I have not really done the NaNoWriMo thing to very good effect since hearing about it in 2019. It’s been going on much longer than that, though. My failure to participate hasn’t been due to anything with the event. I think it’s rather cool. Instead, I have had poor timing.

For me, writing a novel is an exercise in chaos. When I wrote my first one (which I finished the first draft of in October 2019), I started out with a plan. It fell apart immediately. My characters had other ideas. Instead of the quirky sci-fi/fantasy novel I expected, I got a thriller. Hmm.

For this year’s NaNoWriMo, I plan on doing my writing in November. But, in order to do that, I will need to make a better plan, and stick to it. It will take more discipline than I have displayed thus far in my writing. So, the first thing I will do it create a plan, rather than creating characters and seeing where they want to go.

A good story relies on an arc of events. The basics are the same, but I would recommend researching story arcs for your genre. Here is a place you might start…

1. Exposition
2. Inciting Incident
3. Rising Action/Progressive Complications
4. Dilemma
5. Climax
6. Denouement

It doesn’t have to follow this, but this is the basic organization of most stories.

Sometimes, though, there are mini-stories within the major arc, so you might find that you have more going on. But you’ll still see similar basic steps in your story.

So, unless you are always reading free books, those titles start adding up. Fifty books at $3 each is $150. That is definitely getting into the realm of buying a subscription to Kindle Unlimited. There are hundreds of thousands of titles available for KU subscribers for no additional cost. And those aren’t all unknown authors or $3 books. Some of the titles are as much as $10.

So, if you like to read a lot, it can be a pretty good deal. And, all of my books are currently available on KU, too. Except, of course, the book you can get for free for subscribing to this blog… the form should be over to the right.

Just in case you are wondering, as authors, we DO get paid for KU reads. We are paid per page. The actual payment varies each month, but in general I make just a little less than I do on a purchase, IF you read the whole book. It also bumps the book up in the ratings as more pages are read.

Right now I am well behind where I need to be in order to reach my book sales/KU reads goal for September. But if a few of you that are KU subscribers give me some reads, I’ll be right on track again.

As if you didn’t already know where to find my books… Here is my Amazon Author link. For good measure, here is my Vocal Media link, too. There you will find a lot of my short stories. Those are FREE to read, always, but if millions of you go and read my stories, I’ll make enough money to buy a happy meal.

I have to tell them the specific changes that have been made. So, for each change, I have to give them a “location number” (which I think might be a paragraph, but I’m not sure) as well as the nature of the change… location 5476, changed word ‘ot’ to ‘to’ or some similar.

Well… I didn’t record all of that, and it is VERY difficult to go back and figure it out, so I have had to scour my books (I have done Planning Vengeance, Dig Two Graves, You Don’t Know Jack, Who What When Why?, and Grafton. I’m in the midst of Unknown Caller, then will be doing Triple Cross and finally Lies and Omissions. That is all eight of my books. Feel free to get a few of them.

If you already have a copy, you can go into your Amazon account and look for content and devices. Then, under content, search out the book titles (I order them by author… it’s easier because they are grouped together). Under the ones that have been updated, there is an “Update Available” tag. Click it and the new update will be sent to your app or device.

A word of caution… if you have notes, they might not survive the update. I think that has to do with the changes in location that can happen as words move. This is especially true if you have a much older version of the book.

None of the changes are truly significant. I’m not changing plot points, characters, structure or action. These are changes to words or (in a few cases) formatting. Typos, wrong words (I have a couple of hanger instead of hangar that I’ve found) and similar things. They are annoyances… especially to me. The most significant changes were VERY early in Triple Cross. Right after I published it I realized I had some of the timeline mixed up. I had changed some things BEFORE publishing and didn’t catch all of the related changes. I fixed it within a few days. But… if you are the other person that downloaded it then, you might have the old version.

Do I need to say that this doesn’t work with the print versions of the books? That is one of the reasons I don’t do the print versions right away… Readers spot mistakes and tell me, and I correct them.

The common thing I see on the webs is that if I wanted there to be no mistakes, I would hire an editor… and yet, reading BIG NAME authors, I often spot multiple mistakes, especially in first editions. They have a phalanx of editors and others that go through their books with a fine-toothed comb, and there are STILL errors. It happens.

I’m just trying to fix mine.

If you ever find an error, please let me know. If it is an old edition, there is a good chance I’ve found it, but if not, I will fix it for future editions. Because of the way Amazon does it, there have to be a bunch of changes to trigger an update, though.

“Go,” Finn yelled, pushing Beth deeper into the house.  He pushed her through the back door just as Finch managed to pick up his weapon with his left hand.  Eight shots rung out as he pushed her in front of him through the door.  “Around to the right,” he told her, just half a step behind, stripping the memory card from the recorder he had been carrying in his jacket. 

“Crap that went bad fast,” Beth said, slowing up after sprinting all the way back to the barn with the Land Rover.  When she turned around, Finn was on the ground just outside the door.  A red stain was spreading from his side. 

“Go,” he told her as she rolled him over. 

Beth ignored him, tearing the shirt away from his side where he’d been hit.  

“It’s a clean shot, Finn.  We can fix this,” she told him.  Her limited medical training years ago was being pushed past its limits.  Finn held out his hand.  There was a micro-SD card between his thumb and index finger.  “Take it.  It’s as close to a confession as we can get.”

She took the card from him and jammed it into the pocket of her pants. 

“The passcode on my phone is 0819, the day we kissed.  Look for Alex.”

“I’m going to get you to the hospital.  You’ll be alright.  You have to be.”  She looked around the barn, seeing nothing but what they had brought, along with a few dirty, oily rags and a roll of duct tape.  She ran to her backpack and pulled out a couple of t-shirts.  She took those and the part of his shirt that she’d torn off and fashioned a bandage.  She wrapped duct tape around him and then did her best to leverage him up and into the passenger seat of the old Land Rover. 

She ran back around the driver’s seat and jumped in.  She cranked the engine, but it refused to fire. 

“Button,” he said weakly. 

“Right.”  She slammed her hand into the glow plug button, as if hitting it harder would make it work faster.  She held it for what seemed like forever… as she counted to thirty.  She turned the key again, and the engine sputtered to life. 

She pushed it into gear and pulled out of the barn.  When she looked off toward the rustic cabin and the trail beyond, she saw Finch, his gun held unsteadily in front of him.  She grabbed Finn’s 1911 from his slack grip and fired half a dozen shots as she popped the clutch.  She saw the older man collapse in a heap on the ground as she turned away from him and headed down the two-track as she’d been instructed. 

The drive seemed to take forever.  Pulling the Land Rover into the ambulance lane she looked at him, his skin pale from blood loss.  “I can’t leave you,” she told him.  She remembered seeing a hospital as Marty drove them out a few miles from the meeting point.  After passing the barn with the car, and not even slowing to check for the car inside, she recognized a feed store.  From there she had known the way to the hospital.

What’s IN this book, you ask? Well, I have part of it posted on Vocal for your perusal. Yep, that was the link for it right back there. At the end of that story is a link to another part… and another, until the free look at the free book ends.

Now, if you like to read on a Kindle app or device (I read on a Kindle app on my computer) I also have instructions on how to hotwire a PDF or MOBI file into your Kindle device or app (they both work the same way). The instructions are also available on Vocal.

As mentioned before, the emails aren’t overwhelming. Each Saturday there is a rundown of the posts for the week. If I am having a give-away or something, there may be an additional email. I have only done a handful of additional emails in the last year.