I’ve been having a hard time getting going on writing the first book of the Explorer Trilogy. Part of that is due to the pandemic, just like everyone else, it’s affected my creativity. Just today, I realized that as far as my story goes, I’ve been overlooking some basic world building. This has caused me to throttle back on the writing and do more research.
The Explorers are a civilian run exploration and discovery organization kind of like a NOAA ship. So there are some officers but most of the crew and passengers are scientists and grad students and researchers. So now I’m working out the structure of the Explorer Corps. What they do, who funds them and what the command structure looks like.
I don’t expect this will take long to make and then I can jump back into the writing.
Above is the SS Bourke on my desk. It’s modeled after a ship like the NOAASRonald H. Brown pictured below. Of course, the Bourke is a deep-space ship, not a blue-water ship. But they have similar crew and passenger specs and overall mission.
This week I finally got around to launching the last two Destroyer trilogy novellas as ebooks. They are now available just about wherever you buy ebooks. I’m currently working on paperback versions of all three books.
The cover art is once again courtesy of my brother, Byron McConnell. The ship models are designed and built by myself and you can see their build progress under Model Builds for SS Truxtun, Black Star, Sultran Warship and Ostrov Warship.
I’ll put together some cover iterations in the coming weeks so you can see how we design the covers.
You can find links to all three ebooks under the Novels menu. Now back to writing the Explorer trilogy which will end the series at the same time as Starforgers takes place.
Looking forward, over that massive air scoop on my hood, not into my rear-view mirror.
I’ve always had better luck in odd numbered years. I was born, graduated HS, got married, and enjoyed my best book sales in odd numbered years. So I’m optimistic that with a new administration and a vaccine, 2021 can only be better, not worse than 2020. I’d like to start that trend by getting a day job!
I plan on releasing at least two books this year, completing the middle trilogy of the Starship Series. Next up is Destroyer: The Mutineers and hopefully by summer – Destroyer: Letting Go. Meanwhile, I’ll start writing the final trilogy and hopefully get through at least two of them before the end of the year.
I’ve already built the models needed for the Starship Series book covers, so my modeling hobby may continue to be somewhat dormant over the winter months. Warmer temps in my garage could lead to the continuation of the Franklin model. I’d like to finish it up for a cover redo of my first novel, Starstrikers. Below are the latest pictures taken of that model under construction.
Today we eat pork and black eyed peas and look forward to a time when we can let go of our masks and shake hands with strangers and hug our friends in person again. Happy New Years Day, 2021!
Every author has at least a few hits and maybe a few unknown gems, waiting to be discovered by readers. Below you’ll find my hits and my sleepers.
Destroyer is the latest novella about Captain Vance and the crew of the Corvette novella. It’s the start of a new trilogy and a wild adventure on the jungle world of Declo. Devon’s Blade is my ode to the Fighter Pilot. Pilot Devon Ardel arrives on a water world to take over a fighter squadron beset by a poor combat record. She struggles to turn the unit into a deadly force as they face the deadliest new starfighter from the Votainion Empire. Starforgers is the start of the Great War and the first book in the Star Saga. It’s an action packed Space Opera with terrific characters and epic action.
My sleeper books are two great stand alone stories that flesh out plot threads from the main Star Saga series. The Blood Empress is how Empress Nykostra rose to power and launched the Votainion Empire on a collision course with the Federation. K’Nat Trap is set just after Starstrikers and features Kiloe’s efforts to discover the secrets of a new enemy starfighter. Great combat action with plenty of Pew, Pew.
I’ve decided to start up my newsletter again. It’s been so long, I can’t remember the last time I actually sent one out. If you were a subscriber and you have not received this month’s issue, please resubscribe. I changed back to Mailchimp and lost my old subscribers. Which was okay, as most of them were not legit anyway.
I’ll try and stay on top of this from now on, sending out one newsletter every month. If I don’t have anything new coming out, I’ll try and give you some insight into the making of my novels and or the models I build for the covers. Something new and original that you might not see here or on Twitter.
I hope you’ll subscribe and give me a quick read every month. Now to go figure out something to include for December’s issue before that month gets here.
I’ve had this idea of making a series of art books based on the old Aircraft in Profile series that my dad had when I was growing up. They were In-depth histories of fighters with multiple profiles in color of each aircraft.
The hardest part of doing a book like this is actually drawing all the different profiles needed. I was either going to have to figure it out myself or hire the task out to an artist. I decided to go ahead and learn how to do it myself. I don’t profess to be a great digital artist, but I’m learning. Here are some of the first and easiest profiles that I’ve done so far. These are all KiV-1 starfighters from my Star Saga series.
It all starts with a vector based line drawing like you see below. This one shows the fighter from the left, bottom, top and right side. I didn’t do a head-on shot. Mental note: do a head-on shot. The top and bottom sides are blended which will be more evident after this one is “painted”. The program I use for this is called InkScape and it’s free and open source.
After I have this sketch completed, I import it into Gimp, which is a free and Open Source Photoshop clone. That’s where all the magic happens. Below is another version of the above line drawing but with just a left/top/right orthographic view. This attempts to recreate the cardboard model of a KiV-1 that I built years ago.
By the way, the KiV-1 is about the same size as a P-51B Mustang, as seen in the models below.
The real point of doing this is to show multiple liveries on the same starfighter. I’ve started doing this with separate files as seen below. The first one is nearly complete. I still haven’t learned how to do shading, so I may come back to this one later and add that. But it does have decals and unit markings.
The Type 33 variant just has the main parts painted in but lacks any decals or unit badges. The Type 35 is still in the process of being painted. Each color has its own layer in Gimp so you can color outside the lines and then just use an eraser to clean them up. Once I realized this was the way to go, things go so much easier. You start with an insanely high resolution vector file and then lower it to about 1000 to import it into Gimp. The zoom in and out feature is your friend.
Because these are different types, there should be some visual different in the appearance other than just colors. I have not attempted that yet. Also, usually on these profiles the aircraft are weathered a bit. Again, have not learned how do to that yet. So I have a ways to go before these are ready for print. But at least now you can see where I’m heading with this project. Eventually I’ll move on to the Alliance fighters which will have readable unit names and numbers.
The unit markers were done seperately in InkScape and imported as a layer in Gimp. Inkscape is perfect for creating cool looking unit badges and other decal type markings.
One thing that surprised me when doing these profiles is how much fun they were to make. Listening to some jams and just coloring in Gimp was pretty relaxing. A nice creative break from writing novels and a good way to make art while the dumpster fire of 2020 burns in the backgroung.
I use a laptop so most of the time I write on my lunch break, somewhere secluded where I won’t be interrupted. Noise cancelling headphones pipe music from the playlist on Spotify that I create for each novel I write. I use either GoogleDocs or Libre Office’s Write, which is a free word processor very much like MS Word. I use Ubuntu on my laptop. I use a Microsoft keyboard and an HP wireless mouse. My external monitor is an HP. When I write at home, I sit at an oak wood writing desk that belongs to my wife and looks out into our backyard from our master bedroom.
There are some books on writing craft, a water bottle and sometimes a speaker for guitar jamming breaks. Someday, when my kids leave the house, I will get my own writing den. But that’s not likely to happen for quite a few years on.
I made the switch to Linux from Mac years ago and have never looked back. There’s nothing that I can’t do on Linux. I don’t game or enjoy spending money on proprietary software and I hate dealing with viruses. So work gets done and I don’t have to mess with the OS very much.
I’ve never used Windows to write my novels. I used the hell out of an old white plastic MacBook, but Apple decided not to support it and the case literally fell apart over time. So I went back to Linux. I’ve used all kinds of distros but have settled on Ubuntu because I just don’t like to mess with all that anymore.
DESTROYER: Declo Demons is the fourth book in the Starship Series that started with Corvette. If you have read the Corvette trilogy, you may need to jog your memory by reading the final chapter of Book 2 before diving into Declo Demons. There is no recap to catch you up. Declo Demons is the start of the second trilogy in the series and will be three books long.
The above image shows the released book covers in the series and the trilogy titles for each. The series starts with the CORVETTE trilogy, then the DESTROYER trilogy and finally, the EXPLORER trilogy. In each trilogy, the series hero, Captain Vance is on a different class of starship.
These are short books, none longer than 200 pages in length. They are intended to be read in order and no effort is made to recap what happened in the previous book. I will be bundling each trilogy into a book and selling it for much less than if you were to buy each book. But frankly, at $2.99 per book, these books are priced to buy and read quickly.
Each trilogy has it’s own arc and the main character, Armon Vance, has an arc that lasts all nine books. In Corvette, he’s a young, freshly minted commander and by the last book, he’s the bearded old star captain who’s seen more of the galaxy than anyone else. I’m currently writing the final trilogy where Vance comes out of retirement to help lead an inexperienced crew aboard a civilian exploration ship that will push the boundaries of known space and in the end, wind up right where the Star Saga begins.
I hope to finish writing this series next year and have them all available by the Spring of 2022. I hope you’ll stick with them until then.
You can purchase DESTROYER: Declo Demons right now, wherever ebooks are sold!
I thought it would be interesting to talk about how covers evolve using my latest novella. The covers for my Star Saga are usually designed by me and executed by my graphic designer brother. This is the most thought out series of novellas we’ve done since the original Star Saga coin books.
The color schemes for each book within the trilogies is: Blue, Gray, Orange. The Corvette trilogy used lighter colors for the titles: Light Blue, Gray and Orange. The Destroyer trilogy uses darker shades: Dark Blue, Black and Dark Red. The Explorer trilogy will use slightly brighter colors to signify coming back to service: Blue, Darker Gray and Red.
It all starts with a few thumbnail sketches and a search for the perfect background. Below is the sketch I made for Declo Demons. I imagined a darker, jungle planet and a smaller Truxtun streaking downward like a meteorite.
I found a blue planet shot and tried to make a demo cover with Gimp. It just didn’t have any motion or interest. I used a generic photo of the ship model that was not lit properly.
Taking the Truxtun’s photograph.
Not happy with this version, I found what was to become the perfect background image and then did a proper photographic session with the model, to closely match the original sketch. I didn’t have the proper font for the title, but the darker tone does come through. From this, Byron was able to make what became the final cover.
He added engine exhaust, navigation lights, porthole lights and proper fonts. The final product turned out exactly how I originally envisioned it when I sketched it out.
I hope you enjoyed this look behind the scenes of what goes into the cover art of my books. You can download the eBook version of Declo Demons wherever they are sold. A paperback version will hopefully be available before the end of the year.
You can now purchase the latest eBook in the Starship Series featuring Captain Vance and his crew from the Corvette Trilogy. DESTROYER: Declo Demons is only $2.99 on just about every eBook platform available.
Captain Vance and his crew have been in the remote Ostrov system for years looking for the fugitive, Trin Lestor. Now they’ve come to Declo, a planet with frozen mountain top villages and humid jungle valleys to look for Spinnaker, Lestor’s First Mate. To find him, they must charter a riverboat that’s captained by a cantankerous alien named Eccers and travel downstream to the Land Of No Return. Declo is a harsh world, and it will leave a lasting toll on Vance and his crew, provided they make it out alive.
This novella has been a long time coming. It is the first book of the middle trilogy. Vance and his crew are in the very remote Ostrov system, looking for Trin Lestor and her pirates. Expect high adventure, and the unexpected for this series. Vance and his crew will be tested hard during this search. Dark days are ahead. I hope you weather the storms with me and complete this middle trilogy.
