Vince Veselosky

According to Hofstadter's Law, every project takes longer than you expect it to (even when you take into account Hofstadter's Law), and my latest book project is no exception. But, as of today, Summoning Courage: The Piero Codex Book Three is available at ebook retailers everywhere!

I am delighted to announce the release of this conclusion to The Piero Codex trilogy. These were my first novels, and it has been an incredible learning experience for me to produce them. Those lessons learned will make my next series even better.

Now that the edits are done and the cover is attached, I'm going to take a little break from writing to try to close out another very late project: the remodel of Albatross House. I'm going to stay focused on that project until it's done, so I probably will not be releasing another book in 2019. However, I have about 80 thousand words already banked for my next series; there will definitely be another release in the future!

Thank you for following along with my creative journey. I sincerely hope you are enjoying it!

Your author friend, Vince Veselosky

Two years ago I wrote a post about Creating a Creative Process. Since then, I have completed three novels and am in production on a fourth, with many more in the pipeline. I have learned a lot of lessons through trial and error. I still have a lot more to learn. But after two years, I figured it was time for an update.

Note that this post is not titled "How To Write a Novel". This is a snapshot of my own process at a specific time in my writing journey. Maybe it will be helpful to other writers, but it's not a prescription nor a recommendation. I'm just sharing my experience.

So much can change in a year!

This has been a year of massive change for me, and we'll discuss that below. But first, I participated in National Novel Writing Month again this year, and as last year, this is my report on how I performed. Short story: I didn't "win" by writing fifty thousand words, but I did make a very good showing. Here's my word count graph for 2018.

As you can see, my NaNoWriMo project capped out at 31,168 words. Not bad. I drafted twenty-one days in November, so my average was below the required "winning" pace. Still, I averaged a thousand words per calendar day, and I feel pretty good about that.

I know what you're thinking. Didn't Vince say he was going to give me the conclusion to The Piero Codex trilogy in July? Where is it already?

Well, have you ever heard that quote about where the best laid plans often go? Yeah. Summoning Courage WAS planned to ship in July, but as it stands today, the draft is only about half complete. I'm working on it and making steady progress, but the muse and I are having disagreements that have slowed things down. Give me another couple of months to iron out the kinks, m'kay?

But I would hate for you to have nothing to read for all that time! If your "to read" queue is looking a little dry, let me give you a recommendation to tide you over. Since you enjoy my books, I feel pretty confident that you will love Dana Cameron's Seven Kinds of Hell, the first book in her Fangborn series. It has a lot of the elements you love: dark magics, secret societies, ancient relics, and a fresh take on the "vampires and werewolves" concept. I encourage you to check it out!

You can stop holding your breath! Shifting Loyalties: The Piero Codex Book Two has been released! (Okay, I know you weren't really holding your breath, but I was!) This is my second novel, as well as being the second book in The Piero Codex series.

I'm excited to introduce shape-shifters into the Seers Guild world with this release. You have some new characters to meet (including the mysterious ex, Marina), some secrets of the Codex itself will be revealed, and Mack is going to get into a whole new mess of trouble! This second installment has more action, more magic, more pages, and possibly more bourbon (I didn't count the drinks). Trust me, it's even better than the first one!

If you pre-ordered the book, you should have it on your reading gizmo already. If you didn't, hit your favorite ebook retailer and grab it today (links below for your convenience)!

I'm currently hard at work writing Summoning Courage: The Piero Codex Book Three to wrap up this trilogy. In the meantime, I hope you enjoy reading Shifting Loyalties!

TL;DR: There is some genius in this theory, and possibly some madness. Every writer should at least understand Dramatica's four through-lines, its definition of character archetypes, and the two helpful concepts of character resolve and story limit. If you go deeper, prepare to be confused.

Big announcement! Shifting Loyalties: The Piero Codex Book Two is now available for pre-order on most major ebook retailers!

Barb from CoverInked really stepped up her game on this cover, don't you think?

When it’s a matter of life and death, how do you know who to trust?

Mack was never good at trusting people, even before he went underground hiding from the Seers Guild. But when the former love of Mack’s life (Marina) goes missing, and an unknown organization makes dramatic moves against the Protectors of the Piero Codex, he needs help.

Maybe he can trust Recca, but she still seems to have a hidden agenda of her own. Maybe he can trust Lilly, but will involving her just get her killed? Maybe he can trust Marina’s husband Richard, but how is he supposed to work with the guy who stole his girlfriend?

With the enemy closing in, and time running out, turning an enemy agent seems like the best option. But when you can’t even trust your friends, how do you trust an enemy? Even if he manages to make all the right choices, how is Mack going to convince the other players to trust him long enough to save Marina and protect the Codex?

This second installment in The Piero Codex series takes you deeper into the world of seers, and reveals some of the secrets of the Codex itself! Get it today! (Pre-orders will be delivered June 14, 2018.)

Where To Get It

• Amazon.com
• Apple iBooks
• Barnes & Noble
• Kobo

Cursing Fate: The Piero Codex Book One, is now available for pre-order on most major ebook retailers! This is the first book in my urban fantasy thriller series, The Piero Codex. Books two and three will follow quickly in a rapid release schedule, so don't worry, you won't have to wait long to read the whole trilogy.

I am unspeakably excited that my first book is finally available to the world. In fact, I'm so excited that you can call me Giveaway Bob, because I'm giving them away!

For a limited time, just for being an early fan, you can get the

Cursing Fate ebook for FREE! Click here to get it!

And if you need convincing, check out this gorgeous cover (by Barb Hoeter at Coverinked)!

I wanted to record for posterity my first experience of "winning" National Novel Writing Month. As you may know, NaNoWriMo is a self-challenge to write 50,000 words in 30 days.

Throughout 2017, I have been tracking my writing statistics (screenshot provided). As you may see from the screenshot, before November, I never got anywhere near 50k words in a single month. So I took NaNoWriMo 2017 as a true challenge to get my word counts up and make some real progress, to prove to myself that I could truly improve both speed and quality.

I always aspired to being an author. In my teens and early twenties, I probably started a half-dozen "first novels" that never got finished (and that was probably for the best). When I started writing software, though, that became my creative outlet, and I stopped writing fiction. I even stopped reading fiction for many years.

In 2015, I decided to pick up that dream once again, and I determined to set myself to finishing a first novel. I dusted off some old ideas, tossed in some new twists, and began putting words down.

And I quickly realized that it wasn’t going to work.

Most people like to post on the Internet about their successes. I want to talk about failure. I can assure you, I am fully qualified to talk about failure. I’m an expert with thirty years of experience.

You see, the past few months I have been thinking pretty hard about where I am in my life, especially in relation to the dreams and aspirations I had as a teenager. I’m forty six years old now. Thirty years ago, I was sixteen, and I had big ambitions. I wanted to publish books. I wanted to make money in real estate. I wanted to find love.

So thirty years on, how am I doing? Two failed marriages, with a handful of failed relationships that never got that far. Finding love? FAIL. Two real estate purchases, one that ended in foreclosure, the other is worth less now than when I bought it, yet I owe more than I paid for it. Making money in real estate? FAIL. Number of books published: zero. Number of books written to completion: zero. Number of failed attempts: [I’ve lost count.] So, publishing books? FAIL.

You might be thinking, dude (or some equivalent form of casual address), you’ve been failing to achieve your childhood dreams for thirty years? Don’t you find that, you know, kind of depressing?

Frankly? Yes. Sometimes I do. Sometimes it crushes me under the weight of my failure so hard that I lie in bed and cry myself to sleep. But, just as frankly, that’s a fairly rare occurrence. You know what I do most days?

I keep trying.

Something I have been struggling with during the work on my (current) first novel is this: I am very likely producing the worst book I will ever write.

Assuming I finish it — which given past history is not a foregone conclusion — suppose I find the whole thing too exhausting to do again? Having written only one, it would, by default, be the worst one (and the best I suppose). If I go on to write the second, I should have learned much from writing the first, and the writing should improve. Skills are supposed to improve with practice, are they not? So I am destined to look back on this book and recognize how bad it is.

But there’s no getting around that. It was the same thing when I was learning to write computer software. Every six months, I would look back on my code from six months prior, and be disgusted by how bad it was. Most programmers recognize this feeling. It’s how we know we’re getting better. If ever we look back on old code and feel satisfied with it, it’s a sign that we’ve stagnated, and maybe it’s time to look for a different career. Have you considered middle management?

I expect I will find writing the same. I will struggle to do my best with each succeeding story. And every time I look back, I will be sickened at how badly I botched it. But I will be determined to take my lessons learned to make the next one better. And if ever I look back on a story I’ve written and feel fully satisfied with it? That will be the sign that I’m done writing, I guess.

For nearly twenty years, the most concise description of me was "the guy with the really long pony tail.” That’s no longer the case, and I am frequently asked why. I find it curious that there is such a widespread assumption that a person needs a reason to change their hairstyle, but as it happens, I do have one. This is the story of how it came to be, and why it is no more.

Facilitate the flow of information to the point of its highest value.

The media industry at large has lost its path. Most media companies are heavily tilted toward media as entertainment, rather than media as information. As a result, they are engaged in a digital race to the bottom, where falling ad CPM drives them to seek higher page view numbers on thinner margins, focusing on quantity rather than quality, on usage rather than utility. This has left a huge, blue ocean of market opportunities in focused information services open to software and technology companies, who are growing at exponential rates while traditional media companies struggle to slow the rate at which their business is shrinking. Media businesses can stop drowning and start growing again if they recognize and adopt the mission statement above, the mission that media organizations have always had.

As a media organization, your mission is to facilitate the flow of information to the point of its highest value.

That doesn’t just mean its highest value to you, the business, but the highest value over all to the community you serve. Journalism can be seen as a fulfillment of this mission, because information about corporate malfeasance or government activity has more value to society when it is in the hands of consumers or voters. But media organizations, and especially newspaper organizations, need to embrace the idea that news is more than just journalism, and media is more than just news.

How good is the mileage on your car? I just did the math, and I travelled 2,288 miles in the past 4 months on 15 gallons of gas, so I’m getting 152 mpg. And I don’t even drive a hybrid!

How is that even possible? Here’s how I did it.