Did you know that…

If you took both of the novellas I’ve written and smushed them together you might almost get a full sized novel? The first book is on Kindle Unlimited, but I never released the second. Didn’t feel the need to. I figured if anybody cared for the first, it was because they had read bits and pieces of it here first, and I’ve made it well known that if you want Part Two for free all you had to do was comment to ask for it. And I’d ask for an e-mail address, burner or otherwise, and I’d send you the PDF free of charge, just because I’d be tickled pink that somebody might actually read it, other than myself, and various family members around the world. Now all I write are blog posts, and not very good ones at that. No sex, no drugs, and very little rock n’ roll to speak of. If you want depravity in your Science fiction then go read my books, or track down all fifty to sixty individual story posts in the archives.

The Company – A series of interconnected space short stories: Varied works of short fiction https://a.co/d/3uYvqJ2

Today is Day 800! Wow, great to be here, thank you. No applause needed. Wild ride. We have weathered travel, several deaths, a Jericho wind storm that knocked out power for 26 long hours, illnesses such as Covid, the flu, stomach bugs, and other such fun items. Not to mention a very busy work schedule, and most of my wife’s year off. And a whole lot of chatter about the weather. So much weather talk. Like being stuck in a line at the bank. How about this warm spell? So grey out. Can you believe the wind? My goodness. I do go on.

So what’s instore for my luxury conscious fan base, those accustomed to the finer points I love to elucidate for them. Well, not much. These big milestone dates seem to pile up, come & go without much fanfare. The daily habit became more important to me than hitting any one of these numbers. I do however, occasionally get suckered into watching the view count for dopamine hits, but I try to limit that. I don’t do this for any kind of notoriety. I do it to get stuff out and on record for myself, more so than for any body else. Maybe my kids might read some of this, but even that isn’t why I keep all of these thoughts written down. A legacy of thousands of words to litter the internet with. I’m doing my part. AI can suck it!

Day 800 of the write every day challenge, has a good ring to it, but other than that, isn’t of much use to me. I can’t use it on my resume, I’m not seeking work for copy writing, plus my style is loose, bordering on unpolished turd territory. A fair few of my characters all sound just like me, regardless of gender or orientation. Young, old, all me. Mean spirited, snarky, and a little too earnest. Say what you mean, mean what you say! I’m not good at writing mysterious people, or heists. So I don’t.  I write about being lonely, or sick, feeling isolated, and worrying about things bigger than myself. I try to steer away from technical jargon, as I’m not that guy. I do a fair bit of finger waving at physics and science in general. Plus I was writing very short stories, so being concise yet evocative was my jam, man.

Except in the case of the children’s illustrated book I’m making. I mean, it’s short too, but more silly and fun than my typical short fiction. Which reminds me I really do need to get those last eight pages drawn, and then post it here for posterity.

The steps themselves are more important than where I finally land. That is, unless somebody wants to option it for a series or a short film and I’ll change my tune for dollar, dollar bills y’all. I think I’d wind up winning the lottery before that ever happened, so there’s that. All I’m saying is, love the steps you are taking on the projects you do, and not the end result. Laurels aren’t for resting on. And other empty hokey sayings. Ciao Bella.

And coming in straight out of left field is…

A ruptured right ear drum, complete with a bloody, oozing mass from deep inside the ear. Wonderful way to wake up before 6:00am today. So far looks like no associated pain. Waiting for a potential fever, or any other signs of illness. Whee!

Today is Friday, of all days, so here’s hoping you all get those weekend plans you wanted. Whether that means they are cancelled, or actually moving ahead this time, is up to you. Your fantasy, your choice. Stay bundled up in bed in a blanket watching whatever you like with a cup of something in your hand, or out crushing it in a bar with bottle service, you enjoy yourselves.

This week has been a pretty good one as far as Summer Break 2023 is concerned. Visited a mine where we found all sorts of Amethyst crystals, went to the lake for a brief 3 day stay, swam in the lake, hot tubbed, went tubing with the kids on what ended up being the windiest and roughest day on the lake. Shipped off the wooden moose on Monday, and got that out of my shop after months of looking at it every time I went in there. Kids even went to the zoo twice this week. We need to pace ourselves a little better. Or else we will be run ragged by the end of week nine. Will need to nap all day the first week the kids go back to school if we keep this up!

In other news, I have started book #15 on my 12 book a year challenge. I was disappointed- again, by Mo Hayder. **SPOILERS AHEAD** The Treatment was well written, well paced, but the ending contradicts the first pages of chapter one, so I don’t know if she had written herself into a corner, or used the wrong name/character in the end to be the big bad, but it was a let down. I don’t understand why said big bad would go about trying to expose their own misdeeds. As it made no sense for the early iteration of the character, nor for the big bad version of that character at the end of the book. I don’t think that a very late stage admission of schizophrenia solves the problem either. And a split personality was not mentioned, nor played upon as a theme either. Sad. The Ritual was a bit anti climactic in the end also, so 0 for 2. Shame she’s dead, the author that is. There were loose ends I’d want to see tied off, but no such luck now.

But what do I know about writing eh? Not much. She made a living at it, had the book made in to what I can only assume was either a sterilized white wash, or a horrendous book accurate car crash of SA trauma by child predators of both sexes. Either way, no thanks. Not watching that.

Haven’t picked up my children’s book to finalize my last handful of drawings yet. I can feel the weight of the languishing project on the back of my shoulders. I fear it will take another 8 full hours or more to complete those last few pages. I need to break that into smaller chunks and try thinking of it as just a page at a time. Story is written, edited and finalized. Just being a slow hand with the artwork. I’ll post the pdf here once it’s done for all six of you to see. Ha. Or maybe I will add it, and Book 2 to my amazon kindle unlimited library, and see if I can sell one copy of each book to be consistent. Though I did scratch that itch when I wrote and published the first book of collected short stories. Far more people followed along and read them here for free than have done so on Kindle Unlimited. Go figure.

So I wrote a book of interconnected short stories set mostly out in space.

You can of course read most if not all of it for free when you search my archives, or if you are a Kindle/ Kindle Unlimited user you can read it all in one place on your handy device as you please for $.99 USD or $1.24 CDN or £.77 UK pounds. That’s as cheap as I can make it and still make it available in 11 different markets under Amazon.

Book is available on Kindle only at this point.