Reminds me of Raven Strike by Patricia Briggs.  where her gods were split asunder into multiple pieces of themselves never to be recombined again for fear dark forces would enter the world.  all the deities except one did this voluntarily.  The others weren't sure he'd say yes and if he had time to prepare could resist and the world would fall.  So while there were lots of pieces of certain gods floating around as Mages or Bards or Healers etc and whenever someone with a mantle died it would pass to a new born child.  This warrior god was only in like 7 peices and the people carrying his mantle had a disturbing tendency to go insane.

So I guess the question is,  do your noble families only decend by blood line or does the mantle pass outside the family and thus someone who would otherwise be peasant born become part of house Swahili instead.  And is there prejudice against outsiders joining hte family.  Plus what would happen if a child of a noble born didn't recieve a mantle.  Would he be half noble?  A trusted famiily retainer?  Part of a secret league of retainers who felt they were wronged and a subversive element out to topple the nobles from power and install themselves?


The Deposed king

Update while I'm waiting for the first editing pass.  I'm not sitting by idle.  Yesterday I wrote the first 1.8k of the second book in the series Admiral's Gambit.  Today the total word count is now up to 10K!

So here goes nothing.  Who knows how long I can maintain this furious pace but I aim to keep it up until I burn out or have to go get another job.


Have a blast guys and gals.


Remember to always follow the dream,


The Deposed King

Hey there guys.  This is your very favorite and most despised The Deposed King.

Got my first book completed and so I'm dipping my toes into the water and looking for resources for finding a good cover artist.  I already looked up Deviant Art.  The one artist I saw was with a three month waiting list and it cost anything from $150 up to $250 for a single figure with an additional 50 bucks for every extra figure.

Is this industry standard.  Are there other places to go or people you recommend.  Right now I'm kind of on the fence.  I'm in Cebu Philippines for this month and maybe the next, not sure.  The local talent I've seen here isn't great and its harder to find.  However for $100-$150 I could hire a person for a month to just sit and draw until I found something I liked.

Any advice anyone?  Obviously I'm on a bit of a budget and i'm looking to go the amazon route so assuming I'm going to make 30$ a month or less i don't want to blow a whole years worth of income.  On the other hand a cover can be the the visual cue that makes or breaks you.  So for later on where do I go, what's the standard and my options.


thanks,

The Deposed King

My advice is you can't let anyone stop you.  On top of that the worst enemy in this battle is not anyone on the outside.  Your worst enemy is yourself.

As I started wanting to be a writer.  My first enemy was my inability to write fast enough.  My mind would race ahead and my twenty words a minute couldn't keep up.  I'd get discouraged and stop.  Then I was blessed to meet my future wife and cursed to be separated for a year while we worked on the fiance visa.  My writing speed improved.

Then my enemy became all the people who'd just say I couldn't get through the first chapter it was so roughly written but didn't actually help me fix it.  But really the problem was with myself.  I needed to focus on my inability to write cleanly.  I was discouraged and stopped again.  That is still a failing of mine but I'm both better at it and able to cope and find work arounds.  For instance my brother is helping me and I'm focusing more on books from established authors.  I open them not to read but to see how they constructed their dialog and paragraphs.

Then my next enemy was all those cheap kindle books out there I could read for less than a buck.  Who wants to take the laborious time needed to write a book when there was all this fun stuff to read out there.  But you guessed it again.  I'm the problem.

I think its the same thing with editors and agents and all that.  Its not that blasted editor who won't give you a chance or people online who won't tell you what to do.  All of that can either be found on the internet from a few hours of searching or honestly your work isn't worthy yet.  Self-domination is the key.  You must master yourself and refuse to let your discouragement, your lack of inspiration or any discouraging comments from others slow you down.  And in this day and age there is no excuse for blaming the editor, or agent or cover artist, for the reason you can't publish a book.  Any yahoo with a lap top can post their book on Amazon for 'free' and then your works aren't in the hands of some (dirty so and so _____ insert name) its directly in the hands of your readers.  And son if you want to blame the consumers for not liking your works, then you are looking at the wrong business and need to rethink things.


The Deposed King

I have found i love wighting more than reading
my second draft of the first book is being profred by my amazing frined who checks things like gamer and that my plot makes sens to other humans
my second book has about two chapters but i am working on it
my frined wants me to publish the first book but i am kinda nurves about letting her read it let aloune the rest of the wourld and don't have mutch nolige about how one would do such a thing

I just completed my very first novel.  Tentatively Titled Admiral Who  Its between 116K-133K depending on the right cut off point since its intended to be the first book.

Got my brother doing the first pass for basic grammar and word repeats.  With every possible hint of facetiousness intended I should be called The Comma King instead of The Deposed King.  That said after the first pass I'm taking it straight on over to http://baenbar.com for a chapter by chapter review.

For other hopefuls looking for people you don't know to tell you if your manuscript is the bomb or something closely resembling dog feces.  Here's direct link to their slush pile http://bar.baen.com/categories.aspx?catid=48.  Remember this is a members only site sponsored by the Baen Books Publishing house.  Now despite it being called the Slush Pile, the Publishers don't actually look at it.  This is just a place for like minded individuals, aspiring authors, and voracious readers to comment and help point you in the direction each individual thinks best.  You can post as little or as much of your book as you want.  I've never heard of anyone having a problem with anything they posted being 'pirated' or 'stolen'.  And that's in the 9 or 10 years I've been there.

For hopefuls needed advice and encouragement I think on the Jim Butcher website nothing speaks more directly to that than the words of the man himself.  Here's the link:  http://jimbutcher.livejournal.com/4217.html

As for me.  Once its gone through my first volunteer editor.  (I've found maybe a third to 40% can't stand to read your work if its too poorly formated with bad grammer and punctuation)  I'll run it through the Bar and then if I think its good enough its off for a test run of the Amazon Kindle.  I'll let you guys know when its available in snippet form on either my blog http://aspiringauthor1.blogspot.com/ or the Baen site.  You can follow my progress on the self publishing front as well as the writing of my second novel, Admiral's Gambit on my blog.

Have a blast guys!!!  And remember to always follow the dream.


The Deposed King

Is the chatroom gone for good or am I just too oblivious to find the link to it?

thanks for your consideration.



The Deposed King

I've been having a bit of a hard time finding the time to write lately.  The wife wants me to help out with a lot of yard projects.  Between that work and some reading time, I haven't been writing as much as I know I should.

By the way... Its been pretty quiet over there at the Congi site.  (cough cough)  I hope some people start droping in to post and comment and such.

The Deposed King

Hey all (waves his hand in the air) No urban fantasy over here for me.  Besides I'm a rural country boy and keeping all that urban stuff internally consistant sounds like too much work for me.  Nope.  That stuffs fun to read but its not for me as a writer.

Instead I'm currently 50k words into a space story involving a Noble Insect Lordling and his effective exile to the outer rim of the insectoid empire, which takes place soon after returning from a small victorious battle, at the massive Hoth Front, to reinforce his troop of warriors.  The space station he soon arrives on is about to go to heck in a hand basket and its up to him to kick butt, cut off heads and take names in a courteous fashion or else all is lost in this little piece of the empire.

Unfortunately I am currently bogged down.  But!  Our side has hope and I will soon start the word count march march marching along!!

Have fun guys and gals