No regrets today

I had a reasonable opportunity to do some writing today, and squandered it away. This is my two day weekend, and Old What’s Her Face is off. That makes it kind of hard, but not impossible.

I dabbled. I switched back to Lanternfish, but it probably didn’t amount to 300 words. I also made some adjustments to an earlier part of the story. Nothing too Earth shattering.

Mostly, there were some decent movies on television. A couple of old James Garner comedies were on, back-to-back. I keep thinking I create wild characters, but I have a long way to go. Watching Harry Morgan and Dub Taylor yell at each other was hilarious. I’m calling it a study session.

Old What’s Her Face had to get her Toyota serviced, and I just kept watching movies. She was nice, and brought home an empanada and an apple fritter for me.

I also watched game 7 of the 2001 World Series. It’s one of my all-time favorites. It might be the only baseball I get this year.

In a few minutes The Invisible Man is coming on Pay-Per-View. I’m going to rent it and see what it looks like. Haven’t heard a thing about it, but the trailers look pretty good.

Hope all of you are staying safe, and enjoying the weekend.

Vacation time trickles out…

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.

Saturday checking in

Things have been pretty crazy around here. I (nearly) finished up my blog tour for Viral Blues this week. The big climax was the Something Wicked tour with all my Story Empire friends. I like to reblog my appearances in hopes of sending the host a bit of traffic. For that leg of the tour, I had my own guest that day and could not post over the top of them. They deserved the spotlight, and brought us some wonderful options for Halloween reading.

I say almost finished, because I have one interview that will post on Halloween. It promises to be a good interview, and I’ll share it here. Then, that’s it for Viral Blues. I’ll watch for reviews, and if they’re on BookBub I can tweet them out. BookBub is starting to warm on me. I need more followers there, and am willing to follow back.

This is where I come to a rift between heart and head. My heart wants to return to drafting of new material. I still have two projects in the works, and one of them is near conclusion. I also have some fun ideas for the Lanternfish sequel, but it is lagging a bit behind. I may have a little maneuvering room here this coming week.

My head is telling me to release Serang. This one is a supporting story to Lanternfish, and not part of the main trilogy. I made big strides toward publishing today, and expect to publish it next week.

This may actually be a cover reveal. I don’t recall sharing the image before. With Serang, I’ll need to do a bit of promotion. I’ll do a blog tour, but I don’t think it will be as extensive. I only have two specific pieces of Lisa Burton art, plus I can recycle the one from Lanternfish. I haven’t even started writing posts yet, so that’s going to eat into my time.

I have my concerns about this story, but I freak out about all my releases. Lanternfish had comedy bits, and they were well received. Serang was one of the more serious pirates, and her origin story will be serious, too. (Sorry to disappoint those comedy fans.) I have some neat settings and situations in the story, so we’ll all find out together. The few coming-of-age stories I’ve written were well received, so fingers crossed. A lot of things about Serang are explained in this story.

My wiggle room is in the form of vacation, paid vacation. I’m getting paid to be an author. (Don’t laugh, I’m counting it as a win.) I don’t have to return to work until Halloween. Old What’s Her Face is out of town for a couple of days, and that helps, too.

I’ll spend the next few days dabbling with blurb ideas, maybe cobble together some promotional posts. I’ll check my list of potential hosts, and see who I haven’t put the touch on lately. I really have no idea who I’m going to ask.

I may even pull up that nearly finished draft and add a chapter to it. It’s science fiction, so it won’t tangle with any fantasy ideas I’m working on.

No matter what, I’m breaking for the World Series. I still have a few remaining pumpkin beers and can’t be expected to work all the time. I don’t have a favorite team, and nobody this year has me cheering against them either. So far the games have been great, and I hope they continue on that path.

Let me hear from you. Are you watching the Series? Do you have a favorite team? Am I crazy for releasing another book on the heels of Viral Blues? Do you like or hate the cover? Are you sick of all this book promo?

A long week.

This was the week I went to San Antonio. That’s really nothing new, at my level seminars are a fact of life. This one had its good and not-so-good parts. Some of that has to do with my seasoning. I’ve been around this stuff for a long time, and it’s getting kind of hard to show me something new. They managed it though.

One of the unexpected things is kind of telling. I’ve been to many a seminar, but the seats in those meeting rooms are starting to wear me out more than ever before. A day or two, no problem. Four days, and I think I need a wheelchair.

Add air travel into the mix, and it gets even worse. There is no such thing as a comfortable chair on an airliner. I wound up with the middle seat on all four legs of my journey. From Phoenix to Boise, the guy with the window seat never showed up. I moved over and it was wonderful just to have a bit of extra room.

I actually left my iPad Pro at the TSA check in stop in San Antonio. Fortunately, my employee spotted it and saved it for me. I’m starting to feel like I need a keeper.

As far as San Antonio goes, it rained. Then it rained some more, followed by rain, with an additional portion of rain. It stopped raining while I was at the airport to go home.

We braved it anyway. We wandered down the street to someplace called the Buckhorn Saloon for lunch. It’s one of those places that seems dedicated to taxidermy. Animals covered all the walls, and they call part of it a museum that requires an admission fee. Apparently, it was not dedicated to cleanliness. To make it clear, polar bears and mountain goats are white, not grey.

The lunch itself was pretty good, and I scored a local beer that came off quite well. Craft beer wasn’t easy to find, but Texas brands were in abundance. I wound up living on Shiner Bock. Not awesome like a craft beer, but you can live on it.

While we were there, a Ted Cruz Rally broke out. My co-worker took a photo, but I didn’t feel the need. Cruz is kind of an odd dude, and I sat on my hands, lest judgment be passed upon me.

My co-worker has several Army buddies in the area, so he went out with them most nights. The one night we wandered around didn’t turn out all that great.

We got to the Alamo just as it closed. I still snapped a photo, the only one I took.

I briefly considered storming the fortress, but that’s already been done, and seems so 1800s by today’s standards.

Note: It was raining.

Then we wandered down to the River Walk. I went through the Alamo years ago, and spent a lot of time on the River Walk. This time, the River Walk seemed like it’s lost some of its spark.

The last time I was here, there were shops, bars, and restaurants filled to overflowing. This time, very little was open, people were scarce, and some construction was going on. It does make for a lovely scene to put some vampires in and have them stalk the patrons stumbling out of the bars.

My co-worker said his buddy, a former Army Ranger, told him this part of town wasn’t a great place to hang out after dark. We took the hint and went back to the hotel. I settled for another Shiner, some poorly conceived bar food, and called it my birthday dinner. I went back to my room so I could watch the World Series. It’s hard to ask a group of Spurs fans if it would be okay to change from basketball to baseball. (Sounds like something for one of John’s top ten lists.)

Old What’s Her Face called me on Face Time, something I’d never done before. This was so I could talk to Otto. He missed me and was confused how I got inside the iPad. It was kind of fun.

When I got home, the house was dark. My wife had to work today. That didn’t stop the dogs, and they swarmed me. I had to stay up for an hour just snuggling them. (Mostly Otto.)

I have a big old list of things I should be doing today, but I’m kind of worn out. Spending a lot of time with my old friend, Mr. Hot Pad today. At least I got to spend some time editing while I was on airplanes. That and reading a mediocre craft book I bought. I’m finding that craft books are kind of like seminars these days. It’s isn’t exciting and awesome anymore, but there are small nuggets of information that I find valuable.

That was the week that was. I really do have a ton of things to do, but this whole month has been like burning the candle at both ends. I think I’ll take a day and see how I feel about it tomorrow. I wonder if John Wayne is defending the Alamo on television somewhere today.

Sick Day

My entire household has been under the weather this week.  All of us have used sick time, and it appears to be my turn now. I intended to update this site on Wednesday, but never got that far. It was supposed to be a cute post about partying too much with the old under-the-bed monster. Halloween is a distant memory tonight, so that ship has kind of sailed. By the time my commute ended, the game was already on, and I wasn’t up for blogging.

I managed to update the wallpaper for November. I snapped a photo of Old What’s Her Face’s maple tree in the front yard. The image is so big it kind of blurs along the edges of my site, but it looks artsy. Boise is ablaze with colors right now, and her tree is awesome.

Today is a good day for the fireplace, a cup of good tea, and complaining. Let’s complain.

Advertising

The radio ads on Sirius radio are worse than ever these days. There is one about getting help paying off credit card debt. It annoys me when they say you don’t have to pay it all back. The fact is you borrowed the money, you spent it, and you agreed to the terms of the loan. You get to keep the big-screen television, and they make it sound like a good thing that you don’t have to pay for it. What really chaps me is they say, “Don’t let the credit card companies trick you into thinking you have to pay it all back.” They even emphasize the word taaRICK to make the point. Nobody’s being tricked here. What they don’t tell you is that you are supposed to give them money to help you avoid paying a bill you owe. Bet they don’t take credit.

The other one is a mortgage lender who talks about a “yourgage.” Oh-my-God! That’s soooo cool, I’ll take out a loan against my house because yourgage sounds so much better than a mortgage. Getting a mortgage is a big deal, and it’s complicated. It should not be reduced to a click type app based upon snap decisions, and I don’t think they need some fake buzzword to make it sound better than what their competitors offer. Consumers really should shop around and even work up a budget themselves to see if they’re ready for this massive step.

Just throw the damned ball.

I’m excited for the Houston Astros. Last night they won their first ever World Series. It was a good series too, taking all seven games to decide the victor. It will never match 2001 in my mind, playing in New York the same year as the 911 attacks, oh and my Diamondbacks won. It doesn’t match the series from last year, or the bloody sock series, but it was pretty darned exciting. So where’s the gripe?

The gripe is in the length of the games. These guys start playing at seven or eight years old. They’ve played all their lives, including  the minors and major leagues. They’ve had access to the best coaching. They know this game. A batter steps out of the box to mess with the pitcher’s timing. Do you really think that’s going to do anything to Kershaw or Verlander? What it does is adds time to the game.

The pitcher then comes off the mound to talk to the catcher, but wait,  the entire infield has to come in too. Presumably, they’re talking about what to throw and the expected outcome. When he’s ready, they all go back to their positions, the catcher delivers his signs, the pitcher nods… and the batter steps out of the box again. This brings the pitching coach out of the dugout to talk to the entire infield once more, and the process starts all over again.

The guy delivers his pitch and then they replace the pitcher. Add fifteen minutes for the next guy to get ready, then repeat the whole process.

Just throw the friggin ball! This isn’t your first time on the mound. This isn’t the first situation you’ve ever seen. All of the position players have trained their entire lives for this.

When I was young, games used to last about two and a half hours. These games have been lasting six hours or more. I’m in the mountain time zone and one of them didn’t get over until midnight. Heaven forbid you’re an East Coast fan. “Sorry, son, you can’t watch the World Series, because your school bus will probably leave before the game ends.”

The regular season isn’t like this, but the playoffs always are. I understand there’s more on the line, but if you aren’t ready for it, maybe you shouldn’t be playing at this level. It isn’t going to get better until MLB does something about it. When it comes to baseball, I hate changes, but it’s time to act.

I probably have more, but my kettle is boiling and I need to get back to blowing my nose and figuring out what moved into my throat. 

Saturday night

Just got back from Old Chicago. Earned my Halloween tee-shirt, which has a cool pumpkin faced graphic on it. It also means I’ve had a few beers as I write this.

I got Lisa Burton Radio assembled for the week. I have another one to work on for next week, and that’s about it. When I asked for volunteers for some free promo, I got an overwhelming response. I sent  everyone a questionnaire, but some of them never came back. I have no intention of doing followup on them. They have a skin in this game too. LBR gets a lot of reblogs, social media shares, and click throughs on the purchase links. While I have no idea whether  the consumer goes on to purchase the book, I think LBR is a win, and a great promo opportunity.

Because of this, Lisa is about ready for more volunteers. I’m not going to hit this too hard yet, because I want my regulars to get first shot at the opportunity. Becoming one of my regular readers ought to be good for something.

I save emails. I doubt if anyone else has this problem, but I don’t delete some that might require interaction later on. I have a whole string of folks I sent a questionnaire to dating back to late June. If they never responded, I’m going to delete them. This means you may have a promotional opportunity here. The timing is perfect for any Christmas stories you might want to push.

I also assembled the final Macabre Macaroni for 2017. I hope you guys enjoyed these. I like writing them, and they seem pretty popular this year. The final one involves a species called Little Brown Bat. I wrote the story as if that were his name, but it’s actually a species.

Part of my research involved verifying something I already knew. Bats in flight use their tails to scoop the insects into their mouths. This was first discovered in a lab, using strobe lights and still photography. I saw the video years ago, and it’s amazing. I could not find that video, but this one shows one bat using the technique to capture a moth in flight.

Oh yeah, I do research even on my micro-fiction. Hope everyone enjoys the final one this year. It posts on Tuesday.

I still need to write something for Chris Graham in November, and have zero ideas. I may write it about the pet character in fiction. I write a lot of animals, and find they can serve a useful purpose. Maybe I’ll take a stab at a first draft tomorrow. Too much beer tonight, and the World Series is on. Maybe later, my son and I can play video games.

Saturday night

Just got back from Old Chicago. Earned my Halloween tee-shirt, which has a cool pumpkin faced graphic on it. It also means I’ve had a few beers as I write this.

I got Lisa Burton Radio assembled for the week. I have another one to work on for next week, and that’s about it. When I asked for volunteers for some free promo, I got an overwhelming response. I sent  everyone a questionnaire, but some of them never came back. I have no intention of doing followup on them. They have a skin in this game too. LBR gets a lot of reblogs, social media shares, and click throughs on the purchase links. While I have no idea whether  the consumer goes on to purchase the book, I think LBR is a win, and a great promo opportunity.

Because of this, Lisa is about ready for more volunteers. I’m not going to hit this too hard yet, because I want my regulars to get first shot at the opportunity. Becoming one of my regular readers ought to be good for something.

I save emails. I doubt if anyone else has this problem, but I don’t delete some that might require interaction later on. I have a whole string of folks I sent a questionnaire to dating back to late June. If they never responded, I’m going to delete them. This means you may have a promotional opportunity here. The timing is perfect for any Christmas stories you might want to push.

I also assembled the final Macabre Macaroni for 2017. I hope you guys enjoyed these. I like writing them, and they seem pretty popular this year. The final one involves a species called Little Brown Bat. I wrote the story as if that were his name, but it’s actually a species.

Part of my research involved verifying something I already knew. Bats in flight use their tails to scoop the insects into their mouths. This was first discovered in a lab, using strobe lights and still photography. I saw the video years ago, and it’s amazing. I could not find that video, but this one shows one bat using the technique to capture a moth in flight.

https://youtu.be/MgRh_Q_xwys

Oh yeah, I do research even on my micro-fiction. Hope everyone enjoys the final one this year. It posts on Tuesday.

I still need to write something for Chris Graham in November, and have zero ideas. I may write it about the pet character in fiction. I write a lot of animals, and find they can serve a useful purpose. Maybe I’ll take a stab at a first draft tomorrow. Too much beer tonight, and the World Series is on. Maybe later, my son and I can play video games.

Saturday night

Just got back from Old Chicago. Earned my Halloween tee-shirt, which has a cool pumpkin faced graphic on it. It also means I’ve had a few beers as I write this.

I got Lisa Burton Radio assembled for the week. I have another one to work on for next week, and that’s about it. When I asked for volunteers for some free promo, I got an overwhelming response. I sent  everyone a questionnaire, but some of them never came back. I have no intention of doing followup on them. They have a skin in this game too. LBR gets a lot of reblogs, social media shares, and click throughs on the purchase links. While I have no idea whether  the consumer goes on to purchase the book, I think LBR is a win, and a great promo opportunity.

Because of this, Lisa is about ready for more volunteers. I’m not going to hit this too hard yet, because I want my regulars to get first shot at the opportunity. Becoming one of my regular readers ought to be good for something.

I save emails. I doubt if anyone else has this problem, but I don’t delete some that might require interaction later on. I have a whole string of folks I sent a questionnaire to dating back to late June. If they never responded, I’m going to delete them. This means you may have a promotional opportunity here. The timing is perfect for any Christmas stories you might want to push.

I also assembled the final Macabre Macaroni for 2017. I hope you guys enjoyed these. I like writing them, and they seem pretty popular this year. The final one involves a species called Little Brown Bat. I wrote the story as if that were his name, but it’s actually a species.

Part of my research involved verifying something I already knew. Bats in flight use their tails to scoop the insects into their mouths. This was first discovered in a lab, using strobe lights and still photography. I saw the video years ago, and it’s amazing. I could not find that video, but this one shows one bat using the technique to capture a moth in flight.

https://youtu.be/MgRh_Q_xwys

Oh yeah, I do research even on my micro-fiction. Hope everyone enjoys the final one this year. It posts on Tuesday.

I still need to write something for Chris Graham in November, and have zero ideas. I may write it about the pet character in fiction. I write a lot of animals, and find they can serve a useful purpose. Maybe I’ll take a stab at a first draft tomorrow. Too much beer tonight, and the World Series is on. Maybe later, my son and I can play video games.

Partial chill today

I don't know that I ever take a day for myself, not completely. I decided not to hit it too hard today though. This is my flex day for the week, and I had the house to myself.

Otto hasn't been sleeping at night this week. Is suspect my son makes him sleep all day so he doesn't have to walk him or deal with him. Otto started his day at 2:00 AM today. I decided to get up with him, so my wife could sleep. She had to answer the alarm clock about an hour later, but I did what I could. I'm going to be talking to my son.

This led to hours of pumpkin ball play, and I decided to try out the slow motion video on my new camera. It works better with a thrower that just lets me film. I posted one on my own and one after my wife got home. You can see them at the Entertaining Stories Facebook page.

Of course, after my wife got on the road, Otto went to sleep. Why wouldn't he, he'd been awake all night. I took advantage of the time to finish reading a book. There is something so perfect about the dark hours before sunrise.

I woke him up for another game of pumpkin ball, because I want him sleepy tonight. While we played, I turned on some Loony Toons cartoons, and thoroughly enjoyed myself. I don't think I have to have children in the house to watch Wabbit Season.

During the cool down, I took advantage and worked up three shticks for Lisa Burton Radio. Once those were in the mail, we played with another of Otto's toys for a while. When I checked the mail, one of the radio interview is already back.

I did my typical blog skimming, checked Facebook and Twitter. Then I wrote out a bit of micro-fiction. This is for my possible baseball book, called The Enhanced League. I'm trying to make all the stories fit together, albeit loosely. This makes it hard to use the twist endings I enjoy so much. There are a few, but not as frequently as I'd prefer. I have no idea what I'll do with it eventually. Right now it keeps me in fiction until I can dedicate some real time to my novel.

I also scheduled my next post over at Story Empire. It's kind of a loose assessment of all the things I tried during October to get readers to look my way. These things are beyond what the Story Empire crowd is doing together. The post is scheduled for somewhere around midnight on Halloween.

Speaking of Story Empire, the big tour is still going on, and so are the scavenger hunts. If you haven't entered yet, all you have to do is answer a couple of questions you can find the answers to on our site. You don't have to actually visit all the tour host sites. Ten gift cards and five ebooks are up for grabs, and you could win from multiple authors.

Also speaking of Story Empire, we are doing a couple of book blasts on Halloween. They're all paranormal stories to some degree, so it makes sense. For one of the blasts, they require either a discount or a free day. I hadn't planned on it, but I set Will O' the Wisp up as free all that day. The links will be in my post at Story Empire after it loads. Reminder: I also set it up in the UK store, because I love you guys too. So if you didn't win in the giveaway, I'm giving you an unplanned second chance.

I managed all this before 2:00 this afternoon. You can get a lot done when you start at 2:00 AM. I'll probably take a nap, and tonight we're having date night somewhere. No doubt the World Series will be involved somewhere along the line. Maybe I can find my own version of pumpkin (beer) along the way.