Friends,

First off, I’d like to say that on this day of celebration in honor of Martin Luther King, Jr. I hope that we can keep in mind our past and the struggles that many faced to bring about change in our world. Things can get pretty dark at times, and the civil rights era was just one of those times. The fight against racial discrimination continues today, but in different ways than before. Whatever your stance is on politics or religion or simply the proper way to act toward others, I hope that you can push yourself toward being kind and considerate and (perhaps to some degree) tolerant of those different than you. Life is a precious thing; it would be a shame to waste it by hating others. It’s not important that Martin Luther King was black – it’s simply because he was human that made his struggle so great.

As 2016 continues to unravel and reveal what’s in store for us, I hope that you’re finding yourself striving toward achieving your goals and reaching for your dreams and aspirations, as well as being the best version of yourself that you can be. I have only a few items to talk about today, so let’s get down to it…

The Faces of the War Collection

With the release of Imminent in its second week, I am pleased to say that so far it has been received well. It was fun to research and write, and I’m glad that it went off virtually without any major hitch. The pre-order price of this book was $2.99 and I ended up deciding to leave it as such since the book went live. But that won’t last too much longer, so pick up your Kindle copy before the price goes up! The print price, of course, is still $8.99. Now that that story is behind me in terms of new writing, my focus now shifts to the next project.

I’ve mentioned in my YouTube vlogs before that I plan on writing the final two books in the collection simultaneously, testing my boundaries and experimenting with new things. And I think that doing it this way might lend to keeping the content I write fresh in my mind so I’m not sticking to the same project for such a long time. So today marks the beginning of the next stretch of my writing journey, but this time I’ll be tackling two books.

The tentative release details for Book Four include a date sometime in late 2017, with Book Five releasing sometime in 2018. This, again, is because I’d like to have some uniformity and a streamlined look to the books and their details. Here’s what it will look like when it’s all over:

Resistant (2014)
Unguarded (2015)
Imminent (2016)
Book Four (2017)
Book Five (2018)

You can see how my OCD and attention to detail really kick in here! So that’s where things currently sit with my WWII historical fiction work, and I hope that I can produce two more stories with the same feel yet explore new or unique perspectives and challenges for my characters. Most important of all – I hope that you will join me on this journey (or stay with me if you’ve been a part of it for a while) and we can see how it ends, together.

Writing Tip: When writing action tags for your characters, try to picture yourself in their shoes in order to get an idea of sensory details in any given moment, especially during an action sequence. 

The Short Story Collection

At the moment, I am working toward completing the next volume in the collection. The tentative release date is sometime this summer. I’ll have more details as winter turns to spring and progress is made on the stories.

As for my most recent volume (#2), there will be a free promotion all next week! You can find the Kindle ebook on Amazon and pick up your free copy if you don’t already have it. This volume was the follow-up volume to my first, which released in the fall of 2014. I hope you enjoy it, and would appreciate a review or direct feedback to me via email or social media. I like to know how I’m doing and where I can improve!

That’s about all the news for this week. I am very excited to get things rolling on these new WWII books, and I hope you’re excited to read them when the time comes. Thanks to all who have offered me encouragement and support, and to my readers – for without all of you, my work would be nearly impossible!

Until next time,

-Eli