A most humble greeting to you, audience! Didja miss me? If so, I missed you too! If not, well, how somber.
But here comes the latest news in regards to my series as a whole, including how to properly pronounce the names of certain people, places, and of course, things, related to the overall direction my series (And the original characters within it!) is heading, plus a brief insight on these characters, along with a darn good reason or more as to why they're not all a bunch of Mary Sues (And Gary Stus).
And finally, but not least of all, I would like to discuss how my series advocates for all things natural, animals, and the wilderness, and how I plan to use it as a means to end our climate change crisis, our biodiversity crisis, and, of course, our food shortage crisis!
First and foremost, it would seem we've arrived at another crossroads! Yesh, this is right: I am currently unsure as to whether my next move should be to start another crowdfunding campaign (Like the first one I ran on Indiegogo way back in 2014), if I should petition my local news reporters to cover my works (And the characters contained within them) as part of their human interest section, or whether I should pitch my series to a traditional publisher (Of which I personally know of one person who works for such a company). As you can more than likely see, this is quite a HUGE decision for me to make! And I am not certain I could make such a decision entirely on my own. So, I'd like to ask you, my audience, which of these 3 tasks I ought to pursue first. Your input, if you have any, will become highly invaluable to me!
Ahh! And speaking of my characters, I notice a number of you, among the more critical reviewers of my series, have pointed out which I've seen mentioned as being difficult to relate to, having 'little to no character development, and even one person telling me directly which 'my books were full of poor characterization'. <---- These are all statements like this, which is a matter of each person's personal opinion. However, I would like to point one thing out: My characters might be super-powerful, but by no means are they invincible! And I also believe there's no such thing as a perfect character. A character who has no weaknesses whatsoever and who is good at everything they do is effectively a Mary Sue (Or Gary Stu). I may not spend a lot of time going over my characters, but every one of them has a weakness. For instance, the Sky Queen is the strongest known Sky Fighter in the series. But she could be defeated fairly easily through a combination of ice, water, and one other exploit. You'll have to read my 8th novel to find out what said exploit is, though...Now, I'm not saying people are accusing my characters of being Mary Sue (Or Gary Stu) types. I just wanted to mention this just in case anyone had any doubts.
A number of you might (Or might not) have also struggled with pronouncing the names of some of my characters, places, and other such nouns. To help everyone who reads my stories, I am presenting a few Guides to Pronunciation of Words which appear in the first three novels I have written (And recently re-written). These guides will cover words from a single novel in each blog post. Here are some words from the first novel, in chronological order...
Andromeda (Ann-dra-meh-daa)
vortexes (vore-teh-cies)
Mantecado (Mon-teh-kay-doe)
Rushenido (Rou-sheh-nee-doe; the letter 'r' is trilled/rolled.)
Foxis(es), Foxerotto(s), and Foxmoor(s)
(Fox-ess, Fox-err-rot-toe, Fox-more)
Evensongland (Eev-en-song-land, not Evan-song-land)
Tonamasion (Tone-ah-mah-see-on)
Traductus (Traa-duct-us)
Sekhmenkato (Sek-men-kaa-toe)
Requiem (Rek-wee-emm)
Hauser (How-zer)
Mondo Kenjuma (Mon-doe Ken-jow-ma)
Sosomonday Freehand Todashamon III
(Soe-Soe-mon-day Freehand Toe-dash-ah-mon The Third)
Seraph (Serr-ahh-f)
Yachamon Tomeneechee (Yah-chaa-mon Toe-meh-nee-chee)
Temporal (Temm-pore-all)
Rohm And Haas (Rome and Haas)
Grande Riyo City (Grand-Ree-Oh-City)
Maya Lhaka (May-ah Lock-ah)
Manteco (Man-tah-coe?) - Spoken by a National Guardsman
Otis (Oh-tiss)
Were you surprised about any of the words having to be said a certain way? Do you have trouble with pronouncing any of them? Do tell us! In the meantime, I'd like to briefly touch on a statement which a long-standing friend of mine has brought up: “You should offer hardcover formats of your novels!” You: Hold on a moment! Does your friend actually know if Amazon's Kindle Direct Publishing offers hardcover formats of their authors' novels? Me: She does indeed! And I am quite pleased to announce they do offer this option for all of their published authors! Therefore, the entire Sky Fighters and Houndy Crunchers novel series will become available in hardcover format once I have Sky Fighters Part VIII published!
On one highly important final note, some of my readers among you might have noted how I keep on bringing up the subject of nature, animals, and/or the wilderness. Yesh, I love all of these wonderful nouns (Things), but my main reason for bringing them up so often is to raise awareness to combat our planet's ongoing climate change crisis, which I firmly believe humans are the main cause of. However, we can also be the ones who provide a definitive solution to this crisis, along with averting our, biodiversity crisis, and, yesh, our food shortage crisis. You: Mr. Eberle, what can you do to help us avert our planet's ongoing climate change crisis, among the others? Me: As I mentioned in my one-page essay, I'm going to train as hard as I can and have a career working in the forest. Then, I'm going to plant as many trees and plants as I can, and save as many animals as I can, in my lifetime, who are sick or injured because of humans. I will start by planting 50 trees in each of the 50 states in the United States and rescue at least 5 wild sick, and/or injured animals in each of these 50 states in the United States.
What do you think? Are all these goals of mine set up to high? Could we become Sky Fighters in the real world? Could real animals become Houndy Crunchers? Or is all of this just aspiring enough to convince anyone who reads this blog entry to contribute to my ongoing efforts in some way? Let me know in the comments which follow.
With good vibes and love,
Ross Eberle
