While supplies last!

Inspired by the positive experience of other ebook writers, I've decided to enroll Confessions of a Gourmand, or How to Cook a Dragon in Amazon's Kindle Direct Publishing Select program-- in return for offering my novel exclusively on Amazon for three months, I get to promote it as a free download for five days.

Confessions will be available for free at the Kindle store starting today until February 8th. Please give it a try! If you enjoy the book, I humbly ask that you tell a friend or leave a review on Amazon. Many thanks in advance...

(And thanks to Joey C. at Good Morning Gloucester for plugging the book!)

Make It Happen 2012: Day 29

One of the things that I resolved to do as part of Make It Happen 2012 was to pay closer attention to the business side of my writing. While I always seem able to find the time to eke out a few words here and there on a new project, when it comes to editing, polishing, submitting, or self-publishing my works online I tend to procrastinate like there's no tomorrow. Today however I took advantage of a lazy Sunday afternoon to finally get my entry for this year's Amazon Breakthrough Novel Award contest ready for submission. Although I had entered the 2010 competition (with my fantasy novel Confessions of a Gourmand (/shamelessplug)) and actually made it to the second round, for various reasons I ended up missing the deadline for last year's contest and regretted it terribly for not having given it another try.

Well, I'm back this year with a new entry-- another fantasy novel called The Librarian's Tale. However I fare this time, I will be sure to release the book as a Kindle edition, just as I did with Confessions, but in the meanwhile wish me luck!

(I've also been working on something else today, but I'm saving that announcement for tomorrow for reasons which I hope will become obvious. Let's call it the best kind of procrastination...)

A new flash fiction series!

If you wander over to the Confessions of a Gourmand blog you'll find some fresh content: Breakfast in Iskandalon, an inaugural entry to a new series of flash fiction chronicling the latter-day journeys of Van d'Allamitri, Varo's most celebrated chef. His mysterious agent Heinrich may be calling it a 'book tour,' but don't be fooled: after twenty years in the City, Van is ready to see the world again and sample its fantastic cuisine.

Keeping with the spirit of flash fiction, I plan to post a fresh dispatch every Sunday. Stay tuned for next week's episode, when Van travels from Iskandalon, City of Letters, to Egrezi Ra, City of the Living Dead!

Today's Silver Lining

I sold a book! Thanks, whoever you are, and I hope you enjoy the read...

I made a Kindle edition!

Even though I didn't make the second cut in Amazon's Breakthrough Novel Award contest, just getting as far as I did has inspired me to sell Confessions of a Gourmand as a Kindle edition at Amazon.com.

I'll be working on some print options as well, either at Createspace or Lulu. But in the meantime, if you've enjoyed reading the blog version of the novel, I'd greatly appreciate it if you'd consider recommending the Kindle edition to others or posting a review on the Amazon site.

Thanks a lot and wish me luck!

Cyclops, Gorgons, and Chocolate (oh, my!)

Chapter Twelve of Confessions of a Gourmand is now online!

Chapter Ten and other news

Totally forgot to mention that Chapter Ten of Confessions is now online!

I've also been talking with a friend who has entirely too much webhosting on his hands- he's offered me some virtual real estate for my fantasy writing so I'm likely to take him up on his offer when I've finished posting Confessions of a Gourmand in its entirety. More on that later, but I thought I'd share the exciting news with y'all.

3 out of 5 ain't bad

Confessions of a Gourmand is now listed at Web Fiction Guide- if you've been following Confessions and would like to post a review, I encourage you to visit them and check out some excellent online fiction by other authors while you're there. Here's what one of the editors (who gave me 3 out of 5 stars) had to say about it:

"If you like descriptive narrative, full of cultural elements and a life’s story, it’s worth a look."

Woohoo!

More Confessions!

Chapter Five is now available online. I will post Chapter Six on Wednesday September 2nd, after I return from vacation- in the meantime, enjoy!

More food, folks, and fantasy

Chapter Four of Confessions of a Gourmand is now online!

Confessions Update

As promised, Chapter Three of Confessions is now online.

Gourmand-a-palooza!

As I'm rapidly approaching a week's vacation back in my native Jersey and will have intermittent wifi access while I'm there I've decided to post not one or two but three, count 'em three chapters of Confessions of a Gourmand this week- tonight I'll put up Chapter Three, Wednesday will be Chapter Four, and Friday morning I will post Chapter 5 before we hit the road. So stay tuned for a whole lot of fantasy food goodness!

The story continues

Chapter Two of Confessions of a Gourmand is now online. Enjoy!

Now it can be told!

For those of you who have been following my writing endeavors, I have some big news: I have decided to make a blog for Confessions of a Gourmand and post the novel there in its entirety, with a new chapter going up every Wednesday night.

(If you're a fan of the TV show Lost, consider this some mid-season replacement methadone until early 2010!)

If you want a little more background into why I'm choosing the online self-published route for this book check out this Introduction/FAQ to the Confessions blog first, then go right ahead and jump on into Chapter One.

Enjoy!

The second cut is the deepest

So I got my second rejection letter to my query for Confessions, and while I'd like to say it was easier this time around I must admit that number two actually stung a little worse. This made getting back on the writing horse this morning all the more important, and I'm happy to report that if nothing else I was successful in this regard.

Although... I've noticed that the incidence of my fellow passengers reading over my shoulder as I write seems to be only increasing over time. Too bad I can't parlay that into a query letter: "9 out of 10 commuter rail riders agree -- 'Tom Bruno's writing is so good that I just can't mind my own business as he sits and types next to me!'"

I know I'm nowhere near enough of a critical threshold of rejection letters to qualify for a pity party, so the best thing is to keep on writing, keep on polishing, and keep those query letters going out. The silver lining is that this second letter was also encouraging, so maybe I'm just looking for the right fit for this manuscript. Hope springs eternal.

The ultimate compliment

From one of my readers for Confessions:

"I've decided to finish your manuscript before I read Deathly Hallows."

Whoa.

At long last

The second draft of Confessions is complete! And it only took me a little more than a year...

Editing update

At long last, I'm within sight of the finish line with the first edit of Confessions - eighty pages or so to go! I've become quite merciless at this point with anything that I identify as extraneous, no matter how clever, interesting, or creative it may have seemed at the time. Editing my short story "Amber" down into its published form "Tomorrow is Another Day" has really helped hone my critical faculties in this regard, so much so that I wonder if I shouldn't make another pass at the first half of the novel (which I had been editing before I started to work on the short story) before considering this revision complete.

So it may have taken me a little longer than I had originally hoped, but it feels good to have come this far. I guess the key as always is to not allow yourself to become discouraged with what may seem at times to be infinitesimal progress. This can be difficult, especially when writing/editing time is so hard to come by as it has been for me these days, but I'm hoping that if I can finally get my ass out of bed in the mornings and write before heading to work with Exile family I'll be able to find that precious hour or so of creativity that's been eluding me of late.

Whoa, we're halfway there

Last night I managed to creak my way past the 50% mark on my edit of Confessions. 255 pages down, 252 to go...

Back to business

At long last I've finally gotten back into an editing rhythm for Confessions, after having been sidetracked by NaNoWriMo, whipping a short story into shape for publication, and most importantly of all helping Mrs. Exile transition into her new job with the least amount of pain and suffering humanly possible. Right now I've gotten myself to a point where I can do about a chapter per editing session, so I think I just might beat my self-imposed deadline for finishing the second draft of the manuscript by the end of this month.

Oh, and by the way -- Issue Four of InkCollective is now out, and features the above-mentioned short story ("Tomorrow Is Another Day") by yours truly. You can either download the PDF for free or pay eight bucks for the paper copy from Lulu.com. I hope you enjoy it!

(Special thanks to editor Matthew Reidsma, who inspired me to take a fresh look at my older writing and not be afraid to make the tough cuts when necessary. Unfortunately Matt is putting InkCollective on permanent hiatus after this issue, but don't let that keep you from enjoying what has clearly been a labor of love for everyone involved in the production of this wonderful publication.)