Sunday Update 10/20/24

Good Morning.  I think.  The jury's still out.

I'm deep in editing right now.  Not any of my books, though.  I'm working on doing proofing for a friend.  I should finish today and then get my notes over to her.  Then I'll get back to my own stuff.

I did a lot of marketing this week.  WISH HITS THE FAN was free.  I moved 124 copies of that and sold a WISH IN ONE HAND in Australia.  It's not much, but it's better than a sharp stick in the butt.  I hope to see some residual sales and page reads in the coming weeks.  Like I did a free thing for BOAI last month and yesterday I saw where someone had read the whole thing in KU.  It's the long game here, people.  I've also earned double this year over last year.  Again, not a lot of money, but something is better than nothing.

I'm still not reading, unless you count that friend's book.  

The only thing I made this week of any note was battered tilapia fillets.  I'm all out of baked goods, so I need to rectify that soon.

On the activity front, I walked twice for 1.65 miles and I worked in the woods two days for an hour each day.  Mileage: 52.90.  I haven't weighed myself.  Unfortunately, all physical activity will be on hold for a bit.  Here's the dealie-bob: I was working in the woods and fell on my ass.  What happened was I was carrying a load of sticks from one pile to another, a longish stick fell out of the pile, hit the ground and stabbed me in the leg, so I twisted to get away from the ouchie stick. In doing that, my foot got hung up and my knee started to hyper-extend, so I jigged away from that and went down like a sack of dirt.  I did land on my ass instead of my face, so that's a win.  In the bizarre gymnastics of it all, though, I wrenched my knee pretty damn good.  It's not swollen or anything, but I probably shouldn't go hiking around with it.  Derp.  Hey, I usually fall at least once a year, and I haven't fallen in a couple years, so I should've seen this coming.  :shrug:

Right now, I look like I've undergone some type of weird abuse.  I have grease burns on my hand from the tilapia (flipped the fish and the oil splashed).  I have a bruise on my left leg from Friday when a tree limb snapped and came whipping back at me, whacking me just below the knee.  I have another bruise on that leg from the stabby stick and my right leg is both bruised and missing a layer of skin off the knee.  (I find this all amusing, so no worries.)

And that's about it.  I think I'm going to hit the coffee pot, have a smoke, and then go back to my recliner where I can put my leg up and get back to reading/editing.  Have a great day, everyone.

Trying New Things

 First off, I'm trying a new marketing image:

Pretty snazzy, eh?  Whatever I'm doing seems to be working, so there's a win for the new images, I guess.

Then last night, I tried making battered fish fillets.  I mean, I'm an old hand at breading stuff, but this is the first time I tried battering.  And I didn't use a recipe, so you can imagine.  All in all, it was pretty good for a first try.  They were pretty damn tasty, even if the breading turned out more like pancake batter and the pan was too hot, so the batter was done waaaay before the fish was cooked through.  I nuked them to get the fish done, which un-crispied the batter.  :shrug:  And tilapia probably wasn't the best fish for this experiment.  Like I said, they were tasty.  And there are leftovers, so lunch is taken care of today. 

A while back, I tried putting raspberry jam on a chocolate cake.  First I tried spreading the jam when it was cold.  That did not work.  I heated it in the microwave and then spread it.  That worked fine.  Once it all cooled, I put vanilla frosting over the jam layer.  It was super nummy.

The point here, I think, is that trying new things is good for you.  Sometimes they work.  Sometimes they don't.  But you've gotta keep trying.  And no, I'm not advocating getting rid of the old things.  Old things and old ways are good, too.  Sometimes the old ways can get boring, though.  Shoot off the beaten path and explore new horizons.  You never know what you'll find.  Jus' sayin'.

Thursday This n That

 I've been a bad blogger this week.  I blame it on marketing.  By the time I get done marketing and calling Mom, I just plain forget that I was supposed to blog.  Oh, sure, I could do a blog post at night,  but I'm busy doing other things at night.  And yes, I would like some cheese with that whine.

Last night, Sawyer decided to sleep with us.  Awesome.  Not so awesome was the fact that he wanted to sleep against my legs.  18-20 pounds of cat pressed up against my lower legs did not do me any good and I woke up with my right leg all ouchy.  More whine?  Yes, please.

On a happier note, I'm reading a friend's new book and loving it.  It's not available for sale yet, and I'm supposed to be proofreading it, but it's so good I keep forgetting that I'm supposed to be looking for flaws, so I have to go back and re-read a lot.  Yay for good fiction. And I get to read it first, so neener neener boo boo. =op

I don't know if I've mentioned this, but I've been into crossword puzzles lately.  I was doing the ones in the back of our local electric company's monthly magazine, but I've gone through all of my back issues.  I broke down and bought a book of crossword puzzles.  They're marketed as fun and easy.  Easy?  Yes.  And kinda fun.  I'd have more fun if they were more challenging, but I'll take what I can get.  They're mostly just to exercise the brain and entertain me while I'm smoking, so they're doing their job.  Yay.

Finn is circling my desk wanting attention... and there he is... jumped up on my desk and down into my lap.  Typing with a cat in your lap is not the easily thing to do.  And he is getting in my face because I'm not paying attention to him.  Cat doesn't understand that I have typing to do.  LOL

On that note, I'll call this good and shower my kitty with the attention he so richly deserves.  Have a great day, everyone.  Peace out.

Monday Marketing, Etc.

It's morning and I've already been hard at Marketing.  It's the first of the freebie days for WISH HITS THE FAN, and I'm actually up early, so there you are.  I posted to 20 different Facebook Groups and to my three pages.  Now, we wait and see if any of this garnered any interest.  (The post verbiage is below the image down there.)

It's probably not the best way to market, but it's free.  All it takes is my time.  This morning, I spent about a half hour posting.  If I sell one book, that would mean I made about $2 an hour. 

But writers can't look at our time to earnings that way.  I mean, if we did, we'd drive ourselves crazy.  If any writer goes into this thinking their time is worth way more than that, they would have to price their books so high no one would buy one.  Think about it...

When I'm in my stride, a first draft takes me about 6 weeks to write.  If it's a clean copy, another 6 weeks to edit and polish.  (At about 2-3 hours a day, 6-7 days a week.  If I edit more hours than that a day, I start to froth at the mouth and twitch a lot.  If I write more, my hands fall off.)  Add another week for formatting, etc. and you're looking at 13 weeks from the start to publication.  

A conservative estimate for my time is 156 hours.  At the federal minimum wage of $7.25 a hour, I'm due $1131.00 when the book hits the store. At the cost of the below ebook ($3.99), I would need to sell about 283 books to pay for my time.  (Not including what that cover cost me or any marketing I do - or my 'wage' for the time spent marketing.)  

Since 2020, I've sold 233 copies of ALL my books. See?  That's crazy making.  Sure, our time is valuable, but we aren't normal workers.  We work for ourselves.  Sure, some writers are making enough to recoup the time/money thing.  Most aren't.  We writes the books, we publishes the books, we get paid what we get paid when we get paid, and we're damn happy.  (Or we're whiny.  Your mileage may vary.  Sometimes it depends on the day.)

I mean, I have run across writers who think readers should pay them what they think they're entitled to.  :shrug:  Umm... sorry... it don't work that way.  The market tells you what you're worth, not the other way around.  Years ago, I tried jacking the price of my books up.  I got zero sales.  I dropped the price, and the books started selling again.  I don't make much, but not much is better than nothing.  That's the load we self-published fools must bear. :shrug:

Anyway... Here's the marketing I did this morning:

For the first time ever, get the final book in the Once Upon a Djinn series - WISH HITS THE FAN - absolutely FREE. (The whole series is always free with a KU subscription.)

https://www.amazon.com/dp/B075C7FCXG

You’d think life as a genie would be easy-peasy. But when you’re Jo Mayweather, ain’t nothing so simple.

If you're interested, snag yourself a copy.  I know there are a bunch of people out there who read books 1-3 but not this one, so now's your chance to see how the whole story ends.  

Have a great day out there, folks.

Sunday Update 10/13/24

What a week, eh?

Let's see... I didn't do any writing again.  I did work on edits.  I'm up to like 60% of the books that now has edit notes.  I also did some marketing.  Unequal was free Sunday - Thursday but I only moved 18 books. Not sure what the dealy-bob was there.  Perhaps Sunday is not the best day to start these marketing blasts.  Maybe I'm reaching saturation.  I guess we'll find out.  I have Wish Hits the Fan set up to go free tomorrow.  None of the other books are on sale.  Well, Wish in One Hand is set at 99c, so there's that.  Get the whole 4-book series for less than $9.  It's a pretty good deal, if I do say so myself.

Once again, I didn't do any reading.

In baking news, I made a chocolate oil cake.  This time I used corn oil rather than vegetable oil.  I'm not sure if that made a difference.  Maybe it was a little more moist.  I also made a pizza.

On the activity front, it was a wild week of cleaning, cleaning, and more cleaning.  The house looks lovely.  I also did one walk.  Mileage for the year: 51.25. Weight: 173.8

The reason for the cleaning... I mean, other than it needed to be done?  We had visitors yesterday.  Just low impact, casual chatting.  We had pizza for lunch and ate cake.  It was all good.  Well, except for the cats.  We never have visitors, so they were both totally freaked out and hid under the bed.  After a while of them not coming out, we transferred their food and water, and their litter box, into the bedroom and closed the door.  Poor things.  They finally got back to normal last night.  Little xenophobes.

Today should be back to normal all the way around.  The plan is to not do anything active and just veg.  I'll probably work on the editing notes.  Maybe I'll take a little walk.  Tomorrow, I'll be back to marketing so I should probably spend some time today working on marketing materials.  We'll see.  

How are things in your world?

It's Not Saturday

For some reason this morning, I keep thinking it's Saturday.  It's so not Saturday.  Which is good.  I have company coming on Saturday and I haven't finished cleaning the house yet.

Not working a day job really messes up one's schedule.  I'm sure this happens to everyone who doesn't work outside the home, but being a writer means working 7 days a week, so that makes it worse.  Each day slides into the next.  There is no two-day-off weekend.  It's just work every day. 

Sometimes it's writing.  Sometimes it's editing.  Sometimes it's marketing.  Often it's all three on the same day.  Occasionally, marketing will tell me what day it is because I have a sale going on.  Unfortunately, the sales are always scheduled for the same days of the week.  Often, I do a Monday - Friday sale.  This last sale ran Sunday - Thursday, which kind of messed me up because I thought I had one more day to market - Friday.  Nope.  

If it weren't for scheduled TV programs, I'd be totally lost. Unfortunately, the only scheduled TV programs I watch are on Sunday night.  After that, I'm screwed.  

I also need to remember which day is Wednesday because I still do work for the family business and I need to get my timesheet to them Wednesday night so they can cut my check Thursday morning.  But I don't get paid every week, so I can't count on that to tell me what day it is.  This past week was one of those weeks where I didn't have anything to get paid for, so no timesheet to send.  I'm all messed up now.

And even as I was typing this, it popped into my head again that it was Saturday.  Derp.  

My calendar doesn't even help because the one I'm using is a page-a-day calendar with lovely pictures of birds on each day.  I love it so much, I would buy one every year, but the last year they printed one was 2017.  The one I'm using this year is from 2016 (I switch back and forth between the two I have) and October 11, 2016 was a Tuesday.  I had a wall calendar, but The Boyz wouldn't leave it alone, so I didn't bother putting one up this year.  

So, I'm stuck in this time hole where I can't figure out what day it is.  In the whole scheme of things, it doesn't really matter what day it is.  Every day is like the day before.  I don't have any real schedule that depends on the day of the week.  Rarely does it even come up.  Except for weeks like this where I am actually doing something on a specific day.  

Ah, well.  I'll keep thinking it's Saturday and then reminding myself it isn't.  What does today feel like to you?  Are you one of those people who can keep track of the days or are you like me and adrift on the time currents?  

Thursday This n That

We're trying the whole 'let the cats have free run of the house at night' thing again.  After ten days of sleep deprivation, I gave in and put the cats in the office last night.  Ahhh, sleep.  Finn is a perfect little gentleman and he just wants to cuddle.  Why Sawyer feels the need to scratch the walls in the middle of the night, I'll never know.  It sounds like nails on a chalkboard.  Ah, well.  We knew what we were getting into when we adopted a kitten they had named Chili Pepper.

I still haven't cleaned the house.  

Today is grocery shopping day.  I expect this to be a large load.  Ugh.

Months ago, I bought some PERT shampoo.  Yep, they still make it.  It's okay, but it's not thrilling me as a shampoo.  Every time I use it, I feel like I can never rinse it all out of my hair.  I'm tempted to throw it out, but I have this aversion to throwing out things I paid for that might still have some useful purpose.  

I'm debating on making brownies today.  We'll see.  I might do cake instead.  Or maybe an apple-cranberry crisp.  Perhaps cookies.  We'll see.

Pumpkin pie bread...

Ahem, I really don't need baked goods.  My ass is expanding and it doesn't need any more assistance.

All the fawns have lost their spots.  This gives me a sad every year.  

Okay, I'm pretty much out of things to say this morning.  Fly and be free.

Rambling About Sales & Marketing

So, here I am... awake at 3 A.M.  I have Sawyer to thank for it.  I guess I can look at it as a positive because this early awakening means I have plenty of time for a blog post.  Not that I didn't have time the past two days, it's just that the time I did have was past the optimal time for posting.  

For the past few mornings, I've been trying to do marketing first thing.  I was up early on Sunday and got my marketing done around 5-5:30.  Monday was an hour later because even though I'd gotten up early enough to post, I forgot.  Those posts were around 6:30.  Yesterday, I woke up late and didn't get my posts done until after I called Mom.  (I call Mom every morning at 7 and we talk for an hour.)  Which means this morning's posts wouldn't be until after 8:30.  Frankly, later morning posts don't garner much attention, so I will probably skip marketing today and hit it hard tomorrow morning.  

Unfortunately, UNEQUAL is not doing as well as BLINK OF AN I.  Kinda sucks.  They're both pretty awesome, IMO.  Personally, I think people really need to read those two books, and not just because I would like to get paid.  They're both looks at what I believe could happen if the world degenerates due to circumstances.  Kind of cautionary tales, but with entertainment value.  

Unequal, if you weren't aware, is free through tomorrow night.  Blink was free last week.  

If they're free, how am I expecting to get paid?  Well, page reads would be lovely.  Unfortunately, I don't expect those for UEQ this time around because the damn 'top free' lists are not showing for that book at this time.  Turds.  BOAI's weren't showing a while back, but I got that fixed.  I thought I fixed UEQ, too, but apparently not.  I'm also hoping that the free readers would tell people about the book and then those people would buy a copy.  And then those readers would tell people... and so on, and so on.  

A gal can dream.

What's next marketing-wise?  I don't know.  Maybe I'll go a little crazy and make a last book free, to see if I can generate interested in the first books.  I offered Natural Causes for free last month and I saw some movement of Accidental Death.  Maybe offering a freebie on Wish Hits the Fan will encourage people to buy books 1-3.  Can't hurt, eh?  Except whenever I snag a later book for free, I just get irritated that I hadn't paid attention to the fact it wasn't a first book in the series and I am rarely inclined to even read it or buy the earlier books.  I could be an anomaly, but I doubt it.

Anyway, I'm just rambling.  I tend to do that when I'm up way too early like this.  Thanks for reading this far.  Feel free to offer a comment, if you're so inclined.  If I don't approve it right away, I probably went back to bed.

Sunday Update 10/6/24

Well, here we are again at Sunday morning.  The start of a new week, no matter what you're heard about the week starting on Monday.  I'll die on this hill.  Yeah, I'm kinda feisty today.  You wanna make somethin' of it?  ;o)

This past week... Hmm... Let's see...

I didn't write anything again.  I did reach 50% of the book on edit notes, though.  Still loving it.  Yay.  I also finished the project wherein I updated all my books (17 ebooks and 17 paperbacks) with Amazon.  So I got that going for me.  Today starts a freebie offering of UNEQUAL, and I've already been hard at work marketing this morning.  It'll be free today through the end of Thursday.  If you haven't already done so, snag yourself a copy.

Since I'm still editing, I'm still not reading.  I really need to rectify that.

In baking news, I made homemade cinnamon raisin rolls.  Bought some cream cheese frosting to slather all over them, too.  Yummers.  

I did five days worth of activity this week.  This included two walks for just under 2 miles, which brings me to over 50 miles walked this year.  I also did some cleaning, some furniture moving and book shifting, and some gardening.  I also ate a ton, so... Weight: 174.2

We're back to trying to let The Boyz have free run of the house at night.  They're older now, so there's hope.  Friday night was better than the last time we tried this, but Sawyer was still annoying.  Last night was better than Friday.  This may work this time.  Until it does, though, I'm sleep deprived.  Yay.

I have an idea floating around in my head for a new story.  Kind of a crime noir but with fairies.  And not your typical fairies, more like grungy, ill-tempered creatures with less than palatable jobs.  I don't know if I'll write it, but it's there in my head.

Anyway, I should probably go do something constructive.  Or maybe I'll just go veg in front of the TV until the sun comes up and it's light enough to actually do anything.  Have a great day wherever you are and whatever you do.  Feel free to drop a comment and let me know how your week went.

Gettin' Dirty

No, not like that.  I'm talking about dirty drafts and the aftermath.  

First off, a dirty draft, if you aren't familiar with the term, is one you write without giving any thought to editing along the way.  Just slap those words down and let the missed commas and the poor word choices and the typos lay there.  The point is to get the draft out and worry about it later.

Well, that's what I did back in July and August.  I wrote a dirty draft... well, filthy really.  (Get your mind out of the gutter.  It's not that kind of a book.)  As I'm going through the book now, making edits notes, I'm discovering how dirty it really is.  What a mess.  

I mean, it's still a damn good story.  It's just all over the place and covered in muck.  Like an outdoor wrestling match after a heavy rain.  And now I'm left trying to clean up afterwards.  

I sat down with my handy-dandy notebook and my red pen, and started making notes.  About six pages of those got me to the end of that notebook, so I picked up a new one and kept going.  I'm averaging a page - one-side, college rule, single space - of notes for every 2% of the book.  Yesterday, I swear I made a page of notes off just two or three paragraphs of manuscript.  

Some of the notes are as simple as ">she was in the wau (way", while others reference the time period and the need to make sure what I'm writing fits with the 1950s here in America.  I also have a note to go back through the whole damn thing and make sure I don't swear.  There's no cursing in the Duke Noble books and I have a potty mouth, so it ain't easy.

I reached 40% yesterday.  It's not a fast road but then again, it's covered in crud.  Once I get all these notes created, I still have to enter them into the manuscript.  Then it's lather, rinse, repeat.  I'm not sure when this thing will be ready for even my readers to see.  :shrug:  It'd be nice to offer to readers in time for Christmas, but I'm not making any promises I can't keep.  Hang in there.  It'll be done eventually.  

Of course, if it turns out that this is actually Book 3, I still have to write Book 2 before this one goes out into the world.  Ah, the trials and tribulations of writing a series.  Thank goodness I'm indie.  I doubt any publisher would tolerate this.  

Have a great weekend, folks.  

Thursday This n That

If you're not following Wild Heart Ranch in Oklahoma, you're missing out on some really great photographs of awesome animals and some wonderful positive stories.  Right now, they're sharing about this little coyote that came in with mange.  She was a wreck - hairless and dying.  Now, the mange treatment has worked, her fur is growing back, and she's working toward re-release into the wild.  She's strikingly beautiful.

We often hear coyotes here.  Sometimes we see them.  I think they're cool.  Yeah, I know they can be destructive and harm livestock, and I know sometimes they have to be destroyed.  I'm okay with that.  But if they aren't doing any harm to people or property, then leave them alone.  They're just out there doing their jobs and living their lives.  Same goes for armadillos. Or really any other critter.  And that goes for people, too.

I watch a lot of crime stuff -- fictional and non.  Don't get me started.  

I've been baking a lot lately.  I've also been eating a lot.  I really need to up my activity level or I'm going to have to roll myself down the street.  Or I could just eat less, I guess.  Nah.

Yesterday, I got a wild hair and moved a couple of my bookshelves.  Here in the office, I have three bookshelves along the west wall - short, medium, and tall.  They were arranged in that order.  Unfortunately, the cats could jump from a chair onto the short one and then they had a straight shot to the top.  I didn't have a problem with this until Sawyer decided if he got on the tall one, he could lean over and bat at my clock.  I moved the chair, which made it so the boyz couldn't get up there.  Or so I thought.  I walked into the office the other day to find Finn at the top.  I stopped that with some boxes, but it wasn't a permanent fix.  I rearranged the shelves so they are medium, small, tall now.  And I put books on top of the small one, so it's less attractive as a landing space.  That should fix his little red wagon.  Cats... am I right?

I also replanted Cecil the Cedar yesterday.  Not in the ground.  Not yet.  He's just in a larger pot with better dirt.  I'm not ready for him to go in the ground.  I don't want the deer to eat him like they ate Elmer the Elm.  Poor Elmer.  =o(

And that's it.  Feel free to leave a comment.  I do read them all, even if I don't respond to them.

Hardcopies, Etc.

All of my paperbacks should be good to go now.  If there are errors from here on out, blame the printer.  If you didn't already know, all 17 of my books are available in paperback.  

Amazon now offers the ability to make hardcovers of them all, but I don't see the point of creating hardcovers for them.  I mean, there are probably people who prefer hardcover to paperback, but I have a feeling none of those people would prefer my books anyway.  Generally speaking, most of my books are in genres that don't necessarily lend themselves to hardcover - paranormal mystery, crime noir, etc. are not what one would think of getting in a hardcover.  Am I right?  Perhaps Project Hermes would do well as a hardcover, but I'm not going to go through the process of creating a hardcover version and buying an author proof just to find out I'm wrong and no one wants it in HC.  

To be honest, I can't remember the last time anyone bought a hardcopy of any of my books that I didn't personally hand sell.  Which reminds me that I need to order copies of everything for stock, just in case I run into someone who's interested.  It could happen.  In fact, it happened last month.  Woot.

I used to keep at least one copy of every one of my paperbacks in the trunk of my car for just such occasions.  I'd be somewhere, chatting with someone and the subject of my books would come up.  If they seemed really interested, I'd walk out to my car and come back with the book they were interested in.  Something for them to hold and touch, which they would then buy - signed, of course.  It didn't amount to a lot of money, but it's a nice feeling to hold your own book and then hand it over for cash.  

Of course, they're also all available as ebooks.  Right now, Kindle only and Kindle only for the foreseeable future, but they are available.  I ran into someone who seemed interested, but she didn't own a Kindle.  I just let her know that Amazon has apps for most any device to be able to read Kindle on them.  She didn't know that, so yay.  I'm not sure if she's actually bought anything or if that was just an excuse.  :shrug:

They're all also available in Kindle Unlimited, which is garnering me some $$ here and there.  I am making more there than I was having my books under wide distribution, so I'm glad I did that.  

Speaking of wide distribution, I also don't have any of my paperbacks available wide.  The various outlets for wide distribution make it so that I would have to charge an exorbitant amount of money for my books to clear any money at all through those outlets.  I'm making very little money on my paperbacks as it is, just to keep the prices as low as I can.  

Jus' sayin'.

Sick of Myself

This is the last day of the month and as I look back, I realize what an utter toad I've been.  Frankly, I'm sick of myself right now.  Which means I need to change something.  I'm a firm believer that when you see something you don't like about yourself, you need to change it, so there you go.

Starting today... because why wait until tomorrow... I'm going to stop being such a toad.  I am going to get back to writing and editing and cleaning my freakin' house and getting some exercise.  And I'd better do what I say I'm going to, or I'll have myself to answer to.  We don't want that.  I'm a bitch to answer to.

First things first, I did the damn dishes.  Yeah, I did all the dishwasher dishes last night, but I left the hand wash dishes.  Those are now done.  What's next?  No clue, but it'll be something.  Dammit.

Sunday Update 9/29/24

My life is pretty boring right now.  I'm not writing.  I'm not reading.  I'm barely editing.  

With regard to editing, I'm up to 29% of the book with edit notes.  I'm getting about a page of notes with every 2-3% of the book.  This is what comes of a dirty draft, but there's no other way I'd rather write, so there ya go.

In marketing news, I did the whole FB Group thing for my freebie offering of Blink of an I.  I moved 78 free copies.  I'm also getting some page reads for Blink, which means money in my pocket.  Not a lot, but it's better than a sharp stick in the ass, so yay.  I also have someone reading Wish in One Hand, which I assume is leftover from my marketing push for that last month.

I made a chocolate oil cake yesterday.  After I took it out of the oven, I slathered it with warm raspberry jam.  Once it cooled, I frosted it with vanilla buttercream.  It wasn't amazing, but it was pretty damn good.  Next time, I'll use more jam.  

My activity level is not where it needs to be.  I know how to fix that, but I am stuck in the lazies.  Anyway, I did a little raking in the driveway after a sploosher washed a bunch of pea gravel into the yard.  I also spent time working with Hubs to saw up the logs the electric company left.  We spent about 3 hours total on that over 2 days.  And we took one walk.  I'm up to about 49 miles walked for the year.  Weight: 172.6

Speaking of the logs, two guys with the electric company came by on a UTV and asked us if we needed help.  We assented.  It took one of them less than 5 minutes to completely saw that elm trunk into firewood.  He had a chainsaw, of course.  We'll still need to split it once it seasons, but those guys really took a lot of the work out of the task.  Yay.  We thanked them profusely and then threw all the logs into the wheelbarrow and transported them under the house for drying.

With the fall migration underway, we're seeing a lot of birds we don't usually see.  I can't remember the names of the exact species, but it was a couple of warblers new to me.  We're also hearing more geese.  I love migration time.  

The deer here are starting to separate for the rut.  They were also absent from the yard because of the tree cutting activity, but this is typical fall activity.  The fawns are now spotless.  =o(

Okay, I think that's it for me.  Feel free to leave a comment and tell me about what's going on in your world.  

Thursday This n That

I'm thinking about changing the cover for Song of Storm and Shroud.  I mean, I worked really hard on that one.  You have no idea how hard it is to make a dragon, especially when you're cobbling one together out of photos and using this part from that critter and that part from another critter.  Cobbled together so it doesn't LOOK cobbled together.  I think I did a really good job, but... Oh, I don't know.  I would think that one would have more sales.  Eh, at least you can look at it and know for certain it wasn't made using AI. lol

Yesterday, while Hubs and I were trying once more to saw that friggin' elm trunk in half, a couple young guys from the tree crew stopped and asked if they could help.  We let them.  It took them less than five minutes to not only cut the thing in half, but to cut it into logs fit for splitting and burning.  Of course, they had a chainsaw.  Yeah, yeah, we know we should get us one of them there fancy doodads.  It's on the list.  Hey, on the upside, sawing logs by hand is awesome exercise.

Mom and I were talking just now and the conversation got around to people we knew and whatever happened to so and so.  I searched a name and her obit came up.  In the obit, I saw where her sister had also passed away.  I mean, these gals were in their 80s., so not that big a shock.  Still, it's sad knowing all  of these old friends of the family are passing away.  Those gals were close to us at one point in time and, as sometimes happens, we all drifted apart.  I really loved their parents when I was child, but those two have been gone for a long time.  

I bought rainbow sherbet.  It sounded good.  And now I remember why I don't buy rainbow sherbet.  I hate lime flavored stuff.  Actual lime?  I have no problem with that.  Lime flavored stuff tastes like soap to me.  

The other day I was trying to come up with something interesting to do with ground pork and came up with something like fried rice that tastes pretty darn good.  I used part of a seasoning packet from pork ramen noodles, ground ginger, onion powder all sprinkled over ground pork that had been browned with finely diced carrots and celery.  Mixed in some rice.  Yummers.  I have leftovers, so that's what I'm having for lunch today.  

If you haven't watched the new show High Potential, I highly recommend it.  Of course, the silly gits had to put the damn show on at 9pm, so now I have to stay up late on Tuesdays.  Oh well.  It's not like I have to get up for work or anything.

Okay, I should probably get to doing something constructive.  These books won't sell themselves and I still have two days left of my Blink of an I giveaway.  

Have a great day!

Confessions of a Gameshow Addict

Hi.  I'm B.E. and I'm addicted to gameshows.  

I probably need an intervention or something, but Hubs is an enabler.  (Psst... he watches them, too.)  And I'm not hurting anyone.  I rationalize it by telling myself I'm keeping my brain active, but let's face it... Other than MasterMinds, I'm really not exercising the brain cells.  I mean, Deal or No Deal has no mental value.  The contestant picks cases, for petesakes.  

I remember watching gameshows as a small child, so I guess you could say that The Price is Right and Let's Make a Deal were my gateway drugs.  Mom watched, so I watched.  Later, I got hooked on Jeopardy! so I was in front of the TV every night at 7 watching Alex and the contestants.  

For a while in high school, I was a participant of sorts.  It was called Quiz Bowl and then they changed the name to High School Challenge.  Teams of trivia buffs from high schools all over the area would compete on TV (PBS, so nothing network and no big fame there).  I made captain of the team my Junior year - the previous captain graduated and there was no one else to take over.  

There was a time there when I was too busy to watch gameshows.  I was working, I was a mom, I had things going on in my life.  I dabbled a little after I retired, but I was busy with homeschooling and my writing.  Then we moved here and I spent more time watching.  I got off the shows entirely while I was back to work, but since then, I've been slowly getting more and more hooked on them.

I start at 10am with Who Wants to Be a Millionaire.  After that, it's Deal or No Deal.  Then old reruns of Match Game.  (I will NEVER watch the new one.  Alec Baldwin makes me nauseous.)  After that, I take a break because I'm not a big fan of the newer Wheel of Fortune episodes.  Later, I'll pick back up again with shows like MasterMinds, Split Second, Switch, and Chain Reaction.  Then I stop until the next day.  

I really could be getting a lot more done if I didn't watch these things.  Oh, I do occasionally get some editing done on commercial breaks, but that's sporadic.  Maybe today I'll do something else.  But then I wouldn't get to see how far that guy made it on that show.  Or how silly the contestants are on the other ones.  It's a vicious cycle of addiction.  

Tasty Tuesday

Between planting mums on Saturday and sawing logs (actual, not metaphorical) yesterday, I am too pooped to do much of anything, including offering a coherent post.  So, rather than sit here reading nothing, I suggest you do what I did on Saturday afternoon... make yourself some brownies.

Basic Fudgy Brownies

3/4 cup butter or margarine 

3/4 cup unsweetened baker’s cocoa

3 eggs

1 1/2 cup sugar

1 1/2 tsp vanilla extract

1/2 cup flour

Preheat oven to 350 degrees F.  Grease sides and bottom of 8 x 10 baking pan.  Gently melt butter in medium saucepan.  Remove from heat and stir in cocoa powder until well combined.  In a large mixing bowl, beat eggs, sugar and vanilla until light and frothy.  Add cocoa/butter mixture and stir to combine.  Sift flour over the mixture and gently fold in until just combined.  Bake on the center rack for 30 minutes.  (Toothpick inserted in center may not come out completely clean.)  Do not over bake.  May serve warm after 10 minutes, or cool completely before cutting to store.

Monday Marketing - Free Book

 Well, it's Monday and in my infinite wisdom, I set up a freebie thing that starts today.  I even already wrote the post, which is well ahead of my usual game.  In another quirk of fate, I even got up early.  And then totally forgot to do that which needed doing.  So, here I am at 6:45 waiting for my email to load because that's where I put the pre-written marketing post so I wouldn't lose it.  

There it is... and here it is...

I've seen so many people in various groups asking for recommendations on adult dystopian novels that I decided to offer BLINK OF AN I for free - today through Friday. (It's also free with your Kindle Unlimited subscription, but this is for the rest of us.)

https://www.amazon.com/dp/B079X142G2

In the blink of an I, the world can change.

Raised by the Union to believe she’s worthless, declared incompetent by a system she doesn’t understand, Mary Jones wants nothing more than to run away and hide. When an underground society known as the Order chooses Mary for a mission to escape the city, she’ll discover she’s more than she has ever been allowed to realize.

Here's hoping it moves some books and gets me some residual sales.

Sunday Update

 Well, hello there.  Thanks for coming back for another Sunday Update.  I was a particularly lazy toad this past week, so not really too much excitement to report.  

No writing this week.  I did about 10% worth of editing on TTW.  And I spent a goodly portion of last Sunday working on paperback issues.  The only paperbacks I haven't addressed are the OUAD novels.  I'll get to those eventually.  I also did my usual morning marketing 9/14-9/18.

Speaking of which, the numbers...  I moved 91 copies of Natural Causes during the freebie.  I also moved 4.44 copies of Accidental Death for a whopping $2.25.  Which is better than a sharp stick in the ass, but not really anything to blow your skirt up.  Woot.  We'll see in the coming days whether anyone starts reading those books in KU.  I did see where Natural Causes made it to #7 in free crime noir, so I have that going for me.

Update 8:22a:  FYI... BLINK OF AN I will be free starting tomorrow.  We'll see how that goes.

No reading this week.  I really need to get back to that, especially if I'm not going to sit my ass down and write.  Derp.

Not much baking this week.  I got a wild hair yesterday and made brownies.  It was a necessity.  Why? Well...

Hubs and I spent yesterday morning planting mums.  Six big ones and five small ones in a lovely arrangement in the front bed.  The big one are two each of yellow, orange, and purple.  The small ones are all white.  I'm hoping they all come back next year.  Afterwards, I was craving brownies, so I made them.

And the above is pretty much all my activity for the week.  Unless you count the two trips to Wallyworld and the day I moved a couple chairs.  Weight: ?

Last night, Mother Nature got a bug up her ass and gave us a thorough waterboarding.  It lasted less than an hour, but man, was that rain ever coming down.  Sploosh.  The freakin' yard looked like an abstract water sculpture done by a madman.  The drainage trench was full to overflowing, the downspouts from the gutters were shooting out water like they were fire hoses, and our front flower bed with all the new mums was a small lake.  I'm guessing between two and three inches in under an hour.  

Oh, and another thing that happened this week was the tree butchering by the electric company.  They did do a better job than when the road crew 'trims' and hacks everything to pieces, but it's still quite shocking.  They were supposed to leave us the trunks of the three trees they cut down.  They left us two 6-8 foot lengths and carted off the rest - including Max's scratching tree which I had planned to make into a staff.  Turds.  Anyway, it looks semi-apocalyptic around here right now.  Trees all over the neighborhood are gone or halved where they cut limbs away from the power lines.  It's sad.  Yeah, it was necessary.  Yeah, I shouldn't expect the same quality of tree-trimming that a landscaper would accomplish, but man... =o\

I think that's it.  Today, I need to go out into the yard and clean up from the storm.  We also need to move those trunks away from the road before some numbnuts decides they're free wood and carts them off.  (A neighbor said the electric company was telling people they could do that.  I hope they also suggested that these people ASK the property owner first, but I doubt it.)

Anyway... Have a great day wherever you are.  And feel free to leave a comment if the urge strikes you.  I may not reply to comments very often, but I read them and so do other people who wander through.  =o)

Losing Trees

So, the electric company is in the neighborhood cutting down trees.  I can already hear the chainsaw.  Soon, they'll bring in the big machines with the telescoping pole that has its own circular saw on the end.  They were in here yesterday, too.  We spent the whole day waiting for them to take out our trees.  

Last week or the week before, someone from the electric company stopped by to let us know they'd be coming through.  They left the option to us whether they'd be trimming the trees back 10-15' from the power lines or they'd be taking the whole trees out.  We opted to have the trees removed rather than be butchered and die later.  The last time they trimmed, it took a while for those poor trees to recover.  This time I'm sure they wouldn't make it anyway.

They'll be removing my little black cherry tree and two little elms.  The trees are about 15-20' tall, so 'little' is subjective.  We're debating on what to do with the wood and some of that will depend on whether we can get them to avoid hacking the trucks into a mess.  We'll see how that goes.

I know I seem kind of blasé about this, given my love of trees.  Considering that we were without power for several days at the end of May, I'm not really all that harshed over it.  I wish it could be otherwise, but it is what it is.  Hubs and I knew this would have to happen.  Hell, we would done it ourselves, but we weren't interested in potentially electrocuting ourselves should a branch hit the power lines and send electricity shooting down to whatever portion of the tree we were touching.  These dudes have the skill and the equipment.  Let them do it.  

I may plant new trees farther up the yard where they won't grow to endanger the power lines.  Maybe another black cherry.  Perhaps a dogwood or a redbud.  I already have a cedar we'll be planting in another part of the yard once it's big enough to be safe from the deer.  

Today, I'm going to buy like 10 mums for the front garden.  Maybe that'll take the sting out.  

Bye baby cherry.  Bye little elms.  =o\

Thursday This n That

The other day I was walking toward the local convenience store and caught a glimpse of myself in the glass doors.  Whoa, I'm fat.  Not 'Godzilla attacks Tokyo' fat, but still.  My load looked decidedly wider than I had a firm grasp of.  Some women have a body image that they are fatter than they are.  Mine is apparently skinnier than I am.  Either that or those doors were done in funhouse mirror glass. LOL

If I have offended you, get over it.  If I haven't, I'll get to you soon. ;o)

I never had to wear glasses for most things for most of my life.  Even when my eyes started to go, I really only needed glasses if I was reading a book.  I could still make out prices at the grocery store and I could still read my monitor.  Just in the past couple of years have I needed glasses for those things and just in the past few months have I really needed them to read my monitor.  Oh, I can still make things out.  They're blurry, but I can get there.  But if I spend too much time reading blurry things I can tell it's starting to bother me.  Getting old is a blast, ain't it?  Blerg.

I finished the big marketing blast for Natural Causes in its freebie state.  I'll dish the data on Sunday for that.  Now I'm trying to decide which book to hit next.  I'm thinking Blink of an I.  We'll see.

Oh, Facebook, you big ninnies.  Why do you refresh my page?  I just clicked a link to go read an article that a friend had posted.  I read the article and came back to comment on her post, and FB refreshed my damn newsfeed so her post disappeared.  Now if I want to comment, I have to go find her FB page and then find the status update where she posted the link.  I'm too lazy to do that most days and today ain't looking any better.  I didn't have anything groundbreaking to say either, so it's not like the world will be missing out on my comment.  It's just the principle of it all.  

The article?  It was about a city government in a town in CA having their public library pull books off the shelves because they didn't feel comfortable with kids having access to the books.  I think the books were about menstruation.  Sorry, girls who wanted to learn about their bodies, but that topic is uncomfortable.  No knowledge for you.  Derp.

This whole exploding pager thing in Gaza is cracking me up.  Jeff Dunham needs to do a bit about it with Achmed the Dead Terrorist.  People are making loads of funny memes about it.  I saw one that had an old Hassidic dude sitting behind a table full of pagers... "Uncle Schlomo's Discounted Pagers" or something. ROFL  This is the best case of 'fuck around and find out'.  Go Mossad.

I've been watching a lot of gameshows lately.  I like the ones with some kind of trivia component.  Some of the contestants are really good.  Some of them are woefully ignorant.  Yesterday, on one of them, a gal buzzed in to answer the question of who said 'Ich Bin Ein Berliner'? and she answered Thomas Jefferson.  :sad head shake:  I also like Deal or No Deal, which really doesn't require any brains or skill.  And I'm a huge fan of the old Match Game.  I would rather stick needles in my eyes than watch the new Match Game hosted by Alec Baldwin.  The guy kills someone through his own extreme ignorance, and not only gets away with it, but gets a new job?  Bah and feh.

On that note, it's getting late in the morning and I have things to do.  Have a great day, wherever you are.  

Rambling on About Selling

Sales.  How does one get them?  How does one keep them going?  These are questions that have plagued writers since Ogg first put burnt stick to cliff wall, I guess.  Ogg had it harder.  Someone had to walk by his cliff wall and I don't think anyone bothered to pay him.  

I know one thing for certain... marketing my own books is way harder than marketing product manufactured by someone else.  I mean, I was in sales for crying out loud and I could drive up to a business, go into a meeting, and walk out with orders.  Even better if they were already interested in one item but I ferreted out they needed a whole slew of other items.  I was in my element there.  You called me about a little plastic case, eh?  Well, how about these cordsets?  Or how about this wire?  And you'll probably need tools to put all that together, right?  Huzzah.  

Now?  Not in my element so much.  Now it's more like 'say hey do you like to read? oh, you do. great.' or 'oh, you don't? bummer'.  And even if they say they like to read, it's a matter of which genre and what specifically they like in that genre and whether anything you've written would spark their interest.  Or they don't have a Kindle and only like to read paperback, but they don't want to pay the amount I have to charge for those to not lose my ass.  :bangs head on wall:

And let's face it.  Authors aren't just selling books.  They're selling themselves.  Maybe not all of themselves... this isn't slavery (even if some people want everything for free, which would be a form of writer-slavery.)  Still, every story is hatched in our heads and breaks free onto the page, so it's kind of like a teeny-tiny piece of ourselves.  When we go to sell yourself and find rejection, that's hard to take.  Which makes even the attempt like giving yourself a mental Indian burn every time you do it and thus makes one shy away from the attempt.

Still, unless you're interested in only having a book out there that maybe people will run across from time to time, you're going to need to do something to generate sales.  This Facebook Groups thing I do works a little.  Spending a little money on advertising works better, but who's got the scratch for that these days.

I don't know the answer.  If I did, I'd be raking in the dough, but alas, no.  Freebie things tend to generate some residual sales, if you can get your ads out there somehow and get those page reads, and have other things to offer readers... i.e. additional books in the series, etc.  Whatever you do, though, you've got to keep doing it.  Weather the storms.  Suffer the slings and arrows.  :shrug:  You'll see sales.  Maybe not enough to retire on.  (I retired anyway.  It's been good for my mental health if not for my pocketbook.)  Maybe not even enough for a burger and fries and MickeyD's.  The alternative is sitting and staring at your books while no one else even bothers to glance at them.  

Good luck.  If you have the magic answer, I do wish you'd share it.  Otherwise, we can hang together and commiserate.  :hugs:

Reminiscing About Awesome Food

Hubs and I were talking about donuts and I got to reminiscing about the best donuts I ever had.  They came from a place called Superior Donuts on Fenton Road in Flint, MI.  They made the best peanut butter frosted Persians known to man, where the frosting was about a half inch thick and so yummy it could make you swear off any other kind of frosting for the rest of your life.  I've been trying to replicate that frosting for more than 20 years.  And the on top of the frosting on those donuts was a drizzle of chocolate.  Oh.My.God.

Which lead me to thinking about some of the other 'best foods I've ever eaten' in a kind of wistful way.

For instance, Spring Break 1992... some friends and I took a roadtrip to New Orleans and along the way we stopped at a place called Mike Shannon's Steak and Seafood in St. Louis.  I don't remember much about the dinner, but the dessert was to die for.  Caramel apple upside down pie.  The apples were cut in perfect rectangles and layered with caramel and gooey goodness, then baked in the flakiest, most appetizing pie crust I've ever had.  

In Marquette, Michigan there was a restaurant called Entre Amigos.  They made something called an Awesome Wet Burrito.  The damn thing was so huge I could never eat it in one sitting, so I always had leftovers and the leftovers were as amazing as the fresh burrito.  Filled with meat and covered with cheese and sauce.  :drools a little:

Also in Marquette was a sub shop called Togo's.  Not 'to go', but TOGO like pogo... as in pogo stick.  They made a steak and cheese sub I can still taste in my memories today, where the steak is sliced thin enough so you could bite through it without pulling the whole damn slice out and it was cooked to perfection.  The seasonings were just yum.  They'd slap the steak on the flattop and you could listen to it sizzle while you waited. Then they'd layer American cheese on it so it got all melty, then they'd slide the whole pile onto a freshly baked roll.  You know the kind... soft and tasty in the middle but crunchy crusted on the outside. I'd get mine with mushrooms - which were sautéed in a butter and liberally sprinkled with garlic.  Then I'd put ketchup on the whole damn thing, because I am a heathen and I liked it best that way.

At the mouth of the Appalachicola River where it meets the Gulf of Mexico (in Appalachicola, FL), there was a restaurant... I forget its name... where you could get the most amazing seafood.  I never had better scallops than there and I am a scallop addict.  They also made Amber Jack that came out like a dream.  A-mazing.

Not too long ago, Hubs and I had a layover in Atlanta that was long enough to get dinner.  We lucked out.  There's a steak joint in there that served some of the best steak I'd had in YEARS.  We still talk about that and we both wish we could find a restaurant around here that would live up to that expectation.  Alas, we haven't reached it yet.  (And we aren't likely to, since most of the restaurants around here can't stay out of the monthly health department report.  Blech.)

These are the flavors I will spend my life trying to achieve again.  I doubt I ever will, but it's good to have a goal. LOL

What are some foods and places to eat that you can't forget?

The Formatting for Paperback Saga

Time for another round of Writerly Tasks that do not involve writing.  Today's topic: the Formatting For Paperback Saga*.  

I know I mentioned something about this a couple months ago, but my paperback formatting was all fudged up and I didn't even think to check it until recently.  I assumed (ASS-umed) that when Amazon took over Createspace that all of my books would be just as well-formatted as they had been when I originally did all that crap with CS.  Nope nope nope.  Oh, the internal stuff seemed like it was fine.  The covers, however, were a disaster.  

And the thing was that all my covers appear to be fine at first glance.  I scroll down the list and they all look hunky-dory.  When I go into the paperback setup portion and scroll down there, they looked pretty okay, too.  Until I noticed that the graphic was only showing the front cover and it was the cover for my ebook.  Ummmmmm.  Then I'd go into the preview thing and the covers were farqed up.  Blerg.

Now, this wasn't really a pressing issue because I don't get more than one or two paperback sales a year.  Then it occurred to me that anyone wanting to purchase a paperback would look at the preview and plainly see the cover was toast and then not buy, because who wants to chance paying for a book when the cover is fucked.  

Even then, though, I dragged my feet.  It takes about ten minutes per cover to just get it uploaded.  Then I was running into fresh hell after uploading my cover PDF.  It would be the exact same file I used for Createspace, but Amazon wasn't sizing it down to fit, so my preview would show like one CORNER of the whole cover as the whole cover.  Back out of that, go into the cover creator, upload the cover again (another ten minutes), work with all that, and then finally submit.  Lather, rinse, repeat - 17 times.  Frankly, it was more of a hassle than I was ready to deal with.

Until yesterday.  Yesterday, I sat down here and got to work.  I got all but the genie books done.  Those will get done sometime today, good lord willin' and the internet doesn't go down entirely.  

So, anyway, it'll get done.  Once it's done, and all my books get approved by Amazon, I'll be back in business.  For now, though, I'd hold off on buying paperbacks from me.  (Except for Accidental Death, Natural Causes, Project Hermes, and Song of Storm and Shroud - I did those back in June and they're good to go.)

I think I said this before, but it bears repeating - if you trusted on the transition from Createspace to Amazon to go smoothly, check your books.  They might be fine.  Then again, they might be tragically un-fine.  Either way, it's worth a look.

*Please bear in mind that you experience is probably not as much of a PITA as mine because I'm guessing you have better internet than I do.  

Sunday Update 9/15/24

 It's Sunday and I'm actually awake before 6.  Winner winner.  

This week in writing was fairly uneventful.  I only wrote once for a total of 1539 words.  This is what falling off the writing horse looks like.  Derp.  I only edited a couple of days, too.  I'm up to 16% on my edit notes.  I need a good ass kicking and I'm just the gal to do it. :shrug:  We'll see.  I'll need a lot more coffee before I can accomplish anything more than talk.

I didn't do much in the way of marketing until yesterday.  Natural Causes is free right now, so I did posts in all the FB groups.  I moved 41 copies so far.  I need to wait until after 7am to do another round because I did not get up any earlier than that yesterday.  Which kind of has a wave effect making every day's posts a little later until I just end up doing one night post and missing a day.  With the marketing I've been doing since June, I've made about double what I made from January to May.  So I've got that goin' for me.

No reading.

I don't think I talked about baking last week, but I've been doing a lot of it.  Week before last, I made applesauce bars (meh), and breaded pork chops (yum), chocolate cookies (yay), and pizza (woohoo).  This past week, I made applesauce bread (yum) and oatmeal jam bars (yum).

Activity... Well, I did the window washing thing.  That was a lot of work and I paid for it.  I also walked three times for a total of 3.2 miles.  Weight... blerg.  You cannot lose weight, even if you're walking a lot, if you're also baking a lot.  Suffice it to say, I'm up almost three pounds.  :eyeroll:  I'm not really at a point where I'm really giving a hoot about how much I weigh, but if I keep adding poundage, I'll reach that point extra quick.  I gain weight and my legs start hurting and my back starts being a turd and my frontal area expansion gets problematic.  Best to worry about the weight now than face the consequences later.

Oh, oh, oh... one thing I did was something I've been procrastinating about for months.  I loaded my graphics software onto this computer.  I was so afraid of it not working with Windows 10, I didn't even try.  Long story short, it works fine.  I mean, as fine as it did through the last couple of operating system upgrades.  Which is fine enough for what I need.  So, yay.  I can start making graphics and book covers again.  Woohoo. 

Oh, another happy thing... I had somebody actually buy a paperback copy of Project Hermes.  Well, she asked for a copy of BloodFlow because she was looking at old marketing materials and I took one to her because I don't have any paperbacks of Project Hermes on hand right now.  It all worked out.  She was happy to get it and I was happy to get it to her.  I really need to create new marketing materials - which I can do now that I have the software loaded.  Squee.  

Another thing of note, we have a young armadillo hanging around the yard.  I have name him Aloysius. Aloysius Q. Armadillo.  He's all new looking.  Fresh off the factory floor, so to speak.  And so cute.  I hope he stays out of the road.  Around here, I see a lot of armadillos creamed alongside the road, so fingers crossed little Al doesn't meet the same fate.

The fawns are getting big.  The does are getting impatient.  The bucks are losing their velvet and starting to spar.  The rut is fast approaching.  Which leads to hunting season.  As always, I hope none of our deer regulars get harvested.  The herd needs to get culled, but I'd miss Sissy and Sonny and Lumpy.  

I think that's about all I have to talk about this morning.  Besides, I need another smoke and more coffee so I can greet the day with more than a sneer.  

How are things in your world?

Saturday Reading Wrap-up 9/14/24

Here we are at the Saturday Reading Wrap-up.  Wee.  Unfortunately, not a lot to talk about from the past two weeks.  I've been using my Kindle and my brain-power to work on my own fiction, so not a lot leftover for reading other people's.  

No new books.

Books Read:

22) Biker Funeral by Jamie Mason (8/31/24)  - Hard-boiled Crime*# - 5 stars.  New to me and underappreciated.  I picked this up for free from the Reading Deals newsletter.
Review: "Fast paced story with plenty of twists and turns. I really enjoyed it."

No DNFs.

Currently reading... well, nothing really.  I'm deep into edits.  I'll probably grab a hardcopy something and start that today or tomorrow.

What have you been up to reading-wise?

Short Attention Span Theatre

I have a dreadfully short attention span these days.  Well, for anything but writing.  Even then, I can only manage about an hour to an hour and a half before I run out of steam.  I could blame the cats.  They're very distracting.  Except when they're sleeping.  But it's really not the cats.  This is on me.  Oh, I can focus when I need to.  I do have that ability.  If there's a task I need to address, I can give it my whole attention.  When the task is complete, though, all bets are off.  :shrug:

Why do I mention distraction?  Because I can't seem to put together one whole cogent post on a single topic.  Hence the randomosity, this n that posts.  It's probably why I can't sleep either.  My brain is bouncing from one thing to the next and not leaving any time to focus on sleeping.  Boing boing boing... splat.  

Like I said, I am managing to focus on the writing for like an hour at a time.  I could probably do more, but that's about when my wrists and fingers cry uncle anyway.  I say 'okee, fine' and wander off.  

I managed to stay focused on the window cleaning thing for 4 hours.  That was more a matter of 'I want to get this done' than actual focus.  It's also not really brain activity either.  

People might suggest that I have ADHD.  I wouldn't be surprised at that diagnosis.  I just refuse the label.  I'm not really big on labels.  They're itchy and uncomfortable.  I gotta me and I gotta be free.  :breaks into song:

I really do need to find some focus today, though.  I have a list of tasks that I really should've completed already and more new tasks are dropping onto the list every day, while few are dropping off.  So, I'm going to commit to getting the following done today... or at least before Monday:

- Re-uploading the rest of my paperbacks, and fixing the cover files so that the book doesn't look like crap if anyone should ever actually want to buy one.  

Crap, I lost my train of thought, so I can't remember what else I need to get done.  Let's leave it at that for now.  I really really need to finish that project.  I started it in June for petesakes. Get 'er done.  

Oh, and before I forget... NATURAL CAUSES will be free starting tomorrow.  If I remember to market the damn thing, I'll be ahead of the game.

:wanders off:

Thursday This n That

Why is it that when I do anything super-active, the aftereffects don't fully hit me until the day after the day after?  I felt pretty darn good yesterday after Monday's window washing marathon.  Today?  No so much.  Blerg

Monday's window washing marathon... It all started at 8:30 with the thought that since it was cold I could finally tackle that wasp's nest in the window space with the broken screen.  I was just going to pop out the screen and the storm window and knock that thing out.  I had planned on worrying about the cleaning part later.  Then I didn't.  I went after that window and the next and the... well, you get the point.  5 good-sized windows, 4 with screens and storms.  5 window wells that were full of crap  - leaves and dust and dead bugs, etc.  All of it needing a good cleaning.  Then Hubs caught the same bug I had and he did the parts that can only be reached from outside with a ladder.  (These windows are easily 10-15 feet off the ground.)  We finished about 12:30.  That was just the sunroom.  I still have the rest of the house to do.  Not that day.  Not yesterday either and today ain't lookin' too good.  

I derailed on writing this book.  I think I'm thinking too much.  I need to just sit and write, and when I come to something that takes a lot of thought and/or research, I need to skip it and move on.  Maybe tonight that'll happen.  We'll see.

On the bright side, I'm making headway on the first round edits of the other book.  Yay.

As the election approaches, my mood is taking a shit.  Yesterday, I reminded myself that there is nothing I can do about any of it.  I'll vote, for whatever good that'll do, and what happens after that is out of my power.  I need to focus on the things I can do here in my own life and not let all of THAT get to me.

Well, I think that's about all I've got this morning.  Have a great day.

Deep Thoughts for a Tuesday

"If you have to apologize for something more than once, it's a behavior.  Don't apologize, change the behavior," I say to myself as I get ready to type 'I'm sorry' once again for not posting regularly.  Derp.

I'm seeing things around the webz that make me go 'Hmm'.  (And yes, I did have this song in mind when I wrote that.)  A lot of the things have to do with politics.  Some of the things have to do with writing or publishing.  They all make me scratch my head and wonder what the hell is wrong with people.

I saw a funny meme that I wanted to share, but FB had removed it between the time it showed up in my newsfeed and when I went to share it.  Why?  Probably because it actually spelled out the word Fucking instead of replacing the U with a *.  Means the same thing, derpy dudes.  Everyone from like 3rd grade on up knows what the f*cking means, so why be all 'oh my goodness, I need a fainting couch' about it?

Personally, I'm more offended by rampant stupidity than by swearing.  

People who use till to mean until instead of 'til irritate me.  You're shortening a word.  Use the apostrophe - don't add another letter to the end.  =op

Yesterday, I was watching that 'after the first 48' show.  (Not sure of the name, too lazy to look.)  There was this lady whose son was shot down in cold blood.  Her oldest son had been killed the same way a couple years before.  She was actually advocating for the man who murdered her second son to get leniency because she could tell he was really remorseful.  Derp.  Oh, well, she's still got two other sons.  They'll probably die in some violent crime, too, because it's attitudes like hers that keep the cycle going.  

Justice = equal treatment across the board. For EVERYONE. You get the same treatment as I do as Johnny Celebrity does as Percy Poorfolk does.  Know justice, know peace.  Ya know?

I'm full of piss and vinegar this morning. LOL, I'm actually in a pretty good mood.  I'm jus' sayin'.

Sunday Update 9/8/24

 Good Morning.  I'm not quite awake yet, but here goes...

I got a wild idea and starting writing another book this week.  I'm 3729 words in.  The original idea was that this would be the third Duke Noble book, but I'm starting to think this would be better as the second Duke Noble, which would then shift the book I just finished writing, and am now editing, to #3.  We'll see.  

Also, I've been working a little on phase one of the edits for TTW (Duke #2... err 3).  I haven't gotten very far - only at 4% - but I'm working on it.  I think I already have like 3 pages of notes.  

I tried to do some marketing this week because SSS was on sale, but that was :sad trombone:, so I stopped.  I did sell a copy of it to someone in the UK, so not a total waste.  Also, I gave a gal at the bank one of my bookmarks and she wants a copy of BloodFlow (yeah, it's Project Hermes now, but the bookmark was old and that's the only copy I have on hand right now, so it works).  I'll get that to her later this week.  I really need to make some new marketing materials.  Blerg.

Reading...  We-ell... I did finish one book last Saturday, but I forgot to do a wrap-up yesterday, so I'll throw it on next week's.  I don't expect that to be very exciting, though, because I'm currently using my Kindle to edit and I haven't picked out a hardcopy to read while I'm writing and editing.  Derp.

On the activity front, I started out the week pretty good.  I got in three walks for almost three and a half miles.  Then I got sluggish and meh.  No walkies for the past three days, unless you count walking around the Wallyworld.  We won't talk about weight.  K?

Friday, on my way to do the shopping, I stopped in at the old office because I saw the truck for the one guy I never got to hug goodbye.  I got me some hugs from him and from my faux little brother.  Yay.  I do miss my guys.  And some of the customers.  Anyway, I chatted with people and stuff, which was nice.  And I finally remembered to take my big, metal, outdoor ashtray with me. Yay.

The deer are starting to turn gray.  The fawns are getting big and them what are boys are starting to get their antler nubs.  Lumpy's fawn is a buck.  He's the biggest fawn of them all.  Big boy.  Wuff.

Okay, that's about all the news that's fit to print here.  How are things in your world?

Thursday This n That

I'm having a tough time remembering what day it is anymore.  Yay... I guess.  I mean, it sorta means I'm forgetting the day job, which is good, right?  Unfortunately, I did dream about the job yesterday, so I'm not entirely out of it yet.

The other day we heard this strange thumping noise outside and went to see what it was.  A doe was kicking the crap out of one of the water pans.  She looked pissed, but I think she was just having a gay old time.  Silly deer.

Out for a walk, I stumbled across a new-to-me snake.  It was an eastern hognose snake.  It flattened itself out and rose up like a cobra, but it's totally harmless.  Ooo, big mean snake... I'd better stay away. LOL  I left it alone and went on my merry way.  

My sale is going bust.  I haven't really been marketing it much, though, so partly my fault.  But when I go through the trouble of marketing on the first day and I get no hits whatsoever, it's kinda hard to keep going.  I need some kind of positive reinforcement.  One sale?  Maybe?  Throw me a bone. LOL  I'll do something different next week.  Maybe make Natural Causes free and see if it encourages anyone to buy Accidental Death.  We'll see.

Okay, so I was watching a true-crime show on Monday that gave me an idea for my next Duke Noble, so I've been hitting that hard.   It's at 3323 words as of last night.  It's turning into a SepNoWriMo.  I'm going to write every day this month, too.  Yay.  I've also sent Duke #2 to my Kindle and I'm working on editing that during the day.  Not a lot of progress to report there yet, but yay.  I'm back baby.  

Lumpy's new fawn - Speedy - is a buck.  He's got little nubs that are just starting to show.  Aww.  He's also the biggest fawn we have out there right now.  He's gonna be amazing.  Her last buck fawn - Sonny - is a big ol' buck now and he's only 3.  I hope he survives hunting season.

Yesterday, Hubs and I went to town and left the Boyz running free in the house.  We got home to find our coatrack knocked over.  Naughty kitties.  They were both hiding under the bed - whether because the metal coatrack scared them or because they heard us and thought they were going to get a scolding, I don't know.  The coatrack is now in the spare room where they can't mess with it.  Thankfully, no kitties were injured.  That thing is heavy and could've easily broken a kitty when it fell over.

Okay, I think I've about random-ed myself out.  Have a great day out there, folks, and feel free to leave a comment, if the mood strikes ya.  

Where Do Ideas Come From?

I missed posting yesterday.  No excuses.  I mean, I don't celebrate Labor Day (don't get me started on that), so it wasn't like I was doing anything.  I basically just laid around watching TV.  In the afternoon, I made applesauce bars - which turned out really more like sheet cake.  Tasty but not exciting, so I won't make those again.  I also sent TTW to my Kindle so I could start editing, and I did a little of that.  Then late evening, we finished watching a true crime show and an idea hit me while we were out having our post-show smokes.  I finished my cigarette, marched right over to this desk and started typing.  881 words later it was time for bed and I had run myself out of steam.  

When people ask where ideas come from, it's basically that... something sparks an idea that I believe I can work into a book.  Sometimes, I fail at turning it into a story that I can complete, but usually with some effort, I succeed.  A book is born and all that.  At least that's how it works for me.  Your mileage may vary.

Song of Storm and Shroud started out as a dream.  It doesn't resemble the dream at all anymore, but I never would've written it if I hadn't had this really interesting fantasy-themed dream.  You know the kind with characters and plot and setting, etc.  That kind.  I woke up and wrote down the idea.  Like I said, the book didn't come out anything like the original idea, but sometimes it works like that.

The first book I finished (Fear Itself - not yet published) came alive after I watched a couple of 'space rock will destroy the world' movies.  I sat down at my computer and started writing, and nine months later TADA.

Accidental Death was born out of a fear I had sitting at home waiting for Hubs to come home from a meeting.  It combined with some other ideas I had and a storyline was born.

My brain likes to explore possibilities, even when I'm not trying to come up with story ideas.  It meanders all the paths.  I think this is why I have deja vu so often.  With my brain exploring all the possibilities, I'm bound to eventually actually experience one or something similar to one.  Anyway, that's probably where the majority of my book ideas come from.  What if...? and all that.  

What if a woman was so focused on all the imagined wrong in her past that when she is actually wronged, she decides to pay back everyone who ever hurt her?  What if the person assigned to hunt her down is terrified of the means she uses to commit these murders?  Voila... Dying Embers.

See?  

"Everybody walks past a thousand story ideas every day. The good writers are the ones who see five or six of them. Most people don't see any." - Orson Scott Card

I don't see five or six ideas every day.  Thank goodness for that or I'd probably go insane trying to write them all.  I'd never get anything done either.  I'm content with an idea here or there.  I'm happy when I can come up with one when I need it.  The others?  They get jotted down in my ideas document and they're there if I'm ever at a loss for what to write next.  That hasn't happened in a while, but like I said, they're there if I need them.

What about you?  Are you inundated with ideas?  If you're not a writer, what do you do with them?  Seriously.  I'm curious.  If you're a writer, I'm pretty sure I know what you do with yours.  Keep doing it.  

Sunday Update 9/1/24

Good Morning.  It's a whole new month, but let's wrap-up the old month, eh?

I didn't do anything writerly last week.  (That kinda reminds me of the scene in History of the World, Part One when Mel Brooks' character is applying for unemployment as a stand-up philosopher - "Did you bullshit last week?")  I did think about what I'm going to be doing next and the odds-on favorite is another Duke Noble.  I mean, from a sales standpoint, if I can crank out a bunch of these in a row, they'll sell better.  At least, that's the theory.  My other thought is doing the next book in the Shroudlands series.  I would need to start over, of course.  What I've already written isn't thrilling me.

I didn't do any marketing last week other than to set up a sale that starts today.  This morning, I hit all the FB Groups with the following ad: "For the first time ever, get my epic YA fantasy - SONG OF STORM & SHROUD - for only 99c.  https://www.amazon.com/dp/B09W745M6P"  Not the most scintillating marketing copy I've ever written, but I had just gotten up and the coffee hadn't kicked in yet.  Anyway, the sale goes through to the end of Saturday, so if you haven't read SSS yet, now's the time.

And hey, if you've ever read any of my books and liked them, if you could drop a review at Amazon, I would be eternally grateful.  Poor SSS only has one review.  =o( (On the brightside, it's a 5-star )

In reading news... well, you can go to yesterday's post for most of that.  I did finish another book yesterday, but that'll be on next week's wrap-up.

On the activity front, I got in 3 walks for just over 3 miles and I vacuumed the entire house (which is no mean feat).  I also ate like a horse, so the weight went up - Weight: 171.4

I made more pizza.  Hubs thinks I've achieved 'professional pizza' status.  I should've taken a picture so you can bask in the glory that is my homemade pizza.  There's still one piece left, which by rights belongs to Hubs.  If he doesn't eat it today, though, all bets are off.

This week, I noticed several message requests on FB.  They were all scammers wanting to sell me publishing services.  I've never had that happen before, so I guess I've arrived.  LOL  (Yes, they're all blocked now, but I didn't delete the messages.  They're kinda funny.)

Okay, well, I guess that's it for me today.  If I think of anything else important, I'll add it later.  Time for more coffee.  And maybe a walk.  have a great day.  Oh, and if you're so inclined, leave a comment and let me know how your week went.

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.

2024 Books Read

 Yeah, yeah... this is way later in the year than I would've started one of these lists, but I was working and not reading up until recently, which meant I didn't actually finish many books before now, so I didn't see the point.  However, I'm reading again, so I thought I'd make a reading goals thing on Goodreads.  And this post.  If you've been here before you know the drill...

(psst... * means ebook, # means underappreciated)

22) Biker Funeral by Jamie Mason (8/31/24)  - Hard-boiled Crime*#

21) James Herriot's Dog Stories by James Herriot (8/30/24) - Literature

20) Brother Assassin by Fred Saberhagen (8/24/24) - SF

19) The Case of the Half-Wakened Wife by Erle Stanley Gardner (8/12/24) - mystery

18) Oblivion's Cloak by Dylan McFadyen (8/9/24) - epic SF*

17) The Tuesday Club Murders by Agatha Christie (8/4/24) - mystery

16) The Sword of Shannara by Terry Brooks (8/2/24) - fantasy

15) The Mystery of the Blue Train by Agatha Christie (7/24/24) - mystery

14) Cinder by Marissa Meyer (7/21/24) - SF dystopian

13) Mystery of the Haunted Pool by Phyllis A. Whitney (7/19/24) - YA mystery

12) The Pale Horse by Agatha Christie (7/15/24) - mystery

11) Sweet Smell of Revenge by Pam Clifford (7/10/24) - mystery*

10) The Elfstones of Shannara by Terry Brook (7/8/24) - fantasy

9) Midnight Clear by Silver James (7/1/24) - SF holiday romance*

8) Hercule Poirot's Casebook by Agatha Christie (6/30/24) - mystery

7) Perfect Pending by Lucia Ashta (6/25/24) - paranormal romance*

6) The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle (6/14/24) - mystery

5) The Case of the Mythical Monkeys / The Case of the Angry Mourner by Erle Stanley Gardner - mystery

4) The Goggle-Eyed Pirates by Lee Falk - adventure/mystery

3) The Case of the Green-Eyes Sister / The Case of the Spurious Spinster by Erle Stanley Gardner - mystery

2) The Case of the Darling Divorcee / The Case of the Runaway Corpse by Erle Stanley Gardner - mystery

1) Award Science Fiction by Various - science fiction

0) Rumor Has It (Duke Noble, Private Investigator #1) by B.E. Sanderson - hard-boiled crime

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.