Crud. I was looking for the video of the song I heard on the Anime Pandora Station I listen to and forgot what the title referred to. Uh . . guess I’ll put section titles and see what comes from that.
Life
It has been hot and humid here, which has slowed me to a crawl some days. I try not to put the AC on until an hour before my son comes home from school. Unless my dad does it first since he pays the electric bill and has the say on it. So, there are times where I’m so overheated that I can’t write or do much other than think under the ceiling fan. This has led to a few things coming to mind that I’ll touch on later. Summer is a very lazy time due to the heat and my son having a shorter school schedule. Now it’s definitely only 2 chapter sections of writing a day instead of 3. I’m also getting up a lot earlier and diving right into email and Twitter than getting food ready for him. So I’m exhausted by noon.
Going to see ‘Tarzan’ tomorrow because I’m curious and wouldn’t mind time away from the house. Need it now and ‘Suicide Squad’ isn’t out for another few weeks. Fingers crossed that I can do some writing afterwards too. It looks like I’ll be busy the next couple of weekends too. Birthday parties, family gatherings, and a few other things that will have me on the go. Thankfully, the blog gets rather dead, so my not being able to access comments isn’t a bad thing.
Bedlam
As I mentioned before, I’m working on the sequel to Crossing Bedlam even though the first book still won’t sell. Probably won’t release until next year, but it’s a low stress project that I can work on until my son goes back to school for a fuller day. Anyway, this is slow going because I keep having to look stuff up. This has included: oil refineries, gun silencers, exploding oxygen tanks, pelicans, the Mississippi River, riverboats, bull sharks, and Smackover, Arkansas. At least you know which region Lloyd and Cassidy are in. The destructive duo are still fun to write too, which is a plus.
I’m actually going to break one of my personal rules with Crossing Bedlam and mention pre-existing stuff in a few promos. It happens a lot and I never liked it when I was writing fantasy. Yet, a point was made that it couldn’t hurt to try. Also, this book was heavily inspired by real life things. Whenever I’ve said ‘Deadpool Meets Mad Max: Fury Road’, I get a good reaction. So maybe stuff like ‘The lobotomized child of Deadpool & Fury Road’ or ‘The child of Deadpool & Fury Road who loves paint chips’. Using ‘child’ might be a dangerous thing though. This is foreign territory to me and I’ll admit to being a bit scared here.
Super Earth Almost Returns
For two days, I considered putting my superhero characters back into their own world. It would be Super Earth again, which is our world with superheroes. This changed again for a really bizarre reason. After seeing all the hate, violence, and vitriol online and around the world, I can’t see this idea working. Sure, Bedlam can feed off this because it can be seen as a possible, exaggerated future. Yet, I can’t see superheroes existing or doing anything worthwhile on Earth. That sounds incredibly apathetic, harsh, depressing, or whatever. It’s just that I would be putting them into the real world. Would any of this stuff be happening if Superman, Spider-Man, the X-Men, Batman, or even friggin’ Slapstick existed? I’m starting to go on a rant, but my point is that I think they’re going to be left in Windemere. For better or worse, so I’m going to need to comb over them and figure out how to fit all of them in. Really hate to say that I can’t do it, but it just doesn’t work in my head right now.
For those wondering:
Slapstick from Marvel Comics
Windemere
According to the line graph, the sales are going great. According to the Month-to-Date numbers, it’s going okay. The books are definitely doing better than they were two months ago. The cover and editing for Charms of the Feykin are moving along. Still not 100% certain that I’ll make a September 1st release, but maybe around Labor Day. Feel free to volunteer for the book is live post that I’ll inevitably do. Still deciding on if I’ll do guest posts like last time since I’m burnt out on topic ideas. If you have one then I’ll do it for the new release, but my brain is twitching.
Raven’s Game
October will see the return of Dawn Addison! The sequel to Raven’s Hold is actually 31 sections, so it’ll be a new one every day. Not sure if I should do any other posts that month, but I’ll have the new Windemere one out. Maybe I’ll only do the Sunday guest posts and a few Monster Mashes with a Feykin theme. This is going to be tough, so opinions would help here. (Need to find a picture for this thing too. Maybe I can find a site that has 31 haunted hotel pictures.)
Post is getting much longer than expected, so onto the list:
- Make goal list. (DONE!)
- See Tarzan and rest.
- Write more Chasing Bedlam.
- Continue reading with son for his library program.
- Biking, cooking, and the usual.
- Tap pencil against superhero list.
- Test Crossing Bedlam promo ideas.
- Read over the outline for Path of the Traitors. Going to be weird writing that one, especially since it’ll leave only the final book. Crap. I think I forgot that final title again. The Forgotten Baron?
Legends of Windemere 
I’m almost there with you, except my sales have been a flat line for over a month. Good for you that some sales are happening. I admit to not doing any promotion, and that might have something to do with it. Other than that, I can’t get into anything too deep. My main character is sitting on his yak waiting for instructions. I managed a couple of micro pieces, and that’s about it. Some edits on the coming Notebook. Too many other distractions in the summer. I want to do a full read on the 45000 words of Yak Guy, but can’t get the solitude I need. There is a character I have to change, and it’s a word by word process. I’m stacking the deck for a big fall push, and maybe sales will do something then. I haven’t even blogged this weekend, because the guests all deserve 24 hours in the spotlight. Maybe I’ll work on another micro. My super-powered character (Jason) kind of works because he isn’t exactly a hero. He’s struggling through life like everyone else. Maybe you need a good reason not to reveal super-powers to the world, then you can leave these characters on Earth. Persecution is good tension.
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I think the lack of promotion might be the big thing. Nothing was happening with Windemere until I released the 10th book. That prompted me to do a lot more promotions for it, which helped the others. Not sure if it’s just a series author thing or for all authors, but the last two years really make you pay for going silent.
I hear you on the summer thing. As far as I’ve come with Chasing Bedlam, I rarely hit my daily goal. I want to only blame the heat, but my son coming home a full hour earlier from school really makes a difference. I like the idea of a Fall push. Might have to try that myself.
That’s the thing with the superheroes. Having all of them stay in the shadows wouldn’t work for all of them. The woman with the giant robot especially. There’s also that issue of any superheroes that are persecuted are immediately compared to the X-Men. It’s a real heads scratcher since I had multiple teams. There was the X-Men type (hidden ones like you suggested), Avengers type (out in the open team), and a Spider-Man type (solo street level). Would a superhero even be able to hide their powers in today’s world with cameras everywhere? Guess a government conspiracy could fix that. I really shot myself in the foot with this. These characters are part of a very convoluted web that I really should unravel to examine.
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Sounds like a challenge to me, and I like challenges. Dealing with security cameras makes a good background. Masks, moving at levels they don’t focus, like sides of buildings, mapping them out, even not getting involved at all could be interesting turns. I managed part of a short story today. Short fiction fits the summer dynamic for me.
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It would be a challenge for me and the characters, but it would get ridiculous if every hero is like that. There’s about 20-40 characters involved in this and all of them avoiding cameras would be hard to believe. Even without that issue, the modern day atmosphere of humanity doesn’t feel like it would allow for much anonymity. Honestly, I think The Watchmen would be more realistic at this point. Out in public, hated, and eventually banned/feared. This is where my issues are coming into play. I simply can’t see superheroes functioning in the Earth of today.
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I get that too. The character assassination that goes on via social media, and lesser news services is maddening.
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Great word for it. Ever think that authors have a slight advantage over others because we can simply drift to other worlds when this one gets too depressing?
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That’s true too.
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You know I’ll help promote if able. Email me the details as you did last time and I shall follow your instructions, pal. Best wishes as always.
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Thanks. I’ll put you on the list. The book won’t be out for a few months though. Figure it’s never to early to mention it. 🙂
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I sort of agree with you about superheroes. After watching Cap II Civil War, I felt very frustrated by how nobody, even the U.N., questioned that problems should be solved by combat. Besides which, the U.N. wanted superheroes to sign on the dotted line out of concern about casualties and property damage… but then sent Iron Man’s team out to do a lot of property damage and cause casualties trying to arrest Cap’s team.
Hello, screenwriters! Do you have no sense of irony at all? Sensitive moments notwithstanding, this movie, to me, was a real expose of superhero logic.
In Marvel’s universe we have characters like Storm, who could break any drought, and Magneto, who once had an orbiting base. (I think it’s crashed, but not sure.) Do you know the science that could have been done on Asteroid M? Even if both of them charged well for their services, it seems like there’s ample opportunity for peaceful use of super powers. But no, all anyone wants to read about is fighting.
See, you’re not the only one feeling ranty these days. Keep cool, Charles.
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I still haven’t seen Civil War due to figuring out so much of it from news articles, trailers, and whatever information Disney kept hemorrhaging. It did seem a little odd in some respects. Compared to the comic book one that revolved around registering heroes. Seems to be a lot of strained logic to get the battles.
Though, I do remember somebody explaining long ago about why the Storm thing might not work out too well. It was more about interfering with natural events. Yet, I think she started as a ‘goddess’ of a tribe who kept the droughts away, which goes against that idea. That is a strange thing about superheroes. They have the powers to change so much, but never do it. I wonder if they would if there weren’t supervillains to distract them.
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I always pass by to read your goal posts…heroic of you to plan in advance since you have a young kid and all…but I find it comforting.
I mostly pass by cuz I grown to love your lil family.
Ellespeth
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Thanks. 🙂 The plans are starting to get repetitive with it being summer though. The kid is home more, so I can’t do much.
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