Why Chael?

First, let's get one thing straight: I am a HUGE Chael Sonnen fan. And yes, it's because he has a loud mouth. Truth be told, I think his in-fight ability leaves a lot to be desired once he takes somebody to the ground. In his last two fights, he displayed a lack of urgency in harrassing Anderson Silva on the ground, and was viciously outworked by a seemingly more motivated Michael Bisping (who I will talk about more later on).

Right now, my problem is with Joe Silva and Dana White. Their latest decision to cast Sonnen and Jones as opposing TUF coaches may make fiscal sense, but come on! Chael has spent the greater part of his middleweight career picking apart the LH division as nothing more than a curious joke, where cowards shy away from the top in order to protect their pride. To allow Chael a free pass to the top spits in the face of men like Randy Couture, Chuck Liddell, and Tito Ortiz (and people who know me should know I'm not the biggest tito fan). I can name a couple of hard workers who I would love to see get a shot at ol' Jonesy. Gustafsson, Hendo, and Evans come to mind, but the one person I'd LOVE to see take on the Bones is Mr. Wonderful - Phil Davis.

 

Problem is, Bonesy is hurt and some may doubt the validity of a Davis-Jones fight. Honestly, I'm one of those people. I see the POTENTIAL in Davis and his last showing against Wagner Prado was nothing short of awesomeness. BUT, before that Rashad Evans dominated the larger competitor in a tune-up fight leading to Evans' futile octagon showing against Jones. In order to see if Davis is ready for the championship rounds, this is what I propose:

 

December '12 - Chael Sonnen vs. Lyoto Machida - Why? Because Chael could and would talk up a storm about "the karate guy" who once dominated the division. And after turning down the match with Jones at UFC 151, Lyoto needs to prove to me that he wants to go head to head with Jones. The heat Chael could generate from this could transcend the heights established against Anderson Silva. And the best part? Lyoto is Brazilian. Go to town with that, Chael. Go to town.

 

December '12 - Phil Davis vs. M. Shogun Rua - Why? Here's your test Phil Davis. Shogun has the credentials as one of the best on the octagon right now and is a legitimate contender to the belt. However, him shying away from Jones at UFC 151 left a bitter taste about his desire for the gold, especially after his disgruntled reaction to Lyoto being named #1 contender following their dual main events against Bader and Vera, respectively. If Phil can get past Shogun, it would send a clear signal that he's ready for a shot at the big time.

 

TUF Coaches - Well, Bones is hurt, so this is the perfect opportunity for him to take some time off to mentor young (or old, depending on the format) talent. We'd need to find an opponent for him though, and one who could draw interest, and in turn ratings. Without Chael, we need some form of drama. I think that void is filled by the one-time friend and training partner (and ex-TUF coach), Rashad Evans. Rashad's been quiet ever since his loss to Bones, and since we're catapulting people to the top regardless of their last few fights, why not toss Rashad in there?

 

UFC TBD - Jones vs. Rashad Co-Main Event along with (winner of Chael vs. Lyoto) vs. (winner of Davis vs. Shogun).

 

UFC TBD - (Winner of Jones vs. Rashad) vs. the last man standing out of Chael, Lyoto, Davis, and Shogun.

The time frame is much longer, but it gives Jones time to heal and properly prepare, and lets us legitimately see if either Sonnen or Davis is the contender we've been looking for.

 

Bleh, too bad I'm not Joe Silva.

Phew! Its been awhile!

So sorry for the absence!  Needless to say, I've been very, very indisposed at my day job!  Having several people move on to different ventures in life has put an incredible strain on our personnel, which in turn has cut my lunches to half an hour.  And as anybody knows, my lunch is when I write, and with only half the time, I can barely do a tenth of the work.

Progress on book 2 has been for lack of a better term; disappointing.  Chapter 5 has finally been ironed out in terms of scenes, but getting it down has been tough.  Between marketing B.S. and writing this, I've stretched myself quite thin and often wonder if every indie author went through this.  For me, the most frustrating part is the overall sense that my day job has become a waste of time when compared to what I need to do to get Betrayer's Sigil done.

That's right :)  I've finally got a title for the second book.  Betrayer's Sigil it is, beating out Magister's Sigil and Shattered Sigil.  I'm really looking forward to getting this one out to my beta reader, but I want to make sure its a little more refined.

In addition to BS2, I've taken up the Rushfit program!  That's right, the fat new me is going on a venture to get the fit old me back!  Starting up was nothing less than excruciating.  I nearly heaved halfway through the first day's workout and barely scraped through the second day (which was only cardio).  So far I've made it through the first week and I'm already seeing the following results:

-My bad knee doesn't hurt as much anymore.

-Vast improvement in posture.  No, not kidding, I sit, stand, and move in a much more economical way.

-I'm falling asleep at my old bedtime.  Not sure if this is bad or good, but hey, more sleep isn't bad right?

-I'm waking up at 6 in the morning, yet feeling no sluggishness or fatigue later in the day.  Honestly, my goal is to shoot for 5:30.

Again, I apologize for the massive absence, but I promise to be more active!  It's taken awhile for me to really nail what I want to put on this blog.  Screw "All Writing, All Day, Every Week", this is going to be my thoughts and reviews on all things.

Speaking of which, my next entry will be about: The Transformers Movies, Kids, and Criticisms -- Why I Think the Adults Have Got It All Wrong.

Have a good night everybody!

Why nobody in my office has bought the book.

I've been fielding some questions lately from friends and family about how the book is going.  While I won't lie and say things are going well, I also won't like and say that I'm not disappointed.  As an amateur author, of course the dreams of grandeur where everybody loves my book and they're telling their cousins and uncles to buy it in droves off of Amazon.  Then again, I also had a firm grasp in reality.  I knew those dreams were just that: dreams.  Getting 'Broken Sigil' out into the world wouldn't just be a marathon, it would be a slog.  A long, arduous, testing, backbreaking, nerve-racking, hair-pulling slog.

Honest work would be needed (and is still needed) to get this done.  I've dedicated a measley budget on 'exposure' expenses, and am trying to stay active in social media.  I've even picked up Twitter, which I swore long ago to never even sniff.

I could have taken an easy route to sales by telling everybody in my office (about twelve people) to buy a copy of the book, but I didn't.  I don't want people to buy the book just because I wrote it.  I want them to buy it because they want to read it.  I want to be very clear about something here: I'm not out to take everybody's money.  I'm out to entertain people.  I actually take a 70% loss on every book I sell because of my marketing costs.  I'm killing myself to tell a story, but that's what I want to do.  If given the choice between somebody willing to buy the book because they know me or somebody willing to tell five friends about the book because they know me, I'll take the person who'll tell five friends.

I don't care about the money, I care about the minds.  I want to see that people have read and enjoyed the book.  I want to see people starting forum posts about Jalen, Al, and Antoine.   I want to see people arguing about the characters' motivations and relationships.

I just want to see people entertained.

Worm in my stomach

I'm not sure what it is about receiving reviews that destroys my innards, but whenever I get that e-mail notification saying I've got a new review, my stomach just about explodes.  I guess it could be because I'm still just an amateur writer (I don't think I'll ever consider myself a true author until I see others discussing my books on their own), or I guess it could be because a part of me still doesn't have any confidence in my ability to construct a narrative (I still hate chapters 1-3).  Whatever the case, those few mouse clicks before seeing my score are absolute torture.  I almost feel like vomiting.  A few days ago, I was having a particularly bad day at work and seeing the notification didn't help anything.  I might actually have to start taking some Alka-seltzer with me or something.

Well, it ended up being a 5-star review, prompting me into a Michael Jordan-esque leaping punch.  The euphoria only lasts so long though.  It's not that I crave more 5's.  What I really crave is more opinions in general.  What did people not like?  What did they love?  I just want to know what people think, whether it's bad or good.

And last night I found out that my Adwords campaign is actually paying off.  Apparently, it's the primary driver for all my Smashwords traffic.  I would divert to the Amazon page (the kindle conversion is overwhelmingly superior) but until I can get some better reviews, I'll stick with the Smashwords link.  Two fivers there as opposed to the 3-star at Amazon.  I'm still hoping and praying though.  Here's to more people liking the book!

Three stars will always suck to me.

So, got my first 3-star review today.  The reviewer had excellent points, and of course they are free to comment as they please.  There were some glimmers of hope, especially for the beginning of the book (which I largely hated and still hate to this day).

I suppose I can't reasonably claim artistic integrity without going back on everything I've personally said about ME3.  Just to recap: I thought ME3's ending was the biggest load of nonsensical horsewonky that I've ever seen.  It had more plot holes and logic sinks than Swiss cheese.  But here's what ME3 and I have in common: somebody didn't like our ending.  Or at least, they didn't construe it in a manner we thought they would.  There is one major difference though: to me I see it as a failure on my part.  To Bioware, they stuck to their guns and blamed the end-user.

Look, would I have liked for that person to give a 5er and gush about everything in the book?  Heck yeah.  But will everybody like it?  Absolutely not.  I know I can't sit here and take these things personally, but it's hard when you've poured the last four years of your life into something and you really care about it.  This story has been 40% of my thought processes since that night in 2008 where I sat in bed watching the first episode of Legend of the Seeker (CW = fools for not renewing), and thinking "Hey, I could write something as fun as this..."

But, in closing, to Eowyn: I'm sorry my ending fell flat for you.  If you're still willing, the sequel will be out sometime next year (it's so much easier when you know what you're doing).  In the world of Fael, where I am literally the Creator, everything very much happens for the exact reasons that I have dictated.  Again, I apologize.

I just hope there are more people out there that feel the opposite about the ending as you did.

Round 2, Sort Of.

So in starting the next part of the story, I’m getting back to square one on a multitude of different things.  For one, I’m going back to all my reference books, brushing up on tips and tricks I may have started to overlook, and doing lots of brainstorming about characters.  Of course Jalen, Al, and Antoine are back, along with most everybody else, but since the scale of this chapter of the story is so much larger, there are inevitably going to be a few new additions to the cast of TMC.  We’ll see the Emperor in this one, as he tries to figure out just how to stop the Vurkund horde from crushing Danmer’s walls.  We’ll see more Vurkund, more Imperials, more Magisters, more magic overall.

In bringing the emperor to life, I’m reminded of when I was first doing brainstorms on Al.  He was the especially tricky one.  At first, he started out as a Firasian monk who would spout off vague allusions and observations much to Jalen’s chagrin.  He was meant as a friend and foil all in one.  He would sit idly as Jalen fought off bandits, only to intervene when his life was truly threatened.  Originally, he excelled in hand-to-hand comment and ate nothing but leaves, twigs, and obscure plants that he would produce from a mysterious pouch hidden in his robes.  In retrospect, I can’t believe I thought this would work.  The roles of Antoine and Al had to be individually defined, not smashed into one.  I needed a solid foil, not something muddled (although it certainly seems muddled at first to readers).  When Antoine was ‘born’ I thought of only one thing:  How can I create the complete opposite of Jalen in every way imaginable.  To be honest, it was the easiest brainstorming session I’ve ever had!  I just looked at Jalen’s character sheet, jotted down the opposite of everything on there, and viola!  Al on the other hand…he needed to be complementary.  I still needed that conscience type of character, to keep Jalen’s goodness in check.  I considered three different races before settling on Bastian: Vurkund (that part eventually became Jorrah, Lushanese, and an Imperial smuggler aka Han Solo-ish).  Honestly, once Al finally took shape, I can’t say I’ve had any more fun than when it came to thinking up his background.  I can’t say too much about it obviously, but I can’t wait to tell everybody about Alcin Von Merwon’s past.

One Hundred and Fifty

So I've reached 150 downloads of the book over the last week!  Using a promo price of free has done well to increase exposure and I'm excited about the possibilities of seeing people enjoy my work.  If only a handful of people out of those 150 enjoy the story, that's all I need.  I want word to spread.  I want people to remember Jalen, Al, and Antoine.

It's been a very interesting week.  Page visits to the book spiked the other day (over 150 in the wee hours of the morning).  I assume it may have something to do with a glowing review received on Goodreads.com.  I'll admit I hadn't ever heard of the site before that review, but I'm glad I know now.  5-stars!  Ambra, thank you so much for your praise and I hope your friends take note!  On an embarrassing note however, she apparently read the entire thing in one week...whereas it takes me (the author) at least a month-and-a-half just to get halfway through the book.  I used to think I was a fast reader.  Yeah...not so much anymore!

Fael Fun Fact of the Blog:
The nation of Quetzon, located south of the Halverian Empire, is so named for whichever regional tribe currently holding power.  In the past, the region has also been known as Sitipoteqi, Mazataq, Xixitaqi, Qilizon, and Qopoltaq.  Transitions between ruling tribes are typically bloody, violent affairs involving heinous atrocities.  As of the events in Broken Sigil, the Quetzoni tribe has held a firm grip on power for quite some time, leading to a sense of stability in the region.

Posted!

Well, the book is finally published!  It's only in ebook form for now, just until I can raise enough money to take out a print contract with a PoD company.  I'm super excited about the possibilities and I hope people will enjoy the story.  I really could care less about profits at this point, its about finding people to share in the world of Fael.  I'll be heading back real soon to finish up the final touches on Morden's first short story, then it's another week of brain-charging before getting to work on the second story in the series.

Gotta finish Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter first though, when the wife gives me a book I gots to read it!

Fael Fun Fact of the Blog:  Current Bastian naming conventions are a holdover from the ancient Renegalian (Darean) Empires.  Names ending in 'ius' are considered of noble or upper-class birth, whereas names ending in 'pes' denote common or peasant status.  Examples:  Altonius or Alanius vs. Hadropes or Janapes

First post of the blog!

So I've spent the whole day doing mockups of the cover.  Intense stuff!  Gotta make it look nice, but also serve a purpose.  I want people to judge the book by it's cover.  It needs to be a sexay beeyotch in order to sell.  Any suggestions?