Dead Alive – 30,000 words in!

Yep, after doing another monumental edit of books one to six of The Hunter Wars, I finally started book eight.  The plot map is drafted so I know what’s supposed to happen, but we’ll wait and see what the characters choose to do.  They frequently don’t do what I ask, we argue the toss, but they usually win.

If you would like the latest edited versions of the books, just email Amazon.  The story hasn’t changed, but the writing has been further improved.  I’m determined the books will be the best I can give you at any point in time.  Hopefully I’ll get to a stage where I don’t feel the crushing urge to edit them again.

It’s almost Halloween or Hallows’ Eve, the fun time of year.  Of course, it does have a serious meaning and is meant to honor the Saints, but who cares about that when there’s candy to be had!  All our events have modern day reasoning and Halloween is family play time, much like Thanksgiving and Christmas.  They’re just occasions to remind us to get together and enjoy our lives.  So, remember to down tools and have some fun.

I’ll be writing, it’s what I do with every spare minute I have.  I’ve always had a vivid imagination and whiled away otherwise boring hours on planes, trains and automobiles daydreaming about one story or another.  This is the first time I’ve ever written them down, and once documented, I’ve learned they take on a bigger life of their own.  Many people are making their way through The Hunter Wars series now, and it makes me feel saner to know there are others as amused as I am by the tale.

It’s an odd experience to unleash your mad internal world in public, and a relief to know what amuses me entertains others as well.  It might be a crazy mind that dreams up these worlds, but I’m not alone in my lunacy.  Whew, had me worried there for a bit!  I’ve decided to do more writing for a while.  The Locke Files has several more slightly shorter books to be written.  Eden Lost of The Hunter Wars will be a five or six full novel series once done.  Every so often a scene pops into my head for the Navigator series, and I really want to write it down and see where it goes.

That’s how my stories are formed.  I get scenes like the one with three hundred thousand hunters surrounding the convoy in Army of Angels.  I don’t always know where the scene fits, but I know it’s pivotal, otherwise I wouldn’t have the mini movie in my head.  I actually had the last combat scene in Call to War three books before I could use it, but I knew it was the ending scenes for that series.  I already have the last scenes for Eden Lost and some of the ones in between.

It’s weird, but I’ll be running in the gym and a mini movie starts to run in my head.  I’m not really thinking about it, but I can see the people, the surroundings and hear their conversation.  It’s not from any single perspective either, much like Mackenzie, I’m an observer.  Obviously somewhere in my head I’m controlling the story, but it plays out like a clip on YouTube.  People say my books are like a movie or TV program and that’s why.  It’s what I see and I write it down based on whoever wants to narrate it.  I don’t get to choose that either.  I may start a chapter intending to be one character, but the voice slips into another.  When I read back over it, I realize I became a particular character even if I didn’t intend to.

But enough of my rambling.  I really just wanted say hi, let you know I’m hard at work and remind you to enjoy Halloween.  Stay well and I’ll be back in touch soon.