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.  ;)