A Call for Alphas

I'm in need of Alpha readers for A Straight Cut, which is finally finished. It's pretty easy: read the book and tell me what works and what doesn't. Simple. Even a child could do it. If the child could read, that is. If they can't that'll make things difficult.
If you have interest, either email/google+ me, or comment on this with some sort of contact information.
Hooray! Editing is over (for this book, for now!)! Next project!

Book Completed: A Straight Cut

I still use "back" and "just" too much. Also "like."

A book I wrote a concept of exactly two years and a day ago (I'll post the concept below; it isn't that great), started a year later, abandoned, and now finished in a week (40k in one week, huzzah?). A Straight Cut aka Canyon Story aka Sold Sixth is FINISHED!

Hooray and huzzah!

With one caveat: I still have to do a full read-through edit for continuity mistakes, general bad misinformation, and cutting a bit from the beginning to get to the action faster. Granted, it starts with his parents selling him into slavery so I don't know how much faster it can go then THAT, but hey...you get it.

It's also worth noting the main character of this book's name is Timothy, because my cousin was annoyed that I'd put almost every other cousin subconsciously in my other books as side characters except him. And I finished it on his birthday, so that's...great! I think.

Anyway, here's the rundown with random stats and garbage:

Book Number: 12. On to unlucky 13!
Words: 123,178
Chapters: Forty-One, plus an Epilogue
Overall Time Spent: One Month plus One Week (it started as another "write a book in a month" projects)
Hours?: Didn't record this time. But a little under 40 for the final bit. 

Random Junk!
Magic System: My own personal favorite! Very minimalist, "Conduit," involves transfer of things (heat, etc.) from one area to another using a body as a "conduit" to move it. Requires something to do something. 
Romance? Not as you'd think, but there is a boy/girl thing going down. 
Side Characters? Lots of named ones this time. At least thirteen prominent ones. 
YA or Adult? Good question. I'm not sure. Protag is 16, book deals with a lot of YA-interested scenarios, but also gets very dark at the end. 
Wait, how dark we talkin' here? It's pretty bad. 
Rape? Um...no. I don't write YA novels with rape. 
So you write adult novels with rape? ...can we get back on track here? 
How many times "A Straight Cut" is said: According to MS Word, 25 times. One of the characters says it quite frequently, and it has something like a quadruple meaning in the novel. 
Is the inspirational first chapter in here as like a prologue? No. It's bad, and unnecessary. It plays a very important role in the mythology, but other than that...no. 
Is this in Effulgent Corruption's World? YES. Very much yes. While you don't need to know anything about EC to get it, there are some very massive hints regarding that this book takes place exactly after the events of the final EC book, that hasn't been written. 
Do any EC characters show up? One, but you don't know he's an EC character. 
Any other weird world crossovers? Technically EC's world is after Where Gods and Mortal's Dance's world, after the Gangrene shows up. A Straight Cut is after the Gangrene is gone. So they're all technically the same world, though their magic doesn't collide (actually, the "gods'" in WGMD's magic is similar to the Immortal's magic in Straight Cut, but that's spoilers)
Do you have a personal favorite character? Rae. 
Back to the EC thing, give me a hint about how they're connected. Please!! Ley-lights. That's all I'll say. 
Why did you name characters "Hollow" and "Willow," "Grant" and "Giovant"? Are you trying to confuse people who skim? A few may make a change by the end, mostly Hollow and Willow being a little too similar. I make up names as I go and how I think they fit the characters. I've completely change a person's name before giving it to Alpha's with a simple find and replace, though. 
Can I read your book? Sure! If you want to alpha, let me know and I'll send you a copy in every file format known to man. After I do my read-through. 

Well, that was overindulgent, but too bad for you: my blog. Now, here's the page I wrote that "inspired" this, written two years ago. You can see how much better I've gotten. Also, I wrote it in like 15 minutes, so don't be hatin.
See you next book.

The Ragged One crossed the desert, a straight line carved behind.
The desert sands hissed around the line, the mark cutting clean across the vast expanse like a [insert something here]. The indentation stretched on for miles, a single scratch that dragged near-endlessly.
The Ragged One dragged the sword behind him, itʼs seven-foot blade pressing against the sands, making a low hiss as it lurched forward. A merciless sun beat down from above, the heat radiating from the dunes in resonating, hallucination-inducing waves. A small sand-twister billowed up, crashing directly into the cloaked figure, blasting scorching, stinging sand through him.
His pace did not slow, though The Ragged One did wipe his eyes once, pushing the small particles from his vision. He continued, the long, rusty blade trailing behind. The weapon was thick, a good three inches, and weighed more than The Ragged One who yanked it forward.
A sandstorm billowed up on the horizon, a dark, dusty flurry set against the cloudless blue sky. It grew as it moved, surging and throbbing as if a living thing, growing as it swallowed up dunes and wayward shrubs in its mad push forward. It was heading straight for the lone figure, The Ragged One the only shape in the entire desert for miles.
Still, he pushed forward, ignoring the burning heat and incoming storm. Behind him, the line ran still, ending at the point where his sword struck the dusty earth. His footprints, soft indentations, had quickly been swallowed up by the ever-changing face of the desert. But the line did not fill. It had not filled, even for the hundreds, if not thousands of miles The Ragged One had traveled.
His cloak had started whole, a white tapestry of story. Inset in the side had been sewn figures of gods and suns, lights and dreams of a people long forgotten. Before the desert, before the sands.
Before the unrelenting sun. Before the sands choked the world, swallowing up any and everything that dared try to live on its scorched, radiating surface. Before the last man had died, choking and gasping to his last, sand-filled breath.
The cloak was tatters now; like the world, it was but a remnant of its former self, pieces breaking off and fluttering into the hot breeze. Holes ordained it like stars in a dark sky, the enormous cloth floating and fluttering in the constant winds. It would have been majestic, had there been any but The Ragged One to see it.
The Ragged One had been walking for days, or was it months? Could it even have been years at this point? He knew not.
He had one final task to accomplish, one last thing he must do. He assured himself of this before plunging into the billowing sandstorm, his grip on the sword never loosening.
One final task before he could die.
The line crossed the desert, continuing until it reached the place where it had begun. There it connected, into one solid, unbroken whole.
And The Ragged One rested.

Specification

I should probably specify that "writing like a crazy person" means "writing 10-15k words a day" crazy. I'm finally hitting that old stride I had before my long writing hiatus this past year. It's good to be back.
Expect two, maybe three completed novels from me by the end of summer! Yes, be amazed! Be astounded! Wonder how many keyboards I go through (I got a new one for my birthday, thanks in-laws!)!
Also story after these might be post-apocalyptic, since that seems to be what all the kids want these days. Who knows? Well, I do, but that's not the point.
Six chapters to go!

The Final Push

This has actually been going on for a week now, but I figure I could post about it.

I'm officially writing like a crazy person in an attempt to make progress before grad school. I have a summer ahead of me to write, submit, and finish before I go to grad school and my time gets sucked down the drain, so I'm determined to at least make some serious progress in the next three months, either by traditional publish, epublishing, or both.

What this entails:
- I'm submitting like crazy. I submitted Death's Aria to around 30-40 people last Friday, and I'm only just starting.
- I'm editing like crazy. I've been burning through Death's Aria edits the past few days. I'm also adding a chapter to Aeon to make it more "novel" length, and submitting that too.
- I'm writing like crazy. Specifically books I started and didn't finish. Empty Pages being the primary one, but recently I'm determined to finish A Straight Cut (aka "Canyon Story"). That one I'm hoping to have done by the end of the week, even if it's got 10 chapters (at least 20k words) left.

The longer version is that I'm working heavily on finishing A Straight Cut, which will also include going back and adding two chapters, as well as editing current content to fit the "new" ending. The ending ultimately hasn't changed, but some of the situations around it (tying a few things together better for the finale) have been altered, which will require some edits. All for the best, if I think so. This book is kind of Lord of the Flies meets child slavery meets Nathan is killing off everybody Game of Thrones style in the Third act, so it should be interesting. It's quite a dark YA, but that's clearly all the rage these days, so I forsee good things. Also, probably the most entertaining couple I've ever written, which is actually why I picked it back up again. It's good to re-read your stuff over a year later and decide it's actually pretty good.

Empty Pages is struggling a but, but that's because I wrote my characters into a not-as-interesting situation; once they get out of it it'll pick up (and the situation will probably get axed or at least shortened in edits). I enjoy that story's overall meaning, but the actual story itself is bogging me down. Anybody ever have that? It seems to be a constant problem for me: I want my stories to have deeper meanings beyond the actual characters running around doing whatever, but sometimes I get too hung up on the meanings. Ah well.

Nobody likes a long blog post, so that's it. I'll update this more. Maybe. I make promises I don't keep, too, so watch out for that.