How I’m Doing on Savage Land–2

A clash between Nature, modern man, and the Neanderthals. Only one will win.

Their world in decline, Yu’ung and her tribe find themselves in a battle for survival with Nature itself. Nature expected an easy win. She was wrong. 

Savage Land is the third trilogy about primeval man in the series, Dawn of Humanity. A prehistoric thriller in the spirit of Jean Auel, Savage Land follows several bands of humans. Each considered themselves the apex predator. Neither was. That crown belonged to Nature and she had a plan to wipe them both from her planet.

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Here’s what I did the past month:

• I’ve changed the name–from The Savage Land to Savage Land. Does it matter to you?
• I continue with a ton of research, and everything I learn makes me respect our Neanderthal forebears more. They hafted stone tips to shafts, sewed clothing, cooked over fire, shared art and jewelry–I know. These aren’t the Neanderthals you’ve always read about. Scientists have learned a lot about this species of our genus in the last decade. You will be proud of the people you meet in this story.
• I break up my research by doing the many odd jobs I put off for a year to finish Natural Selection. Here are a few:
  • In the past, I bought ISBNs from Bowker and set my publisher up as an imprint. As I assign the ISBN’s to books, I was lax about updating the Bowker database. I’ve cleaned that up.
  • I have about six outlets for my books. The ones without many sales, I didn’t pay much attention to (places like Google Play) in the push to finish the last trilogy. I’m taking time to clean them up.
  • My education books required updating to reflect current times (No, I haven’t addressed ChatGPT yet–but that will have to come). Not done with the updates yet, but working on them.
• My writing phases are: 1) outlining, 2) drafting, 3) editing, 4) whatever else. I’m on the outline phase right now so I work in a spreadsheet. I’ve managed to write only 500-1500 words a day (once as high as 2500) because I spend a lot of time moving scenes within books.
• I took time to be distracted when the opportunity arose. Here’s a video that stopped me in my tracks. I found it on Donna’s blog, Retirement Reflections, and couldn’t believe I’d never before heard of it. 190 million views! I’ve never seen such a high number! Listen and you’ll see why.

–image credit Deposit Photo

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Jacqui Murray is the author of the popular prehistoric fiction saga, Man vs. Nature which explores seminal events in man’s evolution one trilogy at a time. She is also the author of the Rowe-Delamagente thrillers and Building a Midshipman, the story of her daughter’s journey from high school to United States Naval Academy. Her non-fiction includes over a hundred books on integrating tech into education, reviews as an Amazon Vine Voice,  a columnist for NEA Today, and a freelance journalist on tech ed topics. Look for her next prehistoric fiction, Savage Land Winter 2024.

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