Thursday This n That

Working in the woods yesterday, moving one pile of crap to another pile of crap, and I went to move a rather large hickory limb.  I stood it up and tipped it over to get it out of the way, but I neglected to account for the way the limb was weirdly twisted, so when it hit the ground, the thick end bounced up and hit me in the thigh.  Talk about ouch.  It's going to be a glorious bruise once it blooms.

You ever have a dream so happy that you were sad when you woke up?  

I'm driving myself crazy trying to think of a title for DN3.  I mean, I had settled on The Deepest Cut, which would be right for the MO of the killer, but all wrong for the timeframe (plus, it's been done to death).  Maybe that's why every other title sounds lame by comparison.  I need to get over it.  I'm laying in bed running the Title HamsterWheel and not getting any sleep.  I thought I had a good title - Green-Eyed Murder - but the next morning, it was lame.  Then I came up with a couple last night which I got out of bed to write down, but they seem lame this morning.  The best one out of that lot is JUSTICE: PAST DUE - I think the colon helps.  :shrug:  (And a big hug to Silver, who sent me a list of suggestions.)  Oh, well.  I'm in the between place right now, so I have time to ponder it.  I'll start editing probably this weekend.  We'll see.

I had a neat idea for a SF short story.  Whether I write it... eh.  

I think I need to bake a cake.  I've been jones'n for baked goods lately.  I really don't need the calories or the carbs, but mmmm.... cake.

I also want pizza.  I made a passable substitute for lunch yesterday, using leftover spaghetti sauce, rolls, and mozzarella.  Still, it wasn't enough to get rid of my craving.  I'm going to have to bite the bullet and make real pizza soon.

The bird of the day is a Great Blue Heron.  Love those birds, but they do make the most unholy of noises.

The other day, I found a neat new-to-me show called Exhibit A with Graham Green.  It's a half-hour show where they go over a true crime, present the facts, and give you the solution.  I like that I don't really have to think too much about it.  Wham, bam, thank you forensics.  I am all about the crime sometimes.

I'm almost out of ice cream, which is a crime in itself.  Yay for Dollar General being like 3 miles from the house now.

Well, that's it from me.  What's on your list today?

The Bad Review Blues

Every so often, I check my reviews and ratings.  (Yes, I have a spreadsheet for that.)  Yesterday, I went through the Amazon listings for each of my books, noting the number of reviews vs the number of ratings, and the rankings.  Nothing really new.  Some nice new reviews, some crappy ratings - the usual.  But one review has left me feeling a little blue*.

They said they liked the book, but then they said something about the plot resolution that showed they hadn't really read the end, and then they went on to say that the book was rife with errors in grammar and spelling, hinting that I should've edited better.  I, of course, was shocked.  You know me - I work really really hard to clean up all that stuff before I ever hit publish.  

So, I opened the last file and ran my spelling/grammar checker.  It pointed out some things, but everything it pointed out was a stylistic choice.  The book in question is, after all, written in a looser, more-dialogue oriented style.  It's entirely possible that is what she was talking about.  Unfortunately, I can't explain any of that to the reviewer.  So, that review sits there, hinting to potential readers that my books are poorly written and crappily edited.  (And yes, the above sentence is grammatically incorrect. It's how I write when I'm talking to you here.)

This might explain why the last freebie I put out for this book did so poorly.  Who the hell wants a crappy book?  If I read that review, I wouldn't download the book.  

So, yeah, I'm bummed.  The writing life is hard enough without stuff like that.  

*Yes, I know, you're not supposed to read your own reviews, but I do it anyway.  I'm a sucker for punishment, I guess.

Marketing Monday - Project Hermes

 Hello!  It's time for Marketing Monday!  :muppetflail:  This week, we're hitting my one medical/political thriller - Project Hermes.  Enjoy!

Starting today, PROJECT HERMES is free. (Always free with Kindle Unlimited.) Get your copy of this medical/political thriller today.

https://www.amazon.com/dp/B017Y6G0EW

It's the little things that kill.

2026 - Books Read

Well, it's time again to create another Books Read post.  This will be my 18th year of doing this on this blog, so I expect my regular followers to know the drill.  For everyone else, here's how it goes:

The books are listed from oldest read at the bottom to newest read at the top.  There'll be Title by Author (Date) - Genre.  Title only, no series info because I'm lazy.  The title will mostly be linked to the book's Goodreads page.  If there's then an asterisk, it's an ebook.  If it's new to me and underappreciated (less than 50 ratings/reviews), I'll put a hashtag.  

I set my reading goal at 35, because I was such a toad of a reader last year.

Okay, so here goes:

1) The Dead Will Beckon by Jason Chapman (1/4/26) - Suspense*#

Sunday Update - 2025 Week 52

Time to wrap up the last week of the year.  All in all it was a good week, so here goes...

Writing:  Last night, I finished the first draft of DN3.  Yay!  It's just under 49K words right now, but I expect to add a bunch in editing.  And I hate the end, so I'm guessing it'll have a rewrite.  I also came up with a title last night when I was supposed to be falling asleep.  How does Duke Noble, P.I.: The Deepest Cut strike you?  :half-shrug:  I loved it last night.  Now I'm not so sure. (Updated 8:20pm - The phrase 'the first cut is the deepest' wasn't coined until way past when this book is set, so NOPE.  Back to the drawing board.)

I did marketing.  Thicker Than Water (DN2) was on the block.  I moved 129 free copies, one full price copy after the freebie, and someone read it in KU.  Here's hoping that those freebies turn into sales of Rumor Has It (DN1) 

I did reading.  I finished my first book of the year.  (And I totally forgot to add it in Goodreads, or make a 2026 goal for the year, so don't go looking over there.)  It wasn't bad.  Actually, it was pretty good.  Different.  And not what it was billed as... hard boiled crime? Not.  Anyway, it was good, so that's a win.

In baking news, I made stuffed pork chops yesterday.  Those were yummy, so yay.

On the activity front, I did 3 days of woods work - hauling deadfall and cutting it up and raking it up - for about 2.75 hours.  I haven't weighed myself to start the year yet.  I'm a little leery because I've been noshing quite a lot lately. (ETA: I did it.  Weight: 177.4 - well, at least there's a starting point to go down from.)

Speaking of woods work, the big fallen black cherry tree is mostly cut up now and all the top branches/twigs have been moved to a pile that's out of the way.  So yay.  We have several stacks of firewood laying out there that have to be moved, but they'll be fine out there for the time being.  We're both feeling pretty good considering what we've done and our respective ages, so we've got that going for us.

My Christmas tree is still up.  I have to take that down and get back to normal.  

I located my 2026 day-planner.  I bought it in early December and put it somewhere I wouldn't lose it (and the cats wouldn't eat it), then promptly forgot where that was.  I looked in all the obvious places, but nope.  Then I noted a spiral binding peeking out from the top row of books on one of my bookshelves.  Huzzah!  

Since I was a total spazz last month, I didn't get my spreadsheets prepared for the coming year, so I did a lot of those last week.  I still have a couple of personal ones to do, but those can keep.  

Other than that... Welcome to 2026!  May it be a banner year for us all.

How was your final week of 2025?

Happy New Year!

 May 2026 be awesome for us all.

The Last Day of 2025

So, here we are at the last day of 2025.  Time to wrap things up by looking back.  So here goes...

This year, I sold just over 130 books for a whopping total of just under $200. I gave away over 4000 books to get those sales.  

I published one book this year - Thicker Than Water (which is free right now).  That puts me at 18 published novels now.  Additionally, I'm like 95% done writing another book - Duke Noble #3.  If all goes well, I could finish writing it today.  Right now, it's at 45880 words - which is the number of words I've written this year, by the way.  Not a great amount, but it's better than several of the previous years, so yay.  

I read 35 books, which is way short of my original goal of 70 and a little short of my revised goal of 40.  (It doesn't help that I've DNF'd two books this week.)  I acquired 74 new to me books this year - about half ebooks and half hard copy.

Overall, I gained 2 pounds since 1/1/25.  :shrug:  There was some down poundage, of course, but I wiped that out over the last month or so.  Thanks a lot, holidays.  =op

Early in the year, we got the opportunity to add onto our land.  Our neighbor offered us a lot and we jumped on it.  We now have an additional acre, which gives us some nice padding between our house and the house next door (and makes it so no one can build on that piece, so yay).  Unfortunately, not long after we acquired it, the weather warmed up and we couldn't actually play on it until recently.  To that end, we got Hubs a chainsaw for Christmas and he's been busy turning our dead trees into firewood.  I've been busy with the smaller stuff and working on making our new woods pretty.

Sawyer and Finn turned 3 at the end of December.  They're good boy... mostly.

I did a deck garden this year.  It was mostly tomatoes and little trees.  I probably got a couple dozen tomatoes to eat, so not a total waste, and it was a good learning experience for my garden in the coming year.  The trees are doing well, hibernating in the garage until I can replant them in the spring.  I also have several pepper plants that are still hanging around out there in the garage, and two I've brought inside so they're like houseplants until Spring.  This coming year, I plan on doing tomatoes and peppers again, but also potatoes and carrots.  And maybe a tree or two, if the mood strikes me and I find seedlings growing in my gardens again.

In September, I visited my mother for her 85th birthday.  It was a nice trip and it's always fun hanging out with Ma.  She's a hoot.  

All in all, not a bad year.  Hubs and I are still going strong, and we didn't lose any family members this year.  I call that a win.  This coming year, I hope to write and publish more.  We should see Duke Noble 3 (still without a title) hit the online shelves sometime in the first quarter.  I also hope to exercise more, lose weight and not put it back on again, and keep the old bones from falling apart any faster than they already are.  

How was your 2025?  Any hopes for the new year?