I’ve finished up a second draft of my manuscript for Carbon Run (Woohoo!!) and I’ve sent it out the first beta readers. I’m definitely relieved that I’ve finally completed a phase of the project that I started in 2008. If you don’t count a long hiatus between about one-third of the first draft and completing a second draft, the project has taken me about a year to get to this point. Sending out a draft to friends is a little bit like sending your child to his first day of kindergarten; He may survive the day or melt down in front of you. While I’m waiting for feedback, I’ll be updating my blog, querying agents and publishers, and taking a fresh look at the last draft of my other sci-fi novel-in-progress, The Vault of Perfection. Meanwhile, here’s the current blurb for Carbon Run (subject to updating):

In the 22nd century, a father and daughter run afoul of the feared Bureau of Environmental Security when an accidental fire at their ranch destroys an endangered species. The father, now a fugitive, is pursued by a BES inspector determined to bring him to justice. Carbon Run is a disturbing and absorbing dystopian science fiction adventure set in a post-global warming world in which all oil-based fuels are illegal, environmental criminals are “disidentified,” murderous pirates roam an Arctic Ocean devoid of ice year-round, and smugglers risk their lives to bring life-giving heat to refugees of the Warming. Carbon Run is scheduled for release in late 2014.

I’ve been posting excerpts of Carbon Run as a work-in-progress on these pages.

I’ve also been playing with some ideas on cover art. The symbol of the fictional Bureau of Environmental Security is the tulip. I’m imagining a golden tulip enclosed in a circle of gold, reminiscent of the mockingjay medallion of the Hunger Games, or the cover art of the Divergent series. What do you think?