Editing the weekend away

In the season of graduation open houses, I'm spending my weekend doing the final edits on The Last God. It's been through readers. It's been through my eyeballs. Now it's in my ears.

And it's depressing how much the eyeballs miss.




To cope with this tiresome job, I call upon chocolate.

The best part about graduation open house season though is...food. I don't have to cook very much. Lunch has been provided for the past two days and dinner is on the menu for tomorrow. Which is good because the listening method of editing is slower than the reading one. This probably has something to do with why it picks up so many more things that my eyeballs do.

I like to make notes in ink and highlight the area where the change is. Overlooking ink is easy. The orange makes it stand out more. Red ink would also work, but it feels so negative.

Listening has helped pick up on word echos, odd phrasing, extra words, missing words, wrong words, and detail changes I missed making on the last eyeball round.

The cover is done. The blurb is done. Very soon edits will be done and then its on to formatting fun and ordering print copies.

Watch for The Last God on the 19th in e-book and print!



(Wow. My lighting is not that orange, I swear. Dim lights and phone cameras don't mix.)

Twenty-Four Days by J. Murray

Today we're taking a break from talking about editing, writing and unruly characters to celebrate the launch of Jacqui Murray's newest book Twenty-Four Days.

So what is this book about?

World-renowned paleoanthropologist, Dr. Zeke Rowe is surprised when a friend from his SEAL past shows up in his Columbia lab and asks for help: Two submarines have been hijacked and Rowe might be the only man who can find them.

At first he refuses, fearing a return to his former life will end a sputtering romance with fellow scientist and love of his life, Kali Delamagente, but when one of his closest friends is killed by the hijackers, he changes his mind. He asks Delamagente for the use of her one-of-a-kind AI Otto who possesses the unique skill of being able to follow anything with a digital trail.

In a matter of hours, Otto finds one of the subs and it is neutralized.

But the second, Otto can’t locate.

Piece by piece, Rowe uncovers a bizarre nexus between Salah Al-Zahrawi--the world’s most dangerous terrorist and a man Rowe thought he had killed a year ago, a North Korean communications satellite America believes is a nuclear-tipped weapon, an ideologue that cares only about revenge, and the USS Bunker Hill (a Ticonderoga-class guided missile cruiser) tasked with supervising the satellite launch.

And a deadline that expires in twenty-four days.

As America teeters on the brink of destruction, Zeke finally realizes that Al-Zahrawi’s goal isn’t nuclear war, but payback against the country that cost him so much.

Kirkus Review:
A blistering pace is set from the beginning: dates open each new chapter/section, generating a countdown that intensifies the title’s time limit. Murray skillfully bounces from scene to scene, handling numerous characters, from hijackers to MI6 special agent Haster. ... A steady tempo and indelible menace form a stirring nautical tale.

Where can you find this military thriller?

Available at: Kindle US, Kindle UK, Kindle Canada

About Jacqui:

Jacqui Murray is the author of the popular Building a Midshipman, the story of her daughter’s journey from high school to United States Naval Academy, and the thrillers, To Hunt a Sub and  Twenty-four Days. She is also the author/editor of over a hundred books on integrating tech into education, adjunct professor of technology in education, webmaster for four blogs, an Amazon Vine Voice book reviewer,  a columnist for TeachHUB, monthly contributor to Today’s Author and a freelance journalist on tech ed topics. You can find her books at her publisher’s website, Structured Learning.

http://twitter.com/worddreams

http://facebook.com/kali.delamagente

http://pinterest.com/askatechteacher

http://linkedin.com/in/jacquimurray

https://plus.google.com/u/0/102387213454808379775/posts

Cover Reveal for The Last God

If you've been skulking around here between now and November, you'd undoubtedly heard bits and pieces about my current project: The Last God. Well, it's finally almost ready to share with you.

Almost.

While I wait for the last two of my esteemed critique partners to hand over their red ink filled pages so I can complete the touch ups, I figured I'd share the cover with you. I fell in love with this art after spending most of an afternoon searching for cover elements. When we created the cover for Sahmara, it was from five different pieces that we pulled together. This one hit me, the angels sang, and that was it. And so after working some graphical magic to make it just right for the story, I present the cover for The Last God.

Jane has decreed that the time of the Unlata Kai is over. Her race of god-like beings has caused enough chaos, leaving floundering hybrid races and war-ravaged planets throughout the universe. Kaldara, their home, is about to fulfill her wishes. When the planet goes, it will take her and the last of her kind with it.

The crew of the Maxim sets out to warn the leaders of Kaldara of their imminent demise, but instead, witnesses a violent battle between gods. One of them holds knowledge that could restore the Maxim to its full strength. The possibility of a defense against the ruthless army of Matouk that destroyed his homeworld fills Logan Klevo with something he’s been missing, hope.

Abducting an angry and suicidal god might not be a wise choice, but if the god of war can learn to love, they both might discover a future worth living for.