Project NIMROD

Upcoming Book Release

It’s been some time since I sat down and wrote a post on this platform. I have been diligently(mostly) working toward the release of the book I’ve been writing. I can gladly say that things are all coming together and the book is very close to release now. Longtime subscribers will know about my friend, Frode. He and his wonderful partner, Miriam have been graciously helping me get across the finish line.

When I first sat down at my computer with an idea for a novel, I drastically miscalculated the task that I had set before me. It turns out that writing a manuscript is difficult. That came as no surprise. It wasn’t the writing part, or even the story itself. Both of those things were time-consuming, but relatively easy, in comparison to the work that goes into a book after you’ve written the manuscript.

I hired an editor from the freelance site reedsy.com, named Steven Moore, to do my developmental editing, copy editing, and proofreading. Steven did an amazing job. His developmental editing notes were brutal. I was so grateful for his honesty and experience. They really helped me think more deeply about the characters, the storyline, and the general intention behind my book. After much deliberation and consternation, I was able to move to the next phase; to properly format the book and find someone to do cover art.

At a family function for Thanksgiving, I was able to catch up with my Uncle Pete. Fans of my podcast will know him as Pete G. Pete and I got to talking about “AI” and he suggested that I play around with ChatGPT. Knowing my distaste for all things AI, I thought it might behoove me to investigate. I started messing around with the idiotic program and it generated a fairly practical image that I thought might serve as cover art for my book. This isn’t so bad, I thought.

Well, try getting ChatGPT to do anything else useful with image generation. You will quickly find that it is woefully inadequate. Every time I would try and make one little change, the whole image would get jacked up. It turns out that the software, dall-e will generate an entirely new image, rather than tweaking what you ask it to. This resulted in many strange iterations of my cover art with misspelled words, lots of drifting, and a general emotional state of frustration.

I spoke with a local author and they helped me find getcovers.com. They created a cover for me for both paperback and ePub versions of the book that I really love. They were also affordable and very responsive to my questions and concerns throughout the project.

All that is to say that the process was quite grueling up to that point. I then thought, I’ll format the book myself. I asked Chat GPT to give me a hand with the task. ChatGPT was extremely confident and overtly encouraging as I fumbled my way through MS Word and the instructions I was given. ChatGPT was so confident. I thought, Well, this is a large language model, it should be good at stuff like this. I was wrong, oh so wrong. You see, after I followed all the instructions provided to the letter, I was left with wildly out of parameter margins, pagination issues, and a sinking feeling that nothing might ever be right with the world again.

This is the point where I reached out to my good friend, Frode, and asked for HELP! Frode and Miriam have been so charitable and kind to me and have spent time working through the blunders I made with ChatGPT’s awful instructions. I will never forget that kindness.

So, after an amazing and painful learning experience, I am happy to say that the first book in my series, The Viveka Chronicles Book One-Project NIMROD, is almost ready for release! I will be posting updates here and plan on making appearances on some podcasts to promote my new book. I have already started the manuscript for the second book in the series. I believe that this second one will come along MUCH quicker, now that I’ve experienced the growing pains of the first book.

Here’s a small teaser of the book for those of you who are interested. I hope you all enjoy and support me in this endeavor.

Project NIMROD

Viveka Chronicles Book One

In a world ruled by technology, salvation comes at a cost.

Trip Davis has survived The Scourge and rejected Integration with the Sentient Intelligence System. Recruited into the secretive NIMROD Program, he believes he is helping save a collapsing society—until he discovers everything he has been told is a lie.

As digital deception gives way to ancient evil, Trip is forced to confront the truth about power, freedom, and the darkness within the human heart.

In a society built on control and illusion, the greatest evil of all may be…The Greater Good.

Chapter One: My Name is Leta

The universe pulses in rhythmic cycles, all things alight within a great tapestry of interwoven threads, in an endlessly intricate pattern. As far as Trip Davis was concerned, the universe was more like the unpredictable violence of an abusive alcoholic. A life of trauma, horror, and neglect had stripped him of any notion of happy endings.

Trip stretched out as much as the firm, narrow mattress he slept on allowed. The haptic buzz of his alarm let him know it was time to crawl out of bed once again and face the day. “Minimal authorized volume,” he said aloud. The relentless voices and community updates of The Feed faded into white noise. He sat at the edge of his bed and caught the acrid scent of his morning brew on the air. Maybe it wasn’t real coffee, but at least it chased the cobwebs from his mind. The synthetic compound tasted of burnt charcoal and chemicals on his tongue as he sipped it, but he choked it down religiously.

He stumbled forward to relieve himself at the toilet in the corner of his room, and vaguely remembered a nightmare about some insidious black beast, chasing him through a nondescript forest. The memory of the dream faded like smoke, and he prepared to complete his morning exercise routine. Trip prided himself for staying disciplined and maintaining his physical fitness. Lately, it was getting harder and harder to do so. The monotonous nature of his existence was threatening to rob him of his ambition, of his very will to live.

Many of the other Non-Integrated Persons, or “NIPs” for short, were content to spend their leisure time zoning out to The Feed. They wasted countless hours living vicariously through virtual representations of themselves in cyberspace and augmented reality. Trip almost despised them for it. He had to remind himself regularly that they might actually be happier in their perpetual escapism than he was. Trip’s dogmatic insistence on experiencing the real world in the flesh made him an outlier among outcasts. The other NIPs’ lives, like his, were experienced in endless cycles of work and sleep. It seemed uncharitable to judge them so harshly.

Thank you for taking the time to read this update! If you like dystopian sci-fi, then I think you’re really going to enjoy this! Please share with anyone you think might be interested.