I did a thing… then got to do another thing!

So I wrote a thing and then I was invited to another thing.

Alive After Reading is a podcast where Tim talks to writers about writing and everything in between. I am not the only author on the show. He has interviewed some like Paul E Cooley, Sarah Johnson, and H.M. Gooden. Take a listen, you won’t be disappointed.

But to my weekly blog.

Throughout my time blogging, I have written about various topics from futurism to my theories about motivation and everything in between. I tend to talk about what I want, and I may repeat myself. I’m not much of a good blogger. I just write words on Sundays, some of them have a specific topic, the rest are ramblings. Like this one.

As a writer, my greatest strength is that I write lots. I don’t see it as I see others who write more. My wife kindly reminds me that more traditional published authors only write and publish a single novel per year, and I have already got that done, and its only May. I will have two more novels published before July. Plus, I have three more novels, another trilogy that will be published by the end of the summer.

This excites me as it is two years of work is coming to frustration. A lot of time was spent learning my process. How do I write a boatload of words, plus edit them without losing momentum? Also, how do I write every day, while juggling school, novels, second drafts, edits, proofreading, marketing, social media, my wife and my kids?

That is what took me two years to learn. Juggling my priorities to the best of my abilities. My solution is to keep my goals reasonable (my wife laughed at this line when I told her) and to lose the unneeded things in my life. This was video games, movies, and TV. The parts of my life I don’t need. I write instead.

If you want to get a goal done, then sacrifices must be made with an eye for priorities.

This journey is not something I can do alone. It takes support from many people for it to become a reality. The easiest way is to visit my Amazon Author Page and purchase one of my books. All of my books are available on Kindle Unlimited, and if you have a subscription, they are free. Help support me by reading my books. I do have a tip jar set up at Ko-Fe, where you can buy me a coffee. Or you can also visit me on Facebook. Your help and support are much appreciated.

Studying past battles to Write about the Future

As you may know, I am a lover of history and a futurist. I have previous blogs where I talk about some of my thoughts on the future. I also study history.

I look at the reasons events happened and how it affects the people living through the events. This is for two primary purposes. Studying historical geopolitics allows for more realistic stories. And stories are about people, after all.

Events in the past have echoes that reverberate through time. This can be argued by using the Treaty of Versailles (the treaty that ended World War One) and how it helped sew the seeds of World War Two. Another example is how the end of World War Two set the stage for the following Cold War. One event sets up another as no event happens in a vacuum and no events happen without context.

It is impossible to understand the reasons for the Vietnam War and the Korean War without understanding why the Cold War was even a thing. Once the Cold War is understood, then both events become clear. The reasons the leaders made specific decisions will make complete sense once the context is understood.

For an author, this is important to make sure the situation the characters are tortured in, makes sense. There are dozens of novels with unsubstantiated geopolitical events with armies waging uninformed events. Understanding geopolitical history can allow science fiction and fantasy authors to have realistic settings.

An example of this is where a science fiction story has a large amount of trench warfare. Understanding the events of World War One and World War Two will tell the author that trench warfare is impossible if one of the enemies is mobile. The French learned this the hard when Divisions of Panzers circled around the Maginot Line. In World War One, trench warfare was a reaction to the use of machine guns and artillery. This devastated infantry in the open without cover. In World War Two, trenches were used on a smaller scale to hold specific strategic points. In a futuristic science fiction story, trench warfare will only happen if mobility is removed. Why hide in a trench when you can drive back to safety?

Living throughout the event is a single important person. This one person is who the story is about. A story can’t be easily told about the event. Then it becomes a history text. This is shallow and dull to the reader. 

Studying how a person lived in the middle of a vital event allows an author to truly understand him. A soldier fighting in World War One will experience war differently than World War Two, the Korean War, and the Vietnam War. These soldiers all experience the horror of war. However, it’s unheard of a soldier in the Vietnam War to have to go over the top to charge the enemy trenches. Soldiers of World War Two enjoy knowing which way the enemy is, luxuries a soldier of Vietnam never experienced.

What does all of this mean for an author?

That is simple. The urge to write a futuristic story that mimics a historical event or situation is great. I’ve read a few where the soldiers fought a large, final melee charge at the climax of the book. This makes no sense when they have rifles and bullets. A futuristic science fiction battle would be different if the enemy has a battle fleet in orbit. This is also evident when an author tries to explain how the war started. One event breeds another, which breeds another.

Once the geopolitical and methodology of the event is set up, then the soldier’s experience can be modelled to make some type of sense. If a soldier on the Western Front of World War One had to describe his war, he might choose “Mud.” One fighting in Africa in World War Two might use the word, “Sand.”

This journey is not something I can do alone. It takes support from many people for it to become a reality. The easiest way is to visit my Amazon Author Page and purchase one of my books. They are available in all countries and for free in Kindle Unlimited. I do have a tip jar set up at Ko-Fe, where you can buy me a coffee. Or you can also visit me on Facebook. Your help and support are much appreciated.

Scraping the very Bottom

This blog post is not about running out of ideas as I don’t have that problem. It is also not about running out of money as I try not to talk about that.

This post is to talk about November 2018, but this isn’t about politics. I don’t talk about politics on this page.

In November 2018, I had hit rock bottom. My writing had flat-lined in terms of quality. I had no idea which mistakes I was making. I know I was making them, but I had no idea why or how to fix them.

I was also unable to write any length of work. I had seven different novels partially written, and I was unable to figure out how to fix them.

In short, I was ready to quit. I was going to give up and toss the towel.

I had written some novels, I knew I could do it again, but I was unable to figure out how to do it again.

Statistically, there is a higher chance for a novelist to quit as they are unable to finish the novel. However, I was getting into the part where I was going to quit due to the lack of progression.

For anyone reading this, who feels the same. This is not the time to throw in the towel. Think about all the time spent getting to the stage you are at. This is the time to double down and try again. It might be time to take a course or two. Or to spend money on an editor or critiquer.

This is not the time to quit. Success is not final, failure is not fatal: it is the courage to continue that counts.

This journey is not something I can do alone. It takes support from many people for it to become a reality. The easiest way is to visit my Amazon Author Page and purchase one of my books. They are available in all countries and for free in Kindle Unlimited. I do have a tip jar set up at Ko-Fe, where you can buy me a coffee. Or you can also visit me on Facebook. Your help and support are much appreciated.

Worldbuilding and Logic Rant

This is a ramble that I had late one night on social media. I thought it was interesting and that I should put it here.

Rant

I write my books in two main genres, which are Science Fiction and Fantasy.

The reason I do this is that they both scratch a different itch.

I enjoy science fiction cause I am a futurist. I enjoy telling stories about what I think the future could look like. I’m the type of person who wishes we had flying cars by now.

Science fiction is the question of what can happen. When it comes to creating my science fiction stories, I never choose the best choice for what could happen. This means that it is not the most probable or most straightforward. I choose what will happen based on what will cause the most conflict in the story. Conflict equals stories, and if there is no conflict, then there is no story.

I still try to figure out how to create the world, so it makes plausible sense. It doesn’t have to be perfect, but it has to have some type of internal logic. Without any logic to the world, then the actions of the characters don’t make sense.

The starships should act in a certain way. Gravity still exists, and no matter where the characters are in the galaxy, they are in orbit around something. Either a moon, a planet, a star, or the center of the galaxy. The ships will act in a certain way.

I imagine it like being on the ocean. The wind and the currents dictate what a ship will do. A sailing ship has to move a specific way, or else it won’t move very fast. With diesel engines and the like, it allows ships to ignore some aspects of sailing on the open seas. Now, they don’t care what the wind does. But they listen to the currents. It is why there are shipping lanes. Having a ship go with the current saves on fuel.

In space, the same thing exists. Right now, we are in the equivalent to the sailing ship. We don’t have the energy to go against gravity and planetary movements. We have to ship things on long trips using gravity slings to get things where they need to go. If we figure out more efficient energy sources, then we may be able to take quicker routes. But like sailing on the ocean, taking routes where the aid of the gravitational force in travel will be a thing.

With fantasy, it is the question of what could have been. History is rich with stories and conflict and having some type of fantastical story set in a world that never was interesting to me. Back in my twenties, I did the Tolkein, and I had created a fantastical world complete with a map and different cultures. This was cause I was told that was the best way to do it. Create a map and peoples to inhabit said map.

I’ve refrained from doing that craziness to my later worldbuilding ideas. But there is still logic to it.

No matter what Hollywood tells us, swords won’t cut through metal armor. Battles in the middle ages resulted in very few casualties from combat. Most soldiers died of disease on a campaign than a sword blow. In battle, it was considered a massacre if ten percent of the soldiers died. Battles were about breaking the morale of the enemy, rather than slaughtering the entire enemy.  These aspects are just some of the logic used with creating a fantasy story.

If you like what you are reading and wish to support me in my endeavors, please sign up for my newsletter, visit my Amazon Author Page and purchase one of my books. Or buy me a coffee. Your help and support are much appreciated.

 

Motivation vs Discipline

Being a creative, I hear all the time that people aren’t motivated to do artistic endeavors that day. It’s a sad thing as they don’t know the difference between motivation and discipline.

Meaning of Motivation from Dictionary.com:

The general desire or willingness of someone to do something.

Meaning of Discipline from Dictionary.com:

The practice of training people to obey rules or a code of behavior, using punishment to correct disobedience.

So what is the difference?

Motivation is only a desire or willingness to do something. While discipline is a practice of doing something. Discipline is the reason why someone will get up at 5 am to go for a run. Discipline is why a worker goes to work for “the man,” as getting fired is the most likely punishment.

If a person is only motivated, then it is easy to put off the unwanted task. Motivation can be ignored as there is nothing behind the motivation. The second part of the definition of “discipline” is that it uses punishment to correct disobedience.

So what happens if a person doesn’t go for a run that morning? Simple, they don’t improve, and then get behind in their training. If a person is only motivated, then it’s easy to shrug it off. A disciplined person will hate the idea of not improving. A disciplined person sees a lack of training as a failure.

For me, it isn’t motivation that keeps me going each day. It’s discipline. There’s no one standing over me with a whip making me do this. I’m working so hard with my writing because I want to. It’s my choice to improve my writing, and it’s my choice to use discipline to help me make my goals.

My discipline is to keep the writing going. I have managed to write 356k words and 251 days in a row since the beginning of the year. With my blog posts, it’s the fact that I have managed to write one every week. Those three facts have kept me going, especially on days like today, where I don’t have the motivation to do anything.

On days like today, where I have no intention to do anything. Where I’m tired, grumpy, and completely and utterly unmotivated, however, I am also disciplined. I have been doing this for 251 days in a row, and I’m not going to stop now.

If you like what you are reading and wish to support me in my endeavors, please sign up to my newsletter, visit my Amazon Author Page and purchase one of my books. Or buy me a coffee. Your help and support are much appreciated.

The Wrong LZ

So I finally hit the button. I have published my military sci-fi novel.

It is called The Wrong LZ.

“No battle plan survives first contact with the enemy.” Helmuth von Moltke the Elder, Chief of Staff, Prussian Army.

Gunnery Sergeant Flannagain O’Neal serves in the the First Battalion, Third Marine Regiment of the Jovian Republic Marines. They drop onto the enemy held planet of Freya in the Odin System. When the operation goes wrong, it goes wrong fast.

Now the surviving members of Third Platoon, Baker Company must fight behind enemy lines against the enemy Odinittes. A ruthless enemy that will stop at nothing to get what they want. To the enemy, the ends justify the means.

The Odinittes have numbers, equipment, and superior intelligence on there side. The only thing that O’Neal and the Jovian Marines have are suits of power armor and Flechette Rifles. But how long can a platoon of marines hold out against a division of enemy troops?

If you like action-packed military science fiction. If you enjoy stories about the underdog fighting against evil. Then you will enjoy this novel written by Nathan Pedde.

Grab a copy of “The Wrong LZ” today.

Sounds interesting?

Here is the link. Take a look.

 

 

Update July 3, 2018

So I know that I haven’t been posting in a while. I am sorry for that. I published my first book, then my posting fell off. So far this year, I have written 200k words. I have two full novels published and two smaller kids books that I did with my kids.

Plus being a dad has taken up much of my time. My son is in piano, and my daughter is a ballerina.

I know. I am creating excuses for why I haven’t been posting. The suns in my eyes… the curling game is on…

No more lame excuses.

I will be moving to post once a week for now, and maybe posting more later.

In other news, my day job was going fine. Until they laid me off. It sucks, but I have written 25k words in the last 2 weeks, and I have published one book. I have another in the editing process and a short story in editing as well. I am not letting the depressiveness get to me. I am getting things done.

I also have an outstanding cover artist. His work is fantastic and has upped the game to my novels. His cover is the image for this post.

His site can be found here: Josh Thornbrugh

So now that you know that I am unemployed and working on my novels full-time cause that is the cards that have been dealt, what’s my future?

Well, the plan is to go back to school. Learn more about the writing and publishing process. It is a scary prospect, but I will make a go of it.

I will close off here, but if you all want to support my family and me, the easiest way will be to buy a book or three. Right not they are only available on Amazon and as e-books. They will be released sometime in the near future.

The full list of my published book can be found here.

My published work. 

Until next time.

Stay Shiny.

 

Creating a Military Sci-Fi Novel

 

So I have decided to change my writing schedule a bit. Nothing official yet. Once I finalize things, I will post them here.

The reason for it,  I have wanted to write a military sci-fi novel for a while. I have decided that I am going to write one.

I have also decided to talk about my methods for creating my world as I build it. Cause why not.

I create a story world there are two basic methodologies. Big to small or small to big. Some people world build in a more discovering writing style and fly at it. They do very little world building before writing ‘Once upon a time.’ It isn’t necessarily bad, it just has a tendency to run into plot holes and re-writes. This is the small to big method.

I prefer the big to small. I will use a smaller and smaller brush to design the world that I am writing in. Most of which will not go into the story, but will help with making the little parts of the story make sense in a macro way.

As such, I first start with the base writing universe.

I have a dislike of creating a new writing world for a new story. Don’t get me wrong, I love world building. If I could get a job where I create worlds for people all day, I would be in heaven. It is just that I have many already and I don’t need more. So I am going to put it in my Shattered Worlds Writing Universe. It will take place after my ‘Inescapable Game Novels.’

That means that anything that I create to this writing universe is more flavor for my current world. Even though my Shattered Worlds Writing Universe only exists in the Sol System. But that shall change.

Using the nations and peoples that I have in my Shattered Worlds, and a time frame of when this story is going to happen, I can brainstorm how it is going to happen. A war still needs to make sense.

I am not going to go into detail on who is fighting who in this story. Not yet. I will. Cause why not. That’ll be in a later blog post.

For now, onto the fun part.

I need to create a military force.

That is the hard part.

For research, one of my main sources of information was this book. It was well written and had lots of information on how military forces work in the current model. It also has some ideas on what future wars may or may not look like. I recommend anyone interested in writing Military Sci-Fi to grab this book.

For the uninitiated, most people think that a military is a bunch of men with no-senses of humor, a drinking habit, and some guns. But a military is much more than that. Don’t get me wrong, it includes all of that, but it is so much more.

A military is a very set, organized organization that is capable of moving thousands of men and material over long distances through hostile, rough terrain. Men and women who are willing to fight to the death for there cause.

On paper, there is a couple way of creating a military organization. Top down, or bottom up.

I am very strategic minded, so I am going to do the top down.

That means that I am going to create the larger structure before I get to the individuals. But take note. A story is about the individuals. Not about the organization or unit.

Now. My story takes place 600 years in the future. Humans have spread across the stars and will be at war. I am thinking other humans, but that is for ease of storytelling and not anything to do with the aliens. I will write other stories where the fighting will be against aliens, but that is not this one.

In order to create the structure for my soldiers to fight in, I need to make some assumptions. The first one is that there will only be two branches of the military. In most current armed forces, there are three.

Airforce, army, and navy.

In the future, there will only be the army and the navy. Sorry Airforce, you go the way of the Doto.

In this story universe, the army has been re-named the Ground Defense Force. The GDF. It is tasked with defending the specific world from threats. The Airforce has been merged with it.

To make the GDF fight harder, a unit based on a planet has there personnel families relocated to the planet. Someone that is defending there home and the family will fight that much harder for it.

The Navy, now named Fleet, is everything outside of the atmosphere. The structure of it stays pretty much the same. Ship personnel, the ‘air power,’ and the marines. It stays the same.

With those assumptions made, I can create a rank structure. For the GDF, I only go up to a Brigadier-General, while the Fleet, I go all the way up. I figure a defensive force will only have so many men in it. I have also decided to use modern ranks instead of creating new ones. The less I have to explain the better. More pages for more explosions and gunfire.

I then created unit structure. This part I was inspired by a video game. Hearts of Iron 4. In it, you create divisions by putting pieces of different companies together. I used that idea and created some base unit types. How many men in squads, platoons, etc. That way if I talk about a full strength platoon of Infantry having 40 men on page one, on page 300 it should have the same.

Also, the specific structure of the platoon? Do they use squads? Do they use fireteams? Are they like the USSR or the US? For clarification, communists use masses of men to win fights. The US use LMG’s and accurate firepower to defeat the enemies.

Do they have some type of fire support? Do they have artillery at the battalion level or the division? Does each company have a mortar unit? Or maybe it is a heavy weapons company that gets split up per platoon as needed.

These are all important pieces of information.

The reasons why comes to one of the basic tenants of storytelling that I follow.

It is more interesting to read about a character overcoming the disadvantages that he has with any specific skill, force, power or technology. In a military sci-fi setting, I can throw them into power armor and with flechet rifles and send them into battle. And that is all fun, but the good war stories, the ones that resonate with the reader/viewer are the ones that even though they are skilled and equipped for war, they still have an enemy to overcome and figure out how to defeat.

It is more interesting to have your men get pinned down by enemy sniper fire and force them to think outside of the box to get the enemy defeated. Or I can make them unstoppable killing machines, but who wants to read a story about that.

Until next time.

And p.s. Sorry for the space of time between posts.

Cheers.

Title changes

Just a short note today.

The Space Courier is no more. So in the light that I have made no sales from the Space Courier Book, I have replaced the name of it.

It is now, “An O’Neal Spy Adventure.”

That is the new cover. I also tweaked the marketing copy, so maybe people will be more interested in it. We shall see.

Now I have to get back to the land of Agersolum. I am working on Felix Book 2.

Cheers.

I’ve been Tardy…

It’s now the eighth of March and this blog post is later than it should have been. I apologize for the lack of blog posts. I have been busy.

Tonight, I should have been in bed hours ago…such, I shall ‘try’ to keep this post short, but knowing me, no promises.

This post is intended to act as an update on my writing process and some of the issues and errors that I have made. Some that I have corrected, some that I have not.

So far I have published two books and a third will be launching next week sometime. My cover artist is busy and it is likely it will be a bit before she gets to it. It’s all good.  As of the end of February, I have made a total of fifty bucks from my books and I have realized I have made some mistakes.

My marketing needs work and I have no sense of cover design. The two book covers that have been posted, I love. I think that they are lovely designs, the issue I have with them is that they’re not drawing people’s attention. No one wants to click on my books. No clicks mean they won’t buy my book.

After that, my marketing copy is bad. Bad marketing copy means that they will not be wanting to buy the book.

I have no data on how many people clicked the covers, or getting to the sale page, or putting it in their shopping carts.

The books are included in the KDP Select program. So people can read the books for free. KDP select is the only place that people will read my Phantom Sorcerer’ books. Most of the revenue made is from having ‘Phantom Sorcerer’ in KDP Select.  So far no one has read a page of the ‘Missile Attack’ book.

I think the problem with the ‘Missile Attack’ book, is that it’s a hard market to get into. And it makes sense. The kids that would enjoy the books don’t read KDP Select and don’t have credit cards to buy it.

That means that I need a new marketing strategy for my middle-grade book before I launch it on Amazon. But what to do? More research time I guess.

But from what I see in the reports that I get from KDP select, people read it. Not a lot, but when they do, its a cluster of times that they read the books. Meaning that I think that people are finishing the books. But I have no sign-ups for my newsletters or reviews on the books.

And that is that. I am currently 90% done on my June release, while I’m working on my July launch. But I haven’t gotten much down.

I have been hit by a wave of stress and a defeatist feeling. The peanut gallery is back. My inner Statler and Waldorf have made their untimely resurrection. Their presence has halted my production down to a crawl. They are an unwanted tumor in my life, and I must again figure out how to get rid of them. They’re halting my writing process and it’s not very good.

Advice would be greatly appreciated for any of the above statements and concerns. Feel free to email me at NAPedde@peddehouse.com, leave a comment, or a Twitter message.

Until next time.

Cheers.