Flames of the Devil Dog and I'm Moving Announcement

    For those who have followed this blog over the past decade, I apologize for my lack of updates. I have spent the last few years, since the COVID-19 quarantine, focusing all my energy on completing my epic fantasy series. I am currently working on setting up a new website, where I'll repost much of the material from here. All blog stories and posts relevant to the new site will be transferred, and all artwork I created but never updated on this blog will be included.

    For those who haven't followed me on social media or lost track of me on Twitter or X, I am pleased to announce that I have finally published a novel.

    Flames of the Devil Dog is available in eBook and Hardcover on Amazon, and the paperback is available on numerous online bookstores, including Barnes & Noble and Waterstones. The adventure stories that I once posted here, which have since been removed, are being reintroduced on my website in different forms. As I create a space where I can share snippets of scenes from my books or post scenes that were edited out of the final version, I will reintroduce these stories at some point.

    Another thing I'll be doing is showcasing the artwork that is contained in my hardcover books. With the help of an artist close to me, we have been working on artwork for the entire series with character sketches, monsters, and maps. I'll be including all the maps from my books on the website, as well as introducing my own Tabletop Role-Playing Game that is being developed around my series.

    It's a great time to be writing. Please follow me over there when the website goes live. I plan to establish a vibrant community there one day, where we can discuss all things fantasy and history. We'll even include some content about movies and books, where I'll review things I've read or watched that inspired me to write about them.

    I'll report back here on this blog with the link to the website once it's available.

In the meantime, please consider buying my book and helping me keep the lights on!

Flames of the Devil Dog, Book 1 of Heaven's Edge

eBook on Amazon

Hardcover on Amazon with bonus illustrations throughout the book

Paperback on Amazon

Paperback on Barnes & Noble

Paperback on BAM! Books-A-Million

Paperback on Bookshop.org

paperback on Waterstones (UK)

My book was published through Shield Blade Publishing.

Devil Dogs, Hwachas, and Other Stuff

Great News for anyone who is waiting for my novel, I’ve jumped back into the final rewrite. I spent some time researching combat tactics and military lingo. Studying marine issue sniper systems and tactics was a ton of fun, but now it’s time to finish this book and get it published.

While I’m writing this book the right way this time, I’m still squeezing in some art time. The Hwacha is one of the most complex pictures I’ve done yet. I have attempted to give it a more three dimensional look than most of my other drawings, including the original drawing of the Hwacha I had done. It’s nearly complete. The only thing I have left is a little clean up around the lines after coloring it. I hope to have it up sometime later this week. I’ll post a quick update when I do.

On news for the other projects I’m doing, the whole D&D campaign and world building has completely merged into the design for a new role playing game based on the fantasy world I had designed. I have not decided what I’ll do with the game yet, but I’m really excited about the concepts that came to me the last couple of weeks. Even if I never release the game to the public, it’ll be a great structure for the continuous building of my fantasy world. I’ll focus on writing the Devil Dog series and getting those published, but there are only 5-7 books planned out for that series. In my spare time, I’ll be writing the fantasy novels as well, which has been mapped out to around 16 books, and more ideas continue to flow in as I continue to world build. 

That’s all I have this week, until the Hwacha is done. See you once that’s complete.

Writer Ramblings: Impossible Goals

After a recent conversation on Facebook with the witty Anne-Mhairi Simpson about setting goals that can’t be achieved, I am going to jump on that challenge. She already began her impossible goals, so I am going to do something similar.

Photo from Kristin Nador on WANACommons

My first impossible goal is to finish the book of notes I’m currently writing. My first intention was to just gather all my two decades worth of notes into one location so that I can pick up my old fantasy series project again. I wanted to write both the Devil Dog series, which is not a fantasy series, alongside an epic high fantasy series. Since late November, I’ve been compiling notes, trying to uniform ideas, and basically make some sense of the chaos twenty plus years of daydreaming has created. I’ve been world building. This task in itself would normally be what I call my life’s work, but I have a lot of other series, like Devil Dog, that also needs to be written. So, I’ve decided to create a “guide” to the fantasy world which describes everything from religions, cultures, races, magic, creatures, maps, history, etc. I’m currently at 30,000 words, and I’m anticipating it to reach close to 150,000 words (approximately 500 pages). The easy part of this book is it is for my own personal use as a guide to this huge fantasy world. I won’t have to edit it for grammar or anything else. It’s just massive and full of pictures. I want to finish the entire thing by March. That’s my impossible goal. That’s a month and a half away.

NaNoWriMo 2013: Week 4

Some paths are better when taken slow. Photo by TL Jeffcoat

Only one more week to go in the National November Writing Month (NaNoWriMo)! I’m excited it’s almost over and sad at the same time. The month has been a roller coaster of events at my paying job, and very productive in my writing. Well, productive compared to the last few months of my “writing once in a while” routine. Okay, there was no routine, I was just not writing much.

I’m excited that November is almost over for two reasons. First reason is because the end of November is one of my favorite times of the year. In the USA, we celebrate eating. Not just eating tasty food, but gorging ourselves till we explode. This year I am going to try holding back since I’ve spent a lot of time lifting weights and pedaling an elliptical machine the last three months. Okay, so we aren’t really celebrating food, but you wouldn’t know the difference if nobody told you it was about unity. Food is everywhere.

NaNoWriMo 2013: Week 2

It’s November, and after taking off last year from the National November Writing Month (NaNoWriMo), this year I am glued to my computer nearly every day in an attempt to reach 50,000 words in one month. I’m working hard to make writing more of a career than ever before. I have scheduled 5 days a week where I write or doing writing related activities, and 2 days I spend with my family. Since I work a full time job on top of writing and family, that doesn’t leave a lot of time for much else in life.

I know my gaming buddies miss me and someday I hope to return to Azeroth or wherever the RPG gamers are hanging out then… yeah everyone eventually returns to Azeroth if they are serious Role Players. Admitting there is an addiction is the first step to recovery, but Marilyn Manson once said that “Rehab is for quitters” and I’m no quitter, so I will just delay embracing my Azeroth addiction until I have more free time. Luckily I can squeeze in some fantasy football on the weekends and I give myself a couple hours during the week to tweak my teams. If you don’t know what Azeroth is, then just Google it, you’ll recognize it then by its game name. The game, not the book by Cherryh.

Writer Ramblings: What I Look For in a Villain

Gollum art by TL Jeffcoat

When I write an antagonist I like to dig deep into their inner workings. I want the reader to sympathize and loathe them all at the same time. Some villains I’ve created are just people in bad situations, doing bad things. Some look for the bad things to do out of boredom or compensation for an inferiority complex. And then there comes the truly evil villain. Whether he’s a pathetic envious creature that wants to reach some higher plane of existence, or bring the world down to his level. For me, every antagonist must have a human element to him. There must be some purpose to his questionable behavior that I could understand why he does what he does, even if I feel it’s the wrong approach. The worst written villains are the ones that are evil because they just are. They were born that way or created that way. Sometimes we just don’t know what drives the villain in the story, but the writer must have had a reason for the bad guy to be the bad guy.

Writer Ramblings: Inspiring Celebrities

Have you ever been truly inspired by anyone in your life? I have. I have several role models, some you might question as to why. I spent some time thinking about who really has influenced me in life the last few years. Well we all love lists, so here are four of my favorites and why. They are not all perfect people, some have been involved in domestic violence, some have said questionable things, but they all did something that inspired me to strive to be a better and stronger person.

King-Ali-Bradshaw-Dillon

#1 Stephen King: It's pretty obvious, since I consider him to be the best writer of the last 50 years, and not because he tells amazing and original stories, but because his stories are just the backdrop of the real story that he's writing. Stephen King doesn’t write horrors and thrillers, he writes about human nature and that no matter what is going on around us, we still act like stupid, greedy, selfish humans. There are lessons to be learned from our greed, desperation, loneliness, hate, love, fear, apathy, etc. When you read Stephen King you experience something terrifying and emotional. It’s like a real experience, even when it’s a possessed car that crushes people in the driver seat or a creepy fear eating clown hiding in the sewer, you experience the fear and anger just as King intended you to. He brings his nightmares to life like nobody else in the business. Now if only Hollywood could ever capture the true essence of his novels on the big screen. I can only dream that someday I can get close to what he has accomplished as a writer. Success aside, I want to write on that level in my own voice.

Dare to Dream

Some people don’t dream. They believe that a dream is something unattainable. If you dream you will get your hopes up and life will just let you down. Why would you want to chase after something that will always be just out of your reach? Life is not a dream. It’s dirty and it’s hard. There is no place in the world for dreams. I've heard all these before.

It’s hard for me to understand that way of thinking. I dream, I dream big. I don’t mean I dream that someday I’ll publish a book that I can show to my friends and family and say "I finally did it." No. That’s not a dream, that’s just too easy these days. Anyone could publish a book with just the click of a button, even terribly written ones. My dream is that one day, after I have about 40 books published, people will know who I am like they do King, Rowling or Rice. If you’re a reader, you know these names as well as their faces gracing the back inside cover of their books. I want that. To be known as a writer without being asked.

Writer Ramblings: What Fantasy Football Taught Me About Writing

Let me explain how I’ve learned a few things, after you’re done laughing at the concept of learning anything about writing from a game that completely revolves around numbers, watching grown men wrestle for a ball, and showboat like eight year olds after scoring a touchdown. I really have learned a few things. I didn’t post a weapons post last week because I’ve had my head buried in the new outline for Devil Dog and studying football players for the NFL, lots and lots and lots and lots of studying stats, history, updates on injuries, etc. This Friday I’ll have a weapons post up for sure.

So what does Fantasy Football have to do with writing? Something that I feel writers should take very seriously. RESEARCH. Success in fantasy football is not all luck. There is some luck, but in the leagues I play in, you can tell who is researching thorough enough. By researching everything you can and staying on top of all the latest developments, you give yourself an edge that allows you to open up the opportunity to win despite luck. The same goes for writing, even in fiction. If the writer researches to make the details he includes in the book to be accurate, then people who are familiar with whatever it is, will feel it’s authentic and respect the writer.

Still Kicking It (Life and Blog Update)

Me sitting on a gold nugget.

I’m still here, despite appearances, the blog is still alive. I’ve been focusing a lot on the co-writing gig “Welcome To My Imagination” lately. I’ve been drawing weapons for the posts already out there, but I’m really slow at art. I don’t mean to neglect the blog; it’s just been extra crazy. Even my day job has gone nuts. It’s work, what can I do? I’m stuck with it at least until I’m a New York bestseller, then maybe I can move on from working for someone besides my readers. The goal is to someday match my income and benefits with my writing before I resign from the day job, unless I retire first. Retirement is 16 years away, so I’m hoping I don’t have to wait that long.

I am working on a new Weapons and Warriors article. It’s a vicious weapon that was pretty common in Medieval Europe. I can’t wait to share that. Later on I’m going to do a post or two, maybe more, about the Sikhs of India. I’ve been talking with a person who is from India and at the moment I’m reading and watching videos to get a grasp of what the Sikh is about. I’m not sure if I’ll focus on weapons as much, but I am looking forward to writing about the culture. India has always fascinated me. Someday I will have to visit there.

Writer Ramblings: Practice Does Not Make Perfect

Photo courtesy of Dave R Farmer on WANA Commons

I was always told by coaches and teachers that "Practice makes perfect," but I've realized in the last few years that is not true. The phrase should be "Practice makes consistent." If you are practicing the wrong methods, you will just get more consistent at doing it wrong. For twenty years I wrote by the seat of my pants. Whatever came to me is how I wrote it down, and I was never satisfied with my work. The story concepts and characters were good and well done. People loved the emotions and the action, but there was always something missing.

They say there isn't a wrong way to write. That has some truth in it, but there is a wrong way to approach writing. I'm no self-proclaimed expert, nor would I accept that title. What I am is a practitioner of writing. Like every great writer, the ones who are good at their craft are the ones who have practiced for years. They also listened when an editor or critique partner showed them a right way to approach their story.

Terminator: Back to the Fan Fiction

It’s been a year and still there is no real progress on this awesome Fan Fiction idea. I started plotting out a story to match the video and was eventually overwhelmed by the complexity of my story and then by other projects throughout the year.

This is still a project I really want to write up, and I’ve been thinking about it a lot. So I decided this year, I will set goals for it, like I am doing for all my other projects. I spent the second half of 2012 rewiring my writing brain to work more strategically and still retain my creativity. Most of that will probably rarely reflect in my blog posts, outside of the Weapons & Warriors posts,  because I usually just ramble a lot.

I skipped Nanowrimo (National November Writing Month) in 2012 because I was neck deep in edits for Devil Dog and Welcome to My Imagination, I still am. I spent a lot of 2012 in the editing phase because I was learning new techniques for writing to help me complete a book without having to rewrite it ten times. While I’m mastering these new techniques I am going to use them to set up a schedule to write out the Terminator vs. Back to the Future story.

Looking Back on 2012

The Chinese New Year is drawing to a close, and the time of the Water Dragons will soon be over on Feb 9^th. This year was the time for taking chances. The economy was struggling for many, but hording your money and trying to save isn’t going to put that back on track.

Took this pic from the boat, while passing an island of trees.

I went on that vacation out of the country, although our ship was rained out of the harbor in Canada, so I never set foot on foreign soil. I still got to see Alaska from the mountain tops and a glacier. It was beautiful and inspiring to see. Not even the pictures I took can really express the majestic beauty of those mountains coming right out of the water.

I began the work on starting that publishing company I always wanted and I’ve been helping writers as much as I can, but I never did file the paperwork to make it official. For two reasons, I was worried I’d have to pay some kind of tax after the year was up and I didn’t have anything prepared to publish to pay that tax. That, I’ll get into in a minute.

New Year, But Same Old Resolutions

Courtesy of WANA Commons (via Cole Vassiliou)

Welcome to 2013! We have survived the zombie and alien apocalypse for yet another year and the Mayans calendar ending really turned out to be nothing other than them running out of paper. The year of the dragon is almost over. Everyone is thinking up their New Year Resolutions except me. I’m pretty much sticking the goals I had last year. Finish a book or two, publish them, exercise more, eat less, and get back on track with the Weapons Weekly (which I’m renaming Weapons and Warriors). Since nobody ever succeeds with resolutions, including me, I’m just going to call them goals and keep trucking along.

Holiday Cheers and Writing Chores

I don’t know about you guys, but I had a wonderful Thanksgiving week. I went to Frisco (that’s just north of Dallas) to visit the wife’s family, which is huge and very close. It’s always a joyous occasion to get so many very different people together and actually get along for an entire week. There was a ton of food, and football games. Obviously I was surrounded by Cowboys fans, so they didn’t enjoy the football as much, but my team won with a dominating performance right after their kickoff that night, so I was ecstatic. Then several of us went to the Gaylord Texan and visited the Merry Madagascar Ice thing. Everything inside the place was made of ice. Everything. The walls, slides, animals, Santa, and did I mention the animals? It was a freezing 9 degrees cold and they made us all wear huge parkas, but it was a lot of fun.

Me, Kids, Wife and a small number of the Wife's Cousins at the Gaylord Texan Ice Event

Hey You! I'm Still Here, Don't Give Up On Me Yet

Pic by Cellar Door Films via Flickr: WANA Commons

It’s been too long since I’ve posted a blog. I just wanted to let everyone know, I’m still alive. I’ve been writing/editing, and I didn’t want to bore everyone with the little details of my editing adventures every week. You can’t really call them adventures, more like exercises and self-discovery. I’ve been learning a lot more about writing than I ever knew. I’ve learned more the last 6 months editing than I ever did the 20+ years I wrote and rewrote stories without ever really taking it serious. I have a point, but if you have read this blog, you know I like to ramble randomly sometimes. It’s how my mind works, just random thoughts firing every direction. See, I keep getting off the subject.

*Spanks brain for misbehaving.

Now, back to what I was trying to talk about. I’m still alive. I’ve been a little out of touch lately, and I apologize for that. I’m thinking of starting up the Weapons Weekly in January 2013. By then I should have some more artwork to work with, too. I am hoping to be done with Devil Dog as well by then.

For those of you waiting on Devil Dog, it’s still in the editing phase. I’ve been reorganizing the finale to be more adrenaline pumping than before and I’ve started reworking the beginning under the advice of Kristen Lamb’s blogs on structure. Here they are if you don’t know what I mean by structure.

Anatomy of a Best-Selling Novel—Structure Part One

StructurePart 2–Plot Problems–Falcor the Luck Dragon & the Purple Tornado

StructurePart 3—Introducing the Opposition

StructurePart 4–Testing Your Idea–Is it Strong Enough to Make an Interesting Novel?

Writing Time

Art by Steven DeVon Jones

I have decided to take some time off from blogging. Not for an immense amount of time, but long enough to focus more on the editing for “Welcome To My Imagination” and “Devil Dog” sooner rather than next year. “Devil Dog” will need to go through another round of content editing before it goes to a copy-editor for proofreading. Since I’m scrapping the current ending and rewriting it, I want to make sure it gets as much attention as the rest of the novel.

I will be writing up another Weapons series, but for now, it has overwhelmed my writing time with research, writing and editing blogs. Once the books are done with their editing I will resume writing more weapons and warrior posts. I’ll organize it into sets so that I can continue writing more novels in between weapons series. I have about five different novel series I want to pursue, and I spend 75% of my writing time on this blog. Without sacrificing my time with children and work, there just isn’t much left to get those books done.

I hope everyone understands. It’s been 12 months since I began Weapons Weekly and I think it’s time to give it a short break. Hopefully the editing goes well and I’ll be back to weapons chat soon. This doesn’t mean this blog is dead until then. Since I’ll be editing, I’ll probably have a few random Writers Rambling posts popping up as I either learn new things or just feel inspired to speak up about something.

Thank you for following the blog, and I’ll see you soon!

Writers Ramblings: Reconstruction

Took this pic while sailing past Canada with my Sanyo. Your welcome.

You have probably noticed something missing from my blog today. Last night I went through the entire thing and pulled down all the pictures I had linked. I redid the “About TL Jeffcoat” page and put up new pictures that I have either made or paid for.

I happened to run across a blog post by Roni Loren yesterday that scared me. Not just a little bit either. I’m not a wealthy man, and I always thought I was safe, but after what happened to Roni, I realize some people aren’t satisfied with an apology. Although it seemed a little heartless over something that Roni had no idea she was doing illegally, the person who sued her was completely within their rights.

Many artists and photographers have expressed through Roni Loren’s blog comments that they are often more than willing to share if they are simply asked. All of that makes perfect sense. You don’t just take someone’s car to the store without asking first. I disagree with the hostility she met after she promptly complied with their demand to remove the picture, but I’m not going to rage about it. Getting mad and ranting about it wouldn’t make anything better for anyone and that’s not what my blog is about.

INHALE Flash Mob

INHALE, an urban fantasy romance by Kendall Grey, is now available in paperback and e-book for Kindle (MOBI) and Nook (EPUB). INHALE is the first book in the JUST BREATHE trilogy. Kendall is donating all profits from the sale of the trilogy to programs that educate people about whales and the challenges they face. Watch the video to find out why.

Kendall encourages interested readers to consider purchasing an e-book instead of a paperback. E-books save trees, cost considerably less, and bring in much more money for the whales.

Thank you for supporting INHALE, and most importantly, the whales that need our help.

100th Blog Post! & Lucky 7 Challenge

I’ve been challenged by Lani Wendt Young to reveal a little about myself and a little about Devil Dog. Something called the Lucky 7 MEME, and since I’m not one to pass a chance to write about myself I accepted.

The rules as I understand it are:

1. Go to page 77 of your current MS.

2. Go to line 7.

3. Copy down the next 7 lines (sentences or paragraphs) and post them as they're written.

4. Tag 7 writers and let them know.

Now for the excerpt of Devil Dog on page 77. Unfortunately it's not one of my favorite scenes or one of the most exciting, but it is a turning point in the novel where the reader realizes how the main character is about to have his whole world crash around him.

            Colonel Ramos stops walking and turns towards the pesky woman and her cameraman. He says nothing so the reporter continues on, “The Iranians are claiming he crossed their border with a squad of marines and attacked a military outpost. Destroying two attack choppers and killing close to three dozen men, some were reported as civilians. What do you say in response to that?”

            He starts to turn away again, then pauses and replies, “I believe the President is the man you want to talk to about international relations, even greatly exaggerated stories like that one. Like I said before, his mission was classified, and I will handle it as the investigation unfolds. Good day, Miss?” He waits for her to introduce herself, but she hands the microphone to the cameraman and marches back to her van without so much as a smile.

Now for the questions about me…