The Fall (Guardians, #2)

The second book in my epic fantasy series, Guardians & The Lost Paradise, is out now. It went live on Amazon a few hours ago:

Amazon US | Amazon UK

As usual, you can head over to www.the-lost-paradise.com for more information on The Fall, where you can join the mailing list so you'd receive this announcement type posts without having to visit the blog. Or, you know, just to take a look at the shiny new slide I just put up for it. ;)

To celebrate the new release and show appreciation to all those that helped make it possible, I have serialized the first book in its entirety on Wattpad. For those of you who don't know, Wattpad is an online repository of sorts where writers can share their stories with readers for free. That's right. For free.

Why have I done this? Well, Wattpad seems like the perfect home for my book. It's open to any kind of writing, but it seems to lean towards young adult fiction, as most of the users fall under the teenage demographic. The Journey started off as middle grade fiction, before morphing and becoming more Pan's Labyrinth than Chronicles of Narnia. So the whole thing just seems to make sense.

Will I be serializing subsequent books in the series? I seriously doubt it. It was a real chore getting the first book up, so much so that I don't really see myself going through all that again. At least not anytime soon. But only time would tell. I know for certain that I'll be serializing The Morning Star though, a short story prequel to the series I wrote for a writing competition back in June. So there's that to look forward to as well.

P.S: Happy Birthday, mum!

The Mediator is Free

That's right. I am presently running a free promotion on Amazon, for the first book of my science-fiction series, Neuro. The promo runs until the 22nd of August, 2012, and is in celebration of the book's recently-revamped cover. So snag a copy while you can, and do not hesitate to spread the love. ;)

Amazon US | Amazon UK

P.S: The internet over here has been really poor these past couple of days, preventing me from spending as much time on the blogosphere as I normally do. Hopefully, things would get sorted out over at the ISP soon.

P.P.S: The second book of my epic fantasy series, Guardians & The Lost Paradise, is almost here. Head over to the Facebook page for a sneak peek at its cover.

What Was Your Childhood Monster?

I'd been stumbling across this blogfest on several blogs these past three days, and so I finally decided to give it a shot as well. It was started by Christine Rains, in celebration of her newly-released paranormal romance, Fearless. Participants are expected to write a post discussing their childhood monsters, and this right here is mine.

My childhood was spent in constant fear of one thing or the other. That was most likely due to the prevalence of horror movies on local television. Ironically though, my childhood monster wasn't from an actual horror movie. It was from the 1984 epic fantasy movie, The NeverEnding Story.

There was a particular scene, where Atreyu (the hero) had to pass through some kind of gateway, which was really just the road between a pair of sphinxes facing one another. The problem was that those sphinxes had a rather nasty habit whereby they'd vaporize all travellers on the spot, complete with cheesy 80s special effects. Only those who were deemed worthy were allowed to pass, or something like that.

I must have seen the movie about a gazillion times as a kid, but each time I watched Atreyu approach those sphinxes, it was with the same level of dread I felt on my first viewing. Still, The NeverEnding Story was one of the first fantasy films I completely fell in love with. It's been about 20 years since my last viewing, so I guess I really need to revisit Fantasia.

The Journey (Guardians, #1)

The Journey begins. Actually, it began about a week ago, on the 31st of July. But I'd delayed this announcement so I could iron out a few formatting issues, amongst other things. Everything seems to be reasonably okay at the moment, so I guess it's time to let the cat out of the bag.

In case you haven't been following its progress over the last couple of months, this is the first book in an epic fantasy series called Guardians & The Lost Paradise. In it I attempt to tackle the mystery of what awaits us on "The Other Side." But there are a few facts that need clarifying before I go any further.

First off, the book is NOT an 800-page monster like most epic fantasy books out there. It is actually the length of a novella, and can be comfortably read in one sitting. After a rather ruthless round of editing, the final word count is just a bit over 20,000 words. Secondly, it was written with a Christian worldview (i.e. in which God created the heavens and earth). Lastly, it ends with a major twist and a cliffhanger to boot.

So, there, I said it.

To find out more, you can visit www.the-lost-paradise.com, from where you can also join the mailing list. That way you'll receive an e-mail notification whenever subsequent books in the series become available. Alternatively, you can snag a copy directly from Amazon: click here if you live in the US, and here if you live in the UK.

It has been six years in the making. I really hope you enjoy reading it.

The Insecure Writer's Support Group

Can someone please tell me where the last four weeks went? I mean, has it really been one month since the last round of IWSG posts? It has!? Wow. Okay. I'm officially freaked out now.

Unfortunately, I am also strapped for time (and sleep) at the moment. Funny how trying to self-publish six books in six months, right after running a month-long crowdfunding campaign, can take such a toll. I wish I could get my hands on one of those Time-Turners. But it seems Hermione snagged the very last one. Well, at least I'd managed to express all that is currently going on in this other post. It would be rather counterproductive to regurgitate the very same facts here again. Besides, I am this close to passing out in front of the keyboard.

Apologies. Would try to do better next month. Hopefully.

Dates & Numbers

This post was originally meant to go up on Monday. But I'd spent the weekend (and the days since) recuperating from post-campaign burnout (amongst other things). It was a much needed break, and I indeed feel better for it.

Now. If you'd visited this blog anytime within the last month or so, then you must have surely heard about my crowdfunding campaign for my 6-part epic fantasy series, Guardians & The Lost Paradise. The goal was to raise $3,000 in 30 days. The money was to be used to pay for the services of a professional artist and editor. The plan was to self-publish all 6 books in 6 months.

Well. After 30 days of non-stop telling, asking and the occasional begging, the campaign received 142 visitors, 200 views and 234 referrals. And in the end, we managed to raise $400, spread out between 8 contributors.

What does it all mean? Well, for starters, that I'm very much grateful for those that did contribute, and all those that helped spread the word. I know I must have said this about a half dozen times by now, but it bears repeating. Thanks guys, for believing in my project enough to show some support.

That said, I believe I did everything that was within my means to give my project a fighting chance. I took the time to craft my pitch and really worked on the presentation of the campaign. Then I told my friends, family (big waste of time) and basically everyone I know. I even wrote a press release, even though this was done a mere two weeks before the deadline.

In retrospect, the press release should've gone out at least two weeks before the start of the campaign. Also, I should've ensured I had built a mailing list of people more inclined to be interested in my project, rather than relying on fairly random people I'd had prior email conversations with.

Finally, I shouldn't have spent as much time and effort on Twitter. The fact that I had a big name author (with 10,000+ followers) tweet a link to my campaign with zero results more than proves why. I did get to meet a lot of cool new people though, including the big name author in question, which I guess made it worthwhile.

All in all, I consider the campaign a success. $400 is a far better amount to work with than $0. What this simply means is that I'd have to find other ways to get to where I am going. I've since adapted my original plan to make room for a Plan B and C. Plan B involves using a second artist. Plan C involves using stock photographs and photo manipulation software. Any recommendations?.

I find that I work best under pressure. This is why I have drawn out the following schedule for the release of each book in the series:

Book I – The Journey – July 31st
Book II – The Fall – August 28th
Book III – The Gathering – September 25th
Book IV – The Shadow – October 30th
Book V – The Passage – November 27th
Book VI – The Other Side – December 18th

And if my calculations are correct, then it means the first book is due out next Tuesday. That's less than 6 days from now. Yikes. I'd better get back to work.

The Final Countdown

Hookers & Hangers: Part II

Today is the second part of the Hookers & Hangers blogfest, hosted by the writers over at Falling for Fiction. On Monday, participants posted first sentences from the chapters of their books and WIPs i.e. hookers. Today, we are to post last sentences, or hangers.

Like I earlier feared, today's exercise proved more difficult because most of my last sentences require some context to carry any kind of meaning. That said, these are a few from the first book of my epic fantasy series, Guardians & The Lost Paradise, a project that is a mere 3 days away from being crowdfunded:


In fact, the only sound he could still hear was that of his beating heart; and it was slowly fading away.

And with that all three unicorns kicked off the ledge, leaving the waterfall behind as they glided towards the forest.

And together, the two brothers disappeared into the ghostly-white mist.

Clarissa put an arm around Danny's shoulders. "Well, I guess there is a first time for everything."


Thanks to everyone that dropped a comment on Monday. And to the new followers too. I'll try my best to pay you back in kind the moment things become less hectic.

Hookers & Hangers

This post is part of the two-part Hookers & Hangers blogfest, hosted by the writers over at Falling for Fiction. Participants are required to share any number of first (hookers) and last (hangers) sentences from the chapters in their books.

Today, I'll be sharing a few first sentences from the first book of my upcoming series, Guardians & The Lost Paradise:


The first sensation that struck Danny after regaining consciousness was the marked absence of cold.

Danny held on to Kevin for dear life, his eyes equally held shut.

Danny watched with horror as the wilderbeasts charged towards them from all sides.

"We're almost there." Damian had to shout the words over his shoulder. "Just a little distance more and we'll have these fiends lagging behind us where they belong."


And there you go. I'll be posting my hangers (also from Guardians & The Lost Paradise) on Wednesday, so be sure to come back and check those out as well.

Neuro: A Science Fiction Collection

Hello, everyone. I've been very much preoccupied these past couple of days. Most of that time has been spent tending to my crowdfunding campaign. Also, I managed to write a 6,000-word short story for the Fantasy Writing Contest. But somewhere between writing a press release and writing a prequel to Guardians & The Lost Paradise, I managed to publish a new book on Amazon.

Wow. That's a lot of links. But back to the new book. It is actually a collection of my three existing sci-fi novellas: The Mediator, The Host and The Second Rebellion, each one centering around a different application of Neuro, a technology that allows the human mind to be interfaced with a computer. I wasn't going to announce this on the blog, mostly because I didn't think I would be able to find the time to write this post. But then I remembered the main reason for maintaining this blog in the first place, which is to document my journey as a writer and my experiences with self-publishing.

So there you go. Now, time to get back to that campaign.