Hi, backers!

I’m not going to lie - I’ve been in a rut with this book over the past several months. I’ve completed several other projects since then, and I haven’t felt the same connection to it that I have in the past. I spoke with my editors at Inkshares, and we’re taking another approach to the new draft. It feels weird to revisit my old words, but I’m looking at them with a fresh eye, which is good.

I’ve updated my Inkshares page with the first four new chapters, if you’d like to take a look here. Please feel free to send me your thoughts! I’d love to get this thing in fully polished shape for you to read in its entirety soon.

Thanks for your support over these past two years.

Cari

I have just received a Kirkus Review for Immortal Red. It seems that they quite liked the book. Click the link below to read the review:     

https://www.kirkusreviews.com/book-reviews/keith-hummel/immortal-red/

Thanks to all for your support. I know we will make the 750 for publication.

It’s been a while since the last update, and I’m happy to report that a new draft of the novel is complete. I put it aside for a couple of weeks, while I was busy with a work project and finished re-reading it yesterday. The story has come together much better than the earlier drafts. On the advice of my publisher, I stripped out quite a few complications that were cluttering things up. 

That said, there’s still work to be done. It’s possible that things were pared back a bit too much. I need to spend some time beefing up the opening chapters to give them more breathing room and adding more depth to the main character, detective Jack Waters. But it’s the first time I’ve re-read a new draft and not been embarrassed. So definitely good progress.

I don’t when the next round of edits will be completed, it’s likely going to take a few months. I will also likely tap into a couple of beta readers to provide an objective perspective. The publisher has set a very high bar for this book and I want to make sure it is as good as it can be.

In the meanwhile, thank you for all your support and encouragement. This has been a tougher project than I ever expected, so thank you also for your patience.
--Zack
PS. I attended BoucherCon, a mystery writers conference in October and met a many authors including fellow Canadian David Morrell, who wrote the book First Blood, which became the basis for the Rambo series.     

STEVE HERMANOS JANUARY BASEBALL UPDATE

GOING, GOING, GONE! The editorial work on my time-travel baseball novel is progressing. Thanks to the Inkshares staff for working so hard on the book! We are looking at a July 1, 2020 publishing date. 

ASTROS CHEATERS! It’s front-page news. The Houston Astros were caught relaying live centerfield video of the opposing catcher putting down signs. Here’s the chain: centerfield camera focusing on the opposing catcher, to monitor near the dugout, and then a coach or player would bang on a trash can to signal the batter: no whacks--fastball; whacks--curve. The Astros won the 2017 World Series with this help.

In better days, the only electronic device allowed in the dugout was the telephone to the bullpen. In recent years, Major League Baseball has rushed to embrace all sorts of video and motion-sensor technology. They measure how fast every fielder moves on every play. The teams may want this information, but do they need it? No they don’t.

And this is what they’ve reaped, a sign-stealing debasement of the game itself through technology. Talk about a raging fire of cynicism throughout American society in the Trump Era; the Houston Astros cheating scandal pours an oil refinery’s gas supply onto it.

Sure, attempting to steal the catcher’s signals to the pitcher has been a part of baseball forever. But that has relied on the batting team’s EYES and brains, not on artificial technology. There HAVE been scandals using binoculars and telescopes; not cool, but nothing compares to MLB’s current whimpering surrender to technology.

THE BEST WAY OUT OF THIS! Grab a baseball and your mitt. If you don’t have a baseball, grab a tennis ball, or a taped, balled-up sock. Find a loved one or friend or a dog or a wall--and THROW THE BALL! That’s why so many of us love baseball, because we learned it as a kid. It’s a part of us in a way we can’t explain, in a way a cheating scandal amidst teams of multi-millionaires can’t destroy. 

THE THEME OF GOING, GOING, GONE! The cheating scandal and ubiquitous technology underscores some of the themes of Going, Going, Gone! Two players—Andre Velez, and Johnny Blent--and their manager—Bucky Martin—are caught in an earthquake and ripped back in time to the 1906 San Francisco earthquake. Their MLB lives are obliterated, their identities. Their money, fame, girlfriends, cars and condos. But as they hook into professional baseball in 1906, and take to the field, playing with no cameras examining their every move, without the flashing lights and deafening sound system of 21st century stadiums, they find playing baseball deeply refreshing and their love for it is reborn.

EMAIL, INSTAGRAM, FACEBOOK. Feel free to email me at stevehermanos@yahoo.com. I like Instagram; I’m listed under my name. I check Facebook every week or so.

Thanks again to everyone who participated in the successful crowdfunding campaign for GOING, GOING, GONE! Even more than you are, I’m looking forward to holding the book in my hands!

Your baseball-loving friends can pre-order GOING, GOING, GONE! at Inkshares.com

Thanks so much & Swing For The Fences!

Steve

Pleased, bordering on giddy, to announce I’ve completed the latest draft of The Unforgiven Dead. It’s been a hard slog, but this super-dooper, new-and-improved version is gonna knock your socks of when it’s published later this year (probably October). 

Unbelievably, it’s been over a year since The Unforgiven Dead was chosen as a winner of Inkshares’mystery and thriller competition. To say this book has been a long time coming is a wee bit of an understatement, so thanks everyone for your patience. 

Cheers! Fulton

Good day and Happy New Year! (Is it already too late in the month to still say that?)

Just a quick update on the latest. As previously reported, I sent back to my editor, Sarah Nivala, the revised manuscript for Bane of All Things on Dec. 13. This, if you recall, was the revision based on my first Editorial Letter that I received from Sarah back in September.

Earlier this week, Sarah sent back Editorial Letter #2 with their assessment of where the manuscript now stands. In short, the end is in sight. But as Sarah notes in the Letter:

 “A question we ask ourselves quite frequently at Inkshares when addressing the quality and marketability of a novel is this: ‘What is it about this novel that necessitates its publication?’ What this really means is that we need to see what it is about a novel that makes it utterly unique. We don’t want to publish works that will fade among the crowd of their genre; we develop stories that offer readers a singular experience … what it is that will make critics and readers alike ravenously devour it?”

For a book, a movie or a TV show, it can be hard to predict or engineer success. All we can do is put out the strongest product we can. What does this mean in BoAT’s case? At this point, it’s about doing further work on the characters to make them more well-rounded and engaging for the reader, raise the stakes by digging deeper into the true nature and motivations of the Big Bad Guy, and offering more sweeping spectacle in terms of the sharing more backstory of this world.

If this sounds like I literally need to sit down for a fresh interview with each of my characters, as if I were producing an episode on each of them for the Biography Channel, you’re right. It is a good time of year, after all, to sit back for some relaxed and honest conversation. 

My intent is to turn this around by end of March.

Thank you again for your faith and support. It typically takes 18-24 months for a book to be released from the day a publisher first agrees to take it on. I am doing my level best to shorten that cycle considerably with BoAT. (FYI, the one-year anniversary of when Inkshares said yes is April 29).

Cheers

Leo