We interrupt my regularly scheduled absence with a quick update. The box set of The Leah King Trilogy launched on Wednesday and its going extremely well. Far better than I hoped. Thanks to everyone who’s bought the book so far. If you haven’t, you can get your copy from Amazon right now by clicking HERE. I’m pushing on with the first draft of Zombie Book 3 (working title). It’s going very well and I’m racing toward the big finale which is always the bit I enjoy most. When I’m not writing or refreshing the Amazon sales dashboard, I’m getting in some reading. At the moment I’m in the middle of Clara Coulson’s Soul Breaker, the first in the City of Crows series. The books center around the Department of Supernatural Investigations and their fight against the various supernatural nasties that have a habit of popping up to cause mayhem. I’m enjoying it so far and there’s a few other books in the series that I’ve already picked up. I’ve also been gradually getting back to running after a disastrous BMO Half Marathon at the beginning of the month. Everything was going well and I was on track for a … Read More
Out Now – The Leah King Trilogy
It’s launch day! I’ve created a box set of all three of my Leah King ebooks (The Girl in the City, The Girl in the Wilderness, and The Girl in the Machine). Yes, they don’t really come in a box but you know what I mean. I tried to up the stakes and the action with each successive book, and I’m very pleased with how the trilogy turned out. More importantly, readers seem to agree. Feedback on all three books has been excellent. The normal price for the set will be $5.99 but for a short time I’m offering the complete set for the ridiculous price of 99c/99p. That’s over 500 pages of dystopian cyberpunky science fiction goodness for less than a dollar/pound/whatever the equivalent is in your country. Or to put it another way, about $6 less than the books cost individually. So, if you haven’t read any of these, or you’ve read the first one or two, now is the time to pick it up. You can get your copy from Amazon right now by clicking HERE. With the oppressive Transport Authority controlling every aspect of their existence, Leah and her father do what they can to carve out a … Read More
Last Call
Today is the last day to get all three books in the Leah King Trilogy for 99c each. The Girl in the City is always 99c, but tomorrow The Girl in the Wilderness and The Girl in the Machine will be going back to their normal price of $2.99. So, save yourself four bucks and pick them up today. Of course, you can also read all three books completely free on Kindle Unlimited. With the oppressive Transport Authority controlling every aspect of their existence, Leah and her father do what they can to carve out a good life for themselves. Leah spends her nights scavenging, risking capture as she hunts for salvage her father can trade for food and clothing. When Leah takes a bag of salvage from a dying stranger, she and her father are plunged into the world of Transport and its war against the terrorist organization, TRACE. As Transport closes in, Leah will need to decide who can she trust, and how far she’s prepared to go so save her father’s life. Get All Three Leah King Books for Just 99c Each The Girl in the City The Girl in the Wilderness The Girl in the Machine Sign … Read More
Out Now – The Girl in the Machine
Today’s the day. Two years after the launch of The Girl in the City, the third and final book in the Leah King Trilogy, The Girl in the Machine, is available on Amazon. In a lot of ways, The Girl in the City was an accidental book. I hadn’t planned on writing it, but an idea centred around an event in Michael Bunker’s Pennsylvania series stuck in my mind. At that point, it wasn’t much more than the image of a young girl fleeing the city. I didn’t really know why she was running or what she was running from, and I can’t go into what appealed to me about the idea so much without entering spoiler territory. Suffice to say, Ethel the Muse was quite taken with this little scenario and wouldn’t shut up about it. Eventually, I gave in and wrote a novella in the hope it would scratch that particular itch and I could get back to working on Glitch Mitchell and the Unseen Planet. I wasn’t even going to publish it, but Michael encouraged me and in the end I went ahead, got a cover, had it edited and proofread and published it. Back then it had a different cover. I thought that would be it, … Read More
One Week to Go
There’s just one week to go before The Girl in the Machine launches. This is the point in an author’s life when the tension starts to mount. Will people like it? What if they aren’t happy with the way I ended the series? What if there’s a really bad typo on the first page? Did I get the name of Leah’s mother right? Only one week to go until I find out the answers to all those questions. For teenager Leah King, the war against the authoritarian Transport Agency is personal. With her home destroyed and her family dead, only TRACE gives her life any meaning. Under the mentorship of Sergeant Alice Williams, she’s learning how to travel through the virtual reality networks and is finally discovering her place in this dangerous new world. But a key TRACE operative has been captured. With TRACE leadership reluctant to act, Alice, Leah and the rest of their squad are forced to take matters into their own hands and attempt a rescue. The mission brings Leah face to face with a new and deadly enemy, who just may hold the secrets to her past. But time is running out, and Leah will be forced … Read More
A Quick Update on The Girl in the Machine
Things are getting hectic here at the Solitary Mindset offices (our spare room). UnCommon Minds is getting rave reviews, The Jurassic Chronicles is just around the corner and The Girl in the Machine is about to head into its final proofread. (Once I write the damn book description). I got some unsolicited feedback from two of my proofreaders today and it was just too good not to share. “Fans of sci-fi and dystopias will enjoy this tale of a girl named Leah, who, along with her associates, fights a ruling company through both military tactics and virtual reality.” – Susie D., Proofreader, Red Adept Editing “With young women driving the plot and nonstop action—including plenty in cyberspace—this book reads like the love child of Neuromancer and The Hunger Games.” – Kim H., Proofreader, Red Adept Editing “the love child of Neuromancer and The Hunger Games”? I’ll take that. The Girl in the Machine will be on the virtual shelves in 2-3 weeks, but if you haven’t started the Leah King trilogy then the first book, The Girl in the City, is available on Kindle for just 99c/99p or free if you’re a member of Kindle Unlimited. You can get your copy right here. Sign up for my … Read More
Cover Reveal – The Girl in the Machine
With the manuscript for The Girl in the Machine sitting with my editor, now seems like a good time to post the cover for the third and final Leah King book. Drum roll, please… Ain’t it cool? As always, a big thank you to Adam at Around the Pages for putting together another fantastic cover. I’m really pleased with how this one came out and it reflects the cyberpunky feel that the third book has very nicely. The Girl in the Machine will be released in the next couple of months. I’m really looking forward to seeing what everyone thinks of the finale. Of course, I’m also a little bit nervous but hey, that’s the author’s life for you. If you haven’t started the Leah King trilogy, the first book, The Girl in the City, is available on Kindle for just 99c/99p or free if you’re a member of Kindle Unlimited. You can get your copy right here. Sign up for my newsletter and get four free ebooks. CLICK HERE to get started. [Cover Reveal – The Girl in the Machine by Philip Harris first appeared on Solitary Mindset on 5th December 2016]
Draft Four – The Final Conflict
Last night I wrapped up the fourth draft of The Girl in the Machine. This morning I sent the manuscript to my editor for the next step along the road to publication. He’ll send back his edits, I’ll do another revision pass accepting most of his suggestions, then the new manuscript will go back to him for another once over. Then I’ll do another pass over any new suggestions and then the book goes off for three rounds of proofreading. When it’s all laid out like that it sounds like there’s still a long way to go, and in some ways there is. But the heavy lifting is done. The 65,217 words that go to make up the final part of Leah’s story are pretty much in the right order. It’s a satisfying story that I think people will enjoy and I think it wraps up the trilogy well. The various threads I scattered through the first two books (including some threads I hadn’t even realised where there) are all tied up and it feels like a complete story without being unrealistic or contrived. At least, I think it does. Hopefully everyone else will agree. The Girl in the Machine will be released in the next couple of months, depending on … Read More
A Drafty Machine
It’s 4pm on Saturday afternoon here in Vancouver and I’ve just wrapped up the second draft of The Girl in the Machine which now sits at 67,671 words. After working through the notes I made on the print out of the first draft, I pulled out a few broken chapters, simplified some sections and general fixed a bunch of big picture issues. There’s still some smaller things that need fixing, some foreshadowing that needs to go in and lots of crafting of individual sentences but the heavy lifting is done. It took me a while longer than I’d hoped and this will be going to my editor later than I’d planned but it’s more important it’s a good story. And I think it will be. Tomorrow I scroll back to page one and start the third draft. In the meantime, here’s a rainbow. Sign up for my newsletter and get four free ebooks. CLICK HERE to get started. [A Drafty Machine by Philip Harris first appeared on Solitary Mindset on 19th November 2016]
The Girl in the Machine – The First Draft
On November 7th I hit the next big milestone on The Girl in the Machine – The first draft. <dun dun derrrrr> The final word count for the draft was 69,527. I immediately printed the whole thing off and the next day sat down to start editing. (Click to sneak a look at the opening chapter) I always do my first editing pass on paper using an actual pen. At this point I want to focus on big picture issues – continuity and plot holes mostly. If I edit on the computer, I tend to get distracted by the details and end up tweaking sentences instead of looking for the major problems. I do still mark clunky writing, unnecessary repetition that isn’t necessary, and things like that but I don’t get caught up trying to fix those issues. That comes later. I try to read through the whole book in one day so that I can keep track of the story properly and by the end of the day I’d done just that and had 226 pages covered with green ink (thanks Coke Zero). Since then I’ve been working through those notes, hacking out chapters, inserting foreshadowing, fixing the clunky writing I spotted. That took longer than the read through but it’s done. Now … Read More
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