I should upload a recording of my boys singing the "Final Countdown" for dramatic effect. Plus, it's cute.
This weekend I received the final edits and have been working on them. There is much going on at home, life adjustments, home projects, etc. I am still aiming for mid-June release!
Independently designed paperback cover art has been completed (Thanks Trisha!)
Facebook Author page has been created for promotional use. Nearly 150 likes!
And every bit of sharing, word of mouth, and future purchases will go a long way in making this venture successful. Thank you all for being on the ride with me. It will make future books that much easier to write!
Wednesday, May 27, 2020
Tuesday, May 19, 2020
About the Author
Forged in the fires of Mount Doom of Mordor… Dana Steele, inspired by the likes of Crichton, Martin, Tolkien, Jordan, and others aims to blend reality with fantasy in most of his works. Altering the familiar to suit a fictional narrative is his desired niche. He works as a Physical Therapist Assistant when not writing, creating, or caring for his wife and three boys in the Toledo, Ohio area.
Thursday, May 14, 2020
T-Minus 30 days
I have been prepping hard for the weeks ahead. I created a blog page and an Author Facebook page for the purposes of promotion.
https://www.facebook.com/Dana-Steele-Author
I have added tools for subscriptions and email subs to the blog site. I have created a draft page for Kindle/Amazon launching of End of Reason. Cover art and final edits are pending in the next few weeks.
And I have been "lightly" working on Book 2 - End of Seasons.
So far, the support has been more than I imagined it could be before the first book has even been released. And it humbles me to tears to receive that support.
The lead up to June 2020, and the release of End of Reason has been amazing. And I hope the fallout is even better.
#EoR
#june2020
https://www.facebook.com/Dana-Steele-Author
I have added tools for subscriptions and email subs to the blog site. I have created a draft page for Kindle/Amazon launching of End of Reason. Cover art and final edits are pending in the next few weeks.
And I have been "lightly" working on Book 2 - End of Seasons.
So far, the support has been more than I imagined it could be before the first book has even been released. And it humbles me to tears to receive that support.
The lead up to June 2020, and the release of End of Reason has been amazing. And I hope the fallout is even better.
#EoR
#june2020
Wednesday, May 6, 2020
End of Seasons, sneak peak
Lowman had little use for words. In fact he could not talk, not since his tongue was cut out nearly two decades ago. Instead, Lowman preferred action. He preferred to be one who accomplished things. He had a tendency to opportunistically arrive in situations that required actions instead of words. He liked it that way.
Clutching a thick leather bound journal, he sat down at the base of a tree. The brown leather cover was worn with years of travel, but still sturdy, protecting the weathered pages within. An ornately designed compass adorned the leather, with the 'N' turned a few degrees to the left. It was that compass that inspired Lowman to become a cartographer, setting him about a journey to chart the post-Collapse Black Swamp. The first few pages turned in his dark leather gloved hands. The finger-less gloves allowed his digits to dance freely over the pages of maps. Then he turned a page that caught his eye.
Lowman had little use for words, but he had much use for pictures. He drew what he saw throughout his travels. His ink sketches showcased interesting trees, shaped like scraggly hands chasing after vermin, or shafts of wheat catching late day sun. He drew of settlements that he had encountered across the region: a series of shipping containers suspended from high tension wires, a windmill surrounded by a conglomeration of steel, tractor trailers and rail cars creating a palisade of steel around a white and red transmission tower -fallen in such a way that it sat like an odd triangle over the settlement, a replica box-fort that sat at the flooded junction of two raging rivers that spanned a tremendous distance, and a concrete fortification that stood on a hill overlooking the junction of three small rivers.
It was that drawing that caught his eye.
He felt a smile creep across his lips, but to only his lips did it stay. On the page opposite of the concrete fortification at three rivers -the Fort, he recalled its name- was a drawing of the same location in flames. The smile reflected his pride in the imagery he captured with the ink; the flames, the fury, the crumbling mortar and brick. The water of the rivers caught the light from the fire and reflected it to the sky. His fingers hovered above the ink as though he could feel the heat from the flames. Echoes of screams filled his ears as he recalled the day the Fort was burned. It was not only the Fort, however, the entire city of Three Rivers was burned to the ground. People commonly recalled that the Country was responsible for the burning of the Fort and Three Rivers, after some dispute regarding trade.
But, in fact, it was Lowman who was responsible...
Clutching a thick leather bound journal, he sat down at the base of a tree. The brown leather cover was worn with years of travel, but still sturdy, protecting the weathered pages within. An ornately designed compass adorned the leather, with the 'N' turned a few degrees to the left. It was that compass that inspired Lowman to become a cartographer, setting him about a journey to chart the post-Collapse Black Swamp. The first few pages turned in his dark leather gloved hands. The finger-less gloves allowed his digits to dance freely over the pages of maps. Then he turned a page that caught his eye.
Lowman had little use for words, but he had much use for pictures. He drew what he saw throughout his travels. His ink sketches showcased interesting trees, shaped like scraggly hands chasing after vermin, or shafts of wheat catching late day sun. He drew of settlements that he had encountered across the region: a series of shipping containers suspended from high tension wires, a windmill surrounded by a conglomeration of steel, tractor trailers and rail cars creating a palisade of steel around a white and red transmission tower -fallen in such a way that it sat like an odd triangle over the settlement, a replica box-fort that sat at the flooded junction of two raging rivers that spanned a tremendous distance, and a concrete fortification that stood on a hill overlooking the junction of three small rivers.
It was that drawing that caught his eye.
He felt a smile creep across his lips, but to only his lips did it stay. On the page opposite of the concrete fortification at three rivers -the Fort, he recalled its name- was a drawing of the same location in flames. The smile reflected his pride in the imagery he captured with the ink; the flames, the fury, the crumbling mortar and brick. The water of the rivers caught the light from the fire and reflected it to the sky. His fingers hovered above the ink as though he could feel the heat from the flames. Echoes of screams filled his ears as he recalled the day the Fort was burned. It was not only the Fort, however, the entire city of Three Rivers was burned to the ground. People commonly recalled that the Country was responsible for the burning of the Fort and Three Rivers, after some dispute regarding trade.
But, in fact, it was Lowman who was responsible...
Monday, May 4, 2020
Perspective
End of Reason is presented with each chapter from a specific character's perspective. This was a mechanic that I was initially shown by Michael Crichton (though George R.R. Martin would also employ this mechanic). He gave primary characters their own chapters in order to show the events from their eyes, often using their own skills and knowledge to propel story points forward.
I use this mechanic similarly, but I noticed that it can serve a different purpose.
In my childhood years, at my Grandmother's house in Ft. Wayne, Indiana, there hung a sketch of my aunt above a mantle. It was greyscale pencil, well shaded, encompassing 80's 'glamor shot' glory with a more artistic flair. It very much resembled my Aunt, but there details missing. When I noticed that it was indeed hand drawn, I had asked my Dad a question.
"If everyone had the same skill. And we all drew a picture of the same person, would they look different?"
He replied, "I think everyone looks a bit different to everyone else. So, yeah, we could all draw the same person, or thing, and they would look slightly different to each other. Or maybe even a lot different. We don't all see everything exactly the same."
It was a casual response to a casual question that actually stuck with me for a very long time.
The notion that different people can see the same thing differently was a driving proponent for why I wrote from specific character perspectives in EoR. It is why I have some points of backtracking and overlapping, in order to display events from varying points of view. I try to get the reader into characters heads, with either their limited scope of knowledge, or their raging tendencies, or to explore the Black Swamp through new eyes. It wasn't easy. And sometimes I really had to deliberate which character was going to take the lead for certain chapters. But if you, the reader, found resonance with a character (good or bad) because of this writing style, then my mission was accomplished.
I use this mechanic similarly, but I noticed that it can serve a different purpose.
In my childhood years, at my Grandmother's house in Ft. Wayne, Indiana, there hung a sketch of my aunt above a mantle. It was greyscale pencil, well shaded, encompassing 80's 'glamor shot' glory with a more artistic flair. It very much resembled my Aunt, but there details missing. When I noticed that it was indeed hand drawn, I had asked my Dad a question.
"If everyone had the same skill. And we all drew a picture of the same person, would they look different?"
He replied, "I think everyone looks a bit different to everyone else. So, yeah, we could all draw the same person, or thing, and they would look slightly different to each other. Or maybe even a lot different. We don't all see everything exactly the same."
It was a casual response to a casual question that actually stuck with me for a very long time.
The notion that different people can see the same thing differently was a driving proponent for why I wrote from specific character perspectives in EoR. It is why I have some points of backtracking and overlapping, in order to display events from varying points of view. I try to get the reader into characters heads, with either their limited scope of knowledge, or their raging tendencies, or to explore the Black Swamp through new eyes. It wasn't easy. And sometimes I really had to deliberate which character was going to take the lead for certain chapters. But if you, the reader, found resonance with a character (good or bad) because of this writing style, then my mission was accomplished.
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