Novel excerpt and update on e-publishing it--BOOKMARKS

This update starts with a short excerpt of my novel--the first chapter. I will post another one from the last chapter later. 

It reared up again, and again let out that roar. I think Patty screamed again, but I wasn’t paying that much attention. 

     I said to myself hurry. Find it. Too many heartbeats later there it was: a connection from the bear back to her brother. I thought that since it was his pet he would have kept a lock on it to be able to call it back to him once it finished its job. I was right. Now, if the bear would only give us enough time to let me do the second part of my plan.

     I tried to read the link-the grizzly moved closer. Another step-it went “uff” and stopped. I tried to see why it stopped while at the same time I worked on that connection. That’s almost like trying to figure out the combination to a safe while a guard dog ten times the normal size was chasing after you.

     I saw a spike of energy trying to shove its way around the huge animal. I realized it was the second zombie. It still wanted to obey its orders even without an arm. 

     The bear turned slightly and tried to bat at the zombie. The alley was too narrow for that, but it backed up and grabbed the zombie. The zombie struggled to get away. The bear took a bite out of it, but that had no effect. The bear spat out what it had in its mouth and shook its head. The zombie managed to club the bear hard and break loose, but as it turned to go after us again, the bear moved back and took a swipe at it. The zombie’s head went flying, a second claw ripped open the zombie’s chest. It finally collapsed even though it still tried to move our way for a few seconds. The bear roared its victory and turned back to us.

     Patty said, “You better do something.”

     “Thanks to the zombie distracting it, I can.”

     I called up all my reserves and sent most of what I had left at the bear, at the link between it and her brother. Two long heartbeats later, the bear vanished. I collapsed to the pavement. Translocations were always hard for me to do and this one was a lot harder than usual. 

     She said, “Are you okay?”

     After I nodded, she said, “What did you do?”    

     In-between breaths I said, “I-sent it-back-to-your brother.” 

     After few more deep breaths I could feel the course cement under my hands and what I hoped was gum. I tasted what I thought might be blood. I spat it out but couldn’t see anything in the dark. I felt physically cold but emotionally warm. I had won. An angry bear should keep the guy busy for a while, hopefully even take him out if I had sent it right next to him. He had been putting out a lot of energy. Even with his talismans and rituals moving the bear, controlling the zombies, and tracking his sister must have used up a ton of his energy. That meant less to fight the bear off with. Of course, he must have some V controls on the beast, but hopefully he wouldn’t have the time to activate them.

     I finally got up and started back down the alleyway. I told Patty she should be safe now, but to not go back to her place. 

     “Never. He forced me to move in with him and so I have no place to go.”

     “Do you have any money?”

     “Some in my purse and bank account.”

     “First buy some new clothes and get rid-no-give me those clothes and if you don’t mind, let me get your money out of your account.”

     She looked puzzled.

     “I don’t think he would be able to track your clothes or activity on your account, but we shouldn’t take any chances. Don’t worry I will give it all to you.”

     “I should pay you something.”

     “I don’t do this for pay.” I didn’t add. There was no amount of money that would make this worth it.

     She just nodded. 

     I took her back to my car. Its an older VW Thing-I call it Buggy-with an older Porsche engine. Someone had painted it yellow with brown trim. Because of its age it has few electronics. Vibration energy tends to not mix well with any thing electrical. Of course there was some electronics even in a car that old, but newer cars have a lot more. Its age somehow gave it some protection. I’ve been told age makes devices more settled and more resistant to change. Most mid level mages drive older cars. Higher level mages know how to protect sensitive electronics. Some even have computers and cell phones. 

     On the way I kept my eyes, ears and V vision open-I finally had to shut that down since it was giving me a headache-but there was nothing. I drove Patty to a convenience store that I knew carried some T-shirts and shorts. We found a dark place and she quickly changed. I told her to take off everything even underwear and shoes. I had a pair of flip flops for her feet. After that, I burned her clothes-just to make sure there was nothing he marked them with-and drove her to a friend’s place. Darlene knew what I did and helped women escape their abusers, so she wasn’t very surprised. She promised to take care of Patty until she could leave the city. I went home and collapsed in bed without changing. 

     

       ###################

       Two days later, after three significant trips, I went to BCH, one of the major hospitals, in Boulder. I had spent the days scurrying news articles looking for one specific report. That takes time without a computer. I can use one if I’m very careful and it has all types of surge protectors, or if my energy levels were way down, but I wasn’t feeling like being careful.

     After I found what I wanted I headed out. I snuck around the front desk and used my ability to sense V energy to find the right room. 

     A man lay on the bed sort of awake. He had been badly clawed by some mysterious bear. The authorities thought one had escaped from the city zoo, but none were missing. It looked like there may have been a couple of small bits taken out of him also. I walked in and made sure he could see me.
     I dropped four sets of necklaces-minus the stones-on him then stepped back and crossed my arms. Two of the necklaces were from the zombies; one was from the guy I blinded.

         

  A couple of commas might be missing, but I know I put them in, which means some disappeared again---

         

And this is the only place in the novel with zombies. 

Now to the update.  Thought I would do an update on my E-novel Above My Pay GradeX2. As reported last time it’s done and I have uploaded it to both smashwords.com and CreateSpace.com. I set it for pre-order so it’s not up at every site yet. Not until the 18th. But it is up at Smashwords and Barnes and Noble. E-book version that is. Hard copy will be coming.

       Speaking of that. CreateSpace has some great ways to proof the book before making a final go decision. I bought a hard copy of the book “Eleven something including taxes and shipping”. They got it to me a few days before the predicted date. It’s a complete copy of the book, which means I can see what it looks like “live”. I think it looks good. 

     So I went over it, decided the table of contents sample they suggested looked funny so I redid it. I also found a few things per chapter that needed fixing or changing. A couple misspelled words, but also funny looking sentences and an extra word or three. I probably didn’t catch everything, but it’s in a lot better shape along those lines than it was. Not that it was terrible--unless I missed a whole lot of what they call nitpicks. I also changed a few sentences to make them sound stronger or clearer. So hopefully the writing will be a touch better too. 

      All of the changes meant that I needed to redo the file for Smashwords too. The table of contents for that format was already okay, so I skipped that part. I uploaded it yesterday and so far it looks like it’s okay. It should be since it’s basically the same file with the same format as I uploaded already, but things happen. 

     So far 9 people have download the free 16% at smashwords. They would have gotten the version of that 16% with a couple of nitpicks, but hopefully it won’t matter. 

   The final hardcopy price is a bit much, but to sell it at Barnes and Noble, and other such sites, I had to make it a higher price. CreateSpace has a minimum price they calculate. If I cut out those sites I could make it four to five dollars cheaper. But it is 500 and some pages in a Tradeback size. I know those do tend to be a bit expensive. Evidently Amazon has a habit of discounting many of their books--even those by long time pros. So it’s possible-probable-they will end up selling this one for two to three dollars cheaper than any where else. That is what convinced me to go with the higher price. 

So smashwords is doing a final check and so is CreateSpace. So everything looks good for it going live next Monday Aug 18 ’14. It will be up at at least 8 different sites, some of which I have never heard of but a couple are from other countries so that would make sense. That includes Europe and I believe India. I don’t know how well American Urban Fantasy goes over in India, but I do know another India writer who has sold some of his books in other counties so it’s possible that I could sell a few books through those markets. 

So now we wait. I wait to see how well it goes and you wait to read it.  :)  Hopefully that last anyway.

E-novel  at smashwords.com

Above Pay Grade at Barnes and Noble

Oh, I made some bookmarks if anyone is interested. They have a one half discount code at smashwords--which makes it three something. If anyone is interested I can send some; 1 to 12 bookmarks if you want to hand them out for me. However I will need your snail mail address to send them.