Low productivity

Sean Harrington delivered some graphics about a week ago. My only real plan was to insert them into the Midnight Rambler manuscript. It’s important to keep this one moving ahead for an October promotion.

We started off by going to the farmer’s market downtown. It’s been years since we went, and they’ve kind of split it between locations. For some reason, it just wasn’t as good as past years. Old What’s Her Face still found some things to buy, like lemon cucumbers.

I kept my eye open for the breakfast burrito lady, but she was absent. Maybe she’s gone to the other location, or maybe she’s bagged it like so many others during the Covid era.

We still managed to go to lunch downtown, then swung by Whole Foods. This is another location we haven’t visited since pre-Covid.

For myself, keeping my goals small seems like a good idea. I managed to insert my silly graphics into The Midnight Rambler, and that might be it for this weekend.

I’d like to work on one of my current projects, but Sundays aren’t really good writing days. The other distraction is television. We have about four years of The Boys to catch up on, and that takes time. It’s a worthy project, and I’ll probably nudge that ahead to some degree.

I sent Sean back an email for two Lisa Burton posters. Honestly, her promos tend to draw more attention than my own. Something about her image seems to get clicks.

Promotion isn’t really one of my favorite gigs, but I’m toying with a new idea. After so many volumes of The Hat Series, I have a lot of old Lisa Burton posters. I could pick a time and do a Lisa-only tour for the series, recycling the posters since most have only been used one time. It isn’t hard to write as Lisa. Add a poster, maybe a 99¢ sale here and there, it could work.

Now it’s time to decide whether I read a friend’s book, read Midnight Rambler for a final pass, or just surrender to the television.

My weekend plans

My only plan this weekend was to bleed and lick my wounds. It was a brutal week both personally and professionally. An errand interrupted me and I had to repair a headlight. (Again.) I never planned on a single word of new fiction, and that is still the plan.

However, Sean Harrington delivered a bundle of graphics for Good Liniment. Fans of The Hat Series know I pepper these with silly little graphics to make the stories even more corny. Here’s one, just for fun:

That led to peppering the MS with graphics, which involves a lot of gyrations. I’m pretty sure my formatter hates these, but they’re part of the series now. I used some of my down time to start reading the story and making more edits. I didn’t get far, but never intended to.

Authors are weird people, and I own that. My mind never turns off, even when I’m licking my wounds. Here’s an example of what happens:

Lisa Burton parked our spaceship in deep space, then followed Percy the Space Chimp and I into the lounge. We grabbed glasses of Angel’s Envy, on the rocks, and stared at the galaxy before us. Distant stars and nebulae stretched to infinity.

Our last writing session had been a big one, so we took in the view until I broke the silence. “What do you suppose the soundtrack of space is?”

Lisa said, “I like those big orchestral pieces that can match the grandeur.”

Percy rattled the ice in his glass. “It can also be something like David Bowie music.”

I sniffed the vanilin and took a sip of my drink. “It really could be whatever the writer thinks. I’m going to go with a little of Percy’s backstory. Obviously, I can’t write a soundtrack into my story, but this is what it sounds like to me.” I keyed the speaker system and brought this up.

“Are you sure?” Lisa asked.

”Just look out the window and listen. It makes perfect sense to me.”

”I get it, dude. What are you going to do with that thought?” Percy asked.

”Not sure, but it helps me interpret space. Angel’s Envy doesn’t hurt either. Hit me again, Lisa.”

***

I hope all of you are having wonderful weekends. I need to get back to Earth and catch up on your blogs. I might even do some long overdue reading if the mood strikes me. What is your soundtrack to space?

Not a lot to show for this weekend

I try to stay busy, I always do, but sometimes there isn’t a lot to show for my efforts.

It started off with a visit from our daughter. I’m a firm believer that family comes first, so I never tried to do anything until she went home. We had a nice visit, and she even managed to cut my hair while she was here.

Had to deal with a loss of power to the deep freeze. This involved a stupid GFI switch. We didn’t lose anything, but had some things we had to cook PDQ. I discovered it because my beer mugs didn’t get frosty overnight.

Beyond that, it was all “Stuff.” I worked on something for Teri Polen’s Bad Moon Rising, but it isn’t ready yet. I worked all the way to the end of the Lanternfish story. I feel like I caught most things, but I always miss something. Reading it once more might help. I’d like to publish it sometime in November.

I also dedicated some time to Good Liniment. Nothing too earth shattering, but I reworded a few sections prior to sharing it with my critique group. I included a text thread in this section, because Hat stories include dumb things. It looks like they all came across the right way. One never knows when I text my daughter, photograph the screen, upload it to Apple Pages, then leave Apple to share it in Word format. My daughter and I had fun creating the texts.

Then there were graphics. I’m not a graphics guy, but I took a tip from Harmony Kent, then assembled the rest by hand in a graphics program I have. The end results weren’t too bad, and I might use them one day.

Word count, not so much. Certainly less than a thousand words. I’m not feeling any kind of rush on this project, so I’m not going to lament this. It’s supposed to be a side project, and I’m going to treat it that way.

It’s kind of productive, but not in a way I can demonstrate. I think next weekend will be similar. I’m ahead for a change, so I’m not going to beat myself up over it. Eventually, the side project will cause me to start a main project. Lanternfish will come out, and I’ll have to figure out some promo for it. Maybe early next year I’ll release Good Liniment.

Why a Novella?

Hi gang. I’m over at Joan Hall’s place today, and the topic is why I wrote a novella. I also touch briefly upon the small graphics in the book. Stop over and tell us what you think of novella length works. Has their time arrived?

***

Hi Everyone. It’s a pleasure to welcome fellow author and Story Empire contributor C. S. Boyack to my blog today. Craig has a new novella he recently released, and he’s here to tell you about  the book and why he chose to write a novella rather than a longer novel. Keep reading here.