Hi, everyone :)

Just a quick update to show off an image I forgot about. This is every major and minor character in Blurred Weaponry. It’s not quite perfect, with some characters needing different hair or natural eye color (a bunch of these people have silvery-gray or gray-tinted eyes in the book), and it’s definitely not how the characters look in my head, but it’s a fin thing. Here you go: 

Also, there’s the occasional emphasis via italics that’s missing from the uploaded chapters, but unfortunately Inkshares’ "upload chapter" option or even copy-pasting completely negates that stuff, which quite frankly needs to change. Sorry about that, and I’ll have downloads for those chapters available next week that has the formatting fixed.

I’ll also be looking at a lot of Inkshares updates over the next couple of days too, so you’ll find my “likes” on tons of projects. And as soon as I’m not ultra-broke, I’ll be supporting more books and joining a syndicate or two.

Thanks to those that follow, and I’ll have some stuff for y’all to see and read next week!

Peace out,

Michael Valdez

Dear Readers:

WE HAVE A COVER!

Team Pirates!!

Hope your week is going well! Quick update: I’m now incorporating edits from Beta Reader Tom, so things are right on track!

I came across this list while surfing during my kid’s afternoon nap break.  Neil Gaiman is one of my favorite writers, and I thought this was very interesting and helpful. Inspiring, even. 

I hope it gives you all the feels:

8 Rules of Writing from Neil Gaiman 

1. Write. 

2. Put one word after another. Find the right word, put it down. 

3. Finish what you’re writing. Whatever you have to do to finish it, finish it. 

4. Put it aside. Read it pretending you’ve never read it before. Show it to friends whose opinion you respect and who like the kind of thing that this is. 

5. Remember: when people tell you something’s wrong or doesn’t work for them, they are almost always right. When they tell you exactly what they think is wrong and how to fix it, they are almost always wrong. 

6. Fix it. Remember that, sooner or later, before it ever reaches perfection, you will have to let it go and move on and start to write the next thing. Perfection is like chasing the horizon. Keep moving. 

7. Laugh at your own jokes. 

8. The main rule of writing is that if you do it with enough assurance and confidence, you’re allowed to do whatever you like. (That may be a rule for life as well as for writing. But it’s definitely true for writing.) So write your story as it needs to be written. Write it ­honestly, and tell it as best you can. I’m not sure that there are any other rules. Not ones that matter.

And now for some hard science:

-Erin