Earth is under siege. After decades of political tension between Earth and Mars, war has come to the blue planet. A Martian pilot will change history. But can he prevent further war with the colonies of Jupiter, and save the woman he loves?
Concerning the book: We’ve updated Chapter 1, reposted with changes from the latest edit. We submitted a full re-edit in February, in hopes of getting the book published by April. Unfortunately, that didn’t happen, as the coronavirus crisis affected a whole stream of the publisher’s projects. But we’re still pushing and we appreciate your patience and your faith in us. Doyle and Lou
Howdy, folks.
It’s hard to believe it’s been only three months since my last update. Feels like a year. I hope everyone is keeping safe and sane as best they can as we weather this viral storm.
Today, I returned the revised manuscript for BoAT to my editor at Inkshares. I do hope that with two rounds of developmental edits now complete, the end is in sight, but we will see.
Tomorrow marks the one-year anniversary, if you can believe it, since I got the word that Inkshares would publish this tome. Whether you work with a publisher large or small, it can routinely take 18-24 months to get a book out the door.
With Inkshares, I had hoped to shorten that cycle to 12-18 months. But thanks to social-distancing measures, it’s hard to say when we might have a launch date for BoAT. Bricks-and-mortar bookstores, in addition to online sales, are an important part of Inkshares’ marketing strategy. The team doesn’t want to launch any title at a disadvantage. Neither do I.
So, stay tuned.
As some of you know, since my last update, I have had a cancer diagnosis – metastatic melanoma.
I have had two surgeries to remove all the lymph nodes under my left arm. In mid-May, I will begin targeted gene therapy – a year of fiendishly expensive meds that have a good chance of completely and permanently eradicating the cancer.
By some morbid twist of fate, a half dozen friends, neighbours, and former colleagues have also had cancer diagnoses in recent months.
This of course puts a whole different flavor on living in the time of a pandemic. It emphasizes how much the small victories matter. How much a positive attitude matters. And how important it is to occupy yourself in productive ways.
Thank you all again for your patience and support. Stay safe and keep reading!
Cheers
Leo
Hi @Doug Crain ,
Thanks for reaching out. The Tide of Madness is most definitely still active! You are absolutely right though – I haven’t sent out an update in far too long. I’ll fix that at some point this week.
In short - Life kind of got out of hand (including two job changes) and the time to rework the manuscript has been harder to find than I would have liked (and my chaotic approach to novel writing didn’t do me any favors). That being said, the core of the novel is done and, barring some re-writes, I’m very happy with the quality of it overall. I feel like it’s going to be a bigger and better story than book 1.