First Draft is Complete!

Thursday night at about 10:30 I wrote the final words of the Deus Hex Machina first draft. I had been pressing to get it done by the end of June, and through some help from motivational guru and all around fabulous person Elayna May Darcy (seriously go order  They Are the Last, it’s funding now and it’s awesome), I was able to get all twelve chapters finished on time.

So what happens now? Well, first off I’m going to celebrate with some gaming. Then probably Tuesday I will start working on my short story for Too Many Controllers. After that is complete it’s time to start planning for the Shadow of the Owl sequel, Shadow of the Panther. I know many of your have been waiting to find out what happens to Mylena in [spoilers], and I promise you I haven’t forgotten her.

That’s not to say things aren’t progressing on DHM. My cover designer is already working on comps and I have a developmental editor lined up and waiting. But first, I want to get the first draft in its raw, unfiltered state into the hands of a few select readers to get initial impressions. If you are someone who likes to help make a good book better, I am trying to build a beta reader group. Please email me amanda [at] goldleafbooks [dot] com and let me know that you’re interested. Warning: must love cyberpunk and have an eye for spotting egregious errors in the plot.

Once I have the round done, I’ll head into the second draft and fix anything that stood out to me and my readers (I have a mental list of weak areas I want to shore up). After the second draft is complete it will be off to dev edit land, and hopefully, plot perfection. 

Thanks for following along on this journey. The book is done! Let’s celebrate!  

Greetings Jackolytes,

No Sync! Surely not! I turned on the TV at an Airbnb place in Toronto and was greeted with this screen. 

But fear not! Sync City and Jack are deep in production and will be coming to you in the not too distant future. Sync City is more than set to ride (and still available for pre-order!).

In the meantime Destiny Imperfect continues to battle for a top three position (now sitting fifth) in the Inkshares/Nerdist contest. Some of you have already branched out and pre-ordered this project. Thank you so much! It would be absolutely awesome if more of you could go and check out chapter one of Destiny Imperfect and pre-order. If the project doesn’t finish in the top three, it’ll be pulled and you get your money back.

I’d love this project to succeed but, to put it simply, without your help, it won’t. Be wild. If you want to take Destiny into your own hands, pre-order here.

Cheers,

Peter

For much of my life I have felt like an outsider, out of place. I am older now, and I have come to believe that this is a common way for many if not most human beings to feel. I have my personal reasons.

My family came to this country from Mexico when I was six years old. Then we moved back to Mexico for one year when I was eight, then back to the US. It was a lot of moving, a lot of goodbyes, a lot of losses. I remember my mother crying, she felt so alone much of the time. She had very little support. Telephone communication to Mexico was difficult at that time, and expensive. She didn’t speak English very well, making her feel even more isolated. As kids, we pick up languages faster and more easily, so I remember having to help her communicate from time to time. We had no other family to lean on. I know now how scary it was for my parents, and how brave they were to face the challenges of immigration, all in order to give their children a shot at a better life. They are true pioneers.

So I grew up in the US without extended family, and when we did visit our family in Mexico, it always felt too brief for the sense of disconnection to totally disappear. Even though I have made many, many friends and acquaintances over the years, and I now have a family of my own, I still carry that feeling of being alone, etched into my soul from my early experiences.

I’m totally okay with all of that now. I have an incredible lot to be grateful for. I am okay with my life’s story, with my challenges, with my successes and my failures. I am in a good place spiritually.

So why am I saying all this? Answer: for you to know a little background information about the spirit of Mission 51. My protagonist Mat is an alien from space, the ultimate outsider! He is the one who came in 1954 to southern Nevada, the place we now know as Area 51. My parents were married that same year, and then came to the US, in their mid-twenties. I was born here in 1955. Mat’s story is an immigrant’s story, like that of my parents. He encounters the challenges of fitting in, the difficulties in mastering a different language and culture, he has to deal with loss, and has to adapt to survive. Mat does these things, like my parents did. He finds freedom. He pursues happiness, as is our American right. And he almost finds peace at the end of Mission 51. If the book makes it to publication and finds an audience, Mat’s story will continue in book two, already taking shape in my crazy head.

So that’s it, a little background information for you to better understand why I wrote this story. Thank you all, for your interest and your support of me and Mission 51!

Peace! :-)

Hi knife wielding followers, 

just a little splash of news, I have now been officially welcomed into the hallowed halls of Quilldom...there was a lot of funny handshakes and strange creatures in masks, but it’s all over now and I am awaiting my mission instructions before the next stage.  

I am also piqued to discover that I am number one in the mystery community...which I’m sure is a whole heap better news than a lower number...unless the scoring is rather like POINTLESS in which case more is less if that makes sense...

Anyway, I should also take this opportunity to steer you in the direction of a stonkingly great read by Peter Ryan, smash hit author of Sync City...his latest work is called Destiny Imperfect and is one of the two books I’m supporting this month and beyond.  So check it out or tell a friend!  DESTINY IMPERFECT 

The other book I love is called PROXY, if you like the idea of a collection of pop artists selling their souls to live forever, than this might just be you cup of tea...