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.

Peeking out

I’ve been admittedly quiet around here lately. This is because I’ve been appearing everywhere else. My local efforts haven’t been that interesting, so I’ll just brief on them.

I try to have a couple of posts per week out there, then spend my time supporting those. If you’ve hosted me, you may have seen all the Twitter action and such.

Every weekend, I try to contact a host or two, then write something specifically for them. This tour has been 100% unique material, even though the cover and blurb are the same.

There has also been a surge of interest in Lisa Burton Radio. This takes quite a bit of work, but I like to be there for my fellow authors. I’m not one of those who takes but never gives in that regard.

It honestly doesn’t sound like much, but it’s kept me hopping. I’m enjoying the baseball playoffs to no end this year, but many of those games find me with my iPad across my lap and trying to polish up a post during the game.

Some of you might wonder why you haven’t heard from me for this tour. I will send something if you like, but I have another book coming right on the heels of Viral Blues. I don’t want to wear my usual hosts out, but I’ll need places to promote that book, too.

Part of this weekend is dedicated to whipping Serang into final shape. Most of it involves adding a title and copyright page, a bit of back material, and a fast sweep of the tale itself. If I get everything done, that will make three publications for me this year. I think anyone would admit that’s a pretty busy 2019.

For now, it’s Viral Blues until the end of the month. It has a Halloween theme, and you can read it in a long day. I think it’s funny, and maybe you’d enjoy some seasonal reading.

With this schedule, something had to give. I’m sad to note there is no Macabre Macaroni this year. I never had to time to write some seasonal micro-fiction. Nobody appears to have noticed, but I hope you’re all having a fun Halloween season anyway. Here’s an old MM image of Lisa to hold you over.

Old What’s Her Face has a Pirates film festival on today. I adore these movies, and find the music inspirational. They also serve to remind me that I haven’t touched Lanternfish II in over a month. In a perfect world, I would finish this manuscript by the end of the month.

It’s about time for me to knock off, eat some Asian pears, drink a pumpkin beer and find some baseball. (So many Asian pears this year, and they’ve been better than any previous year.)

Situation normal…

I had three days off this weekend, but didn’t accomplish a damned thing. My wife and dog are both on the mend.

We went out for necessities yesterday. The shopping cart makes a pretty good walker as I learned when my back went out. We avoided the fair, because it would have been too much.

I even offered to pick up groceries, but my wife was having none of it. I told her I know how to buy bread, milk, etc. She worried that I would get the wrong bread. Seriously, how bad could it be no matter what I chose? Let’s face it, what we do with toilet paper shouldn’t matter what pretty design it has for one week.

One good thing about accompanying her, and it makes everything right with the world.

The pumpkin beer is here. With this stuff, I can put up with a lot. Shopping makes for a weird date night, but it is what we did.

Tonight I have to drive to Twin Falls and check into a room. I have a presentation to make for work at just after dawn. I can’t risk trying to get there at four AM, then make my appointment. This will take most of the day, but I’ll probably still get to the office in the afternoon.

I’m taking my iPad with me. If I get a few free hours tonight, I might add words to the next Lanternfish story.

My weekend

I really only had two goals for this weekend. It’s a short weekend for me, between the holidays. We don’t get flex days on holiday weeks. I pretty much failed anyway.

I wanted to get some back of the book material out for Lanternfish, and I accomplished that much.

Getting a haircut was part of the plan too, and I failed. My hair lady has moved on to another shop in the same franchise. I went to her because she is good, but really didn’t like the franchise. Now that she’s 20 miles out of my way, my happiness with her skills doesn’t outway the other burdens.

This franchise has one of those computer systems you must use just to get a haircut. It reminds me of the thing at Red Robin where I have to place my own order, and pay at the table. It’s freaky. I don’t feel like I owe a server a tip if I’m doing all the work. Are they going to ask me to wash the dishes next?

I want to hand someone money for a haircut. I don’t want to contribute to their database, become part of their farm, or do their bookkeeping for them. I just want a haircut. They don’t need my email, Social Security number, phone number or anything else to do that.

There are two places closer to home, so I stopped in to them. One was booked solid, which is a good sign. The other didn’t have anyone on site who could cut hair. They only work Tuesday through Friday. Scratch them off the list.

I’m going to call the busy place, and maybe I can find a new person to do business with. Kind of rough on Thanksgiving week, so I’ll be a bit forgiving. (I may have to buy a ponytailer soon. Or do something like Einstein did with his hair.)

Then I started a different kind of Lisa Burton Radio post. It might take a week or two to sort out, but it’s going to be interesting. Having fun with it, and I won’t post it on Thanksgiving day.

Since we got paid Friday, we managed date night on Saturday. Nothing too fancy, just dinner at Kahoots, which is one of our favorite places. They had pumpkin beer on tap too. It’s the second place I found all season that had some. (Elysian Pumpkinchino.)

We had matinee tickets to watch the Grindelwald movie today. We had a great time, and I would like to see it again to look for all the little things. I like the way Rowling portrayed the rift in a society. Someone has to drink the KoolAid before a movement gets underway. I didn’t like the division of KoolAid drinkers, but I wasn’t supposed to. It was very well done. Go see it.

Okay, so for a two day weekend, it was still kind of productive. A lot of it was family stuff, but it was fun. I need to get back to work on that Lisa Burton post, but I may have to peck away at it during the week… unless I get a haircut one night.

About that time of year

I’ve been looking for a month for something close to home, but with zero luck. Store keepers are full of empty promises.

I decided to go for my best chance, and went to the Boise Co-Op. The old one downtown. Bingo!

That’s right, everyone. It’s pumpkin beer season. I had the Anderson Vally yesterday, and it was fantastic. They are one of my favorite breweries, and never seem to let me down.

I just opened the Elysian Dark Knife a minute ago. It isn’t quite as good, but this does not mean bad. Elysian is also one of my favorite creators.

The Co-Op beer man said he only had seven bottles of the Shipyard Pumpkinhead, so I bought one of them too. My traditional favorite is Elysian Nightowl, but he only had cans. I have my fingers crossed that I can find a couple of bomber sized bottles before the season is over. Either that, or maybe find it on tap somewhere.

Because I had to move my flex day, I wound up with Friday off this week. Oddly enough, Monday is my day off next week. What a cool break!

I spent my day doing edits on a couple of existing projects. Some of this involved some word searches and such. Mind numbing stuff, actually. Hopefully, pumpkin beer will recharge my battery.

I intend to add some new words to an ongoing project before the weekend is over. I also want to work on a couple of outlines. One will be a novel, the other a novella. (With any luck.)

I might check on a baseball game sometime this weekend. The payoffs are stacking up, and I find it interesting.

My weekend list isn’t huge, but it’s bigger stuff this time. We’ll see how it all shakes out by Monday.

Mourning? Not exactly

My Arizona Diamondbacks lost last night. They did so without their frontline staff, but that’s the hand that was dealt after the wildcard game. Gave me a good excuse to polish off a growler of Elysian Nightowl pumpkin beer. One of my favorite ones.

There was a time when I would be upset about something like this, but I just can’t be this year. This isn’t quite a worst to first transformation, but it’s pretty darned close. I remember what they were like last year, and am proud of what they’ve accomplished. I don’t want it to end, but if it does I’m still going to be happy about it.

It was one game. We have more of an ace pitcher tonight and maybe we can leave a mark in this series. It’s best of five, but they really need to win one before the series moves to Phoenix. Arizona can’t win without winning one game in LA. Might as well claim that one tonight.

I spent some minimal time this morning getting one of the interview posts hacked out and mailed off. I also posted a review for a friend. Beyond that, I nailed down some details for a visit Lisa Burton will be making this week, and scheduled Macabre Macaroni. That was it on the productivity front.

We ran our errands today, and I stocked up on four different pints of pumpkin beer. Most of these are from Elysian brewing too and I’ve had them before.

I also fell for a trend today. My daughter told me the hot new thing is coconut oil, and said I need some for my beard. We were at Whole Foods and I picked some up. I’m such a sucker sometimes. Daughters to that to fathers.

I’m checking on the Cubs and Nationals game then I might play a video game for a while. These West Coast games start late so I’ll probably be up all night, you know, unless I drink four big old bombers of beer.

Hope everyone is having a good weekend.

A positive step back

I spent the dark morning hours going through The Hat and tightening things up. This needed to be done, and I feel much better about moving forward now. There were some good suggestions from some of you about my section-break symbols. Jan Hawk encouraged me to try modifying a png file and seeing how it looked. I’m going to post what it looks like now, and hope to get some feedback from you guys.

In this scene, the hat is playing his bass, but Lizzie is providing the hands. It’s more important that she’s learning about the symbiotic nature of their relationship. If I leave the section breaks like this, would any of you find the bass clefs distracting somehow? Do they enhance the story at all?

Right now, I love them, but it could be the simple act of making them successfully and not how they might influence the story.

We finally got the dining room table assembled and but back in place. It looks beautiful on the new rug and the grey floor. We still need to get the rug for the living area, but it’s looking pretty darned good around here.

This afternoon, I assembled this week’s Lisa Burton Radio and sent the authors an advance link. I count that as forward progress too.

In other news, the annual pumpkin beers are starting to show up in force. I love this time of year, and can’t wait for it to officially be Fall. Oh, and the pet stores got a few pumpkin balls in. These are a lower quality than last year, but they said their stock is just starting to come in and there will be more stuff later on.

Saturday Efforts

I wound up left to my own devices today, for the most part. I went through social media and push feeds while my wife was still here. After she left for a few hours it was time to get with it on my list.

I worked on a short story until I needed to do some minor research. I used my critiques to give my mind a breather. The guys want me to add some more world building to The Yak Guy Project. It isn't a lot, but subtle things seen in passing. I kind of like those things. This isn't our world, and tiny reminders keep the reader curious. There were a few typos and sentences that needed to get reworded. There always are.

My research wound up being pretty quick. There are things you just know, but want to check out anyway. In one instance I knew there was no rule what dugout belonged to the home team in Major League Baseball, but I had to check to be sure. This short story is part of The Enhanced League. Whereas my Experimental Notebooks could have stories set anywhere and at any time, The Enhanced League will be a book of shorts all set during the same season in one environment.

This individual story is going to be a big one. I added 3000 words to a story I'd already started. This is one of the only games in the book, and I have nine innings to cover. I'll skip ahead and cut the long boring parts, but the setting and the first inning help build tension. I haven't written that many words in one day for a long time. It isn't massive, but it felt great.

Other stories will cover trades, deals, careers beginning, or ending. I'm having a great time with it so far.

Otto and I played fetch and a little tug-of-war while I watched a heartbreaking women's soccer match. (Heartbreaking for the USA, if you live elsewhere.)

I didn't get to the reading or publishing part of my list, but there is more weekend left. I got another Lisa Burton Radio sheet today too. Maybe I'll work on it tonight.

The best news of all, the first pumpkin beers are in the stores and I'm about to have one right now.

This is the first gif I've ever used on this blog. I hope it adequately expresses the joy of pumpkin beer. Have a nice evening everyone.

The Monday shuffle

I got up early this morning. My main plan was simply to read, and not much more. I started my day off with blogs. I follow hundreds of blogs these days, and I've gotten better at browsing them. I also have some I never miss, no matter what. This lasted until my daughter got out of bed.

We had a nice talk, and I vowed long ago that the world could take a backseat to my discussions with her. She's 21 now, and Dad isn't as big a part of her life these days. When I get the chances, I don't pass them up.

When she headed for work, I tore into the novel I'm reading. I'm past the half way mark right now, and excited to see where it's going. Yes, I could have done more, but my daughter intervened.

Critique group went well tonight. I knew where I was going to get called out, and this excites me. It means I'm capable of spotting my own weak spots, now I have to figure out how to wear that hat when I need it.

I checked my Amazon progress tonight. There haven't been any recent sales, but there are a lot of pages being read via Amazon Prime, or the lending library. I think that's pretty cool.

Now might be a good time to mention that all of my titles are available for free as part of your Amazon Prime subscription. It's all the same to me, and if borrowing the books works for you go for it. Even my 99¢ Notebook has been read this way. I wonder if it pays more on a paid-per-page basis than the 99¢ I'm asking. I'm happy in either case.

There were some great comments on the post about stakes in fiction. This is what blogging is all about for me. Thanks for weighing in everyone.

Right now, I'm enjoying an Elysian Brewing Punkuccino. It's a pumpkin beer with coffee, and it's very good. I'll probably spend a bit of time with a paper magazine I'm almost finished with, then it's back to the paycheck job tomorrow.

Catching up?

I spent most of my day playing catch up. All the camping, and my paycheck job keep me from doing some things.

I started off working through my critiques. The guys had some good suggestions this month, and I needed to get those changes made. I woke up at 6:30 this morning and had enough time before my morning appointment.

The appointment was with my daughter for a haircut. The paycheck job is sending me to Sun Valley for a week. I have to make two presentations while I’m there, and the haircut is necessary.

I spent the rest of the day getting guest posts moving for October and November. I had a couple roughed out, but managed to get them all sent away this afternoon. I still have to build one from a friend that I’m hosting over here.

All in all, I feel pretty productive. It’s our grandson’s birthday next week, and grandma promised him a “big boy” bicycle. We took him to Toys “R” Us and picked one out. I’ll still be in Sun Valley the day of the party, but at least I got to do this.

We stopped by one of our favorite little places for prime rib and bread pudding. I managed two Leinenkugel Pumpkin Shandys while there. Shandys are always light and simple, and this was no exception. I’ve never had a beer from this brewery that I didn’t like, and pumpkin is a bonus.

That was my day. I feel productive, it’s time to update the blog, but I didn’t make any progress in my reading. I have three books from friends that I need to read, and better get on with it.

Have a nice evening everyone.