Audio Books

Characters from The Bow of Saga: Spark

Note: Fantasy Friday is a new feature for Archer’s Aim. This is a re-post, but for those interested, it’s useful. I’ll work on some new, fantasy-related posts to mix in with some of my older ones like this as well as some posts about new books in the coming months. Please feel free to share on social media or re-blog these posts. Have a great Friday and a wonderful weekend!

This is the second of several posts revealing more about characters from The Bow of Destiny. You can read about Athson here. If you like dogs, you’ll love today’s post!

SparkSpark was a rather interesting and late addition to The Bow of Destiny. You see, Spark is a dog but not just any dog. He’s a dog that only Athson sees while he’s not taking doses of his elven medicine, Soul-ease. You might wonder if Spark is real and so does Athson. However, Athson considers Spark an old friend who watches out for him.
The idea for this invisible dog came from my daughter who did some alpha reading on the book last year. She suggested adding a dog so Spark is what I came up with. In the book, Athson identifies this dog as a Mountain Hound but to you and me he’s a German Shepherd – or very much like one.
If you’ve read my bio you know we own two German Shepherds so you can guess the origin of this character. But there’s more to the characterization than just being like a common breed. Spark is actually based on both of my dogs, appearing more like our female, Chloe, while sometimes acting rather like our male, Sam.

GSDsChloe & Sam
While Chloe is all guard-dog and ready for action all the time, Sam is more of a friendly bloke with a nasty side when necessary. But the unique quality of Sam is his way of communicating with us – he wags his tail for “yes” and doesn’t for “no”. Don’t believe me? Here’s a sample of Sam (Spark)-talk which is through a series of yes and no questions (and of course you have to catch Sam at a good time since he’s usually easily distracted like most dogs by things like food):
Me: “Sam, is it cold outside?”
Sam wags his tail – and it is (or was when this happened).
Me: “Sam, do you like the cold?”
Sam wags his tail because he really doesn’t like the hot Alabama summer but thrives in what cold weather we have.
Me: “Sam, do you want to sleep outside?”
Sam doesn’t wag his tail because, while he likes cold weather, he prefers to stay near his people like most GSDs do. This question is one that’s meant to ensure he’s really answering rather than just wagging his tail in distraction.
Me: “Sam, do you like Chloe?”
No wag because Chloe can really pesters him and bites him often since she’s rather feisty.
Me: “Sam, did Chloe bite you today?”
Sam wags his tail. Funny thing about dogs is that, being like wolf puppies, the males often let females win. Sam is much larger but always lets Chloe win.
Me: “Sam, do you want Chloe to sleep outside in the cold?”
Sam wags his tail. Yep that’s right, Sam wants Chloe to sleep outside while he gets to sleep inside.
We often can ascertain if Sam feels sick (he gets colitis) or achy (he’s getting a little older now and is starting to get stiff joints). We even found out that Sam wants a pet cat though this is likely the fact that he actually misses the old cat, Becky, who was still alive when Sam came to live with us. The cat hated Sam but he loved her. But you get the idea – Sam talks in his own way. He’s rather intelligent that way and even plays tricks on Chloe to get her to do what he wants. Now don’t think that Chloe is dumb by any means. She recognizes aggression easily and can solve some puzzles that Sam just won’t bother with.
So guess who speaks Sam-talk? Spark! I have a number of instances where Spark reveals something to Athson about his surroundings that Athson just doesn’t get. But you, the reader, get to understand that Spark may just know more about what’s going on at times than Athson.

Spark appears throughout The Bow of Hart Saga. To find out more about the character, click the links for The Bow of Destiny, An Arrow Against the Wind or The White Arrow. The entire series is not available on Audible from Podium Publishing:

Amazon

 

About the Author

P. H. Solomon lives in the greater Birmingham, AL area where he strongly dislikes yard work and sanding the deck rail. However, he performs these duties to maintain a nice home for his loved ones as well as the family’s German Shepherds. In his spare time, P. H. rides herd as a Computer Whisperer on large computers called servers (harmonica not required). Additionally, he enjoys reading, running, most sports and fantasy football. Having a degree in Anthropology, he also has a wide array of more “serious” interests in addition to working regularly to hone his writing. His first novel, The Bow of Destiny was named 2016 Book of the Year by Fantasia Reviews and is the first book of The Bow of Hart Saga. The sequel novel, An Arrow Against the Wind, was released in April of 2017. The third book of the series, The White Arrow, is due to be released during the Fall of 2017. P. H. Solomon also authored the award winning short story, The Black Bag, which won best published short story at SCWC 2012. P. H. is also a member of Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America (SFWA).

Prequel short stories to The Bow of Hart Saga:

Trading Knives – Amazon

What Is Needed – Amazon

Download and listen to the prequels for free at AudFans

   Trading Knives 1   What Is Needed 4

 

Progress Report on New Books

Good morning to all the Archer’s Aim readers. Taking a break from my fiction writing today to share some of what I’m working on with my newest books. There’s quite a lot to do so it’s sometimes difficult to parse it all out well. Even now, I’m beginning my plans to release the book and I haven’t even completed the edited version for my editor.

First, I’m going back to complete as much of the world-building for both Reformed Mage (aka RM) and Black Glove (aka BG). My main focus is on RM at the moment but BG will soon have my focus too. I’m using World Anvil and Notebook.ai which are development services which can be used for free or pay. I can keep my notes there and play around with the details as well as record what I’ve already written down to very specific levels. The main problem is that I wrote these originally at a very fast pace such that I never spent enough time on the world-building. Now I’m going back to fill-in the proverbial blanks.

In addition to the world-building, I’m working to split my initial book for RM into three books. Yes, it was that long and required I make the move after consulting with my editor who has been a big help. In conjunction with the world-building, I’m creating consistency throughout the books and include all the various points that occur in the books so that they don’t jar a reader with mistakes. Likewise, and I don’t want to share too much at this point, the book is organized in a different story-arc so I must create a balance of understandable progression that avoids confusion. It’s a challenging book in many ways with the depth of characterization, world-building and story details that it seems like a very tangled mess at times. Organizing the content and the details is a frustratingly slow process at times because I’m dedicated to making the book as fun and excellent as possible. Developing a user guide and writing some blog posts to use in the future help ground my thinking about the entirety of the series and the first book afford me clarity about it all. I am dedicated to completing and releasing the first book this year, maybe a second or third since I have the basic content available. Once I have the first book developed and edited enough, the next two books should be much easier to complete. But I’ll have to get there to know for sure.

Additionally, working with my artist regarding a thematic set of series covers is on the to-do list. Likewise, I’m going to print upon launch so I’ll be working with a formatter as editing on the first book progresses. Interestingly, I’ll also approach my audio publisher with the books in hopes they will pick the series up in time for launch or soon thereafter. My feeling on audio is that this will depend on possible pre-launch sales so it may well arrive several month later than the first book. But, if the series is accepted, the next two books may will be in audio when those are launched. The production of the series is it’s own job but I’ve done it previously and know what I want to do with this series more than my first one.

All that is just with RM but there’s more to work on this year too. BG is on the back-burner at the moment but needs to be run through a series of edits to get to publication. It’s already well along in the process and I’ve considered even placing it on Inkshares which is a hybrid publisher (meaning the expense is shared). If this book were accepted, it also gets full placement in all of the different sales venues just like a traditionally published book. I hesitate to give up the royalty percentage and any residual rights so I’m still thinking the option through at the moment. The plus side is that it’s doing something while I’m working on RM and increases the possibility of getting both series launched this year. I still think launching both is doable but the possibility of publishing two different ways is intriguing.

BG is a solid project and I want to get to it as soon as possible. Along the same lines, I want to begin planning a sequel series to The Bow of Hart Saga for next year, possibly dictating it on my commutes to get it going. That will take some doing as I want to improve the accuracy of my dictation software with some work. There are other series I want to launch that will be solid projects too but doing all of them requires more time than I have just now but I’d like to eventually get to where I’m releasing a book a quarter from a different series which is likely just a pipe-dream. I have at least two other first in series novels completed as rough drafts, both of which require more world-building. These are long-term projects but something I’m interested in completing as soon as possible over the next couple of years.

That’s what my writing looks like these days. The calendar is full and there something constantly in need of my attention. I’ll start sharing some of my related work on the series as soon as I can along with artwork, a release date and other news. Look for another progress report soon.

The Turn of the Year

Season’s Greetings to all the Archer’s Aim readers. With the turn of the year upon us I thought I would give an update on my year past and my goals for the upcoming year.

2018 started out with a lot of promise regarding the publication of books. After beginning the use of dictation, I was able to finish the rough drafts of four books, all of which are the initial novels of new fantasy series. However during the second half of the year progress with all of these books became quite a slog through the mud. I didn’t know it at the time but I had developed a change in my hypothyroidism which was affecting my energy and focus. For the last six months, I struggled along but recently visited paid my doctor a regular visit, discovered the problem and received an adjusted dosage. I began to realize just how much the problem affected me even though it was only slightly out of treatment range. It can take several weeks before the changes take affect but I began to notice a little more energy this last week even though I’m still struggling. It appears that even mild symptoms can affect my writing productivity.

Even though I’ve been struggling along, I have made a lot of progress in addition to the rough drafts which I’ve already mentioned. Because of the problem I was having, I seem to flounder around while I was editing and switch projects more than once. I have partially completed one shorter novel while working on editing and nearing completion of a much longer novel which is code-named Mage. My hope is to gain some energy and devote more dedicated time to preparing all of these books for publication this year. I have two books which will be considered for publication in one of three ways: traditional publishing, hybrid publishing and self-publishing. I don’t know which way I will go with these just yet so these books may not the be released during 2019 though I hope that they will.

But, the news was not all bad 2018 since all three of the novels and the two free short books for The Bow of Hart Saga were published on audio by Podium Publishing. It made for a busy fall season to release all three of these books on audio but I’m pleased with the outcome as well as having the new format available to readers and listeners.

 

My intention to go to print with the series beginning this month but I have run into a few problems completing the print projects so that has been delayed. Print will come in good time, perhaps even during the next few months if all goes well.

Looking ahead to 2019, I will pick myself up from the difficulties of the fading year, and work to complete my various projects. As I work toward publishing between one and four books this year, I’d like to also dictate the next books in each series. Also, as I mentioned in a previous post, I am beginning to have some ideas about a sequel to The Bow of Hart Saga. I’ve already begun making notes about what this sequel would look like, so it may be that I will be able to begin some work on that it this year as well. Thanks to all of the readers out there for their support and patience this year and wish you all a Happy New Year!