I survived Christmas

Christmas is over, and that includes the get-togethers.  It was actually pretty painless this year.  Hopefully everyone will enjoy the things I got them.

I haven't done much writing-related stuff lately.  I've been busy doing family things, and now I've got some other projects I'm working on, so progress will be slower than I'd like for the next couple of weeks.

The good news is that I've made a dietary change, and I think my digestion has improved a little as a result.  I'd love to stop having headaches all the time, and the key to that--for me--is digestion, so maybe I'm on to something here.  *fingers crossed*

The work-in-progress stands at about 103,000 words.  I'm right in the sweet spot where I aimed to be.  Still planning on publishing in January or February.  Probably February at this point.

My goal for 2020 is to publish book 5 of Wheel of Fire.  I don't want to have it take all year.  If I can truly get a handle on my headaches, then maybe I won't be incapacitated so often.  Maybe I can get more done.

I'm hoping for a pullback in the stock market over the next couple of weeks.  It's overbought, so it needs to retrace a little.  It's currently down in today's session, so maybe the pullback has started.  I've got my eye on a couple of things, but I don't want to pay a premium, so I've held off on pulling the trigger.  Hopefully I'll get the opportunity I'm looking for before this month is out.

In the meantime, I hope you all have a Happy New Year.  Let's make 2020 a great one.  :)

Progress report

I'm currently working on the mobi edit of book 4 of Wheel of Fire.  I'm at the 30% mark in the file on my Kindle.  I'm satisfied with that rate of progress, though I didn't get anything done this past weekend due to family obligations.  Word count is now over 101k.

I've added a new addon to my Firefox browser.  It's called "Multi-Account Containers."  It lets you open a new tab in a container, which means any site you log in to in that tab will be "contained."  You can open another tab and go to the same site, but you won't be logged in.  The login cookie is sequestered to the container tab.  This is a great little tool if you have multiple people using the same computer and you don't want their various site accounts getting mixed up.  It's also great if you want to keep your own multiple logins separate.

I've been trying to get more fiber in my diet recently.  I think a lack thereof is why I suffer from headaches so frequently.  The change seems to be working.  I'm cautiously optimistic.

It's cold today.  45 degrees right now in the middle of a sunny afternoon.  It's actually warmer in London, and it's after 8 P.M. there.

I'm still on track to publish in January or February, so fans of Wheel of Fire can get the next installment before too much longer. It's the fourth book of a planned seven, so it will feel good to get past the halfway point.  It's all downhill from there.  Well, not really.  The series climax comes later, so I guess it's uphill until then.  But y'all know what I mean.  ;)

Thanks again, Kobo

Just wanted to praise Kobo yet again.  Their in-house promotions don't cost anything up front--well, some of them don't; others do--and they almost always result in a non-zero number of sales, and that makes me happy.

In other news, I've started the mobi edit of book 4 of Wheel of Fire.  The manuscript is currently at 101,000 words even.  That will fluctuate as I go, of course, but not terribly much.

I've only got twelve days left to get in the Christmas spirit.  I still haven't watched my slate of favorite Christmas movies: Die Hard, Trading Places, and Death Race.  I need to get on that.  It's not Christmas until Hans falls off Nakatomi Tower!

Second draft is done

Finished it last night.  Word count is just over 100k.

Third--and final--draft is up to bat.

Update

Well, I made it through Thanksgiving intact.  It actually went off pretty smoothly.  Much food was eaten, much football was watched, and no children got hurt or threw tantrums.  Definitely a success.

The day after was a bit rougher for me.  I had a migraine, so I was in my usual migraine fugue state.  That's never fun.

Both days had one thing in common: I didn't get any writerly stuff done.  :(

But I'm back in the saddle now.  Continuing to work on the second draft of book 4.  Word count is around 95k, I think.  It continues to creep up as I edit, which was expected, so I'll probably hit my goal of a final product in the 100k-110k range.

And I still haven't started my Christmas shopping.

Clouds of Venus promotional listing

Roxana at proofreadebooks.com was generous enough to promote my book on her site.  Here's the link:

https://proofreadebooks.com/2019/11/26/clouds-of-venus-free-space-trilogy-book-1/

She's a proofreader/editor, too, so if you're an author in need of that sort of stuff, you might want to check her service out.

Broker war ceasefire

Remember when I made this post about competition spurring online brokers to race to the bottom and offer their customers zero-dollar-commission trades?

Well, that war didn't last long.  I found out today that TD Ameritrade has been bought out by Schwab.


Charles Schwab to buy TD Ameritrade in a $26 billion all-stock deal


So, at some point in 2020, I guess I'll have a Schwab account.  And I was just starting to feel at home on the TD Ameritrade site since its acquisition of my Scottrade account.  *sigh*

R101

I learned something new recently.  I'd heard of the Hindenburg airship, of course, and I've even listened to the "oh, the humanity" recording from the onlooker.  But I'd never heard of the R101 disaster.

R101 was a British airship that crashed in France in 1930.  At the time, it was the largest flying machine ever built.  Forty-eight people were killed.

Iron Maiden wrote a song about it.

Slow speed resolved

The other day, the internet was running very slowly on my laptop.  I didn't know the reason.  Maybe it was my internet provider throttling the speed, maybe it was heavy traffic that the system couldn't handle, or maybe it was an issue with my laptop.

I'm now pretty sure it was the latter.

I downloaded some Windows updates, and I thought they were done downloading, but I guess they weren't.  I think they kept downloading, and that's what was sucking up bandwidth.  In any event, that all appears to be finished, so things are back to normal-ish.

What bugs me is that Windows 10 doesn't tell you much about what it's doing.  It likes to hide menus and processes.  It likes to spy on you and change your settings during updates.  When the OS does notify you about something, it's often a useless fact like "You just plugged in headphones" or whatever.  Well, duh.  I know what I just did.  Don't tell me what I'm doing.  Tell me what you're doing.  It's a lot easier to tolerate slow internet if I know the reason for it.

I like the OS for the most part, but it's a naughty rascal.  One must keep it on a short leash.

On the plus side, the updates went off without a hitch.  :)

I still love my Kindle

My Kindle is a first-generation Kindle Fire tablet.  It was a Christmas gift back in 2011.  It still works just as well as it always has.  I use the "Send to Kindle" app to send ebooks to it remotely.  I do this a lot, actually, because I enjoy old public domain books, both fiction and non-fiction.

There are no ads on my Kindle.  I got mine before the marketers succeeded in putting ads absolutely everywhere.

In another month, I'll have had this device for eight years.  Man... that seems like forever in technology terms.

I have no plans to upgrade or replace it as long as it keeps working.  I know some people have several Kindles and tablets and whatnot, but I'm not one of them.  One reading-thingy is enough for me.  And I still like the one I've got, its advanced age notwithstanding.

In my opinion, Amazon really hit a home run with the first-gen Kindle Fire.

Stone Age weapons work

I saw some photos recently from Hong Kong.  Some of the protesters have taken up bows and arrows.  One of the cops took an arrow in the leg.  :o

Just goes to show that when people are determined to defend themselves, they will find weapons with which to do it.  And no weapon is obsolete--even if it dates from the Stone Age--if it gets the job done.

There's something cognitively dissonant, though, about a guy holding a bow and a smartphone at the same time.

November blues

In early October, my traction on Apple disappeared for no apparent reason.  I had a nice steady drip of sales and downloads going for about eighteen months.  Now it's gone.  I have no idea why.  Some algorithm thing, I guess.  I hoped it was a temporary thing, but it's been over a month now, so I guess it's not.  I'd like to get that momentum back some day, obviously, and the sooner the better, but right now, I'm pretty discouraged about it.

It's tough trying to find decent manufactured products at reasonable prices these days.  If you want quality, you have to pay a fortune for it, otherwise you're stuck with disposable crap.  The "happy medium" is almost nonexistent.

I'm trying to find stuff to give the niece and nephew for Christmas, and it's tough.  It also doesn't help that today's kids are all glued to their screens.  What do you give a kid who only wants to stare at a screen?

I've developed a patch of rough, itchy skin on my lower back.  I have no idea why.  Add it to the list of health-related annoyances that have been popping up like weeds throughout my forties.

Well, that's enough whining for now, I guess.  Thanks for bearing with me.

Got cold fast

Unseasonably cold here this week.  In a previous post, I mentioned how some people think you can predict the severity of the upcoming winter by observing nature's little signals.  Trees producing more acorns than usual, for example, is a signal for a cold winter.  That's the theory, anyway.  I don't know if there's any truth to it or not.

The signals for this year, though, point to a cold winter, and if this week is any indication, those signals are correct.

On the plus side, cold weather kills off more bugs, and that's always a good thing.

In other news, I heard that a dog was killed by coyotes just a short way down the road.  This area is not part of the coyote's traditional range.  They're an invasive species, and they eat people's pets on a regular basis.  It sucks, but there's not much to be done about it that's not already being done.  Like kudzu and the snakehead fish, it's just another invasive species to add to the list of annoyances.

In remembrance

My great-grandfather registered for the World War I draft in 1918.  He was in his forties at the time and was not drafted.  His final child, my grandfather, would be conceived shortly after the war ended. 

I sometimes wonder what might have been had things gone a little differently.  If my great-grandfather had possessed a skill the military needed, then they might have taken him despite his age.  And he might have died in those horrible trenches.  And my grandfather and all his descendants never would have existed.  What if, what if...

All of our lives hang perilously from threads, barely avoiding being snipped away by the whims of chance long before we're scheduled to be born.  It's a sobering thought.

But today isn't for what-ifs.  It's not about us at all.

Today is for the honored dead.

Maybe I've fixed it

I've been having trouble with Firefox freezing on forums.  Today I received a notification from my computer that Firefox was blocked from accessing the graphics hardware.  I googled this to see what could be done.

The first remedy I found didn't help.  It suggested turning off a setting that was already off.

The second remedy involved installing a new (actually older) driver for the graphics card.  I really don't like screwing around with drivers, so I'm reserving this option as a last resort.

The third remedy was to uncheck the box for Firefox's hardware acceleration.  This is the remedy I went with.  I've now got it set on "Use recommended performance settings."  Hopefully this will do the trick.

The next few days should tell the tale.

Miscellaneous stuff

Well, it's been a couple of weeks since my last blog post, so I'm sorry for sort of disappearing like that.  I blame Halloween.  And Guy Fawkes Day.  And the weather.  It's not my fault!

The good news is that I got a few chores done in the interim, both authorly and otherwise.

I'm working on the second draft of book 4 of Wheel of Fire, and I can still finish this draft before Thanksgiving.  I'd like to do all my Christmas shopping within the next week or so.  That would get one major thing off my mind and enable me to charge through to the end of the year.  Now if only my family would actually tell me what they want...

The game show Jeopardy! is having its Tournament of Champions this week and next.  James Holzhauer will be back.  If you don't know who he is, then I encourage you to watch the show and see for yourself.  He's the most dominant player I've ever seen.  He holds a number of the show's records, and he's famous for making huge bets, usually going "all in" on the Daily Doubles.  He's a professional gambler, and it shows.

His Wikipedia page

I recently tried Canada Dry's flavored Ginger Ales--cranberry and blackberry--for the first time, and they're pretty awesome drinks.  Recommended.

This month is November 2019, the time when the movie Blade Runner was supposed to take place.  Interesting coincidence: Rutger Hauer died the same year that his character in the movie died.  R.I.P., Mr. Hauer.

Every now and then, particularly while I've got a forum site in the main tab, my browser will freeze for a moment and then unfreeze with some of the page elements broken.  Reloading the page works to set things aright, but it's still a nuisance.  It's been doing this since the latest Firefox update, so I can only assume it's due to something they broke.  Whatever it is, I hope it goes away with the next update.

For Freshtovia!

I recently discovered the new Wendy's tabletop RPG.  It's called Feast of Legends.

Yes, that's Wendy's as in the hamburger restaurant.

I browsed through the pdf, and I must admit that it looks kind of awesome.  The art is great.  The skills and other technical stuff are clever and creative.  I'm not a tabletop gamer--I don't even own the necessary dice--but I sort of want to play this game.

Check it out for yourself:

https://www.feastoflegends.com/

And a big kudos to Wendy's for investing the time, money, and effort into this.  It's a really cool achievement.

Update

Had another migraine today.  I'm currently in the "hangover" stage, so I'm not back to normal yet, but I can somewhat function so long as I don't exert myself too much.

All I've had to eat was a bowl of cereal which I promptly vomited up later.  I'm currently drinking a Sprite in the hopes of putting a little sugar and calories into my body.

My head still hurts a little, though not too bad.  I took some pills about an hour ago when I was certain I was finished with the vomiting.

Naturally, I've been completely useless today.  No words written or edited or anything of that sort.  Maybe I can produce a little after I publish this blog post.

I will say this, though: the word count for book 4 is currently at 82,253.  That's a few thousand more than the first draft, so I'm making progress.  I've been incorporating my notes, so this part of the revision is more of the "fixing inconsistencies and plot holes and whatnot" than actually fleshing out what's already there.  That part comes next.  When I write a first draft, I tend to focus on action and dialog, and the result is kind of a choppy manuscript.  I have to go back later and add stuff to smooth it all out.  Once I'm done adding in my notes, then I'll proceed to the smoothing stage, and that should see the word count increase at a faster rate.

I've said before that my target was for a finished product of 100k-110k words, and I'm still on track for that.

Also, I just had an idea occur to me for how to work through an important plot point in later books, so I'm calling that a breakthrough.  Yay for me, right?  :D

Silver linings, folks.  Silver linings.

Climate comparisons

I sometimes like to look at the climate data on Wikipedia for various cities around the world.  One of the interesting things I've discovered is how much more rain Atlanta gets than the stereotypically rainy cities of Britain and Ireland.

Atlanta averages 49.71 inches of rain per year.  By comparison, London, England averages 23.68 inches per year.  Dublin, Ireland averages 29.84 inches per year.  And Glasgow, Scotland, the city sometimes called the rainiest in the U.K., gets 49.01 inches per year, just shy of Atlanta's average.

Of course, Atlanta also gets a lot more sunshine, so the city tends to dry out faster than the cities of northwest Europe.  Atlanta gets 2738.3 hours of sunshine per year.  By comparison, London gets 1632.6, Dublin gets 1447.3, and Glasgow gets 1265.

Fun fact: Atlanta isn't even the rainiest part of Georgia.  That award goes to Rabun County, an actual rain forest.  It averages over 70 inches of rain per year.

The King of Cool

I recently saw a modern recreation of the car chase from Bullitt.  It involves Chad McQueen, Steve McQueen's son, driving the classic green Mustang.  It's pretty cool.  Here it is:

And here's the original starring the the King of Cool himself:

In my opinion, it's the music that really makes this scene.  You get a slow-speed buildup before the actual chase.  Then the seat belt gets fastened, and that's when you know things are about to get serious, because no one wore seat belts back then.

Anyway, I think Fast N' Loud's recreation is a nice tribute to Steve McQueen and the movie.

Re-read is done

I've finished my re-read of Ruined Worlds, which means I've finished all the re-reads I needed to do in preparation for writing the second draft of book 4.  I fixed a few usage errors in the manuscript and made a couple of editorial changes.  Nothing major.  The file was remarkably clean, and I'm pleased with my ability to proofread my own work.  I've uploaded the corrected file to the various retailers, so it'll be live according to their timetables.

Now it's time to start the major surgery.  The second draft is where I add scenes, delete scenes, and shuffle scenes around.  My goal is to finish it by Thanksgiving.

Progress report

I'm nearly done with the re-read of Ruined Worlds.  I expect to start the second draft of book 4 this weekend.

I've got some soreness in my right pectoral muscle, and I don't know why.  All I did today was mow the leaves.  Nothing strenuous.  :/

I did a three-promotion "promo stack" back in early September.  The hoped-for tail didn't materialize.  I won't be doing any more promo stacks unless they're in conjunction with a Bookbub.

I still can't figure out what I want to do about audio.  There are several different options, but all have significant downsides.

There's been almost no rain for the past two months.  Temps are cooler now--daily highs are around eighty--but still, we could use a little rain.

I'm close to the age my great-grandfather was when he registered for the World War I draft.  He wasn't drafted, and that's no surprise.  After the age of forty, the body starts to fall apart.  I couldn't imagine joining the military today in my current physical condition.

I'm eager to finish book 4, but the busiest time of the year is approaching, so who knows how much progress I'll make.  If I can finish the second draft before Thanksgiving, then I'll call that a win.

ZZ Top is doing a 50-year anniversary tour.  Fifty years together as a band!  That's forever in rock years.  Congratulations to that little old band from Texas.

That's all for now.  Take care, folks.

First cool day

Today was the first day of the fall that actually felt like fall.  The high temps have been in the nineties for all of September and October.  Today's high in the low eighties felt almost chilly.  Just goes to show how the body adapts, I guess.

As of yesterday, there was at least one hummingbird still around.  I expect her to move on soon.  It's rare to have one stick around after October 15.  The males have been long gone; I haven't seen a male since early August.  Only the females have stuck around this long.  Kind of weird, but whatever.  Have fun in Mexico, my little feathered friends, and I'll see you again in the spring.

They say you can predict the severity of the coming winter by observing the plants and animals.  Trees produce more acorns in anticipation of colder winters, etc.  That sort of thing.  I don't know how much stock to put in that, but it's an interesting theory.

Broker wars

I logged into my TD Ameritrade account today and was surprised to see a banner announcement at the top of the page.  It said that $0.00 commissions were now a reality. 

I was skeptical. 

I clicked on the "more details" link, expecting to find a catch in the fine print.  I found no catch, though, other than the usual added fees for broker-assisted trades and option contracts.  It looks like it is what it appears to be: free online trades for stocks and ETFs.

I was curious as to what spurred this radical change, so I did some quick googling.  It turns out Charles Schwab made an identical change earlier this week.  TD Ameritrade simply matched their policy.

Here's an article about it:

https://markets.businessinsider.com/news/stocks/3-major-brokerage-stocks-18-billion-wiped-out-fee-war-2019-10-1028574665

Basically, the two brokers--three, actually, now that E*Trade joined in, too--seem to be playing a game of high-stakes chicken.  I suppose one of them will flinch when it can't afford to keep the lights on any longer.

I don't know how this will end, but I'll enjoy the free trades in the meantime.  I'm mostly an investor, not a trader, so I only average a handful of trades every year, but this change still amounts to a few extra bucks in my pocket.  Thanks, TD Ameritrade.  :)

Corrected book 2

I've finished my re-read of Mind Games and have now uploaded the corrected file to the various retailers.  There weren't any typos, and there were only a few usage errors, so the file was already pretty clean.  Anyway, it's better now.

Next task: re-read book 3 and take notes.  Once that's done, I should have all the notes I need to begin the second draft of book 4, which I'm frankly kind of anxious to get to.

In related news, the online validator I've been using to validate epubs is no longer working.  I've found another site, though, so hopefully it will prove to be just as good.

Progress report

I'm about halfway through my re-read of Mind Games.  I'm taking notes along the way, as I mentioned before, but I'm also correcting whatever goofs I find in the manuscript.  It's pretty clean, but it's not perfect.  I think I've found three usage errors so far, as well as one minor inconsistency.  Once my re-read of this book is done, I'll upload the corrected version to the retailers.

I'm anxious to start the next draft of book 4.  I also need to allocate some time to cover design.  The covers for 4 and 5 are done, but I still need to do the last two, and these things take me a long time, so I have to start early.

I want to live in this video

This looks like the coziest place on Earth.  I'm not sure if I want to try putting it on as background noise or not, though, while I'm trying to do authorly stuff.  I'm afraid it might put me to sleep.

Meh, what the heck... I'll give it a shot and see what happens.

Finished the first read-through

I just finished my read-through of Hostile Planet and the notes I took during the process.  I found three usage errors, too, so I made those corrections and will be uploading the corrected file to the various retailers.

Now on to Mind Games.

Fun fact

If you look up Rachel, Nevada on Google Maps and use the street view function, the little stick-figure dude is replaced by a flying saucer.  :D

Seriously, check it out for yourself.

A peaceful conclusion

Looks like the Storm Area 51 thing ended without anyone getting gunned down or otherwise hurt.  I'm glad.  This had the potential to go haywire really fast.

Insect adventures, part 2

I had another creepy encounter.  This time, it was a house centipede.  The thing was on the ceiling in the bathroom over the tub.  I was about to get a shower, but I wasn't about to do it with that little monster lurking above my head.  Remember in the movie Arachnophobia when the woman is in the shower and the spider takes a ride down between her breasts?  Yeah, that was on my mind.  I'm not a woman, nor do I have breasts, but I still didn't want some many-legged creepazoid using my body as a slip-n-slide.  I grabbed a tissue and prepared my attack plan.

The centipede must have sensed his peril, though, because he started moving.  Alas for him, he moved too hurriedly, and he lost his grip and fell.  That was a lucky break for me, because it meant I got to squash him on the bathtub floor instead of the ceiling.  You always want to smash these things on non-staining surfaces when possible.  I dispatched him post haste.

I think the spell of hot dry weather over the past few weeks is what's driving the critters inside.  That's usually the case.  Either too little rain or too much, and the creepy-crawlies go roaming in search of better conditions.  That's life in the Deep South.  It's a humid subtropical climate, and that means life in abundance, and that includes insect life.

There's no rain on the horizon, and highs are going to climb back into the low 90s, so I expect more buggers to invade my territory.  But that's all right.  I'm ready for battle.

It's so freaky...

...when you're sitting in your chair with your laptop on your lap, reading something on the internet, and then a spider descends on a filament of web right in front of the screen.  This isn't the first time it's happened, either.  Maybe they're attracted to the backlit screen or something.

This spider was a tiny one, so no big deal.  I didn't even kill him.  I just snagged the web filament and dragged him over to the carpet.  Maybe he'll eat a silverfish or something, though I doubt it.  Nothing seems to control the silverfish.

In other news, it's supposed to cool off this week.  Highs only in the low eighties.  Looking forward to it.

Started my read-through

I'm re-reading books 1-3 of Wheel of Fire for the purpose of taking notes about things that I think will be important later.  Once that's done, I expect I'll start the second draft of book 4.

It's coming together, folks.  It's slow, but it's coming together.

Semper Paratus

Nicely done, Coast Guard.  :D

Fantastic Journeys

My book Clouds of Venus is part of a group promotion.  All books in this promotion are FREE.  Check it out:

https://storyoriginapp.com/to/2Siur7h

New markets

My books are now live on Odilo and Bookmate.  To see what the product pages look like, here are the links for Clouds of Venus:

Clouds of Venus on Odilo

Clouds of Venus on Bookmate

Thanks to PublishDrive for distributing my books, and thanks to the retailers for making them available.

Progress report

I think I've finished my outline for book 5.  I'm working on the outlines for books 6 and 7.

I'm going to have to go back and re-read books 1-3 to make sure I'm not missing anything or screwing something up.

I'm also still uncertain about titles.  The book 4 title is set, and so is the book 6 title, but the other two are still in flux.  The working title I have for book 5 would be better as the title for book 7, so I think I'll make that switch and then come up with a new title for book 5.

I purchased some audiobook covers for the Free Space trilogy.  I'm still not sure what to do about audio, but I wanted to have the covers on hand anyway.  That way, when/if I do decide, I'll be ready to go without delay.

I sketched out a little bit of a synopsis for a trilogy I'd like to do after Wheel of Fire.

Books 6 and 7 need covers, so I'll need to see to that at some point.  It takes me many iterations to come up with a cover that doesn't suck, so I have to start way in advance.  Perhaps someday I can afford to hire Jeff Brown to do my covers, but today is not that day.

I was thinking recently about how good it feels to have a completed series under my belt.  Lots of authors write book 1 and then get discouraged when it doesn't sell like hot cakes.  They then abandon the series they had planned.  Amazon's Kindle store is littered with unfinished series.  I think simply completing your series is a good way to stand out from the crowd as an author.

That's all for now.  I've got an incoming hurricane to fend off.  ;)

Author interview with NFReads

I recently did an author interview with NFReads.  Check it out:

https://www.nfreads.com/interview-with-author-jeff-tanyard/

Before there was a Red Wedding

There was The Transformers: The Movie, an animated feature from 1986.

Think I'm exaggerating by comparing it to Game of Thrones's Red Wedding?  Consider:

The Transformers tv show had run for two seasons prior to the movie.  The kids who watched it had grown attached to the protagonists.  The characters were animated robots, but they still had personalities, and that made them essentially human.  The kids all had their favorites.  None of the transformers ever died.  It was a "safe" show, right?

Then the toy company decided to promote a new line of transformers, and that apparently meant killing off the old ones.  That's what happens in the movie.  The Decepticons slaughter the first-generation Autobots.  They even kill the medic, man.  The medic!

Basically, the whole cast is turned over and shaken out, and what's left at the end is a bunch of strange robots the kids didn't know anything about.

Here's the shuttle attack where several Autobots are killed.

Later in the movie, more Autobots are killed in an attack on Autobot City.  Even Optimus Prime, that most beloved of transformers, would get killed off.

It was a brutal movie, especially considering the age of the target audience.

So tired

I'm coming off a migraine, and it's left me weak and drained.  It wasn't a bad headache as far as the intensity of the pain goes, but it lasted nearly twenty-four hours.

I'd like to get some outlining done tonight.  I may need a catnap first, though.

Migraines suck.

Plumbers earn every penny

I just got done unclogging my bathtub drain.  I used a marvelous invention called a Zip-It.  It's a plastic thing with little barbs on it that grab the hair on the way back out.  It absolutely works on hair clogs, though if your clog is sludge only, with little or no hair mixed in, then this probably isn't the right tool for your clog.  The Zip-It is a one-time-use tool, because the little barbs tend to break off as you use it.  They're cheap, so get a few and store them away for when you need them.

The good news is that, thanks to the Zip-It, I succeeded at the task.  The drain is unclogged now, or at least it's a lot less clogged than before, because the water is moving through it noticeably better.  The bad news is that it's still plumbing-related stuff, a disgusting job, and I hate doing it.

I could never be a plumber.  I admire those guys; I really do.  They spend their days up to their necks in other people's effluvia.  They tolerate the most vile stuff imaginable, and they do it day in and day out.

Plumbers are the unsung heroes of civilization.  Without them, we'd be back to carrying water up from the creek and using outhouses.  They make first-world living possible.

Thanks, plumbers of the world, for doing a dirty but eminently valuable job.

Trying new markets

All right... after the Google Play/PublishDrive thing back in April, I took my books down from GP and basically didn't use PD at all until I decided what to do.  Well, I've decided.  I just republished my books via PublishDrive.  I'm sending them to the following retailers, all of which are new to me:

Bookmate
Gardners
Odilo
Ciando
Esentral

Thanks to Joe Malik for helping me decide on these.

I have no idea what to expect from these stores.  Perhaps I'll make some sales there.  Perhaps not.  Only time will tell.  I've priced everything the same as on Amazon.  Clouds of Venus will be free.

The folks at PublishDrive are currently on vacation, so they just have a skeleton crew running the place for the next couple of weeks.  I uploaded and republished my books, but PD won't actually send them to the stores until the full workforce gets back.  So it will be several weeks before my books appear at any of the aforementioned retailers.  That's assuming, of course, that there aren't any snags along the way.

Anyway, that's that.  One more item off the to-do checklist.

Wise Blood

I recently read Wise Blood by Flannery O'Connor.  I have mixed feelings about it.

The good:

O'Connor writes easy-to-read sentences that pack a punch.  She employs bizarre adjective/noun combinations, things like "rat-colored car" and "cat-faced baby" that create instant and striking visuals, what some might call Eyeball Kicks.  I like these things because they're different and weird and give the prose distinction.

The characters are creative to say the least.  No cardboard cutouts here.

O'Connor dips into the human psyche in a way few authors do.  She makes it seem real.  She arguably had a better handle on the dark side of humanity than today's popular horror authors do.

The book was riveting from beginning to end.



Okay, now the bad:

The characters are all horrible people.  They're lunatics and psychos and criminals.  There's no one for the reader to empathize with.

There's not really a plot.  It's all just "people doing things."  I know this is typical for literary fiction, but that doesn't mean I have to like it.

There's not a satisfying conclusion.  Again, typical for lit-fic, but I still don't like it.



Conclusion: This is one of those books that I'm glad to have read but won't be reading again.  I'm a native southerner, but the South of this book isn't the South I know at all.  It's familiar in color but alien in texture.  Of course, I don't hang out with criminals and psychopaths, so there you go.  Either way, O'Connor's talent is obvious, and she is rightfully lauded.

First draft is done

The first draft of book 4 of Wheel of Fire is complete.  Word count is just over 78,000.

As I've said before, I add material during revision, so expect the final product to exceed 100,000 words.

Anyway, I'm glad it's done.

Next on the agenda is some author chores.  I have no idea when I'll get to the second draft.

Tension, apprehension, and dissension

I was curious about something.  I have a print copy of Alfred Bester's The Demolished Man.  That book is famous, in part, for its use of weird typography.  I wanted to know if the digital copy had faithfully reproduced those quirks or not.

The answer is "yes and no."  Some of the quirks were scanned and cut-and-pasted into the digital file as images rather than text.  They have non-white backgrounds setting them apart from the rest of the page.  So they're there, but they're obviously not typed, and it makes the book look, in my opinion, a little clunky.  This is what it looks like in the Kindle previewer:

 And this is what the print version looks like in the preview:

Another example:

The print version:

Also, at least one of the instances was goofed.  Consider this selection from the Kindle previewer:

The "S.O.S." part is accurately reproduced.  The "SNOW" is copied and pasted from the print version.  But the "Blessings!" part is wrong.  It's correctly in bold type, but it's not the correct font.  In the print version, it looks like this:

So what conclusions can we draw from all this?  I don't know, other than "use standard type."  Yeah, these quirks are fun and all, but this is the digital age, and reproducing that stuff in an ebook file is going to present some challenges.  I suspect the digital version of The Demolished Man used the cut-and-paste method so that the words would actually render across a wide array of devices.  Not everyone has the same fonts installed, you know.  Images are universal.  But they're still images, not text, and they look out of place.

And, of course, the person doing the file conversion might miss something, as was the case with "Blessings!"  Or maybe it was intentional; maybe that person figured the unusual font was more trouble than it was worth and edited it accordingly.  I hope that's not the case--Bester was a subtle writer, and even seemingly insignificant things were meant to have underlying meanings--but you never know.

Anyway, I thought it was an interesting comparison.

If you like science fiction, you should definitely read The Demolished Man.  It's a police procedural with telepathy.  It was the inspiration for the Psi-Cops in the tv show Babylon 5.  The character of Mr. Bester in that show was named after the author of the book.  And the story's got a neat jingle:

"Tension, apprehension, and dissension have begun."

Progress report

Man, I am so close to the end of this draft I can taste it.  My progress has crawled, though, because I'm trying to get it right, which means I'm trying to make everything mesh with what's coming in later books, so it's kind of a tightrope act.  But I'm getting there.  I'm getting there.

Word count is over 71,000.

Once this draft is done, I'll need to redo the outlines for the remaining books, so it'll be a while before I start the second draft of book 4.  But I feel like I'm over the hump as far as the series goes.  If it ends up being seven books like I think it will, then I'm past the halfway point.

I don't really need a war hammer

But I'm tempted.  This one looks pretty awesome.  Amazon offers so much cool stuff.

My problem is that I would want to destroy things with it, and I don't have a lot of stuff that needs destroying.

Probably best to resist temptation in this instance.

One small step for man

Fifty years ago, man set foot on the moon for the first time.  Years from now, when the United States of America has ceased to exist, we will still be remembered by historians as the first nation, as Robert Howard might put it, to tread the virgin soil of Luna beneath our booted feet.

I was born in the 1970s, so I obviously missed out on these early space milestones.  My biggest "space" experience as a child was watching the Challenger explode on live television.  But in recent years, I've come to appreciate just how unlikely the whole moon landing was and therefore how impressive and fantastic it is that we pulled it off.  It really was a marvelous achievement.

Neil Armstrong has sadly passed on, but Buzz Aldrin and Michael Collins are still with us, and I hope they have a wonderful day full of fond reminiscences and celebrations on this day, the fiftieth anniversary of their mission's triumphant climax.  They deserve it.

One out of two ain't bad

Laptop just updated.  It was a Dell update, not Windows.  Lately, these Dell updates have been failing for whatever reason.  This time, though, one out of two updates successfully installed.  It feels like a victory.

In other news, I've finished outlining the remainder of book 4, so I can resume writing again.  I intend to push hard to the end and finish within a few days.  After that, I've got some author-related chores to do, including outlining the rest of the books in the series.  Once those chores are done, I'll start the second draft of book 4.

On the "storm Area 51" idea

Please don't.  I know it sounds exciting and all, but please don't do this.  Those soldiers aren't just there to look pretty.  They will arrest you if you venture too close to the base.  And if you resist arrest, they'll shoot you.

But even if that wasn't the case--even if the soldiers turn out to be all bark and no bite--the desert itself will try to kill you.  Dehydration is a thing.  Sunstroke is a thing.  So are scorpions and rattlesnakes and Gila monsters and whatever other perils exist out there.

It's not worth the risk, folks.  I know I sound like a party pooper, but please don't storm Area 51.

Meandering

So I've been taking a break from writing for the past few days in order to re-outline the remainder of the book.  And I'm making progress, too.  I've about decided how I want it to play out.

The problem with outlining is that it doesn't feel like I'm being productive.  I tend to measure productivity in terms of word count.  It feels like I'm meandering.

Thinking about generation ships, though, might have sparked an idea for a story.  And there's the other story I've been rolling around in my head for a while, too.  So I've got a few irons in my mind's fire.

So even though I'm meandering, I'm making progress of a sort.  I can live with that.

Generation ships

I've been giving some thought to the concept of generation ships, i.e. a spaceship that takes so long to reach its destination that it requires multiple generations of passengers for the duration of the voyage.  This has been done before in science fiction, obviously, but I've never done it, and I'm not sure I could do it due to the social issues involved.

The first issue is size.  How many passengers should be in that first generation?  We're talking about the seed of a new population here, so it needs to be enough people to prevent genetic issues relating to inbreeding.  A few dozen at the very least.  Preferably over a hundred.  The problem, though, is that the bigger the group, the harder it is to keep order.  Which brings us to the next challenge...

Government and economy.  What sort of system do they set up?  A command economy?  A free market?  Something in between?  How vital will production be?  Will the passengers have to grow their own food, or will there be decades' worth of prepackaged meals on board?  If the latter, then those rations will be used as money and as a means of oppression in much the same way that third-world dictators use food as a weapon.  There's also the possibility of spoilage.  Accidents happen, and all it would take is one incident to ruin part or all of the food supply.  A freezer short-circuits, a plague of rats gets into the pantry, etc.  Also, in this scenario, the population would have to be strictly controlled since the food supply is a zero-sum game.  There are many ways such population control can go wrong.  See China's One Child policy for a modern-day example.

If, instead of prepackaged food, they have to farm or herd, then some will produce more food than others due to differences in intelligence, education, work ethic, etc.  This will result in some families being wealthier than others, and that will spark envy, and that will spark crime.  The ship will need a police force.  It will need laws and rules and courts.  Human nature being what it is, bribes, blackmail, and threats will occur.  Over the course of generations, the potential for riots and rebellions grows.  There will be war.  Perhaps even genocide.

Or perhaps a command economy is instituted, in which case all food is collected and everyone is promised an equal share from the communal pot.  The problem with this is the same problem faced by the Plymouth Colony in 1623: famine and starvation.  Here's Governor Bradford's account:

“The experience that was had in this commone course and condition, tried sundrie years, and that amongst godly and sober men, may well evince the vanitie of that conceite of Platos and other ancients, applauded by some of later times; -that the taking away of propertie, and bringing in communitie into a comone wealth, would make them happy and florishing; as if they were wiser then God. For this comunitie (so farr as it was) was found to breed much confusion and discontent, and retard much imployment that would have been to their benefite and comforte. For the yong-men that were most able and fitte for labour and servise did repine that they should spend their time and streingth to worke for other mens wives and children, with out any recompence. The strong, or man of parts, had no more in devission of victails and cloaths, then he that was weake and not able to doe a quarter the other could; this was thought injuestice. The aged and graver men to be ranked and equalised in labours, and victails, cloaths, etc., with the meaner and yonger sorte, thought it some indignite and disrespect unto them. And for mens wives to be commanded to doe servise for other men, as dresing their meate, washing their cloaths, etc., they deemd it a kind of slaverie, neither could many husbands well brooke it. Upon the poynte all being to have alike, and all to doe alike, they thought them selves in the like condition, and ove as good as another; and so, if it did not cut of those relations that God hath set amongest men, yet it did at least much diminish and take of the mutuall respects that should be preserved amongst them. And would have bene worse if they had been men of another condition. Let pone objecte this is mens corruption, and nothing to the course it selfe. I answer, seeing all men have this corruption in them, God in his wisdome saw another course fiter for them.”

Of course, the government could make those people work.  But then you get into questions about what sort of world you're trying to build on the new planet and how slavery aboard the generation ship plays into that.  If you're going to institute a feudal or caste system from the outset, then the only people you'll get to sign up for the trip will be those who want to be harsh taskmasters and those who are desperate enough to volunteer for serfdom.  That's not a recipe for long-term success on an alien world.  Might as well just stay on Earth.

One of my biggest beefs with a lot of SF is the portrayal of human in space colonies as little more than saintly robots.  Where's the vice?  Where's the envy and covetousness?  Where's the corruption and oppression?  Where's the violence?  These things are endemic to the human condition.  You can gather a few individuals together for a little while without much harm, as we currently do in situations like the International Space Station, but when you're talking about a generation ship, you've got too many people involved for too long a time to credibly omit humanity's worst characteristics.  There's nowhere to go; everyone's stuck on the ship with each other.  There's no social pressure relief valve.  Given enough people and multiple generations in a confined space, there will be mass violence.

That's why I can't think of a way to make a generation ship work in a way that's socially satisfying.  Humans are simply too flawed to make it work.  On Earth, we can move to other countries, or move to the wilderness to live as hermits, and basically get away from each other if necessary.  That can't happen on a ship. 

If we go to the stars, I think it will have to involve cryo-sleep or ultra-fast travel or something else that allows us to get there in a single generation.  The faster, the better.

This table rocks

Okay, first a disclaimer: I don't have any sort of relationship with WORX whatsoever.  I'm simply a satisfied customer, no more, no less.  I paid full price for this thing.

Now, on to the product...

A few months ago, I purchased a WORX Pegasus folding workbench.  Amazon product page:

https://www.amazon.com/Pegasus-Multi-Function-Sawhorse-Clamps-Holding/dp/B01HREBZ3M/

This week, I've been using it to do some woodworking.  I used the clamps to hold pieces of wood in place while I drilled and sawed.  More importantly, I put some pressure on the edge of the table while using the jigsaw.  You never know, when sawing something that's hanging off the edge, if your table will start to tip over.  This table did not.  It remained solidly in place the whole time, even while I was pushing on the edge of it to hold the wood still.  That was what spurred me to write this post: its stability in the face of what could have been a challenging moment vector.

The table is lightweight for something its size and ruggedness.  It folds up nicely for carrying.  The only real negative thing about it is there's no carry handle.  I carry it by the waffle pattern of the polymer reinforcements instead.  That's a minor thing, though.  I can still truck it up and down stairs one-handed.  Product is all-around awesome.

If you need something like this, then I recommend this one.

Progress report

Still working on the first draft of book 4 of Wheel of Fire.  I reached page ten of my twelve-page outline, but then I had to stop.  The rest of the outline wasn't satisfactory.  I'm abandoning it.

I'm now re-outlining the last part of the book.  So the writing is on pause, but as soon as I've got the conclusion outlined, I'll start writing again.  This book is taking a meandering path to KDP, but it'll get there.

That's the good thing about being an indie author.  I can make changes whenever I need to, and there's no external deadline to cause me stress.  I sometimes wonder how many traditionally published authors turned in manuscripts that they knew were sub-par but couldn't be improved because they simply ran out of time.

Fiddled with Imagus

I may have stumbled upon the secret of making the Imagus add-on work much better.  Only time and some days of internet browsing will tell for sure.

If I'm right, though, then Imagus will now be as awesome as Thumbnail Zoom was.  Which was pretty awesome before Mozilla broke the add-on store.

In other news, there's been a ton of rain and lightning here over the past few hours.  I expect to hear news reports tomorrow about flash flooding and fallen trees and whatnot.

Update weirdness

My computer tried to install some updates from Dell recently.  Those updates failed.

Then it tried to install updates from Microsoft.  Those also failed.

I'm not sure what's going on or if I need to worry about it.  The computer works fine.  Updates are often screwy, so it's not beyond reason that they fail from time to time.  The timing of these two failures, though, and from two different sources, makes me start to wonder.

The good news is that I'm in the habit of backing up my work.  When I'm done writing for the day, I email a copy of the file to myself.

I actually haven't had many problems due to Windows 10.  I don't hate it the way a lot of people do.  I hope it stays that way.

Annoyances

There's some sort of buzzing insect trapped in the wall.  I don't know what it is or how it got there, but the buzzing is getting on my nerves.  There's nothing I can do about it without tearing a hole in the wall.  Poison would probably work, but that's not an option.  The last time I handled any sort of poison, I ended up with a food allergy soon after.  I don't mess with poisons anymore.

This isn't the first time it's happened.  There have been buzzing insects trapped in the wall before.  Eventually, they leave or die, and that's what will happen this time, too.  In the interim, though, I have to live with that nagging noise.

I know... first-world problems.

In other news, I've got over 58,000 words done in the current work-in-progress.  I'm on page ten of my twelve-page outline.  The end is near.  Well, the end of the first draft, anyway.

Fireworks already?

My neighbors have already started shooting off fireworks.  The Fourth is still two weeks away.  lol

Murica!  :D

In all seriousness, though, good for them.  I remember when fireworks were illegal here.  Now that the law has changed, let the folks have their fun.

I've been getting the urge

...to dig the sax out and start playing again.

It's been a long time, and my embouchure is shot.  The instrument would sound horrible until my mouth re-learned how to play.  It might even sound horrible after that, because it's an old horn with lots of mileage and I have no idea if the pads are still good or not.

But I still get the urge to try.  I was listening to some Glenn Miller tunes today, and I wanted to play along.

If money was no object, I'd probably buy a new horn.  A tenor sax this time, not an alto.  And after I got my playing chops back, I'd look into finding a group of some kind and doing public performances.  Rock, swing, whatever.  It's the fun of performing that matters, not the musical genre.

But money is an object, and so is time, so I can't indulge my flights of fancy just yet.  Maybe some day.

Progress report

I've got over 50k words down in the first draft of book 4 of Wheel of Fire.  Around 52k, I think.

This one is going to need some work.  I've been giving a lot of thought to what sort of book I want this one to be, and I'm not sure my outline quite hits those beats, so I might have to scrap some of the outline.  The good news is that I'm getting a more crystallized idea of what the book should be, so hopefully the writing will be easier as I near the end.

Cover is done, and I've decided on a title, so those things are out of the way.  Also, I've been working on the book 5 cover, and it might be done, too.

I've been very slowly making some notes for a new trilogy.  Once Wheel of Fire is done, I'd like to hit the ground running with the next series.

Amazon seems to be phasing out the also-boughts, and I've seen a decline in the rate of free downloads of Clouds of Venus as a result.  It sucks, but there's nothing I can do about it short of trying to get Amazon's CPC ads to work for me, and that's just not something I've been interested in investing the time and money in.  I'll probably have to do it anyway, but I'm really not looking forward to it.

Four months after the Featured Deal, I'm still picking up new followers and recommendations of Clouds of Venus on Bookbub.  Feels good.  Thanks, Bookbub members, and long live Free Space!  :D

A clear night brings success!

I went outside with the binoculars again tonight.  This time, the air was clearer and less humid.  I looked at Jupiter, and lo and behold, I saw four moons!  Two to the left, two to the right, making a straight line that slanted down from left to right.  Freakin' awesome.

For the record, the binoculars only magnify up to fifteen times, so anything with that power or greater should be sufficient.

I feel like Galileo or somebody.  Pretty exciting stuff.  :D

Jupiter is in opposition

Our solar system's largest planet is currently close to Earth and big in the sky.  Apparently, one should able to see some of its moons with just a pair of binoculars.  I tried, but no dice.  It's a hazy, humid night, so that might be the reason.  Also, whenever I tried to look at Jupiter, I simply couldn't hold the binoculars steady.  The planet danced all over my field of view like a lightning bug on cocaine.  I'll try again tomorrow night.  Maybe the air will be clearer.

A telescope would be a better tool for stargazing than binoculars, but I don't have a telescope.

Anyway, if you've got clear air where you live, see if you can find Jupiter's moons.

Also, for a cool and free astronomy program, download Stellarium.

A new milestone

I made my first ever money from Scribd last month.  Just got the sales report from D2D today.

Thanks, Scribd readers!  I hope you enjoy the books.  :)

Browsing for cameras

Technology advances at a rapid pace, particularly in the realm of consumer electronics.  If something you want is too expensive, just a couple of years.  The new latest cutting-edge thing will be out, and the thing you actually want will be marked down considerably.

Unfortunately, this trend doesn't seem to be holding with respect to camcorders.

One would think that 4k camcorders with optical zoom would be plentiful and affordable.  Browsing Amazon gives a different impression.  Lots of digital zoom; not so much optical zoom.  Lots of no-name brands I've never heard of.

My theory: smart phones are to blame.  People use their phones now for everything photo- or video-related, which means the market for dedicated cameras and camcorders has stagnated.  I think this is unfortunate for several reasons.  One, you're putting your stuff on the cloud instead of on a memory card, which means Big Brother sees your pics and vids before you do.  Two, in addition to Big Brother, there's the matter of hackers.  Three, you can only pack so much into a smart phone's case, so the technology will always be inferior to that of a dedicated camera.

On the other hand, thinking about WiFi and smart phones and the cloud and all this other stuff has given me some story ideas.  Silver lining, right?

I found a childhood friend tonight

On a whim, I decided to google an old friend.  I haven't seen or talked to him decades.  We lived in the same neighborhood as kids, but he lived a couple of streets over, so he wasn't one of my closer neighborhood friends.  He moved away after our freshman year in high school, and that was the last I heard of him.

He apparently joined the military after high school and had even become a grandfather.  I've never even had kids--something I still hold out a slim hope of doing--and this guy who's the same age as me already produced the next two generations of his family.  I'm envious and full of bitter regret for the years I've wasted.

I don't remember if he ever told me he was moving away or not.  I also don't know the circumstances involved.  Did his parents divorce?  Did one of them get relocated due to work?  No idea.  Whatever the case, he simply disappeared from my life.

It wasn't hard to find him on the internet, though.  His obituary was on the very first page.  He died last year at the age of forty-three.

I found a childhood friend tonight.

Sometimes I get stuck

Like now.  I'm trying to write this fight scene, but it just doesn't want to come together.  If I can just power through it, then it should be clear sailing for the next few scenes.

I'm tempted to seriously wound the protagonist just out of spite.  In fact, after a moment's thought, it might actually serve the story.  I think I'll do it.

But I still have to get him from point A to point B, and that's the hard part.

Some nostalgia

I was trying to remember something.  It was a commercial about a guy whose scarecrow wasn't getting the job done, so he built a new one.  After some searching, I finally found it.  It's a Vault energy drink commercial.

Even after all these years, I still love the idea of a farmer building a robot scarecrow.

Feels like July

It's been unseasonably hot.  Weeks without rain and temps in the mid nineties.  The soil is baked hard, and the lawns are already starting to discolor.

Saturday will be cooler.  High is only supposed to be 85.

We need some rain, though.

On the plus side, the evenings have been very pleasant.  It's nice to sit outside at dusk and listen to the cicadas buzz and the bullfrogs croak while watching the lightning bugs blink on and off and smelling the aroma from the gardenia flowers.

It might be blazing-hot summer already, but summer still beats winter every time.

Back in contacts

It's nice to be able to see again.

I should probably get Lasik or something.  The problem is that I'm really not comfortable with having a laser beam shot into my eye.

You know what would be ideal?  I pill that improves your vision.  Some sort of retrovirus thing, perhaps.  I don't know.  But there's got be a non-invasive way of doing this, even if it's just theoretical at this point.

In the meantime, I'll count my blessings.  For most of history, people with poor eyesight simply had to live with it.  I have the luxury of corrective lenses, and it makes a world of difference.

Accidentally stabbed my eyeball again

So frustrating...

All I was trying to do was put my contact lens in.  But something went wrong, and the lens went in edge-first.  Now my eye has a mild stinging sensation, and I'm stuck with wearing glasses for the next few days while the cornea repairs itself.

This isn't the first time this is happened, and it won't be the last.  But it still sucks.

To all you people who have naturally perfect vision: don't take it for granted.  It's a gift.  A marvelous one.  Always be thankful that you don't require corrective lenses or laser surgery like so many of the rest of us do.

One day more

One more day until Game of Thrones reaches its conclusion.  One more day to guess who--if anyone--will sit on the Iron Throne when the end credits roll.

One day more!

Crossbows

After watching that Euron "Bowmaster" video, I sort of want a crossbow now.

Amazon offers a large selection.  I have no idea what I'd prefer, though.  There are shoulder-fired crossbows, but also pistol crossbows, and I can see the merits of both.

It also occurred to me that I could go to Home Depot, get some lumber and fasteners and some rope, and maybe build my own ballista.  The problem with that is that it might be too big to fit through a door, so I'd have to leave it outside, I guess, and that's not very appealing.

I suppose I could build my own crossbow.  I'd have to use metal springs instead of flexible bow arms.  Of course, a really fancy crossbow would be a repeater.  Sort of like a revolver, except with bolts instead of cartridges.  I found this instructable for a repeating crossbow, but it uses a stack magazine that sits atop the thing, and I'm not really crazy about that design.  I'd prefer a mag under the firing level.  A rotary mag, a left-side cocking lever, and a forward bullpup-style pistol grip would be the bee's knees.

I probably won't get a crossbow, or build one, but it's fun to muse about.

This is funny

Spoiler alert: contains images from the recent Game of Thrones episode.

Walmart's search engine has improved

Last August, the big Walmart/Kobo partnership began, and books listed on Kobo appeared on the Walmart website.  The indie author community was abuzz about the possibility of selling books to a whole new market.

Unfortunately, there were some snags.  One of those snags was the search engine.  In order to find my books on Walmart's site, I had to put quotation marks around my name in the search field.  If I didn't, then I'd get results for more famous Jeffs like Bezos and Dunham.  Even with the quoatation marks, though, I still didn't get my books.  I'd get results for "Jeff Tankard," and the products would be beer steins and such.  I had to click on the "did you really mean to search for Jeff Tanyard" link to see my books.

Now, though, something has changed.  I can type my name in--without question marks--and my books appear in the results.  No fuss, no muss.  This is exactly the way their search engine should behave.

So, thanks, Walmart, for tweaking your search engine.  :)

Now I just have to figure out how to make sales there...

Thanks, Kobo!

Looks like Kobo has done away with the Captcha thing.  That's good.  I hate the Captcha thing.  Smart move on Kobo's part to get rid of it.

In other Kobo news, the Free Space trilogy box set goes on sale on Kobo on May 8.  Kobo customers, here's your chance to get it at a discount.

Had a scare

I had a scare tonight.  My laptop stopped working suddenly.  I got the Dell version of the BSOD.  It restarted and told me no hard drive was found.  Then it shut down on its own.  I waited about thirty seconds and then turned it back on.  Everything booted up normally, thankfully, and all seems well now.  Still, the incident gave me a jolt, and I don't like jolts.

In other news, I'm back on Firefox.  The addons glitch has been fixed.  Hopefully Mozilla will learn some lessons from this and reevaluate how they handle addon signatures.

Watching Game of Thrones and reading about the fans' reactions has given me lots of ideas about what not to do as a writer.  Thanks, Benioff and Weiss, for the unintended craft tips.

Progress on book 4 has slowed, but for good reason: I've had to think through some things.  I'm in the middle of a battle scene, and it's not easy to keep everything straight when you're dealing with so many people and motives and variables.

I had a couple of promotions last week, but they didn't perform as well as I had hoped.  I'm reevaluating my promotion strategy.  I really don't want to have to invest the time and money in CPC ads, but it might be unavoidable if I want to make a viable career out of this.  Still mulling all this stuff over.

That's all for now.  Later, folks.

First post from Brave

I've been meaning to give the Brave browser a try for a long time.  Mozilla decided to wreck Firefox tonight, so I figured this was as good a time as any.  I downloaded Brave and am currently using it.

On the plus side, installing was pretty easy.  Importing bookmarks and saved passwords was insanely easy.  On the downside, the scrolling seems a little clunky.

The security settings... well, I have no idea what to think about those yet.  Too different from Firefox.  Only time and use will tell.

Are addons available?  I don't think they are, and that's the biggest flaw.  That's where Firefox excels: the vast selection of addons for almost infinite customization options.  I'll be going back to Firefox as soon as Mozilla fixes what they broke.

For now, though, I'm giving Brave a shake.  And it's always nice to have multiple browsers available if you need them, because disasters happen, and you never know what might come in handy.


UPDATE:  Looks like I can use Chrome extensions in Brave.  I have no experience with Chrome, so this is all new to me.  I might have to browse around the selection a little.

Progress report

I've broken the 30,000-word mark in this first draft.  I'm on page six of my twelve-page outline.  I'm pleased with my progress and the word-count rate.  I add a lot of words during revision, and my goal for this book is a word count that is close to 100k, so I'm right on track.

I've taken very few notes so far.  Usually, I take notes during the writing of the first draft, and then I go back over those notes when doing the second draft.  Very little in the way of additions or modifications has occurred to me this time, though.  That's good, I think.  It means I'm getting better at outlining.  It also means the second draft should take less time to write.

The past week has seen increased action at Barnes & Noble.  After the Bookbub and prior to this last week, I was getting downloads of Clouds of Venus in the 1-4 range per day.  This past week, though, that rate jumped up to 20-40 per day.  I'm very pleased with this development.  Getting traction there will mean I'll have momentum on three retailers instead of just two.  Thanks for your support, Barnes & Noble readers.  :D

I still need to re-write my outlines for books 5-8 of the series, but I've got a pretty good idea of how I want the plot lines and character arcs to wrap up.  If I pull it off, it'll be awesome.  Let's hope I can pull it off.

That's all for now.  Thanks for reading, folks, and thanks for supporting my work.  :)

Health update

Good news for a change.  My neck no longer hurts.  I'm going to assume it was a pulled muscle or tendon or something.  It might have happened while I was sleeping and turned over in bed.  That would explain why I can't pin down when or how it happened.  Anyway, it seems to be over now, so that's good.

I've altered my diet and exercise routine slightly.  As a result, I'm digesting food better than I have in a long time, and I've gone two weeks without a headache.  This is a wonderful trend.  Let's hope it holds.

On the negative side, I accidentally stabbed my eyeball with the edge of my contact lens while trying to put it in.  So I'm stuck with glasses for a couple of days while the cornea heals.  Not the first time this has happened.  It's a minor nuisance, though, not a big deal.  By Saturday, I'll be back to normal.

I've also been battling some sort of itchy outbreak over the past several days.  Some auto-immune response or other, I guess.  It's getting better, though.  I've been taking diphenhydramine (generic version of Benadryl), and that seems to help a little.

I'm actually feeling optimistic about my health for once.  Let's hope this summer proves less sickly than the last one.  :)

Free books!

Clouds of Venus is in a group promotion called Sci-fi Fantastic.  All books are FREE.  The promotion is hosted by StoryOrigin.  Check it out:

Direct link:  https://storyoriginapp.com/to/oExWb4DN

Update

I've been splitting my efforts recently.  I've been working on book 4 of Wheel of Fire, but I also had some ideas for another story, so I've been jotting those down to see if I'm actually on to something.  And I might be.  On to something, that is.  Or not.  My computer is littered with story ideas, most of which will never come to fruition.

Exploring those ideas is necessary, though.  It helps keep my brain fresh.  And no one wants a spoiled brain.

Also, it looks like spring is finally here to stay.  Good riddance to winter.  I do a little bird-watching from time to time, and it's nice to be able to do it outside.

Late April really is a great time of the year.

Ah, the holly

I love the smell of holly flowers in the spring.  It might just be my second favorite flower aroma after Gardenia.  The holly tree here is currently in bloom, and the pollen-collecting buggers are all over it, and it's great to just stand there next to it, breathe deeply, and let the constant drone from the buzzing of insectoid wings lull you into a happy spring trance.

In The Lord of the Rings, the fellowship passes through what used to be the land of Hollin.  The road is lined with ancient holly trees.  Whenever I look at a holly tree, it always reminds me of that scene from my favorite novel.

My neck still hurts, but not as much, so I think I'm getting better rather than worse.  I'm calling it a win.

I'm nearly done with the third page of my outline, so I'm about a quarter of the way done with the draft, I guess.  Rough estimate, of course.  I've been stuck on the same scene for a couple of days, though, and it's driving me nuts.

Starting on the 23rd, and running for about a month, I'll be doing a group promo via StoryOrigin.  I've never used StoryOrigin before, so I don't know what to expect.  But it's free, so there's no downside as far as I'm concerned.

That's all for now.  Thanks for reading, and thanks for supporting my work.  :)

Progress Report

Well, the last several days have not been fun.  First, there was this whole brouhaha with Google Play.  Then I pulled a muscle in my neck.  Then, a couple of days ago, I had a migraine.  I've written very little in the month of April.  The work in progress currently stands at about 17,000 words.

I hope my body settles down over the coming days.  I hope I can move around more and get back to something approaching regular exercise.

On the plus side, I bought a new knife recently, and I like it a lot.  It's a Kershaw--my very first Kershaw--and it replaces a no-name knock-off folder I bought years ago that was on the verge of falling apart.  This is the one I bought.  It feels solid and robust in my hand--it's built like a tank, frankly--and I think it'll last me many years.  My first impressions of Kershaw are very positive.

As for the current book, I'm on page three of my twelve-page outline.

I'm still getting followers and recommendation notices when I log into Bookbub.  It feels really great, especially the recs, because that means the person who downloaded Clouds of Venus actually read it and enjoyed it enough to say so on the internet.

That's all for now.  Thanks for reading, folks, and thanks for supporting my work.

My neck hurts

I think it's a pulled muscle.  At least, I hope that's what it is, because the alternatives are far worse.  I'll assume a pulled muscle until I have reason to think otherwise.

This latest injury has given me a slight drinking problem.  By "drinking problem," I don't mean alcohol.  I mean I sometimes end up with stuff running down my chin.  That's what happens when your neck doesn't work the way it should, because those neck muscles affect the mouth muscles.

On the plus side... well, let's be honest.  There's no plus side.

Progress on the book has slowed to a crawl for several reasons.  I'll try to do better.

Progress has stalled

I've been unproductive lately.  This latest move by Google--and the decisions I've been forced to make--have distracted me, and it's hard to get back in the writing mindset.  It's always something, you know?  The world can't just tick right along in a regular fashion.  It always has to make things exciting.  I don't like exciting.  Like any good hobbit, I like peace and quiet and good tilled earth.

Strange how excitement has a way of finding me nonetheless.  Y'all wouldn't believe some of the things that have happened to me over the course of my life.  I can scarcely believe them myself.

My goals over the next week or so are as follows:

Once I'm sure my books are down from Google Play, I'll attempt to re-publish them to that platform via Draft2Digital.

Assuming I can get my books back on GP via D2D, I'll change the sidebar links to reflect the new locations.  I'll add the new links to my Bookbub Partner dashboard.  I'll add the new links to my StoryOrigin universal book link.

I'll take a look at the other platforms that PublishDrive distributes to and consider making my books available there.  It's a bunch of stores I've never heard of, including some in China, so my expectations for sales at those places is zero.  Anything above zero would be a bonus.  But not all those stores accept English-language books, and at least one only takes children's books, so I'll need to do some homework first.

So there we are.  Nothing ever comes easy.  I'm just doing the best I can.

And now I need to get back to the Wheel of Fire, because there's a war on in that galaxy, and the characters are sort of lost without my explicit direction.

I'm taking my books down from Google Play

I received a notice from PublishDrive recently.  Apparently, Google now requires PD's authors to also have a Google Publisher's account.  I have no interest in that for a variety of reasons, so I've taken my books down.  Or, at least, I've told PD to withdraw them, so it should happen in a matter of hours.

Once I'm sure they're down, I'll put them back up at Google Play via Draft2Digital.  I've already contacted D2D about it, and they told me that Google hasn't made any such demands to them as of yet.

I don't blame PublishDrive for this.  They had little choice in the matter.  This is all Google's fault.

Once the books are live on Google Play again--assuming, of course, that everything goes off without a hitch--then I'll update the links on the sidebar.

First hummingbird

Saw the first hummingbird of the season today.  :D

If you don't have a hummingbird feeder, then you don't know what you're missing.  Those things are fun to watch.  My advice would be to get the kind that has a place for the birds to sit while they drink.

And if you see a praying mantis on a hummingbird feeder, get rid of it.  (The bug, not the feeder.)  Mantises are cool insects, but they also stalk and kill hummingbirds.  Not kidding.

Corrected a few things

I've fixed a few things about the Wheel of Fire books.  A few typos, but also removing the series name from the titles.  I still have to do this for a couple books on Kobo, but I'll do that Tuesday after the current promotion is over.

I have no idea when the instructions prohibiting parenthetical stuff in titles were put in place.  It's either a recent thing and no one told me, or it's an old thing that I simply missed somehow.  Either way, I'm making the fixes so that the metadata's compliant everywhere.

I've also signed up at StoryOrigin.  I've joined a group and will be promoting Clouds of Venus as part of that group later in April.  We'll see how it goes.

Twenty years ago today

Morpheus gave us all the red pill and showed us the real world.

A movie like The Matrix might never happen again

Watching today, Neo seems like the poster boy for a disaffected Generation X, a non-conformist who escapes his dull life as a cubicle drone to become a god.

I can agree with that.

I never saw The Matrix in the theaters.  I saw the trailers on tv, but it didn't seem that interesting.  The trailers showcased the special effects, but that was it; nothing about the story.  I expected the movie to be shallow on plot and relying on explosions and martial arts to carry the day.  I figured it would be short-lived at the box office before quickly fading from memory.

Man, was I wrong. 

I eventually saw the movie later when it came to cable.  It's now one of my favorite movies of all time.

And in hindsight, the movie definitely seems to have represented a turning point in American cinema.  Perhaps even a peak of sorts.  Which, of course, was also a theme in the movie: according to Morpheus, 1999 represented the "peak" of our civilization, which is why the machines used that era as the basis for the Matrix.

As Cypher might say... what a mind-job.

Pollen season has begun

I'm not usually bothered by pollen.  This time, though, there's a "thick" feeling in my head and neck, and I suspect it's my lymphatic system trying to deal with the pollen.

I really don't want to get sick for the second time in a month.  Let's hope this stuff blows over quickly.

On the plus side, the weather has warmed, and once the pollen dies down, it'll be comfortable to sit outside and enjoy the great outdoors.

Thanks once more to Kobo's customer service for being so helpful and accommodating.  I've made a few sales of each book in this weekend's promotion.  If any of those readers are reading this, I hope you enjoy the Wheel of Fire.  And there's more of it to come, so stay tuned.

I found an article recently that I thought was fascinating.  It's about a community of Russian Old Believers living in Alaska.  Check it out:

https://weirdrussia.com/2016/02/04/alaskas-old-believers/

I've also been reading up on Enceladus, a moon of Saturn.  It's a big snowball, basically.  It looks like Hoth from The Empire Strikes Back.

It's also geologically active and experiences "cryovolcanoes."  Pretty cool, huh?

That's all for now.  Later, folks.