Adventure Beyond the Stars – Written for Readers Who Want More

Tag: Update

  • Week of April 28, 2025

    Week of April 28, 2025

    I’m going to try and blog at least once a week. I’m not going to go back and try to figure out all the cool stuff I’ve learned since Mirim got a cover, but here is some stuff that happened in the last week or so. Just a note, I’m currently writing in chapter 13 of Antarctic Honeymoon and the word count (including outline and notes) is 26,487.

    I decided to change the order of the stories so it would make a little more sense. Moving Antarctic Honeymoon up to Book 3 and Forging the Chain Breakers to Book 4. Current Order (although there is no promise some of these books will even be written):

    1: Artemis Rising – Published
    2: Mirim for the WIN – Editing scheduled for June
    3: Antarctic Honeymoon – Writing
    4: Forging the Chain Breakers – Writing suspended
    5: Selene Unchained
    6: Phoenix Goes To Mars
    7: Secrets of Kilimanjaro
    8: Secrets of the Sphinx
    9: Return to Mars
    10: Fish People of the Amazon
    Floating Cities of Venus
    Mountains of Madness
    Secrets of Ceres
    Bombing Iapetus
    War of the Worlds
    War in Heaven
    Emory Upton in Mexico

    I plan to write a travelogue for Walter & Eleanor’s Galveston with illustrations of various buildings that are either significant, or that have a role in the stories. I’m not sure if I’ll publish it for grins and giggles. Amazon makes such projects easy.

    Some things I learned recently in my research for the stories. 15 Union Square West is the location of the headquarters of Tiffany & Co in 1891. It was a pretty cool building and the story of Tiffany’s is pretty cool too.

    George Frederick Kunz was a huge figure in transforming how Americans in general and people in particular viewed gems and jewelry during the late 19th Century. His story is fascinating and he would probably be who Bill Armstrong contacts to sell the Selenite gemstones. The fact that in 1891 he goes on an expedition to Russia to explore gem mines in the Urals means that the plans of the protagonists in Antarctic Honeymoon take a radical turn.

    I’ve been looking for a Botanist for the expedition to Antarctica, and discovered, much to my delight, that possibly my favorite botanist of all time can, with just a bit of historical massaging, be graduating with his Master’s degree from the University of Arkansas in Little Rock. A young George Washington Carver will be going with the expedition to Antarctica. I’m just going to have to figure out if I want him to continue work on liftwood on Earth, do his magic with peanuts, or something in between.

    I also discovered that Egypt was a very interesting place in the 1890’s. It was ruled by Mohamed Tewfik, the Pasha of the Khedivate of Egypt. So Egypt was technically part of the Ottoman Empire, effectively its own monarchy, and under the effective control of the British Empire. Yeah – it was a weird situation…

    Progress this week:
    Complete revision of first 11 chapters of Antarctic Honeymoon
    12: A Preacher, A Feminist, and A Sorceress Go To Tea…
    13: 15 Union Square West
    14: Breakfast At Tiffany’s
    16: Dinner At Delmonico’s

    If you want to be a beta reader and comment on these chapters, write a nice review for Artemis Rising on Amazon or Goodreads, and email me that you’ve done it.

    That’s enough for now. I’m planning on another post like this next week.

  • Mirim Has a Cover

    Mirim Has a Cover

    Mirim for the WIN, the second book in the Victorian Interplanetary series, is ready for editing and has a cover now. If you would like to be a beta reader and get your 2 cents worth in before it goes to Sandra (my editor) in June, leave a nice review for Artemis Rising on Amazon and email me to let me know at malcolm@malcolmupton.com

  • More Progess Online

    More Progess Online

    I have a website domain name, malcolmupton.com, an email for my fan list, malcolm@malcolmupton.com, and a MailChimp account to manage my mailing list. They aren’t all hooked together yet, but the Nrdly folks are working on it.

    Since they are working on the IT stuff, I guess that means I can write some more… as soon as I get some jam labeled…

  • Editing Started Today

    Editing Started Today

    Today is the official start for Sandra to edit Artemis Rising. I uploaded the manuscript Saturday, as nervous as before I go onstage to speak. Unfortunately, I can’t turn that nervousness into energy onstage – it takes the same amount of energy to depress the keys whether I’m nervous or not. I am looking forward to the feedback. From what Sandra has told me so far based on the 3000 word sample I gave her, what I’ve heard from my beta readers, and what I’ve picked up about story telling, I suspect I have good story bones.

    I’m not sure if I will be disappointed or relieved if there isn’t anything major. No matter what, it is beginning to look like the book I’m currently working on, Selene Unchained, may need to be split into more than one. I always knew that the story of the Selenite Revolution (Selene Unchained) and the continuing story of Walter and Eleanor’s adventures (Secrets of Kilimanjaro) were going to be separate books. But Selene Unchained, that started with the arrival of Artemis from the moon before dawn on Friday, is already at more than 50k words, and it is only late Tuesday afternoon.

    Maybe I’ll need to split the story of the development of the political and military materials necessary for the revolution (Selene Unchained) from the social tour-de-force introduction of the Selenites to Earth society in general, Galveston and the Presidents’ Council in particular. I could always call that one Mirim for the WIN…

  • Artemis Rising Cover Complete

    Artemis Rising Cover Complete

    I have taken delivery of the final version of the cover for Artemis Rising. Someone suggested that GetCovers.com could put together a cover for me for a very reasonable price. They were limited to photoshopping stock photos for the cover, no original artwork, but there are probably billions of stock photos available now days. Between what I’ve learned from Nick in the First 10k Readers program and the fact that they specialize in covers, I think it came out very good. All of the review team that commented on the final version liked it and my editor, Sandra, really liked it. I think it will do its job well.

  • Marketing Education

    Marketing Education

    One of the major differences between my effort to publish Artemis Rising and my effort to publish Seven Into Darkness is that I understand how important marketing your book is to its financial success. With more than 300 million people, any competently written novel will have an audience. the difference between financial success and failure as an author is 1) do you get your novel looked over by a good editor and 2) does your target market know your book exist? The second is enabled by good marketing.

    I have been connected to an author and teacher of author marketing by the name of Nick Stephenson. He went from part-time income from his books to $1m a year using the methods he teaches in his ‘Your First 10k Readers‘ program. Unsurprisingly, it is all direct-response marketing. That means I could probably have figured it all out myself, after all, Silver Bullet Marketing is a book about direct-response marketing as well. But instead of taking a year, probably a lot more considering that I’m working on a shoestring right now, to figure things out, I can just learn from the mistakes (and triumphs) of others. Don’t have to spend time making them all myself…

  • Editor Chosen

    Editor Chosen

    I’m pleased to announce that Artemis Rising has an editor. Sandra Herner will begin editing my manuscript on or about February 18. The fact that it is so far out is just an indication of the level of demand for her expertise. I am confident that she will help Artemis Rising become both an excellent story, and everything it needs to be to be a financial success.

  • Victorian Interplanetary

    Victorian Interplanetary

    Telling Stories Again

    I’ve decided not only to start telling stories again, but to do it in my own setting instead of a fan fiction/crossover in someone else’s world. I won’t throw away the notes and ideas for the Harry Potter/Jack Ryan crossover, but I’m too excited by the potential stories in the Victorian Interplanetary setting instead.

    There are several premises I’m using to inform the worldbuilding on this, and I am trying to do enough worldbuilding that I don’t write myself into a corner. I think that is kind of what happened with J K Rowling’s Harry Potter series. She did only enough world building to serve the story line at that time. I perfectly understand why. When she started out, she was scratching out time to write while trying to make a living – not conducive to spending a lot of time worldbuilding, especially if you are new to the idea.

    On the other hand, I’ve done worldbuilding for numerous RPG campaigns in several different genres, and built on the RPG campaign worldbuilding, whether well done or not, for several others. I’ve also played in numerous campaigns that others gamemastered. Some of them had good worldbuilding, some had horrible worldbuilding, some took decent published worldbuilding and built on it, some took decent published worldbuilding and broke it anyway. I’ve even seen gamemasters that took a campaign with decent worldbuilding that they then threw out any pieces that didn’t fit, and made something better.

    All that to say, I’m going to try to put together a setting with good worldbuilding. Worldbuilding that supports the story I’m working on, while minimizing the constraints on other stories that might be told later (sequel, prequel, or taking place at the same time in another part of the solar system). We’ll see where that goes…

    Enough about what I’m trying to do. The next few posts include some of the elements of the worldbuilding in this setting.