Whit McClendon's Blog, page 3

Hey, folks!  Honestly, I need to write here much more often.  So much is going on that I should write about, but I don't write about it because so much is going on!  Sheesh!  The holidays are upon us, so there's all of that rigamarole to be dealt with, plus all the usual day-to-day of running a martial arts school, plus writing as much as possible...yes, it's crazy busy up in here.In November, I participated in NaNoWriMo for the first time, and although I didn't reach the goal of 50,000 words by the end of the month, I did manage to get around 32K words into a new fantasy, GrimFaerie.  It's an Urban Fantasy set here in the Houston area.  I'm having a lot of fun with it, though I decided to put it aside here for the last couple of weeks and work on something else.  What is that project, you ask?  It's a new book!!Short Workouts for Beginners: Get Healthier and Stronger at Home (Book 1 of the Jade Mountain Workout Series).  It's available for Kindle right now at only $2.99 or FREE on Kindle Unlimited, and the paperback version will be out right after Christmas (just in time for the new year)!I've worked with adults for 13 years, teaching them how to exercise safely and properly, create a doable workout routine, and improve their health.  Although I'm a martial arts instructor, this is not a martial arts book; it's geared for beginners who need a place to start and need a clear plan they can follow at home.  In it, I demonstrate some basic exercises (links to videos included) and outline some simple workouts that have worked for my students over the years.    ClickHEREto check it out on Amazon!Now that I've got that out of the way, I can get back to GrimFaerie...or maybe a book on Kettlebell Training, I'm still deciding.  ;-)  In any event, here's a blurb and a teaser for GrimFaerie:"Not all of the Faerie are sweet little Pixies.  There are a few who do the dirty work on the side of the Light, those of fang and claw and abilities far beyond those of the mere mortals they walk alongside.  They are known as GrimFaeries.  If you are evil enough to try to tip the balance towards the Dark side, you might just get a visit from one.  And they won't be leaving a coin under your pillow."GrimFaerieChapter 1“Great power brings great responsibility.”  That’s a little something that I read from a character called Spider-Man some years ago.  It seems that every so often, somebody remembers something obvious and puts it in print for everyone to ooh and ah over.  As for me, I’d known this little fact of life for a particularly long time, and my belief in its truth often had me skulking through the darkest, most dangerous parts of the city in the wee hours of the morning, usually in search of a very evil son of a bitch.This time was no different.  It had been brought to my attention that another killer was loose in our city, and it was time for me to do something about it.  Oh, I can hear you now, “But there are killings all the time!”Well, you are right.  People die or get killed quite often around here.  People kill each other right and left, and I don’t lift a finger.  Innocents are murdered for their sneakers, and street thugs kill each other by the dozens.  People die of neglect, disease, car wrecks, and though I admit that it occasionally pains me to hear of such things, I don’t walk the streets at night in an attempt to avert those deaths.But this particular killer was different.  These recent deaths were the work of a single man, one very sick, twisted, and evil individual who brutalized and murdered young women.  Now THIS I can do something about.  And I would be only too glad to take care of the bastard.  Sometimes, humans need a few bad genes removed from the old pool.  That’s what I do sometimes.  My unique talents assist me pretty well in such removals.Hearing all this, some might ask if I think I’m God.  ‘What right do you have to choose who dies and who lives?  What makes you so special?’  Well, I certainly do not think of myself as God, though I have a lot of his/her power within me.  And I actually have far more right to kill than psychos like this one, considering the evil nature of my targets.  What goes around comes around.  That’s a universal law, baby.  Most folks would just depend on fate to take care of such karmic debts.  Well, just who do you think that ‘fate’ calls on to tend to business?  I’m a bit special, you could say.I am of the Faerie, and though I usually look, walk, talk, and even occasionally think like a man, I am actually far from being human.  And don’t ever mistake me for one of those cute little winged pixies that flit about and sprinkle shiny dust all over the place.  I’m just not that kind of Faerie.I’m the kind that had your ancestors bolting their doors and cowering in their homes at night.  I’m the kind that caused unwary travelers to disappear in the deepest of our forests without a trace.  Seeing me at work is usually enough to send people to years of therapy, and I’ve heard that their nightmares never go away.....

It's done.  The story that popped into my head over 20 years ago has finally been told, all three books are written, and the trilogy is available on Amazon.com. I've got paperback copies on their way, and I know that I still won't feel that solid sense of completion until I can hold all three books in hand.  Wow.  I'm excited!  I want to thank all the folks who supported me all this time, and everyone who's ever bought, borrowed, and read any bit of my work.  I'm deeply grateful.In other news, the radio show is today! I'll be talking about my books with the amazing Dellani Oakes at 3pm Texas time. Right after me, my lifelong friend Brian D. Briscoe will be talking about his own books, "Juke," and "The Conflict Etiquette Handbook," and then author, Gary D Henry, who's written a ton of stuff. It's always fun, and you can ask questions on the chat function while we jabber away!I'll be reading from A Mage Awakens: Book 3 of the Jidaan Trilogy.  Brian is supposed to as well, but he went and got laryngitis, so keep your fingers crossed that he'll not sound like a stepped-on frog this afternoon.Just click the image below and you'll go to the proper page.Did I mention that I'm thinking of becoming a Pro Wrestler?

Hey, folks!  Wow, so much is going on!! It's been so long since I've posted, and so much has happened, I don't know that I can effectively summarize it all. I'll try and cover a few major points, and that will have to do.Book 3, A Mage Awakens, is finally ready. Like seriously ready. It could drop at any moment (though I'm thinking next Monday). This book took the least time to write of any of the three in the series, but still took longer than Book 2, Gart's Road, to publish because I had a lot of trouble deciding on the cover scene. I'm pretty happy with the story, though. I hope my readers enjoy it!I'll keep everyone posted. Keep an eye out here, or you can find me onFacebookfor the final details on the release of A Mage Awakens: Book 3 of the Fire of the Jidaan Trilogy.Also, I'll be on Red River Radio next week, on Wednesday, November 23rd! Here's the info:Red River Radio What’s Write for Me with Dellani Oakes Presents, Whit McClendon, author of “The Fire of the Jidaan Trilogy” Join us for a fun filled afternoon starting at 3 PM/CT. Whit will be on from 3:00p to 3:40p. Brian Briscoe, author of “The Conflict Etiquette Handbook” The Art of Behaving Well in the Midst of Conflict will be on from 3:40p to 4:20p. And Gary D. Henry, author of "In the Manor of Heather Black", "Falling Waters", "Witchwoods" and many more will be on from 4:20p to 5:00p. As always, dust off your speakers, kick back with your favorite beverage and enjoy the show!Just click on the link below and have a listen.http://www.blogtalkradio.com/rrradio/2016/11/23/red-river-radio-presents-whats-write-for-me-with-brian-gary-and-whitI'll be reading from Book 3, and I'll be available on the RRR chat box during the show as well. Stop on by!

The first round of edits on A Mage Awakens is complete!  Special thanks to my proofreader, the amazing Michelle McClish, for helping me smooth out the final part of the tale.  And yes, Michelle, I promise to limit my use of the word 'horde' from now on.My next step is the 'read-aloud' edit.  I'll be reprinting the whole thing and reading it out loud to myself, editing pens in hand.  Anything that strikes me oddly gets marked up and fixed.  You'd be surprised at the stuff that sounds perfectly right every time you read it silently, but the moment the words leave your mouth, you catch something that's off.  Dennis L McKiernan told me about that trick a long time ago, and I'm happy to say that it still works wonderfully.  Anyway, I like to try to do this last round in as few sessions as possible so that I keep a better amount of continuity in my reading, so I'm hoping to put in a decent chunk of time in on it this coming week.As you might expect, I'm pretty excited about this book.  I really had a ton of fun writing it, and I think it's the best of the series.  In any event, I hope that you, dear readers, enjoy it!Once I get this one on the shelves, so to speak, I'll be working on something new.  "Something different?" you ask?  Well, I'm not sure.  Although I have several other story ideas on my laptop, I also have another story set in the world of Talwynn about 20 years after the events of books 1 through 3.  Some of the other ideas include modern fantasies such as a ghost story, a tale of faerie, a werewolf story, a witchhunter story, and a couple of others.  Since they are all interesting to me, I'd be interested to hear from any of you out there.  What would you like to see next?

The editing for Book 3, A Mage Awakens, is in progress!  I'm currently on chapter 35, and just finished tweaking one of the final chapters as well.  That one didn't feel quite right, but I think it's ready now.  Preliminary sketches for cover art are underway as well. After this first round of edits are over, then I'll be printing the whole thing and reading it aloud to be sure that it sounds good, then making the final round of edits after that. Wow, it's been such an adventure!In addition to this, I've also begun a short story that stars Layton.  He's the young warrior known as the Weaponsmaster throughout the Realm.  I started seeing a scene in which he was undergoing training in the far east, and thought it might be a fun tale to tell.  I'm still deciding whether to post it here and keep it to myself for now.  I'm open to suggestions!While I was going over stuff on my laptop today, I stumbled across an interview by the amazing Toni Betzner back in 2015.  I thought someone might be interested, so here you go!My Write of Passage BlogRemind me to tell y'all about my intro to pro wrestling sometime.  It was fun!

I.  Had.  A.  BLAST!  Although there were some shenanigans regarding the promoter skipping out with the cash that was supposed to go to the Sons of Anarchy stars, my friends, family, and I all had a really great time out there.  I didn't sell out of all my books this time, but I learned a lot and had the chance to talk to quite a few folks.  A few of them were fans!  Some had bought, read, and enjoyed Mage's Burden during this same convention last year and they were quite vocal about their excitement and eagerness to pick up Gart's Road!  Woo hoooo!  It's so gratifying to talk to folks who've enjoyed my work.There were quite a few stars I wanted to meet this time, and they were all very nice.  My favorites were Sandahl Bergman and Adrian Paul.  We came away from talking with them and felt that we were friends, not fans.  Others we met were Hacksaw Jim Duggan, Sam J Jones, Marina Sirtis, Brent Spiner, Danny Trejo, and Ron Perlman.  If you like sci-fi/fantasy (if you're reading this blog, then you probably do), then I strongly suggest that you go to a convention like this.  Save up for it, meet your favorite stars, and have some fun.  You won't regret it!I finished another chapter in A Mage Awakens today, which means there are approximately 6 chapters left.  Could be more, but that's my best guess just now.  I'm still shooting for the end of June.  Admittedly, I've been wrong about my estimates before, but I'm feeling good about this.  Really.