Quick Hits: Launch Party #2 Recap, Doodle Duck, And More Cool Stuff

Launch Party #2 rocked! As a Doctor Who fan, I always enjoy just going to The TARDIS Room to hang out and eat fish 'n' chips, so being able to have my book release event there was absolutely brilliant.

Look who the Doctor regenerated into (my sonic sunglasses are on the amp head)

It had been raining heavily all day, but fortunately it stopped before the party began and basically stayed dry until it was time to go home - which is a very welcome thing when transporting musical gear between car and venue.

Special thanks go out to The TARDIS Room's Dave Shillingford for hosting us, Laurelhurst and Why The Fuss? for playing (both bands were great), the four guest authors - Roslyn McFarland, April Bullard, Adam Copeland, and Amber Cook - for being there and being awesome, and everyone who came out and partied with us (including John and Karen Krejcha from Autism Empowerment and my editor extraordinaire Susan DeFreitas from Indigo Editing - seriously, I highly recommend her to any sci-fi/fantasy authors out there).

Tonight, I and my books will be at the Doodle Duck book launch party at Pietro's Pizza in Beaverton, so come on down and check it out! Doodle Duck is a coloring/story book by child author Gwendalyn Belle and illustrator April Bullard - yes, the same April Bullard who was a guest author at Launch Party #2. She also plays the bass!

Xenoblade Chronicles X was finally released in the USA, and I must say, it is everything that I had hoped for. So far, there's not as much storyline as in the first Xenoblade game, but the graphics, music, gameplay...all of it is eXtremely eXcellent (see what I did there). When I'm playing it, the hours just melt away like butter on a hot plate, or something like that. If you liked the first game, or just JRPGs in general, do yourself a favor and check this one out.

And finally, I am super stoked for The Force Awakens this weekend! I have my tickets, do you? What? You don't? Better hurry, you're gonna make Rey mad...

Launch Party #2

Launch Party #1 at Kazoodles was a great success! Mahalo to Mary Sisson and everyone who came out.

Next up: Launch Party #2 this Saturday at the TARDIS Room in Portland! If you are a Doctor Who fan like yours truly, you totally need to be there, if not for anything else but the awesome decor (c'mon, the bathroom door is painted like the TARDIS. What more could you want?)

But besides the decor, there will also be a lot of other awesome stuff going on. For starters: not two, not three, but four other great local authors will be there, in person, to sign their awesome books for you. They are, in no particular order:

Roslyn McFarland
Author of the No Sea Trilogy and Light The Way (part of The Paradisi Chronicles)

Adam Copeland
Author of the Tales of Avalon Series

April Bullard
Author and Illustrator of The Sock Thief, Goody Hepzibah, and more

Amber Cook
Author of What The Faeries Left Behind, Defense Mechanisms, Night of the Victorian Dead, and more

Whew! But wait - that's not all. There will be also three killer live bands as well:

Laurelhurst

Why The Fuss?

and some random outfit called Second Player Score

And did I forget to mention? This will be a benefit show for Autism Empowerment, with all door proceeds and a portion of my book sales (as always) being donated to their awesome cause. So come on down early and party with us! Here are all the details:

Saturday, December 12, 8pm-whenever
The TARDIS Room
1214 N. Killingsworth St.
Portland OR 97217
21 and over

Fantastic! Allons-y! Geronimo!

P.S. When you're looking for me at the party, I'll be the guy who was going for minimalism but came out with magician.

Party Time, Excellent

So now that Book Two is out, party time has officially arrived!

As a prelude, the Society of Children's Book Writers and Illustrators (SCBWI) is holding an online launch party for a bunch of their members' new books. Check them all out at this link! (Mystery of the Moonfire's party is here)

Then, as previously announced, this Saturday will bring the first of three live-action launch parties, this one an all-ages affair at Kazoodles toy store in Vancouver! Here are the details:

Saturday, December 5, 2015
4pm-6pm
Kazoodles
13503 SE Mill Plain Blvd B-3
Vancouver, WA 98684
All ages

It'll be a fun afternoon, with free Moonfire candy (okay, actually round orange-colored butterscotch) while supplies last. So come on down, bring the kids, shop for toys, pick up a copy of Book Two and get it signed by yours truly. Hope to see you there!

Thanks!

As you may know, The Spectraland Saga got some nice news coverage over the past week, starting with a story on the KATU 11 o'clock news last Thursday, a follow-up article on KATU's website the following day, and then an article in the Oregonian on Tuesday.

A super-handsome dude...and his dad

So, on behalf of Joel, Felicity and company, I'd like to say mahalo to Nick and Monty at KATU news, Amy Wang of the Oregonian, Lisa Cohn of Arts Seen and Heard PR, and everyone who liked, shared, and left supportive comments on the related Facebook posts! You guys are awesome.

By the way, I'll be appearing at Autism Empowerment's November Autism Social/Game Club tomorrow night at 6:30 (click on the link for details). So, if you're in the Vancouver/Portland area (or have access to a private jet and/or a teleportation device of some kind), come on down and have some fun with us.

Happy Thanksgiving everyone!

Exclusive Bonus Book Two Content!

Most of the previous drafts of Book Two contained a prologue. Now, I'm not usually a huge fan of prologues in general, but I had a particular vision of this one in my head that was just screaming to get out. What I wanted to do with it was to create sort of a beginning-of-the-movie effect that set a mysterious tone, dropped you right in the middle of the action, and made you wonder what, exactly, was going on. As it turned out, I may have been a bit too successful.

My editor and my beta readers all had different opinions about different parts of the novel, but one thing in particular that they all agreed on - independently, mind you - is that the prologue was kind of confusing, and mostly unnecessary. They all thought that it made it difficult to "get into" the book from the start, which is basically death if you're an author who, you know, actually wants people to enjoy your work.

So, I took a deep breath and killed my darling, one of the few sections of Book Two that had actually survived multiple deletions and revisions up until that point. And, whaddya know, my editor and beta readers were right - it made a huge difference. Suddenly, the book seemed to flow so much better from the get-go, and I was all, like, "eureka!" Seriously, I actually did say that out loud, which startled my cats.

I still have a soft spot for the prologue, though, and it still makes sense within the context of the remaining story - none of the subsequent revisions that I made to the rest of the book negate or contradict anything that happened within the span of the prologue's 1,093 words. So, I figured, what the heck - I'll just publish it as bonus content on my blog! Does it count as official Spectraland canon, you ask?*

Well, I suppose it does, since I'm the author of both book and blog. Of course, I reserve the right to change stuff in the future - even with the already-published material - but I promise I'll never make Greedo shoot first  Joel into a ten-foot-tall mutant mushroom creature from Neptune, or anything like that.**

So, with that, I present to you in all of its original glory, the deleted prologue from Book Two, Mystery of the Moonfire...after the jump!

* Okay, you probably didn't really ask that, but whatever
** Although that actually sounds like kind of a neat idea

Book Three Status Update

Well, here we go with the first...well, uh, actually, second status update for Book Three of the Spectraland Saga. The first was back in March when I started working on Book Three in earnest while I waited for my editor to review the first completed draft of Book Two.

Rolling the boulder once again

At this point, I have an outline and 4,000 words done. This time around, I'm pretty sure that I've learned from my mistakes with all of the Book Two false starts - my outline is solid, I know the direction that the story is going in, and I'm not making any attempts to "pants" it (pantser: noun. a writer who writes by the seat of their pants, meaning that they don't plan anything out in advance).

So, if all goes well, I should be able to get a draft over to my editor sometime next year, which would put me on track to have Book Three out in 2017 - only a two-year gap instead of three! In the meantime, of course, please enjoy the fruits of my previous labor and pick up a copy of Book Two (and Book One, if you don't already have it).

Also, next year will see the release of Second Player Score's second album, which I've laid down some tracks for over the past couple of days (for three songs titled "Demon's Kiss," "Circles," and "Never Let Me Down"). As I may have mentioned before, it's going to be a semi-concept album, so that's sort of like a new book, right?

BOOK TWO IS HERE

BOOK TWO IS HERE. BOOK TWO IS HERE. BOOK TWO IS HERE.

Where is "here," exactly? Well, it is all of the following links:

Amazon - Paperback
Amazon - Kindle
Smashwords

Order one for yourself, and one for all of your friends (it makes a great holiday gift). And don't forget, in case you don't already have Book One (gasp), you can get a Kindle copy of it now for just 99 cents! Book Two functions just fine as a standalone story, but since all seven books in the series make up one continuous overall arc, it is much more enjoyable if you've already read Book One first.

Also, check out the newly redesigned website here. And after you've finished reading Book Two, feel free to leave a review of it at Amazon and Goodreads!

Now on to Book Three...