"Last Night" Will Be Free Friday

Just putting it out there that "Last Night," my short story that asks you to reexamine what friendship really means will be free for one day only on Amazon. It's usually $.99 since it just a short, but on Friday March 16th, 2012 it will be 100% free. Reviews of the story posted on Amazon will be welcome as well. Thank you again for the continued support.

Amazon Author Biography

I spend a little time and worked on the biography on the author page I have set up on Amazon.com. It seems pretty solid and I think I will leave it as it is, but I wouldn't mind a little feedback. I tried as much as I could to focus on the work and how it came to be. Although I don't have any reservations about keeping many of my personal details out of it, I still wanted to make the page about the books so that could be focused on and not so much on me. I figure if people really are that interested in the work, then they will eventually want to find out more about me. That will come with time. Have a look at the page here and let me know what you think.

I duplicated this data for the Smashwords bio page as well which can be viewed here.

Many Thanks

I just want to take a moment to thank all of my Twitter and Facebook followers and fans. Because of your continued support, I have cracked the top 50 on Smashwords.com. Of all the authors up there, as of this moment I am currently #42 most popular / viewed which is a terrific achievement. Hopefully, we can keep it going. It would be amazing to crack not only the top 10, but maybe even become #1.

Be sure to tell all your friends about the free work I offer there which include copies of the original Rumbling Heart as well as Recorded Butterflies which is the 2nd book in the series. There is also a new short on Smashwords as well called On The Way Home which is written by one of the RH characters. Its sort of a tiny peek into what you might expect to see from the 4th and final installment in the RH series.

One additional work on there is a short called Last Night about a struggling writer and a conversation he shares with an ex athlete. While it may not seem like much in the first few pages, by the end, you will find yourself questioning not only the narrator, but also the decision that he makes regarding his friend. You will either nod your head or be completely shocked. At about 5600 words, it's a short read and it's free so be sure to give it a look.

Ty all again for the continued support and I hope to keep you all entertained.

UPDATE!

I've moved up in ranking, currently sitting pretty at #12. Top 10? Let's hope for it!

http://www.smashwords.com/profile/view/richardallen

 

[caption id="attachment_1083" align="aligncenter" width="466" caption="On The Way Home cover"][/caption]

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Recorded Butterflies is Now Free

I've dropped the price for Recorded Butterflies to free via Smashwords.com. Currently, Rumbling Heart is also free so you can download both books for absolutely no cost to you. Head on over and check it out while you can. You can download it as a PDF or you can DL a file that will work with your Kindle, Nook, and several other popular eReaders. Thank you all again for your continued support of my work and I look forward to feedback. Be sure to follow me on Twitter @RichardAllenRH

"Emily Martin" Release Date Set

On Tuesday, September 27th, Emily Martin will be available for purchase from BN.com, Amazon, and Smashwords.com. A Facebook event has been created which is located here. Thank you all for the continued support as I look forward to getting more feedback on this next installment of the Rumbling Heart series. With just one more to go, this book will bring several things into perspective and get you all set for the final book.

 

Emily Martin switches gears a little and tells the story from the perspective of John Allen's best friend, Emily. With just one last installment to go after EM, this book gives readers an inside look into Emily's mind as she reveals what she really thinks about John, Olivia, and even the meddlesome Donna as she journeys with him through one of the most difficult times in his life. While giving her two cents on virtually every detail of John's life, Emily is also dealing with her own problems as someone from her past comes back into her life, looking only to cause major issues for her. Being the woman that she is, she finds a way to cope, albeit a questionable one, and soon that decision sees her walking down a path she never thought possible.

Full with intrigue, heartache, loss, and at times, laugh out loud humor, Emily Martin will take you by the hand and show you a side of her you never knew existed, and when the final two chapters are upon you, you will see something so unexpected, you will find yourself begging for the final book as you will not be able to wait to see how it all ends.

Rumbling Heart is Free on Smashwords

That's right. The one that started it all is now free on Smashwords.com. The direct link to the book is right here.  I would greatly appreciate it if you were to download the book for free to please also let Amazon know that my book is going for $0.00 on Smashwords so that it could possibly be lowered to Zero on their site as well. My writing pal Melissa Foster just had massive success when she offered her book for free and since then, it has hit #1 on the Kindle book lists. It would be amazing to be able to do the same thing with my work.

You may be wondering how exactly to let Amazon know that the book is free elsewhere. Here's what you do. Check out the book on Amazon here.  Scroll down to where is says Product Details and there, you will see a link that says "Tell us about a lower price." Click it. Then, just fill out the data it asks for which is not much. There small window you will see will look like this.



The Link you would want to post there is this one:

http://www.smashwords.com/books/view/81600

And that's it! Enjoy the book. I enjoyed writing it. Feel free to let everyone know and I look forward to seeing your reviews on Amazon. Thank you again for all the support.

Last Night

On a whim, I wrote a short story of about 5700 words. I'm not trying to sell it at all, just did it for fun. The link is right here. You can share it all you want. Enjoy.

Questions and Comments on Rumbling Heart - Part 2

"Do you listen to music when you write and if so, who do you listen to?"

I do listen to music a large portion of the day. Depending on what I am writing depends who I choose to listen to. My play my writing pretty close to the chest and I have found, at least for me, the best way to get good work from me is if I almost live what the character is going through. Obviously, I cannot go through certain events like death and breakups and other forms of heartache on a personal level everyday, but I purposely put my state of mind in those situations and let them play out so I can see what sort of reaction I can bring out. Based on what I am trying to feel, I play music that gets me there faster. Obviously, if i wanted to express a joyful mood with my character, I will play more upbeat music while at other times, say when I want to feel what it's like to have my heart broken by someone, I play much more somber music. While I am just free writing, I generally put on some sort of classical piece, generally something with a piano. I find the instrument quite comforting and I hope to learn how to play it some day. I obviously have my favorite bands and musical acts, but they aren't who some would expect. When I was a teen, I listened to a lot of Nirvana and Pearl Jam and other alternative bands. While I do still listen to them, I rarely do while I write. Lately, it's been a lot of Tool, The Delgados, Olivia Lufkin, Caroline, Velvet Revolver, and The Smashing Pumpkins. That's just a small portion as I tend to listen to all kinds of music.

"What's with you and Lisa Edelstein? Is she really your FB friend? Does it have anything to do with your book?"

One day, I was playing around with an idea. I watched all of the people I normally conversed with on Twitter and thought to myself "Who would play that person in a movie about their life?" The first person I remember thinking of was my twitter pal Melissa Foster. I looked at her photo and it reminded me of Lisa Edelstein who played Dr. Lisa Cuddy on House. I wrote a small tweet similar to "I choose @Lisaedelstein to play @Melissa_Foster in the movie about her life." I went on to write other somewhat funny comments about other people, all of them flattering. I got a lot of positive feedback and some of my tweets were retweeted. Melissa got back to me and asked why I said that and I told her she reminded me of Lisa. Soon, our conversation shifted and it became "Lisa Edelstein would be a great Megan for my book Megan's way." We both liked the idea so it sort of snowballed from there. Melissa retweeted the tweet and I supported her by continuously retweeting something similar. Soon, I found that a handful of people were behind the idea and it went from there. Coincidentally, that was the same day that Lisa Edelstein started up a personal facebook account. Before I knew it, both Melissa and I were added to her account as friends. It was pretty interesting. Obviously, Melissa and I don't know Lisa personally and many other people were added to her account as well, but it was sort of funny that the same day I created the tweet was the same day she did that. I think that's why the idea took off so well because people were already talking about her. I later found out that Melissa was able to talk to one of Lisa's people about possibly getting her a copy of Megan's Way to read so she could consider taking a role in the film which is being developed about the book. She and I both know it's a long shot, but it would be pretty amazing to look back at this a year from now and see it happen and think wow, I played a role in getting Lisa to do this film. As far as a connection to the book, there isn't one. I did this essentially as a way to give a head nod to my friends on twitter. I wasn't trying to make my name bigger by doing this.

"Chapter Five is hard to get through because of the material it covers. Was all that real? Did that really happen to you?"

As with all writers, we take certain aspects of our lives and put them into words that sometimes end up in our books. I will say this concerning chapter 5 and the entire book really...it's all fiction. The book is fiction. Some of the things that happen in 5...did they happen to me? I really can't say because people may make assumptions about other people in my life and I do not wish to cast certain others in a negative light. It was never my intention to make certain people from my past look bad. Fact is only those people who were there during those years know what happened to me. A few others I have spoken to may know, but that is for their ears and their ears alone. It's a matter of public record that yes, I did suffer abuse while I was in my 20's, but to what extent, I will not say. It's not something I generally talk about unless I am being bothered by it and the person I choose to talk to had prior knowledge on said events. As far as the person who is looked at as evil in that chapter, the person who some might associate that character with in real life is a good and decent human being. Fact is we were simply toxic toward each other and that is ultimately what caused the issues. As far as that link is nowadays, we are civil. We do not talk all that often, but we both agree that being away from each other was the best thing we could have done. I still care for that person a great deal. You cannot spend that much time with someone and not care. I forgave them for what they did and I, by no stretch of the imagination, am innocent of any wrong doing during that time in my life. We both made very bad decisions. We also do not want them to haunt the rest of our lives. We can both look back at that time and think about the mistakes we made and know that we learned from them so we could hopefully avoid those issues in our future endeavors. In a future work, I may allude to more of that situation, but I have not decided yet. 

"Is it true that you dreamed the entire book?"

For the most part, yes. The core idea for the book came from a lucid dream I had. It was so vivid that it stuck with me for days. I ended up writing the dream down as it was just something that wouldn't leave me alone. I found myself having the dream over and over to the point where I thought about writing it down as more than just a blog post. That was really how it all got started. Through the process of writing the story, I continued to have dreams surrounding the book and I sort of just let those dreams write the book for me. Oddly enough, the original person I saw in my dream was not what ultimately led me to developing a character that came from it. While I saw that person, I heard someone else's voice. Once I figured out whose voice that was, they are who became that character to me and I took it from there. Through the months I spent writing, I kept dreaming of that person and it was as if they were guiding my writing and helping me to develop the story. It was unlike anything I'd ever experienced in my life. It's one thing to dream of an idea, but it's something else to have that person come to you again and again through the course of the writing process. I guess it can be attributed that once I figure out who that person was, I spent a good deal of time studying up on them and reading about them so it makes sense that I would have dreams about them every now and then. However, the dreams at one point were virtually a nightly occurrence. Even now as I am finishing up my followup to RH, I still have dreams of them and they aren't letting up. I guess when I stop having those dreams, I may not want to write anymore. I can't really say for sure. 

"Will your next book offer anything else regarding the development of relationships between that characters?"

Yes. The story will continue, and in my next work Recorded Butterflies, relationships will be tested and everyone of the characters will go through something that will change their lives forever. One character in particular about halfway in gives up the ghost on something so tragic that it might change the way my readers look at them. I spent several days constructing how I would write it and I think I do it a great justice with the words I use and the way I weave the telling of that arch. I hope that the readers will notice the absence of a particular word through the entire telling of that arch and appreciate the way I managed to exclude it. Also, at the end, something so explosive will happen that it will leave the readers breathless. I promise though, as soon as I am done with RB, I will immediately start work on the next book to follow it because there will be huge questions that people will want answers to. It's not a cliffhanger, at least to me it isn't. A cliffhanger leaves you wondering what something could possibly be. I, on the other hand, provide you will an answer. The only question after that is how is the aftermath handled. 

"In the book, you make small references to religion. Are you religious? Why did you make those references?"

I do not follow any religion. I did when I was a kid, but that was sort of forced. As an adult, I tend to ask more questions and that seems to piss off some religious people. As with other matters, I don't wish to make people angry on that front. I just don't understand some of the things people take as fact regarding it. I'm not exactly against religion. I look at it this way: if religion helps you get through your day and makes you a better person, then I say have at it. As with most other things in the world, it's the few bad apples that make religion difficult for the rest of us. As long as you're not out killing people or forcing your beliefs on anyone else, I am ok with it. I think of myself as agnostic. I'm not really sure what there is and if there is something, I will accept it as long as scientific proof exists. The religious mentions in the book are played against the characters themselves. There is a little more to those images and I leave very very subtle cues that some people may not pick up on as I don't generally make everything literal. While no character has come out and said that they follow any particular religion, I'd like to believe that they would at the very least be somewhat spiritual; some more than others. There is one particular image that is given in the book that will play out across the entire series of books. Religion will be explored more in the next couple of books, in the third most notably. 

 

Be sure to catch part three.

[caption id="attachment_916" align="aligncenter" width="500" caption="RB possible cover"][/caption]

Recorded Butterflies Almost Here

I did a massive amount of work on the next book yesterday. My eyes finally began to fail me after editing and revising 162 pages. I found myself rereading certain parts 4 and 5 times which wasn't bad, considering toward the end I started missing things so it was a good idea to stop. I am back at it today and I am hoping I will be done with all edits and revisions in no more than 2-3 days. At that point, it's back to figuring out cover art.

I've also been exploring other means of advertising my work. Someone gave me the idea of making a small video using only sounds and words to draw additional attention to them so I am looking into that. To create such a video is rather easy. While it's far from the best video creation software, Windows Movie Maker should work just fine, but I am also looking into other free software to use. I've also considered using my own voice as a mini narrative to accompany the images. I will be using only images that I've created and photographed and a few Public Domain images. I may also create some video. Thankfully, my trusty digital camera shoots video, both standard and widescreen at up to 720p so that should work out well. I think if i can pull it off, it will change the game a little for me so I have to make sure and do it just right. I've also discovered a man by the name of Kevin Mcleod. He creates royalty free music and some of his stuff is quite good. All that the asks is that you give him a mention which I would be more than happy to do so if I decide to use music, it will probably be from him.

The Facebook page is doing alright, considering I haven't really pushed it all that much. For those interested, the link to it is here. Feel free to visit and "Like" it. I'd appreciate the it greatly.

To follow will be a short write up on a few points concerning my first work Rumbling Heart. Be sure to check out that post as well.

Break Out

Broke out of the slump and getting back into the swing of things. Finished revisions on Chapter 5 and it looks pretty good. Will obviously go over it at least one more time, but all in all, it turned out really well. Moving right on to Chapter 6 revisions and I am also writing down an idea that came to me very late last night as I was trying to sleep. It's something completely different from what I've written before...ok, maybe not completely different, but different characters and a different story. I will plot it out after thinking about it some more, and when I figure out of I have the knowledge to pull it off. There is only so much you can get off the internet, but I hope that's enough.

On a side note, why I am having such a hard time getting people to follow me on Twitter? I know I'm not all that entertaining...but I'm not very annoying either! I am like a gold fish in a goldfish bowl. When you get bored, you come over and look at me and smile, but then don't feel the least bit bad when you ignore me the rest of the day. I guess I can live with that. Any way, if interested...

@richardAwrites

RB Editing

It's moving along nicely and with minimal issues. In fact, the only problem is when I leave twitter and Facebook up while I am editing because it's a pretty big distraction. When I close them out, it's smooth sailing. The girlfriend has been off with her kids on a mini vacation and she hasn't had cell phone service so I can't really speak to her, although I'd like to. I am using the time though to continue working so I am trying to make the best of her being away.

 

I've already loaded descriptions for this next work into Barnes and Noble and Amazon. Being that this is going to be a shorter work, I am thinking of a starting price of $2.99 but I'm still figuring that out. This book will pick up where RH left off so it should boost the sales of that work as well so I will see how I feel when it comes to that. To those who have expressed interest in proofing this work, some first revisions are done and I am looking to have a couple of people go over those chapters. Please keep in mind I am looking for more feedback than a simple "it's good" or "I liked it" so please keep that in mind when asking me for copies. Obviously those copies are not the final draft so if you do some proofing for me, chances are there will be changes in the final work so be sure to ask me for your free copy once its officially released.

 

[caption id="attachment_836" align="aligncenter" width="202" caption="Sample Cover Art"][/caption]