I’ve been killing myself at work lately. I did fine by adding one day to the various holidays, but we’re in kind of a holiday drought in the US right now. I’m also in the position where I’ve maxed out my leave hours again. This led me to take an entire week off.
I intend to work on fiction, of course, but might take time to binge watch something. I haven’t looked for K-dramas in a long time. I like some of their supernatural offerings.
If this infernal rain ever stops, I might prune my Asian pear tree.
I’m trying not to make much of a plan, so it feels more like an actual vacation.
If things go according to the loose plan, I might even finish up Footsteps of Infinity while I’m off. No pressure, but that would be awesome. I probably should publish something this year.
I’m going to spend some time reading. I have so much to catch up on there, it’s overwhelming.
Do any of you ever get to the point of needing to burn vacation, or lose it? You probably have to be a long-term employee to get into this cycle, but it’s not bad once you reach it.
Things have slowed down on the fiction front for me. I’ve hit a metaphorical wall on the weekends. It got so bad last weekend, that I counted on Jan Sikes to carry the load around here, and her post performed like gangbusters. Thank you all for supporting her.
Some of it involves work. There is simply too much to do inside of eight hours, and I’ve been pushing myself. That takes a toll on my brain. In a way it still counts as thousands of new words written, but isn’t nearly as entertaining as fiction.
Some of it is taxes. We owe again this year, but this time don’t have the money to pay them all. We covered the state, and put the federal on a credit card which we can now pay off for the next 20 years.
This caused me to update my W-4. We were already both declaring zero dependents. I will never understand how we can come up short by using the charts they provide. From now on, I’m taking extra cash from each paycheck to put aside for federal and state taxes. There could be a lot more beans around here in 2024.
I started a savings stash for things like cover art, but it isn’t even close to paying the taxes for us. I decided to keep my stash and add to it sporadically.
I’m also behind on reading. It seems like all of my friends published at once. I intend to read them, but have to shoehorn them all into the time I have. Maybe it’s payback. People used to tell me I publish so frequently they can’t keep up.
To keep this from becoming a total pity party, I took this picture for you.
There are only a small handful of them, but they’re peach blossoms. Looks like the old tree made it through another winter. I wonder if the tree looks back and thinks, “Looks like Boyack made it through another winter.”
I’m going to hit it hard for one more week, then I’m using some leave. My brain needs the rest, and maybe I can make some progress on one of my projects.
Think about looking at my sidebar. There are some cool books over there, and I have a credit card bill to cover. (That’s supposed to be funny.) Happy Easter, everyone.
I took today off. I have a method I’ve been using all last year of adding one day to the various holidays. I might have to make up my own holiday weekend somewhere between President’s Day and Memorial Day. That’s a long stretch by my standards.
I’m looking forward to some writing time, and took full advantage this morning. I’m still struggling with getting all the pieces into the right order, but decided to just write today.
This is actually a good way to work all the bits out. I read back and found what’s missing. Added a sentence or paragraph as needed. Trimmed other places, and might have all my staging worked out now.
It came to a whole chapter today, so I’m not complaining. Sometimes you have to stop wringing hands and just vomit things onto the page. Once you can see it, you can fix it.
I’d really like to get this one in the fermenter and start thinking about covers and such. I’m actually behind on a couple of things and need to move those ahead a little more.
I have three days left. I may not get to everything I want, but expect to make a hell of a dent in my task list.
Did anyone else add to the holiday weekend? What fun plans do you have for the holiday, if you get one where you live?
Old What’s Her Face has the prettiest maple tree in our subdivision. I’ve been wanting to take a background picture for a week now, but it had been stormy.
I laid at the trunk and shot up through the branches. I wound up with four great pictures. One had an interesting cluster of leaves that dangled toward my phone. As wallpaper, that would be covered by the actual blog material. Two had varying levels of a sun flare that were also interesting. Wallpaper being what it it, those might have turned into light flare background and not left the Autumn colors I wanted.
In the end, I went with the simple but colorful one. How you read blogs will make a difference. It looks great on my iPad, but doesn’t show up at all on my phone. I like it and went with it.
We also decided to take the rest of the week off. We’re both feeling the strain in the workplace and have plenty of leave coming to us. Mine ties into the observed Veteran’s Day holiday, so I get more out of it than the hours I’m spending.
Then there was last night. About six months or so ago we bought tickets to see ZZ Ward. This was in the same small venue where we saw Larkin Poe last year. It was a great time.
She’s heavily pregnant right now, but it didn’t make any difference in the music. We had the balcony this time, but every seat there is great. If I had one gripe, we didn’t buy tickets to the drummer’s concert. Someone needed to adjust something so she was more of the main event.
She played her old songs, and some from her new album to give us a broad spectrum. I’m a bigger fan of her older stuff, but she teased a blues album coming out next year.
If you’ve never heard of her, she is worth checking out.
Maybe someday Kenny Wayne Shepherd, Ali Venable, or Samantha Fish will make their way out here. A couple of them landed in Salt Lake City and the West Coast. Boise is a happening place, so it will eventually happen.
Today started well before dawn. My daughter’s man told us about something he thought sounded absurd, Maple Milk. He said people drink it like chocolate milk. Then he brought some home for a laugh. I decided it’s actually pretty awesome in a cup of coffee. However, that coffee was to go, and away we went.
My daughter set her app to avoid all the toll roads, and the drive to the airport was kind of an adventure. We wound up on side streets in warehouse areas, but it did send us to Logan International. We both spotted a highway sign that said Delta flew out of area E, and made for that.
When we got there, I didn’t see a Delta logo in sight. She whipped to the curb, then said, “I don’t know what to do.”
We’d both seen the sign, so I bailed out. After a hug and some well wishes I marched inside to a sea of people. I was completely lost, but a nice employee found me. This location was for Delta’s international flights. The ones I wanted were on a completely different concourse. He gave me directions, but not complete directions, and I was off.
This involved an escalator up, a skybridge over the freeway, a hike through an open-air parking garage, another even bigger skybridge, an escalator down, a long tunnel and about two miles of effort. I arrived at a whole different sea of people.
There was a huge line for the kiosks, another huge line to drop off my bag, followed by an even longer and more elaborate line for security. After that it was only about half a mile to my gate. We got to the airport two hours early, and I basically walked right onto the plane.
I had a 1.5 hour layover in Minneapolis, and was kind of looking forward to it. Once again, I had to change concourses. I’d been well stretched out after Salem, Lexington, and Concord. This airport had broken people movers, so I had to leg it out. I arrived with a few minutes to spare for a cup of coffee, sadly without maple milk.
Getting out of Minneapolis was kind of like a rodeo, and I was the cowboy. After we reached altitude the ride smoothed out and it was easy going.
This trip was a whirlwind, but I’m so glad we did this together. There were emotions aplenty, and leaving was pretty hard, I don’t mind telling you. We saw and did a lot of things along the way, even though the goal was to get clear across the country.
The minute I got home, Old What’s Her Face handed me the bills and reminded me today is payday. The adventure is truly over now.
I’m writing this from my usual spot at home. I have a couple days to rest up, then have to go back to work.
It’s time for my daughter and I to hit the road. I’ve previously mentioned here that she’s moving to New Hampshire. She needs her car and that’s how we’re getting there.
I’ll try to update from the road. Might get the chance at some cool photographs.
What you need to know is that I’m going to be kid of scarce. I love all your blogs and interacting with everyone. I might have to do what I can and forego the rest.
Once again, I failed to produce new words. Everything I did was writing related, but it doesn’t involve the new stories.
After getting paid, and paying the bills, I reached out to my formatter. Once I get the invoice, I’ll take care of that immediately.
I then decided to make just one more pass over the MS. There were two places where I wanted to use the word ‘baritone’ in the story. It’s an author thing, I suppose.
This led to another pass over the manuscript, and I’m still excited to share it with everyone.
I’m parked on cover art, and will share it once everything comes together. I’m hoping to have a May release for this one. It’s been finished since Fall, but I’ve been fiddling with other things.
I also have a finished MS for Lizzie & the hat, and hopefully can get it together for the Halloween season this year.
In other news:
My daughter’s boyfriend has worked his butt off over the last few months to become an air traffic controller. He passed everything with flying colors. This led to a lot of debate about where he would get assigned, but he got what he wanted. He’s going to the Boston site, but it’s actually situated in New Hampshire.
This means Dad get’s to help his daughter move to New Hampshire. We’re leaving on April 8th and I took the whole week off. I’m looking forward to some quality father/daughter time, and we’re not going to kill ourselves just to get finished.
She needs her car, so that’s what we’re taking, then I’ll fly home.
We’re taking a northerly route, and honestly if we had passports, I’d have taken the Canadian highways. I’m not a fan of gigantic cities or traffic, but I can handle them.
Our route has such things along the way as Yellowstone, Devil’s Tower, the Buffalo National Grasslands, Deadwood, Mt. Rushmore, Lake Erie, and Niagara Falls. (She’s excited to see Mt. Rushmore and Niagara Falls, so that’s why we chose that route.)
Mom, Old What’s Her Face, and my daughter are encouraging me to visit Salem while I’m back there, and I have a hunch it will happen.
This means, I have to work next week, then we’re out of here. I might wind up doing a few quick posts from the road, or I might save it all for when I get home, but I’ll share some things here when I can.
There are mixed emotions for sure. The East Coast is a long way from Idaho, and we’re not exactly made of money as far as visiting every year. I’m excited for them to begin their lives, and am honestly looking forward to the trip.
Watching the weather with some trepidation, but we’re both good winter drivers. The biggest obstacle might be whether the highway through Yellowstone is open or not. It really is the best route and not chosen specifically for the park. If we have to go around it will be a bummer and add a lot of miles.
It’s nothing earth shattering, but it all counts. I’ve managed around 5400 words in the last two days. I took this week off, mostly because I deserve it.
We didn’t do much of anything during the holiday other than watch the prequels to Yellowstone. I never had much interest in the main series, but Sam Elliot and Harrison Ford have some draw for me. These were good, and I’ll try to keep up with the Ford/Mirin version as the new episodes drop.
Old What’s Her Face returned to work yesterday, so I cracked open my manuscript. I only have Mari’s swamp story going right now and need another one to balance things out. I decided not to start something else until I finish this one.
Most of those new words came today. I’d stopped at a tough point to get going again, but muscled through it yesterday. Today I had one difficult trial for Mari to get through, but it blossomed into so much more that I had to keep going.
She wound up closing the gap on the men she’s following, but got trapped on a crumbling bridge at night. No food, no water, and no grazing for her animals. The bridge isn’t trustworthy in daylight, so it’s deadly at night.
For whatever reason, she took some injuries and I left her trying to heal up where the animals could drink and feed. I think it turned out to be a pretty decent section.
With holiday leave included, I don’t have to return to the office until next Tuesday. I might even be able to finish Mari’s story, but am not counting on that. This one needs a bigger denouement than some of my others and I’m not going to rush just to get done.
At some point, I’m going to have to do some serious editing. I have the Space Chimp story, one for Lizzie and the hat, and Mari’s story that will need some attention.
This needs to get done, so that will be my task after I finish this draft.
I’m finding some neat things to include using Google Maps. This is a post apocalyptic tale, so ruins of those places can make it into my stories. I had her stop at the Stennis Space Center, but need to flesh it out a bit more.
There is a cool dinosaur park just ahead of her. The kind with a trail that has Dino-statues in the forest. It isn’t a day away from where she is so I might have to miss that one. Her mission won’t allow her to slow down and goof off without a good reason. She would pass it around noon and wouldn’t normally stop. Including it might feel kind of forced. I know of one thing that might work to include it, but need to sleep on that.
This was one of those rare opportunities that shows up occasionally. If I take one day off, I could garner four days in a row. Tomorrow is a holiday and it all just fell together.
My plan was to catch up with both of my manuscripts, then add new words. I read through my Hat project over the weekend, so that left my post apocalyptic story.
I spent the morning getting familiar with it once more. I left it at an interesting place, so I figured I might add some new words.
When Old What’s Her Face got off work, she wanted me to go pick up the dog’s meds. She said, “You can get your hair cut while you’re out.”
This really wasn’t my plan, and the vet is a forty-mile round trip from the house. I may have huffed a bit.
She said, “You can do it all tomorrow. Otto isn’t completely out of pills.”
That was enough for me. Rather than lose full momentum for two days, I loaded up and went to town. One bit of good news came from the trip. Turns out the vet made an arrangement with Costco now. They can call the meds in there for us. (Massive volume buying power.)
It’s about fifteen minutes from the house, and their price is 50% off. Doesn’t help this time, but will help in the future. It’s even on my route home from work. Since I was out anyway, I stopped an got my hair cut.
There’s a fairly good chance that I’ll have Mari digging up a fresh grave before bed time tonight. If not, she’ll be doing it in the morning.
Today wasn’t perfect, but those things needed to get done, too. It isn’t like I’m getting George R.R. Martin level hate mail to hurry up and get my next book out there.
Here’s to tomorrow! New words for sure. That’s what I enjoy the most, and it’s going to happen.
I have everything I need to publish Serang today, but I procrastinated. People aren’t hurting for something fresh from me, so I have time.
Side note, still time to read Viral Blues for Halloween.
I’d like to publish this before the year runs out, and next weekend is a fair option. I need to devote some time to the blurb for this one. Because it’s a supporting story for Lanternfish, it takes place in a mildly fantasy setting. It isn’t quite as big as Lanternfish, but there is a dragon of sorts, (Maybe two or three depending on how you count) and I don’t want to mislead anyone.
Serang is a coming of age tale, so I need to communicate that. It takes place in a time of great political upheaval, so that has to get in there. I don’t want people to be upset because there are fantasy elements, or disappointed that it isn’t epic fantasy. A bit more thought might help when writing this blurb. By next weekend I might have it all sorted out.
What did I do with my spare time? I spent some time supporting the Something Wicked blog tour, along with some of my older posts. Today there is a blog push from the paid promo I did, and I already saw one sale from that. Fingers crossed for more.
I’ve also been staying up late for the World Series. So far the home team hasn’t won a single game. That’s never happened before, and it’s been a great series. Game seven is tonight, so I’ll be tired at work tomorrow. A nap seems like a good idea so I’m not too flat in the morning.
We had a chore day, so we got the camper put away for winter, and managed a date night out of the deal. Halloween is the only beer tour I participate in these days, and got my glow in the dark tee-shirt. I’m wearing it right now.
I spent a couple of days adding thousands of words to my side project. This one is a cyberpunk tale set in a futuristic version of San Francisco. It challenged me to use science fiction to exaggerate some issues we see in current society, and it challenged my world-building skills, too.
I’m very happy with a piece I wrote yesterday that went down during the Chinese New Year parade. A cyberpunk version of that parade. If the stars align, I can publish it on actual Chinese New Year for a bit of extra luck. I’m year of the rat, next year is rat. Maybe I’m due for some luck. There are rats in the story…
The story is called Grinders, and I’m at 71,000 words right now. Getting it done this year shouldn’t be too tough, and if I can afford the artwork, publishing on Chinese New Year seems realistic.
I didn’t do anything particularly exciting, and it felt great. I did what I wanted, when I wanted to do it. I was mildly productive and I wasn’t at the office. Sometimes it’s good to have a break from the workaday world, and that’s what I did.
Hope everyone has a Happy Halloween, and finds a way to take a small break on occasion.
Entertaining Stories 