Writing news and musings, 2020 style

Greetings, everyone!  It’s been awhile since my last post, so here’s what’s going on in my world lately.

The pre-order for Valkyrie Rising is up on Amazon! 

https://www.amazon.com/Valkyrie-Rising-Chronicles-Book-ebook/dp/B0844TFVJQ

I’m so very excited and also feeling a little bittersweet that this trilogy has been brought to a close!  This book series started with a loosely organized (very loosely) text file that I typed up in a Barnes and Noble back in the fall of 2012.  My mind was filled with several things: Andrea had introduced me to the Hunger Games movie, and I’d already taken a crack at writing and completing my first novel (not sci-fi).  I wanted to change things up, mix things up, and see what I could come up with that would be in a science fiction world, so I set off on this writing journey.  And now, over seven years later, I add “Valkyrie Rising” to my list.

Let me also throw in a sizable caveat to my post here: while the trilogy of Cataclysm Epoch, Settling Darkness, and Valkyrie Rising is finished, I fully intend to extend the stories of these characters.  They are alive and well in my story universe, and I’ve only just BEGUN to dig into their lives.  So please stay tuned!

I’ve got a huge temptation to delve into the details of Valkyrie Rising, what it means to me, and things like that.  I know though that ultimately, once a book is released, it becomes the reader’s story.  You’ll take from it what you want, read into it what you want, and I need to accept that.  It’s the way with every published novel.  Just know, this series is in part a byproduct of some of the most turbulent times I’ve been through in my life to date, namely dealing with my mom’s nearly year long battle with cancer, and losing her that same year.

I don’t want to cast a dark tone though, because in spite of everything, I still consider myself a cock-eyed optimist.  It still hurts and I will always miss mom, but I know I’ve still got things to do here. I’m about hope, and belief that we are all headed to a better place.

In closing, I’d like to leave with two posts of music, I quote lines from both of these songs in the beginning of “Valkyrie Rising”, because to me they really frame the state of mind I picture Ana Crucinal and Nelson Forrester in during this book.