Free Kindle Edition of Dragon Guard

Happy Holidays, everyone! To celebrate the season, I'm going to play Santa Claus to one lucky person with my book, Dragon Guard. I'm going to gift, though Amazon, a Kindle copy of the book, a Young Adult Contemporary Fantasy Adventure with plenty of zombies and other undead creatures, and even a bit o' romance! You can decide if you want to keep it for yourself or gift it to a friend or family member. I even have a preview hub set up where you can read the first four chapters (and, of course, on the above Amazon link, you can preview it, as well).

How do you win? Simple! All you have to do is post a comment in this post or retweet it on Twitter. I'll be tweeting official entry tweets over the next couple of days, so keep an eye out. Follow me here if you don't already! I'll keep the contest open until about midway Christmas Day (Pacific Standard Time). You'll need to provide me with your email address (or, if you plan on gifting it to someone else, their email address) so I can give you the link to the book, and, of course, you'll need to have a Kindle or a Kindle app to read it. You can download it here for your smartphone, iPad, PC, or whatever. I use it on my phone, and it works great!

So that's the contest. I'm only running it for a short time (2 days), so get in early. One entry per person, but if you'd like to retweet it a number of times to spread the news, I'd be grateful! Good luck, Merry Christmas, and happy reading!

Beta Readers Wanted

I've come to a point in my latest creation where I need some new eyes on it. I used to do this on Facebook, but as I am no longer playing Facebook, that won't happen. So I'm making a general call-out here to see if anyone would like to beta read for me on my newest novel. This one's a bit different in that it's an adult horror story rather than my normal YA. This one has some violence and gore, and plenty of sex (though most of it is not shown - you see the lead up and the aftermath).

The tentative title is Bound Souls, and, at the moment, it clocks in at just over 82k words. This one would be best classified as a horror story with plenty of love thrown in. Aaron Welch, a 36 year old horror novelist, falls madly in love with 18 year old college student Hannah Bailey, who more than returns the feelings. Those feelings, for both of them, seem too powerful to be real, especially since Aaron is still dealing with the death of his wife and infant son five years prior. Things intensify when Jenna, the ghost of his wife, is suddenly back in the house. And if that's not enough, there is an evil presence that not only wants to destroy Jenna's soul from even existing, but then wants to do the same to Aaron and Hannah. Find out how all their souls are bound together.

So there's the lowdown on what it's all about. Interested in giving it a beta read? I don't ask much of my beta readers. Basically, I'll send you a MS Word .doc (or .rtf if you prefer, another format, or I can even make it a .pdf if you really want), and then I'll send you a half dozen questions or so to answer. Nothing hard - basically stuff like "Did you view the characters as realistic?" "Were there any major bumps that drew you out of the story?" "Did you enjoy the story overall?" Things like that. If, instead of my questions, you'd like to send me your beta review your own way, I'm thrilled with that, too. Anything to make sure I'm on the right track here with this story. I'm also not looking for line edits - I haven't yet done that, so there are probably typos and such I haven't yet caught. If you'd like to point them out, I'd be happy for it, but it's not necessary. At this point in the process I'm mostly worried about plot, characters, and such. I'll spend plenty of time line editing later. 

I likely won't be ready to send this out until at least the beginning of January, and more likely closer to the middle of the month. I'm asking early so I can get some takers. My hope is you'll be ready to send it back to me in 4 to 6 weeks. And if you do beta read for me and complete my questionnaire (or your own version of it), I'll send you a copy of the book when it's published, be it a paperback, e-book, or whatnot (still too early in the process to promise anything concrete).

If you have any questions, or want to offer your services, please email me at ericjkrause@gmail.com. You can also, of course, comment here on this post, or hit me up on Twitter at @ericjkrause. It would be nice to set up a beta reading group to help each other out, but for now, this is the route I'm going. Any takers?

Speculative Fiction Writing Prompt #159

Here is this week's speculative fiction prompt. I'm labeling it as fantasy this week, but, as always, take it whatever direction you choose. Have fun!

The Christmas Tree farm has more to offer than simply Christmas Trees; there's magic there.
 
As always, feel free to use this in any way you choose. There's no need to give me any credit for any story you come up with. Of course, I never mind if you do give me credit for the writing prompt, but it's not necessary.

Speculative Fiction Writing Prompt #158

Here is this week's speculative fiction prompt. I'm labeling it as fantasy this week, but, as always, take it whatever direction you choose. Have fun!

Your advent calendar doesn't contain chocolate each day, but something magical.
 
As always, feel free to use this in any way you choose. There's no need to give me any credit for any story you come up with. Of course, I never mind if you do give me credit for the writing prompt, but it's not necessary.

NaNoWriMo Winner!

I completed my first ever NaNoWriMo (National Novel Writing Month) as a winner! (Click here if you have no idea what NaNoWriMo is.) That's right, I wrote 50,000 words in the month of November. However, I feel my victory comes with an asterisk next to it. Not that I feel that diminishes my accomplishment, or even matters, but to some purists, it might. You see, I abandoned the novel I was working on after three weeks. It wasn't working, and continued writing wouldn't fix it. Everything needed reworking - not only was it spinning in circles, but it was also boring the pants off of me, which is unacceptable. Since replotting wasn't going to happen while I worked towards my 50K word goal, I decided to take the last week and 10K or so words and focus on writing a few short stories, something I've neglected to do for far too long.

That decision was the best thing for me. I finished three short stories that I think, with some editing, will have a pretty good chance of selling, something I can't say with the novel I was working on. Maybe someday I'll revisit the idea and give the plot a complete makeover, but I don't think that'll happen for awhile. I'll let the stink of it's current form flush from my mind first. Anyway, even if 10K or so words actually went towards short stories instead of a novel, at least they're still words of fiction that I can put to market. I feel that overrides everything else.

I'm not sure what my previous month-best output for words is, but I know it's never been over 45K words. For this reason, NaNoWriMo was a complete success. I now know I can pound out 50K words in a month. I just proved it. And, if I had an outline I was in love with, I could have done it much quicker than I did (I crossed the finish line on the absolute last day - November 30). Also, I learned again (someday I'll learn for good) that I can't write without a complete outline. I had the beginning and some of the middle done by November 1st, and I figured once I hit that spot, I'd be able to continue with no problem. Nope. I had no idea where I was going, and I didn't like it one bit. So not only did I "win" with word count, I also won with more information on myself, which is helpful. Besides, you never know; maybe some day those three short stories I penned to help me cross the finish line will end up in a novel compilation of short stories. When or if that happens, I can take the asterisk away for good. Not that it bothers me now ...

Speculative Fiction Writing Prompt #157

Here is this week's speculative fiction prompt. I'm labeling it as fantasy this week, but, as always, take it whatever direction you choose. Have fun!

Fairies and Genies run a website that is offering Cyber Monday deals.
 
As always, feel free to use this in any way you choose. There's no need to give me any credit for any story you come up with. Of course, I never mind if you do give me credit for the writing prompt, but it's not necessary.