Sale for two days longer June 28 and 29

As my last post stated everything novel is on sale 

Birthday Sale on all of my novels

Hello, Time for my yearly birthday sale. Monday June 22 is a special birthday for I have reached a milestone. 

Everyone of my E-books is a $1.11 off (No I am not a 111 years old. It isn't that milestone yet :) ) 

And all of my paper novels are two dollars off-except for one which they only allowed me to reduce 1.44 . They will be on sale until June 27.

Whatever the price they are fun reads with adventure, mysteries, suspense and action. Western short stories, Urban Fantasy, steampunk, Science Fiction adventure. 

Here is my Amazon author's page https://www.amazon.com/L-E-Doggett/e/B01C58R1II…

and https://www.barnesandnoble.com/s/%22L.%20E.%20Doggett%22…

Sell on Lance Starhammer May one and two E-book and paper book

Sell price  to Celebrate the new book.   For two days only 99 cents for the Eversion and 9.99 for the paper version.


Great science fiction adventure


At  Amazon

And other e-book sites 

Yo, a new book published: Adventures of Lance Starhammer. Science Fiction

It is starting to look like someone has cursed Lance to live in interesting times. As a Jack Of All Trades danger is not stranger to Lance, but events that could lead to his death have been increasing like never before  

            A giant swamp creature escaped its cage on the ship Lance was captaining. It killed two of Lance’s men while it stomped down the passageway Lance had gone to check out a problem. Next a Lance’s  starship loses coolant and he has to set down on a farm owned by cannibals. When he gets home he is told that a law enforcement agency has placed a bounty on him for a crime he didn’t commit. After that a crime boss chases him down for another theft Lance didn’t do. His ship’s computers are compromised, warbots attack him as well as other dangers.

        Lance Starhammer—not his birth name—is well known in some circles, even though many of his jobs he keeps secret. He has run cons, hauled passengers and freight, done special jobs, ran blockades, a bit of smuggling, computer crimes and other jobs that he feels need doing.

       Now someone wants him dead, though. After a search he finds himself in a battle with stealth ships crewed by a law enforcement agency who have been tricked to believe he is responsible for the deaths of their fellow agents. Even with his ship, tricks and quick thinking ability his chances for survival have slipped to near zero.  

The Courier: Volume one

You can find this book on Amazon: E-book 
And here for the paper version


Here for the E-book on Barnes and Noble

Other sites to follow but should be on kobo, iTunes and other e-book sites.

Paper upcoming to Barnes and Noble too 

A redone version of a great adventure tale The Courier. E-books on sale

The Courier-one of the better e- books by me, is on sale for the rest of April.
This one is now even better for I just revised it, cleaned up some punctuations that somehow didn't get changed and redid many sentences, added 1100+ words in making it even more readable. Grand adventure and action.

Kara Stronggear is the youngest member of an elite cadre of Couriers, but she doesn't just want in, she wants to be the best. And why not? She's trained for this her whole life. She knows how to fight and when to run. She knows how to repair a steam engine and fix a card game. She's ready for anything.

Or so she thinks.

When a milk run turns deadly, she finds herself racing to stay one step ahead of an unknown adversary who is willing to kill for something she does not know she carries. Through dog fights, hurricanes, and the torn up streets of a strange city, she's determined to complete her mission.
Along the way she has to grow up and realize that she needs a good rep isn’t everything, if she survives the next few days

E-book at Amazon kindle

Paper version on Amazon

Plus the e-book version is also on sell at Various sites listed here.

Paper version can also be found at Barnes and Noble online

My current Stories

  Amazingly enough all of a sudden I have three stories on deadlines. One for a well known contest, one for a special deal, and one for a smaller contest. The one for the first contest is done. I am hoping one of the others with that contest with critique it for me. Not so far though. But if no takers in the next couple of weeks I will just send it to an editor to check out punctuation, spelling and such. I will be done with it early for the deadline is at the end of March.

The special one is due to a kickstarter project I helped pay for a while back. They had a special writers reward. My choice of lectures on writing, quite  a few short stories by various pro writers, my choice of a number of books on writing and this special chance.

One of my biggest frustrations is getting rejections. In the last few years, I seem to not be able to get past a certain level of writing. I take online courses, read books, read hints by pro editors etc. I get no further. Some readers have nice things to say about my stories. I have had a couple of ongoing fans when I would place a couple of very short stories on Google+ but not editors. Except for one. I have taken courses by him and he did buy one story a few years back. You can still buy the anthology if you like good short stories. I say mine is the fourth best in the book out of, I think, 19.  Anyway, I have stated that no editor really likes my stories except for one and he isn't buying. Well he is, at least for a few who paid for that writer's reward. Well, for others too, pro writes and those who have taken a certain workshop, but I haven't been able to get to where he would maybe buy my stories. Now though he will look one of mine over at least.

I am, not nervous so much, but waiting for impending doom. To see if I have been correct that even he will like my writing enough to include in one of four anthologies. He gave us a choice of four categories or premises.  If I understand correctly he will read it and depending on if he thinks it will fit in one of three of those categories he will send it to another editor. It sounds like he will choose if it fits in the fourth category. No word if he might say why he rejected it, if he does. Also I have not seen how many writers donated for that Writer's reward. I am sure I am not the only one. But there might not be as many as usual for a market on that level. I don't know if the smaller number helps me in this case.

The last story is for a smaller contest as I said in the beginning. It is almost done. I need to finish it tomorrow for it is due the first part of March. Possibly the sixth. I will need to let it sit a week or so, revise it and send it to the same editor. That might give me one to two weeks to fix what she finds. I have sent stories to them before. Got one Honorable Mention which might still be up on their web site. This one, shakes head, I don't know. I like to think I am getting better at telling the best story I can but so far that is questionable.

Then back to two novels. One is at the editor's being checked over and I will be Indie publishing it whenever I get done with the corrections. I have a cover for it so I will just have to format it and publish it. It is a good Science Fiction adventure, action packed and suspenseful. We shall see how it does. I will spend a bit more money than usual advertising it. Which usually isn't much at all. The last two paid places I tried were failures. So we shall see as I said. I hope to have it online by the end of March.

A bit of venting on next published event

This is not asking advice just venting a little.

Hmmm, I have one book at an editors-she is probably a bit over a quarter of the way through. So when she does finish it, maybe in three to five weeks I will still have to go back over it. Most probably will take me hours, if I don't have to rewrite anything major. I have done this before so I know that I mean hours and hours of work. I have a cover for it already. It has been sitting around for over a year while I looked for a cover artist and an editor that didn't charge tons of money. So now even though it is finally in the process I still have to wait. and wait some more.

Then I have a second novel that is in almost the same situation. Except no editor yet, and the cover is being worked on even though almost done. But it has sat the same length of time and it is longer so it will take longer and cost more to edit and then to go over. Add hours to the hours and hours. Oh yes, I still need to decide on how I want to the chapters. Just leave the 40 some shorter ones or combine them. I wrote the book as a serial on another site which is why the chapters are like they are. It does need a little revising since I changed my mind some something and even though I think I went over the whole thing a couple times I need double check that. So it might have to wait half a year more before I can publish it. It might be my best novel yet. Or so I had thought when I revised it. And I have to wait and wait and wait some more.

About my writing currently

Interesting what one can find when looking for something else in my WIP folder. Stories and more that I had forgotten about. A while back I set out to Indie publish some story sets. I was reminded of one set I decided to publish and found today.

This one is 12 stories each inspired by the same picture. A while back one guy would post a picture of the day. A speculative drawing-painting-composite-that he found. A couple of his followers had started writing mini stories to go with the pic. I decide to join them, but in a few weeks my stories got longer. Still very short but longer than mini. Anyway one day he posted this pic of a dark old looking castle set on a short hill in what could be a desert. A large full moon shone behind and right above it. I posted a comment that said that could be inspirational for a number of genre. Something clicked and I decided to do those genre. I did 10. First SF, Fantasy, Urban Fantasy, Weird Western, Altiernite universe, Historical Fiction, Romance, steampunk, thriller, what might be Christian Fantasy. I stopped thinking that was enough but a couple of months later I decided the SF tale wasn't really the one I wanted so I did it over while keeping the original and finally an action tale kinda of based on the old radio Serial tales. Oh just remembered another one I had placed in another folder. A YA-or younger- general fiction story. So 13 all together.

From 670 words to 6540 words. Some around 1200, some around 4400. A total of somewhere around 40,000 to 42500 words.

I thought that might make an interesting story set for those who like short stories. Some have been revised once or twice others not at all. I will go over all of them though. Starting today.

And while looking for that one YA tale I found another story set idea. I call it Foibles and it will have five stories.

While I am working on two other stories, and will be revising two more for contests soon.

Yay, new set of Western stories by me on sale

Been a while since I have been here but want to tell all who are still reading these posts that

I have now published a set of five exciting short stories about a new Western Hero. Gray Dobson; Deputy US Marshal. In this case only on Amazon. A fun and action filled set of stories for any lover of Westerns or good reading. 

Paperback 5.99
https://www.amazon.com/dp/165620228X/ref=sr_1_1…

And E-version on sale for 2.99 for one week than up to $3.99
https://www.amazon.com/dp/B083JJF4G1/ref=sr_1_2…

Only Amazon for this book. We shall see how it comes out. 

To Celebrate my retirement E-book sale

It has been a while since I have posted anything. That last set of stories had more looks than I thought it night-thanks all. Now though:

Yo: to all readers. As some of you will know I am retiring from work, after 40 years on the same job. To help celebrate it I have placed everyone of my E-books on sale. Half price off. That includes the story sets. You can now get my books from .99, 2.99 and 3.99 for the longer novels. Each one is a very good adventure read and an enjoyable plot.
Sale from today to Nov 12 

My Amazon page minus one novel.
https://www.amazon.com/L-E-Doggett/e/B01C58R1II…

That missing book-
https://www.amazon.com/Courier-Kara-wants-s…/…/ref=sr_1_154…

My Barnes and Nobel page.
https://www.amazon.com/Courier-Kara-wants-s…/…/ref=sr_1_154…

They are also on Kobo and many other e-book sites. 

As I said, great gift that gives to two people. Good reviews even though the novels could use more of them.

#books #urbanfantasy #femaleleads #steampunk #adventure#booksforsale #indienovels

New set of free tiny tales #saturdayscene Aug 2

         #saturdayscene  Aug 3

     Got busy and forgot last week, almost forgot again even though I planned to do this one so this is late but still Saturday my time.  

Another repeat which maybe one or two people here have probably read before. I have a cluster of seven stories here but all are shorter flash and mini tales. From 25 words to 607 words for a total of 1887 words. The mini stories were attempts to place or win in one of the onthepremises mini story contests. “Blue of Home” has been the only one to receive even an honorable mention so far. The longer ones were all based on pictures. All have been revised at least once.  That includes the mini stories that have been lengthened in a couple of cases. About three years ago I decided I like doing these mini stories and even the longer flash. I will be putting out an anthology with 20 to 24 stories. Most will be these very short tales but there will be another anthology with longer 650 to 3750 word stories. I just need two covers and to revise some of the longer ones. 

   These are a variety of genres: fantasy, general fiction, science fiction, historical with a touch of fantasy and one that could be a couple of different genres including steampunk, fantasy and general fiction. 

The first one is “Blue of Home” written on the premise of “Write a story no longer than 50 words that describes color in an innovative way. (No “black as night” clichés; etc.)” The last one will be “Good Work with Thread” the story that could be one of a couple different genre. The others are mixed up.

 Blue of Home 

                                                     

      The viewscreen showed a microscopic blue-Ben stared. The right blue, produced by life. The trip out  had taken too long. He’d seen red suns, green nebalue, black holes--from a distance. None looked this perfect, a blue made from air and water. Ben smiled, the blue of home grew.   

Ohh, no. Not Another One!

Ohhh no, not again-another one of those quests, the wizard thought, and it’s going to be long-again. Even as his friend the warrior, who would be king, cheered and challenged the four man team to see who would be first on those giant, wide steps. After  they became solid enough and moved in a touch closer, of course. The warrior’s cape still bellowed out even though the bottom was in tatters. His sword, though, was still sharp, undinged and whole. 

   

    The new steps had just appeared from nowhere while the team stood at the end of wide path that had led to two man height pillars on the edge of this path. They each had rounded tops and a hole one could reach through at their tops. A person could almost fit their whole head through the holes. The wizard had reached it first and waited for the others. 

      At least here we could breath okay even though the air had a different flavor to it; thorny and mulchy and old, he thought. 

      

      The rest of the path just appeared with no flash or sound. The wizard  could hear everyone’s steps and each one’s breathing, plus the warrior’s boosts, so there was sound here, but nothing when it came to be. It had taken him seconds to realize it was there. He assumed it had been the same for the others since they hadn’t said anything. 

      It looked like another ten minutes of walking would lead us to the doorway. Tall and it looked more like a cave entrance with a bright light inside. And what might be another two pillars. 

    

     They only had a basic idea of where it would take them. But it would be tough, scary, and they would have to use their strengths to the uttermost and to think hard, to get back to their lands. The wizard sighed. 

    

      The whole trip up he had wondered what beings needed a path this wide and steep. Fantastic torches set in the soil lined and lit one side all the way up. They seemed to be ever burning. What looked like giant thorns grew around the edges of the trail and along on the steps. It made it look like both sections belonged together. At the end of the short flight of steps   

  

    Everything had huge thorns here more than that TV show a while back. But the Wizard looked at the dwarf who was ready to go with the challenge even though he usually lost. The other guy just sort of stood there waiting, he went along with whatever happened without much compliant. His thick staff, or long club, came it handy. He could swing it fast and hard, plus his speed was enough to move out of the way of incoming swings.  

  But at just the right moment, when the three leaned forward and bunched their muscles for a jump, the Wizard stepped over the space and stood on the new steps while the others jumped. They each stared at him, incredulous showing. 

      He said, "If we are going, lets get going and get this one over with.”

end

Traveled

Joseph sat on the wood bench near where the train would stop. It looked like rain, which meant less people. He liked that idea, for that meant less people to see him.

       The sudden steam whistle made known his need to stand. He sighed, but put out the effort. After he boarded he could sit on the train all of the way home. He would practice with his new artificial legs at his parents’ house.

Brightest Night

The two surviving Three Domes were full of people. Every room had lights on that showed that. No one knew why the first one had been tipped over in that huge storm during the earthquake, 88 years ago, while the others stood. But the one piece structure had shattered when it hit the side of the rock rise it had been built on. Scavengers had taken a lot of the material; some had been used to enlarge Dome Three.

       Plus no one knew why the three large and two small domes had been built, centuries ago, on consecutive rises. For this purpose? To see and celebrate the brightest night of the year-and this one would the brightest in the years. To be used as way stations when people had to travel by horseback and on foot? The land here was cold and very rough. It had the end of a forest and the beginning of a very rough and cold mountain chain together after all. So a rest stop would have been good.

      It didn’t really matter though, for we were here to party. These were now used to show us the brightest night without light pollution, or cars driving by interfering. Very soon the lights here would become superfluous when the bright sky turned even brighter. We would shout, bang our feet and enjoy the beauty and rarity of the sight. 

end  

Tenth

Jimmy readied himself for bed, thought of a higher power, smiled. 

             Today is the tenth, so ten complete days without it.

             He had thought he would fail, but now he let pride fill him. 

             Even though he still wanted it, hope blossomed.

            Now, I know I can do this.

Last Viking 

The Viking looked over the side of his ship. The mountains rose out of the ocean, higher than he would want to climb anymore. The day looked cloudy and cold even though he was viking and therefore used to cold. While not as deep as in some places the water here was still deep enough to hide monsters, or even an angry whale. 

   Askell glanced along his longship. The wood looked aged, it had nicks, claw marks, and blacken areas. That last fire they barely got out in time. He supposed he could get one of the new style of ships with multiple masts but he, and his crew, were too old to change that much. 

   He stroked his grey beard, looked down. 

   "To port now!” He shouted

   Something scraped the hull as the longship turned too slowly. 

   So this ocean was not deep, those rocks were hard to see. Movement under the water, Oh oh, something huge lived down there. 

   It neared the surface and before he could cry out for them to raise oars, three of them hit it. It thrashed, caused water to splash into the longboat. Cold water that soaked their footwear. The oars didn’t break, thank Odin.

    He snarled, spat bile out. Nothing would sink them in this cruise.

     Once the water settled again he ordered them to head for the distant bit of land. It had what looked like a strip of land they could beach the longship. Further in lay the base of a tall cliff They might be able to build housing right next to the cliff and have fish, birds and seals and maybe even smaller whales to eating and to use for tools and clothes. 

   He looked around. No one would be chasing them this far, but if they did they would pay for that with their blood, for his crew still kept their weapons sharp.

   Askell double checked the depth and for any other movements. He would have to be on his toes to make sure nothing else hindered them.      

end

Good Work With Thread

        He sighed. He leaned back in his slightly stuffed chair-dirty gray after all these years. It was warm in here again. Too cold in the summer, too hot in the winter, even though just right in fall and spring. That meant winter existed outside. When he finished this grand design he would have to take a break and check it out. He liked the rain and fog. 

       A moment later when he took a second to watch the hundred and eleven threads come his way he realized something else. The cotton threads smelled of mildew. Only a wee bit, but enough for his nose to notice. The buyers wouldn’t. But it confirmed his idea of the season of the year. Tiny amounts of mildew only formed when it got hot after the threads got wet. It rained outside so they would get wet while they were brought in here, but then they would dry in the heat inside. And soon it may get in his mouth because very tiny amounts of mildew stayed on his hands. It built up after a while and would get on his tongue when he brushed his lips. 

      His hands played back and forth along his loom. He decided on which colors and which types of fabric joined the others to form the pattern he wanted. He liked the pure gold and silver threads he used at times. The bright colors were a nice break in the same colors most customers wanted. They felt more metallic too-a good change now and then. 

         The rattle the loom made was a subconscious song to him. Most of the time it went on without his mind paying attention. However if it sounded an off note he would know instantly. It had three weeks ago and he had gotten behind while it had been fixed. Now he was almost caught up with all of the orders. There would be always more for his work was excellent.   

      It hadn’t always been of course but over the long years he had gotten used to the old grey, stone walls behind him, the changes in the temperature and smooth wood on the loom. Even the strange way the many almost microscopic fibers in the air he breathed in changed the taste of his lunches. It didn’t matter what he brought with him, it always had a different flavor than at home. Except the once he had to use an oxygen tank for a few weeks because of a lung infection. He had been so glad to stop carrying that tank around, but he missed it at times during lunch. 

     He had been afraid he would die, perhaps falling over onto an unfinished project. Part of him wouldn’t have cared, this job had gotten boring. But they had cured him and now he again enjoyed the way the threads played over his hands and into the loom, forming the design he wanted. Afterwards he had taken chances with intricate motifs. Those he enjoyed the most and seeing, or reading, a customer express joy was worth the extra trouble. 

    The weather had become more enjoyable too. He didn’t use to like fog but now he did. 

     He paused to use a handkerchief to wipe perspiration from his forehead-to make sure he didn’t get any sweat on his project or in his eyes. Too much heat in the winter was still a pain though.  

      After many minutes, he smiled at the design that formed: a beautiful star field with golds, slivers, bright reads and some yellows. Yeah, this one would be great and worth the heat. 

end

Hope you enjoyed them and make a comment or two.

#fantasy #sciencefiction #history #steampunk #generalfiction #contests #freestories #freebies #shortstories #amwriting #blue #indie #saturdayscenes