Marc Nobbs: Blog

Chapter 12 of "A Healing Love" was posted today and features the song "Not Invisible" by Kayla Valentine.

I wrote the lyrics to the song, but then used Suno to generate an AI version (using my lyrics). You can hear that version on my website now.

Over the past couple of weeks, I've been doing a thorough edit and revision of A Good Man, the first book in the Paul Robertson Saga.

I've just completed the revision of chapter 20, which is almost halfway through the story. The edits and modifications do not alter the narrative or characterisation, but they modernise and generally improve the prose and dialogue. I'm a better writer now than I was 14 years ago, and I hope I'm bringing that experience to the story.

I'm particularly pleased with the revisions to chapters 19 & 20. I believe I've completely transformed these from something of a dry infodump into genuine and worthwhile character work, enhancing the mentor-mentee-surrogate father-son relationship between Will and Paul. The whiskey tasting scene in particular is something I'm really quite proud of now.

Of course, I'm only halfway through the book, and I'm posting revised chapters as they are posted. This means that right now, the story will feel a little disjointed as you read through it and encounter the original 2011 text. I know that many people are reading this story at the moment, with the release of A Healing Love, the fourth book in the series. So, whether you are reading it for the first time or reading it to remind yourself of the story before tackling A Healing Love, please be aware of the situation.

I really hope that the revisions are well received.

Chapter 3 of A Healing Love was posted today. It features a song by Kayla Valentine.

I wrote the lyrics to the song, and you can hear an AI-generated version of the song, using my lyrics, on my website right now.

I've begun posting the 4th Paul Robertson boo, A Healing Love, here on SOL. It, of course, remains available on ZBookStore.

My plan is to post chapters every Monday, Wednesday & Friday. Chapter 1 is available today, with Chapters 2 & 3 already queued for tomorrow and Wednesday. I'll try and make sure I stay ahead of the queue so I don't miss a posting date, but life is hectic, I've got to strip the style classes from the HTML, and make sure I get the song lyrics, text messages and notes formatted properly for SOL, so it's quite a task.

Wait, did you say "Song Lyrics"?

Yes. I did. You'll see.

I really hope you enjoy this book. It's been a labour of love. Please don't forget to leave comments, I'll try to respond to them, and feel free to drop me a message to let me know what you think of my efforts.

I posed a question in the SOL Forums the other day – “How would you feel about an 'Author Commentary' in the story comments?”
The essence of my questions was to see if readers would be interested in my posting my thoughts in the reader comments section of “A Healing Love,” chapter by chapter, as it is posted.

The general feeling was that, while it is a nice idea that could give readers insight into what the author was thinking as they wrote the book, the reader comments probably are not the best place for it due to their design.

So I devised another plan – a separate “book”, posted alongside the main story as a “companion piece.” I really like this idea, so I’m going to give it a try.

If it doesn’t work, I can simply have it deleted without any harm done.

Now, having completed “A Healing Love", I really need to give myself a break from creating. As much as I want to crack on and finish Paul’s story, I’m all out of creative juice at the moment.

So my next project is to revise and refine the previous Paul Robertson books, starting with ‘A Good Man.’ I’m going to do this in the same way I completed the edit for AHL by utilising the AI tools available. I’ll input each chapter into the tool, request feedback on what needs to be revised and refined, then amend it and return it to the tool for further advice until it appears polished and ready.

It worked well with “A Healing Love,” so I don’t see why it would be any different with ‘A Good Man.’ Mind you, AHL was already a far more polished and ‘mature’ piece of work. The fourteen-year gap between their productions has made a significant difference to my writing.

I’ve already completed the prologue and chapters 1-5, and they have been posted here at SOL. Once I’ve finished the entire piece, I’ll publish a revision of the ebook as well. I don’t intend to alter the plot or the characterisation, just refine and polish the prose, perhaps add some additional dialogue, that sort of thing.

As I complete the revision of each chapter, I also feed it into a separate chat to obtain some “analysis” of the book. It is this analysis, along with my own commentary as an author, that I am now posting here as “A Good Man: Author Commentary & AI Analysis.”

I’m slightly catching up, as I’ve only posted up to chapter three of the analysis so far. I have to use the site's text tagging to achieve the format I want, and it’s a PITA to use, so it's taking me longer.
But I’m getting there.

I’d be very interested to see if you find this exercise engaging. It’s interesting to me and also useful, which is why I’m doing it. However, it would be intriguing to know if any readers take anything from it. If the two individuals who have already rated it a score of “1” are anything to go by, then probably not. But, honestly, I’m not posting this one for the scores; I’m sharing it because it’s an engaging exercise for me, and I’m enjoying it.