Category: Book Updates

I have just been informed that my book, Bell Mountain, has won a Global Ebook Award–a bronze medal (third place) in the category “Fantasy/Other World.”

I never knew I was even in the running! Looks like I had to beat out a whole passel of other books, too–many of which must have been quite good.

What does this mean? Free publicity, more reviews from more reviewers, and a nice Bronze Medal sticker to put on the cover of my Kindle edition. Not to mention a big surprise for me, which will eventually subside into a warm glow of satisfaction. It’s the first award I’ve ever won for my writing.

Yee-haaah!

First it was the plumbers and the landlord turning everything upside-down, then family members needing help, and finally my knee blowing up. Nevertheless, as Helki the Rod might say, I reckon I’m about half done writing my new book–Bell Mountain #7, The Glass Bridge. I don’t know how.

Rocky Bridges said, “There are three things that everyone in the world thinks he can do–run a hotel, manage a baseball team, and write a book.” I don’t know about running a hotel or a baseball team, but I’m here to tell you that you would be positively amazed by the number of obstacles that pop up in front of you as you try to write a book.

Gee, this knee hurts.

Still, I’m happy with the way The Glass Bridge is taking shape. I think its readers will be, too.

 

There is a rumor going around that Book No. 6, The Palace, will be the last of my Bell Mountain series. Imagine my surprise when I heard that!

No one at Storehouse Press has suggested to me that I should just drop the whole business. I mean, I’m 20 chapters into Book No. 7, The Glass Bridge. So as far as I know, the rumor is untrue.

I have high hopes for The Glass Bridge. Some things have happened in the story that have very much surprised me. I think they’ll surprise you, too, when you get a chance to read it. I really can’t say when I expect to be finished. Sometime before winter sets in, probably. Then, if the leaders of this great country of ours haven’t totally destroyed it, and there are still publishers and writers and readers, the editorial process will begin.

News Note: HUD, an agency of the federal government, a head of the hydra, has announced a plan “to racially, economically integrate neighborhoods.” The NAACP supports the plan, so you know it’s bad. Its purpose is supposedly to promote economic equality.

Uh-huh. Just like the Green Martians in A Princess of Mars.

The latest word on my book sales is… well, I’d rather not print it.

I suppose I’m doing all right for someone whose books are not in the stores, not in any of the major catalogs, and whose chief publicist (me) has all the publicity skills of an infant. Like, it’s just me, and this blog, and the very occasional radio interview.

So all I’ll say is this. If you’ve read my books, and liked them, tell your friends about them. Heck, tell people you don’t like, perfect strangers, and people who owe you money about them, too. What can it hurt?

OK, now you can beat those crazy international shipping fees. Readers in Canada, the UK, Australia, and everywhere else–The Fugitive Prince is now available on Kindle from amazon.com.

We’re still at work updating the book’s page on this site, so if you want it, go directly to the amazon.com website. You will save an enormous amount of money on shipping.

Soon we hope to have the entire Bell Mountain series on Barnes & Noble Nook as well as amazon’s Kindle.

The clay tablet cuneiform version has been delayed indefinitely.

I don’t know about other authors, but for me, there’s a huge difference between reading proofs and reading one of my books after it’s actually been printed up and published, and other people are expected to pay good money for it.

When I finally get my author’s copies of the book, I always open it with some sense of trepidation. Is it really any good? Will people like it? Or is it more like one of those awful books I review from time to time–full of clumsy writing, silly characters, dopey dialogue, and bogged down in an inane plot? It was with all these daunting questions in mind that I began to read The Fugitive Prince.

How many typos are going to be in it, that should have been corrected? How many pages full of nonsense have I perpetrated? With my mind so full of doubts, it takes me a while to get into the book.

The good news is that, halfway through the book, I’m reassured that it’s all right, after all. Hooray, I didn’t write a turkey! I haven’t cheated my readers! It’s actually good!

It’s quite a load off my mind.

I know I’ll go through the same song and dance with The Palace. Oh, well–that’s just me, it can’t be helped. At least I’m not blase about my work. Maybe if I had 700+ titles published, like Barbara Cartland, or 600, like John Creasey, I’d be able to ease up a bit.

So… I like the book, and now I can’t wait to see if readers like it, too. And of course that’s what really matters.

The author is always the last to know, but now I know: Book 5 of the Bell Mountain Series, The Fugitive Prince, is now on sale.

You can order it here by clicking “Books” or “The Fugitive Prince” and putting it in your cart; or from the Chalcedon Store at http://www.chalcedon.edu ; or from amazon.com .

Will one of you be the first to review it on the amazon.com page?

Today I don’t care to write about any of the disgusting things that are being done to our country and our culture. We get it by now, don’t we? Good is evil and evil is good, the bad guys always win, boys should want to be girls and girls should want to be boys… Yeah, yeah, we get it.

I have a book to write, and I don’t need the kind of inspiration provided by the headlines. And having just returned from another visit to Middle-Earth, I have decided to pass on to Narnia. This time I’ll read the books in the order in which Lewis wrote them.

I don’t know quite how to say this, but there’s something realer about the great castle at Caer Paravel than there is about this week’s Gay Day at Fenway Park in Boston. To know my own imagined world of Obann better, I visit C.S. Lewis‘ world of Narnia. To know my own Lord better, I kneel before Aslan. I have learned that this, for me, is a way to get closer to my Savior and my King, Jesus Christ. Through these imaginary doors I get entry to the heart of what is real.

Open up the wardrobe, Lucy…

I have just confirmed that Bell Mountain #5, The Fugitive Prince, is at the printer’s–which means it will soon become available. So some of you, puh-leeze!, get ready to order it and write glowing reviews on its amazon.com page.

Among other things, The Fugitive Prince is very much a story of grace, forgiveness, and redemption. I think I can safely say you’ll be surprised by who gets forgiven and redeemed–and how.

But there will also be plenty of battles, adventures, and sneaky plots to go around, so don’t expect to be bored.

I think The Fugitive Prince has been sent off to the printer, or is about to be, so look for it to come on sale soon.

I have finished writing (in longhand, on a legal pad) the first several chapters of Book No. 7. Are you ready for this title? The Glass Bridge–pretty cool, eh? It comes from one of those old Abombalbap stories Ellayne is always reading. Yes, there was a pretty big mess to clean up at the conclusion of No. 6, The Palace. And no, I don’t know when that’s coming out. It’s written, and the first round of proofreading is done.

What’s The Glass Bridge all about? Well, that’s what I’m going to find out.

P.S. to ‘An Australian Tragedy’

Yesterday Patty discovered that Burke and Wills–the 1985 Australian movie about the expedition of the same name–is available on youtube, so we watched it.

If the screenwriters did take some few small liberties with the facts, I forgive them. This movie is gorgeously filmed and superbly acted. I found it very moving indeed–especially at the end, when the sole survivor of the expedition has to tell the public what happened. The struggle to cross the unknown vastness of Australia bore a disquieting resemblance to Scott’s fatal trek to the South Pole.

Why in the world did the British always manage to come down with scurvy?