Sunday, July 13, 2008

Two and a half chapters...

I finally managed to get in some quality writing time and churned out two and a half chapters this morning. That puts me at around 22 or 23 chapters for book three! My best guestimate is that it will be around 35 chapters long so I'm definitely on the final third of the book!

I am getting to some of the big action parts and I'm trying to decide if I want to shift the focus of a few characters. I've been trying to prune some parts that I think might fit better in book four.

The press release for book one has gone out, I hope it generates some traffic for the book. Here is a peek at it:
New Epic Fantasy Novel Released Just In Time For Summer Reading

[Toms River, New Jersey] July 11, 2008 – New Jersey author Irven Keppen has released the first book in his epic Legends of Midralon fantasy series titled Emily & The Silent King.

Following in the footsteps of noted fantasy authors from the past, Mr. Keppen’s book began as a labor of love only intended to entertain his children. Once he had created the book he realized that it was a wonderful story that could entertain others as well and at the urging of friends and family he decided to publish his book for the public.

Written over the course of a year, using his daily commute as brainstorming time to develop the characters and ideas in his novel, along with countless late night hours spent at his laptop keyboard, he was able to bring his story to life in the 288 pages of this book.

Emily & The Silent King takes the reader along on the adventures of a young girl and her three siblings who are mysteriously transported to the magical realm of Midralon. Perils and pitfalls await them in the war torn lands, as well as magical creatures straight from the pages of old fairy tales. They must deal with the strangeness of this new world and find their way back home, all while trying to avoid the sinister servants and marauding armies of the terrible Silent King.

Mr. Keppen’s book can be found under the title Emily & The Silent King at Amazon.com http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0615172393/ as well as other major online book sellers. Please visit the author’s website at http://legendsofmidralon.blogspot.com/ for more details on this book and upcoming titles in the series.

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Irven Keppen is 41 years old and works in the IT field in Cranbury, New Jersey. He lives near Toms River, New Jersey with his wife, two daughters and two sons.

Saturday, July 12, 2008

The best laid plans...

So my vacation didn't quite go as I planned, I guess that was to be expected. I had a list of several things I wanted to get done before it ended but only managed to scratch a couple of items off the list. Still I enjoyed myself and got to spend some time with my family which is my favorite pastime in the world. So I'll stretch my remaining list items out over the upcoming weekends.

I'm still waiting for my book to show up on the Library of Congress online catalog so I can start asking the local libraries to carry it. The process is a strange one, there really is no feedback. You apply for an LCN(library control number) and then you send a hard copy of your book to the library and they file it. They don't let you know if they've received it and there is no place to check the status of it or even if it's been rejected for some reason. It has been several weeks now and I still don't see it showing up, so I'm getting a little nervous.

I plan to at least finish a chapter or two of book three this weekend. But you see how plans and I get along from the first paragraph. We'll see, so much to do, so little time....

Monday, July 7, 2008

Current distraction


As I mentioned in the previous post, there have been a few distractions for me. One of them is the new 4th Edition of D&D. Being somewhat of a programmer, I decided to write my own character generator. This is what it looks like so far.
I made it for my own personal use, since its hard to find time to sit around and roll up characters much less game. Not a whole lot of bells and whistles but it gets the job done!


So Much To Do...

So Little time to get to everything I want to get done, I'm hoping to at least get some of it started this week. We'll see how it goes! I am aiming to knock out at least two or three more chapters of book three. If I can avoid any distractions!

We have worm sign! Like a thumper pounding away at the sands of the desert hoping to attract the great worms(Shai-Hulud if you are in the know), I'm checking all the book stores daily. I spotted Emily & The Silent King on another intertron site! This time it's Barnes&Noble! Woot! It is slowly spreading out through the internets. Now I need to work on a press release and try to drum up some traffic.

Friday, July 4, 2008

Chapter 20!

I've reached chapter twenty on book three! My unofficial count has the book at thirty five chapters, so I've definitely passed the middle! The story is starting to pick up in pace now and that always drives me to continue writing. I'm hoping to be close to finishing it by the end of July!

I'm officially on vacation (which will mostly be a staycation) so I'm going to try to get lots of stuff done for the book and this blog! It's only a week long vacation and my list of things I want to do is big, so we'll see how much I actually get done! Stay tuned. In the meantime ogle at the might of origami! Did the Romans play D&D?? Check this out!