Ritual of the Lost Lamb is doing well with sales, but it is going slower than the previous ones. The Top 100 lists are rough too. I’m writing this Friday night, so maybe I’ll have posted about getting on some for Men’s Adventures and Women’s Adventures before this goes live. I’m on a bunch of Top 100 New Releases, which is good. The roughness is that I’m seeing books can hold multiple spots if they come in Audio, Kindle, and Paperback/Hardcover form. Looks like only Beginning of a Hero is allowed on the Sword & Sorcery list too. No idea why since I put them in the search terms, but things look so chaotic at times. People can list their books as anything, so I’m wondering if the lists should be taken as seriously as before. Still, it would be nice to get all 15 books on a Top 100 list by the time it’s over. More a mark of pride than anything else.
The big writing project this week was final edits The Life & Times of Ichabod Brooks, which is going smoothly. I only have Zaria’s Kiss and The Vixen of Errenshar left, so I’m guessing I’ll be done by Tuesday. It’s going smoothly, so I don’t have much to report there. Don’t want to get into anything big before Memorial Day weekend, so I’ll settle for getting July blog posts done and tinkering with a few things. Best to keep it low key since the previous week was busy outside of the writing stuff.
There was a lot of non-writing stuff going on too. Monday is a blur for some reason, but Tuesday was my son’s Invention Convention. He got to present ‘Max the Cooking Robot’, so I had to be there. For some reason, I don’t have a picture of Max on my phone or computer. They’re probably still on the camera. My wife tried to make it too, but traffic foiled that plan. She made it for the part where I was about to leave with the project, so at least she got to say hi to his teacher. Prior to this post going live, we’ll be seeing his gymnastics show, so it’s a big week for him. Not counting the dentist appointment that ended with the mention of an orthodontist. Saw it coming from a mile away though, but I still hear the bank accounts weeping.
My own issue isn’t helping. Tonight, I do a home test for sleep apnea. Bring the sensor back on Monday and then we’ll see if I need a special mouth brace thingy. The dentist said something looked off, so I saw a specialist. I’m sure this is where some people go to the comments to declare their cures, opinions, and whatnot. We all know this is what we do when medical stuff comes up on the Internet. Well, the sleep apnea seems to stem from something else that will probably get laughter:
My tongue is too big for my mouth.
*Pauses for laughter and jokes*
I got an odd question about Protecting Bedlam, which will be hitting the blog from June to September. Guess people can just avoid me on those days if they have no interest since this series is a really hard sell. Anyway, the question was if I’ll be changing things as the political landscape changes. Honestly, I don’t need to because I quickly went off most of the source material pretty quickly. There were some ‘in’ jokes, but I eventually tried to make the villains and supporting cast have better personalities than ‘me bad guy who want power and money’. Basically, I started giving them quirks like the villains in previous books. With any luck, some people might like this story and check out the other 2 for $2, so it isn’t like I have anything to lose here. As it stands, I’m finding it tough to rationalize working on Derailing Bedlam since I can’t get the series to move. We’ll see what happens in a month or two.
Speaking of future projects, I’m still stumped on where to go. By mid-June, I’ll have edited the final Legends of Windemere books. So, I need to decide on the next project by that time. Do I work on the stand alone book that connects to the end of the big series? Maybe, but I don’t know when I could release that without causing an issue with potential spoilers. Would it be okay to release that in March/April if the finale came out in December? There’s also the need to start in on another series. If I put Bedlam in the corner then I’ll be setting my sights on The War of Nyt, which shows the rise of the Dawn Fangs in Windemere. Vampires still seem to be a touchy subject, but it’s the series that is closest to being written. That and this isn’t your typical vampire story. Whole civil war between the two species and how it came to be that the Dawn Fangs decided to live peacefully among the other creatures. For anyone who has read The Mercenary Prince, you might be wondering about that considering how powerful they are.
So, those are the three choices right now. Legends Stand Alone, next Bedlam story, or start in on the vampires. Hard to decide for some reason. How do other people choose the next project? Am I lost because it isn’t like I’m leaving Windemere behind since many of my other series are in the same world? When do I start reviving Super Earth and will it simply replace Bedlam as my non-fantasy side project? Just how many questions will I write until I get on with things? Is one more pushing it?
Goals!
- Finish editing Ichabod Brooks stories.
- Schedule July posts to clear June for editing.
- Test Ichabod Brooks blurbs. I swear I’ll do it this time.
- Return sleep apnea tester on Monday.
- Keep reading One Punch Man manga.
- Maybe watch Season 9 of Supernatural. Then again, I pulled out Great Teacher Onizuka already. (Feel free to look up or ask about any of the things you’ve never heard of here.)
- See if I remember how to cook Baked Ziti and try not to whimper too much when I cook the Chicken Cheese Enchiladas. Had shredding recently cooked chicken sucks a lot. Though I’ll probably do the smart thing and do the cooking part beforehand.
- Think about the next project.
- If all else is done then tinker with the Super Earth stuff. At the very least, I should get beyond the ‘I choose this notepad to work with’ stage. Seriously, that was all I got to last time I tried.
Pictures of Max sent:
Legends of Windemere 
As usual, your goal list has me worn out. You are the hardest working, biggest tongued, author I know. 😀
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Pretty sure some people have bigger tongues than me. Have to rework the post since somebody sent me pictures of Max when they read it.
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Terrific. I’ll go back.
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Charles, I need a nap after reading this post! You are a whirl wind of activity! Impressive goals list. All I can say is – Have a peaceful weekend! 🌺🌷🌸 Christine
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Thanks. We’ll see if I can find some peace. That sleep apnea test has me nervous.
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A friend of mine has sleep apnea. She uses a machine at night.
Max the cooking robot is very cool. Love the color!
I agree with John. My goodness. As I’ve said before, I feel lazy whenever I see your goals list.
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It doesn’t look like I’ll need a machine, but a retainer-looking thing. This will work to pull my tongue and throat muscles forward instead of letting them slump while I sleep.
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Oh wow. Let us know how that works out.
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Probably won’t find out for a while, but we’ll see what happens.
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So glad you have some fun things and/or cooking on your list. I love making enchiladas. Tonight we are making pimento cheese mac and cheese.
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To be honest, cooking is always on the list. I’m the house cook, so I tailor the menus depending on how busy my writing is. Never been a fan of mac and cheese, but my son loves it.
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It’s kid comfort food – the pimento cheese is a Southern favorite and I make a high class mac and cheese with fancy cheese from a recipe from the Barefoot Contessa! Great beach food and winter weekend food.
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It was pizza or ice cream for me. For some reason, I didn’t get a taste for anything remotely cheddar until I was an adult. Even then, I can’t get myself to eat raw cheese. Not sure why.
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Cool robot. I decide my projects via mortal combat. This starts with notes, progresses to a partial outline. The final round involves whatever keeps me up at night. Some of the ones who don’t make it get a consolation round as short stories. I wish there were more hours in the day, but I deal with what I’m allotted. I’m desperate to dive into beta edits, but it’s looking like mid June at best.
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Not sure I can do mortal combat since all of these stories will get written in novel form. I think the biggest sticking point is figuring out how long after the final Legends book can I publish the stand alone spinoff. Maybe next summer, so I should focus more on the vampire stuff since that’s the next series I want to touch on. I’ve kept Clyde on the shelf for as long as I’ve been working with Luke, which has left him rather antsy.
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If he’s still speaking to you, you have to write his story. That’s how my method works. I still have the outlines from last year parked on an island somewhere. I’ll probably go get the Grinders cast sometime in 2018.
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What were the Grinders? Keep thinking of sandwiches for some reason.
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That’s the nickname for people who experiment on themselves these days. Involves injecting special dyes into eyeballs to see in the dark. Magnets under fingers allow some to feel electrical fields. There are even some who’ve imbedded chips that unlock doors, etc. I would ramp it way beyond that.
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Cool. Makes me think of a few comic book issues. Body alteration is always popular and fun in fiction.
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For some reason, my laptop sent that early. With the mortal combat method, do you ever put the ones that don’t make it aside and let them stew to see if they can be more than short stories?
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Yes. Last year, Lisa and I went on an outlining safari. We brought yak guy home, and parked the others. My African adventure had some PC issues, so it may stay there. Grinders and the guy who starts wars for money may get a revisit.
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I think I remember you mentioning the African adventure. Not sure if it would still be a problem these days or if you should just write it. After getting, PC’d for some of the things in my series, I’ve kind of decided to simply go for it. I like the idea of a war starter.
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It was kind of an African adventure with a romance element. As one of my stories it would also have a bit of magic to deal with. Part of the issue is in colonial days, traveling in the bush means gathering your own meat. Seems odd that a young man going into the bush wouldn’t be interested in trophy hunting too. For that era it wouldn’t be right not to.
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I guess. Would he really care about trophies if his goal is to find food? Then again, I can see outsiders focusing on the trophy while locals go for food.
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Truth is a 20 something from the US, in +/- 1910, is going to think that way. Besides you can eat a beautiful bull kudu, just as easily as a kudu calf.
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Sounds like a damned if you do, damned if you don’t. Keeping it historically accurate means some people will get angry about the trophy hunting. Not doing it will have people proudly calling you on it being wrong. Shame we just can’t have fun and leave the rest for more serious endeavors.
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The partial outline has some cool elements. A big con to get him there in the first place. One of the Matabele uprisings. Some bush magic, fire, etc. Maybe search for a political issue of today to illustrate it was an issue then too.
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Sounds like it could work.
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You are in luck! I can solve all of your problems tonight!
First off, if your tongue is to large, simply going ten rounds with an ogre and a dragon will easily cure it… or kill you, I can never remember which.
As for which story to work on, you need to write the big crossover, you know the one: where Loyd (hope I spelled that right) and Cassidy (hope I got that name right too) falls asleep on a train and ‘wakes up’ on a gnome build train hurtling through Windmere that just happens to be filled with blood thirsty dawn fang vampires. They fight for their lives and just as the vampires are about to drink their blood (there must be a dinning car on the train somewhere!) a group of superheroes come out of no where and rescue them, after which they can really wake up and wonder if they were dreaming or not.
Oh, and watch Doctor Who, you can’t go wrong with that show.
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Wait. Couldn’t getting hit in the mouth make my tongue swell up more?
Lloyd and Cassidy would be interesting in Windemere. Probably get themselves killed though. As badass as they are in the Shattered States, I don’t think they can hold up against magic very well. Cassidy would run out of bullets for her guns and fuel for the jeep too. Poor Dawn Fangs are going to have a lot of work to shed the stereotypes that keep getting put on them. 😛
I tried Doctor Who, but couldn’t get into it as much as I thought I would. I tried with Tennant, which I found entertaining, but didn’t get the fervor that others seem to show.
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I guess you’re right, maybe you should find a talented wizard instead.
Sorry to hear you didn’t like Doctor Who that much. Tennant was a great Doctor, I didn’t enjoy Smith that much, the current Doctor is pretty good though.
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Figured that at least I tried. I tend to get into to stuff late, so hype can be an issue. Being told that a series is life-changing can be a dangerous pitch. That and I seem to lack the gene to be a diehard fan of things. So a period of meh means I’ll walk away like with Sherlock.
I’ll put out a Craig’s List ad for that wizard. What’s the worst that could happen?
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There are very few people who can say that they’ve watched Doctor Who from the beginning, it started in 1963 after all.
Make sure you advertise for the right kind of wizard, you don’t want a blood thirsty fire wizard doing surgery… unless he’s a necromancer too of course.
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Oh yeah. I remember seeing a few of the much older episodes. Don’t remember which Doctor was one of them, but the others had the guy with the scarf. Mostly, I remember there being a bad guy named Krol or something.
Guess it depends on who he’s doing the surgery on.
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Tom Baker, the Fourth Doctor, he’s the one with the scarf. I think that would have been The Power of Kroll, the last part of the Key of Time arc.
Yes, I watch too much Doctor Who.
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Very cool. Though the only reason I watched is because that’s the same name as the street I lived on.
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That’s a good enough reason.
The first few times I watched that episode, I thought they were chanting ‘Crow’, lol, I still laugh at that.
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I really another that had these tendril-waving things that kept eating people. I was like 7 and it freaked me out. Not even sure it was Doctor Who.
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I keep thinking my own week has been crazy busy. Then I read your posts, and realize mine has been quiet compared to yours. Happens almost every week.
I say work with whichever of the projects you feel most eager to work with first, or feel most inspired with, or whatever. That’s the beauty of being self-published and at the end of a series: you get to decide what’s next.
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I’d love to have a quiet week. Maybe this one if I get some editing done today. Eagerness seems to be lacking in general recently. Not sure why. At least I have a month of editing to let me think about it.
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That’s a lot of goals to get through… good luck with them. My main one is getting my first book published!
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Thanks. Good luck with your first book.
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Thanks Charles, it has been a long journey!
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