A moment after he cleared the threshold, two of his security men followed and flanked the door. They peered in through the window to watch the gathered crowd in the room; neither of the burly mercenaries keeping watch on the property outside off the balcony. Perez didn’t want to be disturbed by any of his guests, but there was little to fear from his own domain.

Titus backed the young woman to the rail at the edge of the balcony as he pressed the length of his body against hers. She smiled confidently, occasionally sipping her own brandy as his hand slid down her lithe body. Her own free hand snaked around his shoulder as she pulled him closer to her and whispered something in his ear.

He stood and took the drink from her hand as she gave him another seductive grin. He turned and handed the two drinks to one of the bodyguards a few feet behind him. As he turned back to her, he watched as she pulled the hem of her dress up her thighs revealing a pair of sexy, thigh-high stockings and nothing else under her slinky red dress. She knew he was married, and that his wife was not only a beautiful woman, but she was standing less than fifty feet away. But she also knew that he would be terribly generous to her in trade for her attentions. Their marital arrangements were not her problem.

***

Half a mile away, just outside the boundaries of Perez’s property, Warren Chestik laid on a ridge. He blended into the surrounding foliage perfectly… so perfectly that twenty-minutes before, one of the regular patrols of the property boundary had passed within a dozen feet of his position. His camouflage had been designed to seamlessly blend into this very spot.

He watched as several people stepped onto the balcony. He slowly reached out to the end of his scope and flipped open the cover. As he sighted in on the balcony, he recognized Perez and his security. The young woman was unknown, but he knew she was likely just his momentary companion.

Chestik watched as the old man pressed himself against the woman, groping her as she willingly played along. He preferred to not injure her, but Perez would not be stepping back inside his home again.

The old man took her glass and gave her a toothy smile. When he turned back around, Chestik took careful aim with the modified Barrett sniper rifle. The flight time of the round would be approximately one second, flying twenty-six-hundred feet from his position to that of his target. He had already calculated in the thirty-plus feet of drop that the projectile would experience during its flight.

Perez froze as he watched the woman. Chestik squeezed his trigger, and then watched his target. He could see from the other man’s face that he had seen, but not recognized, a muzzle flash as Titus’s forehead crinkled and he looked up from the woman. Just as the realization of what it could have been dawned on him, the projectile passed less than a foot over the shoulder of his date, through Perez’s chest, then the back of the knee of one of the security men, and finally embedded itself into the floor of the ballroom, just inside the door.

As both Perez and the security man crumpled to the floor, the report of the rifle could be heard. The scream of the young woman drowned out the echoes as the sound bounced between the buildings of Perez’s compound.

• I write the first draft of the book. Calling it a “first draft” is kind of funny, because by the time I get to the end of the “first draft” I have probably made a hundred changes… but no matter, we’ll call it the first draft.
• Then, I read the whole thing as a complete manuscript. As I read, I make changes… invariably there are mistakes, typos, better words that can be utilized, etc. And, just as likely there will be plot holes, redundancy or other major issues I have to go back and correct.
• I try to set it aside for a while and work on something else… I know that the piece needs a fresh look, but I’m not ready for it to be really read yet.
• Reading it once again, usually side-loaded on my Kindle, I read again for issues… then, either it is ready to go to beta readers, or set aside again to start the last step over.
• If all looks good, I send it out to a couple of beta readers for commentary. The feedback may include pointing out typos (they are still there… assuredly) as well as their feelings about the story… which is REALLY important. I pour over their feedback, correct glaring and obvious errors, possibly rewrite sections as needed.
• At this point I am either ready to send it back out to new beta readers or hit the publish button. Of course, I try to let it sit again for a little while, then reread it yet again looking for problems.
• I publish… and read it yet again.

To be a beta reader you do NOT have to be an English Lit major, Language Arts teacher, grammar master or anything else. All you really need is a desire to read and give valuable feedback. You can be granular… get down to the sentence level, or you can look at it as a complete story and look at characters arcs and personality progressions.

Valuable feedback is NOT saying “main character sucks”. It may be true… and if so, I want to know that… but it doesn’t really help. “Main character’s reactions to the situation are completely unrealistic. He is weak and therefore uninteresting to me” would be a WAY better example of great feedback. Or “main character’s infatuation with love interest seems contrived.”

If you are interested in doing some beta reading, I have one manuscript I hope to have ready early next week. Another will probably be ready a couple of weeks later. And a third probably two weeks after that. At that point I will be slowing down… I still have a pipeline of stories mostly finished (with the first draft) but I will be getting stories back from beta and making changes, so the other stories in line will get pushed back.

Realistically, I have seven stories in progress. Three are within striking distance of ready. Two more are 75% ready. The last two are only in the 20% range. I’m going to need plenty of readers…

I have a tendency to write several projects at a time. That way, when I hit a blockage on one, I can jump to another. The flip side is that I can get bogged down in one of them and ignore others. That is kind of where I am right now… I know that either Sniper… (Guardian) Angel (of Death) or At Arm’s Length will be the next one out. Both are REALLY close to going out to my beta readers (always looking for volunteers). Instead, I am writing on Invisible Jack and Chased.

I tend to categorize the stories by word count, at least as far as when I will do with them.

• Short Story – under 4000 words
• Short Story (episodes) – 3000 to 20,000 words
• Novella – 15,000 to 50,000 words
• Novel – 75,000 to 100,000 words

There are holes and overlapping areas… so I have to wing it sometimes. I also have to re-examine a story sometimes, too. If it is short of a novel, but too long for a novella, does it need more detail or more trimming? Is the story complete? Is it overtold.

I have also been experimenting with POV – point of view. Classically, most stories are told in third person. More and more, though, I see novels published in first person. The change is basically from “Jack walked into the room and looked around” to “I walked into the room, looking for Amy.” There are advantages and disadvantages to either POV.

In the traditional third person, the narrating voice can know what is on the mind of multiple characters (or have limited omniscience). They can be a fly on the wall or inside people’s heads. But it also separates the reader from the character… for good or bad. It is easier to read a character that the reader doesn’t identify with in a third-person narration.

But in first-person, the reader is asked to step into the character. They know what the character knows, assuming the author wishes to communicate that info. But they can only guess at what is inside the mind of other characters. Unless the POV shifts from character to character, usually at the chapter level.

I am trying this with Shining Star. It does require a different mindset to write. Instead of being able to reveal something, I might have to jump to a new chapter for the reveal to allow the correct character to voice the new revelation.

So, I’m looking for reviewers. Obviously, I want good reviews… but I also really want honest reviews (I’d rather have an honest 4-star than a BS 5-star). Potential readers that value reviews can spot a fake a mile away. I know that I have.

To get that done, every once in a while I will gift a few books to try to get reviews. Right now, I am willing to do another 5 free books (you get to choose any of my Kindle titles). I gift them through Kindle… so you will have to give me your email address. I won’t record it beyond using it to send you the notification to pick up the gifted Kindle book.

I won’t be offended if you choose to subscribe to my blog, but you don’t have to… And even leaving the review is on the honor system. After you pick up the book, I can’t take it back. Again, my only requests are A) you collect the book from Amazon fairly quickly. They don’t notch it as a sale until you claim it… so I pay for it, but don’t get the royalty… which offsets part of the cost of the book… until you claim it and B) that you read it sometime in the not too distant future and leave a review.

Sorry, but I can’t do the same deal with the printed books. It’s too expensive.

If you REALLY want to help me out, you will also leave reviews for other books of mine that you might read. Other indie authors would appreciate you reviewing them, too. Publishing house pay review services a LOT of money to get those initial reviews. I just don’t have that kind of budget… nor the patience to deal with a publishing house. Frankly, I don’t have the kind of budget I would need to start with a publishing house anyway. Unless you already have the name recognition, they want new authors to front most of the money they are going to spend to get you launched.

In this excerpt, he is rescuing Candace Clinton, who has been doing undercover work for Antonio Sky of the Narcotic Enforcement Agency. Her cover was blown and she had to run, but her plane was shot down. He is nearby (for his own reasons) and responds to Jack’s call to help her.

Warren scrambled down the side of the steep ravine, grabbing onto roots and jumping from boulder to boulder.  He’d spotted the wreckage of the center section while he was close to the top of the ridge, but as he moved closer, he spotted the tail of the plane downstream.  From his high perch he could also see some of the contents strewn down the hillside. 

A moment later he spotted the nose section.  The damage was even visible from a distance.  Then he thought he saw something move near it.  He reached into his backpack and pulled out his binoculars.  Jackpot. 

With the binoculars stowed safely back in his pack, he started angling toward the nose section.  The going was a little rougher than it had been going straight down, but he decided it would be faster than going to the bottom and scrambling along the creek then climbing back up to the wreckage. 

It took thirty minutes for him to make his way to where he thought he might have seen Candace.  As he got closer, he called out to her but didn’t get a response.  He kept hiking toward the wreckage. 

“Warren?” he heard a few minutes later. 

“Candace… I’ll be there in a minute.  Are you injured?”

“Bumps and bruises, but nothing serious.  My pilot and co-pilot didn’t make it, though.”

“Are you sure?”

“Yeah,” she replied.  “They are in there, but they took the brunt.  I’m sure.”  Her voice started to fail. 

“I’m not sure what the exfil strategy is, but I’ll see what I can do.”  He pulled a phone from his bag and tapped redial.  “Jack, I have Candace.  She’s safe.  Bumped and bruised, but no serious injuries.  Her pilot and co-pilot weren’t so lucky.  Can we recover them?”

…

“Roger that.  I’ll keep an eye out for them.  We need two bags.”

Warren ended the call and then turned back to Candace. 

“Jack has a team that should be air-dropping in any minute.  That will be followed up in about an hour by a chopper for the exfil, unless we call it off for some reason.”

“Why would we call it off?” Candace asked. 

“Rumor has it that Jimenez is trying to get a team here as well.  The chopper won’t come in if we are in a firefight.  We can hold them off, but if they come in and someone shoots at them, they won’t come back, and we will have to make other arrangements.”  To Warren, “other arrangements” sounded suspiciously like hiking fifty miles through ungodly terrain until Jack Dixon could personally fly them out.

As if on cue, a C-130 flew overhead.  They both looked up in time to see eight people step out of the back in a spaced line.  Their chutes opened.  Warren glanced down to see a text from Jack saying that his guys had just jumped in, then he grabbed a shiny piece of metal to signal them with, flashing it toward them in the sun.

***

Ric’s men had jumped in with two body bags to gather the pilot and co-pilot.  As Warren helped Candace to the top of the ridge, where they expected to find the easiest landing zone for the chopper, Several of Ric’s men extricated the pilot and co-pilot from the wreckage of the airplane.  Another man had worked his way down to the tailpiece to search for the black box.  Candace had told him where she left it. 

“Can we hurry that chopper up?” Warren asked Ric.  “It looks like there is a team coming up the valley.  I’d guess two miles downstream, but that only gives us an hour until they are within shooting range.”

“Let me see what I can do.”

Ric made a call through comms to get his guys hurrying, while he talked to Jack about the estimated time of arrival for the chopper.  After explaining the situation, they made the decision to head north along the top of the ridge, keeping a consistent distance between them and Jimenez’s men to the south.  It would buy them a little extra time.  A pair of Ric’s men broke off and headed south along the ridge. 

“Chopper ETA is about ten minutes.  We should be in the clear unless they have air assets coming in, and radar says they are clear.  Someone flying low in the valley could be invisible inn the ground clutter, though,” Ric said. 

Warren swept all around to see if he could see anything, but he didn’t pick up any movement nearby from the top of the ridge. 

Half a mile south there was a small explosion just below the top of the ridge.  It resulted in a massive rockslide down into the valley.  He could see the two men that had broken off from the main group earlier running back along the mountainous spine. 

“That should slow them down, Mr. Chestik,” one of them said, passing by. 

A few minutes later a Chinook helicopter could be seen flying along the ridge.  The pilot spun the craft around and hovered just over the edge of the ridge, backing it to their location like a truck.  Warren was impressed by the skill the pilot had displayed, not having a landing zone.  The chopper wouldn’t have been any more stable had it been parked on the ground.  The tail section of the chopper lowered to allow them to quickly load up.  As Ric Espinoza cleared the tail ramp, it started to close, and the chopper sped northward, back from where it had come.