Dead Quarantine

Dead Quarantine my zombie apocalypse survival horror novel just got published on Amazon.com. Before I wrote Dead Quarantine I wrote two other novel length horror stories which I didn't publish because they were not good enough. They need a major rewrite and maybe I need to fuse them together into one novel before I even think about publishing them. Maybe this will be my New Year's resolution.

Back to Dead Quarantine; I wrote the story during Nanowrimo, the first draft I finished in two weeks, writing about ten hours daily. Then I went over the work for two more weeks and send it out to my editor. Thanks to her the story is polished to a publishable level. She is great at what she does besides also being nice and helpful. I really can't thank her enough for her work. Thank you Dani.

Dead Quarantine is a fast paced story about two teenagers fighting their way to safety through a zombie apocalypse. It's the first book in a trilogy. The other two I got roughly outlined and I'll start writing the second one in early 2013 and the third one during the 2013 Nanowrimo. I also still got some short stories and novellas to finish and some other projects I'm writing under a pen name. I'll do my best finishing them all by the end of 2013.

The cover:

The description:

Unbeknownst to two teenagers—Ralph worried about a history exam he didn't study for and Sarah having studied all weekend—a flu pandemic with apocalyptic proportions rages over the world. On Monday, they arrive at their high school besieged by men in hazmat suits, escorting infected teenagers to buses. Ralph is forced on one of these quarantine buses and Sarah, along with the remaining healthy student body, gets quarantined at school.

This flu however is worse than the 1918 Spanish Flu that killed a hundred million people—much worse. This flu turns its victims into the walking dead. The few not infected are left not only with the grief of their family and friends passing, but also with the horror of their families, friends, and neighbors trying to rip the flesh off them.

Ralph—unsure about the real destination of the bus and trapped inside with kids that are getting worse by the minute—may not get to the destination in time before the first one dies. Sarah, trapped at school, deals with a worsening situation that she soon needs to escape from.

Will the zombies feast on their young flesh or will they escape?

Available at Amazon for $3.99.

Available at Kobo and Smashwords in January 2013.

I will also be making it available in print (Createspace), at earliest at the end of January but most likely in February.

Christmas 2012

Merry Christmas to you all. I hope you spend a lovely and happy day with your family and friends. My wish for this day and every day after this one is that for each day may be a happy one in which we celebrate life. It would do us good to be festive every single day. Less fighting, more loving.

December 21st, The Mayas, The day I almost touched Wool.

This week I've been (lightly) promoting a free book of mine. First just to get the story out and known to the readers (love you guys) out there, but then when the story placed 90+ in the Short Story ranking on Amazon and I saw Whool ranked second in that category, I got the urge (obsession maybe?) to reach that spot before the alleged end of the world which the Maya supposedly predicted.

I just assume since the Spanish in the far past killed most Mayas and with them all the Maya calendar makers. So now with no way the Mayas can make a new calendar, people are freaking out because they think it signifies the end of the world. Jeez, some Chinese guy even made an arc to survive a flood that he thinks will cover the earth. He burned all his savings on it and I doubt the thing will even float.

Just in the tiny chance that I'm wrong and we all go out with a big bang within a few hours, I wanted to post this picture.

Escape (Gone World) is almost touching Wool... my greedy fingers are stretching out to reach it, who knows I will today, who knows I indeed will. However whatever happens, no Maya apocalypse can grab this away. ;) I am nr. 4 in the short story ranking on Amazon. And you know what? I'm probably the only one who cares. :D And I'm fine with that. It's just a silly thing of me that I tried to do and with some luck actually almost did and maybe still will do. I thank whomever showed interest in my story and I hope they enjoy reading it before the Maya Calendar/Prophecy thing drags us all down or up to wherever.

You can get Escape (Gone World) here if you want to help me reach my silly goal and push my story to new highs, or if you want to safe Wool from me, keeping it away from my reach, you can get Wool here.

Update: World didn't end. :D Didn't expect it would. Oh, and I didn't get to touch Wool :( A step too far for me to touch such greatness, maybe in a year or two I will be able to when I'm a more experienced writer. I've only been writing for four years now, still just a beginner.

Gone World Episode One: Escape

I recently got Gone World copy-edited and updated to address some concerns readers had. This is an improved version and free at Smashwords/Kobo/Amazon.


Description:

What we feared happened. World War III happened. Nuclear war happened.

The United States of America—along with most of the world—has been left in rubble. Pockets of resistance fighters are still fighting the good fight against the invaders, the Sino-Russian Alliance.

Nick and Tina, two rebels, have narrowly escaped an ambush, but Russians still surround them. With the rebel city destroyed and cordoned off by thick walls, their chances to get out alive are slim to none.

Available at (free):

Amazon
Kobo
Barnes & Noble
iBooks
Smashwords 


Also available ($0.99):

The Third Party (Gone World #2)
Revenge (Gone World #3)



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"F.C.F. That Within"

F.C.F. That Within a novelette of about sixty pages.

What a reviewer had to say:

"F.C.F. That Within is a one-night-read with a vengeful plot and enough nasty bug-mutants to keep your imagination flowing. Alex Rosaria writes with gritty, crisp descriptions that echo the grim desolation of his characters and setting. He delivers on his action scenes, adding enough blood and guts to conjure up images of the movie "Starship Troopers" with Casper Van Dien. For a short Sci-Fi novel, F.C.F. That Within packs a lot in. Besides the 'no-mercy' style violence, there is some mystery and a light peppering of, believe it or not, romance. I am intrigued to see what else Rosaria has in store for his future works." - Knightengale Books

Description

Sergeant Troy Black goes on a routine mission, but a betrayal sends him crashing into an ambush, which gets his unit killed and leaves him the sole survivor.

Stranded on a moon, with the military outpost a distance away and his oxygen almost depleted, he needs to find his way back to exact revenge on those that betrayed him, and find out what’s going on with the sudden bug infestation.

Will Troy get to the base before his oxygen runs out and get his revenge?


Available at:

Amazon
Kobo
Barnes & Noble
iBookstore
Smashwords


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Nanowrimo + Book Cover

I may have mentioned before that I would do Nanowrimo this November. Well I did and within twelve days I wrote a 50k word novel, two days before my own set deadline. It's not that I write fast, I actually did write very slow. I went at an average pace of 600 wpm. What I did was write a lot each day I wrote like 83+ hours in 12 days. I did most of my writing early in the morning and in the evenings, averaging around 4k words a day.

Sure the first draft wasn't ready yet. I spend an additional 16 days and three more drafts in improving the novel, spending another 80+ hours. I spend the equivalent of a month working full time on this novel.This I did while also learning for my certification exam to become a Microsoft MCITP Enterprise Administrator (Exam scheduled for December 28th).

After 160+ hours in, the novel is ready for me to send to my copy editor for her to neat up on the spelling, grammar, awkward sentences, and much more. With some luck it will be finished by Christmas and available for the kindle.

Of course I needed a book cover, so I made one:

A professional artist might have done a better job, however with the picture I bought from shutterstock I think I made a real nice cover. Much props to the artist that made the stock photo.

Though opinions might differ about the awesomeness of the book cover, I would like to know yours.

Touch Typing

A long, long, long time ago, when I was barely a teenager. My father bought me and my brother our first Gateway PC. It came in a cow pattern box. It was a neat thing. My brother about two years older installed everything, He could read a manual very well. I don't do the read manual thing. Anyway in the package we got an Encarta Encyclopedia, Mavis Beacon Teaches Typing, and some other stuff I forgot about.

I wanted to learn to type. So I tried. I tried for a week and gave up. I developed my own style of typing with two fingers. It's similar style as those old people you see who never seen a typewriter or computer before, hunched over the keyboard, pecking at the keys, moving very slowly. Only I was not that slow, I managed to type at a 20 words a minute speed and burst of near 30wpm. Though my eyes were half the time on the keyboard which kept my speed limited.

Touch typing benefits us all. You can type without looking at the keyboard and with time as your proficiency increases so does your speed. I knew this and still I drudged with my slow pace typing, because it was sufficient for the occasional email, or report I had to type. Once I started writing I felt the drawback. I would write my stories longhand, because my typing was too slow to keep up with me, and held my storytelling back. Drawback of longhand is that my handwriting is not pretty, making it difficult to read and in typing it over.

It's only now at 34 that I decided to learn touch typing and become proficient doing so. I registered for the free online tutorial typingweb and did the courses for two months, each day typing about 2 hours, practicing till I managed to touch type. I can now type at 40wpm with bursts of up to 60wpm. I wished I've done this before, it saves a lot of time. I can now type at the speed with which I can keep up with my story telling, and I don't need to type my handwriting over ever again.

Added benefit is I can type my emails, reports, and instruction manuals much faster, so it also benefits me on my day job. I don't dread now when asked to document something, now I'm able to do it in half the time I normally would.

I intend in keep improving and up my speed to 70 wpm. I do recommend to anyone who doesn't touch type to teach themselves to do so. You'll benefit from it. Using typingweb.com will help you considerably to do so. The courses and practices are topnotch and it's free. The added benefit is you can certify your typing skill and use this when applying for a job.