(Another) Smashing Good Sale

From July 1st through July 31st, Smashwords is hosting their 14th Annual Summer/Winter Sale. If you’re a fan of ebooks, this is an excellent opportunity to stock up on some great titles.

I’ve decided to include all of my current titles. Sale prices should be reflected in checkout, without the need to use a coupon.

Ascension $1.24 (75% off)

The Four-Year-Old Guardian $0 (100% off)

Bravado/Dramatique $1.49 (50% off)

Together Alone $1.49 (50% off)

The Blood Contract $1.49 (50% off)

The Shadow Walker $0 (100% off)

The Shadow Within $1.49 (50% off)

Hope you’re all able to find some excellent deals on amazing books. And please remember, reviews are always appreciated. Whether they’re short or long, praising or critical, reviews are a vital form of communication between reader and writer and reader to other readers.

As always, thanks for reading!

S.L. Madden

Long Time Gone

Hello, fellow travellers! I know I’ve been away for quite awhile, and I think that’s what I want to write about in this blog post.

Before I get into it, however, I want to give an update on my progress. I’m currently sitting at around 125K words on AfterLife, a book that is proving to be the bane of my existence. When last I wrote, I assumed it would be finished at this point, but I still have about 4-5 chapters left (though I have it mapped out, I sometimes find the need to break chapters into two so they don’t go on too terribly long). Either way you look at it, I’m getting very close to finishing this draft. In fact, my goal is to complete it by March 1st, because that’s when I’m planning to go back to school.

Yes, I’ve decided that I should take my lack of free time and dedicate it toward furthering my education. On top of that, my mother and I are in the midst of launching an audiobook company, so that’s definitely something to look forward to. I’m planning on my first recording to be The Shadow Walker. Yes, I haven’t forgotten about that series, and the third book is sitting pretty at about 60K words, though I plan to go back to it and build it up a bit before release. With some luck and perseverance, I’ll be able to have both the audiobook of the first book and the printed version of the third book out by the end of the year.

But this post is supposed to be about my lack of updating this blog. I honestly don’t know why I’ve found it so difficult to post here. When I first started this journey, I was ecstatic to share my thoughts and updates and hopes and dreams. Lately, though, I feel like this blog has become a bastion of broken promises. Assertations that something will be released soon, only for many months to pass without much progress. Instead of being excited about what I have accomplished, I’ve been ashamed of what I haven’t.

I’m really hoping to change that mindset. That said, I’m not promising anything anymore. I have no idea when AfterLife and the third Unseen Things will be released. I am targeting 2022 for both, but I don’t want to raise expectations. And I don’t want to set myself up to feel like a failure.

Truth is, I lost the spark there for awhile. Depression led to medication which led to… a void. That’s about as far as I’ll get into it, but that void was there for a long time. It’s gone now and I’ve been slowly rebuilding the worlds and characters in my mind, reacquainting myself with them. It’s been a long, arborous process and if I’m being frank, there were several times I considered just throwing in the towel.

Yes, I almost became that series that ended on a cliffhanger. Fortunately, I have some good support in my life, people who encouraged me to go on. And now that my head is in a better place, it’s back to business. I may still be figuring out how to eek out the time to write, but my mental factory is in full-swing.

After I finish AfterLife and World of Shadows (still not sold on that name), I am going to take a break from both series. Yes, I know, I already did that, but there are a few other books I need to write. I have a horror/fantasy series that will, more or less, be a trilogy. I have a magic/tech fantasy series I’ve been looking forward to writing. I have a YA science series that’s been percolating on the back burner. There’s a sequel to Ascension that’s been begging to be written, though truth be told, I’m not sure it’ll ever come to fruition. Plus I have a number of shorts I’ve been working on, both related to my main series and standalones. And the very first book I ever wrote, The Spirits of Man, may someday see the light of day.

And, in addition to all that, I will still have the fourth (and final!) Unseen Things book, and the finale of Only Human on the Block, however many books that becomes. I can’t promise when these books will be finished, only that I look forward to putting them out into the world. I wish I could go back and force myself to have been more productive these past few years. Instead, I will put my passion and energy into what I do moving forward.

And I will strive to do better to keep my blog updated. Even if I have nothing much to report, I miss the friends I’ve made here. I appreciate everyone’s patience while I’ve navigated my mental and emotional labyrinth. I truly believe I’ve made it to the other side stronger and better than I’ve ever been.

As always, thanks for reading.

S.L. Madden

Failing Upwards

Well, faithful readers, today is my first day back to work and I can officially announce I failed to finish AfterLife in my off time. If I were one to make excuses, I could point out that most of the time I was off, I was in pain and it was difficult to focus and, well, any number of other reasons I could pull out of my ass. Bottom line is, I didn’t finish it.

I did, however, make some headway. First off, I’m currently at 108,464 words. By my calculations, I have roughly 20K words left to write. Not an insubstantial sum, but not terribly overwhelming. Even more importantly, I have the remainder of the book outlined. I tend to be more of a loosey-goosey kind of writer, with plot points and major events firm in my mind, while not always knowing what happens in the journey from A to B. I’m close enough now I’ve been able to make a rough sketch of the remaining chapters and, provided I don’t deviate too far into the weeds (who me? Never!), I believe I have 10 chapters left, including the one I’m currently about 2/3 of the way through.

Not only does having the chapters mapped out give me a better idea of how much is left, it’s given me more confidence as I move from scene to scene. When I sit down to write, it’s going a lot more smoothly than it was before. I’m always a little nervous to end a book, but I’m also excited to finish this story. Yes, there will be more to come (both in this series and unrelated novels), but I will definitely be breathing a big sigh of relief when AfterLife is finally written.

And then it’ll be time for editing.

Thanks for reading,

S.L. Madden

The Battle Rages On

As of yesterday (3/6), I’ve written 2979 words this month. That’s only 497 words per day, falling well short of the 1200 I was hoping for. On the other hand, I was indisposed for a few of those days (still nowhere close to my 100%, which is about 67.2% off most people’s 100%, but I’m getting better every day).

One exciting part of this is that I’ve finally crossed the 100k word threshold! Finishing chapter 25 brought me up to 100,061 words! Still a ways to go until it’s finished but I’m excited nonetheless. And I did use my down days recovering from surgery to do some “mental writing” so hopefully as I get to the upcoming chapters, they’ll go a lot quicker.

As always, thanks for reading,

S.L. Madden

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I wrote about 1006 words yesterday and only just remembered to update the progress here. I know it’s nothing to brag about. I’m hoping to have a few days where I can pour more time into it. In the meantime, I’m glad to be moving forward.

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Well, I thought I had a good run today. Felt like I wrote a lot. Finished the chapter I’ve been working on and moved onto Chapter 20 (finally a different POV… woo hoo!). So it felt pretty good. Doing the math, however, I only wrote 785 words. That’s…not so good.

In my defense, I did end up messing around quite a bit with my shared documents. I’m still trying to wrap my head around OneDrive (really starting to feel my age with all this newfangled stuff coming out).

But hey, progress is progress and onward I go.

For anyone interested, today’s writing was done while listening to The Octopus by Amplifier. Great album.

Thanks for reading,

S.L. Madden

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I had a bit of an abridged lunch today but I managed to get in 1102 words on AfterLife. Slow progress to be sure, but I’m almost done with this chapter that’s been tripping me up. I hope the next few go much more smoothly. I recently moved so I’m hoping once I’m settled in I can get back to writing at a faster pace.

Thanks for reading,

S.L. Madden

Smashwords, Young Lad

Just a quick note, http://www.smashwords.com is currently have an Authors Give Back sale, good through May 31st. There are tons of great books for sale and for free, including mine! If you somehow stumbled across my blog and haven’t read any of my books, here’s your chance!

All seven of them are currently 100% off! It’s (exactly) like I’m just giving these things away!

Okay, as much as the salesman in me loves exclamation points, I need to stop using them so graciously. There really are some amazing deals and reads there right now. Which, let’s face it, who couldn’t use some fantastical worlds to lose themselves in these days?

Thanks for reading,

S.L. Madden

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First and foremost, greetings! I hope everyone is doing okay out there in these crazy-ass times. I know I’ve recently marveled out how quickly I became accustomed to putting a mask on before entering a store with no actual intention to rob it. Crazy days, indeed.

So, old business first, I completely failed to achieve my 30K word goal I boasted about in my last post. I got to maybe 3000 then decided I absolutely hated the direction. I rewrote it again… and again. And maybe again. Hard to recall. The important thing is, I managed to get past that scene and put the pieces into place to move forward. Unless I decide later I hate it. We’ll see.

Thanks to the Corvidity of it all, I’ve actually been getting (read: forced) to take a lunch. I can’t honestly say I’ve spent every lunch period writing but there have been quite a few.

So, as of this writing, I currently have 71,270 words written for AfterLife. To put that into perspective, the first book in the series, The Four-Year-Old Guardian, was roughly 63,058 words, and the last book, The Blood Contract, was about 124,434.

By my calculation, I’m a little less than halfway done with this draft. Not terribly impressive given how long it’s been, but I’m working on it. My plan is to update my blog every time I make progress with my current word count at the time.

Everyone take care of yourselves and be mindful of others. And always, thanks for reading!

S.L. Madden

What’s Old Is New (Maybe)

As I slowly inch my way toward completing both AfterLife and Twin Shadows (yes, both books are still very much happening), I’ve been going through some of my previous books. And, as I think most creative sorts who produce a thing can attest to, I want to change them.

No major changes, mind you. Nothing that would alter the course of the story. There are just some scenes that could use a little sprucing up. Perhaps I hurried through them when I should have let them relax and breathe a bit. In some rare cases, I have whole scenes I wish I had added in earlier.

In some ways I feel like the age of digital distribution has allowed content creators the freedom to add to their works more easily than was allowable in the past. It’s as simple as uploading the changed document. No need for a reprinting or rerelease. But is it fair to those who already purchased and read the story in its original state? I’m pretty sure digital copies can be redownloaded for the edits, but paper copies obviously stay as they are.

What say you, fellow travellers? I plan to do some minor edits for punctuation and typos regardless, but do you think it would be fair to add in scenes to a previously published book? I wouldn’t be against publishing the additions here so those who had paper copies could read them if that’s a concern. And truth be told, I don’t think I’d add much. A sprinkling of seasoning for taste if you will.

Please, let me know what you think and as always, thanks for reading.

S.L. Madden