So ... been a while since my last update, or any other activity here. I need to apologize for vanishing for so long. The last six months or so have been ... "interesting." Events in those six months include, but are not limited to:

• My car’s engine blowing up, me being unable to get a $4,000 loan to replace it, having my hours at work cut to 7/week due to being unable to take deliveries without my car, not having enough money to make the next car payment, and having to let it be repossessed.
• Needing to borrow money from family to keep paying the rent, and coming within five days of being evicted anyway.
• The store where I work getting a company car and the manager letting me use it for deliveries in the nick of time.
• Finally saving up enough money to buy a bike so I can at least get around without pestering people for rides.
• The bike getting stolen while I was at work two weeks after I bought it, sending me back to getting rides to and from work.
• Finally getting another bike at a discounted price because it had been returned ... and discovering that its front wheel is bent. Managed to get the wheel replaced, and the bike hasn’t been stolen ... yet.
• Nearly getting run over multiple times while biking to work and back home, the latest of which was a car speeding at 40 miles per hour and running a stop sign, and would’ve killed me if I hadn’t spotted it in time. And the driver had the balls to yell "f*** you" at me when I got pissed off.
• Immediately after that, the bike’s chain pops off before I get home. I can’t get it back on, so I walk home and take the wheel off in the morning to put the chain back on.
• While biking to work yesterday, the chain pops off again. Need to screw around with the rear wheel again to try to tighten the chain enough for it to stay on. Might end up needing to take one of the links out.
• Over the past few months, the store stays busy enough that I’m usually kept there three or four hours past the end of my shift, resulting in me getting home around midnight or later, going to bed, then repeating the cycle all over again. The extra money’s great, it helps keep the rent paid, but the work-sleep-work cycle sucks time away from everything else, like writing and promoting my books.

But as a result of all of this, plus the failure of the Project Revenant campaign, I think I sank into a bit of a depression. Pretty much gave up on everything. Got almost nothing at all done, aside from the latest chapter of Harbinger, and that was a couple of months ago. Now I’m trying to pull myself together, get off my ass, and get back to writing and promoting ... as much as I can squeeze into what little free time I have, at least.

So ... what now? Well, I’ll do what I’ve always done before ... pick myself up and keep trying. I’ll also keep working on Uncharted Territory whenever I can, as well as my other works in progress, Harbinger and Freelancers. And I’ll be doing everything I can think of to promote the book that was published a few months ago, Chaser. (Speaking of which, if anyone would like a free review copy in exchange for posting a review on its Amazon page, let me know and I’ll send you one.)

And I’ll just see how things go from here.

Keep moving forward.

Finally ... finally got a new chapter of Uncharted Territory finished and posted a few minutes ago. I have to apologize for the delay, especially after expecting to have it finished much sooner. On the up side, I'm getting a few more hours at work than I was previously, which of course helps me pay the bills and keep a roof over my head, but it also cuts into time I'd prefer to use for writing and promoting finished books like Chaser and Project Revenant. But necessary evils and all that, heh.

Pile on top of that a mild case of writer's block and a number of other everyday-life stuff that got in the way, and ... well, if I could sum up the past couple of weeks in a single image, it'd be this one:

But here's hoping I'm getting back on track. I did make a New Year's resolution not to let myself get sidetracked like this, so I don't want to break it less than a week out of the gate. Still need to catch up on a couple of things, then the next project to finish is a new chapter of Harbinger. That'll be coming up soon, if nothing goes too horribly wrong. And after that will be the next chapter of Uncharted Territory.

In the meantime, thanks to everyone following and supporting my books here, and I hope your new year got off to an awesome start. :D 

Things have been pretty crazy the last couple of weeks. I was hoping to have another chapter finished by now, but I'm not quite there. Working on it when I can, though. The majority of this week has, of course, been taken up by Christmas stuff, plus buying a bike since I don't have a car anymore and needed to get around without pestering people for rides. That turned into a whole saga in itself, which involved a couple of eight-mile hikes to pick up the bike and, a couple days later, a bike pump I was too distracted to get the first time. Needed the pump because the guys who assembled the bike didn't inflate the tires enough and I didn't notice it until I was almost home that first day.

I should've noticed something was off, though. I was having a hell of a time pedaling the bike, but I just assumed it was because I'm just really out of shape and hadn't been on a bike in nearly ten years. ;) But the problem was resolved and now I can get to work and the grocery store without needing someone to pick me up, so yay. :D

I intend to keep working on the next chapter of Uncharted Territory and post it within the next few days. Hopefully things will smooth out now that Christmas is here and things get back to normal.

In the meantime, I want to thank everyone who's following Uncharted Territory, as well as those who followed and pre-ordered Project Revenant. The support means the world to me.

Uncharted Territory, by the way, is (as I've mentioned before) expanded and fleshed out from the short story "Mission to Bellatrix," which was first published in the paranormal/sci-fi romance anthology, Lucky Stars. A couple reader reviews of the story (which can be found on the Amazon and Goodreads pages), while I'm here .... ;)

From one review:

Mission to Bellatrix by Fred T. Kerns- Rating- 5 This was my first sci-fi book I've ever read all the way through. It's not my cup of tea, but I really enjoyed this one. Kolya has a scarred face that has been a slight hindrance in helping her meet a love interest because of this she's a hitchhiker for spaceships and ends up meeting Donovan on her way to board a ship that's going to explore a long-lost ship. This was closer to a full length novel at 18 chapters, which threw me for a loop. I kept expecting things to pick up quicker than they did. However, the novel was long enough that we got a lot of what is going on. I really enjoyed all the awesome innuendos. The crew of the ship were likable and at times had me laughing. There aren't any sex scenes in this story, it closes the door right on them. I loved the relationship between Donovan and Kolya and how we got to see it blossom slowly and sweetly. I can't believe I liked this one as much as I did, in fact I might make my husband read this one!

And from another:

Mission to Bellatrix by Fred T. Kerns - Ok, this was another sci-fi, so it was a little different for me. I did find myself getting caught up in the descriptions, the details and the imagery. I enjoyed reading it after I was a few pages in. There was a certain strength that I got from Kolya. She was a strong character, and it was nice to read that in a female character. I enjoyed reading the interactions and banter between Kolya and Donovan.

Finally, I'll draw this quick little update to a close by wishing everyone a Merry Christmas and Happy New Year.

Well, things got interesting lately. Had too many everyday-life things, several other things that were horrifying to deal with, and a couple of genuinely good things, all of which kept me too distracted to keep working on this book. Not going into detail again here (I did that on my blog and in a recent update over on Project Revenant) ... but basically I almost ended up homeless several times in a three- or four-month period, so as you can imagine, I had a lot on my mind.

But things have started to turn around in the last month or so. One very positive development is the official publication of my novel Chaser by an actual publisher, Keith Publications. It was released on November 28, and I've been focusing a lot of attention on promoting it on my blog and on Twitter and Facebook. There's a lot more I need to do, when I can figure out just how to go about it -- I'm thinking about blog tours and things like that.

I was also approved for a Goodreads Author Page, and spent some time this morning updating several of the books with their new cover images, which for some reason still had the old, bland covers.

Another bit of good news is more directly related to Uncharted Territory and the short story that it's based on, Mission to Bellatrix. This novel is a sequel to a book I wrote and published last year, titled Game Over. The characters of Cora, Dylan, Grishnag, Syala, Nishara, Zilaka, and Ayastal had their debut in that novelette, and I had so much fun writing it that I wanted to continue their adventures and make Mission to Bellatrix a sequel so I could bring them back. I had to leave most of them in the background in that story, just putting a brief mention of them being busy with other tasks somewhere else on the ship, and have only Dylan, Grish, and Cora in supporting roles, because it was a short story and would've been too crowded if I tried to keep them all in. But now that I'm expanding the story into a full novel with Uncharted Territory, I can bring all of them into it and give them something to do.

So, the good news -- a few days ago, a five-star review and interview was posted on Deneale's Book Buzz. The reviewer absolutely loved the story (she also did reviews/interviews for Mission to Bellatrix and all the stories that appeared in Lucky Stars, the sci-fi/paranormal romance anthology it originally appeared in), and seems particularly fond of Cora. In the interview section, I was able to mention and link to a lot of my other works, including Chaser.

The reviewer also asked me to send her another book, so I sent her a copy of Chaser, since it's just been published and this'll really help get the word out. When the review is posted, I'll put an announcement in an update on Project Revenant because it's more closely connected to that novel than this one.

So, after a rather horrible 2015 (there were many good things that happened this year, but overall I consider it a net-negative), things seem to be turning around and I'm able to close out the year on a positive note. But I was so distracted for a while that I wasn't able to work on Uncharted Territory ... and then, when I had time to get back to it, I finished chapter 8 and posted it only to notice that there were only seven chapters. That's right, I'd completely forgotten to post chapter 7, so chapter 8 ended up where 7 should've been. I rushed to fix it, so now both new chapters have been posted tonight, in the proper order. I almost didn't catch the mistake, though. O_o

Sorry for the delay and the confusion, and I hope you enjoy the new chapters.

I'm hopeful for what 2016 brings. As the late, great Monty Oum liked to say ... keep moving forward.

Finally finished Chapter 5 of the rough draft. Various RL stuff getting in the way plus bouts of writer's block kept me away from the manuscript, but yesterday I decided to sign up for NaNoWriMo and see if that would help me get back on track. So far, it's working out fairly well. I'm a bit ahead of the daily goal (so far, at least), and I'm finally back at work on the book (well into chapter 6 by now). Since I'd already started writing the book before Nov. 1, I decided to start the NaNoWriMo word count at the beginning of the first new scene I wrote after NaNo 2015 launched, and continue on from there. So even though I'm five chapters in, the word count for NaNo is a tick under 4,000 words at the end of Day 2.

Now, a bit of background info while I'm here. Before the story this book is based on, "Mission to Bellatrix," started forming in my head, its main character was inspired by something totally random. I stumbled onto the cinematic trailer for the first Borderlands game earlier this year (dunno how I missed it when the game was released several years ago), and one particular image caught my attention and ideas started coming together in my head:

This started me thinking about all the male protagonists who are allowed to have scars and still be considered attractive, and in fact usually manage to land supermodel-gorgeous love interests, and how female protagonists almost always remain beautiful no matter what they go through. Even those in action movies are still hot after being in multiple brutal fights. Since I don't like double standards, and for a long time I've had a habit of inverting certain tropes anyway, I started thinking it might make for an interesting story if the heroine has a badly scarred face and maybe a damaged eye like in the above image.

The basic ideas for this character clicked together pretty quickly, but I still wasn't sure what to do with her. I started writing her into a book a couple of times, but it didn't go anywhere. Then I was asked to submit a story for a paranormal/sci-fi romance anthology, and realized this character would be perfect for it. I came up with a bio for her in about half an hour and posted it on my blog. Later on, I changed a few details here and there, such as her skin color, but for the most part, this is the character who appeared in the final draft of the story -- and now she's a major character in this work-in-progress novel.

And as it turned out, I'm having a lot of fun writing this character. :D