Sorry I haven’t been on here in any substantial way for a while. To be honest – there hasn’t been any news worth reporting. I upgraded the word count on Tribal from 60K to 80K because I was two thirds of the way through, and I realized I had more story to tell. I also changed the deadline to August 31^st just to keep the daily work count in the realm of the obtainable. Fortunately, my wife has been reading the first eight chapters and has given me notes to act on. I’m going to give her two or three chapters when they get finished so I can try to hit the ground running when it comes to editing.

The only other thing going on for me is the laborious countdown to GenCon. We’re in the final month and I am getting everything in place. We bought a wagon to carry all the loot I am going to buy, and I am still saving up money to buy all the loot. This is going to be my last GenCon for a while, as I am saving up for something big. I’m not going to say anything major right now, but I am going to say this: it’s big.

I am currently reading Ann McMann’s The Blackbird of Chernobyl. A nice little romance for a change from all the true crime and writer’s guides I’ve been reading as of late. This is seriously a book I can’t put down. I recommend it highly.

Tribal is still coming along. Ot quite done with Edgar and the pack, but the story continues to pluck along. After this, I’m going to get seriously into Serve Me Now, even though my wife is slightly turned off by oversexualization of the main character – especially in the beginning pages. When it’s finished, I might get a second opinion. I think this is the one I should try to get some mainstream action on.

Other than all of this – things continue to go along swimmingly. Still feeling good about writing, still attracting projects and ideas like honey to flies. Also got to remember that I have a chance to listen to my baseball team tomorrow as they play the Mets. Hopefully, my listening to them won’t jinx them too much.

Until later – ta-ta for now.

I hope everyone has a safe and happy Fourth! Next week, I’ll try to scrape something together for y’all.

I really want to write an epic fantasy novel. I want something that is as sweeping as Lord of the Rings, and I got a really good idea a couple of weeks ago and I am lightly outlining it. I think next year I am only going to work on epic fantasy – Tyro’s Unbroken, The Marvelous and Malefic Doomsday Medicine Show and this newest one called The Changeling’s Crusade.

Mostly I am on this bend because I am stalling out with the two horror stories I am working on right now. I can get back to Tribal now that I have an idea for the motivation in a scene with the pack leader James. Serve Me Now is dragging in its first two chapters, and I don’t know what to do with it. I know that (through my beat reader and loving wife) I could cut a lot of dressing scenes, and scenes of the main character buying something at a lingerie store and it would pick up the pace, but I also want the reader to know what kind of person we’re dealing with. She’s not a very deep person, and she shows off her body for cash. My wife is a rather conservative sort when it comes to things like this. Maybe I can find another female opinion from my writing group.

I hope to get back on track with everything. I know the deadline for Tribalis coming up very soon, and I want to have it done before GenCon, because I am doing nothing but gaming there. To be honest, I’ve been doing nothing but gaming here for the past couple of days, so I should get back to work today, after I am done with this entry.

Beyond gaming and waiting for August, there has been nothing else happening. There’s a new car for me to chase, so I’m taking off after that.

Yes, I still have points on my license. Thank you for asking.

I am going to finish at least Tribal soon because I am a little over half way through it, so Edgar gets to learn some more unsavory facts about his werewolf tribe. Serve Me Now is problematic, but I am going to try to finish it by the end of the year. Next year – nothing but fantasy from me!

I love a story that has deep lore behind it. I love how the backstory unfolds in a particular universe. Halo, Warhammer 40,000 and the old World of Darkness are games that have entertained me – some enough to actually play them. There is a new game I am fixed on.

Trench Crusades combines the dirt, muck and mire of World War One with the religious fantasy that permeates Warhammer 40,000. The official game is not out yet. The Kickstarter is getting organized, and I hope it doesn’t start up after GenCon just because I want to throw some money down on it. I just signed onto the mailing list and have been devouring the lore as often as I can.

Apparently, during the last Crusades, a group of templars apparently opened a gate to Hell – destroying Jerusalem in the process. The War between Heaven and Hell is now fought on the earth, overtaking parts of Europe and North Africa. Now, in 1914, the trenches of the Apocalypse have stabilized into several no-man’s lands near the new axis mundi of New Antioch. I am condensing a lot, just because I am new to the lore and there is not much out there. It’s like Warhammer 40,000 in scale – everything is big. The war has been raging for eight hundred years. People listen to the voice of God for tactical advice. I don’t mean they praise the Lord and pass the ammunition. There are people whose job is to listen to the constant and eternal voice of God, not go insane from lack of sleep and listening to the voice of God tell them the past, present and future, and figure out tactics from the constant barrage. If H. P. Lovecraft were more fervent in his religion, this might be the product.

I like the interplay of religion in games like this. Old World of Darkness had this balanced perfectly, if you ask me. Trench Warfare goes a little overboard for my tastes, but given that this took place a little over one hundred and ten years ago that can be forgiven. I am looking forward to seeing how they treat the rest of the world. Around this time, Russia and Japan were going to war. How would that have turned out differently? America, as well – we were just stepping onto the world stage at this point. Do the Marines earn their stripes in Belleau Woods? I can’t wait to see.

This game might be like Warhammer 40,000 for me in that I don’t play it, but I am interested in the lore. Also, this might be a good opportunity for me to get in on the ground floor with it as far as fiction goes. If it takes off…who knows?

Well, I am still working on my werewolf fiction, and I might make the deadline. I will keep you up to date on that. There’s nothing else really going on here. So…ta-ta for now.

I love writing Tribal. I’m finally getting to the good parts, and writing a couple of stalking scenes is just the icing on the cake. Also, we have a bit of a slow down here at the day job, so I get to forge ahead a little more than usual. I’m glad for that because I had to bump the due date up a month. I’d gotten so caught up in the sexiness of Serve Me Now I neglected this work. I know I should let Tribal get the lion’s share of my attention, but… how can werewolves compete with hot women strutting around nearly naked and going insane? I’m only human.

I think I have found my groove in horror. Fantasy is still good for me, but I find that I have less ‘down time’ with horror. I am on task a lot more with it than other genres. I don’t know if that is going to hurt me in the long run because I enjoy fantasy. Can I make my mark in two genres, or am I going to have to sacrifice one for the other? Of course, it’s really pointless to contemplate this right now, when no one knows I’m alive in a literary sense.

The thing that really cheeses me about that is that I’m not one of these extroverted sorts that can whip up a YouTube video on writing, or do a Book-Tok (or whatever the kids are calling it nowadays). I know this is hampering me as a writer, but I’m really not a big people person. I get all of these offers to help market my book…for a modest fee. I’ve paid them once, or twice, and I don’t really see any return. Is it that my catalogue is getting stale? Well, I’m working on that. Should I work faster? Right now, I am working as fast as I can. I’m not a fan of this part of the writing process. I miss the good old days when the publisher handled such things. Of course, then my gripe would be that I can’t find an agent or publisher and I would have no books out.

I’m sorry if I sound gripey.

On the upside, GenCon is only seventy-one days away. It’s going to be a fun vacation for me. I got some good games and saved up enough money to really splurge on some stuff. It’s going to be my last one for a while. I’m not a fan of the lottery system they use to determine where you can stay, or what games are available to sign up for. I know it’s the fairest system to use, but there were several games I missed out on playing because I was number 9110. Oh, well. I’m going to have fun regardless.

I think that’s it for now. I am almost done with Consider This and I recommend it highly. As highly as On Writing, if not maybe a little higher. Both of these books should be on your shelf if you’re looking to get serious about writing.

Okay, that’s it for now. Be safe out there.

I’ve been reading a couple of books about writing that I have to recommend.

The first one is Consider This by Chuck Palaniuk. This boo has really made me reconsider my wiritng style, and I certain will incorporate what I have learned. This is one of three books I highly recommend – the other two being On Writing by Stephen King and the one I am going to list below.

The Art Of Fiction by John Gardner is the book they hand you at your first MFA class. This one is dense. Where Chuck Palaniuk’s book is done like a couple of people sitting at a coffee table dispensing advice, this book is a classroom with chalk covered blackboards and tweed jackets. I’m not trying to take anything away from this book, but the tone is far different than the other two books I’ve mentioned. I think that anyone looking to seriously improve his writing game should have all three in their library shelves.

I’ve been subsumed with Serve Me Now. I haven’t written anything on Tribal in a couple of weeks – I’ve just written myself into a corner with the reveal that there are other werewolves in the city. I don’t want to end the chapter there because that’s too short of a chapter, but I’m not sure where to go after that. I think I’ll just let it marinade and see what happens on the weekend. I am loving writing the former, but the later has a hard deadline that I need to be cognizant of. They’re not going to delay Election Day because I have writer’s block. It would be nice, but that ain’t gonna happen.

On a personal note, I’ve been seriously considering monetizing another hobby of mine and become a paid DM. I found that there is a game shop close to where I live that I can run some one-shots at for practice on Friday evenings, and on Saturdays keep it clear for paid gigs. I might even branch out into Pathfinder 2.0, since that doesn’t seem too hard to pick up. I know I am not going to get a lot, but it will nice to get a little cash every once and a while.

That’s all that’s happening with me. I know this is a little late, but I still hit the Thursday mark. My stuff is still out there: The Dreaded Day Job, The Catastrophic Christmas Party and others. Give a look or listen, and see what you think. Ta-ta for now.

I’m quitting waking up at 4:30 AM for writing. I spent more time making bargains with myself for fifteen more minutes, then getting coffee and trying to write five hundred words in twenty minutes. While it was all very romantic – working hard, hunched over my keyboard while the world slumbered unknowing, it was a pain in the butt. I spent more time on the couch guzzling the strongest coffee known to man just to wake up. If I didn’t get even a little done, I would be in a foul mood for the rest of the day. So, I’m cutting bait and heading back to shore.

I do apologize for missing a couple of days here and there, but I feel like I was over-extending myself with the early morning hijinks. Hopefully, I can find some time in the evening to work on Tribal. Serve Me Now is what I’m working on during lunch, and with that one, I am hitting my meager word count and I should have the rough draft done by October. With hopefully it coming out early next year. I was aiming for a Thanksgiving Day release, but I want to make sure this is going to be especially terrifying, so I’m aiming for next year. The other one I really need to buckle down on. That one I want to release on Election Day. I’ll take that one on in the evenings, and try to double the word-count on the weekends.

I’ve just been so scattered as of late. I’m going to admit it, there have been days were I just want to chuck it all. Walk away from it, but we all know, dear readers, that I could never stay away. I would still be writing in my head, scribbling on spare pieces of paper. Might as well turn that hypergraphia into something useful, right?

Well, speaking of sleeping, I should go on ahead and turn in. Just a brief reminder: my best two novels The Dreaded Day Job and The Catatrophic Christmas Party are available in almost every available format – Kindle, paper and hardback and audiobook. Grab it while you can!

Until later!

I think I might take a few days off from this whole thing. It’s not bringing me joy like it used to.  All I see are books not selling, audiobook links not claimed and deadlines approaching me like the fast zombies from the remake of Dawn of the Dead. There’s nothing to really blog about, unless you want me to start commenting on pop culture – and trust me, no one wants that.

I’m sorry to sound so mopey. I know there are people struggling with real things, and I’m just looking at a spreadsheet and seeing zeroes.

I think I’m going to step away for a little bit.

Sorry, everyone — life is boring and nothing new has happened. Here’s a cat gif in illustration:

I’ve had an interesting few days. I had to go live in a hotel for a couple of days while our bathroom floor was worked on. My wife is going to lay down the tile.

Her optimism knows no bounds.

I found that I can get more work done when I have no good access to my YouTube channels. Who would have thought that the Internet would be a huge time suck?

I am working on two horror stories, thanks to an online writing program called AutoCrit. You might have seen their advertisements on FaceBook. I know I have. I’m giving it a chance while I write the second draft of Serve Me Now. I didn’t like the first draft all that much. I just didn’t really feel confident that it was horrific enough – the standard being vosmic horror. In fact, I described it as ‘cosmic horror without the tentacles’. So, I am using this program – which has some decent editing features to it beyond the usual spell and grammar check. It allows you to compare your manuscript (which you can write on it, or import a file) to writers in the genre you’re writing in. Naturally, I am using this feature to compare it to Lovecraft. I am hoping (fingers and tentacles crossed) to get this done in two and a half months while I am still working on Tribal.

Tribal is coming along nicely and I have the lowered word count to thank for it. Only five hundred a day since I’m trying to get this one done by June to get it edited down and out there by Election Day. I can knock out five hundred words in about half an hour to forty-five minutes on a good clip, so I can work on it at lunch. Serve Me Now is going to be a thousand words a day, which I can also do at work (I don’t think anyone I work with reads this blog) when the boss leaves for the day. I have about an hour to myself, and if I can get my work finished quickly enough, I can use that hour to write on the computer. This is the only advantage to AutoCrit right now. Normally, I don’t like that, but for now it’s proving useful.

The Show Must Go On is getting edited down now, and I am still optimistic that it’s going to get released in a year – depends on how fast it gets read and edited. It might not see the light of day until next year. I only meet two times a month with my writing group, so that’s a hamper on things. I might go on ahead and run it through the editing programs I have now. I just want to get a book out this year.

Speaking of getting things out this year…did I mention that The Catastrophic Christmas Party is an audiobook? Yeah! Went up on April 1^st. Go check it out.

In fact – I am going to run a promotion. First fifty people to respond to this blog will get a promo code to get a copy of the audiobook for free. Choose to get either The Dreaded Day Job or The Catastrophic Christmas Party. The code will be emailed to you and all I ask in return is that you give me a good review.

That’s all the news for now, I am off to help tile the floor. Stay safe and I’ll see you in the next one.