J.H. Powell

24Mar 2022 by dvadmin No Comments

#RevPit

Architecture

So last week I submitted the manuscript of The Ember of Change to #RevPit. It's a great opportunity for professional feedback, assuming my book even makes it past the initial look. I'm taking the opportunity to partake in #RevPitWaiting on Twitter as well where each day we do something else relating to our book. Today was our logline (pitch). Because I don't think I've posted it here before, here's mine: When a group of rebels rescue a wizard, they begin an adventure to oust the tyrant who hoards all the world’s magic for himself, but magical assassins, mysterious interlopers, and political schemes threaten their quest. Tomorrow is a mood board. I've never made a mood board. Finding the right kinds of pictures is proving to be difficult.

04Mar 2022 by dvadmin No Comments

Officially Querying

Architecture

After sitting on The Ember of Change for nearly a year, I opened it back up the other night, made a few last little tweaks, and decided it was time to bite the bullet and see if I could find an agent. Tonight, I sent out those first two queries after days of research, scrolling Twitter, and getting my wife to proofread everything about twenty times. I'm putting my best foot forward in the hopes that I can find someone who falls in love with these characters as much as I have. Their story and antics have given me so much joy already and I can't wait to share all of that with the world. I'm also trying to decide about the Brandon Sanderson kickstarter that launched this week. I'm pretty sure…

16Mar 2021 by dvadmin No Comments

Can it Be?

Architecture, Branding

I'm pretty sure I just wrote the last sentence for Book 1. That doesn't mean it's done by any stretch, since there's still tons of editing to do and I left a few sections with notes to myself to go back and flesh out descriptions later, but overall... this feels really good. Word count right now is around 83500. That'll grow by another couple thousand with editing and some more descriptions here and there. I always intended this book to be an introduction to the series - it's very action packed, throws you right into the middle of the action with the main protagonists, and doesn't slow down. In fact, the entire book takes place over just roughly 21 days. The next book, which is already completely fleshed out in…

13Feb 2021 by dvadmin No Comments

Excitement (and Sleep!)

Architecture, Branding, Decoration

I had to force myself to stop writing tonight. It's 12:30 AM, and I'm right at the start of the climax of the book - an epic battle sequence that I've been playing over and over in my head for a couple of years. I want and need to do it justice, and trying to plow through it at this time of night when I am tired and my eyes are giving up is not the time to try it. Tomorrow we get to meet with the realtor that is going to sell my late mom's house and the house she sold to me several years back. It will be a gigantic load off of me to get that process started and going. My hope is that tomorrow evening I…

09Feb 2021 by dvadmin No Comments

Something Tangible

Architecture, Decoration

Until tonight, everything about this project had lived in a Google Doc on my Google Drive. I printed out a few chapters to get some feedback from my wife and it stirred a lot more emotions than I thought it would. It is something tangible, more concrete now than just a nebulous thing living in the cloud. I am more determined than ever now to finish this up and be able to tell the entire story of these characters that I have grown to know so well as they go on this wonderful adventure in my head.

19Oct 2020 by dvadmin No Comments

Introductions are in Order

Architecture

Welcome! Thanks for visiting my new (and very first) blog. I'm going to use this as a working space to discuss my writing progress, character concepts and designs, and how I tackle worldbuilding. But before we get too much into all of that, I'd like to take a few paragraphs to introduce myself so you at least have an idea where I am coming from. My day job is as an IT Director at a regional transportation and logistics company, supporting over 40 locations spread-out over the southeast United States. I've also worked as a Senior Software Consultant in a disparate set of industries and a software developer writing programs for a Department of Defense contractor. Programming languages are my jam - being able to come up with unique solutions…