Saturday Reading Wrap-up 8/31/24

Since I didn't do one of these last week, this is two week's worth.  (I forgot, but last week was pretty boring, so no great loss.)

I picked up one new ebook that I'm not really sure of the genre for.  It sounded interesting, so we'll see.  No new hardcopies.

Books Read: 

21) James Herriot's Dog Stories by James Herriot (8/30/24) - Literature. 5 stars.  Neither new to me nor underappreciated.  Who doesn't love Herriot?  Don't answer that.  I don't want to know./
Review: "This is a lovely collection of stories from James Herriot."

20) Brother Assassin by Fred Saberhagen (8/24/24) - SF.  5 stars. The author isn't new to me, but I'd only read one fantasy series of his.  It could probably use more review, though.  I got this for at a 2 for 25c sale.
Review: "Interesting story told in three parts. I really enjoyed it and I loved the end."

DNFs:

8/20/24 - literature.  I picked up a little known title from a well-known author.  I just couldn't get into it.  It's up on the keeper literature shelf, but I don't hold out a lot of hope that it'll ever get read.  :shrug:  It was only like 13c so no biggie.

Currently reading... Not quite sure what I'm going to pick up next.  I have a few ebooks I could read and loads of hardcopies.  Tune in next week.

What were you reading this week?

The Choice Ahead

Below is the link to an interesting post about politics and the upcoming election.  I'll just leave it here and you can read it or not.  If you're at all confused about what we're facing in the coming election, you probably should read it.  There's kind of a lot at stake.

https://accordingtohoyt.com/2024/08/30/lines-of-departure-2-2-the-choice-isnt-trump-or-harris-by-tom-kratman/

This week's local paper had a scathing letter to the editor ripping Trump, which is 1) weird because this is a mostly conservative county and 2) not really all that unexpected because the editor of our local paper is a leftist.  I expect the editor will get a ton of letters refuting this one, but I don't expect she'll allow any of them to actually go to print.  Or she'll post one that will come across as the ravings of a conservative lunatic rather than one of the many well-reasoned letters she'll receive.  That's her style.

:heavy sigh:  

Now, it's time to go grocery shopping.  It should be a breeze because the VP says the economy is doing great - while she's promising to fix it out the other side of her mouth.  (If it's great, why does it need to be fixed?)  I expect to get next to nothing for double the price.  If I'm lucky, maybe I'll find marked-down, almost-expired ground beef.  It'll be nice to have beef again.  It's been too expensive to buy at regular prices.  Wish me luck.

Random Thoughts on FB Groups

I've been joining different groups on Facebook lately.  It's to increase my social media visibility and thereby to increase sales.  At least, that's the hope.  Anyway, I'm encountering all sorts of new people.  Sometimes this is a good thing.  Sometimes it's not.  

Yesterday, I joined a couple book groups - strictly for book readers, no sales pitches allowed.  Cool.  I can interact with people and when they see what a lovely person I am, they can ostensibly go to my page, see I'm a writer, and buy my books.  That's the theory anyway.  One particular group has like 500K members, so I was figuring on a good reach.  This morning it reminded me why I don't hang around with very many people.  

The first post I saw in my newly joined group was one admonishing people to not say the book has a twist at the end when recommending a book.  Just saying a book has a twist is ruining it for people, apparently.  How can they possibly enjoy a book when they're constantly waiting for the twist?  Umm... I read every book as if there's some kind of twist.  Shouldn't there be a twist in every book??  I'm confused.  I left the group.  

Come to think of it, I hadn't really joined the group.  It was another one that was asking for promises I wasn't comfortable making.  And since it's a non-marketing group, I didn't want to accidentally get it confused with all my marketing groups (it has a really similar name to a couple) and then try to market in it.  I got partway through the process of joining the group and then stopped.  This morning, FB tells me I was accepted into the group and then it was all over my newsfeed.  :shrug:  Like I said, I left the group.  Life is confusing enough without having to worry about which unwritten rule I may or may not be violating.  

I'm not sure if any of this is doing any good.  It's early yet.  I figure it's worth a shot.  Can't hurt, and all that, eh?  Who knows, I might make a friend or two?  Sell a book here and there.  Something.

Twenty Years

Sometime in September of 2004, I finished the first draft of my first novel.  I called it SPECTACLE. (Yeah, that's partly why this blog is named what it is.)  I started writing it about 9 months before, which I guess was fitting for my first brain baby.  And it was a big one.  Spectacle weighed it at about 147,000 words.  It's epic.  EPIC.  And it made my husband fall in love with me, but that beside the point.

Last week, I finished the first draft of what will become my 18th published novel.  Spectacle is not one of them.  It's epic but it's also not ready for public consumption.  I've learned a lot since I wrote that.  Oh, I still believe it's pretty damn good, but my writing style has improved and my voice has morphed some as I grew as a writer.  I did look into having the thing edited a few years back.  The cost of editing was and is a tad prohibitive.  I think I was quoted over $1000,  Not surprising because it's a behemoth and I'm too close to it to want to cut anything to even get that price down.  I think that's a fair price... I just can't afford it.  

I spent A LOT of time writing query letters and synopses and blurbs.  I spent a lot of time and money mailing out queries and SASEs (that's a self-addressed stamped envelope for any youngin' who happened to be around - we used to have to put those in with the queries we MAILED in order to know for sure we'd been rejected).  Finally, I gave up and wrote another book, which went through the same process - query, rejection, giving up.  And another.  And another.  And... you get the picture.  It was a process I would repeat for nearly ELEVEN YEARS.

For all those years, I followed all the rules.  I researched a lot, learning everything I could about writing and the subjects I was writing about.  I also wrote a lot.  And I edited until my eyes were crossed and I thought my head would explode.  I had betas and first readers and critique partners.  I used every resource available.  At one point, I even re-edited Spectacle for the hundredth time, renamed it FEAR ITSELF, and sent it through the query mill again.

Then in the late summer / early fall of 2014, Hubs and I had a discussion.  This whole 'trying to get an agent' thing was not going anywhere.  And with the state of self-publishing... it becoming more widely accepted and so much easier than it had been ten years before, we made the decision to stop trying to get an agent or get my books traditionally published.  I found an editor, I found a cover artist, and we went for it.  In February of 2015, DYING EMBERS made its way into the world.  

The rest, as they say, is history.  

I'm not sure if I'll ever send Fear Itself into the world.  I should.  It's still a good book.  But we always think that about our brain children, don't we?  

So, yeah, it's been twenty years since I entered the game.  Threw my hat into the ring to become a published novelist, if you will.  I'd have an anniversary celebration if I could remember the exact date I typed THE END on Spectacle and meant it.  I'll probably do something for Dying Embers in February.  A sale or something.   If I remember.  We'll see how it goes.

Randomosity

Yesterday, I had several good ideas for a blog post, but I was too lazy and didn't write them.  This morning?  Nada.  So you're stuck with this. I really need to at least write the ideas down when they're hanging out in my head.  You'd think I'd know better.  Derp.

We had free Starz movie channels this weekend.  Not a whole lot on that I wanted to watch, but we did catch two sleepers - Ordinary Angels and Mrs. Harris Goes to Paris.  Both lovely movies.  Yes, tears will be involved, but they're good tears.

Men do not generally understand that women need to cry.  The idea confuses them and the act makes them very uncomfortable.  Eh.  If I don't have myself a good cry every now and then I get emotionally constipated and cranky.  Gotta open the pressure valve and let it all out.  Better to do that then have an explosion of monumental proportions wherein you do or say things you will regret.  Jus' sayin'.  It's also better than drowning it in food or worse, booze.  Go for it.  Have a good, old-fashioned, ugly cry.  You'll feel better.

Finn is the funniest little kitty.  He likes to drink water off his paw.  He'll actually stand with one paw in the water bowl and then lift it and lick all the water off.  Repeat until his thirst is quenched.  Unfortunately, this leads to wet kitty paw prints all over the floors.  And on my shirt if I don't notice his feet are wet before I pick him up.  He's so pick-up-able that I don't really mind.  Finn's my little love muffin.

Speaking of cats, I took three pieces of paper, folded them in half and I use them to make a little paper tent tunnel that the boyz love to knock down or try to run through. And once the paper is all flat on the floor, they like to lay on it.   It distracts them for a while, which is always a good thing.  

With the WIP on hold to marinate, I need to decide which book to work on next.  I also need to figure out if I should pick up where I left off or start over from the beginning like I did with Duke Noble #2.  I do not plan on starting anything totally new.  I have too many unfinished projects to forge into unknown territory.  For now, though, I'm just marinating.  

Okay, time to pour some more coffee down my gullet and get the day started.  I hope you enjoyed this thoroughly random post this morning.  I'll try to remember the post topics I thought of and write those for this coming week.  Wish me luck. LOL

Sunday Update 8/24/24

Well, hello there.  Thanks for stopping by for my weekly update.  In case this is your first time here, I'm a pretty boring person.  All the exciting in my life is fictional.  

Day before yesterday, I finished the WIP.  It'll become my 18th published novel.  It's Duke Noble, book 2 - tentatively called Thicker Than Water.  (Not sure I love that title.  We'll see.)  It ended up being 47269 words for the first draft.  I really like how it ended.  There's a lot I have to go back and fix - continuity issues, gaps, a dearth of description... the usual.  I'll probably start that next week.  With my brain, I don't really need too much time to step out of the story so I can look at it objectively.  

So, with finishing that sucker, I wrote 6657 words last week.  I'm hoping to start writing again on something else sometime this week, then write at night and edit TTW during the day once I get to editing again.  I've done this in the past, so it's not outside the realm of possibility.  I do wonder whether I still have the chops to write one book while editing another, though.

This past week, I ran a sale on the Once Upon a Djinn books.  I ended up moving 106 copies of WIOH (free), two copies of IDW, and one copy each of UWC and WHTF (99c ea).  On the bright side, the rankings thing on Amazon is finally moving again, so here's hoping it equates to residual sales and page reads in KU.  WIOH reached #91 in free urban fantasy, so yay.  That usually helps.  :shrug:

I didn't post a Reading Wrap-up yesterday because, frankly, I forgot.  Honestly, though, I didn't really have anything to talk about.  I didn't finish a book last week - just DNF'd one, which was annoying.  Then I picked up a SF and finished that last night.  I'll talk about it all next Saturday.

In baking news, I made a batch of Peanut Butter & Cocoa Oatmeal Cookies.  Hubs was jones'n for something chocolate, so tada.  

On the activity front, I walked 3 days for 2.55 miles worth, then yesterday, I cut down my lilac bush with this nifty new hand saw thingie I bought.  (Poor Linus.  He up and died this year, all but one lonely trunk and 3-4 suckers.  I left all that, hoping to resurrect him.)  It was quite the upper body workout and I'm feeling it today.  I haven't weighed myself.  I don't need that kind of negativity... LOL.

I can't think of anything else from this past week worth talking about, so feel free to go on about your day.  And if you want to, drop a comment and tell me about your week.  I hope it was a good one.  If not, we can commiserate. :hugs:

Property Rights

The other day I saw a video clip someone posted on FB and it's kind of concerning.  It was of Harris talking to some of her cronies about how they could just take someone's patent.  And to her it seemed like something funny and fun to do.  Like it was nothing.

A patent is a property right.  You come up with an invention, you patent it so everyone knows it's YOURS.  This thing you created came out of your head and you made it real.  You should profit from it.  I'd say in perpetuity, but those things don't last forever.  Still, for as long as they last, they're yours.  

Kind of like copyrights.  

If someone in power is willing to steal a patent, it's not that big a step for them to just go ahead and steal your copyright, too.  Basically, if they want something, it's theirs to take.  Sort of like a whole section of our populous these days.  (If you haven't been paying attention, there have been hoards of people taking things that don't belong to them.  It'll get worse, trust me.  Sort of a 'if she's doing it, why can't I' mindset.)

Sure, they'll probably start with the conservatives and other people who aren't on their side, but before long, they'll come for the liberals, too.  Or, if a liberal's property is desirable to them, they'll skip the line and go straight for the throat no matter who is it.

Jus' sayin'.

I mean, I've even seen it here on my little plot of land.  Some people who occasionally come up from a rather large city south of here decided it would be okay to wander the woods... woods that do not belong to them... and one day they just popped out of the woods into my yard.  They were going on 'an adventure', they said.  They didn't even bother to ask if it was okay to trespass on my property.  I would've told them no, but still.  (And maybe that's why they didn't ask.)  We have our reasons, but we don't really need one to stand up and say 'this piece of property belongs to us - stay off'.  Hell, we don't even need to say it.  Property doesn't have to be posted No Trespassing for it to apply.  (It's easier to prosecute when there's a sign, but you don't need it.)  Those people don't see us walking on their land - and they have waterfront, so it would be awesome to just walk across their lawn and fish off their backyard.  We don't do that because those people have rights.  We respect that.  

Our books are our property, too.  We sometimes share our property for free.  Get the word out there, maybe pick up some residual sales.  Sharing it once for free doesn't mean it's always free, so you can take it and share it, too.  It means for this space of time, we would like for you to read it and appreciate it without having to pay for it.  Pass your love of the book along, not the book itself.

I find really quite concerning and more than a little depressing that the second in charge of our great nation has so little regard for property rights..  The only thing I can do is write posts like this and hope that come November enough people realize the truth and vote accordingly.

:shrug: