My pear is in full bloom. The whole thing is quite pretty right now. I got a couple of good snaps, but the honeybee pushed one over the top as new wallpaper. Not gonna lie, I had a hard time giving up those maple leaves, but it’s time.
All the Bradford pears in the neighborhood are also blooming, and they pollinate mine. I’ll be thinning pears before much longer.
I dedicated myself to Footsteps of Infinity today. Added 2000 new words, and actually like them. It’s been a chapter since the big discovery, and a lot of this is about assembling their documentary.
I know everything that has to happen to wrap this up, but it’s going to take a couple of weeks to get it all to flow right.
One part I enjoyed was listening to another segment of Night Bump Radio. I’m having fun with this, because in The Hat Series I have to keep it all about cryptids, supernatural things, and ghosts.
In this story, callers can talk about aliens, and that makes me happy. Today, I wove in a caller who says he got probed, lost a bunch of time, and has a suffering friend because of it all.
This led me to Havana Syndrome, which gives Cody a sound reference to clear up for readers. He’s my wannabe Foley artist. He also makes a reference to The Brown Note.
Of course, the caller is half a bubble off plumb. He has problems for ordering Bud Light in front of all his friends. Who could blame the poor guy. He lost time and got probed… maybe. The whole thing is gloriously stupid.
The original idea for Night Bump Radio is a real call-in show we used to listen to in my younger years. It was called something similar to Shore To Shore. If you know, you know. The guy was from Nevada and so am I.
i have a couple of things I need to do, but have a hunch I’ll be adding new words to this baby. I’m irresponsible like that.
One of my goals while not drafting new material is to shake things up around here. It’s nothing drastic, just an attempt to sweep out the old and try some new things.
I need to change my banner, but with a couple of releases looming, I’ll probably just wait until one of the new books comes out. I can recycle the underwater scene when Lanternfish shows up in the Amazon store.
Start over there.
(Not liking this new editor. This should be centered. Probably fix it with the old editor)
In my sidebar, I always keep the two most recent publications available as quick ways to check out those books. I could put all of them over there, but that would be a busy mess. These images are about to be replaced by HMS Lanternfish and The Ballad of Mrs. Molony in the next couple of months.
You can always find everything on my Amazon page, but if you’d like to check out Serang or Grinders, the links are still there. I think they’re two of my better works. Serang is a great way to climb aboard the Lanternfish saga.
Up Top
All blogs have pages, but very few people check them out. I’m making some changes up there, too. If you were familiar with my layout, you’ll notice something missing. I have retired Lisa Burton Radio.
This regular feature was designed so I could pay back all the help others have given me along the way. I designed something a bit different that loaned out Lisa’s popularity as an interview of your fictional characters. They were labor intensive, but quite productive.
Honestly the interviews worked best when I promoted them. By doing that I kept a regular schedule of one per week for over two years. It was fun collaborating with my fellow authors, and we moved a few books along the way, too.
I wanted some of my time back, and quit pushing authors to try it out. They were available upon request, and there’s the rub. Nobody was requesting them. Most authors are introverted to a degree, but we have to promote our wares someplace. Good free options are drying up from lack of use, and Lisa Burton Radio is one of those casualties.
My door is still open to folks who want a place to promote their books, but you can write the darned things now.
Still up there
I’ve added a new page to check out. Music plays a big role in The Hat series. Lizzie and The Pythons play music as a way to get her out at night and travel around as they explore the supernatural world.
Some of my Story Empire friends suggested that playlists are popular and that I should consider sharing one. I’ve never tried anything like this before, and didn’t have a playbook, so I made my own up.
I have a huge playlist on my phone that goes along with these books. However, I limited this page to things that got mentioned in the books. Videos are bandwidth eaters, so I didn’t want a page of videos to clog up your processors. I went with links to most of them, but included a few videos from key moments in the stories.
I won’t publish The Ballad of Mrs. Molony until later this year, but I included the music up above. Maybe it will inspire some interest in that tale. When I have a link and cover I’ll make sure to update it. I threw in a couple of tiny Lisa Burton posters for flavor. As I get those for Mrs. Molony, I’ll add one for that book, too.
I’m looking for feedback on this page. If you think I need the artists, let me know. Some of the older tunes don’t have great videos available so I went with what I could find.
I should change the wallpaper from Frankie’s brindle coat to something more summery. My zucchini is trying to bloom, so maybe it’s time for some bright yellow flowers.
Let me know what you think, and if the pointers are centered when you visit, you’ll know I used the good editor to fix what this abomination thinks I need.
I had a lunch meeting today. I usually don’t see the sun this time of year, because of how my commute is timed. Aside from the window in my office, it’s usually the darkness for me.
However, as I left the building, there is this decorative pond which is also a drainage site for the building. It froze, then the water level dropped. I thought it looked like a topographic map, others in my office thought it looked like an agate.
It was worthy of a photo, so I snapped one.
It was so cool, I cropped one side, then used as blog wallpaper. The stones are kind of cool in it, too. What do you think?
While I’m following my blog tour around, I’ve found it hard to write. That doesn’t mean I’ve been completely idle though.
I have bulldogs that need cuddles, a daughter who likes to talk about her big promotion, and my back to deal with. For some reason, my back issue decided to remind me it’s not over yesterday. It’s a bit worse today. This is an important week at work, so it needs to go away.
I reblogged Joan’s post earlier today. Now that it’s after five here, I’m going to mention that it was my turn over at Story Empire. There is a neat conversation going on in the comments about how different we all are when it comes to developing character. Stop over and join in the conversation, I’ll be monitoring the comments.
I also took some time to give my blog a facelift. I found some cool snowflake wallpaper, and Lisa went out to the island and made a snow sculpture for the banner. Then I assembled and scheduled this week’s Lisa Burton Radio.
One of the things I’ve been doing between comments and tweets is looking at my outlines. Something odd happened and it deviates from my master plan. After I finish the novella, I’m supposed to start on a novel called Grinders. This one is a cyberpunk novel about people who do extreme body modifications in an attempt to become better than everyone else. There will be some bio-hacking and such to flesh out the world.
The deal is that it’s not quite ripe when it comes to plot. I have some great characters, locations, and events. It just needs more time in the fermenter.
While I was doing that, one of my problem children kind of grew up. This one started off as a fantasy. Then it evolved into a flintlock fantasy. Somehow, in the past few weeks it became a pirate story and it all seems ready to go. Maybe it has something to do with my new hat stands. There will be magic, some artifacts, and monsters to make it one of my stories. The only remaining question is whether it’s our world or an alternate.
Sometimes it happens this way. I didn’t think this one would be ready for a couple of years. It’s nearly there, and whatever else it needs will come to me as I’m drafting it. I went from one act that I completely reworked, to three acts that are ready to start writing. You know, after I finish the novella called Estivation.
The Hat is still selling, and the reviews are all favorable. I’m so glad that people are enjoying this one. It needs more action, but I have faith in this little story. If you haven’t picked up a copy yet, click on the image in my sidebar and drop 99¢, I think you’ll be glad you did.
I love October. I've been bouncing around in cyberspace and may have said that a few other places. This month, I'm going to be hitting promotion hard. The last two weeks of September I had time to take on even more stuff. I spent it filling out forms, answering interview questions, etc.
I'm going to miss that September wallpaper though. Let's take one last look at Lisa goofing off with the rocket-pack before we retire it completely.
I found a cool image of bats flying in front of a full moon to use this month, but another of my blog friends is using the exact same image. How about some pumpkins. If I find something else, I may change it again.
I also went back to the Will O' the Wisp banner image for a while. That's an October story, and fits with the overall theme. If I find a cool monster, maybe I can shoehorn it into the Moai graphic somehow.
I filled out another interview sheet, and sent out a final proof for this week's Lisa Burton Radio before I decided to write this. Basically, I've been sending out excerpts, covers, reading copies and such for weeks.
Will it all work? I have no idea, but I intend to meet some new people this month. The basic idea is that I have three novels that might qualify as Halloween reading. There are plenty of similar tales in the Experimental Notebooks too. What better time to try promoting them than right now.
My friends at Story Empire are banding together to push all of our paranormal tales in a massive blog tour (or two). I'm almost certain to post about it, but might not do it until next weekend.
I need to write and schedule my Monday and Tuesday posts this weekend. If I get the Lisa Burton Radio stuff in time, I will use the scheduler for that too. My paycheck job is sending me to Coeur d'Alene for a week, and blogging time will be limited. The scheduler is wonderful under those circumstances.
That will leave Wednesday open, and I might be able to post some pictures from CDA or something.
Some of the best things about this kind of promotion are the hosts themselves. Not everyone is open to hosting an author. I try to reblog the posts as a way of supporting them. An enterprising author might visit them too, just to make the connection. It might even be worth adding a note or two to any living documents you keep about bloggers willing to host authors. Then when you need them, you'll have a starting place.
Most of this promotion stuff involves work in advance. After sending the kit out, all that remains is participating in the comments and sharing across social media. By hitting it hard in September, and the first parts of October, I may be able to coast a bit in the second half of the month.
It's still early yet, and I can take on a few more projects as long as they're small. If you need to fill slots on an October themed event, or are opening up some paranormal slots keep me in mind. I'm willing to return the favor and host people here too. My preferred method is Lisa Burton Radio, but I've hosted cover reveals and such too.
I allowed myself to sleep in this morning. I think I could have lasted another hour, except for my wild alarm clock. There was a duck quacking right outside my window. It's kind of funny when you think about it. I still got to sleep in, but it is what it is. What do you think possessed him to come in my yard and act like that? I expect this out of the tiny birds, but waterfowl should be better behaved.
When I got up, my daughter was already downstairs. Saturday is usually my best writing day, but this Saturday was going to have to be a compromise.
I managed to get my wallpaper changed for May. It is a little bit cramped on my iPad, but it looks great on the Mac. I'm going to assume it looks great on PCs and laptops. I'm sure it never looks good on phones, but I can't help that.
I assembled next week's Lisa Burton Radio post, and it promises to be a fun one. I also spent some time working on future posts in this arena, and it looks like I'll be able to keep it going for a while.
I checked my sales page, and it looks like a few more sales recently, and a few pages read. The sales are mostly due to the Wild Concept sale, but there are a few Experimental Notebooks, and Playgrounds mixed in. The pages read are mostly The Playground.
I received a couple of invitations, and need to ponder them. I love challenging assignments, so I'll have to see what I can come up with here. I have about a third of one in mind, and maybe my Muse will show up and inspire me for the rest.
I found a great new 5 star review for Experimental Notebook. The reviewer said, “Mr. Boyack must be a strange man. I like the way he thinks.”
You know, I probably am a strange man, because this quote gives me great pleasure. I've been cracking up about it since last night. Besides that, 5 stars is awesome! Reviews have been really hard to get lately, so I'm thrilled.
I played around a bit more with my art app. I'm getting a big kick out of messing with the blog banner. I have a bunch of ideas, but not a lot of talent. We'll all find out together if I can pull it off.
I spent some time surfing around for stuff to use in Lisa's artwork. It seems like I have more ideas than money to get the art made. This round is so I can stockpile stuff to use on the blog, Facebook, etc. I have other ideas for specific book promotions. I consider this to be research, but it isn't totally unpleasant. There are a lot of retro pinup models online these days. It kind of makes me want another antique car. I used to have one I took to car shows in the last century.
Other than that, I haven't been very productive. The new issue of Heavy Metal arrived the other day, but I haven't taken the wrapper off yet. My wife wants to take me for beer and pizza tonight, so that's good. I know it's her plan to trick me into shopping for shirts at the mall. I need some new short sleeve shirts, and beer is always good. I'm going to go along with her nefarious plan, and not tell her I'm onto her.
Old What's her Face* decided to go to Nevada for a visit. She didn't make her mind up until last night. This is starting to shape up into a productive writing weekend. The question becomes one of whether I'm up to the task or not.
I've had a lot going on with promoting The Playground. I still have more to do, but at least I have some time to do it.
My daughter, She Who Cannot Stop Talking, took up most of my morning. She's been in kind of a funk lately, and it sounds like she's working her way out of it. That's kind of how life works, and I'm happy she is turning the corner. There isn't much I can do for her except listen. I'm a good listener.
I managed to get my wallpaper changed for the new month. It is kind of a science fiction piece with a nice vertical element. Most of the uber cool stuff goes behind the text window, but it's interesting enough to work. You still get some Chinese lanterns and such.
I got all my critique work printed out. I still have to work through it, but I have a couple of days.
I dedicated some of my time to exchanging emails about future Lisa Burton Radio shows. I also sent out a new questionnaire. The next couple are going to be really fun. (I promise.) I'm looking for more guests, so keep this in mind as one of your promotional stops.
The biggest unexpected benefit to me is collaborating with other authors on these posts. It's different than sending one of my posts off, or pasting something a guest provides. We have to work together to make these fun. I'm learning a lot, and expect to learn even more.
I'm appearing over at Helen Jones' blog today. We're having some good discussions about the importance of research in speculative fiction. Stop by and weigh in. What kind of strange research have you done?
I spent some portion of my day surfing through various social media. It's part of the job, and I'm not disappointed that social media seemed a bit quiet today. Still, someone say hi out there in cyberspace.
I bought and read a short story today, and it left me wanting. It just didn't deliver for me. There was nothing wrong with it, but everything in it felt like low hanging fruit. It was supposed to be a pulp adventure, and it was. It just needed a little something more from my point of view. A little bit more thought might have kept it from being so predictable. I'm not going to trash the guy, and I'm not returning the book. I understand how hard it is to write a good story. I'm not going to review it either.
This afternoon, I added 500 words to my own short story. Every story has some issues to work through, and this problem is interesting. It's a revisit to Jason Fogg, who first appeared in my Experimental Notebook. He's married now, and they're having financial issues. Good way to have readers relate, because we've all been through it.
I know exactly what I want to happen to he and Riley, and how they're going to come out at the other end. There are some interesting human elements to this one. The problem comes from having some detective job for him to meet these struggles and growth points. It really doesn't matter what it is, it just has to be interesting all on its own. It also has to provide that element of danger, and a twist of some kind.
I have something that might work, and the job isn't the point, the human element is. Still, something tells me a complete rewrite is in my future with this one after I get it hacked out. I want those who like the noir detective element to feel satisfied too. We're going to learn that Jason isn't invincible in this story and I'm excited about that.
I'm about to step it back for the day. I need to find out if Ichabod and Abby can save Sleepy Hollow yet again. After that, I'll surf through Helen's blog a few more times to play in the comment section. I may even watch a super hero movie tonight and drink a beer.
Come to Helen's site and say hi. Drop me an email about your character being on Lisa's radio show. Leave a comment here about your own plot struggles. (Hurry, before my daughter decides to talk my ears off again.)
* Entertaining Stories, protecting my wife's identity since 2013.
I didn't even try to dedicate time to new fiction today. I did a bit of work in other areas though. I finished all of my critique work, and am ready for the group on Tuesday.
I did a bunch of work on my super secret project, and it's starting to shape up very well. This involved exchanging multiple emails with several friends, and waiting patiently. Lots of progress here though. I could claim a lot of new words here, but who's keeping score anyway.
I have several more short stories chomping at the bit, but they can wait. I'm not going to jump into them until it's time. I have a great opportunity tomorrow to write, and I'm going to. In fact, I'm going to saddle my yak and get back to the novel. I still don't have my conundrum all figured out, but it's because there are too many options. If I build a few fences it will be easier to get right. I'll write those fences tomorrow. They're only words, right? I can trash them if I have to.
I changed my wallpaper too, and I'm kind of dubious about it. It looks like crap on my iPad. I checked it out on the Mac and it looks great. How does it look at your end?
On top of that, I finished the ARC I was reading. I hurried up and wrote a review PDQ so it was still fresh in my mind. (I could count words here too, but they aren't fiction. It's all true.) I won't say any more just yet, because the book hasn't dropped. It's a fantastic story though.
I added two new guest posts about The Playground to my portfolio. I still need more, but if I keep pecking away, there will be enough when it comes time to promote. (New words here too.)
I've been writing about how new words aren't the only work when it comes to writing. Today is an example of what I'm talking about. I still need to tour through Facebook, Twitter, Goodreads and whatnot. Promotion is part of the gig too, and I need to throw something out there to pique reader interest.
Sales are still dead, but pages through Amazon Prime are still going strong. I don't know what the deal is, but I'm grateful for any readers I can get. Keep on borrowing, or whatever it's officially called.
I hope your weekend was awesome, and please let me know if my background looks horrible at your end.
I had an errand to run that ate up a chunk of my day off. It was a contentious point under my roof. It's time to drop off our taxes with the accountant. I tried to talk my wife into dropping them off after she got off work, and apparently, this was a ridiculous idea. The accountant is one block from where she works. As a result, I drove fifteen miles through traffic, spent 30 seconds dropping off the package, and another fifteen miles through traffic to get back home. I don't get it, but it ate up a chunk of my day and tainted my attitude.
I did some reading when I got back, then decided I had to do something progressive.
I uploaded a Lisa picture to Facebook to promote The Cock of the South to a couple of groups I joined. Nothing ventured, nothing gained and all that. I created a different one for Twitter that doesn't feature Lisa. Scratch off the fact that I accomplished something.
I spent a limited amount of time researching items for the stories currently underway. I avoided the Sirens this time. When I find time to write again, I have a better idea of what I need to include.
I decided to take a visual break and surfed for my next background. I downloaded four or five, because it's a struggle to get one to fit on the narrow edges of this blog. Images need to be free, and they need a strong vertical element to work best. Even then, I have to crop them to get the vertical element to the sides. With that many images, one should work well.
March arrives next Tuesday, and that's when my critique group meets again. I sent my submission out days ago, and could have worked on their submissions today. I just didn't. I'll probably get to it sometime this weekend. My next rotating day off is Monday, and that might be a good time.
This evening will bring more reading. If I need a break, I may work on a short story briefly. This one involves a return to Bergamot Holler, the key area in Will O' the Wisp. I have some fun ideas for it, and am excited to see where it goes.
Sales have been strange lately, and I'm getting a lot more pages read than actual sales. That doesn't bother me at all. I'm happy to have action. If you joined Amazon Prime, and want to check out my stories for free, please do. I have no idea why this happens. I haven't done much promotion lately other than Twitter, and the new Facebook stuff. I'm sure more promotion would net more results, but I can only do so much.
Right now, I'm stressed for writing time. I can post a Tweet with some decent hashtags and get it online in seconds. Writing guest posts takes a bit of time, and blog tours require monitoring. I'll be doing that soon enough, but it isn't in the cards right now.
It won't be long before I hear back from the beta readers. I'm anxious to see what they thought about The Playground. Working on that book will take priority at that time. Then I'll have to move toward launch, and get all the guest posts written. I already have a couple of them, but need to keep pecking away at them.
Somewhere in the middle of this, I have a fun new idea for this blog. I'm not ready to announce it just yet, but it's going to require some hours too. I'm looking forward to it though, and am chomping at the bit to get started on it. It will all happen in time, so I'm better suited to clear some other things off my plate right now.
I'm still feeling under the weather today. Everyone who's had this locally has to deal with it for weeks. Yay me. Let's just say if I'd written my creative Day Of Pots post today I could add one more pot. This is the kind you set on, and we'll just leave it at that.
My crud even put a stop to date night, and I'm kind of bummed about that.
I puttered around all day on mini projects. I read a few chapters of an ARC for a friend. This iPad Pro is wonderful in that I can have a second window open for notes. I made a few, but it makes beta reading so much easier.
I bounced around with various social media today. I used a couple of free apps to make graphics for Twitter and Facebook. I found one where you can place a note into a bottle on a sandy beach. I added the cover of Experimental Notebook and posted it on Twitter. It's getting a little bit of action, and reflects one of the stories in the book.
I also made a few like this using the older Lisa Burton artwork. I'm using them to post the new Facebook links.
The app has a Playboy cover too, but that is sooo not Lisa. Gotta stay in character with these projects. She's willing to fish with that bait, but not all of it, if you catch my drift.
If you have a chance, check out these sites and tell your friends about them. Thank you to those who already have, but I'm trying to expand my footprint here. Enough said.
I added a few lines to the retro science fiction story. These include gelatinous water spheres instead of plastic bottles. The characters just eat them. I decided they should also be gelatinous olives in cocktails, and something to bite after a tequila shot. (It sounded fun to me.)
The girl in this story has to convince the guy he needs to give up on his past and face his future. Tequila seems like a decent way to introduce that.
I managed to change my wallpaper too. Let's go with toy robots for a month.
Not a ton going on here today. With all this time on my hands I should have made some bigger progress. I'm afraid I'm going to be puttering along for some time. After this goes live I'll probably look at those critique submissions. They aren't going to read themselves and we meet Tuesday.
Entertaining Stories 