Hunting Season is making Progress

Been hard at work on Hunting Season. It is a follow up to The Home. It is set in a different part of the country than The Home. While never mentioned in the book, The Home is set in central Florida. Hunting Season is set in Middle Georgia. It follows a High School Senior through the opening days of the Zombie Apocalypse through his eyes. I am still working on the cover for it. It will be considerably longer than The Home.

What I am looking for is a picture of a tree stand at night. It is a view looking up at it and through the trees at the moon. Anyone have a picture like that hanging around and want it as a book cover, I would be grateful.

Antietam Sunrise name change to Sharpsburg Sunrise

Well the more I wrote on the prequel, the less happy I was with the name. Then it struck me, the South referred to the battle as Sharpsburg since that was the town that the battle took place near. Antietam was the creek that ran behind the Union lines to the east of Sharpsburg. If I am writing an alternative history book about the South winning that battle, maybe I should call it by their preferred name. So Sharpsburg Sunrise it is.

I have pinned down the graphics that I want to use down to 2. I currently have permission to use this one:

I like this picture but it is awful small. You can find the original here at: http://memirr.com/Living%20History%20images/AntietamPhotos/cornfield.jpg. Patti Ballard is the owner and she has been very gracious (not to mention rather speedy) in giving me permission.

I have my eyes set on a second picture but I am waiting to hear back from the owner. I like it a little better as it has the sun rising above the cornfield. Honestly, the first one is probably more accurate as the accounts I keep reading has the battlefield near the 40 acre cornfield bathed in smoke.

Anyway, I will see if Patti is able to find a higher resolution image for me. Thanks Patti!

Mucking About with Graphics and Other Things

I started fooling around with some graphics to give a small facelift to the blog. Here is the first pass:

Let me know what you think.

I also have three works in progress at the moment.

#1 The Last Airship from Khartoum - The follow up to CSS Appomattox covers the story of Devareaux and his squadron as they assist in the evacuation of Khartoum during the siege by the Mahdist army. This is complete and is undergoing editing. I have it in the hands of some trusty beta readers who are giving me some great feedback. Thanks guys!

#2 Hunting Season - This is another short story set in the same Zombie Apocalypse as The Home. This one takes place at the start of the troubles in a small town in middle Georgia. It is currently at about 3,000 words long and is about 1/4 of the way done. This is one of my NaNoWriMo projects.

#3 Antietam Sunrise - This is the prequel to CSS Appomattox. Follow the journey of a young Confederate officer through the Maryland Campaign and its climax at the Battle of Antietam. In the Alternate Universe of CSS Appomattox, the Confederacy won the Battle of Antietam to secure support from Great Britain and France. This is Thomas Devareaux's father's experiences during that battle. This is my second NaNoWriMo project. Currently it is sitting at 3500 words. It is probably only 1/4 of the way through.

Got some promotion

I got a really nice bump from the fine folks at Rukia Publishing. They posted a nice promo on the Rukia Publishing site. Stop on by and check it out. Nice folks.

NanoWriMo Starts in November!

While part of Camp NaNoWriMo I got more writing done than the previous six months. This was due to the energy and fun that my "cabin" generated. I wanted to hit my writing goals and was disappointed when I could not contribute as I wanted to.

It was great fun over the summer. I am now looking forward to the November edition. I plan of finishing the second draft of Last Airship From Khartoum and get some work done on a novella as well.

Sign up and join the fun at http://nanowrimo.org/

Dueling Covers

The sequel to the CSS Appomattox is coming along. I have nearly finished the first draft. So I spent some time on the cover. I had a friend work on it (Thanks Marshall Thomas). Anyway, Thomas Devareaux and crew are assigned to assist the British in the troubles they are having in the Sudan. Here are the covers that I have so far for the new novel.

So which one do you like best? Anything I should change?

Next Projects

The Last Airship to Khartoum is winding down. I should have the first draft completed by month end. Then it is off to editing land.

So while that is happening, I was going to pick up on two old projects and work on them.

The first is Eliazar's Promise. This project is about an archeology team that finds an unexpected scroll in a cave near Hebron. The archeology team is attacked by terrorists and must find a way to escape and reveal their findings to the world. What's in the scroll? A testament of one of Abraham's followers - Eliazar.

The other is a modern take of a guy just trying to make his commute to work on a Thursday morning. But instead of a normal day, he finds himself in the middle of a terrorist attack.

So which story interests you more? I am willing to push forward with the one you are more interested in.