Sale!

Caverns of Mercury will be on sale for 99 cents this weekend.  I'll announce this in the newsletter, as well as a few other items of interest.  Stay tuned.

The torch goes out

It was a nice closing ceremony.  I think South Korea did a wonderful job hosting these games in spite of the challenging weather.  And I'm already looking forward to the next games in Tokyo and the next winter games in Beijing.

The highlight of the closing ceremony was the guitar kid, Yang Tae Hwan.  He's got some stuff on YouTube, of course.  Here he is playing Sultans of Swing:

Awesome.  And remember Funtwo and his version of Pachelbel's Canon from several years ago?  It was one of the early "viral" videos of YouTube.  Well, Yang Tae Hwan can play it:

Anyway, that wraps up the games.  Thanks to all the athletes and the ceremonies' cast members, and congratulations to all the medalists.

Word count's improving

Got 2k in today.  That's a lot better than the 1000 words per day I've been averaging for this novel.  I might have gone a little longer, but I need to think about a scene a little more before continuing.  The book currently stands at 16k.

I've been more tired than usual lately.  I hope it's just the season and the weather and not old age creeping up on me.  I'm only 42.  I'm not ready to be old.

The promotion on Kobo is going better than I expected.  Hostile Planet doesn't have any reviews there yet, so I wasn't sure how it would go, but I've made a few sales there.  Thanks, Kobo readers.  :)

Miscellany

I've written 14,000 words so far for book 3.  Obviously, this is not the pace I want.  I hope to do better very soon.

Congratulations to the women's hockey team for beating Canada in a shootout and bringing home the gold medal.  Excellent work, ladies, and in dramatic fashion, too.

Hostile Planet is currently on sale at Kobo.  It's part of their "February 40% off" sale.  Check it out:

http://www.kobo.com/us/en/p/feb40

Spring seems to have arrived early.  Too early.  I expect a final cold snap in March or April to kill off the new growth.  Nothing to be done about it, though.  *shrug*

It still takes me more than one attempt to tie a Windsor knot.  I attended a funeral a couple of days ago, so I wore my suit, which is a rarity for me.  In my younger days, I tied my ties using the four-in-hand knot.  In recent years, though, I've decided the Windsor is superior.  But it's more complex, and I don't wear ties often enough to get the hang of the knot.

When I step back from the world and think about it, it amazes me that so many of the systems and infrastructures we take for granted work as well as they do.  There are many unsung, unseen, and unloved heroes in the world.

That's enough for now, I guess.  Back to work.

Fourcade in a photo finish

France's Martin Fourcade won his biathlon event in a photo finish, narrowly edging out the German Simon Schempp.  I watched it on the tape delay, but without knowing the result beforehand, so it was "live" for me.  It was a pretty dramatic moment.  Fourcade had fallen behind earlier due to a missed shot, leaving three Germans in the top three spots.  But on the last round of shooting, each of those Germans missed a shot, allowing Fourcade the chance to take the lead again.  Schempp was right on his tail for the whole final stretch, and he turned on the afterburners at the very end, pulling even with Fourcade.  But the Frenchman lunged early at the finish line, getting his boot out there, and that made the difference.  It was a matter of inches.

Congratulations to both men for winning medals, and thanks to both men for providing us with a bit of excitement.

Updated a few book files

It has come to my attention that Amazon is now putting some sort of popup thingy at the end of its readers' ebooks.  From what I hear, it's a prompt encouraging the reader to rate/review the book.  It apparently shows up before the back matter that the author included in the book, which means links to mailing lists might go unseen by the reader.

So, to combat this, I've added my mailing list link to the copyright pages of my books.  I've done this for books 2 and 3 of Free Space and both books of Wheel of Fire.  (I don't have the link in Clouds of Venus because that's a permafree book.)

I haven't seen this popup thing for myself.  I've only heard about it.  But I want those who purchase my work to join my mailing list, so I just spent about an hour making the changes to the files and uploading them across all vendors.  It's just another small annoyance in an endeavor that is full of them.

Progress Report

I'm a few days into this first draft, and progress has been slow.  I've got about 5500 words down.  Part of the blame goes to the Olympics, because I'm a sucker for that stuff and can't resist watching.  I've also been drowsier than normal recently, which may be due to the weather, and I can't make the sentences form in my head when I'm drowsy.  And, frankly, I'm just plain lazy sometimes.  :(

On the plus side, I'm in the middle of writing a Shariel-POV scene on her home planet of Laenarael.  In Hostile Planet, we see scenes on Homestead and Skytower.  In Mind Games, we see scenes on Homestead and Cortex.  So we've seen a glimpse of what life is like on three Breeds' worlds.  But readers of the series haven't seen a Felid world yet.  In this third book, they will.  More than one Felid world, actually.  And that's all I'm saying about that.  No spoilers.  :D

I had planned to crank out this first draft and then switch gears to a short story that I would then submit to Alasdair Shaw for his next anthology.  I'm no longer sure about that.  Maybe I'll have time, and if so, maybe the story will come together well enough.  But that remains to be seen.

So that's where I'm at.  Hopefully I can increase my output this week.  I really want to start getting to the 3000+ words per day level.  Wish me luck!

Congratulations, Red Gerard!

The 17-year-old won the gold medal in his snowboarding event.

Some interesting trivia:

The remaining crowd started chanting “USA, USA” for the youngest American male podium finisher in a Winter Games since 1928 and the first medalist born after 2000.

Well done, Red.  :)

I've started a new draft

The first draft of book 3 of the Wheel of Fire is officially underway.  :D  I've got a couple thousand words down so far, and I've already put poor Jerry into an altercation.  Lol... I really am too tough on that guy.  But I have to be tough.  It's necessary for good drama.  Never coddle your heroes!  That's how you get Mary Sues, and no one wants Mary Sues.

Tomorrow's output will be diminished due to the Olympic ceremony.  I'm a sucker for that stuff, so I'll be watching.

Fun fact: I'd never made a sale of a book on the very first day it was live... until now.  Mind Games sold on Apple right from the get-go.  Awesome!  Thanks for your support, readers.  Y'all are the best.  :D

My goal for book 3 is to have it published by mid-summer.  No promises, though.  I often miss my self-imposed deadlines.  They're really just targets to aim for, I guess.  *shrug*

Anyway, thanks again for reading, and thanks for purchasing my work.  :)

Mind Games is now live

The second book of my Wheel of Fire series, Mind Games, is now live.

Here's the product description:

Sergeant Jerry Harper recently caused an interstellar incident. As a result, tensions are high, and the Reliants of the Mentarchy have offered to host a conference to settle the matter peacefully. Jerry is ordered by his government to attend the talks and testify. He travels with the rest of the Agrarian diplomatic delegation to the planet Cortex, home of the Mentarch.

Cortex is supposed to be neutral ground, but that changes when an assassin targets the Agrarians. Jerry chases the shooter, but the pursuer quickly becomes the pursued, and he's forced to go on the run. While Jerry's wandering in the wilderness, the Mentarch activates its anti-gravity jammer, blockading space travel. The Agrarian delegates are now stuck on the planet, and Jerry is the only one in a position to do anything about it. He's tasked with disabling the jammer.

Jerry has no idea how he's going to do it, but he sets out anyway. Along the way, he starts to get a strange feeling about Cortex, some weird interaction between the planet and his psychic gift. He's not sure what's going on, but he suspects the Mentarch is up to something. Jerry must find a way to disable the jammer while also dealing with the Mentarch's mind games. And if he wants to get his people off Cortex alive, he must do it before the place turns into a war zone.

Links to retailers:

Amazon:  http://www.amazon.com/dp/B079N597B6/
Kobo:  http://www.kobo.com/us/en/ebook/mind-games-wheel-of-fire-2
Apple:  http://itunes.apple.com/us/book/id1346028324
Scribd:  http://www.scribd.com/book/370973628/Mind-Games-Wheel-of-Fire-2-Wheel-of-Fire-2

(The Barnes & Noble link will go live at some point.  It tends to take longer.  Check this blog's sidebar periodically for the link.)


If you pick up a copy, then I hope you enjoy it.  Thanks for reading!  :)

SpaceX does it again

They put a car in space.  It's even got its own driver, a mannequin named Starman.  lol

Unfortunately, the "center core" part of the rocket didn't make it.  It apparently ran out of fuel and crashed into the sea.  But the two side boosters performed flawlessly, and as Meatloaf would say, two out of three ain't bad.  Here they are returning to Earth after completing their mission:

Man, that's sweet.  :D

Congratulations, SpaceX, for another awesome show.

I just hit "publish"

Three times, actually, for Amazon, Kobo, and D2D.  Once the book's live everywhere, I'll make an official blog post with links.  I'll send out a newsletter, too.

Now I'm feeling a bit blitzed.  It always happens when I publish something new.  Nerves, I guess, and the worry that I might screw something up.

Anyway, stay tuned...

Vents don't belong on the ceiling

The thermostat is on the wall about five feet above the floor.  This is the height at which a room's temperature is gauged for purposes of activating the central heat.

However, we humans live in the bottom half of the room.  When we sit, our heads are below the thermostat.  And if your home's vents are in the ceiling instead of near the floor, then you'll have problems staying warm.

During summer, when the air conditioning's running, it's not that big of a deal because cool air sinks.  During winter, though, the warm air pools at the top of the room.  The furnace has to keep running until it pushes enough hot air down to activate the thermostat.  But the air below the thermostat remains cold.  It's a recipe for having frozen feet all winter, regardless of how much you crank up the heat.

In conclusion, the ideal place for HVAC vents is either in the floor or in the walls near the floor.  That way, the climate control system is actually acting on the part of the room where you live, not the empty space above your head.