The best month of the year

It’s October, and I love it. Things are cooling off after the outrageous summer we had. Leaves are starting to turn, and everything feels right again.

I was an October baby, so maybe that’s part of it. Old What’s Her Face made me some pumpkin cinnamon rolls for breakfasts. They’re nothing fancy, just the Pop & Fresh kind, but it was sweet of her.

I’ve been working my way through a variety pack of pumpkin beers from Elysian brewing. The Dark ‘O the Moon Pumpkin Stout is really good.

Pumpkin isn’t the only Fall flavor in my world. Mom sent up some of her homemade chokecherry jelly. I would have preferred syrup, but I had it on a pancake this morning anyway. It’s a taste of Fall from my childhood.

We’ve been fiddling with Halloween themed shows to watch. RL Stein has a more adult themed series of films on Netflix. Old What’s Her Face loved the first one, but I had a tough time getting into it. It’s a long month, so there could be something good coming up.

She used her birthday money and bought a Traeger Grill. She loves her gadgets and had to have the one that connects to her phone via wifi. She likes the idea of adjusting the temps while out doing other things. This meant she had to name it. She called it “The Chamber of Barbecue Secrets.” I figured you guys would get a chuckle out of that, I did.

Things are going to get busy at Entertaining Stories, too. I’m taking the entire Hat Series out on tour. This involves having written a bunch of unique posts, so they’re all worth reading. I’ll reblog everything here in an attempt to drive traffic to my hosts. There are going to be some free days, so if you’ve wanted to get into this series, this is a good month to dive in. One volume per week, and it all kicks off at Teri’s Bad Moon Rising event. Promoting a paranormal series in October feels like the right thing to do.

It’s important to support your hosts. If any of you feel so inclined, share the posts from their sites. This could boost their traffic and net them some new followers.

I’ll be watching the comments all month, so let me hear from you along the route.

I sent the second to last chapter of Good Liniment out to my critique group, and Lanternfish is in the hands of my formatter. This means starting all over again when I publish Lanternfish, and getting ready for Good Liniment in the late winter sometime.

Are any of you excited for Fall, October in general, or Halloween? Let me hear from you.

Ugh! Life gets in the way

I probably owed you guys an update yesterday, but here we are. This is my short weekend, and my wife is off, too. That doesn’t typically add up to much word count.

Today, we had to buy a new refrigerator. The old one started leaking on the inside, then freezing in the lower drawer. Before it ruins the kitchen floor we decided to bite the bullet.

My intent was to put it on my Sears card. They took our Sears store away, so that was the first obstacle. We found what we liked at Home Depot, but the card got denied.

I called Visa from Home Depot, and got some mush-mouthed guy I could barely understand. It was kind of like talking to Kevin the vampire over the phone. Eventually, we figured out that my credit limit wasn’t high enough.

It always was, but since we haven’t used it for a few years, they must have lowered it. I managed to get it sorted out and delivery is all set up.

After that, we decided to go to lunch. Old What’s Her Face and I haven’t really been out since this whole Covid mess started. We wound up at Old Chicago for pizza and beer. It was always one of our favorite places and I got to sample a couple of different holiday stouts.

Like I said, doesn’t make for much word count. I’ve been able to add minor amounts to my stories in the evenings, but have a hard time writing with noise and distractions. I’m only doing it, because there is no other option.

Right now, the story about Lizzie and the hat is further along at 24,700 words. Wreck of the Lanternfish is standing at 15,000.

I really need to nudge Lanternfish along. I tend to rush through some parts, but should detail some of the gyrations. Fantasy readers expect a bit more word count, and the environment is interesting. I’m at a point right now where I have to just write those parts and assess everything at the other end. Sometimes it’s easier to fix it than it is to fuss about how I’m going to write it.

I doubt I’m going to get anything else done this weekend. We have a few chores set for tomorrow and those shouldn’t be put off.

My banishment for Covid is over now and I can return to the office. I had to serve my wife’s entire sentence, then another two weeks of my own. She was the one who caught it, but I had to be out longer. Doesn’t make any sense to me, but I get to go back Monday. Hope I’m not too far behind.

Weekend at last

I’m starting of with a big old bomber sized bottle of my favorite pumpkin beer. Just look at that cool label.

We recently acquired a small deep freeze that we placed in the garage. It’s holding a goodly supply of meat, but the rack up top needed something. I used a mister bottle and frosted my beer mugs. I’m in heaven right now.

I really want to start writing again. I won’t, but I want to. I need to keep this blog tour moving. I’m moving a few copies here and there, and there are a few reviews showing up. Amazon seems to be the hold out. I’m finding some nice things on BookBub and Goodreads, so there’s that. The good news is people seem to be enjoying it. Don’t forget to grab your copy while it’s still 99¢.

The next Hat story is screaming at me, and I’m feeling the call of the sea and Lanternfish once more. I have a little conundrum in that some of my critique members have commitments coming up. Let’s be honest here, nobody is going to freak out if I don’t start drafting material until later this winter. Just because I want to, doesn’t mean have to.

I have next week all lined out for the blog tour. I’ll probably spend some time this weekend writing posts for the last week of October and contacting hosts. There is some reading I want to catch up with, too. I’ve done without my flex day for three weeks, due to work conflicts. Weekends just don’t allow for much more than that. My regular schedule will resume in November and might allow me to take on a bit more.

Wishing all of you a great weekend. Hopefully, with your own favorite beverage.

Wrapping up the work week

It was kind of a long work week. I’m glad to see the end of it. Old What’s Her Face went shopping after work. She picked up a couple of Papa Murphy’s pizzas and they’re smelling pretty good about now.

She also picked up this:

All is well with the world.

Saturday efforts

Today, I sent out the first submission of my side project. This one involves Lizzie and the hat in their third adventure. They’re chasing vampires this time in a rodeo/country music type environment. I know I’ve kind of avoided vampires, but believe I can put a different spin on it, and still keep the humor the characters have become known for. I’m chewing my nails to find out what my critique group thinks of it all.

I also sent out the manuscript of Grinders to my formatter. She sent me an invoice, but I’m loath to pay it until tomorrow. She’s already completed the finished product, but I can’t publish until I have my Lisa Burton promotional posters. What would one of my releases be without Lisa?

Speaking of Grinders, several bloggers offered to host a cover reveal for me. I sent all those out, and several have posted already. I’m not reblogging these because they’re all the same. If you find one online somewhere, I would appreciate a tweet or Facebook post. I’m getting some nice comments on these, so I have high hopes about the eventual publication.

I wanted to get something out for Chinese New Year, and the cover reveal is that attempt. I’m a few weeks away from publication.

I’ve been working on a critique for a friend, and am about half-way through the submission. I’ll probably finish it tomorrow. Our rules are to send the feedback to the entire group, and it’s a great way to raise my own game. Sometimes we don’t know everything and a bit of effort like this helps me improve my own fiction.

Then I scheduled my next Story Empire post. This one is a continuation of the Character Archetypes; the Mentor. I hope it will be well received.

I’m off until Tuesday, so I have high hopes for Monday. I don’t quite have enough to send out the next section of Lanternfish, but could have by Monday night. The crew left the magical floating island of Bungo Bungo and are headed for Giapon. This is a stand-in for Japan in my story. This is the country that Serang’s Emperor has been at war with for decades. Maybe I can build some tension with placing her in this environment.

Sunday is the day I call my parents, and spend some time with my family. There are some Sundays when I can read or maybe write a paragraph or two, but I don’t usually push it on Sundays.

Old What’s Her Face and I had a lovely date night at one of our favorite places, Kahoots. They have a great selection on tap right now, so I had a Bourbon Barrel Aged Stout, a nice Scotch Ale, and a Expresso Stout. Aside from that, the prime rib was outstanding.

With all that wonderful beer, that’s why I’ll pay my invoice tomorrow. I’m going to watch an old movie tonight and just chill. Hope you’re all having a good weekend in whatever you’re doing.

Most of my adventures are like this

My wife and I are both off this weekend. It’s best to surrender the idea of doing any writing at all before it gets into my head. We decided to check out the huckleberry festival up in Donnelly.

Idahoans are crazy about huckleberries, and they have kind of a narrow window for picking them. Rumor is there are plenty about right now. Several years ago, I went up to McCall and picked a large baggie of them I made into fritters.

These huckleberries are actually blueberries, but don’t have that conversation with one of the natives.

We opted to leave the doggies home, because it’s been incredibly hot, and this was a day trip.

Hot wasn’t an issue at all once we got there.

Pretty scenery, though.

Donnelly was having a parade about the time we arrived and parking was non-existent. This place is tiny, but they even had a traffic cop on the main drag, which is also the state highway to more popular destinations.

We opted to drive to McCall and check things out later.

We had lunch at McCall Brewing. I had a lovely pastrami Reuben, and this Wobbly Man beer. It’s a smoked scotch ale, for those who are interested. It’s a wonderful beer and is occasionally available in Boise, where I seldom pass it by. McCall also makes a great Lemon Ginger Hefeweizen, and it has Ginger from Gilligan’s Island on the label. I passed on Ginger and had a glass of English Bitter as my follow up. I was pretty excited to even find a bitter, but it didn’t quite measure up to their more popular offerings.

After lunch, we decided to go a bit further and check out a campground, and possibly find a few huckleberries of our own. It’s a nice campground, but you could put all the berries in the palm of my hand. I think I’m in line for a huckleberry pancake tomorrow, but only one.

When we went back to Donnelly, it was raining like a mo%^*#F$@!er. Everyone got washed away, and boarded up for the day.

All the covers were down, and the vendors headed for shelter.

One stouthearted fellow operated out of a trailer, and kept his place open. I was looking forward to some pancake syrup, maybe a fritter, even some alcoholic concoctions. This fellow had ice cream and it was outstanding.

That was our day. Great lunch. Great beer. Pretty scenery. No huckleberries, but the ice cream was outstanding. As a bonus, I may have found a new campsite that won’t leave me hanging off the side of a cliff with my camp trailer.

In other news, the dogs got a new toy from Nylabone. They’re both crazy about it, but Otto takes the best photos. (Frankie never stands still long enough.)

He looks like a towel rack or a door knocker.

B. W. I.

Okay, not particularly intoxicated, but well lubricated. What does an author blog about when he isn’t writing? Stuff like this.

When we walked into Old Chicago at the Boise Town Square Mall, the Blood Mobile was parked out front.

Old What’s Her Face asked, “Do you want to donate, dear?”

I said, “Yes, but I want to donate from that guy over there. Grab him.”

You probably had to be there, but we had a good laugh.

They actually had a Belgian beer on tap tonight, and those are kind of hard to come by. I had two. I had two different ones as well.

Supper was mediocre at best, but I got to actually watch a Diamondbacks game on their televisions, and they actually won. (A rare thing these days.)

My pizza was one of those with so much sauce the toppings all slid into my lap. Otherwise it was wonderful, but it wasn’t what I’ve become accustomed to at OC.

Old What’s Her Face went for a pedicure while I watched the game and swilled good beer. She has her thing, and I have mine.

I’m not going to get to write this weekend, but I did work on a blog post for Story Empire. It’s all scheduled now. If you enjoy the Expansion Pack series, there is another one up on Wednesday.

My daughter made a surprise visit this weekend, and we had a nice chat. She even offered to cut Dad’s hair, and I couldn’t pass that up. She really does a good job.

While this isn’t a writing weekend, I have some vacation time scheduled. I’m milking the flex schedule, and by taking two ten-hour days off, I actually get six days off in a row. It all starts next Friday. My hope is to give Lanternfish a good launch.

Aside from that, I need to work on some blog tour posts for Viral Blues. The release will be upon me before I know it. I want to do a tour of favorite sites, but I may get a mutual promo tour with some friends going, too. I’m kind of excited about that. We all draw some people and the crowd is bigger because of that. Maybe one of their regulars will be interested in my release, and maybe one of mine will be interested in theirs. More on that later.

We have some home improvement stuff to deal with tomorrow and I’m dreading it. I’m not a tool guy, and not particularly handy in that department. I’ve replaced the kitchen faucet before, but I really don’t think my back is up to it these days. I’ll update on this later. It will either be a successful replacement, or a trip to the hospital. Either way I get a blog post.

On another note, my side project is moving along well. I’m in the mucky middle, but about to move out of it. I’m finding that a side project might not move as fast as the targeted book, but it doubles my productivity.

That’s it, B. W. I. How did I do?

Date night, kind of

Friday was my only writing day. I went through the Serang MS with the intention of deleting a chapter. I know we’re supposed to kill our darlings, but in this I failed. I deleted 10 words.

Part of this has to do with setting up some tragedies that wouldn’t be as tragic if treated as backstory. While Serang is a character from Lanternfish, her story does not have the comedic undertones that Lanternfish has. She is a serious character in that book, and her origin story is serious too.

Who knows how it will be received? I never do.

After I finished that project there was no time left for new words. Old What’s Her Face is off Saturday and Sunday, so that might be it for writing this weekend.

I may rough out some cover ideas tomorrow in anticipation of hiring Sean Harrington to start my artwork.

Speaking of Sean, he made me some cool pointers. I have a whole collection of them. Mine are more monstrous than the typical fingers you can find on Pixabay. Their purpose is to give direction on my blog.

It works like this. My sidebar has linked covers to my two most recent titles. By clicking on the covers you can grab a copy of The Yak Guy Project, or Voyage of the Lanternfish. I recently shared three wonderful reviews of Lanternfish, and I have the intention of writing more adventures for the crew.

You can also find a slideshow featuring all of my covers. There is a link to my Amazon page if you’d like to check out the older titles. There’s going to be another story for Lizzie and the hat. You might want to jump on board with The Hat about now too. I’m thinking of holding it until October. It will fit the Halloween theme pretty well.

I had a gift card to Old Chicago Pizza, so we decided to go there tonight. It was kind of disappointing this time. Our server didn’t know anything, and simply told me they were out of every beer I wanted to order. Finally, I told her the guy at the table across from me just received the beer I tried to order. Lo & behold, they did have it and she brought me a pint.

The pizza was off tonight too. It’s almost like there was old dough in the freezer or something. We’ll still go there, but we’re chocking it up to a bad night. Didn’t recognize a single person working there, and we go there a lot.

After that, we went to check out the new Albertsons on Fairview. This is their version of competing with Whole Foods. They have over two acres under one roof. They have some cool stuff, like jackfruit and a million kinds of salami. It’s one of those places where you would make impulse purchases. With lines about a quarter mile long at the checkout stand, my impulses didn’t happen. Maybe we’ll go back in a couple of weeks when the newness wears off.

As for writing, well… I have Wednesday off. I have one chore to take care of though. I have to go to town to get my truck sniff tested. The test doesn’t take long, but the travel back and forth does.

I think I could have accomplished more, but this cold is lingering. I’m still phlegmy and coughing. I feel a lot better, but I still missed one day at work last week. This thing can’t go away fast enough to suit me. It makes my mind foggy, and that isn’t good for writing new words.

A long week.

This was the week I went to San Antonio. That’s really nothing new, at my level seminars are a fact of life. This one had its good and not-so-good parts. Some of that has to do with my seasoning. I’ve been around this stuff for a long time, and it’s getting kind of hard to show me something new. They managed it though.

One of the unexpected things is kind of telling. I’ve been to many a seminar, but the seats in those meeting rooms are starting to wear me out more than ever before. A day or two, no problem. Four days, and I think I need a wheelchair.

Add air travel into the mix, and it gets even worse. There is no such thing as a comfortable chair on an airliner. I wound up with the middle seat on all four legs of my journey. From Phoenix to Boise, the guy with the window seat never showed up. I moved over and it was wonderful just to have a bit of extra room.

I actually left my iPad Pro at the TSA check in stop in San Antonio. Fortunately, my employee spotted it and saved it for me. I’m starting to feel like I need a keeper.

As far as San Antonio goes, it rained. Then it rained some more, followed by rain, with an additional portion of rain. It stopped raining while I was at the airport to go home.

We braved it anyway. We wandered down the street to someplace called the Buckhorn Saloon for lunch. It’s one of those places that seems dedicated to taxidermy. Animals covered all the walls, and they call part of it a museum that requires an admission fee. Apparently, it was not dedicated to cleanliness. To make it clear, polar bears and mountain goats are white, not grey.

The lunch itself was pretty good, and I scored a local beer that came off quite well. Craft beer wasn’t easy to find, but Texas brands were in abundance. I wound up living on Shiner Bock. Not awesome like a craft beer, but you can live on it.

While we were there, a Ted Cruz Rally broke out. My co-worker took a photo, but I didn’t feel the need. Cruz is kind of an odd dude, and I sat on my hands, lest judgment be passed upon me.

My co-worker has several Army buddies in the area, so he went out with them most nights. The one night we wandered around didn’t turn out all that great.

We got to the Alamo just as it closed. I still snapped a photo, the only one I took.

I briefly considered storming the fortress, but that’s already been done, and seems so 1800s by today’s standards.

Note: It was raining.

Then we wandered down to the River Walk. I went through the Alamo years ago, and spent a lot of time on the River Walk. This time, the River Walk seemed like it’s lost some of its spark.

The last time I was here, there were shops, bars, and restaurants filled to overflowing. This time, very little was open, people were scarce, and some construction was going on. It does make for a lovely scene to put some vampires in and have them stalk the patrons stumbling out of the bars.

My co-worker said his buddy, a former Army Ranger, told him this part of town wasn’t a great place to hang out after dark. We took the hint and went back to the hotel. I settled for another Shiner, some poorly conceived bar food, and called it my birthday dinner. I went back to my room so I could watch the World Series. It’s hard to ask a group of Spurs fans if it would be okay to change from basketball to baseball. (Sounds like something for one of John’s top ten lists.)

Old What’s Her Face called me on Face Time, something I’d never done before. This was so I could talk to Otto. He missed me and was confused how I got inside the iPad. It was kind of fun.

When I got home, the house was dark. My wife had to work today. That didn’t stop the dogs, and they swarmed me. I had to stay up for an hour just snuggling them. (Mostly Otto.)

I have a big old list of things I should be doing today, but I’m kind of worn out. Spending a lot of time with my old friend, Mr. Hot Pad today. At least I got to spend some time editing while I was on airplanes. That and reading a mediocre craft book I bought. I’m finding that craft books are kind of like seminars these days. It’s isn’t exciting and awesome anymore, but there are small nuggets of information that I find valuable.

That was the week that was. I really do have a ton of things to do, but this whole month has been like burning the candle at both ends. I think I’ll take a day and see how I feel about it tomorrow. I wonder if John Wayne is defending the Alamo on television somewhere today.

Yuck!

I spent my entire day doing word searches on Lanternfish. I’m not joking about spending eighth hours on this project. I got all the way to the end, but it necessitates another complete reading of the manuscript now. No idea when I’ll get to that. There are a couple of books I’ve been trying to read, and I’m not finding the time for them.

My daughter showed up from Sun Valley for a few hours today. I stopped all progress, and had a nice visit with her. This is more important than word searches and edits.

One of my goals was to write some new words, and that may not happen. I get a four day weekend, but tomorrow is always an odd day with some personal requirements.

After I posted last night, I spent some time on an outline. In my case, they are storyboards. I made a huge dent in the storyboard for a novella I want to write. It doesn’t seem like much, but it is some progress. About all I have to do now is ramp up the tension points, and check some timelines. I will probably pin some graphics to my board, because they always help, but I could almost start writing it today. I won’t, because I’m working on something else, and haven’t got Lanternfish out the door yet.

Unfortunately, I’ll probably spend the rest of my weekend on edits. Had I dedicated myself to new words, I could have cranked ten-thousand of them over four days. Lamenting this probably isn’t a good idea, but that’s what I’m doing right now.

I’m going to call it a day, crack open another pumpkin beer, then turn on some baseball. There are only a couple of games left this season, and I want to get my money’s worth from the season pass on television.

I’ll hit it again tomorrow.