Merry Christmas!

May you have a joyous holiday season with your family and friends. Thank you for your encouragement and support in 2013.

For those who are anxiously awaiting my third book in The Orphan Ship trilogy, I promise I will be back to serious writing after my son's wedding on January 4th. Life is good.

A short excerpt from the final book in The Orphan Ship trilogy: The Last Orphan

            “Zuri!”

            Even from this distance, Blaze recognized the scream as Shima’s. The response was instantaneous -- the night was shattered with the crack crack crack of gunfire.

            York cursed and leapt to his feet. “Stay down, Smith!”

            Blaze heard a metallic click, followed by the deafening blast of a military-grade pistol. York added his deadly contribution to the raging firefight on and around the factory grounds. Blaze hoped the ISPP captain’s split-second pauses between each trigger pull were evidence that he was aiming, and not just blasting anything that moved.           

            Empty bullet casings rained down on Blaze from York’s hand-held cannon. The engineer didn’t like feeling helpless and scared. Random screams from the factory grounds made his skin crawl. Blaze prayed that none of those screams were Shima’s. He extended an arm and picked up the binoculars, quickly wiping dirt from the lenses.

            Blaze heard York move off a few steps, pausing only two seconds to reload his pistol with a fresh magazine. “Begin sweep now!” The Captain shouted orders to his teams on his earcom. “We’re moving up the raids! Repeat -- begin sweep now!”  

            I have to see! Blaze’s heart was pounding against his ribs. I just have to see if Shima . . . he felt cold, despite the warm night air . . . if she’s been . . . he couldn’t finish the thought. He rose to his elbows and lifted the binoculars to his eyes. 

Like Me on Facebook!

https://www.facebook.com/pages/Sterling-R-Walker/618714678155317

I'm always happy to answer emails, too. SterlingRWalker@yahoo.com. Send me a message if you'd like a signed copy of my book(s), and I'll throw in free shipping for the month of November. In paperback, only $10 each. Makes a great Christmas present for teens to adults.

Also be sure to check Amazon.com for more new young adult books by my fellow local authors, Tamara Ward (mystery) http://www.amazon.com/Hidden-Betrayal-Jade-OReilly-Mystery/dp/1484017900/ref=tmm_pap_title_0?ie=UTF8&qid=1383674598&sr=1-1 

and J. Lloyd Morgan (fantasy) http://www.amazon.com/Zealous-Star-Bariwon-Chronicles/dp/0988633051/ref=sr_1_3?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1383674673&sr=1-3&keywords=j.+lloyd+morgan

It's Thanksgiving all month long

I have a tradition of using November as a time to reflect on the people and things I am thankful for. I find it's a nice mental break from the daily insanity, and puts life into perspective. The happiest people I know -- you know the ones I mean, the ones who practically glow because they're so upbeat -- are grateful people. Their lives may be difficult, but they always see the glass half full. For someone like me who tends to be cynical (yes, really!), a month to reflect and see the bright side of life is a way to nurture my soul. This doesn't come naturally for me; I have to work hard to have an "attitude of gratitude." I should actually do this several times a year, but I usually don't think about it until I turn the calendar to November.

I have so much to be grateful for, so many blessings in my life I probably don't deserve. There are too many to list (without putting you to sleep, at least) so I will try to post to my blog more often this month so I can share a few of them.

I am thankful for my Savior Jesus Christ. I'm thankful for my husband of 25 years, and for my six amazing children -- four birth sons and two adopted daughters. And I'm excited to be gaining a daughter-in-law and a grandson in January when my oldest son gets married. I am thankful to live in a free country. Being extremely political, I'll spare you an essay on the Constitution and Bill of Rights (although everyone should take the time to read and understand them). I'm thankful to be healthy, educated, and financially stable, thanks to my husband's job which allows me to stay at home with our kids and write as much as I want.

Join me in practicing an attitude of gratitude this month, and thanks for reading.

The Lost Sheep in paperback on Amazon.com!

The Lost Sheep is available from Amazon.com for $10.40.
And on Kindle for $2.99.

You can also get The Orphan Ship from Amazon.com for $10.40.
And on Kindle for only .99!

I'm still offering free copies of The Lost Sheep for anyone who writes a review of The Orphan Ship on Amazon.com or Goodreads.com! Offer ends October 25th. Send me an email with your snail mail address if you write a review: sterlingrwalker@yahoo.com.

The Lost Sheep is now on Kindle!

I'm pleased to announce that the Kindle version of The Lost Sheep will be ready to download on Monday, Sept. 23, for only $2.99. The Orphan Ship is now available on Kindle for .99!

Status on the release of The Lost Sheep

I've been away too long! My apologies. I have a son getting married in December and a major addition taking place on my house, so I've been a bit distracted. My plan is still to release The Lost Sheep this year, preferably this month. I've taken it apart and am doing some major revisions to the manuscript. I felt that it needed faster pacing in places, more excitement. I promise it will be worth the wait!

Independence Day -- because Freedom Isn't Free

I'm pleased to announce that The Orphan Ship is available on Amazon and Amazon Kindle -- just click on the links on the right side of this page to go directly to the site. The Lost Sheep is almost ready for publication. The cover art (thank you, Nathaniel) and editing is done. I'll be at Holden Beach, NC, with the family next week -- no internet connection -- so The Lost Sheep will be on Kindle the week afterwards. Hopefully the book will be available by the end of the month.

Meanwhile, I'm writing the final book in the trilogy, tentatively entitled The Last Orphan. I'm still miffed that I somehow managed to misplace my plot outline for the book -- I'm usually very organized -- and now have to try and piece it together by memory. The bad news is that my memory isn't very good, but the good news is that the story will probably take on some new twists and turns if I don't have a plot outline! I figure by chapter five I'll have to sit down and plot out the rest of the book. Never fear, the trilogy will have a satisfactory conclusion with all the loose ends pulled together. I hope.

My mini-soapbox speech: freedom isn't free. Let's never take for granted our 1st Amendment rights to free speech and freedom of the press. We are very blessed to live in a nation where we have access to millions of books; our choices are unlimited. Next time you visit a public library, think of how wonderful it is to have a wealth of knowledge, entertainment, and adventure at your fingertips. Without the 1st Amendment, our choices of reading material would be severely limited to what the higher-ups think is 'appropriate' for us, which means millions of books would be banned and/or burned, just like in Nazi Germany. Without the 1st Amendment, we would also have limits to what we can read online. This is a reality now for those who live in China. They have limited access to social media -- Facebook or blogs -- and the news that's published is strictly controlled by the Communist regime.

As an author, I'm grateful for the freedom to write whatever I can imagine. I am grateful for the vivid imaginations of the brilliant authors that came before me. A world without Twain or Tolkien or Tan, Dahl or Rowling or Suess, would be very dull. So what are you doing on here? Log off and go read a book!

The Orphan Ship on Amazon.com next week!

Thanks to the genius of Createspace, I'm re-publishing The Orphan Ship. You'll be able to order copies of the book on Amazon.com for $10.95. Kindle downloads are only $3.99. Thank you to fellow author Tamara Ward for helping me format the manuscript, and thanks to my friend Cindy Harrison for helping me with the cover layout. The cover art is by my talented son Nathaniel. He's currently painting the cover for my next book, The Lost Sheep, which is in my editor's capable hands right now. I think it's on schedule to be released on Kindle by mid-June.

I'm also pleased to announce that The Orphan Ship will be showcased at Printer's Row Literary Festival in Chicago in June, courtesy of Children's Literary Classics. The Orphan Ship was awarded a silver medal from CLC in 2012. I'm honored to have my work recognized at this huge book event.

On an unrelated note, I was thrilled to receive a reply to the email I sent to author Mike Shepherd. For those of you who don't spend every waking minute in the library like I do, Mike is the author of the bestselling Kris Longknife series. In my email, I asked him for some advice on publicity, and he said he would answer it in detail in his blog at www.mikeshepherd.org. I will share it here, with his permission.

The Orphan Ship now exclusively on Amazon/Kindle

With a lot of technical assistance from fellow author Tamara Ward, I published The Orphan Ship on Kindle; it will be available exclusively from Amazon for the next three months. Only $3.99, but keep an eye on my blog because I will have it available free for a few days in July.

The Lost Sheep, if there are no major snags, will also be on Kindle this summer.

I'm still revising!

I'm getting sick of my laptop! But I hope to have The Lost Sheep out on eBooks by @June.

Holly Springs Cultural Arts Festival

Please join me and other local authors and artists at the Holly Springs Cultural Arts Festival this week, Tuesday - Friday from 4:00 - 9:00 pm; Saturday from 10:00 - 4:00 pm. There will be free writing and art workshops offered all week, and lots of activities for the kids, so bring the whole family and drop in anytime. Location: Holly Springs, NC, Library-Cultural Arts Center, just behind the Town Hall on Main St. (It's a very small town and easy to find!)
I will be on an author Q&A panel on Saturday from 2:00 - 4:00 pm, if you have any burning questions about writing or publishing, and The Orphan Ship will be on sale, of course, all week, for $15. I hope to see you there!

Happy 2013!

I'm nearly done with the rough draft of The Lost Sheep, the sequel to The Orphan Ship, but I'm sure revisions will take several months. I hope to get started on the third book (it will be a trilogy) that I haven't chosen a name for yet. For those of you who have been asking for the next book, I'm sorry to say that you'll have to wait until 2014 for the next two books. I have to wait until my publishing contract expires in January '14 so I can release the trilogy with a new publisher. (A new publisher won't consider books 2 and 3 unless he/she can also have the rights to The Orphan Ship.) Sorry for the wait, but I hope it will be worth it!

Meanwhile, The Orphan Ship is still available for order from the sites on the right hand side of the screen. Or, if you live in the Raleigh, NC area, you can buy a signed copy directly from me for $15. Email me if you're interested: SterlingRWalker@yahoo.com. I will try to post to my blog more often this year, and hopefully share more than just my writing updates -- boring, I know.

Happy New Year!