Welcome, new folks!

Hi, there. If you've joined the mailing list recently, I want to make sure you get your free Frosthelm book, Traitors Unseen. If you haven't gotten it, you can get it free here (the site will ask you to sign up for this newsletter, which you're already getting) or here from Smashwords. It's also on Apple Books, Kobo, and Barnes & Noble. Please, enjoy with my compliments.

Progress on the new mystery

I've got edits and comments back from my Reader Number One (my wife, Christina), and I'm working through her suggestions now. As you can see, she's thorough (😃), but she's also the greatest help I have for making each of my books better. Believe me, you don't even know the literary misadventures she's saved you from.

Some of those tabs are missing commas or dropped words or other easy fixes, some are compliments or laughs at a joke, and some are issues that need a good bit of work to address. I also need to come up with a real title, which has been a struggle for this one. A fan of my other mystery suggested What Grows From the Read in honor of the librarian main character here, but I think it's a little early in my career for that level of inside joke.

After I get these comments done, which I hope to do by next week, it will be on to my other early readers, and then I'll incorporate their feedback and advice, and then it will go to my editor, Tami, for a final pass (if Tami's OK with that - I know she reads these, so here's a clumsy public request if you see this). I also need to get the cover art from Abby, who did my What Grows From the Dead cover, and get it to Olivia, my designer, for text and layout. That makes this whole thing look more like May than April, which is OK, but a little later than my most optimistic estimates.

Writing updates

I had a really wild March and April being in a play at the Little Theatre of Winston Salem. The play was Unnecessary Farce, a fast-paced comedy in which I played a semi-incoherent Scottish hit man. That finished up the first weekend in April, and I had some family come out to see it, so that was a lot of fun. A little whirlwind-y with all of that going on, so I didn't get much writing done, but I'm ready to dive back in.

As I mentioned last time, I got a short story done and submitted for the IFA academy fantasy anthology back on April 1. That project got delayed, as they moved the deadline for submissions from April 1 to May 1, so it will be a little longer until I find out if I got accepted there. Even if I don't, I'll get the story out somehow for you to read.

I also submitted a first part of a story to Craig Martelle's The Expanding Universe series of sci-fi anthologies, and that got accepted, which is really cool. This will be for the 11th volume to be released later this year. Now I need to finish the story and submit. It will be reviewed by their editorial team and by a panel of beta readers, and if everything's OK, it will move on to publication. Pretty exciting!

I haven't started up another novel project yet, but I have three books I have a start on (20%-30% done in each case), and it will probably be one of those I take up in May after the mystery is done.

A story to try

I'm part of several author collectives, and we share each other's work to try to help all of us reach more readers. In many cases, the books we share are are free or discounted. Sometimes, they ask that you sign up for a newsletter like this one. Here is a new story I have to share this month:

The Tear of the Iron Maiden by Bruno Martins Soares. Perhaps surprisingly, this is not about the emotional difficulties of a heavy metal band, but instead, it's a futuristic fantasy novel about a couple of warrior monks on a feudal-style planet but in a 22nd century cyberpunkish future. This FREE story is part of Soares' Alex 9 saga, which has six novels in it. Soares is a fascinating Portugese author who's been a journalist, a traditionally published author, and a movie screenwriter and producer (of Regret, in 2015).

Thanks

Thanks so much for being part of my newsletter community. I really enjoy hearing from all of you, so if you have any ideas for stories or new books, just let me know!

May the Bloodmother watch over you - 

Dave