So I’m still trying to sort out WordPress’s new writing layout. If I messed with the thing more than once a month, I’m sure I’d become more proficient with it sooner rather than later. But once a month works with my schedule, so that’s how it will be.

The different type of curve comes as a result of softball. It’s NCAA softball tournament time, and productivity tends to end up in the crapper as a result. I am proud to say I’ve done a mostly decent job this season keeping things rolling on the writing side and getting a hefty dose of softball watching in.

Echoes of War News

The ARCs arrived in Maryland at a friend’s house just before I got into town, so that worked out well. I have started mailing/distributing them and the publicist is off to the races doing her thing. At first I was shocked by the publicist price tag when I signed my contract with Smith Publicity months ago, but now I understand why it costs so much. I just started getting their formal status reports, and quite frankly, I no longer wonder why the price tag was where it was. My publicist is BUSY! It is seriously impressive. I feel like Super Slacker typing this and watching softball at the same time. 🙂

I did another read through of the novel, this time using the ARC to sniff out any final typos to be cleaned up. I finished that read and sent the short list of fixes to the publisher today.

To give you an idea of the publicist’s talent, here’s part of the press release she put together:

Echoes of War

Book One in the Echoes Trilogy

By Cheryl Campbell

EDGY POST-APOCALYPTIC SCI-FI SERIES SET IN NEW ENGLAND BRINGS A POWERFUL & COMPLEX FEMALE LEAD INTO THE SPOTLIGHT

“Campbell’s sci-fi debut doesn’t pull any punches. The world is bold and exciting, the characters are relatable, and Campbell expertly weaves enough twists and turns into the story to keep you guessing. If Echoes of War is any indication, this trilogy is shaping up to be an exciting ride.”

— Kris A. Hiatt, #1 bestselling author of the epic fantasy series ‘Saga of The Wolf’

What if a single act of kindness were the tipping point to begin the end of a decades-long war?

In Echoes of War [September 10, 2019, SparkPress]– the first book in an edgy new post-apocalyptic sci-fi series from award-winning author Cheryl Campbell — Dani is a scavenger living on the fringes of society in Maine, gathering enough supplies to live another day… or so she thinks.

In truth, Dani is not just another war-displaced civilian. She is an Echo — a member of a nearly-immortal alien race. Dani, along with other human and Echo civilians, avoids the Wardens, a splinter group of genocidal Echoes leading a decades-long, human-hunting war against anyone who resists their rule on Earth. 

When Dani risks her own well-being to save a human boy from a violent kidnapping, a chain of events is sparked which forces her to revisit events and people from past lives that she can’t remember — and to step out of the shadows and play her part in the David vs. Goliath-esque battle. But her attempts to change the bleak future facing humankind will lead her to the center of a violent confrontation that even she may not survive…

Set in real-life towns, cities, and landmarks in Maine and Massachusetts which will be immediately recognizable to anyone who has lived or spent time in New England, Echoes of War is a fast-paced, militaristic sci-fi thriller which follows a complex female protagonist as her already-messy life gets thrown into even greater chaos.

“I love a conflicted hero, and Dani is a bit of a walking disaster” shares Campbell, who is making her adult science fiction debut with the release of Echoes of War. “She’s foul-mouthed, stubborn, explores relationships with men and women — unsure of what she wants or needs, and makes a lot of mistakes. But even though she’s a member of a hated alien race, she exhibits tremendous humanity and kindness.”

“Dani’s external story arc is simply to survive,” Campbell continues, “but her internal desire is to belong to and believe in something bigger than herself. I think that internal drive resonates with a lot of people and will draw others to this story.”

A must-read for fans of Martha Wells’ The Murderbot Diaries, Robert D. Armstrong’s World Apart series, and cult favorite TV shows like The Rain and Colony, Echoes of War will be released on September 10, 2019 with SparkPress in paperback and e-book formats, and available for purchase wherever books are sold.

Yep. My publicist rocks!

The beauty of this being my first rodeo with using a publisher is it keeps things interesting and yes, sometimes a bit stressful. There are a lot of unknowns, and sometimes that learning curve seems like a vertical line. By nature I ask a lot of questions, and I can’t seem to ask enough about this process. Everything is brand new.

For instance, it just took me several minutes to figure out how to do a new post on this site. I’ve done 166 posts in the last 6 or so years. WordPress updated their layout in the month that has passed since my last post, and for the life of me, I couldn’t figure out how or where to start writing the new post I wanted to create for today. What had been a completely intuitive process before suddenly turned into a “wtf is this?” moment. That was an unexpected snag, but I obviously figured it out or you wouldn’t be reading anything from me right now. Yay, progress!

Burnt Mountain News

I finished the rewrites of One in the Chamber this past weekend and got the new version uploaded to Amazon and Smashwords. If you’ve read the book, nothing major has changed. I fixed my frequent point of view shifts in it which is an amateur way of writing. Sure, OTC was my second novel, and I was absolutely an amateur still at that time. But I’ve learned a lot since then and decided a re-write was warranted. That re-write took MONTHS of work, but it is finished and I’m glad I did it.

The award ceremony for my SciFi category win in the New England Book Festival for When Heroes Fall never materialized. The organizers bailed on the Boston ceremony and turfed it off to lump into their NYC and California ceremonies. Screw that! I don’t write for award certificates or ceremonies, but that first ceremony for me was important. So I was more disappointed in the organizers leaving all the other NE Book Fest winners shit out of luck for a local ceremony. Bad form, guys. Bad form.

Echoes of War News

I got an email last week that a mention of Echoes of War made it to the SparkPress blog on a post they did for the 300th anniversary of Robinson Crusoe. Very cool stuff and the link is here: https://gosparkpress.com/happy-300th-anniversary-robinson-crusoe/

I had applied for a writing retreat that was taking place in July in Maine, but I didn’t get accepted. Oh well. That won’t stop me from writing, and I’ll just do it from another location in Maine instead of the retreat location. It’s all good.

I still don’t have ARCs yet, and I don’t know when I’ll get them. That continues to be a mystery and a question I’m still waiting to hear back from the publisher. I’m trying to remain patient, but if you know me at all, you know I don’t let the grass grow under my feet. Waiting and wondering aren’t things I like to do. I prefer to be on the move, informed, and making progress. But while I wait, I will be working on some other things with the website and writing.

April 27 marked my one year anniversary of being a nomad. In a way it’s hard to fathom it’s been a year already. In another way, it feels longer. I’m not planning to do this for another year though. Fall is looking like a good time to snag an apartment in Maine and get my stuff out of storage and get me into a landing pad for a bit. Plus it’ll be easier to start land shopping in Maine for a buy in 2020 if I’m not scattered all over the planet. 🙂

You can pre-order your copy of Echoes of War at Amazon, IndieBound, or BN.

Tomorrow marks the first day of the publicity kick off for Echoes of War. While this is super exciting, that pony isn’t quite ready to blast out of the gates yet toward the September finish line. I hit an editing snag, so that pony is coming out at a mozy…or possibly she is just looking at the open gates and waiting a bit.

The publicist and I were hoping to have the ARCs (advance reader copies) in March in time for things to rock and roll in April. Except I have zero ARCs. The editing took a bit longer than I wanted because I kept finding typos. Word was doing fun things with the manuscript, changing fonts for me at seemingly random times until I found the pattern. OCD me went back to my older files to compare, and Word was definitely jacking up my manuscript as it was sent back and forth through email or opened in different versions of Word or the program just being possessed in general. I don’t know. It doesn’t matter the cause, but I was glad I figured out what was going on. So the file ended up with some extra transmissions back and forth that wouldn’t have normally happened.

That was done, then the proof read started by SparkPress’s proofer. The file came back to me, complete with gorgeous formatting for a final review…and I found a few more typos. These weren’t Word doing wonky stuff. These were just ones that were missed by tired human eyes. I finished the review and sent the file back last night. I’m not sure if it comes back to me again after the corrections are made or not. I’m guessing it does. All I can say is I’m going a bit blind with all the re-reads and picking apart each line for typos. But that process has to be complete before the final page count can be done which impacts the size of the cover art file. THEN things might be able to go to print for ARCs. Ah, the waiting game.

Images by sxc.hu

Site Updates and Cover Art

If you have spent any time poking around on the website, you’ll have noticed some changes happening. Tabs have had some content updated such as the new cover art for the Burnt Mountain series. Only one more of those left to do, and that is currently in progress. Other cool photos from Adobe have been added, and the coolest of all, not from Adobe, is shown above.

This is the cover art for the Sept 10 release, Echoes of War, book one in the Echoes trilogy. I’m super excited by the cover art and can’t wait to hold this book in my hands once I start getting ARCs (Advance Reader Copies) printed sometime in the spring.

With the new year starting next week (and me trying not to crap myself over how quickly 2018 flew by) and thus the start of the 2019 rodeo that begins as well, I’m doing my best to remain calm (hint: at times I’m quite successful, other times I can be found in the fetal position).

Next up for Echoes

Editing the full manuscript with the SparkPress editor, manuscript approval, full book cover art approval, print proof approval, ARC prints, and lots of publicity work mixed in and probably stuff I’m missing. If I can get the ARCs in time, I’ll start doing promotional events. One event on the list for April, pending ARCs, is the Bangor Comic and Toy Con – going as a vendor, not a spectator!

This is all to be done while wrapping up my final six months of working in Baltimore before I leave the country for my sabbatical in July. The next several months will be an absolute blur. Heck, the last several months have been a blur. Or perhaps I just need to have my eyes checked–lots of things blurring lately.

I hope everyone survived the holidays with only minor injuries and/or ailments. The same wish holds true for making it past New Year’s Day (unless you celebrate the Chinese New Year then you’ll have to wait a bit longer). I have spent this week in Maine and will spend next week in Mass. The nomadic life adventure continues, and it’s a hoot!

I know I promised this a while ago, but I have been working on it. The new website is mostly up and running, well, it’s up. The running part is in progress of being developed. So you don’t just jump right over there and stop reading now, I’ll give you the link LAST.

I’m using a new WordPress theme called Lavander that I think is really slick. It has a bit more convolution to it than the one I’ve been using on the burntmountainbooks.com site, so it’s taking me time to get used to it. I have all the links set up across the top of the page and a few other things. I eventually figured out how to link my Instagram account to the new site, so photos post at the bottom there when I post them to Instagram … oh, yeah, and the Instagram thing is new too.

Even I had to duck the lightning bolts on this one … I have a twitter account now too. I SWORE I would never do one, but my publicist said I gotta, so I did. Yikes. I don’t plan to be twittering away my time on it though and I sure as hell won’t be using it to follow the current mass of celebrity and political ass hats using it for whatever idiotic purposes they use it for. It’ll be an information tool for me regarding publishing and book contacts that I don’t have and can’t get through fb or instagram.

Since I’m so fantastically clueless on book publishing, book marketing, and the myriad of tools available, I’m relying on the publicist to continue to be patient, enlighten me, and help me through the mazes. It’s kinda like being lost in the woods. If you’ve been there, you know what this feels like.

I have been legit lost in the woods. No phone. No compass. No water. I had my camera though, but ultimately lost as hell in the sticks of Noxubee National Wildlife Refuge in Mississippi around 1998 or so after wandering off the trail and opting for a “short cut” that turned into a freakin’ mess.

Thankfully Sarah from Smith Publicity is my compass in this book forest.

So bear with me as I beat up this new website and sort out the crap therein and figure out how things work. The site is currently bare bones as you’ll see once you start clicking.

New website:  http://www.cherylscreativesoup.com

To get signed up for the blog that will move off the Burnt Mountain site and to the new one in the coming weeks, go to the sign up thingy on the right side of the screen at  http://www.cherylscreativesoup.com/blog/

Instagram: CherylsCreativeSoup

Author facebook page (this will be replacing the existing Burnt Mountain fb page in coming weeks):  http://www.facebook.com/cherylscreativesoup

They’re all a work in progress so relax if you see something you don’t like. Odds are it will change tomorrow anyway. 🙂

I’ll do a post on why I went with Cheryl’s Creative Soup, but if you know me well enough, you’ve likely already figured it out. Until next time!