Audio Excerpt

In the past year, we have released a few excerpts from the book.  We decided to share another one—this time one you could listen to.  We hope that you enjoy this audio excerpt of “Voyage of Truth”!

It’s Coming Together

Beta Readers…people you pay to be brutally honest about your manuscript.  Fortunately this process was not too painful. We have been told that we have a great story and great dialog…and in my opinion that is all you need.  However it was suggested that we do a bit of tightening up.  You know what that means…DRAFT 18.

Of course we know to sift through the notes and take the good and toss out the bad.  We are confident that we will be putting out a strong first book by time it is all said and done.  We also know that our book is coming out sooner or later…hopefully sooner.

In other news, we have another draft for our book cover!

DOPENESS! Further confirmation that its happening! We are pleased with our cover illustrator, Sasha Fowler.

Editors: A God Send

The subtitle could have gone many different ways… Editors: The Often Overlooked Investment in your Book, Editors: The Best Thing Since Rice Milk, Editors: The Geniuses behind Most Books and Editors: The Difference in a Good Book and a Great Book!  But I feel the the one we went with kind of sums up all the above.

Picking the right editor for us was a process.  There were lots of factors to consider with pricing (of course) being the top factor.  Also, we needed to know that the editor understood the writing style and the genre of the book.  Could the editor make suggestions without changing the author’s voice. So after looking at a few options we decided to go with Christine…who has proved to be amazing and has not broken our bank account!  Expensive is not always better.

I will show demonstrate the difference in the first excerpt that we shared:

Original Excerpt:

“Can you please lower your voice? I’m trying to help you.”
Sultri defiantly raises his voice, “I’LL LOWER MY VOICE WHEN I SEE CAPTAIN LYME’S FACE!”

The woman carefully gives a signal to security and

Sultri sees him approaching. “What did I do wrong?” Sultri begs, “I asked to see the captain and no one wants to help me.”

The security maphlete calmly requests, “Do you mind coming with me sir?”

“Yes I mind!” He looks back at the woman and squints, “Why does everybody keep treating me like this?” Feeling rejected again, Sultri tries to repress a surge of emotions and breathes forcibly through his pulsating nostrils.

The security maphlete repeats and tries to grab Sultri’s elbow, “Please sir, right this way.”

“I said No!” Sultri screams and chucks the security away. Sultri tightly balls his fingers and cries, “I tried to be nice all day but now I am done.” He looks around and sees more maphletes closing in.
Dena and other civilians are kindly escorted out of the area into the maphlete’s cubicles. Dena stands on her toes and peaks over the partitions to finish watching the outcome.

Sultri is surrounded and outnumbered by a handful of maphletes with activated RDs. His teeth start to chatter and sweat beads from his brow. He instantly remembers the x5 cards he injected earlier and cannot control the inundation of endorphins in his blood stream. Sultri’s vision blurs and doubles while the surrounding voices start to echo. He closes his blood shot eyes and hears from a maphlete, “Can you please come with us sir?”

Sultri opens his eyes and looks past the threatening maphlete. His heart rate starts to beat faster and his pupils suddenly dilate. Sultri lets go of reason and allows his imprisoned rage to take over. He secretly activates his own RD and screams, “The answer is still no!”

Edited Excerpt:

“Please lower your voice. I’m trying to help you.”

Sultri raises it instead. “I’ll lower my voice when I see Captain Lyme’s face.”

The woman signals security and Sultri sees the Maphlete approaching. “What did I do wrong? I asked to see the Captain and no one wants to help me.”

The security Maphlete asks, “Do you mind coming with me, sir?”

“Yes, I do.” He looks at the woman and squints. “Why does everybody keep treating me like this?” Sultri tries to repress his rage and breathes forcibly through flared nostrils.

The security Maphlete tries to grab Sultri’s elbow. “Please sir, right this way.”

“I said No.” Sultri pushes the security away. Sultri tightly balls his fists and cries, “I tried to be nice all day, but now I am done.” He looks around and sees more Maphletes closing in.

Dena and others are escorted out of the area and into the Maphlete’s cubicles. Dena stands on her toes, peeking over the top of the partitions to watch.

Sultri is surrounded and outnumbered by Maphletes, all with loaded ACs. His teeth start to chatter and sweat beads across his brow. He remembers the x5 cards he injected earlier and cannot control the inundation of endorphins in his blood stream. Sultri’s vision blurs, doubles and the surrounding voices start to echo. He closes his burning eyes and hears from a Maphlete, “Come with us, sir.”

Sultri opens his eyes and looks past the threatening Maphlete. His heart rate increases. Sultri lets go of reason and allows his imprisoned rage to take over. He secretly activates his arm cannon. “The answer is still no.”

 

With just a few adjustments here and there, the paragraph flows so much better.  A fresh pair of eyes were definitely needed in order to make the needed changes to the manuscript. We are so married to the text, even able to memorize portions that we were not always able to see what needed to be corrected.  My advice, if you are a writing and thinking about publishing, don’t cut corners—get an editor.  So far Christine has been a great investment for us!

Kaphir’s Hunt- New Excerpt on GoodReads

Kaphir, illustrated by Stan Ford

We posted a new excerpt on GoodReads this week!  If you have a GoodReads profile be sure to like and leave a comment.  Click here to read! 

 

 

First Book Reading

Earlier this week we spent the day  at Graham Elementary School where Dion was invited for career day.  Even though he was there to talk about life as a comedian, he was able to talk about how he became a writer and ultimately able to share an excerpt from the book.  These kids are the first to have a public reading from “Voyage of Truth” and the first to see the cover!  We were able to share with 2nd graders, 3rd graders and 6th graders.

After doing some jokes, sharing how stand-up led to writing opportunities, and discussing story structure (not with the 2nd graders of course) we were able to read scenes from the book.  This went over very well. The kids responded positively, they asked questions, and they laughed (thanks to Dion’s animated storytelling).  We also provided the students with a copy of the book cover to color.  As a way to stimulate engagement we made a coloring contest, we will pick the “best” picture and give the winner a signed copy of the book.  They were excited about that as well!  As everyone knows children are HONEST to say the least so their feedback was not only valuable some it was HILARIOUS.

My favorite comment for the day came from a 6th grader after he saw the book cover.  Keep in mind that our main characters fight using an arm cannon similar to the one Iron Man uses but completely different.  Also keep in mind that the school is majority Mexican American (disclaimers we have to make for politically correct reasons.) So when we hand out the cover, this kid asks is this a “Mexican version of Iron Man?”  Of course this made me chuckle out loud, several times throughout the day.  Dion now thinks we should use “Mexican version of Iron Man” to attract a broader audience.  Don’t worry, I already shut that idea down.