Finally made an Author page on Facebook

Hello all my twitter friends,  I made my authors page for my book and subsequent ones to come out. I am trying to break 200 likes and would appreciate anyone here liking my page.

https://www.facebook.com/raymondsardellawriter

Book is finally available

It has been a long struggle to finally get this done and I am so glad to have it finished. There is so much more to actually getting a book published than most could ever imagine, the minutia involved in the little details that have to be done are incredible. But it has certainly been a learning experience. I have created a facebook page.

https://www.facebook.com/raymondsardellawriter

and a website to sell my books on.

http://raymondsardella.com/

It has been a great ride and I really enjoyed working with JD Rice, he is a great writer and you can see some of his work here:

http://unscriptednarration.wordpress.com/

I hope those that purchase the book enjoy it, there is a teaser chapter from book two at the end.
JD and I will start on that one in late September probably. And I have two other books to come out starting around Christmas time, if all goes well anyway.
Once again thanks to all that gave their support and guidance.

The New Prologue to "Pilgrimage Of Angels"

Here is the new beginning to the book, the changes that were suggested by the Beta readers was taken into account and is now being Copy Edited with the hopes of having it released in mid July. I know it is running late, the process is a much more involved one and both JD and I have been trying to keep to a schedule on it. I hope you enjoy the new start.

Prologue

            The endless fields of heaven burned for days on end, blades of grass stubbornly refusing to turn to ash, fires fed by the boundless energies locked within the celestial plain. At one time, the heavens had been populated by a great many spirits. Spirits of fire and of water, of forests and trees, of the wind and the sky. Now, all was consumed by the wrath of the lesser gods. Monsters and giants had driven the spirits away, leaving nothing but simple grassy fields behind, where once great forests and seas and mountains once dwelt. The heavens were abandoned, and what little life was left behind now burned in a fire unquenchable.

            I know this, because I watched God try to put the fires out, and fail.

            The lesser gods, the Titans and their Olympian children, had turned their full thought on the destruction of God and his heavenly home. I was among them, a foolish child hoping to please her parents, not realizing the weight her actions carried. Power flowed out of us in boundless waves of unchecked and unchallenged energy, blazing the earth black and the sky red. Still the grass held its form, life protected by the might of The Father, a God who could do so little to stop the destruction his own creations were bringing against him.

            I marched with the Titans across the whole length of heaven, burning everything in my sight, coming finally before the great throne of God, protected by the pillar of marble and light that rose high above our heads. My eyes glistened with youthful pride as Cronus and Zeus hammered on the doors of the great tower themselves, calling to the so-called King of Kings to come forward and answer for his crimes. He'd withheld the Earth from us, denied us the birthright of the world we'd helped create. He would pay for his selfishness and pride. We would have what was ours.

            One last laborious strike, and the great marble doors of the tower burst from from their hinges, white light streaming out from the inside. I shielded my eyes at the brightness, and for the first time, doubted our cause. Could a being so pure as The Father truly be as evil as the Titans say? Was he keeping the Earth to himself, or did he understand some greater purpose that my creators did not?

            But look, I thought. How he trembles in his tower, alone and defenseless. He hides his shame in the light.

            What a fool I was.

            “Come out and face us!” Cronus called from outside the bare doorway. “Come out and meet the judgment of your children!”

            A few moments of silence passed, where even the Titans themselves held their breath awaiting the answer of the greatest being in the heavens.

            “Judgment belongs to me alone,” came a voice from within, weak and labored, tired from resisting our power as we matched across the heavens to reach his throne.

            “Judgment belongs to the strong!” Cronus called. “And you have revealed your weakness. Against the combined power of the gods, you are nothing!”

            “Maybe...” the voice answered, more pained. “But would children truly turn against their father so easily, for a cause they do not fully understand?”

            “You call yourself the King of heaven, the creator of all,” Cronus responded. “And yet it is we who aided you in your labors of creation, who helped fashion the heavens and the Earth, and the spirits who now hide on the outer reaches of the heavens, where our fires will soon reach. Who are we, if not your co-creators? Who are we, if not your successors?”

            As I listened to Cronus's challenge, and to the weakened voice of the God I once loved, my heart was stirred to pity. How the mighty had fallen. God, brought to his knees by his own children, and Cronus, leading his own son Zeus in rebellion against a dying king. Would the heavens truly benefit from such a loss? Could there not be peace between us? In my heart, I prayed for mercy, but I did not know to whom my prayer was directed.

            “What would you do with the Earth, were I to turn it over to you?” the voice from within the tower asked, at almost a whisper.

            Cronus laughed.

            “We would shape it as we please and reserve no place for your baseless, weak, feeble creations to come,” he said. “We could craft a world in our image, according to our vision, and its splendor would endure for all eternity.”

            “Such is not my will...” the Father said sadly, my ears straining to hear his last, quiet words.

            “Such is the will of the gods,” Cronus said, and all the army of the Titans shouted out their agreement. My voice alone did not join in the chorus.

            Just then the great fires that surrounded us roared into the new life, growing taller and burning hotter than ever before. The blades of grass, which for so long had clung to life by the Father's power, vanished in a blaze of ash and heat, extinguished by the flames of our zeal. He protected them no more. He was defeated.

            Or so I feared.

            Suddenly the light from within the tower flashed with an intensity I never imagined, and I was forced to divert my eyes for fear of being blinded.

            “My will cannot be turned by any one's power,” the Father's voice roared, far louder and far angrier than I had ever heard. “You claim to be gods! You claim to be immortal! Then see, see what your immortality has given you!”

           Suddenly a great tear appeared in the sky above us, a great streak of black stretching across the blood-red sky. A rushing wind howled in our ears, pulled us upward, threatening to take us off our feet. The Titans were the first to lose their grip on the soil, pulled by an unseen force into the tear above. Their forms disappeared in the cloud of black, their screaming voices heard no more. Ahead of me, I saw Zeus clinging to what little earth he could get his hands on, a look of terror and guilt upon his face.

            “Mercy!” I found myself screaming above the winds. “Have mercy on your misguided children!”

            For a moment, I believed that even the Father's mercy had run out, that we would be sent into oblivion with our forebears. But then the wind settled and the great tear above us disappeared. The sky was dark, and the light from the tower, once so bright, was now little more than a faint glimmer. Finding my feet, I walked alongside my Olympian brothers and sisters towards the broken door, peering inside with trepidation. The broken form of an old man lay kneeling in the center of a great hall, breathing harshly.

            “They are dead?” Zeus asked, looking up at the clear sky outside, his voice a mixture of guilt and fear.

            “No,” the Father said, straining to stand to his feet. “Only banished. If you wish to redeem yourselves for the damages you have caused, you must make ready for war again. My plans cannot be halted, but they may be forestalled. There is much work to be done.”

- The testimony of Artemis, god of the wild, on the last day of the First War of Heaven.

The Next Big Thing

I was invited by Jessie Mahoney, the author of The Community Vampire Series , and K.R.Rowe, author of Amber and Blue to participate in a question and answer blog interview about my newest book. I was more than happy to participate. I have added their links to the bottom of my page. Please take a look at both of their interviews and read about their books.

1. What is the name of your work in progress?
   The book is called “Pilgrimage of Angels”, it is the first book in a series that is entitled “Of Angels and Olympians” It will be my first published book, and it is co-written with a friend of mine named JD. Rice

2. Where did the idea come from for the book?
   I had an idea a few years ago about having the Greek and Roman Gods be Angels that left heaven when Lucifer revolted because they had been so upset over the War between the Angels. So instead they decided to look over the evolution of man. But man, being who they are, instead looked upon them as God's. From there I wanted to incorporate the Titans into the story and the main nemisis and started writing my outline. It started to take on a life of it's own but then as it unfolded it had become to convoluted with too many sub plots and characters to keep track of. That is when I turned to J.D. To help sort it out and he did an excellent job. The real funny part is that I have the last book 75% already written. That is when JD felt we should start in a different place and lead up to that one.

3. What genre does your book fall under?
   This can be classified two ways I think, in one aspect it is a Fantasy Novella. But in another fashion it could be considered a Mythological story. I think it will depend on the reader take on the story. In book two it will take on a more Fantasy driven story and will see the introduction of many creatures that can be found in contemporary Fantasy works of today.

4. Which actors would you choose to play your characters in a movie rendition?
   This question is much tougher than it would seem. Of course my knee jerk reaction would be to say Matt Damon or Brad Pitt, as a writer I think you always wish for a movie to be made of something you have created, and of course you want a big name star to be the lead, but when I think of Greagian I don't envision either of them to play the part. But I do think that Jonny Lee Miller of the TV show Elementary would be perfect in the role.

5. What is the one sentence synopsis for your book?
   Angelic and Mythical yarn spun to delight readers of all ages.

6. Will your book be self-published or represented by an agency?
   This book will be self-published and so will the next few in the series. We already have the basis for book two and the lead up into book three. I think I will try in the future to work with an agent, if one would be willing to tolerate me that is, but for right now the self-publishing is the best fit for me.

7. How long did it take you to write the first draft of your manuscript?
   Minus the time it sat on my desktop as an icon before I sent it to JD, it took about 3 months of actual work after that. The re-writes are in the process right ow and we are still looking at a late April release date. And possibly a cover art release in Mid March.

8. What other books would you compare this story to within your genre?
   I don't really know of any stories that mix Christian and Ancient Greek Gods together, so it is hard to compare it to any. I like to think we were able to take two very popular stories and meld them into one exciting tale.

9. Who or what inspired you to write this book?
   The only inspiration was an idea I had about trying to bring an air of realism to Ancient mans beliefs into modern days. Basically it was just an idea I had while sitting around in a quit house.

10. What else about your book might pique the readers' interests?
    There will be a lot of action, and a lot of battles. Some of the Greek Gods you will like and some you wont and the same goes for the Angels. But I hope it will entertain any and all who decide to read it. 
    
    
    These two fine ladies and writers were kind enough to include me in this opportunity and here are the links to their blogs.
    
    
    Jessie Mahoney's Blog 
    
    
    K.R. Rowe's Blog

Time traveling N.Y. homicide detective

I have been working on this book for a couple of years now. I have thrown away 3 complete manuscripts of it also, but bad writing is just bad writing, no sense keeping any of it but the story line.

I spent the time while the Angles and Olympians book was being beta read to refine the Character profile pages and changed some of their profiles to better match where the story line was heading, I also added some new character’s to the story. The main “hero” of the book is a NYPD officer in the future that ends up in the past, specifically on the day the Towers where hit, he was inside them and knowing his history knew he had to get out and tried to save as many as he could in the process. I am thinking of changing that a little bit to reflect his arrival immediately after the towers fall, I have two versions and I am still deciding on which one to use for it.

I have come up with a reasonable explanation for his time traveling, I did not use a machine, I have decide to use his eagerness, in his college youth, to make money and volunteering for an experimental drug from a Big Pharmaceutical company while attending New York University in Manhattan.  It is falling a little short on realism but I have written down some ideas on how to make that part of the story line more plausible. I am using the theory of the untapped potential of the mind to move it’s “essence” so to say, to different time periods and occupy different vassals, specifically one vassal in particular. With this of course there needs to be a nemesis, so I have created a serial killer that also has this ability, and I will have the crimes mirror each other in both time zones. So far I have made the serial killer extremely brutal, I may have to tone it down a little bit, but I may not, this book is not intended for children in any way and it helps keep to the realism. There is so much more to the story than just these two characters, there are two additional subplots that are happening also. I have completed the outline and have the first couple of chapters done, of course this is the first draft only.

This book will be a full novel, I am figuring somewhere around 80K words maybe a little more. As of right now I have this being a trilogy, but may leave it open for future stories also, I will have to see how people react to the characters and the story line.

Big Thanks To The Beta Readers: Rewrites Start Tomorrow

First I want to thank the beta-readers for taking the time and reading our story. And a big thank you for the feedback. My co-writer J.D. and I went over them all the last few nights and have mapped out and are outlining the changes we are going to make. We knew what some of it was going to be but wanted to hear the reactions from the readers.
One of the changes is going to be more scenes and chapters involving the Olympians. They were a big hit with the readers and every beta reader wants to read more with them involved. So we heard you and we are going to oblige your requests.
We are also going to change the prologue and may just start with a chapter and bring the story from there, we are going to write both beginnings that we discussed and see which one fits our particular story.
We also know some didn't like two of the characters and we are rewriting their profiles and will adjust their scenes according to their new profile.
As far as making it longer, it will undoubtedly be longer, but I think it will still stay a novella, just a longer then usual one. With these changes, it will bring automatic changes to book two which has already been started. We still will have chapter one of book two at the end of book one as a teaser.
As far as a time frame, we are still looking at the dates we had discussed earlier. We knew we wold be doing rewrites so this hasn't changed the time frame at all.
Once again thank you for those that were beta readers, and thank you to those that have been reading my blog.

Pilgrimage of Angels is with the beta readers

I haven't written a blog post in a little while, and I really need to get better at this, but a lot has been going on and decided to fill everyone in.
My co-writer and editor J.D. Rice, you should check out his blog at
http://unscriptednarration.wordpress.com/
he writes some great flash fiction besides his own stores, is receiving the feedback from our beta group for the first of hopefully many stories to follow the "Of Angles and Olympians" series. As many of you know the first book is called "Pilgrimage of Angels".
Well anyway JD is getting the feedback and we will be going over the suggestions that are made and see what we agree with and what we like and incorporate or change what we feel will make it a better story and more interesting for you, the reader, to enjoy it more.  This is going to be a big year for me as far as writing goes, and I know it is also going to be for JD. I will, after talking it over with JD, probably post the cover art in the next few weeks, I came up with the idea and format for it and JD has been kind enough to let me run with it, so in closing thanks to the beta readers, and to my buddy JD, and  a special thank you to everyone that reads this.