Welcome everyone,I like science fiction and fantasy for a lot of the same reasons, but they are very different and often have a distinct group of readers. I grew up on both, starting my serious reading adventures with the Doomfarers of Caramonde by Brian Daley.It’s a story about a Vietnam era soldier who takes his APC crew through a portal to a magical world and has a bunch of adventures. By today’s standards, from a marketing perspective, this is a portal fantasy. I loved it because it involved going someplace impossible and doing amazing things in a dazzling new world where anything was possible.I used to read it every year, but haven’t touched it for a while. Maybe I should go back and decide if it’s as good as I remember.As time went by, I discovered authors like David Weber and John Ringo. I read Isaac Asimov and Robert Heinlein. There were others who wrote more scientific fiction, and science fiction that probably was better classified as space fantasy.What genre is Dune, really?I’ve always been very happy in a book.I’ve read thrillers, post apocalyptic stories, and historical fiction. It really just depends on my mood.Right now I am enjoying science fiction and I have been invited to write in a major post apocalyptic series.Regardless, I’m extremely fortunate to write stuff that people actually want to read. Maybe I’m not full-time, but I’m loving it and am often blown away by the support I get from people I never met before I started publishing books.Until next time,Scott

I never know what to write in the bio section.Should I be ultra-personal? Awkward. Uber professional? Boring.I decided to make the bio a blog rather than just a static page, which is probably dumb, but I’m going to do it anyway. Maybe from time to time, I can update it and make it relevant instead of this boring thing people skip over.Who knows?So why don’t we just start with this. My name Scott Moon, and I write. I’ve been in law enforcement for a long time, with ups and downs and many interesting experiences. I hope that gives me a way to make my stories better, with a deeper understanding of people in every type of situation.I love my friends and family. I’m religious but don’t preach about it and respect others in their own religious beliefs. A perfect day for me would be writing for hours, then working out once or twice, maybe even attending a Brazilian jujitsu class or something.I’d like to be a full time writer, since I’ve already put in twenty-one years at my current, soul sucking job. (Trying to keep it real. You get it, right?)Take care,​Scott

I’m having a really fucking hard day. But it will get better and tomorrow’s a new beginning.Once I’m done with my interview for the lieutenant position at my regular job, things will get better. It feels like a failure because I had hoped to be a full time writer by now. I get in my own way a lot.Why do I struggle when I have a nearly perfect life? Good friends, family, a steady job, my health, and a decent amount of success writing fiction (which has always been my dream).Who knows? It is what it is. I have more wonderful opportunities and so many excellent writing friends it’s crazy. I’m really blessed. So thanks for that. You know who you are.Wish me luck.​Peace.

A lot of amazing things have happened recently.Writing collaborations, insane weather patterns, and new friends.This morning I had big plans for the day. Why? Because it is my day off from work, all the kids are at school, and my wife works. A few things went wrong with this plan but will get to that later.I have four kids across a wide spectrum of ages. One of my middle children is in college and on the rowing team. I remember this particular part of the training season fondly, or maybe an absolute horror, but yes fondly. I was in shaped back then.So my daughter is on her way to indoor training, translation let’s see how bad this can hurt until it’s time to get on the water again. She informs me, possibly in a slight panic, that an ice storm has completely encased her Jeep in frozen precipitation. I calmly explained to her that I’ve done this before and even though she thinks it is basically un-scrapable, that we can get it done.The Moon teamwork begins. I use all the skills I’ve learned in Kansas and abroad, notably how to cut grooves of the ice with the scraper and then break those down. I lean my two hundred pound frame into the work and begin to clear away the windows. Sleet and snow continued to pour down.Then, a flash of lightning.Keep in mind it is very dark this early in the morning… And snowing.Why is this so amazing? Probably because I’ve been writing a novel with Richard Fox called The Rage of Winter. It is set on a winter world and has some similarities with the Winter War of nineteen thirty-nine — except in a sci-fi environment with the fate of the entire galaxy at stake. Last week I did research on Google about thunder snow, because it sounded cool.Thunder snow is extremely rare. For reasons that are slightly beyond my scientific capacity to explain, but that I can basically understand if I read it from someone else, you get a thunderstorm in the winter with flashes of lightning. Very cool and scary.So that was different. I made a video and put it up on our Keystroke Medium Facebook group. The Rage of Winter is the second book in the Terran Strike Marines series I am writing with Richard Fox. The first book, The Dotari Salvation, is alive and well and never has too many reviews… Hint, hint. Please and thank you. (All the books mentioned in this article are available through Kindle Unlimited, a service I was on the fence about for a long time. Now I couldn’t live without it. I’m reading more than ever before!)My solo work is still coming along nicely, but I have had fantastic opportunities to collaborate lately. In addition to Richard Fox sharing his writing awesomeness with me, teaching me his very impressive plotting and pacing techniques, I’ve been working with Craig Martelle on the Darklanding series.Darklanding is something really special in the world of science fiction. We originally conceived it as something like Firefly meets Tombstone and other old westerns. The characters have taken on a life of their own since then and fans seem to really like it. Episode five, An Unglok Murder, is coming out very shortly and will be a little bit of a murder mystery. Despite my background in law enforcement, I’ve never written a murder mystery. So this is mostly space opera / Western, but there is a little bit of whodunit.I hope you will check it out. Each episode after number three is thirty thousand words, a decent sized novella. (And, spoiler alert, six and seven are complete…ready for launch every 18 days. What started off as a short tale at the end of the known galaxy is now pushing two hundred thousand words and will be three hundred thousand by the time it’s all said and done.)So back to what’s going on today. Turns out we had a snow day which has cut into my writing productivity, but hey the kids like it. Except for one who has a migraine kid, thanks to my genetic code. Life is always interesting. Sometimes it’s less easy than other times. I’m happy to be here and feel blessed. Once we get through today’s headache, there will be great celebration!I hope you have an aweome day.Scott

Hello there, my name is Scott Moon. You probably don’t know me, but if you do, you may have seen Keystroke Medium, an interview show where Josh Hayes, Ralph Kern, Chuck Manley and I talk about reading, writing, and everything in between. We’ve interviewed some of the best writers of speculative fiction in the business.I write military science fiction, as do many of my friends.What else do you need to know about me? Well, I love audiobooks. I’ve even had a few of my books made into audiobooks by professionals. But that is not what this blog article is about.Once upon a time, I woke at an absurd hour one Thanksgiving morning and thought nothing would be better than to read my books live on YouTube. So I gave it a try, but defaulted to the path of least resistance, which was “video by cell phone”. To get the best quality, and not to wake up the entire family, I went out to my car in the garage which was turned off for safety reasons obviously, and proceeded to read into the camera.There were problems to this approach, although it wasn’t too bad. The sound quality was pretty decent and it was a straightforward process to upload the video. But let’s be honest, I’ve always wanted to create my own audiobook. If you follow along with this project I’ve started, you’ll see that I’m reading pretty neutrally. Not a lot of voice acting going on here, but I  plan to improve. (More on that later.)So even though I will never have time to become a full-time voice narrator, or the skill, I think I have the ability to become a pretty serious hobbyist in this regard.If you are an author who has considered audiobooks, which you should because they are the biggest growth industry we have available to us right now, then you may have gone to ACX and read the terms of publication. One thing will jump out at you right away. The ACX contract is for seven years. So if you are an enthusiast like myself, it might be best not to lock in a decent but not professional project for that period of time. Especially if you want to charge money for it. (Be patient, young Padawan!)My YouTube audiobook is a happy medium–my reasonable and totally unpretentious compromise (I hope). By the time I’m finished with this book, I should have mastered most of the technology needed to produce a basic audiobook and improve my skill as a voice narrator also. (I really love audiobooks and admire my favorite audiobook narrators like they are rock stars. I couldn’t tell you the name of the lead singer of my favorite bands like I could back in highschool, but I can list the best narrators out there right now. I listen to a lot of audiobooks…have I mentioned this?)What should an author do to start creating audiobooks? The title of this blog is “easy first steps”, so let’s get to that part right now.1) Listen to audiobooks. Listen to a lot of audiobooks. You may find that some voice narrators are so talented you would listen to the book regardless of what the book was about. Keep this in mind for later when you are hiring your own narrator.2) Check out ACX.com. This is the audiobook equivalent of Kindle direct publishing. It’s not as easy  to navigate but it’s not impossible. There are two ways to hire a voice narrator through this system. You can pay someone or you can sign up for a royalty share. I’ve done both, and they each have their pros and cons. (Also, there are other audiobook alternatives to ACX that should be researched. I haven’t used them yet.)3) Read your books aloud. If you are serious writer, you should be doing this already to help catch typos and get a feel for the flow of the language.4) Try out a simple and inexpensive program such as audacity or GarageBand. Read your book and edit it. Keep it simple. At this stage in my audiobook journey, I am basically taking out obvious mistakes and places where I clear my throat or take a breath that the mic picks up.  The most useful thing I’ve learned recently, is to delete the unwanted sound bite but keep the gap in the audio file. This will make more sense if you’re looking at your editing program (Audacity, GarageBand, Adobe, ect…). What this does, is maintain the rhythm of the speech without all the heavy breathing.That’s about all I have for today. I’ve included links to the first three chapters of Bayonet Dawn. If you could do me an awesome favor and give them a listen, that would be fantastic. You might even consider liking and subscribing to my YouTube channel.​Thanks for checking out my blog. I hope you have a fantastic day.Thanks,Scott Moon
Bayonet Dawn – Chapter 1 – Contact (part 1) Bayonet Dawn – Chapter 1 – Contact (part 2) Bayonet Dawn – Chapter 2 – Gone Bayonet Dawn – Chapter 3 – Brother