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Update on release plans

February 19, 2018 By K. D. McAdams

Last week I mentioned that I was behind on the writing part of They Awake, the first book in my new Off Earth series. I had a solid writing week, but I’ve decided to shift the release date.

I didn’t want to release the book in the summer, as sales are often slow. But this years schedule is setup to support a new release every six weeks and I want to stick with that. They Awake Off Earth Series Book 1 is now scheduled for release on 7/6/2018.

My next new release is coming March 2, when Revelation book 6 of The Seamus Chronicles hits the stores. This is the last of the Seamus Chronicles books and I tried to tie some things up and get the survivors from Earth formally settled. The cover reveal is below.

After Revelation, my next two releases will be Dylan Cold novels, Deceptive Practices on April 13 and Frayed Shorts on May 25. Both books are written and have gone through revisions so I can send them off for final edits any time. I think of the Dylan Cold thrillers as more beach reads than the new Off Earth series, so you’ll have those to enjoy over the summer.

Plus, I wanted to make sure the new series is great. I did a lot of planning and prep work before sitting down to write so getting the words down in four weeks wasn’t outrageous, but I missed. The writing will be done this week, and then I’ll spend about two weeks on rewrites and revisions. After that I’ll send out some beta copies (if you’re interested in being a beta reader drop me a line kd@kd-mcadams.com).

For those following along for the numbers update on the Off Earth Series progress –

Book 1 – They Awake
Target release date – New date! 7/6/2018
Last weeks word count/target – 12,456/12,000
This weeks word count target – 6,500 words
Total words/projected – 88,695/95,000

Approaching the Lowell

February 16, 2018 By K. D. McAdams

Approaching the Lowell, Off Earth Manufacturing’s base of operations, was like flying into a puzzle. At the early stages of construction, trying to figure out where the station ended and the ship it was building began required careful inspection.

Maddison Holtz was still fascinated by how such a small thing could build the massive freighters and cruisers they had become known for. She knew that in a few months the ship they were building would dwarf the Lowell Station. Then the trick would be finding the station against the backdrop of a massive space fairing vessel.

Could this become her life? Off Earth Manufacturing was far more profitable than the Salvage operation she worked with now. Everything about the Lowell was nicer than living on the rock stationed at Lagrange-4. But there was something cold about the people and the environment.

Off Earth Salvage and the carved out asteroid they lived and worked in felt like home.

So why was she coming over here to interview for a job?

“Passengers are required to sit. Safety pods will be activated in fifteen seconds.” The artificial intelligence pilot announced over the speakers.

“Why are we activating safety pods?” Maddison asked while she sat.

The training was clear, if there is a need to activate safety pods, sit first and ask questions later. Safety pods were protected structures that sprouted out from the seats in the shuttle. Every ship had a different version but they all worked the same.

If there was a hull breach or any other environmental malfunction the safety pods would protect living cargo for anywhere from a few hours to three months. Technology would allow for humans to physically survive for longer than three months in a safety pod, but the mental effects were not desirable. It didn’t require reading more than one or two accounts of early safety pod survivors to understand the mental toll of being alone, drifting in the void of space.

“We detected an electro-magnetic pulse and models show that navigation will be impacted.” The A.I replied calmly.

“Why don’t you reverse course and avoid the EMP?” Maddison challenged.

She had no idea how old this pilot was or if it had encountered anything like this before. Having a data set of potential failures and evasive actions was great, but even computers needed experience to learn certain nuances.

Working with A.I. Instances every day, Maddison knew that some learned and reacted better than others. Some humans trusted the machines to be flawless, others understood that questioning any type of intelligence actually made it stronger. She had no problem questioning this instance.

“Evasive maneuvering offers less than a ten percent chance of efficacy.” The voice replied.

“What is the projected result of not taking evasive maneuvers?” She was getting a little upset with this one.

“Impact, in three minutes eight seconds.” It answered.

“And the projected result of impact?” Maddison cinched the belt on her seat tighter.

“Hull breach,” the worst case scenario was reported with no emotion.

This was not good. Hull breach was the A.I. equivalent of oh shit.

Working in salvage gave Maddison and all the other people stationed at Lagrange-4 an understanding of the reality of systems. They recovered enough transport ships and leisure cruisers with bodies tightly strapped into seats with safety pods activated.

For years the salvage bots reported bodies found back to the central systems. The central system did not maintain a field for the state of the body – living or dead. Safety pods were considered successful if they were located with a body inside.

A ripple effect from the data meant that testing parameters were skewed. New safety pods were constructed with the goal of keeping a body intact, not alive. Thousands were produced and placed into service.

It took a long time to teach the nuance between finding a body, living and finding a body, dead. Even longer was required to revamp the systems so that deployed safety pods were functioning to preserve life.

Most of that was before her time. But the impact of old ships not updated or updated with a new defect was seen all the time.

The shuttles were some of the oldest ships still operating.

“Hull breach is unacceptable. Take evasive action.” She commanded the machine.

Doing the math should have been easy. Why would the pilot instance not attempt a low likelihood evasive maneuver in favor of a high likelihood hull breach?

Because it wasn’t updated to preserve life.

Maddison had her own oh shit moment.

The safety pod built around her in a blur. A few inches in front of her face a monitor flickered and glowed. It was supposed to come on instantly with pressurization status and an exterior display.

“Computer, it is imperative that you preserve life. Protecting the body is insufficient!” Maddison screamed.

There was no response.

Could the ship even hear her through the protective cocoon?

The belts auto tightened and pulled her back into the seat. Her shoulder was slightly out of position and the alloy strap cut into her painfully. Drawing in a sharp breath to stifle a scream only served to increase her fear. It felt like there was not enough oxygen in the tiny chamber.

Releasing the fist that clenched in response to the pain, Maddison closed her eyes and slowly let the breath out through her nose. Her heart rate slowed and her nerves calmed.

Panic was her bitch and there was no way it would win now.

Nearly everything was out of her control, with the exception of how she responded. Screaming, crying, and flailing all felt like reasonable responses, though unproductive. She had to think of something positive.

“Computer, emergency restart, this safety pod only.” She spoke calmly and clearly.

Restarting the whole ship would cause the pilot to be offline for several minutes. If they were on a path to collide with the Lowell already, removing the pilot would not change that.

Several seconds passed by. Maddison focused on her breathing.

Next time a budget question comes up around safety pods it would not only get approved, but she would lobby to double it.

This was a rational thought but not productive right now. She acknowledged it and returned to focusing on her breath.

The screen lit up brightly and the glow shone through her closed eyes. Her safety pod was back on line. Things were looking up.

“What’s our impact status?” She commanded confidently.

“Impact likelihood greater than ninety percent.” The pilot responded.

“Take evasive maneuvers.” Maddison ordered.

“Evasive maneuvers would generate risk to occupants and have low probability of success.” The computer replied.

The pilot didn’t want her to pass out during a high G-force maneuver. Preferring death to discomfort was a logic flaw of epic proportions.

“Override comfort parameters and take evasive maneuvers.” She kept her voice steady.

Maybe the fact that her pod was back on line was a good sign. If this was her time to have a safety pod experience it was better to be near a major station than out in the debris field or off near an isolated asteroid.

What else could she do?

Collisions happened all the time in orbit. If they didn’t, the salvage company probably wouldn’t be profitable. Still, going from one site to another within the Off Earth Industries family of companies should be safe.

“Computer change destination to the moon.” She rushed her order.

If she could get the ship to try and take her someplace else maybe it would force an evasive maneuver.

“Navigation systems are not responding. Impact with the Lowell is imminent.” The voice replied no differently than it had when announcing take off and recommending that she sit back and enjoy the ride.

Her stomach rose quickly into her throat and the straps of her seat pressed against the top of her shoulders. Maddison braced for a forward push that as bound to accompany impact.

The ship continued to drop. Blood moved into her brain and her toes became cold. Her eyelids were heavy and even though the screen in front of her was glowing grey, darkness filled her vision.

Maddison woke to a wretched smell and a feeling of water in her lap. Blinking her eyes open she could see bits of her breakfast floating in the air. Her suit was stained and damp but her body was in one piece.

“Where are we?” She asked the computer.

“On a trajectory for Lagrange-4 approximately two thousand kilometers out.” The computer did not try and make up for it’s obstinance.

“Why are you going to Lagrange-4 I was trying to get to The Lowell.” She challenged the stupid machine.

“Hey Maddison, how are you feeling in there?” Tanner Nazca’s voice came over the speakers.

“Looks like I lost my breakfast, soiled myself and then rolled in mud. Oh and I have an incredible headache.” She answered bluntly.

“Yeah, sorry about that. The control room showed that you had a malfunction and were going to collide with the Lowell. I had to override control and force evasive maneuvers. You know how stubborn some pilots can be when it comes to passenger comfort.” He answered.

“Thanks for not making me roll the dice on this safety pod. Nothing appears to be working so I was not optimistic.” Maddison wondered how her boss, the CEO of Off Earth Salvage got involved in a routine shuttle transfer.

“Well I really didn’t want to have repairs to the Lowell put on my tab. You know my cousin, even if they caused the failure he’d try and take me to tribunal over who has to pay.” Tanner answered.

Of course it was about the money, not her. Maddison flushed at what she had been thinking.

“Plus, I can’t have my Operations Director interviewing for jobs without even getting a chance to keep her.” He added.

How did he know she was going there for an interview? How could she tell him why she wanted to leave, or why she wanted to stay?

“I guess I owe you at least a conversation.” She conceded.

“How about after getting back, you clean up and come to my quarters. We can talk over dinner. Looking at these vital signs I’m guessing you’re going to be hungry.” Tanner suggested.

If he was watching the vital signs she would need to keep things under control and not let her heart rate or body temperature increase. Think business.

“Very well. I’ll have the shuttle alert you when I land.” She needed to keep it simple.

“See you later,” Tanner was ready to sign off. “Oh and Maddison, I’m glad you’re okay.”

“Thank you.” She answered sincerely.

It was hard to think that she ever considered leaving Lagrange-4. The cold hard rock suspended in space was her home. Starting with their boss and leader the people made it warmer than even the sun cruisers.

5 Keys to writing a memorable series

February 14, 2018 By K. D. McAdams

The last few weeks I’ve been going through the idea and planning parts of writing a successful series. Those are critical to your success, but in thinking about the series I’ve loved there are five keys to a truly memorable series.

Before you dive in and start adding meat to your outline, take a minute and work on these five areas. These will take your work beyond simply well thought and finished. When you’ve nailed these five keys you’ll have a series that truly engages readers.

Characters – This sounds obvious but bear with me. My first two series had main characters that I put lots of work into. The supporting cast didn’t get nearly as much attention. If you know you are going to be writing a series think through the supporting characters in as much detail as the main character. Really think more about how this team of characters is going to work through the series. Building rich, deep supporting characters gives your readers more than one story to follow along with. In the end you’ve done a good job if some readers are passionate about characters other than the main character.
Conflict – Also obvious, but not really. Of course your story is going to have a main conflict. There is something standing in the way of your protagonist achieving their goal. But there has to be other conflict to make the story real. If all the primary characters get along all the time it will feel contrived. Having conflict between the characters who are working together to achieve a goal creates realism and adds to character depth. Don’t create conflict for the sake of conflict though. Any conflict between your core team should relate to deep character traits and beliefs that these characters hold.
Touch points – This is a layer deeper than setting but relates to the characters environments. In my first two series I did a terrible job of having a touch point for the characters to go back to regularly. Think of this as a physical home base where your characters return to work through new issues and information. It could be a very simple place, but complex enough that your readers will dream about being a fly on the wall there. Not only does a solid touch point give your characters a place to take a break, it allows your readers to catch their breath and think about the events that recently transpired.
Change – Everything must change. Your main character, the world they live in, the antagonist, everything. When you’re writing a series it’s not enough to say the protagonist wants A and in the end they are happy with B. For the Off Earth series my main character was initially focused on earning a life of solitude on Earth. He has a big change coming that involves friendships and interstellar travel. But the world also changes. When the series opens the world is Earth centric. Everyone either lives on Earth or orbits the planet. All the laws, rules and common practices are focused on the planet and everything has that narrow focus. By the end of the series that scope will be blown wide open.
Mystery – It’s good to keep a few things unknown. Even if you are not writing a mystery, you don’t need to dump every fact and detail into the readers lap. Leave some things out of the story so that your reader needs to think and wonder. This doesn’t mean that you should ignore details. If you have situation that works out logically behind the scenes, it’s okay to not craft a way for the protagonist to learn these details. Give the reader enough information to know that someone is working behind the scene’s, but don’t spell it out.

In short, readers are awesome. They are intuitive, creative, and passionate (just like you!).

To create a compelling series you need to feed those reader strengths. When you give your readers and ensemble of rich characters, multiple compelling conflicts, and deep, richly detailed touch points they will stay engaged throughout the series.

———

I started work on my new series in October 2017. With my commitment to full time writing I expect to be working on the first three books in this series for 9 months.

Over the coming weeks and months I’ll share with you my thoughts, notes and tips for each step. You can easily follow along by joining my mailing list. In return I’ll send you a copy of my Successful Series Writer Manifesto and a weekly digest of posts.

If you want to see how I’m communicating with readers, hop over to the For Readers section of my site, or sign up for my Sci-Fi mailing list.

Who are your favorite supporting characters?

February 12, 2018 By K. D. McAdams

Sorry I didn’t post here at all last week. Everything caught up with me – wisdom teeth recovery, super bowl hang over, snow days, people home sick you name it.

I tried to stick with my daily word count, but even that slipped. It was one of those weeks where getting showered and dressed were big wins, everything else was gravy. As a result I’m thinking about changing my release plans for the Off Earth Series. I haven’t completely decided but I will this week.

For those following along for the numbers update on the Off Earth Series progress –

Book 1 – They Awake
Target release date – 4/13/2018 Behind schedule – considering shift to 7/6/2018
Last weeks word count/target – 7,722/22,000
This weeks word count target – 12,000 words
Total words/projected – 76,579/95,000

The story is coming along well, but I was supposed to be revising last week and sending to beta readers this week. That probably is my answer to shifting the release schedule,but I’ll know for sure at the end of the week.

Who is your favorite supporting character?

With the trailer for Solo dropping last week I was thinking about how he is one of my favorite characters of all time. It made me realize that I’ve almost always been a supporting character kind of guy. So I was wondering, who are your favorite supporting characters?

In Battlestar Galactica I was always a Starbuck guy (even before Starbuck was a she). Maybe it was Dirk Benedict though because I liked Faceman on the A-Team more than Hannibal.

In Star Trek I’ll admit to being a Kirk fan. I like Scotty and Bones, but they aren’t cool enough to take away from the Captain. I didn’t like Spock and now that I’m older I think that’s a testament to Leonard Nimoy being amazing as a Vulcan. Sulu and Checkov didn’t get enough air time in the original series for me to care much one way or the other.

In The Hunger Games, Haymitch was my favorite character and I wouldn’t mind seeing something done with his back story. This was true in the book, before even seeing Woody Harelson play him in the movies.

Tris was not my favorite character in Divergent. Four wasn’t either, but I did like Christina and Peter.

Harry Potter feels like it has the biggest selection of supporting characters that are likable. I don’t dislike Harry and it might be another sign of my age, but I think Dumbledore is awesome.

I think that one of the things that makes a series great is the ability to become invested in multiple characters. Anytime we talked about favorite characters from books or movies in our house the best stories require the longest thought. When the kids, or myself, don’t automatically select a main character as the favorite I know the story teller has created a compelling world.

So who are your favorite supporting characters? What are some stories that have a great team where you are fully invested in the outcome for each of them?

End of life notice

February 2, 2018 By K. D. McAdams

The tiny mechanical creature lay motionless on the gravel path. It didn’t return to the base station last night but the empty battery had to be a symptom of a larger ill.

This particular bot wasn’t mission critical for human life, but without it the flora and fauna in Capability Park on the moon were going to be stressed. Last time this guy had an outage they lost over fifteen percent of the plants growing here. The losses were only recovered a few months ago.

Sean Reynolds was frustrated that they weren’t preparing for the loss of this device. He knew the bots and systems that worked to sustain life in the park and the machines knew the plants.

Scooping the aluminum body off the ground he was amazed at how light the package was. This bot was built over forty years ago and designed to crawl along the hull of a ship and look for defects and make minor repairs. Ines Nazca modified to be one of the first agro-bots.

It was due for replacement about twenty years ago, but the problem with a lot of the older artificial intelligence was that no one knew how they learned. This bot, George, learned more about the variety of trees and plants in the park than any human even considered.

[Read more…] about End of life notice

5 Steps for growing your series idea

February 1, 2018 By K. D. McAdams

I normally try and post these on Wednesday, but having my wisdom teeth out last week has really thrown me for a loop. Sorry this is late, but I look forward to being back on track next week.

In the last post I shared how I decided my idea was worthy of expanding into a series. Here I’ll go through my process of building enough reference material and ideas to actually form the foundation of a series.

There is a difference between a story idea, a novel idea and a series idea. Some story ideas are great but only have a few thousand words in them. Other stories can naturally grow into a longer work and become a novel. Taking a concept from an idea into a multi-book series requires you to think beyond the traditional steps of planning a book.

Even though I validated my idea and was confident that I had more than one book I didn’t have any concrete thoughts about the story arc or what the characters real journey was going to be.

Having made plenty of mistakes when it came to writing my first two series I wanted to do better planning my new Off Earth series before I jumped in and started writing. The challenge is that you have so many thoughts and ideas floating around in your head, how do you start making sense of them?

Here are five steps to take for expanding your idea into a series.

Think on it. This isn’t as easy as it sounds. When I have a new idea that excites me for a couple of days I want to jump in and start writing. But what happens when you scratch that itch? It’s easy to finish scratching and then forget about it.In my case I started to obsess over what could pose a threat to Earth and force this character to change his goal of living on the planet to saving it. I also thought about back story quite a bit. How did this character end up orbiting Earth, and what was the society and economy like that had him feeling trapped there.
Write on it. Don’t start writing the stories, but write out your thoughts and ideas. This should be a brain dump where every possible character and scenario is spit out onto the page. Spelling doesn’t matter, grammar doesn’t matter, and punctuation is irrelevant. It’s brainstorming 101 and some if the ideas will never make it into your series, but others will become the foundation of your characters and your world.I spent 3 hours on 5 consecutive days brainstorming ideas for the OEI series. Some of them have already been rejected and others have become key elements. After 15 hours of free writing I had plenty of content, conflict and mystery to start coming up with a story arc for the main character and the people living in this world.
Research it. Is anyone else writing about this idea? Are there real world equivalents or parallels to your idea? Even if you’re writing fantasy or science fiction you’ll want elements of reality woven into your characters and your world. Your characters have to be believable no matter what setting you have them in.Doing research will help you to understand what realistic characters look like and how much detail you’ll need to invent if you’re straying from an actual setting. To my surprise I found out that there are companies already working to mine asteroids and manufacture items in space. Their websites are full of inspirational ideas and issues that can cause conflict.You also want to understand other books in this genre. What aspects do readers enjoy or dislike? Never copy another story, but know how your story fits into the genre.
Embrace it. If you’ve gotten this far, this is your idea. Own it and love it. Many times this is the stage when self-doubt starts to creep in. Yeah you’ve thought about the idea and done some free writing, there is a market for it, but…Don’t get stopped by the but. You’re writing this series and you need to be excited about it. I always tell aspiring authors that if they love their idea and write with passion, readers will be able to tell. Dig in for the hard work but get excited about what you are going to create.
Talk about it. Don’t shy away from your idea. I get asked and hear other people ask “What’s going on?” all the time. Tell them! Say I’m writing a new series and I’m really excited about it. Their feedback may not shape your work in major ways, but you never know when a friend or acquaintance will share that one tid-bit of information that puts your story over the top.It’s also a way to start finding readers. You don’t have to sell, but if an acquaintance knows you’re writing and they’re a reader they will ask you how the book is coming. If you keep them posted they may be willing to buy your new release when no one else will. Every sale in the early days helps.

At this stage your story idea is big. It’s ready to get planned and plotted and you need to prepare to shift your focus to actually writing the story in a way that makes sense.

I’ll share a few thoughts on plotting and planning in the next post.

———

I started work on my new series in October 2017. With my commitment to full time writing I expect to be working on the first three books in this series for 9 months.

If you want to see how I’m communicating with readers, hop over to the For Readers section of my site, or sign up for my Sci-Fi mailing list..