First, some eye candy:

USS Sword of Liberty (DA-1) Blueprint Shot

That is a blueprint-style pic of the first Sword class astrodynamic detroyer, the titular “Sword” from my upcoming military sci-fi novel A Sword Into Darkness.  (I may have mentioned it before).  The pic is from several years ago, a mid-evolution version of the final iteration that graces the cover of the book.  It is VASTLY different from the very first version of the ship, which I imagined up prior to starting the writing process for this story YEARS ago.  That version is one uuuuuuuugly duckling:

Ewww.  Just ew.

I’ve gotten to be a better 3D artist over a loooong long time.  If it wasn’t completely self-evident, I’m self-taught from the School of Trial and Error (next door to the School of Hard Knocks — Gooooo, Black and Blue!).  That first pic was cobbled together from the program Bryce.  Since then, I’ve moved on to Maxon’s Cinema 4D, which can be (and has been) used to animate complete films, though I’ve never used it for that.  I just like making pretty spaceships.

In other news, I’ve uploaded what I think will be the final version of the interior file, cover, and web-store description to Amazon’s Createspace site.  As soon as it is approved for use, I’ll finalize it and order a couple of proofs, which I may be giving away, so stay tuned for details.  Today, I’m doing chores for the boss (my lovely wife) and working on the Kindle edition when I can sneak away.  Gotta get all my ducks in a row before the big day on the 31st!  (Don’t worry, I get all the cliches out of my system here so they don’t infect my real writing.  🙂  )