosie at the sad turn of events, the man dropped down on his rear and sharply fainted. Feeling quite abandoned at this time, his brain decided to squeeze down his throat into his abdomen and look for company. His brain had been very lonely, you see, stuck way up in his head with no other organs to talk to. The brain soon bumped into the man's liver and immediately tried to strike up a conversation.

The liver, however, had a sour and cranky personality and quickly told the brain to buzz off. This left the brain feeling somewhat dejected, but it was intent on finding a friend so it wandered a little higher up and began chatting about the weather with the stomach.

Meanwhile, on the outside, the hand that hit the toaster was well enough to sit up, but was in no shape to go anywhere on its own. The ears decided to try and lift the hand and fly it out the window to safety. But the hand was cramped up from its crash and the ears couldn't get ahold of it without crashing their wings together when they tried to take off.

One of them quickly came up with an idea, however. They both agreed and immediately took off, swooping down on the man's head. With a mighty tug, they yanked several of the longer hairs from the back of the man's head. They flew back up to the counter top and began tying the hairs around the hand's thumb.

Grabbing either end of the hairs, the ears could lift the hand up into the air without getting so close to each other that their wings collided. The two ears then started flapping their tiny wings as hard as they could and carried the hand through the air, out the window, and set it down on the grass.

Oddly enough, both feet dropped in exhaustion at the same time, collapsing on each other in a heap. Too tired to fight any longer, they both shook hands and made a truce never to bicker again. The brain, however, just couldn't seem to find a friend. The stomach was too busy trying to get the lips to make up their minds to pay any attention to some organ it had never met before. After trying unsuccessfully to engage the kidneys in a conversation about stock prices, the brain decided to just sit in a corner over near the large intestine, which seemed to be asleep, and pout.

None of the other organs paid any attention to the brain, which only made it want to pout even more. Finally, getting hungry, the brain woke the large intestine and talked it into letting it slip through to the outside world. Once outside, tiny arms and hands popped out of the brain's stem and it began pulling itself along over to the refrigerator for a snack. Nothing looked good, however, so it settled for a couple of cookies lying on the ground underneath the cookie jar.

The lips, by this time, had gotten so sick of each other that they managed to wriggle themselves free and crawl back up out of the sleeping man's throat and rest on his chin. The nose, startled by the reemergence of the lips, who he thought were dead, quickly shot several boogers straight down in shock.

Several struck the bottom lip, knocking him off of his perch and down the man's cheek onto the ground. The other lip got mad and started slapping the side of the nose, shouting obscenities about its mother and her eating habits. This did nothing to improve the nose's mood, and it began twitching and writhing around trying to get a clear shot at the lip.

The lip was too smart for this, though. It knew where to stand and where not to stand, and easily avoided getting hit. The other lip, however, wasn't so lucky. The man restlessly rolled over onto his side and ended up crushing the bottom lip under his shoulder. It died a gruesome, yet quick death.

The eyes were just now recovering from being poked by the rogue hand. Seeing the torment their friend the nose was having to put up with, they quickly began sending streams of tears down on the lip, making it slide down into the nose's line of fire.

Several booger blasts landed solid blows on the lip, spelling its doom. Just as the lip slid down in front of the man's gaping mouth, he inhaled deeply, sucking the lip down his throat and into his waiting stomach. Thrilled at the sudden and pleasant surprise at finally having something to play with, the stomach immediately began working on the poor, luckless upper lip.

Realizing that these were quite senseless things to think, the man shook himself out of his daydream and walked into the kitchen to look for something to eat.

The mechanics of self-publishing a book

I have written Ohlen's Arrow and am finished with all editorial changes. It is now in the final proofreading stage. In fact, I hope to only have one more go-through to catch any errant spelling or grammatical errors before I call the text golden.

The cover design has been approved and is now in the hands of the illustrator for the final proof. She'll next work on the world map that appears in the front of the book.

Meanwhile, I have purchased 10 ISBNs, enough to handle each publication channel. Initially, I intend to offer the book on Amazon, Barnes & Noble, and Apple iTunes book store. There are no plans to print the book in a dead-tree edition, but I'm not opposed to that happening down the road.

I am also currently working on creating the book's tagline and blurb. For such short pieces of text, they are remarkably difficult to create. They say you should never use a big word when a diminutive one will suffice. Well, try summarizing an entire novel in less than 10 words. Better yet, try doing it in a way that makes people want to buy the book while simultaneously not giving away the plot or the surprising twist you gave it at the end. That's a challenge!

My goal remains to have Ohlen's Arrow ready for purchase on-line by June 1st. So far I think that deadline is still feasible. Stay tuned.

Ohlen's Arrow update: Get artistic!

This is just a quick update on where things stand on Ohlen's Arrow. I've engaged the services of an artist/illustrator to design the cover art for the book. We're starting with four rough concept sketches and will then narrow it down to one choice and move forward from there.

Meanwhile, I'm going through yet another round of editing and proofreading. The editing part involves some slight modifications to when details are released about the main character's life history. I'm spreading it out instead of so much given to the reader up front (thanks Mike Sullivan for that advice).

My goal is to have the book production-ready by June 1st. Wish me luck.

First-person or third-person?

I've read numerous tweets and blog posts lately about the trend of perspective within fantasy and sci-fi. Apparently, third-person perspective has fallen out of favor. Editors think its boring and so last year. But what if your story involves many different characters and it's confusing to jump back and forth into their heads like a squirrel with ADHD?

For an experiment, I took the opening scene from my book, Ohlen's Arrow, and rewrote it from the first-person perspective of the main character. Read the original third-person version here:

Thwip.

The arrow sank deep into the creature’s throat and it fell backward in a spray of blood, twitching and clawing at the wooden shaft protruding from its severed windpipe. The man lowered his bow and crouched down into the bushes in case there were others. He remained still but watched and listened intently to see if he had stumbled upon a lone cru’gan or if it had been part of a patrol. At first the only sound was the wet gurgling coming from the cru’gan’s throat. Now it lay still and silent and the only thing the man could hear was the evening breeze through the pine trees.

After several minutes passed he retrieved his arrow and quickly searched the body, then rolled it under a pile of briars out of sight. He kicked the creature’s blood into the dust and pine needles to hide the evidence of the encounter, then moved silently away into the forest amidst the diminishing evening light.

Now, here's a first-person version I wrote:

Thwip.

My arrow sank deep into the cru’gan’s throat and it fell backward in a spray of blood. It’s filthy hands frantically clawed at the wooden shaft protruding from its severed windpipe. I lowered my bow and crouched down into the bushes in case there were others. I held still while I watched and listened intently to see if it was alone or if I had stumbled upon a larger a patrol. For several seconds the only sound I heard was the wet gurgling coming from its throat. Now it lay still and silent and the only thing I could hear was the evening breeze through the pine trees.

I waited several minutes, then retrieved my arrow and quickly searched the body before rolling it under a pile of briars out of sight. I kicked its blood into the dust and pine needles to hide the evidence of the encounter, then moved silently away into the forest under cover of the diminishing evening light.

Which do you prefer?

The editing phase of a story's lifecycle

In the life-cycle of Ohlen's Arrow, I'm in the editing phase. I've hired an editor and we've been going through revisions one chapter at a time. I gave her the story as Word files, one per chapter. She then returns those Word files with track-changes turned on. I open up the Word file and place it next to my Scrivener screen. I review each suggested edit and make the changes in Scrivener as I go along.

At this point very few of the edits involve plot items, although I did rework a conversation my lead character has with two friends at the beginning of the story. This helps establish some key plot elements that didn't quite fit later on in the story.

The bulk of this round of editing has been spent on sentence structure, grammar, and word choices. It's like a musician being told how to hold their instrument. What I love about this phase of the "I'm writing a novel" process is it makes the finished product better. It also makes me a better writer.