The Fall (Guardians, #2)

The second book in my epic fantasy series, Guardians & The Lost Paradise, is out now. It went live on Amazon a few hours ago:

Amazon US | Amazon UK

As usual, you can head over to www.the-lost-paradise.com for more information on The Fall, where you can join the mailing list so you'd receive this announcement type posts without having to visit the blog. Or, you know, just to take a look at the shiny new slide I just put up for it. ;)

To celebrate the new release and show appreciation to all those that helped make it possible, I have serialized the first book in its entirety on Wattpad. For those of you who don't know, Wattpad is an online repository of sorts where writers can share their stories with readers for free. That's right. For free.

Why have I done this? Well, Wattpad seems like the perfect home for my book. It's open to any kind of writing, but it seems to lean towards young adult fiction, as most of the users fall under the teenage demographic. The Journey started off as middle grade fiction, before morphing and becoming more Pan's Labyrinth than Chronicles of Narnia. So the whole thing just seems to make sense.

Will I be serializing subsequent books in the series? I seriously doubt it. It was a real chore getting the first book up, so much so that I don't really see myself going through all that again. At least not anytime soon. But only time would tell. I know for certain that I'll be serializing The Morning Star though, a short story prequel to the series I wrote for a writing competition back in June. So there's that to look forward to as well.

P.S: Happy Birthday, mum!

The Mediator is Free

That's right. I am presently running a free promotion on Amazon, for the first book of my science-fiction series, Neuro. The promo runs until the 22nd of August, 2012, and is in celebration of the book's recently-revamped cover. So snag a copy while you can, and do not hesitate to spread the love. ;)

Amazon US | Amazon UK

P.S: The internet over here has been really poor these past couple of days, preventing me from spending as much time on the blogosphere as I normally do. Hopefully, things would get sorted out over at the ISP soon.

P.P.S: The second book of my epic fantasy series, Guardians & The Lost Paradise, is almost here. Head over to the Facebook page for a sneak peek at its cover.

What Was Your Childhood Monster?

I'd been stumbling across this blogfest on several blogs these past three days, and so I finally decided to give it a shot as well. It was started by Christine Rains, in celebration of her newly-released paranormal romance, Fearless. Participants are expected to write a post discussing their childhood monsters, and this right here is mine.

My childhood was spent in constant fear of one thing or the other. That was most likely due to the prevalence of horror movies on local television. Ironically though, my childhood monster wasn't from an actual horror movie. It was from the 1984 epic fantasy movie, The NeverEnding Story.

There was a particular scene, where Atreyu (the hero) had to pass through some kind of gateway, which was really just the road between a pair of sphinxes facing one another. The problem was that those sphinxes had a rather nasty habit whereby they'd vaporize all travellers on the spot, complete with cheesy 80s special effects. Only those who were deemed worthy were allowed to pass, or something like that.

I must have seen the movie about a gazillion times as a kid, but each time I watched Atreyu approach those sphinxes, it was with the same level of dread I felt on my first viewing. Still, The NeverEnding Story was one of the first fantasy films I completely fell in love with. It's been about 20 years since my last viewing, so I guess I really need to revisit Fantasia.

The Journey (Guardians, #1)

The Journey begins. Actually, it began about a week ago, on the 31st of July. But I'd delayed this announcement so I could iron out a few formatting issues, amongst other things. Everything seems to be reasonably okay at the moment, so I guess it's time to let the cat out of the bag.

In case you haven't been following its progress over the last couple of months, this is the first book in an epic fantasy series called Guardians & The Lost Paradise. In it I attempt to tackle the mystery of what awaits us on "The Other Side." But there are a few facts that need clarifying before I go any further.

First off, the book is NOT an 800-page monster like most epic fantasy books out there. It is actually the length of a novella, and can be comfortably read in one sitting. After a rather ruthless round of editing, the final word count is just a bit over 20,000 words. Secondly, it was written with a Christian worldview (i.e. in which God created the heavens and earth). Lastly, it ends with a major twist and a cliffhanger to boot.

So, there, I said it.

To find out more, you can visit www.the-lost-paradise.com, from where you can also join the mailing list. That way you'll receive an e-mail notification whenever subsequent books in the series become available. Alternatively, you can snag a copy directly from Amazon: click here if you live in the US, and here if you live in the UK.

It has been six years in the making. I really hope you enjoy reading it.

The Insecure Writer's Support Group

Can someone please tell me where the last four weeks went? I mean, has it really been one month since the last round of IWSG posts? It has!? Wow. Okay. I'm officially freaked out now.

Unfortunately, I am also strapped for time (and sleep) at the moment. Funny how trying to self-publish six books in six months, right after running a month-long crowdfunding campaign, can take such a toll. I wish I could get my hands on one of those Time-Turners. But it seems Hermione snagged the very last one. Well, at least I'd managed to express all that is currently going on in this other post. It would be rather counterproductive to regurgitate the very same facts here again. Besides, I am this close to passing out in front of the keyboard.

Apologies. Would try to do better next month. Hopefully.