The ebook and paperback versions of K’nat Trap are now both available on Amazon. If you pick up the paperback, you get the ebook free! Can’t beat that!
As always, please leave a review when you finish reading it. Authors live or die on reviews. The more we get the better off we do and the more likely we will be able to write you more of the stories you love. So if you loved K’nat Trap, tell everyone about it with a quick review on Amazon.
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As you may have noticed by now, you can actually order the K’nat Trap paperback before the ebook launches on the 18th of July. But if you’d rather wait for the ebook, that’s fine too, just get your pre-0rder in so it will appear on your Kindle when is releases. If you’re like me you will forget about purchasing it and then bingo, there it is in your reader and you’ll be able to dig right in on it.
Remember, K’nat Trap takes place in the second trilogy of the Star Saga, right after Starstrikers. So if you haven’t read Starstrikers yet, now would be a great time to knock that one out and then you’ll be ready to tackle K’nat Trap.
In other random news… It looks like Amazon has updated the covers for two more of my novellas, Devon’s Blade and Corvette, to include the “A Star Saga Story” subtitle. So now it’s more clear to the casual reader that they are part of the series. Each of the novella’s come in between the numbered novels of the series.
Corvette is book one of it’s own mini series withing the Star Saga, set before the Great War with Voton. But I’ll make that more clear as the next Corvette launches in late summer.
Happy reading!
Every book I release has a cover that is produced by myself and my graphic designer brother, Byron. Since we are working in the Sci-Fi, Space Opera genre and in one particular universe, we try and have starships on the cover to get that fact across to future readers. We also have a certain style that we carry over from book to book so that readers get a visual clue that this new novel fits into the same universe as the last one they may have read. Being consistent with the branding helps readers find you and stick with you throughout your series.
All the covers start out with a concept doodle, by either myself or Byron. For K’nat Trap the original idea was mine and I imagined a K’nat starfighter being targeted by another fighter’s computer system or heads up display.
I didn’t have in mind any particular color but knew that the star field had to be blurred to suggest speed and that there had to be some kind of target reticule. The book’s title would be in the same font as the other series books and so would the author name.
The first thing I had to do was build the model of the K’nat Trap. That was already underway and after it was finished, I photographed it against a black felt background and sent the high definition image to Byron. He sucked it into his series book template in Photoshop and then added the text. He used a stock image for the target graphic while he worked on doing his own original version.
The green color was striking and it would stick with us for the whole process. I had a few suggestions for this version; punch up the brightness of the stars and the target. Also, we needed to start adding subtitles that declared the book to be a Star Saga story.
Now we’re getting somewhere! The image popped and the color was still working for us. Now to take out the stock image target and add Byron’s original version.
At this point I decided to try another color. The resulting experiment turned out to be too red and green or Christmas-like.
We tried again, this time going all red. The font changed to what we refer to as the bad guy font or Votainion font and it appears on the Devon’s Blade and The Blood Empress covers. Unfortunately, we felt it didn’t have the right impact so we went back to the regular series font. Byron also added some engine flare in blue.
I showed this one and a green one to some folks at work and they all seemed to prefer the old font an the green color. More comments indicated that the white lines in the target were distracting. So we changed things again, going back to green.
After studying this version I decided to call it done. It was eye-catching and it looked sharp. We could have kept tweaking but at some point you just have to pull back and let it be. This whole process took about a month for us to finish but of course building the model took many months and so did writing the book.
Just got the manuscript for K’nat Trap back from my editor. Not much to clean up this time, the story pretty much cruises to the finish. I guess I better start thinking harder about the cover. I’ll probably start up the ebook this week and should be ready for Beta Readers. If you’d like to be a Beta Reader for this novella, join my mailing list and ask to be a Beta Reader. Ya gotta be on the Dispatches team to get on the Beta Team.
In the meantime, here’s a sneak look at the GCU Sherman model coming together on my workbench.
I’m currently writing the third act of my novella, K’nat Trap. While thinking about my story on the way home from work I realized that I had failed to account for some things during my last lunchtime writing session. For one, I had my hero return from a planet and didn’t any make mention that he’s basically lived in a bog without grooming for three days. Yeah, he’d stink and he’d have a few day’s growth of beard. I need to go back and add in those little details.
The second thing I noticed was that the good guys seemed to be getting off too easy in the big second act conflict. Turns out I had them handle lots of starfighters, but not the destroyer warships that launched them. So they are not out of the woods just yet. I think the second act needs to be drawn out a bit more. I’m going to lay the hurt on for a few more chapters to increase tension. I also have a nice little reversal going when the main plan falls short.
This is what happens when you go off-outline and have to blaze a new path through the plot. This is good news for this story though, it’s coming up a bit short on word count right now. Nothing a new battle won’t fix.
The above scene from my WIP is a perfect example of a Second Act hurdle that your main characters must face and eventually overcome. I’ve raised the stakes a bit and made Kiloe’s fighter completely disappear right when he was supposed to be picked up by Tamia. It was a relatively simple mission, made more difficult by my First Act problems that were eventually solved by Kiloe and his partner, Tamia. The reader was all set to have them reunited and the mission be a success. But it’s only the second act. You just know things are going go awry or what would the rest of the book be about?
Indeed.
In the Second Act, the hero is given an even more difficult problem to deal with. Something that will force him or her to work harder than before to survive and overcome. It’s up to the writer to ensure that this second act builds drama and suspense by putting the hero in ever deeper water until he either learns to swim or drowns. Sometimes writers call this chasing your hero up a tree and then setting the tree on fire. Now how are you going to get out alive? Easy, giant Eagles will come to my rescue.
I know what’s going to happen next. I know about the surprise guest appearance, I know about the harrowing fight that’s coming and I know who wins in the end.
This is my first week back from break and I often feel out of touch with my WIP. So I take some time to re-read what I have already written to get back into the ebb and flow of the story. Sometimes I find glaring errors that I need to fix before moving on. Sometimes I just marvel at how well the story is moving, or cringe in horror if it’s not going anywhere. I’d rather catch plotting errors earlier rather than later.
All this week my daily lunch hour writing sessions have been spent reading what I have already written for K’nat Trap. Above is a screen capture from my Plume Creator from chapter 8. The writing’s not that amazing, but I reintroduce the stakes involved so the reader knows the hero has to get moving. I’m not so much examining the writing at this point, just making sure it makes sense and things are moving. I know the story is wavering a bit from the outline and that will take some adjustments. But this happens all the way through the first draft for me. I write strong for days and then wander back and forth as I try to find the correct path forward in the high grass.
Because this is a novella and not a full length novel, I may need to pare down some characters and maintain focus on just a few. There was at least one subplot that I can’t remember where it was going. I hope today’s reading offers some clues, otherwise I may need to edit that one out. See how important it is to re-read before you dive back in?
Weathering
This is one of my favorite steps in modeling. I love making a model look like it just came out of the real world where it has lived a long and hard life. Weathering sounds like it should only be for machines that live inside an atmosphere, but all machines get worn and used, even in space. So it really refers to damage, chipping of paint, fading of paint, grease and oil leaks and sometimes dirt and grime.
All of my models have that George Lucas look of being in a well-used universe. Because my models are also built specifically for my book covers, sometimes I don’t put unit marking on them or anything too unique, so that they can be copy and pasted into many fighters for cover art. But with this particular model, I decided to get individual. Which meant I could do unit badges and make unique mods like the starboard engine nacelle being removed.
In this wide shot you see the whole model as it stands now. Decals are applied and paint chipping has occurred on the painted areas and we have some dusting with artist’s charcoal.
I applied a light wash to the stern details but I will be going back over this area with more grime and oil as it looks too clean for my tastes.
The paint chipping was achieved by – wait for it, actually chipping the paint. I used my finger nail and a hobby knife.
I think the nose art is from a WWII airplane kit. I just have a stack of decals and pick and chose from it randomly.
You can see the chipping details around the black area behind the pilot. Panels get chipped by ground crew constantly removing them and handling them with dirty fingers.
I think this engine art decal was from a Japanese F-1 kit.
I painted the blaster tips a darker gray since I had to do some gap filling on them post primer. I also made some of the raised panels different shades of gray.
Below we see a more extensive wash of black for the back details.
More wash applied to the intakes and exterior.
Oily stains on the bottom are a bit of a trademark for me.
Another look at the bottom details. Even if I don’t model landing gear, I include the landing gear doors.
And here she is, complete. I don’t have any Votainion Empire symbols on it or any of my models, actually. That’s because I don’t have the ability to make my own decals. Easier to let graphic artists apply them in post.
This might be the last model I work on until winter releases it’s icy grip on my garage. Right now the temps are in the teens and my garage is just too cold to be in, even with an electric heater at my feet.
As 2015 winds down I thought I’d update you all on my writing adventures. 2014 and 2015 saw me producing two novels and two novellas. The novellas (Devon’s Blade and The Blood Empress) have been published as ebooks on Kindle, but the novels are still being edited. I hope to release them in January or February of 2016. The first one out will be The Rising, Book 2 of the Star Saga and the second one will be Counterattack, Book 3 of the Star Saga.
Currently both are being edited and both are waiting for cover art to be completed. Since I have to rely on others to provide me with both editing and cover art, I can only move as fast as my partners. In the mean time, I’m currently writing a novella that takes place between Starstrikers, Book 4 of the Star Saga and XiniX, Book 5. The novella is called K’nat Trap and if focuses on Kiloe and Tamia, two Starstrikers Special Forces personnel on a mission to steal a new Votainion starfighter. I’m having fun with this one which is a bit like Devon’s Blade in that it focuses on starfighters and those who pilot them. It’s just set in the middle of the Great War and takes place a year or so after Starstrikers.
After I finish that novella, I’ll be diving into XiniX which takes place a few years after Starstrikers and will star all four Alpha Team members and various other characters introduced in Starstrikers. Unlike last time, I’ll make an effort to get both K’nat Trap and XiniX out in ebook format before the end of the year.
I recently switched laptops from an aging Dell XPS 13 to a new System 76 Lemur. I’m loving the Lemur and of course, still using Ubuntu Linux as my operating system and Plume Creator as my first draft tool of choice. I’ve started transitioning away from Sigil and over to Calibre for my primary ebook editor. Sigil is no longer supported on Linux so that’s why I’m moving to Calibre. I’m still using LibreOffice 5 for my editing software.
This Votainion starfighter has it’s roots back in the early 1980’s when it was known as the Triak. I think “Tri” referred to the middle energy thing coming out the back of the fuselage. I thought about doing that with this model but then quickly scratched it. Some of the things I liked about this fighter were the jagged lines of the fuselage and the wings. Both were retained and the twin engine design which was reproduced pretty faithfully.
I started the build with the engines. Painted green and white from over spray on other builds are 1/2″ PVC pipes run through one inch pipe. I used the engine of a 1/32 scale F-104 Starfighter jet for the gap between the one inch pipes. On the ends of the engines I put some PVC connectors for the exhausts.
Below you see I decided to cut the F-104 engine in half and stick to the one inch PVC for the covered parts of the engines. You can also see the beginnings of the cockpit, starting with an old get pilot sitting on a gas tank. Heh. I also have a paper cut out of the wing for scale.
Below I used more paper to flesh out the cockpit, fuselage and a gun idea. The cockpit is closer to what I had originally drawn. It’s been reborn for the K’nat fighter.
Here we have the two primary starfighters for the middle trilogy of the Star Saga. The Alliance Spieron on the left and the Terrox on the right. These are the Swift and KIV-3 for the middle of the war. Man the Spieron’s nose is huge. Like, Klinger large.
After cutting up some plastic and positioning the cockpit I start building the mounting bracket for the aluminum block used for the mount. I wrapped plastic around the 1/2 inch tube to center it inside the one inch tube. You can see it sticking out in the image below. The cockpit is from a Tamiya F-14 Tomcat 1/32 scale.
Here I use camera tape to hold together the plastic so I can see the angles I’m dealing with. They are quite unique.
But that’s what I like about this model, it is all kinds of unique and different. It also has some call backs to familiar starfighters from Hollywood. Such as the Y-Wing from Star Wars and the Cylon Interceptor from the original Battlestar Galactica.
Here’s a look at the tail end. I still haven’t taken glue to it yet, but you can start to see the final shape a bit clearer.
Here’s a close up of the cockpit details. I used a third party ejection seat from an F-4 Phantom in 1/32 scale. The top piece there is from the F-104 kit.
Next up we’ll start gluing things down and moving forward on the details.
