(Morning After Disclaimer: I did start drinking Strongbow Apple Ciders halfway through this post.)

*sits down at computer and stares at screen*

*keeps staring*

*looks from side to side*

*keeps staring*

Not Dumbledore

Yeah, I don’ t know what happened to my brain here.  Things have been flying this week with parent/teacher conference, driving people to the airport, fixing my car door handle due one of the people I drove to the airport, the usual routine, a decent amount of writing, and Charms of the Feykin (CLICK THE LINK!) hitting the Top 100 lists.  Next week starts out a little chaotic, but should settle by Tuesday afternoon.  I’ll get to that in a bit.

First, I do want to mention something about those Top 100 lists.  Holy Mother of Godzilla!  As amazing as it was to suddenly be on the list, a book plummets from those ranks like an elephant skydiving with normal sized parachute.  I mean, what do I have to do sale-wise to even stay in the same spot?  10 books per hour?  I know I live and work out of a house, but it isn’t named Random.  Really makes one wonder how an indie can keep going some days, but I think the trick is to cherish the small victories.  Also to make Voodoo dolls of the people who try to taint these victories.  Honestly, it’s like I’m not allowed to be happy or optimistic for more than an hour.

(Embarrassing story of the day #1: Got McDonald’s with wife and son.  She couldn’t find anything, but I saw a hot chocolate on the list. It’s gotten cold, so I got her a small one without her knowing.  We were talking about it as we walked out.  Get to the car and I ask her to hold my soda . . . upside down . . . because I never put a drink into the cup.  Back inside I go, which involved walking along the drive-thru line and they knew exactly what happened.)

So, why is early next week busy?  I live 2.2 miles from Hofstra University, which is housing the first Presidential Debate.  Road closures have been announcement and it also means my wife, who is tempting there, will be home because security is too much a pain to get a temp worker through it.  Makes sense and allows us to do a few things that day.  Have an appointment in the morning, a friend coming over, kid is at school, and then an eye doctor appointment on top of that.  Yeah, I wasn’t really thinking all of that through, but this is the only week I get the house to myself for most of the day.  Only other thing is the final dentist visit on Tuesday morning, but that shouldn’t take long.  I’ll possibly be home around the time I normally start writing.

(Embarrassing story of the day #2: Dropped people off at airport and headed home, but didn’t see the correct out road until too late.  Go around airport to try again because going toward New Jersey isn’t on my to-do list.  Miss it again because of a taxi that refused to leave my blind spot.  Go around again, but there’s a police jeep with the lights going coming up on my right.  I stay in my lane and wait for him to pass, but he’s going a lot slower than me.  I switch to the right lane to make the turn on time and he switches to my lane at the same time.  Was he after me?  Why isn’t he going around me?  It’s been 2 minutes!  Crap, he’s getting behind me and I’m coming up on the turn.  I’ll just slow to a crawl and ease into that place to stop and . . . Now, he blows by me!?  I’m practically blocking the turn.  Dammit!”

Writing has been a slight headache lately for a few reasons.  A one scene character in the current project has suddenly become a main cast member who is helping to reveal a previously unexplored aspect of a certain species.  This one is giving Kira a run for her money in terms of demanding an upgrade.  I think I’ve got a handle on it, but another character has fallen by the wayside.  Sort of since this one was hard to get involved due to being rather anti-social.  That’s only one project too.  My mind keeps going to the final battle of Legends of Windemere and I’m thinking up ways it can work, but a lot has to happen.  Horrible level of spoilers on this one too, so I’m on my own.  The section I’m thinking of might end up being really long since it requires 4 big events to happen.  Possibly 6 if I simply make it the final part of the overall battle.  I’m going to have to work really hard on that outline.

In possibly non-Windemere writing news . . . OH CRAP!  Almost forgot!

Raven’s Game Starts Next Saturday!

I’ll try to do a post Friday night about this, but there will be a thriller story going up at section by section throughout October.  This is the sequel to Raven’s Hold, which was posted section by section last October.  I’m still not very confident in this genre and money is too tight to get a cover for this.  Not to mention all the other stuff going on.  If people like it then I might do a third next year and see where it goes from there.  These posts will be the dailies with only a Monday post and the weekend goal post turning up, so there won’t be any clogging.  What was that non-Windemere thing again?  Probably wasn’t important.

Coming to the end of this long one, which is weird since I didn’t have a plan going into this.  So, here are the goals . . . for the rest of the year:

1. Finish writing Path of the Traitors by October 4th.
2. Fix outline for The Forgotten Baron, do blurbs for the Spirit Well, and prep November blog posts by Yom Kippur.  Believe that’s a week.
3. Starting writing The Forgotten Baron after Yom Kippur.
4. Prep December posts that will revolve around next book release.
5. Release Spirit Well in early December.
6. Edit Chasing Bedlam when plate isn’t full.
7. Consider what to do next since I’ve been routinely reminded that I might not be an author in 2017 any more.  Yeah, that conversation is getting heated and more common around here.
8. If #7 is settled in my favor (I swear, I’m 36.) then I think I’m going to head into Windemere vampire territory.  Going from the heroic Luke Callindor and the champions to the brutal and survival-focused Clyde and the Dawn Fangs will be interesting.  I might not make it as gory as I originally wanted.  At least not in detail since Clyde does have a habit of beating enemies with their own limbs and fighting with a victim still clenched in his mouth.  You know, I really miss putting on the mental Clyde suit.  Been years since I indulged in him and I feel like I’ve ignored the poor maniac for too long.  Wonder if I should use next October as a month to introduce all the vampire characters, but that might be spoiler heavy.  There is an old post that explains Clyde though.  He’s one of THE FOUR.

That’s a really long post.  I’m going to end with this since #7 and #8 put me in a mood:

Not Gandalf