"Heedless" Short Story Progress: With pictures of book cover progress.

First concept: Very comic book looking, more cartoon-like

Earlier Concept: Testing out crimson uniform.

Heedless Semi-Final Cover Concept: Black uniform, black duster, medals and badges still need to be added.

Alright so in the next week or so, my first short story, "Heedless", will be up for preorder on Amazon Kindle! My friend Joshua made this lovely piece, you can see more of his work at http://www.joshuapapaleo.com/ .

That is the main character in the story, Jax Jensen. These three short stories I am releasing are going to be a preceding trilogy to a series of novels featuring him and his universe (which I have been calling the Jensen-verse... its a working title...). I can't decide what to call the short story collections, I was thinking "The Jax Jensen Trilogy" so, Heedless would be scrawled across the top, then beneath would read "Book 1 of the Jax Jensen Trilogy". My only issue with that is, what do I do with the longer novels once those are out?"

What do you all think? Eye catching? We are trying to decide what to do with the background, right now, as pictured above, it is just a black to grey gradient. (Or should I say grey-dient -hahaha!)

Anyway, comment below and let me know what you all think! I would love to hear input, if you like the artwork, go checkout my buddy Josh's site, it is still in its early stages, but I know he has some stuff up there right now. He will be doing the next three covers as well!

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I love talking to new people, especially those who share my interests! So, if you want to talk about writing, war gaming, or anything really, just leave a comment, shoot me a tweet, send me a pigeon!

Thanks for reading,

Matt

Finished NaNoWriMo 2014!

I finished NaNoWriMo this year, at a word count of: 50,537 words!

Boy it was a challenge. But it was a good experience, being encouraged to write an entire novel in one month. I didn't really hit that lull some writers get when you hit the mid point in your story, because I didn't really have time to get tired of the idea. I'm glad it's over, it was a great feeling of accomplishment, ready for 2015!

I wrote a novel with a female lead, which was different! It's weird as a male to write a female roll, I'm never sure if how I'm saying something, or the details my character is noticing, is genuinely what a girl would notice. Example: My mom pointed out the waitresses ring tonight at dinner because she thought it was pretty. My dad and I never even looked at her ring or hand to see if there was any jewelry. The novel is set in 1865 America, but the civil war has stalled out since the southern generals used more defensive tactics to mitigate the differences in manpower. The main character is a gunslinger who hunts down monsters, and the magic system in this world is called Cattlemancy, which is temporary augmentations granted by little vials of brewed liquid taken from the cattle and mixed with voodoo Indian rituals to result in a specific enhancement for a certain period of time. Anyway that's all I'm going to say about it for now. Back to formatting my first short story for kindle, will be releasing it later this month! (December)

Did you guys participate this year? What was your experience like? Let me know in the comments below!

Follow me on twitter and I'll follow back! @MattTaylor1776

Thanks,

Matt

Tyranid Tuesday

Alright, so some of you may know that I play Warhammer 40k, it is a tabletop war game set in the grimdark future of the 41st millennium! I have roughly two thousand points of Eldar, and with the release of the new Tyranids have decided to start a Tyranid swarm!

It is a daunting task though, so many awesome models, I'm not sure where to start. Definitely out of my comfort zone as far as play style goes... my Eldar are lightning quick and unleash an ungodly amount of firepower... I was to make these nids close combat focused -as their fluff would suggest... if you have never heard of Warhammer, check out the two videos I have linked below... they serve as thoughtful inspiration for science fiction writing, and many writers may find their lore and the other lore intriguing!

Eldar Lore:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=64PdT7nnALo

Tyranid Lore:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nsHRsuMW9_0

anyway, comment below if you are excited for the new models! Or have found the two videos above interesting/inspiring for any of your world building!

For the gamers out there, I am thinking of making a swarm using the new sporemines. Taking 6 as my troop choice (2x3 units or 3x 2 units) and drop podding in 3 fex. The mines will drop and contain the enemy, or disrupt their lines, then the fex will drop and wreck vehicles and everything else while being covered by the shooting of the pods and the flyrants... think it'll work?

-Matt

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NaNoWriMo update!

Alright NaNoWriMo is quite the challenge! The best tip I have heard so far is to only stop writing once you know what will happen next... that way when you start back up, you wont be stuck there wondering what to write. Simple, but brilliant!

I am a little under 10k words in... checking out this program called Scrivener... I've heard great things about it, do any of you know how good it is? Recommend it? Avoid it? Let me know!

Hope you are all doing well both in writing and in life... I am feeling motivational today so here is something I always remembered from my health teacher way back in high school:

"Do the best with what you have, and where you are."

So keep at it guys! Share the blog, leave your comments, if you want to write a guest post then sweet! Let me know! Find me on Twitter (I promise I follow back) @MattTaylor1776

-Matt

NaNoWriMo Day 3!

Alright, so we are three days into NaNo... everyone still breathing? Check your pulses. Stretch your legs. Brace yourself for more... MoMoWriMo (More More Write More?)

Anyway, I fell a bit behind due to Halloween. Derek needs more pressure into starting, I think he is scared, so tweet him words of encouragement! @derekdyer_WF

Comment below and let me know how your WriMo is going!

-Matt

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#1K1H (write one thousand words in one hour)
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