Video Book Review of Failstate

Have you seen this yet?



Wow. Five Bible Man masks. That's a bit humbling.

Wordcount Wednesday

Again, not a lot of forward progress. Right now, my WIP is at 34,376 words. That means that over the past week, I've added 5,238 words to the manuscript. That's a little better than last week, but not good enough. Hopefully once things have slowed down a bit in summer, I'll be able to do better.

So what am I working on? Glad you asked. I know I've been keeping mum on what this WIP is for a while, but the news kind of broke on Facebook earlier today. My extremely wonderful agent, Amanda Luedeke, reported this little tidbit:

John Otte's books 2 and 3 FAILSTATE series, in which the teenage superhero battles a horde of superhero zombies (book 2) and uncovers the mystery behind the reappearance of fellow superhero Lux (book 3), to Jeff Gerke at Marcher Lord Press, in a nice deal, for publication in 2013, by Amanda Luedeke at MacGregor Literary.

That's right, my current WIP is book #2 about Failstate. And that's right. Superpowered zombies. This is going to be fun.

Wordcount Wednesday

So I'm doing a little better. Over the last week, I've added 5,051 words, bringing my grand total to 29,138 words. Like I said, a little better, but not good enough. I think part of my problem is that I was writing a chapter that didn't quite feel right. It bogged me down.

I still can't reveal much about what the story is, but it's still proving to be fun. Hopefully I'll be able to do better this coming week.

Mass Effect 3 Ending: Choices and Theme

A few weeks ago, I posted a video here about the controversy surrounding the Mass Effect 3 ending. Well, it looked like so much fun, I decided to make one of my own.

Wordcount Wednesday

Okay, so I seem to be a little lost right now.

Or maybe a better metaphor is I've hit a wall. A big one.

My current WIP feels a bit stalled out. I know where I need to get to, but I'm not sure what path to take. Add to that Holy Week, and I haven't been making much progress. Since the last time I've checked in, I've written 3,318 words, bringing the grand total up to 24,087 words. That's . . . not good.

Someone want to hand me a chisel? Or at least a well-worn rock hammer? I need to kick this in gear and get moving.

Books!

Holy cow! This has been an exciting week.

For starters, Failstate has released! It actually became available for purchase this past Saturday, which was technically a day early, but that's still cool! As of right now, there's really only one way to order the book, which is directly from the publisher. So if you want to get your hands on my debut novel, head on over to Marcher Lord Press and get your copy now! If you need any extra persuasion to do so, check out what Publishers Weekly had to say about it. It's the first starred review a Marcher Lord Press book has ever received. For those of you with e-readers, the ebook version will release soon, but for now, you can get my debut novel shipped to you in a few days!

But that's not all the publishing news that I have. Far from it.

Today also marks the start of the Memory Eater Kickstarter campaign. A few months back, I saw a notice saying that someone was putting together a short story anthology that centered around a device that could erase memories. That sparked my imagination and I set to work on two short stories for it. One didn't make it in, but "Satisfaction Guaranteed" did!

After the editor had put together the anthology, he shopped it around to a few houses. In the end, he chose to use the Kickstarter website to finance the anthology's release. For those of you unfamiliar with Kickstarter, it's a way for artists, authors, filmmakers, game developers, and others to find financing for their projects. You can contribute as much or as little as you want and you usually get cool rewards for doing so.

So if you want, please head over to the Memory Eater Kickstarter page and consider contributing some money to the project. If you contribute enough, you can get a physical copy of the book. I've already thrown in my support, please join me!

And finally, let's not forget about the Spirited anthology! Quite a while ago, a friend of mine sent me word about this YA short story anthology, a collection of spooky stories. I wrote one entitled "The Night Queen," a story about a wrecked spaceship and the folks who try to salvage it. It was my first attempt at "spooky."

Anyway, all the proceeds go to 826 National, a literacy charity. You can purchase this one for your Nook or Kindle. Or you can order a physical copy of the book if you want. No matter what, the proceeds go to a worthy cause.