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

Resurrectionists – First Look

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These are my favorite moments. When something finally comes together enough to show it off to you, gentle reader. Welcome to Resurrectionists, A Greystone Tale.

resurrectionistsResurrectionists

When I put together Tales from Portents I knew I needed a centerpiece. There had to be a focal point to the collection, a larger work holding all of the pieces in place and making it a full work instead of disparate threads.

Resurrectionists is that centerpiece.

When Signs of Portents opens, Detective Greg Loren is being pulled back into the city. He is haunted by the mistakes of his past. This story shows his fall and the reasons behind his leaving for Chicago. It explains the role a man named Standish played in these events and also brings to light the true meaning behind the mistakes and regrets that plague his decisions throughout Signs of Portents.

 

Why a Greystone Tale?

This is part of Tales from Portents, coming in February 2017. In fact, it is the first story in the collection. So why offer it separately? It felt important to me. A true prelude to Signs while also bridging some of the themes being explored in the next full length novel following Tales.

The story also allows people a glimpse at the world of Greystone without having to invest to much of their time or hard earned cash.

Speaking of the financial expense…

How much is this gem going to run you? For subscribers to my e-mail list not a cent. Sign up for my e-mail newsletter, a charming missive sent out monthly, and receive this wonderful ebook for FREE.

It will be available on the ebook retailers websites as well. A slight price tag involved so the free alternative is the better option. To me anyway, but I listen to myself babble for hours everyday.

The details, man. Give us the details!

Resurrectionists hits the digital shelves during the latter half of December. I haven’t nailed down a precise date. It depends on a couple things coming together and a few late nights on my part, but by the end of the year it will be available.

For those already on the e-mail list it will be sent to you directly upon availability.

I can’t wait to share this with you and it should give a nice primer for what to expect in Tales from Portents. It was a lot of fun to put together.

Thanks for reading.

NaNoWriMo

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It is the end of October. Fall is in full swing. Snow is right around the corner or seventy degree weather if you live in Buffalo. (INSANE) And tomorrow kicks off one of the biggest writing events of the year. NaNoWriMo. National Novel Writing Month starts at 12:01 tomorrow morning.

About NaNoWriMo

The event was first held way back in the dark ages of the twentieth century. 1999. No one felt like partying by November because the Prince song had been played to death all fudging year. Instead, a challenge was issued to the writing community. 30 days of writing. A 50,000 word count as the target. Go.

Since that time the event has grown so much that in 2015 there were over 431,000 participants on six continents. Not too shabby.

The NaNoWriMo organization has expanded as well. A non-profit since 2005 they now host a Youth Writers Program, helping students become writers as well as helping educators push their students in the field. Camp NaNoWriMo offers a community of writers to work with during their sessions in April and July of every year. Being able to bounce ideas and pitch story to better develop their own skills goes a long way to building up the confidence to put together a fully formed manuscript.

What does this mean for me?

I’ve always had mixed feelings on the program. I believe writing should be every month, every day, every hour you’re able. (Praise to you, o glorious nap time.) I understand it’s purpose. Now more than ever. Dedicating a single month to crafting a singular project, focusing on it completely, makes sense. It forces writers to push through everything holding us back. Anxieties. Doubts. Fear. Busy schedules. Every fault we find in ourselves. Every excuse not to express ourselves and share what we discover during the journey.

So I’m in.

Follow along.

Starting tomorrow morning I am in full drafting mode. From Chapter One to The End when November 30th creeps up on me out of nowhere. (It will too. Damn calendars.) 50,000 words is the NaNoWriMo challenge. Unfortunately, that won’t cover the novel I have planned. I’m looking more at 85,000 to 90,000 by the looks of my outlines.

I always was an overachiever.

What am I working on? What do you have to look forward to down the line, after a massive amount of editing?

The next full length Greystone novel. I call it The Medusa Coin. Here’s a sneak peek:

Death has come to Portents.

Three months after the Night of the Lights the city has changed. Detective Greg Loren struggles to find his place in the city, while Soriya finds her confidence shattered in an instant.

Something is wrong with the Greystone.

But there isn’t time to worry about it. A new menace stalks the streets, slaughtering innocents mercilessly. Who is controlling it? Who has found access to the mysterious Medusa Coin?

And what does it mean for the city?

Faced with an insurmountable challenge will Loren and Soriya be able to overcome this new threat or will they fall with the rest of Portents?

This one has been brewing in the back of my mind for a long time. I can’t wait to see it finally come together.

The Write Life Connection

The fine folks at The Write Life have asked me to blog about my NaNoWriMo experience over on their site. I hope to share some tips on how to prepare for the challenge, how to get great results with your daily word count and how to reward yourself along the way.

Donate today.

NaNoWriMo.org accepts donations to help run the annual challenge and promote writing worldwide. Find out more on their site.

Join in the fun.

It might be tomorrow but you can still join in the challenge. Have that dream novel waiting in the back of your mind? There is no better time to write it than NOW.

I’ll be sharing my progress as I go along. I hope you’ll do the same.

Thanks for reading. Go write something!

The Need For Collaboration

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I almost feel like this is more of a reminder to myself than something to share here on the blog. Collaboration has never been one of my strong suits. It is something I’ve always WANTED. Just not something that has ever come together easily.

Even at a young age I cringed at group projects. To put your faith in someone else to do as good a job as you would if you had full control of the entire thing? Not so easy for me. It wasn’t a choice back then. It is now.

Collaboration is necessary.

It really is. I love to write. That is my thing, my talent, my contribution to the world (or at least to the hard drive of my computer until something gets finished). Writing is where my focus is and where it should be.

Unfortunately, writing is only a piece of the process to putting my work out into the world. There are dozens of other areas necessary to turn a written piece into a published work ready to be shot out into the world.

Can you do it all on your own? Sure. Yeah. You could spend your time on each individual component of the process. Should you? That’s your call as well.

Time is fleeting.

I work during naps and at night with some extra hours on the weekends thrown in so I can actually hit the deadlines I create for myself. When I sit down with a goal in mind, I have to justify the time involved. If I have marketing to do for Signs of Portents I have to weigh the time necessary to do it well versus getting a chapter written for my next project. If it turns out that my time is better put toward writing, then I need to think of a different way to market. Do I use a service like Leadpages or Cart of Books? Or do I ask a friend for an assist?

This website took a long time to build and organize. I put it off until I had certain things in place, including the final version of Signs of Portents. But I also knew I couldn’t do it alone. I had friends that helped guide me in order to leave me time to continue editing my next project. I never did get a chance to give them a shout out so a big round of applause to Paul Sardella and Kelsey Dewey for their help in building  and critiquing the site. And also to Sara Frandina for her pointers along the way.

Building a team.

There are a massive amount of moving parts involved in putting out a book. From editing to cover design to formatting. All need to be addressed and tweaked and double checked. Then checked again by someone with eyes that aren’t completely fried from staring at the screen all day. (Or shaking out of their skull from too many cups of coffee.)

There was a time I thought I could do it all on my own. Get a template. Learn PhotoShop. Design a cover. Write a book description. Edit (even without a strong grasp on that essential tool called GRAMMAR).

That was fear. Fear of putting my work into the world. Fear that someone else added to the mix wouldn’t bring the enthusiasm and the drive necessary to make the book succeed.

Idiot.

If anything every time I’ve shared with someone, received feedback from someone or had a promotional piece created by someone it has rejuvenated my desire to create. They push me to be better and stronger and faster. Relying on someone else, forsaking a small portion of control, enhances the final product and I will be eternally grateful to all those surrounding me in this endeavor.

Write. Write. And then write some more.

“You should be writing.” My wife tells me this all the time. It is what I tell myself when I come to an impasse on making a decision about my time. My goal should be writing. Graphic design is never going to be my passion or my strong suit. Should I learn something about it? Definitely. Should I spend ten hours learning how to crop an image on PhotoShop that will never be used? Probably not.

Take advantage of people a whole lot smarter than you for things that aren’t in your wheelhouse. Collaboration is the key. Without my editor and formatter, Kristen Hamilton at Kristen Corrects, and my cover designer Kit Foster at Kit Foster Design my book would not have left the basement. Without services like Fiverr and Canva I would still be spending days on PhotoShop instead of working on my third book this year.

Know your limitations. Know your goals. Then build the team you need to succeed.

Then get back to writing. I need a new book to read.

Thanks for reading.

Signs of Portents – Author Commentary Part 2

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Editing a novel is a tricky process. There’s the story you’ve come up with and put together over many months. And then there’s the story that needs to be told within that story. What sells the arc of a character? How do you drive it home for your reader? How does it impact future books in the series? All become very important questions over the course of the editing process.

To me, there was something missing in Signs of Portents for the longest time. A player that, while minor in the novel, would come to play a larger role in events as the series played out. In my mind, at least. Draft after draft went by until it finally dawned on me who I was missing in the work.

Rufus Mathers.

He shows up in a single chapter in the novel. (Chapter 23 for those playing at home.) Just one. But by including him as a physical presence in the book his impact is felt throughout the work.

editing processWhy Mathers?

I needed a foil. I needed a face to stand against Loren and the way things had been done in the past. Someone to hate Loren for the mistakes made during his previous stint at the Portents Police Department. Someone with authority and someone with power over how Loren and, by association, Soriya could operate in the city. The notion of Standish, the troubles in Loren’s past were seeded but there was no one actually willing to say these things out loud from any place of authority.

Mathers came into focus very late in the game to fill this role and in doing so also provided the perfect place to give Captain Ruiz more time on the page.

Counterpoint to Ruiz

I knew Ruiz needed more to play with during Signs of Portents. He’s the Walter Skinner of the cast (for all you X-Files fans out there) and there needed to be more room for him to strut his stuff. The inclusion of Mathers, and the sudden creation of the events in Chapter 23, the reader gets to see Ruiz take center stage.

We follow Ruiz while he defends Loren’s actions as well as his own for bringing him back into the fold. We learn the power struggle between the two men. One wanted the other’s job and one just wanted to do the job.

It also allowed me to show Ruiz’s doubts about Loren, his fears in putting it all on the line for the man barely surviving. His doubts become the readers and it becomes Loren’s job to put them at ease.

Ruiz down the line

By setting up the work dynamic with Mathers during the editing process I was able to open up some avenues down the line. The reader gets to learn more about Loren’s blow up with Robert Standish – someone you will be reading about quite a bit in the upcoming Tales from Portents collection – and added more drama to the situation. Having someone to pile on the protagonist always add more fuel to the fire of a plot. I knew Mathers would play the part well, while also keeping Ruiz in check.

More than anything, Ruiz needed to be seen and heard more in the novel. His role in the next full length novel is greatly expanded. Big stuff happens with him. Seeding his story here and watching it grow in Tales from Portents lets the reader see how important he truly is to the overall arc of the Greystone series.

Fingers crossed that it worked.

Thanks for reading.

Writing Update – September 29, 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.

Writing

It has been an insane week for writing. Over the course of the last month I’ve been working to put together the outline and dialogue for next summer’s release, the second full-length novel in the Greystone series. From initial notes scribbled on legal pads to a chapter by chapter plot breakdown I then went to work on the scintillating and charming dialogue you’ve come to love from Signs of Portents and this very blog.

Last week I put the pieces together, mixing the chocolate and the peanut butter one might say, to create a thorough outline to work from in what will be the rough draft for the new project. One hundred eighty four pages of insight to help guide me in the process of crafting a novel. Sometimes people ask me what takes me so long. After a hearty chuckle at their expense I point out the prep work involved. There’s the research, the setting development, the character arcs and a dozen other topics that I feel should be nailed before typing Chapter One into my Scrivener file.

The typical response is – “Well, you should do that faster from now on, okay?”

Sure thing.

With that off my plate I am back to work on Tales from Portents for one last pass before shooting it off to my editor. I am extremely paranoid about missing details in my drafts and like to give it as much time and attention as possible. Once I hit the point of hating every last sentence and the threats of burning the manuscript start flying I let it go and hope for the best. (So, probably by my next writing update.)

In my spare time (he said while laughing hysterically) I am SLOWLY getting the hang of this marketing thing for Signs of Portents. I am really hoping to build up steam before the release of Tales in February. (Your calendar is marked already so I don’t have to remind you about that.) Look for news on some fun and interesting things in the coming weeks.

Reading

Jonathan Hickman’s Fantastic Four – I know. More Marvel. The honest to God truth of the matter is that Marvel Comics are more acceptable to my limited budget thanks to their Marvel Unlimited App. (best anniversary present EVER) All the other companies are great in the business. If you’re a Hickman fan I highly recommend East of West from Image. It is a phenomenal sci-fi western with incredible art by Nick Dragotta.

Fantastic Four, while never sparking much of a film franchise, is the cream of the crop for superhero books. Hickman reminds the reader why in the course of a three year run containing more zany and huge ideas than anyone since the days of Stan Lee and Jack Kirby.

Colossal in scope, Hickman’s Fantastic Four run is truly one of the greats in modern storytelling. The fact that he was able to close out their fifty-four year tale with Secret Wars is a testament to how well crafted a writer the man has always been. I do mean, always. The guy doesn’t have a blemish against him. IMO. (Here come the calls from my relatives about how millennials are ruining the English language. Our bad.)

Ian Rankin’s A Good Hanging – I finally finished it. Not a slight on the masterful collection of early Inspector Rebus short stories. I have a problem reading prose when writing. I feel like whatever I am reading at the time tends to dominant my own style and it takes me even longer to find my groove. So books for the next couple months might be slim pickings for me and the reason why my Kindle has two hundred unread novels waiting for me. Do I stop myself from buying more? Nope.

Back to the book. Top notch. I thought every story added a nice new layer to the Rebus character. Rankin always has an eye for detail in each of the mysteries presented. Each unique angle presented kept me fully engaged and waiting for Rebus to piece it all together. Great stuff.

The Web

Can Serialized Fiction Convert Binge Watchers Into Binge Readers? – A great article from NPR about something I am very much interested in trying someday. I have a series of novellas that act like a season of television, from pilot to cliffhanger finale.

There are some logistical issues with putting them out in the world but I am a huge fan of serialized storytelling (comic book fan, remember?) and think this would work great in the book market. There are some larger questions I need to answer (release schedule, cost involved, time between seasons, spin-offs, time for other endeavors, etc) that have kept me from pursuing this further.

Serial Box is probably right in having a staff of writers working on each season. Maybe that will be the way to go someday though I still love the idea of crafting it all. Much like J. Michael Straczynski on Babylon 5 (NERD) did during the final three seasons where he wrote every episode except one. Madness.

Some of the comments at the end also give me pause as to how willing the average book reader would be to follow a story on a bi-monthly basis in book form.

What do you think? Tell me your thoughts through social media or directly (for the shy folks) here.

Thanks for reading.

Writing Update – September 1, 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.

Currently Writing:

This week is the end of the self-editing phase for Tales from Portents. (Hooray!) It’s been a blast trying to add some layers to Signs of Portents while also acting as a bridge to the next full length novel. The plan was to take some of the threads and tie them up or explain them more. However, when creating this project I ended up with even more questions, characters, and plot lines which you will encounter in future novels. I can’t wait to see where all these threads lead.

Speaking of new novels, I finished writing the plot breakdown for my next project. (Double Hooray!) Typically when I start plotting I try to keep a list of connecting scenes in a notebook then pull them together at the end. For shorter projects this works great. It has been awhile since I plotted a novel this large so I thought visualizing the arc might work a little better for me.

whiteboard writing

Unfortunately, my whiteboard had been taken over by every color marker in the place. So I thought… INDEX CARDS.

index card writing

Yes. We only had hot pink and purple index cards. (The ladies own this house.)

BUT, the cards worked out and the plot for next summer’s release is rocking and rolling. September is all about scripting the scenes laid out in colorful style. I will be talking about both pieces of my process throughout the month.

On the Signs of Portents front, things are doing well after launch week. Thank you to everyone for spreading the word which is definitely getting around on the book. Now that more distribution channels are open, I am looking into a few new marketing avenues to promote it further.

What I’ve Been Reading

Ian Rankin’s A Good Hanging – I am only a hundred pages into this short story collection from the early days in the Inspector Rebus series. I love how Rankin writes the titular character and how Edinburgh plays a crucial role in every tale. Being Frank and Concrete Evidence are two of the stronger pieces so far in the collection. It is interesting how he finds a creative way to look at the solving of a crime in each story. Especially Concrete Evidence, where the killer is pretty obvious from the beginning and the struggle becomes how Rebus goes about tracking down an air tight piece of evidence for the conviction. Great stuff. Can’t wait to finish the rest.

Mark Waid’s Daredevil – I was an avid Daredevil fan up until this run. Andy Diggle’s run, while crucial to hitting the reset button on a character that had become so dark and depressed that a demon actually took over his body, pretty much gave me a place to jump off. BIG MISTAKE. (As usual.) Mark Waid’s Daredevil is FUN. There is drama. There is darkness. Waid pushes Daredevil’s buttons as well as the great Frank Miller ever did but he keeps Matt Murdock in the light. And some of it is truly brutal. Waid always nails the super-heroics of his funny-books, but what he is able to hit on (repeatedly and with great effect) is the humanity of the Daredevil cast. Foggy Nelson, in particular, with his battle with cancer was such a touchstone of his run. Absolutely a must read. Great stuff.

Have a great book recommendation? Want to tell me why Ben Affleck’s Daredevil is the greatest super-hero film of all time? Shoot me a message.

The Web

Joanna Penn talks about Ad-Stacking to get on the USA Today Bestseller List – A great lesson for beginners and veterans alike. How to pull all your resources into the mix for a huge promotion with a very targeted goal. Getting on the USA Bestseller list as a single author. Joanna Penn breaks down the costs involved, the pieces in play and the results. A perfect case study in how losing money in the short term to achieve a goal can end up paying dividends in the long run.

Thanks for reading.

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