An update

My regulars will probably understand that I’m involved in a blog tour right now. I’ve been sweeping through those posts like a madman and trying to keep up with the comments. I’ve also been sharing them on this site, so if you miss one, you can link to it from here.

I garnered a couple of awesome reviews, and books are selling. As a new publication, I can always use more sales and reviews. Fingers crossed that the remaining tour posts will net some more folks next week. There aren’t many left, but they are productive locations.

I got a notice from Stumbleupon that some of my posts are being shared. Both Flipboard and Stumbleupon are kind of odd ducks. Either of them can cause a post to go crazy, but they have an odd rule to keep in mind. They don’t want you only sharing your own content. If you do, they’ll filter you back.

This filter is all run by bots of some kind, so they don’t know what the content involves, just what blog I shared it from. When I checked out the notice, the Stumbleupon action was about my blog tour posts, but only because I shared the host’s post and not my own. Kind of a cool trick. I’m in the habit of sharing other posts from my friends, so I don’t get filtered now.

If you got some action from SU, that could have been because of me this week.

Yesterday, I did some minimal yard work, and still need to work on the sprinkler system. The dogs got to chase the squirrel. Well, Otto likes to chase him, Frankie likes to chase Otto.

They’ve gotten so attuned to the squirrel that we have to be careful saying the word. We moved on to rodent, and now they know that too. I’ve taken to referring to the arboreal mammal.

Yesterday, Frankie spotted him and put her feet on the sliding glass door. Then she checked for Otto. When I got up, the squirrel was perched on the fence, and looking toward her in the house. I swear the squirrel is into it too and wanted me to let them out. End result, everyone is crazy and happy.

We even managed a cheap date night last night.

Today, I dealt with three more Lisa interviews. I really want to get back to my WIP, but by putting it off, it freed me up for my release, tour, and some of my blog duties. I’m hoping to return to my story next month.

I also wrote my next post for Story Empire and got it scheduled today. I consider it a fairly productive weekend. Tomorrow will be all about calling my parents and working on that sprinkler system.

Hope all of you are having a great weekend.

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A blogging kind of day

I didn’t set any gigantic goal for this weekend. Life has been throwing me curves lately, and plans seemed like a bad idea.

Today was a day to pick something up, finish it, and move to the next project. With that in mind, Lisa Burton Radio is assembled and scheduled for Thursday, and so is the following Thursday. This actually feels kind of good to get ahead a tiny bit. I used to track every questionnaire I sent out, and do appropriate follow up, but I stopped doing that this year. People seem to be benefitting from the interview slot, but they need to have some skin in the game too. There are probably ten or more questionnaires out, but it’s up to them to respond and get back with me. Makes my part of the process less stressful, and that’s a good thing. I’ll be here for you from now on, but I’m not twisting arms to fill the interview slots.

I also spent some time writing, assembling, and scheduling my next post over at Story Empire. It’s up on Wednesday, and I hope it comes across well.

Oh yeah, there is this post too.

Life continues to throw us curves. The range decided to go out, including the oven portion. We’ve been doing without it for a couple of weeks now. Between the barbecue and the microwave, we’ve survived. Now that Frankie seems like her old self, today was time to address our appliance problem.

The old range was original to the house, so seventeen years old. In this day and age, that’s a good run.

The debate of the day was whether to pay for the range or finance it. Holding back a tiny bit of cash seems like a good idea in light of current events. Free delivery swayed us to use our Sears credit card. In event of another emergency, we have a few bucks available, and can make minimum payments if we have to. If everything evens out, I’ll probably take two months to pay it off. That way we get a couple of paydays in there and don’t strap ourselves.

Delivery will happen next weekend. At that time, I’ll probably wake up Tituba, my sourdough starter and christen the new oven the right way.

To her credit, Old What’s Her Face chose a very reasonable range. There was a time when both of us did a lot of cooking. As the kids have moved out, the appeal of a Wolfe gas range isn’t there any more. We wound up with a decent Kenmore electric that matches all the rest of the appliances. Honestly, I’ve always had good luck with Kenmore stuff.

After signing the papers, we walked over to Old Chicago for pizza and beer. We called it an early night, because my wife has to work this weekend. A few Winter Olympics and I’ll figure out what tomorrow has in store. I might even add some new words to my work in progress. Maybe I’ll paste together a new background for Lisa’s Facebook page. I have some new images that might be fun to use as Polaroids on her table.

The dogs are getting some ball time right now. All posts are more popular with a picture, so here’s Otto being a crazy man with his oversized tennis ball.

A 3/4 good weekend

Heck, I’ll take it. I made a task list friday night, and worked through 3/4 of it on Saturday. We got in a decent date night too.

After dinner at Old Chicago, my son and I stayed up late playing Borderlands. He also talked me into buying a solo game called Skyrim, and we set that all up. These are probably ancient news to you gamers, but I’ve never owned a game system until this year. They’re all new to me.

Sports wise, Boise State lost in OT, the Diamondbacks lost. Today the Steelers won, and the Diamondbacks also won. Can’t gripe about that result. This time of year is strange for me, because both sports overlap for a month or two. I’m not as big a football fan as I used to be, but I enjoy it. Baseball is my sport of choice. I was able to watch the Steelers game, and one Diamondbacks game. The others were sporadic iPhone score checks.

I got up relatively early this morning, and my parents are still in Alaska. That means no Sunday morning telephone call. I kind of thought I could add new words to my WIP, but that wasn’t to be. My wife got up about twenty minutes after I did, and that doesn’t allow me to write. It’s probably a personality quirk, but I need quiet solitude when I write.

I wound up working ahead a bit on promos and blog projects. It wasn’t what I wanted to do, but it was productive. I now have some promotional posts for Quantum Wanderlust when it releases. All I need for my posts is a purchase link. Honestly, it feels good to be prepared.

I exchanged some texts with my daughter for something I want to add to The Hat. A dress size can be a reasonable part of description. This is coming late in the story, but I also used it to show a bit of character. Lizzie went up a couple of dress sizes, but only admits to one. Let’s face it, she isn’t seventeen anymore.

I have to make a field trip with my paycheck job this week. I’ll be around, and check in when I can. I’m sure I won’t be scarce, but I may be more sporadic than normal. Hope you all enjoyed your weekends.

In other news, the USA always has one active volcano in Hawaii, today we have a devastating hurricane going on, and Idaho had a small earthquake on the eastern side of the state. Add that to all the ongoing wild fires, and the US is a mess. Honestly, it’s a big country. It’s hot and beautiful in Boise this evening. Keep your eyes open if you’re at the northern edge of the USA, you might see the Northern Lights tonight.

From my phone

This is the part of date night where I drink beer, and Old What’s Her Face goes shopping in the mall. This only happens at Old Chicago Pizza.

They have a promo going on now where if I drink 12 unique beers I get a cool football sweatshirt. They will only allow me to have four at each visit, so I have to come back twice more. 

This is a great sports bar, but neither the Diamondback, nor Boise State have started yet. Right now I’m watching Irma move toward Florida.

The task list projects went well, and I accomplished about as much as I could. Some blog items still need links that don’t exist yet, but I’m ready. One of the posts I needed to write is getting too long. I’ll look at it with fresh eyes tomorrow. Maybe I can say more with less words. Maybe I’ll split it up into two posts.

Other than that, it was pretty mundane. I got work done, but it wasn’t fun work. Maybe tomorrow I can squeeze some of that in.

It isn’t ideal writing this on my phone. It works though, and it’s what I have right now. 

Some success

Yesterday I tackled the Lisa Burton interviews. I have twenty-five applicants, but only nine who've delivered the questionnaire answers. (Oops, ten now.) I worked up six shticks and sent them out. This took me six hours. I'd like to have completed them all up to the minute, but I have to face some facts.

Six hours is an effort on my days off. It will take me twenty-five weeks to post them all, so I'm ahead of the game. I hope nobody gets disappointed, but I can only do so much. It adds up to a considerable word count too.

I used part of today to work my time travel story up to 2500 words. This one is taking me way too long, and I'm feeling some pressure. Truth is, I never intended to write a time travel story. I like a challenge, so we'll see how it comes out. Writing to a theme and a target is kind of new, but fun. My MO is to get it done with enough time to make requested changes. I may only have a week of padding, but it will be enough.

I got the final Lisa poster for The Yak Guy Project, then did something crazy. I thought it might be cool to have a Lisa poster to promote the anthology with. The other authors can do what they want, but I'm going to have some artwork to promote with.

My time travel story spent a couple of months in the daydreaming phase as a Western. It didn't come out that way, and I hope it intrigues a few readers. Sorry, no cowgirl Lisa, at least for now. You might like what I changed it to.

This story is taking some serious research too. I'll bend some facts, but I want to have the rest of the details right so my changes don't stand out. Things like train times, actual hotels, and more help sell the twists.

While I was at it, I decided to order enough art to get me through the end of the year. These will be mostly for holidays wishes, but one is for my Macabre Macaroni short stories. (God, I still have to write those too.) The deadlines are spread way out, so Sean can take his time.

We had a quick date night last night, since my wife won't be here. Just a quick dinner and a beer. I had scallops with squid ink pasta… in Idaho, just imagine. It was wonderful too.

My wife headed for Nevada this morning, but not so early as to allow me to get some major work done. I dabbled and had some moderate success. I got a proof back from the formatter for The Enhanced League, and there are a few minor adjustments to make.

For the rest of this vacation, I would like to finish my short story, write three more promotional pieces for The Enhanced League, and schedule next week's Lisa Burton Radio. I might chuck some of it and publish The Enhanced League instead. No, it isn't too much, I might be able to do it all with a little bit of luck.

I don't think I'll add any more than that. The interview is all done and awaiting a link. I have ideas for the promo stuff, and I'm 2500 words shy of a short story draft. Two days is a nice pace without killing myself over it. If Enhanced League gets out next weekend, that's fine too.

A change in plans

Today, I was supposed to knock out a couple of my beta reports in anticipation of finishing tomorrow. We also wanted to go to town together. We had a generic list like most weekends. The other idea was to maybe have beer and pizza tonight.

That isn't what happened. Some good, some not good.

Otto woke up in the middle of the night and sat alone in the bathroom. I discovered him when I had to pee about 3:30. This isn't like him. The girls got up when I moved around, and this means everyone has to go outside.

Otto went to the bathroom too, and I thought maybe that's what he needed. At dawn, he seemed to be pretty sore and depressed. He refused to eat or drink.

My wife decided to do her grocery shopping and we could assess how he felt when she got home.

I decided to tackle my beta edits in force. I did more than I intended, because they changed my wife's shift again, and now she's off tomorrow. I only have one left to work through, and it will take a couple of hours. This is the good part.

Our veterinarian is open seven days per week. This saves us from going to one of those emergency centers. Of course we had to take the puppies too.

Turns out Otto ate more of those pecans than we thought. One X-ray, a pancreatitis test, and an office visit later, and he has an impaction. The doctor showed us the X-ray. It's all the way at the end, and she is certain it will pass. The impaction is causing pain, because he was born with two fused vertebra and another one that is half sized. This is a result of breeding for the bulldog's curly tail.

She gave us some pain killers to give him, and said after they kick in to take him for a walk. Also to try giving him water. He refused water, but went for some chicken noodle soup. He managed a mediocre poop when we walked him.

The doctor said he's going to have pain problems when he's older and to keep an eye on him. Never one to take something at face value, I did some research of my own. It says if your bulldog reaches nine months without a problem, he probably isn't going to have one. It also said the spine deformaties are more common in screw tailed breeds and aren't usually an issue.

I, on the other hand still can't keep food inside for more than an hour. I feel fine otherwise.

The puppies were pretty popular at the vets, and they got free bandanas out of the deal.

Some good stuff, my beta edits moved forward more than I thought. I may not get to the final one this weekend, and completion was the main goal. I'll take what I can get and be happy with it.

I think we're going to ban pecans from our house. All my dogs liked nuts and never had any problems before. They weren't given unsupervised access to all they could eat, including the shells.

We have tickets to Wonder Woman tomorrow, and even have someone who can watch the puppies. It may be all the date-night we can muster. Tonight, we're watching John Wick 2 on blu ray. It isn't date night, but it's the best we can manage.

Small Victories

I'll even write it like this: Victory! It's taken me a lifetime, but I'm learning to let some things go. I wanted to release two books before school lets out this spring. I kind of wanted The Enhanced League to come out sometime around opening day for Major League Baseball. It quickly became obvious that opening day was out, then the end of school too.

Part of this involves puppies, but I chose to do that. I work a full-time job, plus I treat writing like a job too. There are times when I have to fit being a husband, father, and a real life into the mix. The real life things are moving to the forefront now, as they do every year. I hate the idea of releasing one book during the summer, let alone two, because my experience with that has not been good. It will get done, when it gets done, and then I'll release them. In your face, Summer.

My goals this weekend were to work on some of Lisa's interviews, and do a little reading. I accomplished those goals. Having nice weather really helped, because I moved out to the back yard and gave the puppies free rein. At chapter breaks I checked on them, and it was wonderful.

I got Lisa's interview for Thursday all scheduled, and several more in various stages. I'm in good shape for that part of my plan. Maybe this evening I'll chip away at a guest post I have to write. Maybe.

Beta editing still needs to happen, and it looks like I'm booked up for several weekends in a row. I don't like doing it, but sometimes I can sequester myself in another room in the evenings and make some baby steps.

Somewhere in the mix, we even managed a quick date night. It was just dinner and beer at Kahoots, while our son watched the puppies, but it was a nice breather. (Today is our 24th anniversary.)

One of the new things I've been saying lately is, “If you're going to fall, fall forward.” It may not apply perfectly to my current situation, but the spirit of the saying applies. All these baby steps will add up, but with the arrival of Summer, I'm going to do other things too. There are a couple of fun things on my horizon, and I'll keep you posted on those.

Hope everyone had a great weekend, and can declare more than a small victory.