A New Release

One of my goals for this month was to get my next story collection, "Three Vampire Weekend" published in all of its written formats. Well, I am one third of the way there, because I put the eBook out this week!

You've heard of Three Dog Night and Vampire Weekend, well now it's time for Three Vampire Weekend. In this collection, there are three different vampire related stories: Servants of the Master, Door Approach, and Breaking and Entering. So, get yourself a copy and enjoy it this weekend!

It also has a few of my most recent stories in it, like "Karma Is My Boyfriend," which I did on the Anklecast just a few months ago, and the as yet otherwise unpublished novella, "The Elephant in the Room" that I wrote in January. So, if you're looking for new stuff, you can find it here. 

The list of stories in the book are: Karma Is My Boyfriend, One Million Miles, Servants of the Master, Onward to the Breach, That Damned Cat, Breaking and Entering, Bumps in the Night, The Frayed Ends of Sanity, Door Approach, and The Elephant in the Room.

If that sounds interesting, head over to Amazon and pick up a copy. Enjoy!

First Half Of May In The Books

Okay, it's the 16th, so I'm here to report on the first half of May. It's been a bit of a tough month, to tell you the truth. I haven't had any slip ups or missed any days, but each day has been a little tough to get my goal of 1,333 words per day. 

I have a bit of a malaise. I don't feel like writing right now. I do it anyway, which is probably pretty great. I guess I'm keeping with Heinlien's five rules, particularly rule number 2: You must finish what you write. I haven't quit on anything, but I'm not as excited to keep going as I have been with other things. I think a lot of it has to do with the fact that I was writing into the dark. I hadn't planned out my novel at all. I was just trying to feel my way through it, and that is a little daunting. Because of that, I'm going to have to go back and fix some stuff too, stuff that doesn't jibe with what I came up with later. I hate that kind of thing.

Anyway, here's how my month has gone so far:

It actually looks pretty good, doesn't it? Those are really good word count totals, and the cumulative monthly total is really great. 21,151 is good enough to flirt with turning this month into my all-time record word count month. I could easily make that. You can particularly tell when you look at my average word count:

For most of the month, my average has been the highest it's ever been. Only within the last few days has it dipped down to where it is merely challenging March for the best ever instead of being obviously the best ever. A few days of above average totals, and I'd be back up there again. Weird to think that such a thing is possible at a time when I don't even particularly want to write that badly, and I'm mostly doing it because of obligation to keep my goals.

Here's the rest of the year:

Yeah, that's hard to see six months worth of word counts, but you can click on it, and it will enlarge it for you if you really want to know how it's gone. Add that chart together to the one for May, and here is my year-to-date totals:

That's right, this half of the month put me over the 250,000 mark. That's pretty awesome. I'm getting so close. If I get another 20,000 words for the second half of this month, that would leave me with only 30,000 to get to 300,000. I haven't had a total that low since I started doing 1,000 words a day back in December, which basically means that June is the month when I will eclipse my yearlong goal. Six weeks from now, I'll have nailed it. That's pretty sweet. I remember in 2019-2020, the last time I achieved a goal like this, it took me all the way to the end of August to make it to the end. So, I'm doing a lot better this time.

Of course, how much I write isn't my only goal for the month. In fact, I listed them out in the last post. Goals for May:

1. 1,333 words per day, 41,323 in total for the month
2. Finish 64% of Battalion of Ideas audiobook
3. Publish eBook, paperback, and hardcover of "Three Vampire Weekend"

The first goal is coming well. How is the second one? Well, I'm doing okay. I've gotten four of the eight stories that I had to record and edit done, although they were the four shortest stories. The next four are much longer, and I fear that I won't make it on that. I'm going to try my best, but I'm a little dispirited about the whole thing. Not only do I have all of that audio to record and edit, but I still haven't started on this month's Anklecast, which has priority. I'm going to make it a little easier this time, but it will take time away from working on the Audiobook, so it will be even harder to achieve. I'm coming along, and making some progress though.

The third goal, publish the eBook, paperback, and hardcover of "Three Vampire Weekend" is coming along as well. I published the eBook yesterday, and it is now available if you'd like it. 

That took a lot of work, because it contains the novella, "The Elephant in the Room" which I wrote just a few months ago. It still needed all of the editing done to it, but I struggled my way through it, and hopefully, y'all will enjoy it. I'm getting the physical copies together. That will take several days as well. The cover design may take me a bit too. We'll have to see if I can manage to get them all published in time, but at the very least, I've got it partially published, and we're only at the halfway mark of the month.

I'll do a whole post about the publishing of the collection tomorrow, so you can hear a little more about it then. I suppose I ought to publish "The Elephant in the Room" in a standalone version as well. I guess there's another goal for the month to throw on top of the pile.

I may have overextended myself with the goals this time around. I tried to be ambitious without going too extreme, but I feel a little overwhelmed. The worst part about that is that it makes me want to avoid doing the stuff that would lead to achieving the goals. Very anti-productive. I'm pushing through, however, and maybe I'll even manage to achieve it all. Who knows? We'll keep trying, and I'll let you know how it went on the 1st of June.

Saxon Five

While I waited for my holds to suddenly all come in all at once, I found the next book in the Bernard Cornwell Saxon Stories series. The good thing about these books is that the later entries in the series tend to have no wait. I can just click Borrow instead of clicking Place Hold and waiting for weeks. So, they're my backup reads. I finish something, then while waiting for the holds to appear, I grab a Saxon Story and start listening.

That's what I did with this one, book five, The Burning Land.

Of course, I got a few hours in, and then all my holds starting becoming available on me, so I had to put the pedal to the medal and finish it before it was too late to check them out. I probably listened to the whole book, all eleven hours, in about three days. I've discovered that I can listen in a web browser as well, so I played it while editing on the news at work too, only pausing when I had to listen to sound from a bite or a package.

This book was right there with the rest of them. It's a great series and Cornwell is a great writer. He's really good with telling a tale of war and suffering filled with palace intrigue and great heroes and villains. This one wasn't the best in the series but it wasn't anywhere close to the worst either. There's still eight more books to go, and I'm looking forward to each new edition as I go. They are fun. 

That's my verdict, and I'll be moving on to the next one soon. Well, not that soon. The Rhythm of War is the book that came through on the holds this time, and that one is 57 hours long, so it's like listening to the first five of these Saxon Tales books. I guess it'll be a while before I'm in need of a book that will let me just click the Borrow button instead of the Place Hold button again.

ADF & BBBE Carnivore | Can't Reach One-derland. I Think I've Been Doing This Wrong | Week 50 Roundup

I'm so close, so very close, to One-derland. All it should take is one alternate day fast and wham! And if that doesn't work, then I should just extend it to 72 hours and wham! I've been a chicken, and tried to avoid that, but I should go for it right? Or maybe that's not the right way to go about it at all...

Making An Actual Difference?

My wife has a friend at work who has been having health problems and decided to try the carnivore diet. She kept asking me how it felt to have helped this woman come to carnivore, and whether I was proud to have shown her the way. Of course, it was a ridiculous thing to ask. I didn't even know the person. I think I might have met her once at one of my wife's work parties, but I could have walked past her five times a day for a year and never been able to point her out of the crowd. If anyone could be said to have made a difference with her it was my wife, who was telling her the stuff that she'd heard from me. Which is extra funny, because my wife doesn't subscribe to the carnivore diet and actively stands in the way of me trying to make our family healthier with it.

I've been doing my YouTube videos for years too, but I've never really felt like I was helping much with those either. For one, I was mostly documenting my failures and my inability to overcome that carbohydrate addiction that I suffered from. It wasn't until last May that I finally got my mojo and was able to put it behind me...I think this time for good.

I've been doing those YouTube videos through this whole process, but I never really felt like I was likely making a difference. Most of the people who watched me were already converted, already practicing to the best of their abilities. If they needed any knowledge or understanding, they would go to the big voices in the community like Dr. Berry or Kelly Hogan or Dr. Boz. The best that I could be was another guy that was similar to them, so maybe they didn't feel so alone?

But then I got this comment on my YouTube video from this week:

Oh my gosh, it was amazing! It’s the first time anybody has ever said that my videos have helped them or made a difference, and it feels so good to hear! That’s all I ever wanted with these things. Most everybody, even those closest to me, from my wife to my kids to my brothers and sisters all ignore me and look at me like I’m crazy to not eat vegetables and cake and donuts and soda, but there’s somebody out there that I helped, one person at least. I think that’s pretty neat. Too bad they live in California, so I’ll probably never even meet them, but it’s still neat.

You Gotta Be Kidding Me

I should never have made the goal to get my audiobook finished this month...well, half finished, I'll never finish the whole thing in one month...because as soon as I did, it's like all the bells of hell started ringing and the demons were loosed to prevent my ambition.

On Monday, I got up with big plans to narrate and record as many as four stories that morning, but the second I sat down, a horrible grinding mechanical rang out in my neighborhood. I looked and saw that my neighbor across the street had a crew of workmen redoing their hardwood floors. I don't know what the noise was exactly...it sounded like a reciprocating saw cutting through two by fours, maybe combined with a sander at the same time...the racket was dreadful, and it never quit.

I sat and waited, watching out the window for them to quit, but they kept at it, and the noise never completely went away. Sometimes it was quieter, but then it was punctuated by very loud sections in between. At last, however, one of the worker drove off in one of their trucks, then returned with bags of food. The noise stopped, and they all assembled around their table saw to eat.

I dropped everything, and ran to the study to record a story as quickly as I could. I was planning on doing the shortest stories first, and working my way steadily toward the longest ones, so I could probably finish a whole story or maybe even two in the time that they ate. I managed to spit out "The Tomorrow Bowl" before they finished, but seconds into doing "My Daughter's Balloon," they began sawing again.

I put everything away and gave up for the day, but after a while, I noticed that they weren't sawing constantly like they had been before. The grinding reciprocating saw sander noise had stopped. It looked like they were laying the floors now, and they only emerged now and then to cut a piece of the wood into the shape in needed to be to fit the space.

I decided to give it another shot. I could pause whenever they started the saw up, then continue when they were done. They only used the saw for a minute or two each time, so it could work. Well, I did manage to get "My Daughter's Balloon" recorded, but it may have been the most frustrating experience in all of my narrating career. Over and over again I had to quit in the middle of a sentence and stop to wait for the noise to pass. Then, of course there were the constant diesel trucks that everyone in my neighborhood seems to own passing by outside as well. Those things are so loud that I have to stop and wait for them to pass as well.

The worst was that our stinking cats kept doing stuff to exacerbate that. As if I didn't have enough noise to deal with, both cats decided they had to be in the room with me. One of them even pushed the door open by leaning on it, causing a loud, annoying creaking sound. Eventually, however, I managed to finish the recording. It took just over thirty minutes to record a story that's final run time was thirteen minutes, but I made it.

The next day, I decided that I would get started earlier, and hopefully beat those flooring guys to the punch...if they were coming back, that is. Turns out they didn't, and I was cruising my way the "The Wrong Ingredients" when a new noise echoed through the neighborhood

"No! I'm only five paragraphs from the end," I despaired. But there was nothing I could do. The noise was loud and constant. I turned off the recording and went out to see just what the hell I was dealing with this time. This is what I saw:

Crazy. As if the grinding reciprocating sanding saw wasn't loud enough, now we've got a full-on wood chipper grinding log sized branches to pulp just up the street. What the heck do I have to do to get a little peace and quiet? I'm never going to make it if I have to fight this hard every day just to record some narration.

Pray for me people. If nothing else, just pray for my sanity, because I'm on the verge of losing it in this venture.

Surfing With The Alien

I'm a rocker at heart. I love rock and roll. Put another dime in the jukebox, baby. It's what I love listening to the most. I listen to all sorts of music, but rock and roll is what owns my heart. I always come back to it in the end, and most of the music I prefer comes from that particular genre. From modern rock to classic rock and everything in between, I love it.

The stuff I like the very most, probably, is from the late eighties and early nineties, when I came of age. That particular brand of rock is definitely my favorite. It speaks to me the most of all. I love the soaring guitars and the insane virtuoso solos they play. Some of my favorites are people like Eddie Van Halen, Kirk Hammett, Joe Satriani, and Steve Vai. So, imagine my excitement when two out of the four guys on that list were coming in concert together.

My daughter and I went out to the 713 Music Hall here in Houston to see the Satch/Vai Tour this weekend.

It was incredible. I don't know if I could say which of the two guys I like best. Joe Satriani has so many amazing songs that I love. I could probably whistle them note for note...except when I get to the most intense parts of the solos when the notes come way too fast and furious for whistling to replicate. He's had dozens of songs that I love. Then again, Steve Vai's Passion and Warfare is likely my most listened to album of all time. I could play that album on repeat for the rest of my life and never be allowed another thing, and still die happy.

Of the two, I think I preferred Joe's performance. I think he just picked better songs from his repertoire to play. They were the most familiar and made me the happiest to hear. Steve picked songs from a wider diversity of his albums, which is fine, but, as I said earlier, Passion and Warfare is my favorite, and I wanted to hear more songs from that. We only got one, and that made me a little sad.

I love going to shows at 713 Music Hall, because it's a pretty small venue. You can get pretty close and have a great view. For this show, they put out chairs. I guess us rockers are getting pretty long in the tooth and can't stand for an entire show like we used to or something. I did see several people attending the show that had to walk with the use of a cane, so it seems to make sense. If there had been no chairs and the crowd could have compressed a little, though, I could have been twice as close, which would have been even cooler.

Sadly, the first ten minutes of the show I had to stand and move to the far side of the aisle to be able to see anything, because all the people who had arrived late or had spent their first minutes in the venue getting booze came wandering in and then stood in the aisle in front of me unable to see where their seats were in the dark. That was frustrating. We'd chosen the aisle seats because we thought we'd have less people to block our view, but that turned out to be the exact opposite of true.

This time around, I chose to not bother in recording even one song with my phone. I learned in the past that there was no need for me to record any songs. Everybody else in the crowd was doing it too, and they would post their videos to YouTube for me. I could let them do that work, and just experience the concert with my own eyes instead. Usually the people posting videos had better seats with better views and better sound than my videos anyway. For example, here's a video from the show's finale when both Vai and Satriani were out playing together. It's in 4k-60p, so it's not crap, and it's from much closer than I was sitting. So, I'll probably just download their videos and save them as my memories of the show.

These songs at the end were pretty amazing, but also pretty excessive. It was fun and funny at the same time to see these guitar masters go so insanely crazy with their solos. Each of the last three songs lasted about ten minutes a piece, because they would basically stop the song and let the two virtuosos perform dueling solos for minutes on end.

We had a great time, and really enjoyed ourselves. This was the third time I've seen Joe Satriani, but he first time I've managed to see Steve Vai. So, there's another tick off of my bucket list. My daughter is becoming a seasoned pro at concerts as well. A few years ago, she was lamenting the fact that she'd never seen any concerts, and was so jealous when I would tell her stories of the things I'd seen live. Now, she doesn't feel that way at all. We've gone to various concerts together since the pandemic passed and people were allowed to assemble again, and I think she's feeling like she hasn't missed out on a thing...well, except when I tell her that I saw Ben Folds play with the Utah Symphony at the Deer Valley Amphitheater with Rish Outfield, then she whines a little. That's one she wishes she could have gone to. She says she listens to that Ben Folds album a lot. Of course, she was only six then, so I think she wouldn't have appreciated it as much as she might now.

Dancing With The Alien

I've been listening to a lot of audiobooks recently. I got the Libby app on my phone and put a bunch of things on hold. They tell you how long you will likely have to wait to receive your book, and I used that to base my decision of how many holds to place, but then I learned that that guess of when the book will be delivered is totally wrong. What they should say is that all the books will be delivered to you on the same day, because that has now happened to me about three different times, even the books that it said would take months before they got to me.

Anyhow, something about this system has got me trying desperately to listen to the books as fast as I can. If I don't hurry, the next ten holds will come in, and I'll have to delay all of them again. It's a feast or famine thing. They all come at once, but then none come for two weeks, and then I have nothing to listen to in the interim. So, when they come, I want to be ready for them.

Anyhow, it's caused me to voraciously binge listen to these audiobooks, finding any possible spare moment that I can listen, and adding that to my routine. So, I've made it through a lot of books. Recently, the side novel from the Stormlight Archive series came up in my holds. That is Brandon Sanderson's series of massive tomes that I have been listening to as best as I can. The side novel is called Edgedancer.

Rish found a copy of it at a thrift store a few years ago, and sent it to me with the other various toys coming in a package for me. 

It's an interesting beast, because it's hardcover, but it's tiny. It's the size of a mass market paperback, but it's done as a hardcover.

I think it's because it was just supposed to be a little supplemental short story that Brandon Sanderson was doing to keep his fans happy when he found that he had some extra time during covid. Of course, since he's Brandon Sanderson...

It turned out to be waaaaaay longer than a short story. When he was done, he had himself another novel...a really short novel, but a novel nonetheless. So, he put it out that way.

Now, it's a novel that's short enough that even I could have wrote it. The Stormlight Archive series is know for audiobooks that run over fifty hours in length, but this one was only six hours and twenty-four minutes. So, I made sure to push it to the front of my holds, because I knew I could get through it quickly and clear up another spot in my holds queue.

It wasn't a bad book, but it certainly didn't light any fires in me. It contained none of the characters that we've grown to love in the series. What Sanderson does is tell the main stories of his books, and then intersperse those with vignettes of random characters that we've never heard of before and will never hear of again doing things that are semi-related in far flung corners of his world. This book is just another one of those vignettes that grew too big for its britches.

The main character doesn't appeal to me very much. At the end of the book in an author's note, Sanderson says that she is one of his favorite characters, and upon hearing that I just shrugged. To each his own, I guess. I found her to be annoying, and her character arc did not include becoming less annoying by the end.

The story was fine, but felt inconsequential. I've always hated those vignettes in the Stormlight Archive series, because there's no context for them, and they don't come back, so they feel like a waste of time. There is a little bit of a throughline to them here and there, but for the most part, I've forgotten what they were about before the throughline comes up, so I don't remember to connect the dots. Having a giant-sized vignette didn't make me extra happy or anything.

The biggest problem about the book is that I can't remember all the stuff that we learned about the world/magic/history and so forth since the last book...and I sure as hell don't want to go back and reread them to remember. The fuckers are longer than a standard work week. It might be best to just hold off on all of these books until the entire series is done, then spend a year or two bingeing my way through them, because then I would be able to keep the details in my memory long enough for them to matter when they come back up again later.

The book was fine, but no big deal, in other words. Sanderson is a fine writer, and the story was good, but it didn't move me like the main story has. I have the most recent main contribution to the series called Rhythm of War in my hold queue, and I'll probably be listening to it soon as well. I wonder if it will be a pleasant experience, or as frustrating as this one because I can no longer remember all the details. 

I expect it will be worse than this one, because it's also 57 hours long. Last time, I had to check the book out on two separate occasions to be able to finish listening. Maybe, since I've been bingeing so hardcore recently, that won't be the case this time, but I suspect it will. I'll have to listen as long and hard as I can, then put the book on hold and wait a few months to reach the front of the line to hear the rest.

A Massive Cover Up

Rish had me back on his show to talk some more about making cover art for the stories we've been publishing recently. This time we talk about the all new challenges and joys that come from employing AI image generators in the cover production process.

We talk about a dozen or so covers. To actually enjoy the podcast, make sure to have the blog post that Rish made with the images that we are referring to, otherwise the podcast will suck...er, I mean, it will suck even more.

You can find the show on the Rish Outcast feed, which you should definitely be subscribed to. You can also right-click HERE to download the show. Or, you can just press the play button below to listen right here and now.

ADF & BBBE Carnivore | Gotta Be In One-derland By Now, Right? | Week 49 Roundup

Okay, I didn't make it to One-derland last week, but it should be such a simple thing. I'm right on the edge, and I only have to weigh in under 200 one time, so surely I made it this week, right? Right?

Anklecast 66 - Euthanasia

The latest episode of The Anklecast is now up and available for all to hear on the feed. Check it out if you're so inclined. If you hate waiting, you can get it even earlier if you're a Patreon member. You can join for as little as $1. I don't want to be too forward, but it's probably something you should consider.

Trent and Brent were two children with rhyming names but vastly different life paths to travel. Brent was brilliant, a boy genius, destined to do something amazing, Trent was average and prone to mischief that would eventually lead him down a dark path of suffering and regret. Their paths would cross again, however, and when they did, Brent would be the one who didn't get it and Trent would be the one with the plan...

Afterward, Rish and I talk about whether certain things should be allowed in stories for entertainment or not. We also talk about our adventures in publishing, and let you know what's available now. Enjoy this if you can, and mind the trigger warning.

As always, thanks to Kevin McCleod at incompetech.com for the music. And special thanks to Rish Outfield, Jonathan Wilson. Tena Kolokowski, and Wendy Wilson for contributing their voices to the mix!

The episode can be found on The Anklecast feed right now, or to download the episode, right click HERE. Then again, you could just hit the play button on the embedded player below, and get it now with no further effort. It's all up to you.

The Toys Are Back In Town

I haven't done a toy post in a while. Mostly because nothing has been on clearance or at Ross that I wanted. There was a brief golden age where I found something I wanted pretty much every time I went to the store, but those days are gone, and I've grown loathe to even go to the store, because it's just a waste of my time.

The other day, however, I was at Walmart for other things, and I found that they had created a whole new aisle filled with clearance toys. They had several things that I would like on clearance, but mostly, they were barely marked down. A figure that was usually $12 was now selling for the rock bottom price of $9. One figure that I'm pretty sure retailed at $22.95 was now selling for the bargain basement price of $22.00.

They did have one thing I was willing to pay for, however. I did buy this one:

I'm pretty sure they wanted $14.99 for these at regular retail price, so it was half off. It's not bad, but it's not really a legit Star Wars vehicle.

Kenner made these things up back in 1979 or so. 

They had basically used up everything that was actually in the film, but the demand for the toys was so high, that they wanted to keep the money train chugging, so they invented some stuff of their own.

It always sat in that strange realm of Star Wars toys that weren't actually from Star Wars, until recently, the Mandalorian included it in an episode, and canonized it. The Mandalorian had a thing for doing that. They did the same thing for Constable Zuvio earlier in the season. He was a figure from The Force Awakens whose scene was cut from the movie, but he was an early release, so the toy came out before the movie did.

Tons of people bought the figure without even knowing who it was, then later regretted it when it was, in fact, no one. Those figures became massive peg warmers, and inspired my favorite Toy Galaxy video of all time.

I've gotten a little off track here. We're talking the Imperial Troop Transport that I got. It's a tiny scale, the figures are one inch tall, so things can only be so detailed. The figures in particular tend to be low on detail.

They're supposed to look like Stormtroopers, but they look more like klansmen wearing sunglasses or something.

I suspect that they might look better if I got a magnifying glass and painted in some detail, maybe did a black wash on them as well. I'll probably do that someday. They'll look better in pictures if I do that...although they're so small that I can't get a decent focus on any of the pictures I'm taking.

It only comes with two figures, but there are six slotson the sides to fill. I have no idea how you're supposed to deal with that. I guess buy more transports and use the figures from them? One of the figures comes with a gun in his hand and the other doesn't, so I assume he's supposed to be the driver I guess.

The top opens on the front to give you access to the driver's seat, and in the back to give you access to the troop compartment.

And the little side doors open for the troops to run out. 

Seems like the back ought to open as well, but it doesn't want to, so I guess not.

All in all, it's fine. I like having some 1/72 scale stormtroopers, and the ship will look good in the 1/72 Ankletown Station someday. If they stick around and get marked down even further, I may even buy a few more of them, but not unless they're cheaper. They're not worth having multiples if they're not super cheap.

Game Of Thrones, But Real

I've been talking about books that I own a lot on here, but I thought it might be cool to talk about the books that I'm reading as well. And when I say reading, I mean listening to. I almost never actually read a book with my eyes. It's mostly ears these days.

Sometime last year, my friend suggested that I should check out a book series by Bernard Cornwell called the Saxon Stories. He'd been watching the BBC/Netflix show The Last Kingdom, and knew that it was based on these books, and he thought I might like them. Kind of funny, if you ask me, to recommend books to someone based on the TV show they're made from, but there you go.

The first book was called The Last Kingdom, as was the TV show, and I found it on Audible and gave it a shot. My nephew was loaning me the use of his Audible account at the time, and he had a ton of unused credits, so he said to go ahead and get it.

It was an interesting book. It's a historical fiction novel set in 9th century England, but it could just as easily have been a fantasy epic set in Middle Earth or on Pern or Westeros. It feels very much like that kind of a story. There is even enough mysticism involved with the ancient pagan religions and the early Christianity that you could be convinced that there was magic involved too.

It was a brutal and graphic as any Song of Ice and Fire book as well. I listened, and thanked my lucky stars that I was born in the 20th century and not the 9th. People say these books are like Game of Thrones but real...or realish, anyway. There's a great deal of liberties taken to make a story out of the history.

I enjoyed the book, but then my nephew decided he wanted to use his remaining credits to buy the Expanse series, so there were suddenly none left, and I couldn't continue it that way. So, I didn't listen to any more for a while.

However, while I was on my cruise a few months ago, I wanted something to occupy my time as I lounged around on the pol deck, and my wife told me I should get on Libby again. I had done that library app in the past, but I'd stopped using it for some reason, and hadn't gone back. I was already on the ship, and we were about to sail away to where there was no internet, though, so I hurried and downloaded it and looked for a book to listen to. I settled on the next Bernard Cornwell book in what is now known as the Last Kingdom series instead of the Saxon Stories in the same way that The Game of Thrones TV series kind of renamed the Song of Ice and Fire.

This one was very much in the same vein as the last. Brutal and graphic, but interesting and entertaining. I listened my way through half of the book on the cruise, then finished it up a week or so after getting home. I'd recommend this one as well.

From there, I was off an running. I was on Libby, so I could get any audiobook that they had as long as I was willing to wait my turn. I put holds on what felt like dozens of books, but had to wait a long time for almost all of them. Surprisingly, the Saxon Stories were all available without even a wait. I could just grab the third book, because no one was waiting in line for it. So, I did.

The third book was probably my least favorite so far. It was still very good, but felt more fake and contrived than the others did. I think it was based less on historical fact and more on the author's imagination. From what I understand, there was only the loosest mention of the story of this book in historical annals. I still enjoyed it, but the one that I really liked was the fourth book.

Sword Song felt like the pinnacle of the series so far. It kept me interested and turning pages...and by turning pages, I mean continuing to listen in every spare minute I had...until I reached the end. I think I consumed it in about three or four days. I loved everything about the book.

So, that's where I'm at so far. I just checked out the fifth book, and I'm about an hour or so in. I'm listening to these books in between the other holds that I've made on Libby. It's hard to work out the holds. I asked for a bunch of books, and they claimed it would take a long time for each to come in, but instead, they all came in at the same time, and I had to delay my hold on most of them. That's one of the main reasons I love this series, because the later volumes don't require holds right now, so they're always available if I want them. That makes me happy.

I also started listening to Bernard Cornwell's King Arthur series called the Warlord Chronicles (though I suspect it will be renamed the Winter King series, because it was made into a TV show by that name as well). I'm two books into that one, and I guess I'll talk about those on here too when I get the third and final book.

Another Release

My goal last month was to get the audiobook of Kingdom of Flies and Fireflies finished and submitted for publishing on Audible. I managed to get it finished almost a week before the month came to an end. Once you submit it, you just have to wait for it to go through some sort of quality check, which tends to take about two weeks.

Today, I got the email saying that the process is complete and the audiobook is now available. So, if you've been waiting for the audio because that is your preferred format, then the wait is over.

The square version of the cover, because it's audio.

You can find it on Audible or on Amazon (which is actually Audible anyway, so you just wind up in the same place).

Vanity?

That's probably all this is. It's not what I want it to be, but it's probably all it is. There's places out there that will publish books for people that they know won't sell. They do a small print run and charge a large price of the authors for the pleasure, and they're called vanity presses. I suppose print-on-demand and Amazon is putting those folks out of business. Why pay a bunch of money and get a bunch of copies you can't sell, when you could just order one and get it for the price of what a book usually costs?

Speaking of that, I just got my copies of Battalion of Ideas today, one paperback and one hardcover.

They look pretty good, I'd say. I really like how they turned out. The cover looks nice.

They're a good size. They look like legit books and not just something from a vanity press. Of course, what do I know. I'd never be able to afford vanity press books, so maybe this is what they look like.

The one thing I'm not as happy with as I would like to be is the blue text for my author name on the spine. It doesn't stand out on black as well on the book as it did on the computer screen. I thought it would be fine, but you can't even really see it there, right? I don't think I'll change it...but maybe I should...I don't know.

The inside looks nice.

Here's the table of contents, so you can see all seventeen stories that are in it.

And each story starts with a page that looks like this:

It's pretty neat to have, and it makes me happy to see...really tickles my vanity, I guess. I can't help but smile to see them. It's a lot of fun. I guess I should get to work on the next one.

April In The Books

Ooh, is that a clever title for this? "In the books," see what I did there? Because it's a writing update...and I'm writing books...and it's in the...

Well, I don't care if you think it's totally lame. I like it. I think I may call my writing updates "In The Books" from here on out. I like it. Did I mention that I like it?

Anyway, let's talk about April. How did it go? Well, my goal was simply to continue as I was doing. 1,333 words a day. 1,333 words a day times 30 days = 39,990 words. So that was my goal for the month. As you know, Bob, I had a couple of bad days this month. I mentioned it in my last update at the halfway point of the month. One day I spaced it, and didn't finish my words because I thought I already had. Another day, I was traveling and so busy that I straight up forgot to write. So, with those blemishes on my previously pristine record, did I hit my goal?

There you go, I got 41,314 words this month. That's a couple thousand over my limit. Even with two blown days, I managed to get a few thousand over my goal. Not only that but I beat every other month in this whole process except for my record month of last month. I beat February by a few thousand, and I even beat my previous record of January by five words...that's right, five. January was 41,309 and this month was 41,314. Funny, if you ask me, for it to be so close.

Anyway, the best part about the whole month was that I had a few hiccups, but they made no lasting difference. I didn't collapse into a quivering mass of gelatin on the floor like I would have done in times past. Instead, I shook it off and moved on. And because of that, my average, even with two bad days, was higher than it was for any other month so far.

1,377 is a good 55 or so words higher than my third highest average. I'd say that's something special. And, check this out. Here's my total for the whole year up until now:

That's the whole process in one shot...it's been just over six months of this...six months and four days since I count from my birthday at the end of October. It's hard to read anything on a picture that big, though. Let me zoom in on the totals for you.

Check that out. This whole process has netted me 229,888 words. The final goal is 304,475. Or, if we round both of those numbers off, I'm 225,000 into a goal of 300,000 words. That's 75%. Even if I don't round them off, it's 75%, as the percentage box there at the bottom demonstrates.

So, at the 50% mark of the year, I'm 75% of the way to my final goal. I'm not a mathalete, but I think that means that if I keep up my pace, I can hit 150% of my goal by the end of the year. That's approximately 400,000 words. That's a lot. That makes me pretty excited to consider.

So, I guess what I can say is that I'm doing pretty well so far. I said in previous editions of this report, I have written a novelette, a novella, and two novels in that time. Now, we can add a second novella to that list, because, as I said a few days ago, I finished up "Digital Wizards" as well. I haven't just been writing "All work and no play makes Jack a dull boy" over and over, and that's a plus too. You'd think by now that I would have descended into that insanity but no, I continue along as sane as can be.

So, what about the other goals that I set for myself this month. I pledged to get my second audiobook published, the audiobook for Kingdom of Flies and Fireflies: The Short Fiction Collection, Volume One. If you were to look over on Amazon, you'd find that it's still not listed, but it will be any day. Around a week ago, I submitted the files for the finished audiobook, and they are in review. That takes 7-10 days or so, as long as there isn't any issue, so they should go live any second now, maybe even before this post publishes, who knows?

If there's some kind of problem, then my goal to publish that book may get pushed to May. It'll become my goal to fix and redo whatever needs to be done. Otherwise, my goal is to get the audiobook of A Battalion of Ideas: The Short Fiction Collection, Volume Two moving in the right direction. I was going to say that I wanted to be at least 25% done, but then I remembered that I had four or five stories already recorded and edited. I should check what percent I'm already at...okay, after a bit of work on the spreadsheet, it turns out that I am at 28% of the book done already. That leaves 72% to go. I'll do half of that this month, 36%. So, I'm going to make my goal to have 64% of the book done by the end of the month. Then I can do the same amount next month, and have the whole thing done.

The last goal I set was to spend time going through the Tyler Mowery videos on YouTube and use them to plan out my next project, which I was thinking would be "Skeleton Crew." However, I did none of that. I watched like...one of the videos, and did almost no pre-pro work for "Skeleton Crew." Then, when "Digital Wizards" finished up, and I needed something to start on, I had different ideas. I wanted to do a Lazerfist adventure instead. So, I started writing on that. I guess I'll be working on that for a while, so "Skeleton Crew" will have to wait. But hopefully, I can get the preplanning done and be ready to start by the time I finish up the Lazerfist book.

So, I guess that means I'm not Brandon Sanderson after all, because I didn't achieve all my goals. I didn't even come close on that last one...and I think it's one of my biggest failings as a writer. It's something I really need to work on. I need to get a groove for pre-pro like I have for the writing part itself. Not totally sure how to go about it though. I'm thinking that I need to come to terms with zero word days that happen because I'm working on outlining rather than writing. I think that's a goal for a month or even a year to come, however.

For now, we roll on as is. I'm going to keep the 1,333 words per day goal, That's going pretty well, and I don't feel like I'm ready to take it higher. I'll work most heavily on recording and editing audio to get A Battalion of Ideas ready for Audible, and I am going to put some time into publishing the next collection as well. I have enough stories for two more still, so I ought to get going on that, and then get some novels published as well. I'm way behind on the publishing here. I really got to get to work with this stuff. So, publish the eBook, paperback, and hardcover editions of the next collection, which will be called "Two Vampire Weekend" is the last goal.

I should make a list of them all like Rish does in his posts. Here we go:

1. 1,333 words per day, 41,323 in total for the month
2. Finish 64% of Battalion of Ideas audiobook
3. Publish eBook, paperback, and hardcover of "Two Vampire Weekend"
   

May is gonna be awesome.

ADF & BBBE Carnivore | Did I Make It To One-derland Yet? | Week 48 Roundup

I'm only weeks away from the one year mark, it's week 48 already, and I'm only a few pounds away from One-derland. All I have to do is weigh in under 200lb once. Did I manage this week. Did Carnivore and Fasting get me there? Watch and see...