Major Holiday

Apparently this is Columbus Day, so in honor of his discovery of the New World I slept in. That's why my blog is late today.

I was sick and in bed over the entire weekend, so the house is now a complete catastrophe after having two little baboons run loose un-picked-up-after for two days. I supposed I ought to try and work up the energy to do something about that, but at the same time I don't want to dishoner the accomplishments of the great Christopher Columbus by indulging in menial labor on his holiday. A man has to consider these things.

I did go and meet my seven year old's second grade teacher today for a parent-teacher conference. Academically, he's tops in his class...other than that he's a little goober. We all knew that, so it's all good.

I also did a writer's night out with Cherri Galbiati last night. I know, I know...I was sick all weekend, but after spending thirty six straight hours in bed, and another four or five on the couch, I figured I could handle sitting in a booth at Denny's. I had to promise the wife to adhere to a curfew of midnight, which was just as well because I tired early. I'm still not 100% but I think I'm on the mend.

Anyways, we mainly discussed how hard it is to write and promote. They are two completely different mindsets that interfere with each other in the worst way. You can't really hop from doing on to the other, and to be honest it's difficult to even do both on the same day. They are just alien mental states, and so far apart from each other that once you're in one mode, the other seems out of reach. Yet these days, a writer has to promote or his work dies on the vine...or at least it works that way for most writers. There is always that one who throws their work up there and it just takes off and sells...and the rest of us congratulate that person while trying not to hate them.

Sigh.

Oh well, I'm behind on laundry too...but there is till the matter of the Honor of Columbus being at stake, so I don't know about that either. I guess we shall see what we shall see.

Thank's Chris ;)

Finally!

Today, the next addition to the Shades series, Wind and Dark Waters, went live on the Kindle. It has the picture up, but not the story description yet. I'll provide that here...

Shades: Winds and Dark Waters feature the first two short stories of the author's that ever reached print.
First up is Storm Chase. Bernie March is a small farmer in 1961 with a big problem. He left his tractor down the hill and near the river, but that's not the problem. Hurricane Carla is roaring in and the river is about to rise, but that's not the problem. There is a pale figure flapping in the wind near his tractor...exactly where he buried the wife he murdered three years earlier. That is a problem.

Following that, and a short author's note, is The World in Strips. Cathy just wanted a little adventure, and a chance to get away from her work, so she persuaded her husband to take a little boat ride down a rural creek with her. But how much does anybody really know about the world, even in their own county...especially nowadays when we experience the world in strips.

Both of these stories were published by Pill Hill Press, in their "Middle of Nowhere: Horror in Rural America," and their "The Bitter End: Tales of Nautical Terror" anthologies. Thanks go out to Jessy and Alva for giving me that opportunity.

Sigh, at least I got something published for October. Now I feel like crawling off into a hole somewhere and passing out. I went to bed with a fever at seven last night. After a night of chills and hot flashes, I woke up at seven this morning to discover I still have the fever and body aches. Blech! The kids are in charge today.

Arrglle Snarrglle...

Well, I had hoped that when I checked Amazon DTP this morning it would show that my newest Shades story had been published. Then I would have linked an image of it here, and revealed it's new title, and announced it and all that.

But it wasn't...so I won't.

On another front, The Ways of Khrem got it's first review at a book blog. It got three stars out of five, which is a good rating. The critic thought the book was a real page turner, but felt the pace was too fast due to it's structure for him/her to build a rapport with the main charactor. It's a perfectly reasonable opinion and I have no quarrel with it. I have resolved to not be one of those authors who is thin skinned and bristles at every criticism of their work.

I'm tentatively moving forward with Argiope, and I've halted and started doing some replotting with sequel to The Ways of Khrem. For one thing, I'm actually looking at the matter of pacing now that the critic brought that issue up. Now I might just decide that's my style and change nothing, but it never hurts to try and look at your work through other peoples eyes. Argiope was intended to be a fast paced book from the outset, so I doubt little will change. But it's still worth a look.

The fantasy sequel needs some plotting and outlining work due to some mystery elements that I need to get straight. It's a little intricate, and it turns out I can't write it by the seat of my pants as much as I did with the first one. It appears I'm going to have to -- *gasp* -- do some outlining. Sigh.

Work, work, work.

Oh well, at least it's Friday. This is now the one day of the week where the kids are gone to school all day, and I don't have after school activities with either of them. I love Friday. I cherish Friday. Friday is my friend.

So I will now get on with my Friday, and let you get on with yours.

Enjoy

Things Done

Well, I hit the publish button on the latest Shades story last night. Hopefully it will be available and ready to announce by this weekend. At least with that out of the way, I can feel like I have accomplished something this month, and maybe focus and getting a little writing done on other things. I used to be able to write one publishable short story a month. It would be nice to continue that trend and put them up on the kindle.

Anyways, another thing done is the house being relatively clean. The lady who cleans our house every Wednesday has been here, so something else is done...even though I really can't take credit for it. But it still feels good sitting in a clean house...and I'm sure getting somebody else to do it has always been an idea of mine anyways so maybe I should get credit for it after all. Just sayin.

I made a green chili and beef stew last night that was delicious. It was cool because it's been a while since I've done any real cooking...especially something new, and my own recipe. So that's another positive thing to feel good about. Go me!

I've also been very good and stayed on my strict verson of the GFCF diet, even forsaking my Mocha Venti's at Starbucks for the house coffee instead. I feel smarter, but I don't know how that translates into real world performance yet. Man, with all this being good going on I can feel that halo growing already. Either that or my hat is getting tight.

Both buses were late today, which meant extra time spent standing out in the cold. The kids wore their jackets for the first time today. It seems they have grown since last winter, and they now look like orphans wearing sweaters that are too small for them. Sigh. This whole growing thing is inconvienent and starting to cost in clothes. They need to give it a rest for a few years :P

Ta ta!

Things Evolve

In the field of writing, it ain't done until it's published. As can be seen above, the cover and title of the upcoming Shades is still evolving. Both the creature and the phantom have gotten "face-lifts" and the title has changed to "Rural Elements." The artwork is pretty close to done, but the title is still in flux. The manuscript is evolving too, as I tweaked it's html file to improve some spacing issues that were coming though on the kindle reader. I still need to center a couple of things better, and possible rethink the author's note, but there is now a possibility I might be able to hit the publish button this weekend on it. (Update--Shades: Storms and Dark Waters...hmmm)

We'll just have to wait and see.

Poor Rowan has a loose tooth. We have no idea how long she has had it, and she had no way to tell us about it. Poor girl, this was probably why she was acting so distracted at school last week. Now that she knew about it, her teacher said she saw her messing with and wiggling it. It also interfered with her lunch. Hopefully it will come out soon and not give her much trouble when it does. It's her first baby tooth coming out. She's growing up.

Sheridan managed to not cough his way out of school today, which was a good thing...especially since I was gone all afternoon with Rowan. He's still coughing, but it seems to have tamed a little. I've been coughing too, and I've heard Rowan starting up as well. Sheridan and Karla are on the downside of it, so at least that's something. It's only early October...I don't want to start catching colds and flus yet.

On the bright side, autumn and winter were my most productive times writing wise the past two years. I'm hoping my muse gets his groove on...or his lazy ass out of bed...and lets me start hammering those keys in a big way soon. I need to get some novels written.

I'm sorta in the mood to cook...maybe even experiment. Maybe I'll make Green Chile Stew tomorrow night. I'm sure the rest of the family will stick their collective noses in the air and yell "Eww!", but being the cook sometimes means you get to make what you want. I'm sure they'll live.

Ah well, I just realized I don't have anything for Rowan's lunches tomorrow so I have to make a midnight run to Walmart.

Lucky me :P

Currently in the Works

The next addition to the Shades series, it will include the short stories "Storm Chase" and "The World in Strips."

There are different versions of the above cover in existence, and a couple of others being developed. I just thought I would show what I'm currently working on. The main things that I'm going to work on are the title and the critter in the background. I'm not really happy with either. I'm debating calling it Shades: Countrycide. I've also got to edit the html file on the manuscript I've made, then make another .mobi file and see if I can get the formatting fixed on it. Work, work, work. But with a little luck, I might have another Shades out before Halloween.

The boy got sent home from school yesterday for coughing. No fever, not feeling sick...just coughing. Sheesh, back in my day you had to be bleeding from at least two separate locations and showing symptoms of a major communicable disease before they would actually send a kid home. Of course, back then they could give a kid a cough drop. I don't know, sometimes all this so called progress doesn't feel very much like progress at all.

Today being Tuesday means I'll be working at Starbucks later today. The joy sort of went out of that since I'm being strict on my GFCF diet at the moment and can't have my Venti Mocha's. Instead I'm just ordering their house coffee. Today I'm bringing ziploc bag full of sugar with me since I get tired of watching all the other patrons stare at me while I empty one tiny sugar packet after another into my cup in a futile effort to sweeten it. Dammit, I like a little coffee with my sugar! And what's with those little packets anyways? Pitiful! Another area where "progress" could use a little work.

Oh well, I guess it's time to get up and get busy at getting busy.

Ta!

Monday Morning, October

It's Monday morning, and October is in the air. In the picture above, the kiddos examine our neighbors Halloween decorations as they wait for the bus to come pick them up for school. Halloween is still almost a month away, but with the cool air this morning you could almost feel the first tingle of it around you.

Gotta go mail off another book today. This is my latest venture in trying to get noticed in the writing world. I'm submitting my book to any review bloggers who will agree to view it. It's actually a bit of work, because you have to find the blogger, query the blogger, then hope you don't get rejected...I've gotten rejected several times because apparently these folks are busy...and then if they do agree to read your book you have to get it to them in their preferred format. Finally, you get to cross you fingers and hope that whenever they get to yours in their long list of reading material, that they are in a good mood when they read it.

Blech! This  plan still doesn't have the same panache has Harper Collins sending supermodels to my doorway with bucketfuls of money.Why couldn't they have just cooperated?

Oh, well. It's cub scouts tonight...so Sheridan will be thrilled. That means I have to get done whatever I intend to get done by the time the kids get home. That's usually the case though, anyways.

Now I've just got to get back to writing. My current status is...

55,000 words into Argiope
5,000 words into The Lords of Khrem
Pulled up one Christmas story called The Ornament for revision.
Considering publishing another old story, The World in Strips, as a Shades story on the kindle. Must make a cover for it first.

Oh well, thats enough for now. Have a good Monday, folks.

From "Murder at the Dead Pelican"

Before me loomed the vista of Khrem’s sunless canals.

A century or two ago, after a series of earthquakes, the tip of the peninsula that holds Khrem sank into the sea. And like many situations involving the history of the ancient city, the story isn’t quite that simple.

It seems that the earthquakes were doing quite a bit of damage, and people were getting desperate. Some were even fleeing the city for the outlying towns and villages. Merchants were closing shops and caravans were leaving town half empty and weeks ahead of schedule.

Then an alchemist named Orasvis announced that he had made a mechanism that would stop the earthquakes and save the city. Needless to say, the citizens were skeptical and Orasvis was for the most part ignored. Regardless, he publically claimed he would activate his “earth tamer” during the next quake and put an end to the devastation.

Five days later he got his chance.

History gets a little vague on what happened next, but the consensus is that once the quake was underway, Orasvis activated the machine that he had assembled in Admiralty Square. The machine spun into motion and there came a thunderous “SNAP!” that every denizen of Khrem felt through the bottom of his feet straight up to his teeth. The shaking immediately subsided, and silence fell over the city.

A great cheer then arose and Orasvis was proclaimed The Hero of The City, and the three Academies in Khrem all offered him professorships.

The next day the end of the city sank into the sea.

Apparently there were no quakes, thunder, or explosions…just the end of Khrem settling grandly into the Akartic Sea like a holed river barge. The process took about six hours, and a large portion of the old section of the city now found themselves standing on their second floor balconies and watching the water lap about a foot below. The further out towards the tip you were, the deeper you sank.

No quakes followed this event, and the majority of the city considered it a price worth paying to put an end to the troubles. They declared Orasvis a genius who had acted in the greater good and held a party in his honor.

The problem was that Orasvis lived in the part of Khrem that sunk, and his neighbors held a simultaneous party for him with torches and pitchforks…and a noose. That didn’t harm his place in history, though. He still got the professorships post-humously, and the greater part of Khrem considered the old-towners to be a bitter and narrow minded bunch who behaved poorly in regards to the whole affair.

I’m sure that made Orasvis feel better…not as good as a rescue effort might have, but I guess you take what you get.

Life went on…except for Orasvis…and the people of Khrem responded by simply building another floor on top of their now shorter houses. Since it is standard in Khrem for builders to have the higher floors extend further out over the street than the lower ones, the streets were already semi-tunnels with only a five to eight foot gap between the eaves. Nobody bothered changing the order of things when the new floors were built, and the sky disappeared over the new canals where streets had once been.

Now the canals are black tunnels that are plied by lantern hung boats, with the occasional manmade cavern where a square once stood, featuring a rectangular hole high overhead. Plank sidewalks jut from the sides of many of the structures and run along the gloomy waterways, with wooden bridges spanning the gaps between buildings. Some are hung with the occasional lantern, some are not.

And on this end, the dark urban rivers all emptied out into the Grand Canal that ran along the fault line that separated this part of the city. Orasvis Avenue ran along beside it, from near the Cambriatic Seawall all the way to the Nur River.

Fighting the urge to flee, I made my way down the stone steps to the landing where the boat awaited. 

Woohoo!

The tenth month is upon us. It is October!

This has always been my favorite month of the year, ever since I was a little kid. First of all, it ends with Halloween, which was one of my favorite holidays. Then there is the fact that my birthday is the week before, and childhood images of chocolate cakes with candy pumpkins are conjured. My cakes have always been that, as long  as I can remember. Sweet chocolaty memories. I don't think it needs to be said that all diets are off on my birthday. :)

My in-laws are coming into town sometime today, which means Karla wants the house nice and spiffy and she has taken the day off to see that things work out that way. Fortunately for the kids, they get to go to school. I will try to keep a low profile and slip out when I see a chance. Then we can all come back once the in-laws actually get here and it's safe. Karla won't murder us while witnesses are around.

Sheridan has said he wants to be a robot for Halloween. I need to start plotting that. He could always change his mind between now and then, but it's best to be ready. I'll have to see what I can construct out of cardboard and tinfoil. I've got a few ideas in mind. Of course, he wants his robot to have missiles...and a laser...and a flamethrower...and lord knows what else. I'll see what I can do. I was once a little boy too...once.

Not much writing done today. I did a little work on my next Khrem story, but I'm not sure I'm happy with what I did. I guess I'll just keep keep it for now with the knowledge I can always come back and change it later. I suppose any progress is progress, so it's all good...but it really isn't very good and I'm not pleased with it. I'm actually sort of in the mood to write a ghost story, but I don't have one in mind. Blech. Sometimes being a writer sucks.

Happy October, folks!