Lou Paduano | Urban Fantasy Novels | Sci-Fi Crime Series

Signs of Portents – On Sale Everywhere!

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It is official – Signs of Portents is now on sale through finer bookstores and e-retailers around the globe!!

Pay a visit to your local shop and order your copy now!

Signs of Portents Banner

Feel like spreading the love? Head to your library and ask them to add Signs of Portents to their collection! Share a post on social media! Leave a fantastic review on Amazon, Barnes and Noble, Goodreads and more!

Let people know the book is out there. Shout it from the rooftops. Scream it in the grocery store. Make a new friend at the bus stop with a friendly chat about your recently discovered favorite book. Hassle your pastor to slip it in the homily this week. (You get the idea…)

Where can I find the book already, Lou?!

Why, thank you for asking, Senor Heading Tag. You can find Signs of Portents at the following locations and more. Please shoot me an e-mail if there is a problem locating the book at any of these sites. I am doing my best to make the rounds to each for quality control purposes due to my extreme paranoia that no one is as perfect as I am (cue maniacal laughter here) but I can always use a hand.

Without further adieu – LINKS!!!

Print and Digital:

Print Only:

Digital Only:

Other sites will become live over the next few weeks. There is also your local bookstore which may not have a web presence but will still be able to order Signs of Portents for your reading convenience.

If you happen to notice another site with Signs of Portents listed please send me the link and I will make it available for everyone.

Thank you again for your continued support, both with the book and on this site. This would not be possible without you.

Thanks for reading.

Self-Editing Tools – AutoCrit

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I mentioned AutoCrit during my last post so I wanted to go into it a bit further. I became a member earlier this year after test driving the program. They offer a 14 day money back guarantee to give some time to work through the huge helping of reports offered to assist in improving your writing. Or at the very least, a second set of eyes on your manuscript that really fleshes out where you need to focus when it comes to self-editing.

I loved it. My pride though, thought of it as a cheat. It’s not. Pride was shown the door. Quickly.

What is AutoCrit?

AutoCrit is a critiquing software able to point out the inherent flaws of your manuscript while also giving you tons of positive feedback for the few things you’ve managed to kick ass on during the drafting process. It has a ton of functionality so you can view the manuscript as a whole or broken down by chapter with the ability to shift from chapter to chapter with the touch of a button instead of scrolling through pages and pages of text.

To get started with the program all you have to do is upload your text. There are two options for this that include cutting and pasting your work from a Word document into the editor or you can upload it.

autocrit menus

The menu is broken up into tiers. The top tier are categories and the bottom runs specific reports within the main topic. The Home tab offers a summary look at your work, but where AutoCrit really gets into the nitty gritty of your manuscript is the other categories.

 

Pacing & Momentumautocrit pacing

This category is great at figuring out where your manuscript slows to a crawl or if it is plagued with verbose sentences that need to be cut down and repositioned so the overall piece reads better. I tend to look at the Pacing report first to see if there are inherent weaknesses in the structure of my work. AutoCrit highlights paragraphs of text that could slow down a reader. This might be the intention of the author for a specific beat but more often than not there is something breaking the flow of the chapter and needs to be looked at.

A chapter with a lot of exposition has a tendency to weigh the rest of the manuscript down if not paced well and this report helps point out blocks of text that could potentially slow down the momentum of your tale.

Dialogue

The reports in this area help clean up conversation pieces within your manuscript. How many times did you write that someone asked a question instead of leaving it with a simple question mark? Did Loren reply to the question sharply, curtly, aggressively, sleepily or dumbly? Is the adverb necessary to the scene or does the dialogue itself carry the message across to the reader? These reports are great to assist in cleaning up unnecessary and overused tags and adverbs.

Word Choice

I only use two reports under this category (so far). Sentence starters is something I’ve ignored in the past but ran it out of curiosity on my last project. Very glad I did. Especially after getting an earful from my wife about my use of And at the start of my sentences. Here I thought I was being dramatic. Oh well.

Generic Descriptions is a fun little report as well to help beef up your prose. It calls me out on my use of the words Great and Looked and forces me to remember there is an entire English language of colorful descriptors to utilize.

Strong Writing

autocrit passive voice

Strong writing is where I tend to spend many hours during this part of the self-editing process. Every report under this category is crucial to making your writing pop off the page for the reader. Tightening up the language through the Adverb, Redundancies and Unnecessary Filler Words reports are my first stop at this point. From simple things like writing Loren stood instead of Loren stood up. (Maybe he stood down? Idiot!) My favorite part is that I have already made a pass of the work at this point and still missed things like this…

Where I typically spend a full day is with Passive Voice and Showing vs. Telling. If these reports are showing anything then there is work to be done. I love these two reports because they call me out on my own laziness and push me to rework my sentence structure in ways I never would have imagined before signing up for this service. Making my work more active and more vibrant, which I hope shows in the final product.

A great weapon for your writing arsenal.

AutoCrit really is a fantastic tool to add to your writing arsenal. A second set of eyes that, while not as nuanced as a beta reader, will give you things no reader can give you as thoroughly. A complete look at your manuscript with detailed reports on where you rocked it and where you need to improve.

Invaluable.

And priced as such.

Now, full disclosure. When I signed up for the service AutoCrit’s monthly plan was only $12 per month and they were offering a discount on an annual membership for $97. I almost walked away at that point. However, AutoCrit offered the use of a free sample through their homepage to test drive their service and a 14 day money back guarantee so that won me over in the end.

Unfortunately, prices have increased since April so once again I will have to question the money issue and the importance of the product when renewal time comes up next year. Plans now start at $29.97 per month with an annual membership going for $359.64. That’s quite the price hike and something to consider when weighing your own membership.

Take a closer look at the service and all of the details here.

Thanks for reading.

Self-Editing – Treating Your Writing Like a Professional

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Everyone writes. Don’t deny it. Even the weekly grocery list counts in this regard. Seriously. You make your grocery list and what do you do with it before you go to the store? You look it over. Double checking every item. (Or triple checking it if you’re like me. Then leave it at home like an idiot.) You remember something you need. You realize three tubs of ice cream probably aren’t necessary and make it a more advisable two. That is self-editing at its core and it is the most crucial part of the writing process.

I’ve shared my feelings on self-editing previously. It’s no secret I find it extremely painful as a process. But a completely necessary one. Self-editing is the true first step to turning your favorite Buffy fan-fiction into a dynamite draft ready to be seen by others. Not publication (HECK NO) but a step closer. And it’s because self-editing forces you to look at your work like a professional.

Those that can see the flaws and find solutions to them are the ones ready for primetime. Defending your first draft, riddled with typos and logic problems will not help you succeed. It will hold you back. It did for me for a long time.

How did I learn to cope with self-editing?

I developed a system. The same way every writer should. For EVERYTHING. Plotting. Drafting. And especially Editing.

With a first draft I do a cursory spell check, cursing at Word for wasting my time. Then I print the bugger off and tuck it in a three-ring binder. I used to just paper clip sections of the behemoth – not a smart way to go – so I have to thank Joanna Penn for the binder idea. From there I start my first readthrough.

First readthroughs are scary. You’ve spent months putting your draft together and aren’t quite ready to pull it apart yet. You gloss over grating details and choppy sentences because you KNOW they work. Except they don’t and you hover over them for a full minute (more like ten) trying to figure out what the hell you were talking about.

Highlight it. Underline it. Question it.

self-editing
My favorite is when a minor character’s name changes halfway through the story…

Question Everything.

That’s the key. Question everything. Setting. Staging. Movement. Motivation. Dialogue. Dialogue tags even. If questions come up for you, even small ones, they will definitely come up for your readers.

Note funky sentences, poor transitions, generic descriptions of locations and characters you probably haven’t thought enough about yet. Most importantly take your time with it.

Once the first readthrough is done I go through everything and make my changes. Easy ones first. Changes that require a major overhaul or solving a logic problem I typically highlight for a second pass. It gives me time to think about the best approach depending on the situation and doesn’t hold me up from other corrections.

Circle back to your highlights when the answers are clear. You may have broken more than you fixed but solving the fundamentals of your draft, the logic of your story is critical to moving forward with the next pass (or three).

Save constantly and under a new filename. For every draft. And keep the physical copy of that first draft. You will not regret this.

A second set of eyes

For a second full pass through the manuscript I use AutoCrit, a handy tool I will be talking about in detail on Monday. I upload the revised draft into their system and run every report imaginable to clean up my prose. I would be lost without this tool and it really helps me catch overused words and other silly things I should be able to realize on my own. (I’m getting better at it, dammit.) It also keeps me from passing it off to my wife to clean up. I’m sure she appreciates the reprieve.

Three is a magic number.

The third readthrough occurs on the computer. Sometimes I print it out and work it the same as the first. It depends on how confident I am about the draft. Sometimes it takes four or five or twelve passes but by this time I’ve typically hacked the crap out of myself and am working on the nitpicky (yet still incredibly important) parts of the narrative.

Was Soriya injured on her right side or left? Did Loren shave today? Who is holding a gun and who has the ice cream cone? (Two ice cream references? I should probably eat before I write these posts…)

Once again, it all comes down to questions. Never be afraid to ask them and never back away from every potential answer. If something is holding you back from passing the draft off to your beta readers there is a reason behind it. You may destroy that “perfect” first draft, that heavenly vision you held in your mind for your book but it will make it stronger in the end.

That’s how you take your writing to the next level.

Thanks for reading.

Signs of Portents – On Sale NOW

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Signs of Portents is on sale now!

Today is the day!!

Wait. Didn’t I say this book was coming out on the 30th? It’s only the 22nd. Did I lose my calendar? Or my mind? (Probably the latter…)

There’s a story in there…

It’s a learning game with certain things. I have complete control over my schedule, writing, blogging, editing, etc. When it comes to distributors and how they handle things? Let’s just say I’m still figuring all that out.

I clicked a button. Createspace, an incredibly user-friendly service that I will be using in abundance for as long as I write, doesn’t do pre-orders when ready to publish. As far as I’ve seen anyway. Maybe there is a trick I am missing, some link embedded in a secret html code to be deciphered by Robert Langdon. (I don’t have Tom Hanks’ talent to find it.) I went through the proof process until the book looked perfect and I hit the approve button.

WHAT WAS I THINKING?

All of a sudden my book was on Amazon and ready to go. Not the worst news ever EXCEPT…

The Kindle version wasn’t uploaded yet. I had set that for pre-order (because you can for some reason) so it wasn’t going to ready until the 30th. Thankfully I could change it and the 22nd became THE DAY of choice for both.

For Amazon.

Everything else? I needed a little more lead time than I gave myself. Another lesson definitely learned for the next book. (coming February 2017, hint hint) For the Nook readers, the Barnes and Noble shoppers, iBooks, Kobo, local bookstores, libraries and everything else in the world? Signs of Portents is coming. SOON.

When that day arrives, as soon as word trickles down from my distributor overlords (whom I love and respect greatly) you will be the first to hear it.

So good news, bad news thing but let’s circle back to the good news since I never tire of typing it:

Signs of Portents, the first book in the Greystone series, is on sale NOW.

Get it. Read it. Love it. And REVIEW IT. (Please and thank you.)

Signs of Portents on sale NOW

 

 

BONUS DIGITAL EDITION

Anyone that purchases the paperback of Signs of Portents through Amazon is also eligible for a FREE Kindle version of the novel!! It is through their Kindle Matchbook program. I thought it was a nice bonus and a way to thank you for taking a chance on a new author. Speaking of thanks…

A Word of Thanks

It’s taken quite some time to get here. More than I would have liked and more than certain family members too. (You can read about that nightmare here.) I could not have done it without the love and support of my family and friends, always pushing me to work and to get better at creating, at writing, and everything I do.

The first cycle of the Greystone has just begun. Come along for the ride.

And thanks for reading.

Writing Update – August 18, 2016

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I like to take stock on where I am with my work and I feel it’s important to share that with you here. Every two weeks you can find out what I’m currently writing, what I’ve been reading and other interesting factoids I have found on the interwebs instead of doing my work. (I actually stole the concept from my wonderfully talented sister, Sara Frandina. You can read her delightful coffee + content blog at sarafrandina.com.)

Currently Writing:

I am hip-deep in the self-editing process with Tales from Portents, a short story collection you’ll be hearing quite a bit about in the coming months. I’ve already set my deadline and a pub date for February 17th, 2017 so mark your calendars! There are six short stories involved pulling at different threads from Signs of Portents so I’ve been busy tweaking each tale, making sure it lines up with what’s come before (this is a prequel of sorts) and bridges the gap between the first novel and what is coming next summer.

Speaking of what comes next, I’ve started pulling notes and researching for my next novel. By research I mean reading a bunch of Superman comics so I can make Detective Greg Loren’s patented references. I should probably do some actual research too.

Finally, the best news of all:

writing - Signs of Portents proofs

The FINAL PROOFS CAME IN!! With two weeks to spare I have the final proofs for Signs of Portents. There is nothing sweeter than holding the book in your hands. More info on this coming in the next couple days!!

What I’ve Been Reading

Brad Meltzer and Tod Goldberg’s The House of Secrets – I’m a big fan of Brad Meltzer. I’ve read the majority of his books and am always excited for another adventure. I’ve always been fascinated with secrets hidden in history. The Freemasons, the Culper Ring, the Illuminati, all of them spark my imagination and I get sucked right into the story. The House of Secrets is no exception, this time focusing on Benedict Arnold’s bible and the conspiracy surrounding it. The book took some time to get rolling but by the second half I was fully engrossed. The nod to his previous trilogy was a nice touch. Always love those subtle connections between “worlds.”

Jason Aaron and Russell Dauterman’s Thor – I know. COMICS. I could pretend to be sophisticated and call them graphic novels but they’re not and Jason Aaron doesn’t pretend they are either. His Thor is AMAZING. I fell off the wagon a couple years back during The Accursed storyline re-introducing Malekith, the dark elf. (From Thor: The Dark World. Don’t pretend you didn’t see it.) I lost touch, always with the intention of catching up. Big mistake on my part.

Ever since Jane Foster became Thor (WHAT? Thor is a woman? Yes and it is great.) the stories have been top notch, work-building and cosmic in scope. Russell Dauterman’s art is indescribably astounding. I never want him to leave the book.

Have a great book recommendation? Want to tell me how Walt Simonson’s run on Thor was WAY better than Mr. Aaron’s? Shoot me a message.

The Web

Jason Aaron talks all things Thor – Not straying too far from my love-fest for Thor is an excellent interview with Jason Aaron on the book and where it’s going. I love the enthusiasm he has for the character and the world he’s playing with.

Tiny Goals – Shaunta Grimes guest posted on Jeff Goins site with a great article on setting tiny goals rather than big, impossible ones. As a stay at home poppa bear with two wee ones this is something I wholeheartedly agree with and need to be reminded of way to often. With nap time, late nights and weekend mornings my only real outlet for writing, creating smaller, tangible goals rather than big, lofty ambitions is the only way the work gets done. AND I get to create checklists. I love checklists!

I’m checking this off my list right now, in fact! Ahhh, satisfaction…

Thanks for reading.

Signs of Portents – The Long Road to Publication

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Signs of Portents took a terribly complex and irrational journey from pen to page and finally to publication. The initial concept came about in 2008. Yeah, I know. Ridiculous. Image Comics’ ShadowLine imprint was looking for a companion book to their Bomb Queen title and were looking for pitches.

Being an overly ambitious fellow, I sent eight. They were horrible. Piddly little paragraphs like an elevator pitch more than a full blown, professionally constructed pitch. I did no research into Bomb Queen or anything else ShadowLine was publishing. Not a single smart move taken. It amounted to bupkus. Shocker.

Greystone, however, was one of the them, but not the same as the book you now have adorning your shelves.

Take a look at the original pitch:

To the outside world Soriya Greystone appears to be the epitome of normality.  Married to a man bringing home a middle class income.  Two kids, the apple of her eye.  And a house in the suburbs.  The typical housewife.

Wrong.

In the city of Portents, darkness lurks around every corner.  Creatures, demons, and more, all wait their turn for a chance at breaking through to our reality.  All that stands in their way is the Greystone, occult detective.

Working with Detective Greg Loren and an unusual arsenal of occult artifacts, Greystone uses her peculiar talents to solve supernatural crimes and keep her family safe and unaware of the true dangers of the city.

Like I said, horrible. No surprise it went into the slush pile we call life. But I came back to it at the end of that year. I was trying to figure things out as a writer and my focus remained comics and script writing. So I pulled out my pitch and wrote a four issue mini-series. I even came up with a title – Signs of Portents. (Progress!) After writing it I searched high and low for an artist but the process quickly fell apart. That’s how my writing was at that point.

So I had a script but no way of producing it. Back to the slush pile.

Getting closer to publication… by inches.

Soriya and Loren refused to leave me alone. They plagued me for years to the point where I wrote the sequel to Signs of Portents just to get some release, some closure on their world. It served to do the opposite.

In 2013, having left the working world to take my role as All-Star Dad, I pulled out my old script and set to work. I wrote the first prose draft of Signs of Portents in six weeks. I was on fire. (Sometimes literally. Raising kids is tough.) Everything I had sat on and shoved away since 2008 came roaring to the surface and the book took over.

Then nothing. Again. (WHAT AN IDIOT.)

I didn’t have a next step. A plan. A goal other than to make it work. Traditional publishing was as much a mystery as taking it all on myself. So it sat. And I wrote other things. New worlds. But Portents called me back.

It always calls me back.

Making 2016 the year for publication.

Eleven Ten Publishing came about in January of this year and I wanted the perfect launch product for it. There was only one choice. So I edited the holy hell out of Signs of Portents. Then a real editor made it readable. Kit Foster Designs added the window dressing to perfection and here we are. Publication of Signs of Portents is only two weeks away.

Easy peasy.

Plans don’t always come together but some deserve the extra time and effort. Some sure as hell demand it. Signs of Portents is definitely one of them.

I hope you agree.

Thanks for reading.

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