A number of weeks ago life happened at my day job. I had just started a rewrite of the final battle of CURSE, but life put that on hold. Life got back to normal a few days ago. And a few days ago I began to work on that final battle sequence again. So you’ll notice that delivery targets have changed on the books page. I’m moving under a good head of steam now, and unless life happens again, we should meet those dates 🙂 More than anyone else, I want to get this book into your hands.
Mrs. Brown, my wife, teaches language arts for the 7th and 8th grades as well as reading comprehension. She’s big on reading. She wants to provide every opportunity for kids to not only get good at it, but also learn to love it.
And so her walls are lined with bookshelves full of awesome books teens love. She reads the first chapters of books to her classes to let them sample various stories. She features their book reports. She has them paste the covers of the books they’ve read on pages displayed around the classroom. And the school’s awesome librarian supports with her own programs.
The 7th and 8th grade students at Rich Middle School are marinated in a big celebration of reading.
In Mrs. Brown’s class, it’s fairly straight forward to get an A on reading, which is a huge part of your grade—all you’ve got to do is read.
But how much reading do they need to do? How do you track it? And what books should they read?
Check this out.
First, she tests each student to see what his or her reading speed is.
Next, she takes the number of hours they’re supposed to be reading each week for homework (I think it’s 2 or 2.5), then does the math to get a feasible reading word count for the trimester for each student. She may adjust it a bit, depending on the student’s ability.
Third, she presents that number to the student, and the two of them set a word count goal for the trimester. Talk about an individualized goal.
If you want to get an A in reading, all you have to do is reach that word count goal.
How do you know how many words a book has?
The Accelerated Reader program provides that information.
But how does she know that they’ve read the books?
She uses the Accelerated Reader tests. And if there isn’t one, the student can write a report.
And what books do the students read?
Any dang book they like.
I love this. The kids get to select their own books and just read, read, read.
Another part of this is that she pings each student once a week to ask them what book they’re reading, what page they’re on, and what they think of the book. This weekly check-in provides the more frequent accountability students of that age need.
Yesterday, she received this report from one of her 8th grade boys who is reading Prey, the first book in The Drovers series.
Oh, yeah.
I’ll take that any day (grin).
Rock on, budding reader.
Raveler is now up on Audible! The other two books are getting excellent reviews so far for both the story and performance by Alex Wyndham. So happy to have these up in audio. Many readers have been asking for audio versions for years.
I’ve been diligently moving forward with CURSE.
However, it’s not been in a straight line. While working on the ending last week, I realized that I no longer had the word limit constraints I had with Tor.
Of course, I knew that, but I hadn’t gone back to my previous draft that had been written to meet Tor’s limits and asked: should I put back in anything that I was forced to cut?
But while writing the ending last week I realized that in the last revision I had removed an awesome sequence that introduces the villain of the tale. I’d done it to save the word count. I’d written another entrance. It was good given the constraints, but it didn’t have the cool wattage that this one did.
Not even close.
I love great character entrances. Could I put it back it?
The answer was a resounding yes!
So this week was spent rewriting that entrance (and now it’s even better than it was) and fitting it into the story (and slid in so smoothly and made it so much better).
Folks, you will now get to see the naked orange-eyed priest of Mungo.
The artists were the wild cards with my delivery schedule. Now that I’ve secured the artist for all three books I want to release this fall, I can finally give some target dates. Here’s the schedule:
I want to get GLORY out sooner, but it’s going to be a big book, and I’m not going to rush the editing phase. I don’t want to release shoddy work. Furthermore, it’s almost the size of two normal 100,000k novels. I hope to significantly accelerate the schedules for both AWFUL INTENT and GLORY, but we’ll have to see if I can make the necessary arrangements.
After GLORY, I will publish another Frank Shaw novel. And then I begin the LORD OF BONES epic fantasy series which is going to be structured differently that much of what’s out there. The concept excites me and allows me to take the story in all sorts of directions. It’s going to be a blast.
Can’t wait to get these books out there and let them find their audience. Thanks to all of you who have hung with me, sending me emails or posting comments of support. It’s much appreciated!
EDIT: I keep the release schedule up-to-date on the Calendar page.
I’ve been busting my chops these last three weeks. CURSE is finished. RAVELER will be finished tonight. I will be putting them both on sale at smoking hot prices for those that have signed up for the newsletter in the next few days.
This is also perfect timing for the Salt Lake City Comic Con. I’ll be there, participating on panels, chatting with readers, and selling copies of my books at a table in the Artist’s Alley (White, booth 40). I’ve invited two other awesome authors to join me at the table–Cheree Alsop and Eric James Stone. This is going to be a great event. If you’re going, please drop by at the table to say hello. I’ll have more on Comic Con in a post in a few days.
