The Long Trek Back

:tap tap tap: Is anyone still out there?

So, anyway I did a thing.  Last week, I delisted Song of Storm and Shroud from everywhere but Amazon.  Last night I checked to make sure it was delisted everywhere and I put SSS back into Kindle Select.  For the first time, people can now read it with Kindle Unlimited.  If you have a KU subscription, you can read it for free.  I hope you'll give it a whirl.  

It's not much, but it's a start.  Regardless of the day job, I need to start doing writerly things and feeling like a writer again.  It's been too long.  There has to be more to life than work, eat, sleep, repeat.  Basically, I need to claw my way back to writing again.  I don't have the time, but I'll make the time.  

In the course of taking care of SSS on Amazon, I remembered that Silver had told me I needed to go into all my listings and let Amazon know that my books weren't created using AI.  So I did that.  34 times - 17 ebooks and 17 paperbacks worth.  

There's a bunch of writerly stuff I've let slide.  I'm not going to get it all done expeditiously.  It'll take time.  I'll probably slack off.  Some days the day job will be too much for me to even think about the writerly things.  :shrug:  

We'll see how it goes.  

How are things going with you?

Happy New Year!

Well, the end of another year went by.  2023 wasn't necessarily bad.  It wasn't necessarily good either.  In the end it all balanced out.  2023... the Year of Meh.

I used to use a post like this to talk about my book sales.  Suffice it to say, there's no joy in that particular section of Mudville.  I sold 27 books last year and made about $28.  Wrote nothing, published nothing.  But I got a nice letter the other day from a reader, squeeing about my djinn books, so that was good.

The beginning of '23 saw a thing, which I am not at liberty to discuss.  The end of '23 saw us completely out of debt.  

I'm still working.  Being out of debt doesn't mean I can afford to stop.  Not unless I want to get right back into the mess that prompted me to start working after 18 years.  (Thanks for the sucky economy, you know who you are.)  On the upside, I'm pretty good at my job and I'm improving all the time, so yay.

2023 saw us head over to the pet rescue for a kitten and bring home two.  They're both a year old now.  Finn is still a cuddle-bug.  Sawyer is still a tornado.  But Sawyer is getting better.  And we've all adapted to each other quite nicely.  At a year old, Sawyer is 15 pounds and Finn is 11.75 pounds.  

This past year, Hubs and I both traveled to see our mothers.  They were separate vacations, but that's okay.  I think we both needed to do that - have one on one time with the Moms.  They aren't getting any younger, ya know.  

I started 2023 at 165.2 pounds and started 2024 at 161.0.  At one point I got down to 158, but that didn't last long, and for the remainder of the year I've been hovering between 160 and 162.  It wasn't a super active year.  I did start walking on my lunch this fall and managed to get myself up to 19 miles walked in 2023.

I didn't go fishing even once last year.  As such, I never even bought a fishing license.  =o(

One definite upside to 2023 is we didn't lose any loved ones.  The Moms are still going strong.  The sibs have their issues but are, for the most part, healthy.  Owl is out there in the world, doing her own thing.  Hubs and I are alive and well.  Another year older, another year wiser perhaps.  Still in love.  This year, we'll celebrate our 20 year anniversary.  Yay.

And that's about it for the yearly wrap-up.  I hope 2023 was better than, and certainly not worse than, MEH for you all.  Here's hoping 2024 is a better year, no matter how your 2023 went.  

HAPPY NEW YEAR!