Tag: A. L. Buehrer's books

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Dronefall My Books

You Need to Read the Dronefall Series this Fall

When autumn comes around with its crisp cool breezes and dark cozy evenings, readers everywhere often get the urge to take a hearty bite out of their towering to-read stack. Some reach for mysteries or horror, some for classics, some for fantasy, and some even start in on the Christmas romances. But what if I told you you need to were going to fall in love with a little-known dystopian series this fall?

Dystopia might not scream “cozy autumn reading” at first glance, but on closer observation, I think I can convince you this is, in fact, a great way to spend your moody nights in.

Let’s get right into the reasons:

🍁Spooky, mysterious vibes throughout

Dronefall has multiple mystery subplots running through all six books. There is much clue-hunting and secretive investigating. Against a backdrop of an often dark and sometimes eerie atmosphere, you’ll be surprised how much the series will satisfy your craving for mystery-thriller elements.

🍁Book 2 confronts corruption in academia

Halcyon (the main character) returns to the boarding school where she grew up to seek out some lost information about her identity in the second book. She also comes face-to-face with the (very real) corruption and lies that are trying to seize the minds of the world’s youth. Read this while you’re in college and you won’t be able to unsee some things in real life.

🍁Book 3 references Hound of the Baskervilles

The Sherlock Holmes classic is a great fall read in itself, and I think my fellow Sherlockians will be pleased to discover the way book three reflects it. Also, it’s a scientific fact that the Hound can’t get you if you’re wrapped in a cozy fleece blanket. I just made that up.

🍁Rain, thunder, and an all-night café

I don’t know that it actually rains as often in Budapest as it does in Dronefall, but it sets the stage. It’s easier to hide from drones in the rain, since night vision as well as infrared are not as effective in a heavy downpour. And yes, the series does strongly feature a nocturnal café where drone-snipers often seek caffeine at all hours of night. 

🍁A nuanced look at how to be a light in a dark world

If you’re looking for something a bit headier than the light reading you might have enjoyed this summer, the Dronefall Series is full of thought-provoking themes to deepen the plot. The world is becoming increasingly more complicated, and sometimes it can be hard to see how we should best shine the light of Christ. This story could help you work out some answers for yourself.

🍁Immersive European cyberpunk setting

Sometimes, you just want to dive deep into a vividly detailed fictional world for a few books (or six.) The unique setting of the Dronefall Series will give you plenty to explore. (Check out A Traveler’s Guide to the World of Dronefall here.)

🍁Books 2, 6, and part of 5 are set in fall

The whole plot of the series takes place in a little over a year. Several season changes are cycled through, though I kind of skipped winter. It’s harder to shoot drones in winter. Should I write a Christmas special? As it stands, the season that gets the most page time is, in fact, fall.

🍁The rest of your TBR can wait😏

I know you’ve got a tone of books to read. I’m sure many of them have been on your list a lot longer, and most of them are much more popular. But you can always add a few more, right? Those other books aren’t going anywhere. Now is the time to pick up the Dronefall Series.

Here are some links for you.

Get a paperback copy of book one HERE

Find the eBook version HERE

Check out the whole series HERE

Need to know more about the books? Check out my reason for sticking with this project for 8 years. You can also find a list of tropes and things to expect in this post. Or this one if you want an even angstier look into my motivations.

Take your time. But I hope you eventually meet me in the all-night cafe with a new favorite book for a dark, stormy night.

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Dronefall

This Series Hijacked My Life

This is my third time trying to write this post.

I guess I’m not that good with words. They kind of get in my way. Sometimes it takes me six whole books to say what I mean. I’ve said it now. I said it in the Dronefall Series.

It took me about eight years and over 590,000 words to get here. The Dronefall Series has matured into a nuanced narrative about humanity in a world where everything can be reduced to data. It’s the complex, puzzle-like story of a woman searching for—and questioning the true importance of—her own identity while exposing the sinister workings of the machine reality has become. But under all that sci-fi philosophy and intricacy is a primal scream.

Because I can’t be the only one seeing this.

The Scream

Dronefall One was the ninth book I wrote, but it was the first I wrote believing I had been given something people really needed to hear. I’ve always been quiet. I rarely say more than a sentence or two at a time out loud. Back when I was on Instagram, I struggled to find anything to say in the captions. God didn’t create me to dominate conversations or deliver TED Talks on the regular. But there was something about this story. Someone out there needed to hear it. Maybe even a lot of people.

But the response to Dronefall was quiet. Even quieter for the second book, and the third. By the time the fourth dropped, no one was there to catch it. It’s hard to find readers as an independently-publishing author. The world is insanely loud. It gets louder every day. We’re drowning in other people’s voices, opinions, frustrations, hatred, sadness. The internet drops it all in our hands every day. No wonder people are too overwhelmed to read.

The question arises all the time for me—do they really need my noise, too? Maybe God didn’t really give me this story. Maybe it’s all my imagination. Maybe it’s best to keep quiet.

Sometimes I think like that for a few days. But usually, I can sleep it off. The lights come back on, and I’m at it again. Because I know the time will come. God’s not trying to trick me. I’ve spent most of my adult life working on this, because I believed in it. There was always something that kept me pressing on when it felt pointless.

Every time it started to slip, I would wake up and see the world around me—all the people dragging themselves through life, missing the clues. God was speaking to them, too. But so many people—even those who are listening—can’t hear Him.

Why would they hear me?

Audience of One

The question of audience haunts every artist throughout their career. Who am I doing this for? Do they hear it? Do they understand it? Do they like it? Or, sometimes the dreaded, “do they even exist?”

Of course, Christian creators all know we’re creating for God first. Ultimately, we just want to make something He loves, hears, and understands. I get that. I know that’s what’s most important. If no one else liked it besides God and my mom, it would still be a worthy way to spend eight years. (By the way, I DO NOT discount my mom’s appreciation for the stuff I make. So many people out there are making things their moms don’t approve of at all. I’m happy to say I’ve got a lot of people beat in that case.) Even in the solitude between me and God, I know there’s some value in my work.

But Dronefall, in its very essence, is designed to spill out into the world at large. It’s supposed to help people, and change the way they see. It’s meant to be explored and discovered by minds that will relish the surprise, the uniqueness, and the new perspective it offers. Some art serves its full purpose simply rising like incense—but Dronefall isn’t like that. It needs to spread its wings and travel, whisper in the ears of discouraged people, and carry light to places no one has seen yet. In a way, Dronefall is less like a trailing plume of incense and more like something alive.

I guess I’m saying some art exists in its entirety as an expression, while other projects have a life of their own.

And while it’s true that God is always the ultimate audience, He’s also the artist. He worked through and alongside the artist to make something He had a plan for. And even now, as I finish the series quietly with very little external fanfare, I know the plan is in motion.

Just the Beginning

Deep down, I really do. Yet, though I can write a post like this, most of the time, I’m discouraged by my slow progress. I think this is something everybody feels in some area of their life. We might trust God entirely with the plan, but the details and the nitty-gritty reality of actually living it out is hard.

Timing is always the hardest. Especially when it’s something you’ve actively worked on every day for years. I think about Dronefall all the time. I’m always wrestling with the next stage of the process—writing, editing, proofreading, formatting, cover design, production, promotion. A lot of mornings, I’m already thinking about it before I’m out of bed—sometimes before my eyes are open. I must think about it in my sleep, sometimes.

Maybe I’ll never make a true income off my writing, but I’ll never describe it as a hobby. Apparently, this is my life. I’m not even sure how it happened.

And even though I’ve finished writing the manuscripts for all 6 books of the Dronefall Series, I have no sense of completion. That can only mean it’s not over yet. The series has just been born. Now, its life begins.

I want to share something with the world. I know it will reach the people who are meant to see it someday. I’m not sure how. Right now, I’m can’t see the way. It looks impossible.

But here you are. You read to the end of this post in spite of all the noise. Even if you never read Dronefall, I’m glad you stopped for a minute to listen to my story. God brought you here for a reason. Maybe, somehow, this brief encounter with another of His children’s passions will be a bright point on your own journey.

Because at the end of the day, we are all living the same story. One that’s way too big to be seen from the ground.

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Dronefall

In Which I Acknowledge The Dronefall Relaunch

So, I realize I didn’t do an official post celebrating the relaunch of Dronefall One last week. This was due to a sudden opening of a portal to the Void, which I rapidly accelerated through on my computer chair after breaking through the last technological barrier before publication. I was tired when I escaped the Void, too tired, unfortunately to report. But, now that I’ve recovered, I thought I had better write a post.

I don’t know if you’re already a reader, or if you stumbled across this blog post by chance maybe years after the fact. Either way, I want to introduce you to the Dronefall Series—a Christian cyberpunk story in six installments.

You’ll be following a 24-year-old woman named Halcyon Slavik—but you’re not the only one following her, it turns out. In chapter one, book one, she discovers she’s being tracked by a drone. I’ll warn you right now, if you can’t stand suspense, don’t get involved. It’s going to take her the course of the series to find out who’s watching, and why.

What to expect

The series begins with the reader more or less being handed a box of mysterious artifacts, or a file of intriguing, if seemingly unrelated documents. I’m going to need you to trust me. All of this is important. It will come back up later. Everything in book one is set-up for a hopefully entertainingly complicated tangle of events and reveals leading up to quite an escalation at the end. And boy, does it escalate.

I think it’s mainly the slowness of the slow-burn plot that made me classify this series as adult rather than young adult. It’s cleaner than the average pg-13 action movie you would probably see. I didn’t compromise on language, there’s no sexual content (there’s actually no major romantic thread in the whole series), and most of the violence is man vs. machine. I should probably write a full content guide for each book and post it somewhere. But for now, I’m just trying to communicate it’s not classified as “adult” due to not-younger-audience-appropriate content.

I tend to market the Dronefall Series more on the plot and concept elements than on themes. That’s not because there are no themes. It’s because I want you to find the themes for yourself and interpret them your own way. The whole cast has a lot going on. But I don’t like to make my characters into object lessons or personifications of values. They need to be real people, or I won’t be able to care about them.

This has led to the Dronefall cast being a bunch of weirdos with problems and opinions of their own. They all have some growing to do, like all of us. Halcyon, you’ll discover, is a very special case and is actually doing pretty well, considering. Not everyone is going to like Halcyon. I didn’t make her to be universally liked. She’s a dystopian heroine—those tend to be a bit polarizing.

How Christian is it?

Maybe you’re wondering, “okay, but what does the Christian element in this series look like?” I know a lot of people—even Christians—are wary of fiction that might end up being too preachy. No one wants to read a story where the faith message was awkwardly shoehorned in. Neither do they want it just sprinkled over the top like powdered sugar.

The Christianity in the Dronefall Series is absolutely essential. You couldn’t take it out and leave the plot and characters intact. It deals with a world where Christian beliefs might not be persecuted, but if those beliefs lead to action, no one is safe.  Questions arise about exactly what actions are necessary, required, or acceptable in order to effectively stand up for the truth in a world full of lies.

This causes division among the Christians in Dronefall. At some point, anyone might find themselves in a position where their open resistance will be the only correct response to the powers and authorities that believe they hold claim to the world. These questions cause rifts even between the pastors featured in the story by the end. I didn’t want to shy away from the extremes. That would defeat the purpose of writing dystopian fiction. As the head pastor’s wife has taught her daughters in the books, we need to know our boundaries before anybody dares to cross them. Where do you draw the line?

I’m eager to have people read the series for this reason. I want people to think about these questions. Should we remain silent? Should we say something? When does our pretense of humility hide our fear of asserting the truth? What if resisting damages our witness? What are we called to do when time is running out?

There’s so much to explore here. It’s a six-book series. I’ve been working on it for most of my twenties, and I’m just getting around to finishing the last book. I think about this story every single day. I see it in the headlines and in conversations around me. I’ve been called to share it, even though I feel a bit under-equipped and short on skills and certainly resources to produce something impressive or professional. I know there’s a reason for this story.

Still, I can’t say I’m great at marketing it. And this book for sure will never make it big on TikTok. What are you supposed to do? Oh yeah, tropes. I should mention tropes before I sign off. Guys, I’m not good at writing tropes. I don’t know why. I guess it’s probably easier when you write romance. But I’ll try.

These are tropes, right?

  • Cameras everywhere
  • Autonomous robotic…things
  • High-tech underworld
  • Mysterious powerful organizations
  • Information control and manipulation
  • Altered memories
  • Loner protagonist
  • Secret identities
  • Is it real or is it staged?
  • Cyborg enhancement
  • A variation on the villain/hero mind-link
  • Unethical experiments gone wrong
  • Massive conspiracies
  • Moral dilemmas

Wow, I did it. I found a bunch of tropes once I started thinking about it. They’re just not very BookTok-y. That’s probably not a bad thing, though. Some people are kind of tired of TikTok’s disappointing recommendations at this point. Maybe this sounds like a better time to you.

If you’re interested, the buy links for the first three ebooks are all here.

#1 Dronefall

#2 Lightwaste

#3 Rainchill

And, if you want to know even more, (plus get my comic adaptation of Dronefall Chapter One to download for free) please join my email list! I don’t do social media, so my email newsletter is the best way to keep up with me online. Highly recommended.

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Dronefall

Is Dronefall End Times Fiction?

Dronefall is a six-book series following a young Christian woman wo chooses not to be conformed to the ways of her dark twisted world, but instead to seek out the truth behind its web of lies and manipulation. It’s a futuristic world, but under its trappings of drone-swarmed skies, autonomous surveillance technology and centralized information control, it’s a familiar place.

I most often describe Dronefall as “Christian Futuristic Fiction” to laypeople, because I think that’s a genre everybody can understand without further definition. But at the same time, does that put it in the same genera as Left Behind? Is Dronefall “End Times Fiction?”

How would I classify “End Times Fiction?”

While End Times Fiction is Christian Futuristic, not all Christian Futuristic is End Times. Let’s nerd out about this a bit.

In this diagram, you can see I did something a little controversial. Here’s my logic. I find it easiest to categorize the broader genera of Christian Fiction by their time-periods—their settings on the timeline. Contemporary, Historical, Biblical, Futuristic. But if you think about it, End Times Fiction actually falls under Futuristic and Biblical.

Okay, so this graph isn’t perfect. You could group Biblical under historical, but I think most people who are looking for books would prefer it be its own thing. The events of the Bible occupy a different category in most people’s minds than some random story set in ancient Greece, for example. And in the same way, End Times fiction and Futuristic fiction are different things, in a way. End Times fiction, once again, deals with the events of the Bible.

The Rapture, The Tribulation, the rise of the Antichrist, Armageddon—actually, I would probably more accurately classify End Times Fiction as the intersection of Biblical and Speculative. Because, try as we might, we’re going to have to simply study and speculate to portray the events of Revelation in a literal fiction-story form.

But How Would I Classify Dronefall?

Well, the short answer is, it isn’t End Times Fiction, technically. It’s focused on a smaller scale, and doesn’t try to interpret the events of Revelation. Not because I don’t think we should try, but simply because I didn’t choose to build it around that. Here’s my chart-placement for Dronefall.

Speculative Fiction covers everything from fantasy to sci-fi to horror, in some cases. (Not all horror is speculative, unfortunately.)  There is a growing Christian booklist under all these categories. Futuristic spec fic would be any of these genres set significantly into the future. Dronefall is set in 2043-’44. That’s coming up fast, but it’s still futuristic enough for me.

Then there’s Dystopian. Now, there is, of course debate on what makes a book truly Dystopian. Some argue that it has to be a society that is built on Utopian ideas taken to the extreme to the point of becoming a terrible place to live. If you go with this belief, an apocalyptic story isn’t dystopian, but a post-apocalyptic one could be, if, in the wake of the world falling apart, society rebuilt around a rigid order that, while originally meant to solve a problem, ended up creating plenty more of its own.

The looser definition is just a nasty broken society, typically with too much control by the elites, whoever they may be. Dronefall easily falls under this umbrella.

So, if you ascribe to the second definition of Dystopia, most all cyberpunk would be a dystopian subgenre.   

What is cyberpunk?

When you look up what cyberpunk is, the phrase “high tech lowlife” comes up pretty often. Cyberpunk is a technology-saturated but typically run-down and chaotic world full of hackers, virtual reality, artificial intelligence and, notably crime. Cyberpunk typically focuses on a technologically advanced underworld with complicated confused morals and a lot of gray-area characters. Dronefall’s labyrinthine cityscape, overrun by semi-autonomous drones and fog-breathing trains, creates a fantastic backdrop for the questions and dilemmas Halcyon and her friends have to face.

Bringing Christianity into the cyberpunk world puts a whole new spin on it. While the genera is typically inhabited by antiheros and characters who will do what they can get away with by whatever means they have, the presence of an absolute moral right raises even more questions. Halcyon sees the oppression and injustice in her world and she knows there is a right and a wrong way to fight it. But where to draw the line? And when?

And who’s with her and who’s against her?

Is Dronefall set in the End Times?

Getting back to this question. Yes. Am I going to end by having all the characters Raptured out to escape their problems, so I don’t have to solve them? No, don’t worry. I wouldn’t do that to you. But people within the story aren’t afraid to talk about it.

Oddly, out of the Christian Dystopian books I’ve read, there’s very little to no mention of Jesus’s return, or the hope of Earth’s redemption ultimately being in His hands. I’m not sure why. It’s not natural for a Christian cast to not look for hope in the future that way. I want to bring that discussion back into the story.

Because when it gets dark, God shows up.

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Dronefall

A Travel Guide to the World of Dronefall

Readers know, even in the era of fancy collector’s editions and aesthetic bookshelf setups, at the end of the day, a book isn’t just a product—it’s a destination.

If you’re looking for somewhere to go, I have a recommendation for you. I’ve discovered a new place and time—a rare one, not overcrowded with tourists and hyped-up by reports from all your friends who went last summer without you. The world of Dronefall is something new, fascinating, and full of rich detail you’ll want to come back to for a second look.

So, what have you got to look forward to? What does 2040’s Budapest, with its historic architecture and drone-swarmed skies, have to offer the traveling reader?

Well, there’s more than I can tell you in a blog post, but let me give you my top recs for things to do on your first trip to the world of Dronefall.

7 Things You Must Do When Visiting Cyberpunk Budapest in the 2040’s

  1. Travel by “Blindworm” (jumping off not advised)

You won’t have much choice on this one, since the automated hydrogen train system has all but replaced any other form of transportation in the city. Still, you’ll find “Blindworm” travel extremely smooth and hassle-free. Coaches are comfortable and usually kept immaculately clean, and each one is furnished with both a speaker-system and an HD digital screen to keep commuters informed on the upcoming stops.

  On the outside, the trains are sleek beautiful—white and silver, and always breaking out billows of fog through the “gills” of their water-vapor exhaust system. Their haunting wails can be heard echoing through the city from far away.

2. Drone-watch

    In case you haven’t heard, most major cities in the world of Dronefall are ruled by drones. They watch the streets at all times, from all angles, constantly pacing along their preprogramed grid-lines. Aside from surveillance, drones are also utilized for basically everything else that could possibly be done by a UAV. Drones run deliveries, make repairs, put out fires, clean windows, and handle search and rescue operations all day and all night.

      They come in a dazzling variety of models, and at night, their lights make streetlights redundant in busy areas. From an apartment balcony or rooftop bar, you can watch them flowing by like a river of colorful fireflies. But don’t get too nosy about where they came from and where they’re going. Tracking drones is illegal.

    3. Ask random people on the street what Ambassadors of Humanity is doing

    This one’s a bit tongue-in-cheek, but you can actually do it if you’re brave enough, I suppose. Mostly, it’s just going to get you a lot of weird looks. With all the public support for the elusive organization in Budapest, you’d think somebody might be able to tell you something about exactly what they do. Nobody can.

      They can’t even tell you why the Ambassadors are buying up the whole city, bit by bit. It seems like people would want to know. It seems like they would be asking. But they don’t ask. Maybe you shouldn’t either. Disregard this one, if you want.

    4. Visit the Barracks Café at midnight

    Let’s move out of the bustle of the heart of the city a bit. There’s a sort of run-down neighborhood between District 3 and District 4 on the Buda side of the river. This is where it’s at, secretly. The locals here will tell you the cool kids hang out at a place they call the Barracks Café. It’s called that because of the rather unaesthetic building that houses it, which sort of looks like some kind of military housing.

      Inside, however, you’ll find a surprisingly vibey place to chill, lurk and consume caffeine at all hours of night. It’s a lot like some of the city’s famous ‘ruin bars,’ but instead of serving the nightlife crowd who’s off work for the day, they typically serve the crowd that is just starting their work as the sun goes down. Don’t be intimidated by this crowd. They keep to themselves.  

    5. Go Roof-topping in District 3.5

    But if you strike up a conversation, you might want to ask for these people’s recommendations on the best roof-topping spots in the area. Large stretches of housing and business properties in District 3.5 are abandoned. If you’re into scaling buildings and free-running while enjoying beautiful Budapest nightscapes, you should take the opportunity to go roof-topping in this neighborhood. (3.5 is mostly unwatched by drones, so do what you can get away with!)

      From one location on a roof toward the edge of the residential area, you can get a fantastic view of the airport where, very occasionally, one of the huge space-planes from the world’s only commercial Exoliner airline will take off or land.   

    6. Seek out secretive Christian communities

    If you can find them, some of the most welcoming places in the whole city are the ones the authorities will likely warn you to stay away from. Though not technically illegal, Christianity is no longer socially acceptable to mainstream culture in the West. This has forced believers to form quiet communities where they can live and worship God in peace from the privacy of their homes.

      Barred from the city’s many beautiful historic churches, they have formed their own house-churches, where they gather weekly in supportive thriving groups of friends and family. Though they tend to be close-knit, they always welcome visitors.  

    7. Sneak out at night—who knows what you’ll see

    The fact slips by many people who stick to normal routines, but the city isn’t even the same world at night. If you thought 2040’s Budapest was a little strange during the day, wait until after midnight. Things come to life and start to wander around, hunting. Drones fly low and lurk by windows. Mysterious sirens echo through empty streets.

      Be careful. Nothing is safe when everything is anonymous. But don’t you wonder…?

    Ready to Book Your Ticket?

    Lucky for you, I’m paying your fare if you decide to sign up for my email list within the month of October ’24. If you join what I’m calling the October Club—my exclusive pre-release book club for the newly rewritten Dronefall, you will get the ebook free before anybody in the general public has access to it. I know. Not fair. But you’re invited.

    Sign up here!

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    announcements

    Join the October Club

    Dear Reader,

    With a rush of clear crisp wind and the scent of cinnamon, vanilla, and fallen leaves, October has arrived. Probably my favorite month of the year—and one I share with many book-lovers, I think. It’s a great time to pick up a new book (May I suggest The Boy Who Called the Foxes) or an old book (Hound of the Baskervilles, anybody?) But how about one that’s not even out yet?

    I’m looking seriously at November for the long-awaited relaunch of the Dronefall Series. As some of you know, I completely rewrote book one of my six-book Christian dystopian series this year. The relaunch is going to be a big event, but in the meantime, I wanted to give certain people a chance to be on the cutting edge—and an exclusive look at the new Dronefall One before anybody else gets it.

    What this isn’t:

    No, this isn’t a street team or ARC reader recruitment. I’m not doing this to enlist help for promotion or get flashy reviews for launch-day. Think of it as the formation of a book club—one with very few rules or obligations attached. I wanted to give readers who actually were curious about Dronefall an exclusive experience.

    Here’s the deal, if you join my email list in the month of October, in the year 2024, you automatically will become a member of the October Club.

    What this is:

    So, what are the benefits of joining the October Club, and where’s the catch?

    The benefits:

    • If you are on my email list already, or join anytime this October, you will be sent a free ebook copy of Dronefall—the rewritten second edition.
    • You can read it anytime you want—or ignore it.
    • But you might want to check it out, because during October, I’ll be sending extra emails, giving you a behind-the scenes look at the rewrite and the vision behind it, as well as a chance for you to send me your questions and get answers.
    • You’ll be tagged as the October Club on my email list, so there’s a chance you’ll get October Club exclusive emails and content in the future.

    The catch:

    • None

    You have no obligation to review the book or even read the book, if it turns out to not be your thing. Like I said, you’re not a launch team. This club is for you and your own cozy autumn reading enjoyment. Of course, if you want to review the book when it finally comes out, that would be amazing. Thank you in advance if you plan to. But the book is really just a thank-you and a chance to give you a look at my heart and vision for the series before you support it. I really want to give you that.

    How to Join

    If you’re on my email list already, you’re automatically part of the October Club. No action needed on your part, just wait for the link to the ebook to drop into your inbox. I’ll send it out as soon as it’s ready.

    If you’re not on my email list, go sign up! All I need is your name and an email address that works best for you.

    One final reminder—this is a limited-time opportunity. To join the club and get the book for free you have to sign up before November 1st, 2024. The earlier in October you join, the better, since I will be sending some exclusive emails in real time, but even if you join on October 31st, you’ll still get the book.

    So, join us for some cozy autumn nights in with a hot drink and a good book. Invite a friend or two to sign up with you so you’ll have some people to rant to, and I hope you all have the best October ever.

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    Dronefall

    My Reason

    I’m done being nice. I’ve been trying to write this post for days, trying to make it a manifesto, a story, an extended bio—but it wasn’t happening. Because it was supposed to be a rant. It was always going to be a rant.

    Over and over throughout my time working on the Dronefall Series, I’ve found myself asking the question, “All this for a made-up story? All this for a cheap paperback? Why?”

    Why?

    I absolutely love Dronefall. I love my characters, my setting, the twisted trajectory of the plot. But man, why do I put up with a process that’s hurt me so much? All that doubt and exhaustion, all that overwhelm and discouragement and raging sense of futility. It’s gotten worse and worse. I could have dropped everything like a lot of would-be authors do. I could have gotten married and moved to a new town and started a family and left this whole little non-sequitur phase of my life behind.

    But I didn’t. And I think I finally know why.

    God could have given me any calling. Anything He wanted me to do I could have done, and He would have used my work for the good of His world. But God made me a dystopian author.  Dystopian authors write what they write because they see things in the world that too many people don’t notice. We want to open people’s eyes to the reality they live in and give them the strength to fight it.

    We’re also just generally full of rage. That’s probably funnier to people who know me in person and probably think I’m one of those people who aren’t even capable of getting mad. It’s not the kind of rage that drives a person to blast their horn in traffic or go around picking fights on the internet, though. It’s something that keeps you awake at night and leaves your mind screaming, “this is wrong! This is wrong! God, please tell them this is wrong.”

    And God answers back, “You tell them.” And so, you go out like the disciples to find that one kid in 5,000 who packed lunch that day. Here’s what I’ve got. I’ve got a weird knack for writing made-up stories. I have no idea how this could ever work, but stranger things have happened.

    A Voice of Dissent

    This society claims to care about our voices. The benevolent media gods look down and see those of us who struggle to be heard. They elevate the ones they deem worthy and bask in the applause they get from doing it. But it’s all a show to distract from all the other voices they stifle in the dark.

    Because they don’t want anybody to think people like us exist. Particularly millennial and gen z Christians. We’re at the age where we’re starting to have some serious influence on the culture. They tried really hard to mold us and shape us into what they wanted the future to look like. The audacity of people like us even existing. It’s bad news for the Enemy.  We’re proof there are cracks in the reality liars have tried to create.

    The last thing they want is the generation that’s taking up the torch to keep carrying the light of Christ. That light exposes too much. And it’s too dangerous to the antichrist’s agenda.

    I wrote these six books because when you write, nobody can talk over you or tell you to sit down and shut up. The books are going to just keep existing and people just have to deal with it. Whole countercultures can be born from art. I have something for the people who are ready to see what’s happening. Or, if you already see it, I want you to know I see it too. You’re not crazy, and you’re not alone.

    The Reason

    And we won’t quietly fade into the background while the world crumbles. The Truth won’t be mocked, shamed and silenced when the light is needed most. We need young adult Christians—not just hidden away in their own little circles only to be seen by those in their community and the occasional passing scoffer—but also those who aren’t afraid to step out and exist boldly and brightly in the world at large. Jesus will never be irrelevant, obsolete or a thing of the past. He goes ahead of us into the future, no matter how bleak it looks. I hope Dronefall makes a point of telling everyone that.

    I don’t know how much sense I’m making. I just know I care intensely about my generation. We won’t be lost. God hasn’t forgotten us. I want my work to awaken the courage for us to live like we haven’t forgotten Him. Because you haven’t, have you?

    It’s because I know people like you exist that I haven’t given up yet.

    Please Join Me

    If you care about my mission, I’d highly recommend you join my email list. Since I don’t do social media, it’s going to give you all the most up to date and exclusive info I don’t publish here on my blog.

    Plus, you’ll get to download the comic adaptation of the first chapter of Dronefall for your enjoyment and a unique introduction to my story. I hope you enjoy it. I drew it myself. With markers.

    Thanks for reading my rant. I hope, when you get to read the books in the near future, it will all be worth it.

    Categories
    My Books

    Escape Writer’s Block with The Burnout Journal

    A few summers ago, I got the idea for a prompt journal. It was around that time I realized my biggest adversary in my creative life wasn’t rejection, impostor syndrome, or people being rude on the internet. What gets me down the most is burnout. Writer’s block, art block, whatever you want to call it. Paralysis and lack of motivation seemingly from some invisible well running dry.

    I created the journal pretty quickly. Several of my immediate family members didn’t know I was working on it until the proof arrived. I wanted to make something to help other creatives—especially writers, artists, and poets like me, who might be facing the same things.

    What is the journal, exactly?

    It’s a collection of 101 prompts. But these aren’t the usual art or story prompts. They’re not one word or even one sentence written at the top of the page. I wanted to go deeper than that. I wanted to jump-start the creator’s mind by beginning to expand on the ideas before handing them over.

    Writing the prompts in the journal was a good exercise for me in itself. Each prompt is a suggestion—or multiple suggestions in one—of a story. These stories are both full of possible detail and wildly open-ended.

    But there was another element I wanted to address with this prompt journal. I know a burnt-out creative mind is easily overwhelmed, so I wanted to make sure that—while giving you plenty of fuel for your smoldering artistic fire, I also provided some guardrails to keep you from pushing yourself to make every prompt a whole project. I only give you two pages per prompt to explore your story. As a result, you should feel the delight of finishing a mini piece after completing each prompt.

    Another unique thing about the Burnout Journal is the fact that I intended the prompts to be used for whatever creative medium you like. You could be drawing, writing flash fiction, composing poems, experimenting with comic strips or even just rambling on in prose. Here’s an example or a completed spread, using prompt no. 2. I opted to draw a map and write up a little mock travel guide to my fictional self-portrait island.

     Who is the Bunout Journal for?

    Artists and creatives. I know. That covers a lot of ground. Though I’m not really in the camp that insists literally everything is a creative art (come on, now. Let’s not get silly.) I do think most people have a creative streak in them. It might not be highly developed as it is in those of us whose lives revolve around it, but I think a lot of people could get something out of this journal. Or should I say, put something into it.

    However, there is a reason I aimed it at artists and creatives. Here’s the thing: if you’re kind of more of a normal human, burnout is going to manifest in other areas of your life probably more strongly than your creativity. You might struggle with energy or motivation to do things or feel sort of blah and directionless at work or in your social life. But if you’re a creative artist, when burnout hits, the main feeling is going to be, “Help! I can’t CrEAtE sTUFF!”

    And maybe that’s the main difference between creatives and more normal people.

    Where can you get it?

    I published The Burnout Journal through Amazon KDP, so it’s available from Amazon right here.

    Hopefully I can be a part of your escape from burnout and provide you with a refreshing way to shake off the doldrums and get back to doing what you love. Feel free to reach out to me in the comment section if you’re feeling creatively stuck.  I’m working to make this blog a resource for frustrated creative types, so if that’s you, don’t hesitate to request post topics!

    You can get through this.

    Categories
    announcements Art

    The First Chapter of Dronefall is Now a Comic!

    I’m a novelist—most of you guys know that. I’ve studied and practiced that particular mode of storytelling for around 15 years now. That creates a lot of habits and expectations when I sit down to work on a story.

    But I’ve been thinking about branching out into comics for a long time. And it was while I was working on thinking up an idea for a newsletter freebie that I decided to finally commit to finishing a project. That project was “A Reason to Run: the comic.”

    The idea was, I wanted to give my readers a view of my story they couldn’t get just from reading my books. I set my sights on the first chapter of the first book of the Dronefall Series. I wanted to adapt it to the comic medium. But I really had no idea how I was going to do that.

    How Do You Adapt Novel Text To Comics?

    Of course, this is what I asked Google—actually, I asked Pinterest first, because I typically do, but when I didn’t find what I needed there, I took it to Google. And guess what? I also didn’t find a lot there.

    So, is this not something people do? Clearly, they do it—novels do occasionally get graphic novel adaptations, after all. But I was able to find very little guidance on how to do it online. And so, I realized I was going to have to log off and use my own brain.

    That’s a good thing to do sometimes. Kids, you don’t need people on the internet to do all your thinking for you. God created you with a brain that can think on its own. Sometimes you have to step away from other voices and remember you can figure things out for yourself. It’s actually one of the best things you can do for your creativity.

    But, having said all that, I thought it was too bad there were hardly any tips for how to do this on the internet. So, I’m going to share my insights with you. Read on.

    My Process

    Being an extremely visual writer who for some reason always knows exactly what compass-point everything in a given scene is facing, I had a lot of very strong imagery in my head already. This process would probably be a lot longer if you needed to make a lot of character and setting design decisions before you started. I dived straight in without writing out a script or anything. I just started story-boarding the whole thing shot-by-shot like a movie.

    Don’t do it this way.

    It was getting really long and tedious.  I was many pages into my thumbnailing when it occurred to me that comics are not films. So, that’s my first tip.

    Tip #1 Comics are NOT Film Storyboards

    Comics are their own medium. It’s possible to use way too many panels to show an action. It can actually make the action more confusing. I also didn’t want to make this a 30-page project. This was my first time trying to complete a comic for public consumption. I wanted it to be manageable.

    So, I scrapped the thumbnails and started rethinking things. I needed to think about what parts on this first chapter of Dronefall One actually needed to be communicated. What could I make clear? What could I get a casual reader interested in without a lot of exposition?

    I ended up selecting two passages of text that would end up appearing on the pages. One was that iconic intro about the Blindworm and train-jumping. The other was the conversation my MC Halcyon and her friend Reveille have as Halcyon is making a run for it. Off of that, I could build my pages.

    Tip #2 Draw your thumbnails—worry about page layout later

    Now that I had the text to use as a framework, I started drawing new thumbnails. At first, they were just a string of rectangle panels. I didn’t bother thinking about layouts and different panel shapes or sizes until I knew what panels I actually needed to tell my story.

    By rethinking my thumbnails in a much less play-by-play progression, I flew through the thumbnailing process and was ready to move on to page layouts. 

    Tip #3 Decide how many pages you want to draw

    I managed to condense the whole of chapter one into eight pages. I was able to guesstimate the number by knowing about how many panels I would probably be able to fit on a page, and then starting to mark out potential page-breaks in the thumbnail sketches.

    Staying flexible at this stage is helpful. None of the panels were set in stone yet. A lot would shift around and evolve as I got into sketching my tentative layouts. I ended up dropping and combining a lot of panels. I wanted to stay sensitive to readability and composition in the sketching phase.

    Tip #4 Stay noncommittal in the early stages

    Comic art is more than just a string of pretty pictures. It’s about telling a story.

    Once I was satisfied with the layouts, the scary part began. This was also the point where I realized I was going to do the whole comic in traditional media—also a scary decision. I went out and bought the biggest pad of Bristol board I could find. I don’t know a lot about comics, but I do know you’re supposed to work much larger than your print-size. And with all the pictures within pictures in the medium, I knew I would still be getting into some pretty small details if I wasn’t careful.

    Tip #5 Work LARGE

    The original pages of this comic are 17inx14in (43.18cm x 35.56cm) and I almost wished they were bigger. Still, working even on that scale has its challenges. If you’re not an artist, you might not realize how distorted a large page is when you’re sitting at a desk. I had to stand up and look straight down at it to keep it from getting too skewed. An easel or drawing-board might have been helpful.

    Tip #6 Use a medium you’re comfortable with for your first comic

    Kind of a bonus tip. Also, I didn’t do this.

    I opted to use alcohol markers for this project. For the most part, I like how it turned out, but I felt a little panicky the whole time I was using them. They interacted strangely with graphite. (Which I used to sketch the pages out before inking with alcohol-based fine-liners.) They each blended a little differently. And boy, I sure used some of them up. We took a couple of emergency trips to Hobby Lobby to replenish them over the two weeks I was working on this.

    I was using the store-brand ones, luckily. But you know they still weren’t cheap. That’s the thing about alcohol markers.

    Anyway. Once I had inked and colored all eight pages and a cover, I photographed them with my phone, cropped and adjusted them, and popped them into Canva where I added the text. I could have hand-lettered the text on the physical pages, but I didn’t. Because I kinda forgot. I got in the zone.

    Tip #7 Leave room for your text boxes/speech bubbles

    Mine got a little crowded. This probably takes some practice to get right. But in the end, I think I ended up with a totally readable, and even kind of cool-looking comic that gives my readers an exciting taste of the world of Dronefall. That was my goal.

    I hope you got something out of this behind-the-scenes look at my comic-making process. I’m obviously a complete newbie, but I wanted to share my experience with other complete newbies out there who might be just as lost as I was at the beginning of the process. If you have any questions for me, please drop them in the comments, and I’ll be sure to answer them as best I can.

    Want to see the full comic?

    Download it when you join my email list. I try to send entertaining, inspiring emails every other week. I want to make your inbox a better place, so if that sounds like something you would appreciate, welcome to my exclusive café.

    Categories
    announcements

    Surprise Project Reveal!

    Well, I’ve been working obsessively again. I got an idea a while back and have been refining it for a long time in my head, but finally, two weeks ago, I started working on actually creating it.

    I wanted to make something cool for my future email subscribers. Since I don’t use social media, my email list has become a top priority. I wanted to give you something you couldn’t find anywhere else—something unique to me and my skillset as well as my story-world. So, I started scheming up what I think is a perfect gift for readers or potential readers of the Dronefall Series.

    Has the pop-up interrupted me yet? Yep, that’s it. I created a comic adaptation for the first chapter of the first book in the Dronefall Series.

    Read the Comic

    I’ve got a dedicated landing page for it, too. If you check the menu and click on “Free Comic” it will take you there. The comic is 8 pages long (plus a cover and a bonus page at the end.) I drew the whole thing traditionally using alcohol markers in a manga-like grayscale. I’m still gun-shy about full-color. Alcohol markers are a new medium for me.

    I’m going to do a post on my whole process for adapting and creating the comic, so you’ll get more details on that, shortly. In the meantime, I’m really excited to share this rather unusual teaser with you. I’m a visual person, and I’ve always had very strong imagery in my head while writing Dronefall. This is a chance for you to get a uniquely visual introduction to my story in a way few authors could replicate. My lifelong love of sequential art made me do it. You’re welcome. *rubs migraine-glitter out of eyes*

    So, that was kind of intense. Especially coming right off finishing the Dronefall One rewrite. I finished that, by the way. I want to get it re-released toward the end of July. Another reason you need to subscribe to my newsletter is so you can know what’s going on with my crazy release schedule this summer. Book Five will be out soon as well. Six…hopefully early Fall.

    What about the blog?

    Where does it come in in the middle of all this chaos? I’ve got a few older unreleased stories I want to serialize—two of which I guess aren’t really unreleased. I’m going to post the two stories that were formerly exclusive to the “Secret Library,” which I took down in favor of something more streamlined. There’s another one, too. That should keep the blog active until Dronefall One relaunches.

    Anyway, thanks for waiting for me! I hope you enjoy the comic. And the subsequent newsletter. I’m putting a lot of effort into making my emails actually enjoyable to read. None of this sales-pitch after sales-pitch stuff a lot of email lists do. I’ll send you art and pictures and stuff. It will be worth it, I promise.

    P.S. Some of you faithful readers might wonder what’s going to happen to my Dreamscape, IN serial here on the blog. Well, I realized it was developing more of a plot than I wanted it to have. I think that was because I was trying to make it a regular series on a regular posting schedule. It’s supposed to be all vibes with multiple diffuse plot-threads that break off and pick up and fade out again. So, I’m going to try dropping an episode whenever I feel like it without warning instead.

    Anyway.

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