Hunted

Hello there beautiful

/ A.J. Colby / Leave a comment

Happy Friday ghouls and boys! I hope you’re all gearing up to enjoy a beautiful spring day as we are here in Colorado. It looks like we’re finally getting a break in the weather, and have a few 80+ days ahead of us. It will be a nice break from the bitterly cold wind we’ve had all this week.

There’s not a whole lot going on today besides plans to go see the new Amazing Spiderman movie this evening with Mr. Awesome Sauce and some friends (woo hoo!), but I wanted to take a moment to share a pretty significant milestone with you all.

Last night I accomplished something I never thought I would – I surpassed 100k words on the manuscript for Hunted. Say it with me… one hundred thousand. Doesn’t that just have such a beautiful ring to it? I could sit here and just say it over and over all day. Of course, the people around me might think that I finally snapped and call the men in the pretty white coats. But I don’t care, no one can steal my happy today!

One hundred thousand… One hundred thousand words plucked from my imagination, and then woven together to create a story from my soul.

When I first set out on this journey to complete my first novel I balked at the idea of reaching 70k-80k words, not sure that I had enough story within me to reach that goal. And then I flew right past that benchmark, hollering and cheering all the way, with a lot more story still to tell.

It has been a joyous, and sometimes trying, experience thus far, and I hope that this is just the first of many such milestones that I reach within the coming months.

I have to give a big shout out to all of my friends, family, and readers who have given me encouragement and support over the past few months, and especially to my dear champion, confident and companion, Mr. Awesome Sauce. Without you, none of this could be possible.

Cover reveal for Hunted

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I’m still plugging away on wrapping up the last few chapters for Hunted, the first book in the Riley Cray series, and thought that I’d share the cover in anticipation of the release in the next couple of months. Having a background in graphic design and art definitely helped in creating the cover, and saved some money by not having to outsource the cover design. There may still be a little bit of tweaking here and there before publication, but so far Mr. Awesome Sauce and I are pretty darn happy with it.

So here it is folks, what do you think?

1_Hunted

You can go here to learn more about Hunted.

Almost at the end

/ A.J. Colby / Leave a comment

So I’m almost done writing ‘Hunted’, the first book in the Riley Cray series. The end is so close that I can almost taste it. It’s like a faint, flickering light on the horizon – visible but just out of reach. And as expected the almost-at-the-end-writers-block has set in. My ever supportive and patient fiance, Mr. Awesome Sauce, says its not so much writers block as fear masquerading as writers block. And he’s probably right.

Writing a book is a true labor of love. It can take weeks, months, sometimes even years, to complete. It can cause us to alienate our friends and family as we devote every free waking moment to writing, and tends to make us more than a little bat shit at times. For me, writing is the easy part, it’s finishing that is the challenge. Penning those last few words, and then finally having to expose my little word baby to the eyes of others scares the pants off me. Freddy Kruger ain’t got nothing on the panic and fear that sets in when you deliver your word baby into the hands of someone else. Will they like it? Will they hate it? Should you give up this dream and stick with your day job even if the monotony of it makes you want to carve out your own eyes with a rusty spork?

I’m not entirely sure which one scares me more – failure or success. Failure means giving up on a dream that I’ve had for over twenty years, while success means actually pursuing said dream and possibly one day being able to give up my day job. Both are on the same level of scariness as falling into a pit filled with spiders and snakes. So what do I do? I do what Mr. Awesome Sauce always tells me to do – just write. Write until there are no more words, until there is no more story to tell.

So here I go, just writing…