Author Dana Lockhart

-The Story, The Legend, The Blood Knight - I’m super duper excited by this, guys. The Blood Knights series, as I have said multiple times, is the most vivid world I’ve ever created. It’s so alive that I don’t quite feel like I’m in control of it. More than once a character has veered off on their own chosen path against what I had originally intended. Villains grew up to be heroes, heroes turned out to be villains. New characters I didn’t have in the original concept just popped out of nowhere demanding to be seen. It’s been a wild ride to see all the stories unfold. The Blood Knight is the first in the intended trilogy. It centers on Archer Mathews, a vampire hunter that makes a grave mistake and is turned into the thing he hates most. The thing is, he should have died instead. Hunters are almost a breed of supernatural beings of their own, with fast reflexes and heightened senses tuned into finding evil, and something in their blood won’t let them be corrupted into monsters. The cl...

-My Second Year at Gateway to Publishing- I had an amazing time last year at Gateway Con. I met some amazing people and also made a good friend (looking at you, android ). I learned a lot and came home with pages of notes on how to improve my writing and my brand. After such an awesome experience, I couldn't wait for the next one to come around. Though I pitched The Un-Life of William Moore to agents there, ultimately I decided to self-publish it. It's my first story, and as such it has the most of my heart and soul in it. While the changes some agents recommended weren't unreasonable, I wanted to remain as true as I could to what The Un-Life was to me. Still, I applied what I had learned to the story. I connected with people that helped me improve it even further. I still came out of Gateway Con successful, in my mind. This year I will also be having an author table/book signing , so if you're going to the Con, too, come see me! I'll be selling my paperback novel...

I know, I know, I've dropped off the face of the earth. My articles on DVS dropped from four a week to maybe one if I'm lucky, and my blogging here has suffered, too. But I promise it's for a good reason. - The Un-Life Coming June 2019- The big reason that I've stopped my side-writing gigs is because I've gotten back my mini-edit of The Un-Life of William Moore . Applying the critiques is my number one priority right now. I'm in a rush to get everything done in time for Gateway Con to have my grand first book release there. And I'm a little behind schedule. I'm still on target for the June release, but I'm feeling the pressure. Big thank you to Ryan P. Freeman for providing way more feedback than I anticipated. I ordered story editing and he still pointed out several copy-editing suggestions he didn't need to do. On one hand I'm glad he did more than I was looking for, and on the other I'm exhausted at the thought of all these things I s...

I know it seems like I haven't been blogging much (because I haven't), but I am trying.  I have five post drafts in the works right now and I'm not happy with any of them.  And I don't want to just post re-hashed stuff I already posted on DVS Gaming like I did with my Lucifer article .  So, if I can't come up with something entertaining, at least maybe I can come up with a post that's informative. -It's Time to Bring The Un-Life to Life- I am currently in the beginning stages to self-publish The Un-Life of William Moore .  I discussed it with the agent I had been taking to, who gave me her blessing.  As I told her, The Un-Life just feels like an old chapter in my life.  I don't believe that I have the spark to force myself to edit it anymore.  One, because I feel like the story is done and complete as is, two, there's just so much more I want to be doing.  So instead of trying to change the story to what it isn't for the sake of being more main...

I'm going to go ahead and call it because there's no way I'm hitting 50k by Saturday.  I'm currently sitting on 17,500.  I gave up on November 12th. And I'll tell you why. -I'm Not a Word Vomiter- Never have been, never will. I hate vomiting out words without going through and editing as I go along.  It slows things down by the time you start reaching 10k words. But I did manage to push through that because I was excited to write.  I wanted to just crank out the story and go back and edit later.  I wanted to.  But when I tripped and failed to make the daily word count my dislike for word vomiting returned.  I realized I was about 5k words away from reaching the end of what I had planned for my novel and suddenly wouldn't know where to go from there. -I Didn't Quit, I Just Shifted My Focus- At that point, I decided to change my goals for NaNoWriMo.  What I had wanted from NaNo all along was just to finish book one of my novel, Blood Knights . ...

It's Day 6 and the drive to complete that novel is dissipating.  You're looking for distractions to keep yourself from writing.  Here is a list of 5 distractions so that you can just do them and get them out of the way so you can get back to writing.  I'm trying to focus on productive distractions so that you're still keeping those creative juices flowing, even if it's not towards your novel. -Write a Blog Post- Got a website?  Write a blog post.  I'm totally not distracting myself from my own novel right now.  Nope.  Totally not.  Try and focus your blog post in the NaNoWriMo direction:  talk about the novel you're writing, the progress you've made, how many activities (writing sprints/dares) you've participated in, or tips you think would help someone complete their goal.  Try and be that inspiration for someone else to get back at it, as well as yourself. -Peruse the NaNoWriMo Website- There's a lot of little creative things to do on ...

NaNoWriMo is upon us, and I've elected to use my 50,000 words to make a dent in, and hopefully finish, my novel-in-progress called "Blood Knights." I've made a new NaNo account for my pen name projects and added information about the novel to my account, including the synopsis and an excerpt.  The excerpt takes place several chapters into the novel, but it's a relatively neutral piece that doesn't spoil anything and doesn't need much explaining if you read the synopsis, so it seemed like a good fit. To save you a click, here is the synopsis if you think it's something you'd like to read: The city of Danube is home to three separate vampire covens: the Tepes in the north, the Bathory in the west, and the de Rais in the south. These three clans have been at relatively peaceful odds for centuries, with themselves and the vampire hunters that also call Danube home. However, now tensions are beginning to escalate for control over the lawless east, war...