Retirement…slow down or speed up?

Not sure what your answer is, but mine is speed up! There are still so many stories I want to tell that another 50 years wouldn’t be enough, especially when I’m such a slow writer. And then there’s all that new tech coming online…

I’m not really a techie, you know. The true techies love all technology, whereas I’m pretty ambivalent about some of the innovations out there. Nevertheless, there are some gadgets I can hardly wait to use…like 3D printers for the home. Want that new top in your size? Not a problem, pay for the design and wait a few minutes while your 3D printer manufactures it for you. Or robots…I’ve loved the idea of robots since I first read ‘Door into Summer’ by Heinlein.

-laughs- I bet you thought Asimov was the only one who wrote about robots? Not so. You can find a description of ‘Door into Summer’ here.

Anyway, I’m saving my pennies for a household robot that will clean up after the cats, put the rubbish out, or maybe compost it on site? and mow the lawn. I’ve got a lot of lawn

But that’s not all! I haven’t had a chance to try VR yet, and it’s right up there as a ‘must do’ on my bucket list. I want to be able to travel the world from the comfort of my own home, and I want to fight monsters in glorious technicolour.

Of course, all of that depends upon how my eye-sight works with VR [I see depth via motion parallax, not stereopsis], but I’m hopeful, and this glorious track by Two Steps From Hell is how I feel at the ripe old age of 65. 🙂

The track is called ‘Unleashed’… Bring it on!

cheers

Meeks

A.C. Flory Author Page

Forgive me, me, me, me, me!

For a very long time now, I’ve been ashamed of my Amazon Author Page because it looked so sparse. Now, at last, I can point to it with pride. It’s a real body of work, and I’m so chuffed it’s not funny.

[Chuffed means proud and happy].

At some point in the very near future, Episode 5 will go up to complete the series and then, maybe for my birthday in January 2017 [if I can manage it] I’m going to put all five episodes together in one doorstop of an omnibus à la Hugh Howey and Robert Chazz Chute. They’re both brilliant science fiction authors, they’re both Indie and they both wear their mantles of creative freedom with pride. -cough-

I have no idea how many pages my Omnibus will be, but I doubt I’ll ever be able to make it available as a print book. Doorstops simply cost too much to print, unless you happen to be George R.R. Martin. I think he gets a special discount in order to supply deep sea tankers with anchors. 🙂

Kidding. I adore A Song of Fire and Ice, and I’m not talking about the HBO production either, although that is quite good too.

And now a track from Miracles, with actual lyrics. Enjoy.:)

 

High C’s – from Vanquish #TSFH

This is my next favourite trach from the new Two Steps From Hell album – Vanquish. It’s called High C’s, and it hits them, effortlessly. 😀

Music to make me smile. 🙂

-hugs-

Meeks

New #Music from Two Steps From Hell -dance-

What a great way to start the day. This is ‘Enchantress’ :

As I discover more new ‘favourite’ tracks I’ll post them.

Good morning, World 🙂

Meeks

Jetman formation flying – INSANE!

I just saw this and I still can’t believe it. Jet formation flying with THREE jetmen keeping up with the flight of jets. And the music is ‘For the Win’ from Two Steps From Hell. How good is that?

-hugs-

Meeks

Happy dogs jigsaw puzzle

After three, full-on days of work, weeding, editing, tweeting, visits to the dentist and just life in general, I needed a pick-me-up. And this did it for me. 🙂

The image comes from Jigsaw Planet, and it was uploaded by Lilhrywoman. Don’t they all look as if they’re saying ‘cheese!’? I did the jigsaw of the image so I could see it better. So glad I did. 😀

And for a bit more joy, here’s a track from Two Steps From Hell’s soundtrack album Colin Frake. The track is called Talia’s Theme:

Are you cheered? I am. 😀

-hugs-

Meeks

Trailer Music – the sneaky classics [2]

I began these posts by looking at my own journey towards Trailer Music, but I was a devotee already. The true surprise is that a whole generation of young gamers and Youtubers have learned to love classical musical without even knowing it. Hence the title of this post.

Of course, the young don’t call Trailer Music ‘classical’. No, to them this music is ‘epic’, ’emotional’, and ‘stirring’ but not at all highbrow. And let’s be honest, if I didn’t tell you that the following video clip is Trailer Music, would you know it’s not one of the ‘classics’?

Or what about this one?

Just for the record, Two Steps From Hell is a production company created by composers Thomas Bergersen and Nick Phoenix. People loved their music so much, they were eventually forced to publish their own albums. This is what I call music for the common man [and woman]. 😀

And now I’m due for a break. I’ve been editing Innerscape, Episode 2 all day and it’s time to go out and pull some weeds.

cheers

Meeks

Innerscape FAQ

I messed up yesterday’s post because of toothache, so here’s all the stuff I should have explained before showing the covers:

What is Innerscape?

Innerscape is one very long story serialised in 5 episodes. Hence the numbers on the covers:

What is the total Innerscape wordcount?

Total wordcount for all five episodes comes to 212,000 plus change. Divided by three, that would be 3 books of roughly 70,000 words each.

Why not just publish a trilogy?

Two reasons:

1. Science fiction is traditionally about 90,000 words in length so I’d feel as if I were short-changing readers,
2. The story simply refuses to fall into 3 neat piles. Instead, it evolved in 10 ‘parts’, 2 per episode.

How long is each episode?

The following shows the approximate wordcount for each episode:

Episode 1      48,000

Episode 2      35,000

Episode 3      40,000

Episode 4      30,000

Episode 5      57,000

Why publish Innerscape as a serial?

Each episode ends at a natural point in the story and is a novella in length; just right for a serial, just wrong for everything else.

[Note: According to Wiki, a novel is anything over 40,000 words, so technically episodes 1 and 5 are novels, but I’m not comfortable with that so I’m classifying them all as novellas]

How quickly will each episode be published?

I’d really like to publish episode 5 in time for Christmas, so that’s roughly one episode per week starting next Monday, 14th of November. The extra week is my margin for errors, emergencies and disasters.

During the week between episodes, I’ll be giving the next episode a final edit-and-polish as well as running the music competition for the previous episode.

What music competition?

I suck at promotion, especially promotion that promotes me or mine. I have tried, but this leopard is too old to change her spots now. So what was I to do?

In a light-bulb moment of truly epic proportions, I realised that while I couldn’t promote Innerscape per se, I could promote the music behind Innerscape. All the musicians and composers who inspired me while I was writing are Indies, like me, and I can sing their praises all day without feeling embarrassed at all.

Then I had another light-bulb moment: instead of wasting my money on paid advertising, why not spend my limited budget on giving the music away? All the music is available in digital format so there would be no extra postage costs and delivery could be almost instantaneous. Brilliant!

From there, the idea of giving the music away via a competition was a no-brainer. And if there were five episodes, it made sense to run five competitions… -face palm-

So, there will be five competitions. Each competition will start when the relevant episode goes live on Amazon. Each competition will then run for 5 days and the winner will be drawn before the next episode is published. That’s the plan.

What music will be given away?

The following is a list of composers and music to be given away:

Jo Blankenburg

• Elysium
• Vendetta
• Levitation
• Feather Dance

Two Steps from Hell

• Colin Frake
• Illusions
• Sun
• Miracles

Audio Machine

• Tree of Life

Roger Subirana

• XII

Ten albums, one for each Part of the story. That works out to be 2 albums given away for each episode.

And that means there will be two winners for each episode.:)

Will people have to buy the relevant episode to take part in the competition?

NO!!!! No need to buy anything at all.

So what will people have to do?

I want this to be a fun experience for everyone, including me, so each competition will be very simple:

• I will publish an article for each episode.
• In that article will be a question with multiple choice answers.
• In that article, I will also post a link to the relevant ‘Look Inside’ feature on Amazon.
• The correct answer to the competition question will be in the ‘Look Inside’ pages.
• Simply type the answer in the comments section of the article and that’s it.

How many times can people compete?

Please! Only enter once per Episode. While I’d love to have a million entries, the thought of handwriting each correct entry and folding it fills me with horror. I do have to sleep, you know.

That said, please do enter each competition. And Regulars? That means you too. Please don’t feel as if you shouldn’t enter just because we’re friends. This is going to be a party and I want my friends there, sharing it with me. Okay?

How will winners be chosen?

Every correct answer [for that episode] will be:

• written on a piece of paper
• folded
• thrown into a big mixing bowl
• and TWO pieces of paper will be drawn from the bowl. The names on those pieces of paper will be published in a post and tweeted.

How will winners receive their prizes?

I can only afford digital albums so each winner will have a choice of downloading the album via:

• iTunes, or
• Amazon

That means they will have to provide me with an email address that iTunes and/or Amazon can use to deliver the music. I promise not to misuse the email address with spam.

Will people have to sign up for a newsletter?

NO!!!! I never read newsletters myself so I won’t ask anyone to sign up for mine. Besides, I don’t have one. If by some chance you are interested in knowing what I’m publishing, I would love it if you ‘followed’ me on Amazon.

By following me, or any other author on Amazon, you authorize Amazon to send you information about any upcoming events from that author. It’s like a really to-the-point, mini newsletter that you only receive when an author has a new book to promote.

How does the Amazon ‘Follow’ option work?

The Amazon follow option is shown as a big yellow button beneath the name/picture on my author ‘page’. This is what it looks like:

 

 

You can reach my author page by clicking on the link below:

https://www.amazon.com/A.C.-Flory/e/B00B1M04JI/ref=sr_ntt_srch_lnk_1?qid=1478817747&sr=8-1

…or by finding one of my books and clicking on my name as the author [blue link]:

You will need to be signed in to your Amazon account to use the ‘follow’ feature.

Will Innerscape be given away for free?

YES!!! -cough-

Obviously, I would like as many people to read the story as possible, so each episode will be given away for free during the week in which it’s published [and promoted].

After the free period, each episode will revert to its launch price of $0.99.

Once all five episodes have been launched, the price per episode will rise to its normal price of $1.99.

I would love to keep Episode 1 free permanently, but Amazon only allows ‘permafree’ under certain circumstances, none of which I meet at the moment.

Okay, I think I’ve covered everything this time. It’s amazing how much better the brain works when it isn’t distracted by toothache!

cheers

Meeks

 

 

 

 

 

 

#amlistening to Gift of Life by Thomas Bergersen

I’m on a roll with Innerscape today so I thought you might like to share the music that’s fueling the writing :

The song is ‘Gift of Life’ and it’s from the Album ‘Illusions’ by Thomas Bergersen. For those who don’t know this incredibly talented composer, he’s one half of the amazing duo behind the music of Two Steps From Hell.

If you’re not a classical music fan please be patient until about 1:20. That is when the theme kicks in and it is GLORIOUS!

Vaguely [very vaguely] reminiscent of Massenet’s Meditation deThais :

[Just by the by…the conductor is my favourite tenor of all time – Placido Domingo!]

and Samuel Barber’s Adagio for Strings [used in the movie Lorenzo’s Oil] :

the theme from Gift of Life is intensely emotional yet uplifting at the same time.

Okay, back to work,

Meeks

 

Empire of Angels [from Two Steps From Hell]

I have loved the music of Two Steps from Hell for a few years now, and it was perfect for the soundtrack to Vokhtah, but for Innerscape I needed something softer and more romantic. Enter Jo Blankenburg and the start of another love affair with music.

Unfortunately, as the mood of a story changes, so must the music that underscores it. That is why this latest phase of the Innerscape story [yes, I’m at it again] sent me hunting for new music, and I found it right here:

The composer, Thomas Bergersen, is actually one half of the music writing superteam of Two Steps From Hell, but in this solo album he lets his softer, more romantic side loose, and I couldn’t be happier. In fact, there is even a track in 3/4 time [waltz time]. As soon as I heard that track I knew this new album was for me.

I hope you like it as much as I do. 🙂

Meeks