Mechwarrior is real!

Check it out:

Finally added a new start for Mercury

A beta reader told me the story started out too slow.  He suggested I cut a good bit of the beginning out.  I didn't want to do that, yet I agreed that something had to be done.  So, instead, I'm doing an Ice Monster Prologue type of thing.  I'm adding a new first chapter that will hopefully serve as a hook to keep the reader reading until the action cranks back up again.

Started designing a magic system

I've started thinking about the epic fantasy series I plan to do at some point.  It's just preliminary brainstorming for now--I won't start on the first book for at least a couple of years.  But it takes time for ideas to percolate in my head, so I'm doing some rough sketching.  I want to have a decent magic system, so I'm putting thought into it now instead of trying to rush it later.

In the meantime, I'm trying to write some short stuff, too.  And I'm working my way through the Mercury book, trying to fix its flaws.  Nothing is finished, though, and that's frustrating.  It's one of my weaknesses--I start out strong but fade at the finish.

On the plus side, my Christmas shopping is done.  So there's that.

Winter blues

I tend to get a little melancholy this time of year.  I think I've got Seasonal Affective Disorder.  I try to sit in direct sunlight when possible for as long as possible, but that's not always feasible.  And it's been cloudy and rainy for the past several days anyway.  So I've had the blahs for a while.

So that's why I haven't been very productive.  It's totally not because I'm lazy.  Yeah... it's Seasonal Affective Disorder.  Not laziness at all.  That's my story, and I'm sticking to it.

Another crappy update

Firefox updated recently, and now the browser is having problems.  I don't know if it's a memory issue or what, but it's slow and things don't always load.  My Flash Control add-on is now unreliable, too, and I've turned it off.

I'm getting sick of this company constantly screwing things up.  It's like they're trying to drive me into the warm embrace of another browser.  And it may happen.  I may try one of the Firefox forks again.  I tried Pale Moon once, but didn't stick with it.  Maybe I'll try Brave or something.

/rant over

Nook links are updated

They're the D2D links now.  I haven't closed out my account with Nook Press, but I'm planning on using D2D for the foreseeable future.  Barnes & Noble still seems to be trying to figure out what kind of company it wants to be.  It's chaotic, and I don't want to deal with them directly until they get themselves sorted out.  I'd love for them to really put some effort into competing with KDP, but they haven't shown much interest in doing that yet.

I updated the Buddy file to include D2D's new-release notification thing.  I don't know if the link will change or not.

The holiday season is in full swing.  I like the holidays, but I sort of hate them, too.  I never get much done in December.

At least we got some rain.

First draft is done

I met my self-imposed deadline.  The first draft of Neutral Ground is finished.  It came in at just under 79k words.

Now I'm going to try to enjoy Thanksgiving.  No writing or revising or anything.  And I may take Friday and Saturday off as well, just because.

Come next week, I'll get back to the Free Space trilogy.  I'm not looking forward to it.  I've been working on those books for two years now, and I'm ready to be rid of them.  My goal is to get all three polished and ready to publish by the end of the year.