First Fixing Cupid review & New Samurai book blurb

Book: Samurai Zombie Hunter
Words: 4,067
Time: 11 - 4:15 (minus 1hr)
Mood: manic
Impression: It's unnerving

Yesterday I got my first review for Fixing Cupid. It was a great review minus one thing. Apparently there are small spelling errors in the book. Ouch! I'm sure there can't be more than 10. And although 10 might seem like a lot, out of 40,000 words, it's a pretty good ratio. And generally speaking my thought is: "Do what you can. And when you can, do better." So, when I can, I will do better.

I look forward to Samurai Zombie Hunter being done in few days. I'm not enjoying writing this. It's taken me to places that I didn't want to go. Samurai Zombie Hunter was written to be the first of a series, but I will have to get quite a few sales before I would even consider writing another one of these.

Having said that, I have began to look at book covers of other zombie books. I have to say that the top selling zombie books have pretty weak covers. And it is pretty great to not see a book that obviously combines the samurai and zombie genres together. I don't think that my budget allows for an externally made cover for this one, so I might have to see what I come up with.

I have also done some work on the book's blurb. Here is the first draft. What do you think?

There’s a coming war… Out of the jungles of South American stumbled a priest. No one saw him for who he was, the bringer of death. 10 years later the infection seeped out of the shadows and spread across the globe. And as one bloody attack turned into a thousand and then a million, the World governments crumbled into chaos trying to decide who could live and who must die.

Out of this pre-apocalyptic world emerges Van, a lonely man who was ordinary in all ways but one, he is a samurai. Urged by those who seek to exploit him Van hires out his sword. Countless zombie deaths follow. To the pure Van becomes a folk hero; to the secretly infected Van is the beginning of the war.

Now, with the dark forces of humanity gathering on one side and the incurably diseased growing in scores on the other, civilization teeters on collapse. And Van, hiding a secret that could change the direction of the world, must use it to decide who he has to kill to prevent the coming apocalypse.

I need to decide on a cover

Book: Samurai Zombie Hunter
Words: 4,006
Time: 11 - 4:30 (minus .5hr)
Mood: Good
Impression: It's really coming together

Today's writing was pretty easy. It was one of days that just plugged along. But because I have so much work to do today, I won't write much.

I need to really start looking for zombie book covers that I like and would like to fashion mine off of. I also need to get my promotional info in for a book of the month contest that I'm doing. I also have to update my resume so that I can find some work. And I need to do some data entry for a work assignment a friend gave me.

So with all of that said, I must run.

Digging in the Dirt

Book: Samurai Zombie Hunter
Words: 4,279
Time: Noon - 6pm (Minus 1.5 hrs)
Mood: fine
Impression: Ok, I think

Today I wrote Chapter 9. It was exactly what I thought it would be. I did realize that because I'm so close to finishing I should start thinking about a cover for the book. There is an illustrator named Peter Ortiz who I'm thinking about using. Considering my budget he is expensive so I don't know if I will be able to afford him. He is also hard to get a hold of. I'm not sure why.

It is also amazing what happens when writing something like this book. It seems that when dig around in the graveyard you end up unearthing a few skeletons.

I have to say that I will be glad when this book is done. Writing this book has made me come face to face with why all of my books have the themes loneliness and isolation. The life that I lived was not a necessary life. I think that I could have been tons happier.

It is sad to look back at the events of my life and I see the few things that shaped me into the person that I have become. I now know why I'm so quick to withdraw. I know why I'm attracted to who I'm attracted to. And I know why I'm a writer.

I sometimes wonder if I would've been happier if I was a completely different person. Because if you pull a few small threads on my life and I would have been. There no changing things now, but I wonder who I would have been.

Should I write a Young Adult sci-fi book?

Book: Samurai Zombie Hunter
Words: 4,672
Time: 11- 1:30 & 6:30 - 9pm
Mood: Great
Impression: The chapter is awesome all around

I know that I'm currently writing a zombie book. But the truth is that I didn't actually think that I was writing a real zombie book. When I came up with the idea, I literally had know idea that zombie's were hot. I chose the subject matter because I wanted to deal with the idea of loneliness and isolation in a unique way.

And because I was after the human aspects of being a zombie, I thought that this book was going to be more about the internal struggles of a guy struggling with his inner zombie. But no. This is apparently a full out zombie book. The traditional zombie stuff doesn't happen until the second half, but the undead do limp out of the darkness in search of brains.

Chapter 8, the chapter I just finished, is almost me showing off. I have written a few books now. And because I have, I've had practice writing certain types of scenes. This one chapter seemed to have all of those types of scenes in it. I liked it.

And if anyone every needed addition proof that there was something wrong with me, all one has to do is look at the female characters that populate my books. I just created another one today. I have to say that I love the woman that I created today. I think that no healthy man should, but I do. I guess in many ways she reminds me of the strong women that Kathrine Hepburn played. And although she was great fun to watch, I imagine that Hepburn was a wildly broken person.

I write about broken women just as much as I write about broken men. The romance in my mind is that these two broken people find each other. If ever I were to write a simply great girl instead of a charismatic, quick witted and spunky woman, you'll know that my therapy has finally kicked in. My characters and books might be too boring to read, but I would probably be a much healthier human being. Luckily for those who enjoy my books, there's really no chance of that ever happening.

Now about the future. I watched another interview about Amanda Hocking yesterday. She is the indie book queen right now. In one year she went from being unpublished to selling a million copies and signing a $2 million dollar deal with St. Martin's press. A story about her was what got me to go on the writing terror that I have.

After watching the video, I watched the movie 'I Am Number Four'. Both subjects have one thing in common. They are both about a genre called YA (young adult). Since my current book will be finished in a few day and I shouldn't make a decision about which sequel to write until after I check my sales on the last day of June, I'm wondering what I should do with the three weeks that I will have free in between.

One thought is that I should take a break. I have written a lot since March. One might even say that I've earned it. Another thought would be to start 'Hide From The Reaper', the sequel to 'Run From The Reaper' since from the little information I have, RFTR seems to be selling the best of all of my books. And my last thought would be to try one more genre. That genre would be YA. It is extremely popular right now and would seem to work very well with my ever present themes of loneliness and isolation.

Here's the only thing. YA is a female dominated genre. The story that I would write would be Sci-Fi with interpersonal drama. And all of my books so far have had males as the main character. But maybe I shouldn't worry about that. 'I am number four' had a male lead and it's sci-fi. That book seemed to have done pretty well. Hmmm.

I've run the concept for the book series by 3 readers today and they seem to like it. I know that it will tough to write because I would want it to do what my favorite sci-fi stories do, take you to new worlds. Creating new worlds is the toughest type of writing to because it is so involved. I have had some practice on that though. That is what I did in 'The First Day After Life'.

I think that I have to keep in mind that if I don't write the book now, I don't think that I will ever write it. And it might be nice to have one more book series that I can write a sequel to later. And who knows, maybe people will like it and make my effort worth my while. I will have to think more about it.

This is what happens when you write while abstaining from sexual activity

Book: Samurai Zombie Hunter
Words: 3,520
Time: 11 - 2pm & 4:30 - 8pm
Mood: Fine
Impression: I like it.

I started the second half of the book today and it starts out giving the back story of the main character's nemesis for the rest of the book. I liked it. One thing though, I'm still celibate and writing this book is constantly... how do I say this... keeping me alert.

I'm not sure what that says about me but that is the facts of the matter. This is a first for me. It's not even in the parts that obviously wood either. I'm talking about strange things that should go on a list of things to talk to a therapist about.

Anyway, I was hoping to hit 4,000 words today but I slacked off in the middle of the day and went to play racquetball. I came back and continued writing, but when it hit 8pm I wondered if I would reach my goal which was to complete the entire chapter. I knew that I wouldn't because there was a lot of stuff that I didn't add in the outline.

So since I knew that I wasn't going to finish I decided to put in a few hours tomorrow and then a full day on Sunday. My goal was only to write 6 days this week, so working tomorrow and Sunday would make it 7 days this week. I think that I could still finish the book by the end of next week but we'll see.

On a good note, the reviewer that implied that horrible thing about me in her review of Everybody Masturbates edited her review giving me an addition star and deleting the offensive statement. Victory! Also, I've gotten another 5 star review for the book. Check it out.

Unpleasant exchange with a reviewer

Book: Samurai Zombie Hunter
Words: 1,604
Time: 3:30 - 6:30 (minus 1/2hr)
Mood: Bad
Impression: Good enough

My morning writing routine was derailed this morning because I had to deal with a situation with on one of my books. About a week ago someone gave Everybody Masturbates a 1 start review. That would go along with my 8 other 5-star reviews. Normally I wouldn't react to that because it was clearly an outlier, but this one I couldn't ignore.

Without going into detail, the reviewer basically implied that I wrote the book for predatory purposes. It shocked me. And although I tried to handle the situation with humor, apparently I was a little too sarcastic for my own good. To be sardonic I started a sentence with "Since Human Beings have been masturbating for 10 or 11 years now..." I thought that it was clearly a bit of sarcasm, but the reviewer responded with "See, there's proof that you didn't do any research for the book because people have been masturbating forever."

I laughed it off thinking that she was joking. But this morning someone else posted a comment say that I never really addressed the fact that I said people have only started masturbating 10 or 11 years ago. I was shocked. I then had to go back and give a very detailed answer as to why I had been sarcastic and everything else.

On one hand it was a good lesson on posting on public forums, ie. not everyone gets sarcasm. On the other hand, I'm again pretty pissed that someone could publicly imply that someone has predatory intend based on a book that they admittedly haven't read. And now I have more responses that I have to go and respond to and I know I'm just going to get more pissed when I'm done. I must remain calm.

I expected to have very strong reactions to the Everybody books. But readying yourself in theory is much different than dealing with it when it happens. I'll just try to keep on.

Luckily my only plan today was to finish the first half of the book. I hadn't planned to go any further than that. I was able to do it in 3 hours. Unfortunately it was only 1,600 words. But hopefully that still does mean that I could finish the book by the end of next week if I push hard enough. We will see though.

Celibacy is driving me insane!

Book: Samurai Zombie Hunter
Words: 4,816
Time: 11 - 6:45 (minus 2hrs break)
Mood: About to lose my mind
Impression: It is really sexual

The last time that I wrote this book I was celibate as well. I remember it being tough, but I don't remember it being this tough. I go through these phases where I'm fine and then a second later I'm about to collapse onto the ground from amorousness.

I think the last time I was smart enough to keep myself from looking at things that reminded me of sex. This time I don't seem to have that type of self restraint. I'm amorous so I look at things that one would be driven to look at. I then feel like a caged animal going through my mental Rolodex of who I can call to get off. Sadly no one comes up.

I'm not going to last much longer. I don't know if me breaking down will be good or bad for the book. But Jesus, I can't keep doing this. I remember from the last time that after two months the feeling goes away, but at this rate the book will be done way before then. By tomorrow I should be done with the first half. The second half is shorter and should only take another 2 weeks.

We'll see though. I'm starting to hate this book. There is a part of me that wishes I had never thought of it. But I remember the first time after 4 months when I reread it. I liked it quite a bit. Maybe in another 4 months after it's done I'll feel the same way. Who knows. Maybe I should go and play a little racquetball. Yeah, maybe I'll do that.