I Has Book Cover!

I can't say enough about the book cover for Amber Gifts. It's wonderful and amazing and I think Trisha and everyone at Champagne Books is awesome. Thank you all!

I Graphic

I have a new cover graphic at the Amber Gifts web site and also over at the FaceBook page. My champion graphic designer, world class blogger, award winning and best selling erotic romance author, Samantha Lucas did the heavy lifting and creating for me. Thank you so much. You should check out her books. You won't be disappointed.

The banner is just some really minor changes, but it brings everything together in the way I want to present the series. I think familiarity and consistency are going to be important, so this change was important to me. I have the one story in the pipeline to be published and two stories I need to prep and submit. Champagne Books gets first dibs and I hope they accept them. They seem to be a great community of authors and editors. I really like them. I'll need to have a Plan B, just in case I get rejected.

~KbH

I Rant

For the three or so people, planet-wide who have ever read this blog, you may notice a new icon for Wordpress. It's over there, on the left, in the bottom of that pile of icons. During an interview for a job in the Mundane World I was asked about my expertise with the program. I'd heard of it but had never really played with the site. I fumble and turned the question around and did all the usual interview tricks that a person does when presented with an obvious, "Uh Nothing" answer. Needless to say I didn't get the job. I did however decide to explore the program and the site. (Fool me once...) Hence I now have a WordPress site.

It's called Amber Rants. It took a while to decide how to use it most effectively. I saw no point in writing here, then copy and pasting to Facebook, then copy and pasting to Google Plus, rinse, repeat, copy and pasting to WordPress. Then came the epiphany. Blame the NBC Today show, but I found my mission for the site. If you want more about that, go, read. I don't need to repeat myself.

Now I can talk all Author, Writer, Publisher stuff here and when I get all fired up about something outside of those boundries I have a place where I might not always be politically correct or use all the best language. Who knows. Someone might eventually read that blog too. Wouldn't that be nice?

Thanks for reading.
~KbH

I Return

 I haven’t written blogged or tweeted very much lately. It’s been three weeks since Amber Gifts was picked up by Champagne Books. Since then I’ve just been coasting along. I’ve tried to build up a good head of steam to get back into writing the third story, but it’s been a struggle. Lives, reality, all those nasty little vermin in our lives have seen doing their best to sabotage my efforts.

 I did get to thinking about the future of my little stories and have sketched out, in my mind at least seven books. I think seven is a nice number. Don’t you? It should give me just enough time (pun intended) to complete a very nice story arc. They may become more linear as time (pun not intended here) goes on. I just have to do the work.

I could get the manuscript back from the publisher any time for edits. I don’t know what to expect and worry about what they will want. I’m also really interested in what the cover will look like. I’m sure I’ll like it.

Eventually I’m going to need to figure out how to dig up more followers and some potential clients. I’d like to sell a couple of hundred books in my life time. That’s not asking a lot, is it?

~KbH

I Accept!

The message began, “It is with great pleasure that I offer you a contract with…” and the next moment I realized I was going to be a published author. Amber Gifts is going to be published. I can’t believe it. I’m in shock. I’m so happy I can’t see straight.

There’s lots of work to do and lots of things I have to accomplish. First off, I guess I need to email the publisher, My Publisher, and tell them I accept. They sent a copy of the contract and it all seems very standard. I had my dear friend, the Romance Writer, look it over and she gave it her seal of approval. She has like twenty different books out there, so I trust her experience and knowledge implicitly.

I called friends and family and made the big announcement. If I had a cigar and a veranda I’d be sitting out there now enjoying the evening air and wondering what all the unpublished authors were doing tonight. Yeah, I’m going to be pretty hard to live with for the next couple of days. I think God and the Universe will forgive me. Don’t you?

~KbH

I Dream-Dine

Who would you invite to a dinner party if you had the choice? Here's my list of the guests for my Writers Dinner. Mark your calendar, men. I'm sure the invites will be going out soon.

Joss Whedon (47) - Writer. director, producer. His current credits include The Avengers. Past credits include Buffy and Firefly. A third generation media writer. What more do I need to say? Amazing awesome.

J. Michael  Straczynski (57) - Writer and producer. Pulled together Babylon 5 continuity despite some vast corporate adversity. Has done comics, animation, all the good stuff. (Who ya gonna call? The Real Ghost Busters cartoon!)

Steven Moffat (50) - Writer and producer. Currently head writer for Doctor Who and has been involved with the new incarnation since it's restart in 2005. He wrote the scripts for the movie The Adventures of  Tin Tin and is responsible for the BBC show Sherlock. And don't forget, he's Scottish. The accent alone will be worth having him over for dinner.

If Moffat is not available I'd pick Russell T. Davies (49) - Former head writer for Doctor Who and is still deeply involved with the series Torchwood.  He's Welsh, so he might like some of my obscure references. Maybe not.

N. John Smith - I'd love to have someone involved in the StarGate series, another well crafted series, on the list. Smith was the one with the longest tenure so I picked him.

Gregory Widen - He sold a story that was made into the movie Highlander. Then the concept went viral before that was even a legitimate term. It spawned additional movies and a television series, none of which he wrote or was involved with that I could see. I'd like to talk about his feelings of the changes that were made to his original concept.

If Widen isn't available I'd pick Jim Butcher (40). I'd like to ask him the same line of questions about The Dresden Files, although there was only one season of that television series. It certainly was not the same look and feel as any of his books.

Who did I forget? I'm sure there are plenty, but for now this will be a good start. Besides, I'm not sure where I could host that many people, especially if they all bring wifes, girls friends or guests. (My guest would be romance writer Samantha Lucas. You should check here out!)

~KbH

I Escape

This is a non-technical Feynman diagram explaining how to escape from a black hole, according to Ian Stewart's Flatterland (ISBN 0-333-78312-3).

1. You are outside the black hole.
2. You have fallen into the black hole. A future version of yourself (4) appears and gives you a portable white hole. You use the portable white hole to escape the black hole.
3. Another future version of yourself (6) appears and gives you a time machine.
4. You go back into the black hole and give the past version of yourself (2) the portable white hole.
5. You use the time machine to go far enough into the future (i.e. millions of years) that the black hole has evaporated due to Hawking radiation.
6. You then travel back in time and give the past version of yourself (3) the time machine.
7. You are now outside of the black hole. Easy, Breezy.

KbH

I, Hugo!

The finalists for this year's Hugo Awards and John W. Campbell Award for Best New Writer were announced on Saturday, April 7. (I'm not on the list. It's okay.) Previous winners and nominees have included just about everyone I've ever read in the Science Fiction genre, including Robert Heinlein, Arthur C. Clarke, Roger Zelazny, Ray Bradbury, Theodore Sturgeon, Larry Niven, George R. R. Martin. I could keep going, but you can find the full list of past honorees in the Novel category here: Hugo Awards They also give awards for novellas, short stories and media.

I am hoping that life will allow me to attend WorldCon this year. This is the annual conference of the World Science Fiction Society and the people who are responsible for the Hugo Award. Even if I haven't found a publisher, just going to such a prestigious conference would be incredible. Chicon 7, is being held over the Labor Day weekend. This is not your neighborhood Star Trek convention. The first Hugos were given in the 1950's. That's some serious history. If you're interested check out the conference web site: Chicon 7

Check out the membership list. I want my name on that list this time next year.

-KbH

I Stand Amused

Today I read the story of the information that was given to the 1940 Census by the occupants of 8777 Lookout Mountain, Laurel Canyon, California. The home at the time of Robert A. Heinlein family. The Heinleins always liked their privacy and even the 1940 U.S. Census did not penetrate it. The woman who answered the door gave her name as Sigred Heinlein, her husband as Richard and their son, Rory. She claimed they were both born in Germany, while their four year old son was born in California. Richard worked as an artist in the motion picture business.

I can't help but imagine how pleased R.A.H. would be if he knew we had discovered this small attempt of a prank at the governments expense. The Heinlein record is in E.D. 60-173. Good luck searching for it. I'm going to take this story at face value and then go back and read He Built a Crooked House for the eighth or ninth time.

KbH

I Ponder

I watched an interesting show recently that focused on Puma Punku in Bolivia. For those of you unfamiliar with the site, here is a link to a wiki entry that will tell you more than you probably want to know. Not me. I find this kind of stuff
fascinating.  I'll take Weird Archaeological Sites for $600, Alex.

Puma Punku is a large stone monument-like complex of undetermined age where the stones appear to be very finely cut in near perfect geometric angles. Some people feel that the complex could not have been constructed in ages past with the simple stone tools available at the time. The shapes of the stone are amazing. The circular holes drilled into the stones are mystifying. I don't think you could do those stones justice with any Black and Decker tools that I'm aware of. The show did some experimenting and found that the cuts came closest to resembling a diamond cut saw.

The television show blamed those pesky old aliens. Yep, your friendly neighborhood extraterrestrials did it. Those little guys and their flying saucers landed, built exotic blocks of stone, used anti-gravity to move them into place, but not in any understandable pattern and then soared back to whatever star they originally came from. Sure, makes sense to me. The kind of mind numbing sense where these same folks, during a different show tried to convince me that Bigfoot is an alien too. I know better. I grew up in the Pacific Northwest and know the big fella is home grown, through and through. We've met. We've talked. We exchange Hanukkah cards.

My immediately thoughts upon watching the show was to wonder what a wonderful location Puma Punku would be for us to learn more about our friends the Amser. My guess is they had a lot more to do with the creation of Puma Punku than extraterrestrials did. What do you think? You read up on the location. I'll get to work on my part.

KbH

I Submit

No. Not like that! Get your mind out of the gutter!

I submitted Amber Gifts to two different publisher this week. I feel like I've thrown one of my children out into the wilderness, except I don't have any real children. It can take months to hear back from these people so in the interim I'll keep up my online projects and finish the third story. I have it at least a third done and know most of what happens next, I just haven't been in a place mentally to continue. Maybe I can do that soon.

A wonderful friend is starting a new life in Florida this week. Let's all keep a good thought for her as she begins this great new adventure. It's a pity she'll be almost as far South of me as she was North of me before the move. No dropping by for tea and crumpets any time soon. Gas has gone up about twenty cents a gallon in the past week. Holy Cow!

KbH

I Blog!

I've never been much of a blogger. Ask anyone who knows me. I write short little bits, not long, complex, descriptive material. I don't do much in my life, so blogging that I ate breakfast, took my assorted medications required of this aging would-be author and then spent the day writing or thinking or watching some damn TV show just doesn't strike me as very interesting.

Here's what I'm going to do:

1. I'm going to write at least one blog entry every week. Be prepared for the strange, the obscure or the just plain lame. You've been warned.
2. I'm going to try and talk about my stories. I like them. No publisher does.... yet. In truth only one has seen my first story but more will come. I'll keep you posted.
3. If you comment, I'll try and respond. If you're kind, then I'll be kind. If you're unkind please be advised that I have worked in Technology since before there was such a word and I can make the silly little tricks that Anonymous has done to banks and business and the Vatican look like child's play. Again, you've been warned.

Thanks for reading. Please be sure and visit all my other assorted sites. I've created links here for you to use. Feel free!

KbH