This Blog is Moving!

Take note, friends. This blog is moving!

Also, this is an update of the original post about the blog moving. (August 26, 2015)

First, the important information! Head over to Jonathan Fesmire's Blog, now hosted directly on my website.

Why the change?

My site, Jonathan Fesmire, Author, is hosted at Wix. Back in May, I discovered that Wix has its own excellent blog platform, which allowed me to start blogging there. The one thing it didn't have was a way to import the contents of this blog. So, it simply continues where this left off.

I have also added quite a bit to it. I've been interviewing steampunk cosplayers, and plan to interview makers, authors, artists, and others involved in the genre. As always, I discuss the development of Bodsious Creed and many things related to steampunk, writing, and fantasy.

If you want even more content, you can subscribe to my newsletter! Each contains something extra not found in the blog. Simply click over to the blog and subscribe.

Again, the continuation of this blog now lives here!

I know you're not dumb! I just wanted to make that eye-catching.

Thanks for reading, and please check out and bookmark the new link!

Fantastic "Game of Thrones" Bluegrass Cover

I count myself lucky that I found this link via a Facebook posting today.

Samuraiguitarist on YouTube takes the theme song from Game of Thrones and makes it so incredibly Wild West, so incredibly Steampunk, that how could I not share it here? I started listening and just heard Bodacious Creed all over it. I may have to listen to this as I write, make it part of a playlist, to continually inspire me. I'm almost sorry that Game of Thrones already has this awesome theme. (Not really. I love Game of Thrones. I've read all the books and seen every episode.)

So, here it is! I hope it gets samuraiguitarist a ton of new subscribers!

3D Printing: Not Exact Science

I'm glad people enjoyed my El Tiburon digital sculpture that I shared in the last blog! I posted the image to several Steampunk groups and a Western group on Facebook and received lots of likes and some nice comments.

Yesterday, I did my best to 3D print it on my Cube 3 printer. I had the software itself generate the supports. In 3D extrusion printing, the print nozzles lay down one thin layer of plastic at a time, and each layer builds on the last. Thanks to gravity, everything has to be supported, especially objects that have nothing underneath them, hence the removable supports.

Everything went great until it got to his hands, which mysteriously had no supports, so they came out as ugly strings of plastic.

For reference, here's the character sheet of the digital model, from Zbrush.

Here's how the print turned out, with most of the supports removed. (Note that I printed the figure in blue, and the supports in neon green, so it would be easier to see what needed to be removed.)

Aside from the missing hands, it was coming out well. Even the sarape was thick enough to print nicely.

I'm not sure that my printer will be able to do this model, but I'm working on it.

Autodesk MeshMixer is free software that can fix minor problems in 3D print files, and adds outstanding supports. MeshMixer supports don't rise straight up from the print base, but branch out from parts of the model to support other parts. In fact, they look like branches. Here's what the digital model looks like with MeshMixer supports.

The branches are a bit tricky to snap off, but in my experience they can come off without damaging the model.

Now, the trick is going to be to get all the software cooperating. So far, the Cubify software has rejected two versions of this file. I'm hopeful though that I can get it to work, and if I do, I'll have an El Tiburon sculpture to share in the next few days.

El Tiburon: Bounty Hunter

I had forgotten how fun 3D sculpting is! With all the job hunting, freelance work, and school work I've been doing, I haven't had a lot of time to just sculpt in Zbrush. I did work on a World of Warcraft style orc when I was planning on applying to Blizzard, but I made this new figure entirely to be a sculpture rather than an animated figure and it was just really fun.

So, I present the new figure, El Tiburon!

Here's the real-world history of this character.

When I ran the Bodacious Creed Kickstarter, I wanted to do something special, so I made it possible for high-level backers to create characters for the story. The highest backer wanted a character based entirely on him, basically a Creedverse version of himself as a bounty hunter. Since I had only the basics of the story planned, I was able to plot the book with him as a major character. I do use his real name in the novel, and you'll have to wait to find out who he is, but many call him El Tiburon.

The only really clear steampunk element in this image is the metal ball on his back. I'm not giving away what that is, either. It's in the novel. The gun on his left hip is holstered, so you can't really tell what it is, but it's a steampunk technology weapon.

The next step is to try to 3D print this model. I've already created a base that the figure is standing on, and will have to use supports on my printer to make this work. I've set it at 5.2" tall, so hopefully there will be no material thickness issues.

Oh, this gentleman also helped my son and me move last year, and this sculpture is my thank-you to him. Hopefully the print will go well so I can send it to him!

If you want to easily stay abreast of information on Bodacious Creed, like the Bodacious Creed Fan Page on Facebook! You can also check out the Bodacious Creed Website.

Back to Writing, Almost

For now, I have a long break from school, and am basically concentrating on getting other aspects of my life in place. For instance, I'm looking for a good day job, as freelancing is just not cutting it.

Taking a break from school also means that I'll be able to move forward on Bodacious Creed again! I'm back to doing research and some detailed planning, though I have most of the next half of the novel figured out.

Just for fun, I modeled this 3D print showing part of the fictional Santa Cruz where Bodacious Creed takes place. Okay, I didn't really "model" anything. I don't have time for that and everything else. I used Cityscape: Western Town, then imported the model to my printer. So, it's also not terribly accurate, but it does have The House of Amber Dove's and a couple other landmarks in an important area of town.

The next thing I need to finish is a model of one of the characters, which I promised a friend who helped my son and me move last year. I'll be sharing that as well.

New Editions Coming Soon

Somehow, in between everything else I need to get done, I have republished my first two novels! Here's what the new editions look like:

Not bad, huh? But you may wonder why I bothered to republish them now. Here are some of the major reasons.

1. I have learned something about book covers in the age of ebooks and Amazon: namely, that people usually see thumbnails of covers first, and those thumbnails have to catch a potential reader's eye. So I decided to go with big, bold, iconic covers with simple backgrounds.
2. Related to the above, I wanted to improve my branding and to give all my covers a simpler look, namely, that big, bold, iconic cover image with a simple background. They are also all going to be under the heading of my own small publishing company, Bodacious Publishing.
3. I wanted to offer a little more in each of these books. Now, both Children of Rhatlan and Tamshi's Imp have a group discussion section in the back. Children of Rhatlan also has a new afterword.
4. Naturally, I hope to sell more books and to gain more loyal readers. This was the first step. I may also release a new edition of Amber in the Over World, my YA fantasy novel. I'm not sure about re-releasing Seeds of Vision, though.
5. All this is leading up to the release of the book many have been waiting for and which I am eager to finish, Bodacious Creed. Though it is a steampunk zombie western, and not fantasy, it will have the same cover style, a discussion section, and more.
6. By republishing them through CreateSpace, I've been able to reduce the price of each from $15.95 to $9.95!

Here's some trivia about my work on these.

1. Before I got back to work on these, I was afraid that the latest versions had been lost. Due to a few hard drive crashes over the years, at first, I wasn't able to find them in any other but pdf and Kindle format, neither of which would convert back to Word for me. Fortunately, I was able to recover some information from an older drive and found them there.
2. Children of Rhatlan was a Dream Realm Awards finalist in 1999.
3. Tamshi's Imp had more typos than any author should want in the finished manuscript. I was able to go through and fix most of them. I suspect there are a few that my eye didn't catch, but the most egregious are fixed.
4. I once sent Tamshi's Imp to an agent at the same time that my author friend Steven Savile was trying to get that agent to sign me, because Steve loved my books. The agent told him (and yes, I'm paraphrasing, based on what Steve told me), "I don't know. I'm about to send an offer to another author who sent in a great novel. My first reader read it and said it's the most original fantasy novel she's read in years." As it turned out, they were both talking about me. Yes, that book was Tamshi's Imp. (Unfortunately, he wasn't able to sell it, as, at 67K words, it was shorter than what publishers were looking for in a first novel.)
5. I met James Rollins one year at World Fantasy Con. (I think it was the one in Providence, Rhode Island, in 1998 or 1999). If you haven't heard of him... why haven't you heard of him? He's a popular and prolific fantasy author and terrific guy. I asked if he had time to read Tamshi's Imp, and he did, and had this to say about it. "Jonathan Fesmire continues to grow as the fantasist of the new generation. Tamshi's Imp is a blend of magic and mayhem, heartbreak and heroism, sorcery and suspense, but at its heart, its also of redemption and the undying power of love. It's an adventure not to be missed!"

There you have it! A bit of the why, a bit of the how, and a bit of trivia. Currently, I'm waiting for my proof copies, which are due to arrive on Monday, March 23, and once I've looked them over and am satisfied, I will release them to the public. Keep an eye on this blog for more, or on the Bodacious Creed fan page at https://www.facebook.com/bodaciouscreed.

I have also discontinued the current print and Kindle versions of these books. If Amazon has any print copies left, now's the time to get them!

Creed Update & New Book Cover

Note: This is an update I just posted to the Bodacious Creed Kickstarter page.

Howdy Everyone!

First, I'm sending out a big thank you to all of you, my loyal and patient backers. Thank you! I know that the Bodacious Creed is going to be later than I anticipated, so I wanted to give you this update about the progress, my writing in general, and life.

I've been back in school for the last seven months, taking one course per month, to earn my M.S. in Special Education. You see, I'm a single father of a wonderful boy who has autism, and I want to be able to help other kids like him, and also have a schedule that works well with his. Plus, it will give me the summers off to really focus on art and writing.

Between work, job hunting, and school, I haven't had the kind of time for creative pursuits that I'd like to. I'm about half way through Bodacious Creed now, and know what big events are coming next. At the end of March, I'll be taking a hiatus from grad school to work on the book and to get it done.

In preparation for the eventual publication of Bodacious Creed, I am also re-releaseing some of my previous books, with new covers. While writing BC takes serious concentration, with the covers, I'm able to get some done, then get homework done, then come back to the image. I'm looking forward to having some very focused time to work on the novel and to start updating that word count again!

Here are a few important sites, in case you haven't visited them or don't have the links.

Bodacious Creed: http://bodaciouscreed.com/

My personal site: http://jonfesmire.com/

Bodacious Creed Facebook Page: https://www.facebook.com/bodaciouscreed

I highly recommend following that page, as I post small updates there quite often.

Here's the new cover for Children of Rhatlan. Many of you received an ebook edition of it for backing Bodacious Creed. If you've read it, feel free to post what you thought of it! If you haven't, maybe this new cover will inspire you to read it now.

Thanks again, and more soon.

Jonathan Fesmire

"Tamshi's Imp" Profits Fight Money in Politics

Though I think that Bodacious Creed is going to be my best novel once it's finished, my best published novel to date, in my opinion, is Tamshi's Imp.

For the next two months--so, from this moment until midnight on April 6, all profits for Tamshi's Imp will go to Wolf Pac! The book is just $2.99 for Kindle, and I will donate the profits from the print versions as well.

What is Wolf Pac?

The first question should really be, "What is The Young Turks?" That's where this all starts. I'll make this brief.

The Young Turks is the world's largest online news organization. This creator of this progressive news outlet, Cenk Uygur (pronounced "Jenk You-gur") saw that the biggest threat to U.S. democracy today is the fact that the very rich can, and do, buy representatives. Most members of Congress no longer represent the people. They are almost completely owned by conservative, crony-capitalist corporations.

Uygur created Wolf Pac to get money out of politics. Usually it takes Congress to pass an amendment to the Constitution, but there's no way Congressmen are going to vote to give up the donor money they receive. Fortunately, the states can call for a Constitutional convention to pass a new amendment, and several states have already signed on for this, thanks to Wolf Pac. We are making progress.

Getting money out of politics will mean that our representatives are beholden to us, the people of the United States, and not to corporate interests.

Why Wolf Pac?

The root problem with U.S. politics is that our government does not respect our wishes or needs due to being bought off by the very wealthy. Cure the disease, and you'll remove the symptoms. That's why I've wanted to support Wolf Pac for a long time. It finally struck me today that I had a ready-made way to do so: by donating the profits from one of my novels to the cause.

You can also always donate to Wolf Pac directly! If you buy my book though, you'll also be getting a great read.

Oh, I also recommend watching The Young Turks, which you can catch on YouTube, for frank, unscripted news.

Casting "Tamshi's Imp"

Tonight, I discovered a site called If List, that allows anyone to put up a proposal for a film and to then cast that movie. I just had a lot of fun casting what I believe is my best novel so far, Tamshi's Imp, the story of a woman who discovers a cult bent on taking over the world and destroying the gods of her world. Most of the people who have read my books agree that it is my best so far (I plan for Bodacious Creed to surpass it), so I figured it would be fun to come up with a cast and filmmakers, and it definitely was.

You can check that out at Tamshi's Imp on If List. If you've read it, feel free to cast who you think would most appropriately fill the roles! If not, you can buy it on Amazon in print or Kindle format. Look, I'm not great at marketing my own books. Not yet, anyway. But this is a damned good read if I do say so myself and I just want people to enjoy it. Even James Rollins, writing under his pseudonym James Clemens, endorsed it.

Once I finally finish and publish Bodacious Creed, I plan to set up an If List page for it as well. I mean, this is just too damned fun!

On a final note for this post, I have been extraordinarily busy recently with school (have I mentioned I'm working on my M.S. in Special Education?), 3D printing, looking for a new office job (I'm having nerve problems in my right leg, and any job for which I have to stand up for very long causes more damage), and spending time with my son. I'm going to create some new posts about the printer, work on Bodacious Creed, and more soon. Today was the final day of my current class (well, technically yesterday, as it's 12:11 am now), so I anticipate some time to write some more posts.

70,000 Words!

Well, it's about time! After hovering right at about 68,000 for awhile, I've finally gotten Bodacious Creed to 70,000 words. I have no excuse for the delays.

Actually, I do, and it's called stress. Rather than get into the details though, I'm happy to say that the book is rolling along again. Sometimes, a story gets to a point where a lot changes in one swoop, and the writer has to figure out how the story world is going to adjust. That's where this story is, but I press forward.

In any case, I estimate that the book will be about 120,000 words long, so at 70,000, I'm just 50,000 away! My life is busy, but I'm going to put in the effort to write at least 1,000 words per day. (This will likely speed up once I really get into the swing of it.)