Robert A. Chalmers's Blog
May 2, 2018
WIP. Works in Progress
Busy busy busy. I have three works in progress.
1. Romance. Second Chance for Love. 6 chapters along in about 25 chapters. Lets say between 50,000 and 75,000 words.
2. Spy/Thriller. Harry McGovern. A Spy in Time. #1 This is a working title really. I may yet change it. But I'm 3 chapters along in the book. About 7,000 words of 50,000 or so.
3. Fantasy. The Dragons of Sara Sara. The Blue Tower. #2. Also about 6 chapters along, about 18,000 words of 186,000
Also the deadline is looking for a 2,000 word short story I'm writing. Oberst's Dream.
On top of that - managing my Author website, Social Media, Streaming radio station (Quantum Radio), Goodreads author page... and my vineyard. When oh when will I slow down? ...
1. Romance. Second Chance for Love. 6 chapters along in about 25 chapters. Lets say between 50,000 and 75,000 words.
2. Spy/Thriller. Harry McGovern. A Spy in Time. #1 This is a working title really. I may yet change it. But I'm 3 chapters along in the book. About 7,000 words of 50,000 or so.
3. Fantasy. The Dragons of Sara Sara. The Blue Tower. #2. Also about 6 chapters along, about 18,000 words of 186,000
Also the deadline is looking for a 2,000 word short story I'm writing. Oberst's Dream.
On top of that - managing my Author website, Social Media, Streaming radio station (Quantum Radio), Goodreads author page... and my vineyard. When oh when will I slow down? ...
August 29, 2017
Tying it all together.
I've just released my latest book, Marriage in a Cold Climate, and made a couple of mistakes in adding a new book to my list here. One I fixed myself-incorrect ISBN, but the other one was my About The Author being confused with another author. I wrote to help and it was fixed in minutes. Brilliant.
I have another problem, a book not showing the updated cover. I have to fix that yet.
But I must say, Goodreads is a very 'dense' site. By that I mean thick with information. I could spend a lifetime learning all that is possible on it.
So far I haven't managed to receive any book reviews. :-( but am working on personally inviting people I know to a VIP list. Certified emails for readers I can send copies to, valid for 1 week, in exchange for their honest review. 📕 Let's see how that works out. :-)
But however, I now have four books on the go. Book II in the Dragons of Sara Sara series, The Blue Tower. Also, a Sci-Fi in the dystopian other-worlds mould, and the third one is Fire Escape. Pure Romance in the Mills&Boon style.
The fourth is Harry McGovern. The Odd Spy Out. A spy/thriller.
Busy busy. Finally, I discovered Scrivener and my output has jumped.
And yes, I still get time to read. Working my way through a few Kindle downloads, and my favourite author, Len Deighton.
Next Thursday off to listen to John Le Carre presenting Smily's People. Should be interesting.
That's it till next update.
Ciao ciao.
I have another problem, a book not showing the updated cover. I have to fix that yet.
But I must say, Goodreads is a very 'dense' site. By that I mean thick with information. I could spend a lifetime learning all that is possible on it.
So far I haven't managed to receive any book reviews. :-( but am working on personally inviting people I know to a VIP list. Certified emails for readers I can send copies to, valid for 1 week, in exchange for their honest review. 📕 Let's see how that works out. :-)
But however, I now have four books on the go. Book II in the Dragons of Sara Sara series, The Blue Tower. Also, a Sci-Fi in the dystopian other-worlds mould, and the third one is Fire Escape. Pure Romance in the Mills&Boon style.
The fourth is Harry McGovern. The Odd Spy Out. A spy/thriller.
Busy busy. Finally, I discovered Scrivener and my output has jumped.
And yes, I still get time to read. Working my way through a few Kindle downloads, and my favourite author, Len Deighton.
Next Thursday off to listen to John Le Carre presenting Smily's People. Should be interesting.
That's it till next update.
Ciao ciao.
March 9, 2017
Marriage In A Cold Climate. Soon to be released.
Coming soon. Marriage In A Cold Climate. A novella Romance set across an international expanse, abduction and intrigue, danger and dark deeds as the old Soviet empire of the USSR fades into history.
... “I have it,” cried Nikolai Ivanovich. “I have a starting point. I also have old friends who are even now on their way here with their daughter.” He was beaming from ear to ear. He had an idea, but he could not give voice to it yet. He had to check something. Nikolai Ivanovich knew where Yuri and Katya’s daughter worked. He had arranged the posting himself. He grabbed up the telephone and was soon shouting down the line, the authority in his voice unmistakable.
“What do you mean, ‘she can’t come to the phone’?” Nikolai Ivanovich shouted. “Do you know who I am? Do you know? Are you telling me she isn’t there? Not in the building? No excuses comrade director. Put her on the line immediately.”
Nikolai Ivanovich looked over the handset at his friends, his head lowered so he was looking out from under his eyebrows. ‘He looks like a wild bear.’ Thought William, somewhat alarmed. Of course William spoke no Russian. What was causing the man such… anger? Suddenly Nikolai smiled, and his voice was as soft as honey."
... “I have it,” cried Nikolai Ivanovich. “I have a starting point. I also have old friends who are even now on their way here with their daughter.” He was beaming from ear to ear. He had an idea, but he could not give voice to it yet. He had to check something. Nikolai Ivanovich knew where Yuri and Katya’s daughter worked. He had arranged the posting himself. He grabbed up the telephone and was soon shouting down the line, the authority in his voice unmistakable.
“What do you mean, ‘she can’t come to the phone’?” Nikolai Ivanovich shouted. “Do you know who I am? Do you know? Are you telling me she isn’t there? Not in the building? No excuses comrade director. Put her on the line immediately.”
Nikolai Ivanovich looked over the handset at his friends, his head lowered so he was looking out from under his eyebrows. ‘He looks like a wild bear.’ Thought William, somewhat alarmed. Of course William spoke no Russian. What was causing the man such… anger? Suddenly Nikolai smiled, and his voice was as soft as honey."
Trying New Writing Tools
I've always liked to try new things, and I'm still at it. I've started using Scrivener. What a really handy piece of software. I've used Word for years and years. Like most people I guess. But it does have it's limitations.
Word of course is the preferred method of submission to places like Create Space, which I used. So in the end I gave up on anything else and just used Word, with all my work done in the pre-formatted templates that Create Space provide. Very handy. But not conducive to free flow thinking.
I discovered Scrivener. I have been aware of it of course, but relegated it to "just another author tool" status. If I ever thought about it at all. Well, with some time on my hands - procrastinating again actually - I decided to give it a go, and transfer my nearly finished novella "Marriage In A Cold Climate" into Scrivener.
Well, it's taken me about a week on and off to get the hang of it, and now as far as writing goes, I wouldn't use anything else. The finished work can easily be exported to Word should I need it for publication, and Scrivener it's self exports your book directly into almost any ebook format or print format that you could want. Best of all, you can use their pre made templates, or just use the "No Template - type and run" method. Worry about all that other stuff later.
I can use Scrivener on my iPad, even my iPhone. On my desktop, what ever. Very nice sitting in Costa Coffee and getting a quick 500 words down on my story, and it syncs with my mater documents on Dropbox. Just pick up right where I left off when I'm home on the desktop Mac. I can even email notes to myself that get put directly into a Notes folder on Scrivener.
All in all, I'm finding Scrivener to be about the most practical piece of software I've ever come across for writing. I wish I'd had it years ago.
Now, back to writing.
Word of course is the preferred method of submission to places like Create Space, which I used. So in the end I gave up on anything else and just used Word, with all my work done in the pre-formatted templates that Create Space provide. Very handy. But not conducive to free flow thinking.
I discovered Scrivener. I have been aware of it of course, but relegated it to "just another author tool" status. If I ever thought about it at all. Well, with some time on my hands - procrastinating again actually - I decided to give it a go, and transfer my nearly finished novella "Marriage In A Cold Climate" into Scrivener.
Well, it's taken me about a week on and off to get the hang of it, and now as far as writing goes, I wouldn't use anything else. The finished work can easily be exported to Word should I need it for publication, and Scrivener it's self exports your book directly into almost any ebook format or print format that you could want. Best of all, you can use their pre made templates, or just use the "No Template - type and run" method. Worry about all that other stuff later.
I can use Scrivener on my iPad, even my iPhone. On my desktop, what ever. Very nice sitting in Costa Coffee and getting a quick 500 words down on my story, and it syncs with my mater documents on Dropbox. Just pick up right where I left off when I'm home on the desktop Mac. I can even email notes to myself that get put directly into a Notes folder on Scrivener.
All in all, I'm finding Scrivener to be about the most practical piece of software I've ever come across for writing. I wish I'd had it years ago.
Now, back to writing.
