What is a Species Tome? #fantasy

Posted on November 6, 2020 by Charles Yallowitz

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As I mentioned on Wednesday, War of Nytefall caused me to evolve the Garian order into something more than I had planned.  These are the followers of Gar the God of Knowledge.  I also mentioned something called a species tome.  This is another spontaneous invention created during this series and will possibly continue on when I can fit it in.  The thing is that I don’t know how often I can bring these up because it’s clear that they have to be limited.  So, what are they?

Since the Garian order collects all knowledge of Windemere, they have to record all events and information.  This can be complicated and dangerous, especially when you get into the history and details of the races.  A lot is common knowledge, but there are definitely pieces that could be used against others.  For example, a hunter could learn all of the weaknesses and habits of Dawn Fangs.  This may become public at some point, but it’s very dangerous during the time when they are hiding from mortals.  This is where the species tome came into being and became more than a single book that Clyde read.

Now, there are books on all creatures as a whole, but most are not going to be at a level that influences the future of Windemere.  Those that do end up getting one of these species tomes in the Garian libraries.  There’s really only one though, but it can be pulled from any library to read.  It can only be removed from the temples with permission because it is very dangerous.  With a species tome, one can really hurt the subjects or influence them in a way that could distort their lifestyle.  That isn’t to say it can’t be read in the temple though because Garians are big on educating others.  Of course, they do have magic that can erase memories if the person proves to have malicious intent.  That’s one of the many safeguards around these books that most of Windemere don’t know the existence of.  Watered down versions are put out at times to divert those from searching for the real one.

So, how does a species tome come to be?  Well, a high priest receives a vision of the upcoming species and is chosen to write the tome.  They also get a boost of holy energy, which allows them to observe their subjects from afar.  For example, Huntley Pyodorus gets most of his information from two sources.  One is Gregorio Roman who he talks to about the Dawn Fangs over tea once a month.  He also gets visions every night with information to include about the Dawn Fang history, society, and habits.  The species tomes are eternally guarded by the spirit of the high priest that was chosen to begin them while a successor continues the actual writing.  The successors don’t get the visions, but they allow themselves to be possessed when sleeping to allow for updates.  These tomes can get pretty big, but a lot of information gets moved to books about various cities, events, and anything else that can be read by the public.  The species tomes are primarily for the key points of a race’s evolution and to protect any sensitive information.

Looking at my future series, I can see Sin getting involved in these at some point since he’s a thief.  They will probably play a big role in ‘War of the Tainted’.  Beyond that, I’m going to have to play it by ear.  Kind of sad that I didn’t think of these when I had Trinity visiting the hidden Garian library, but I don’t think it would have helped too much.  The order wouldn’t have let her or most of her allies anywhere near it.  People who try to steal species tomes will tend to come off as villains.  The high priest spirit will know if you’re going to use the information correctly, so you will only have to steal it if you’re going to be dishonest or don’t know any other way.

So, that’s what a species tome is.  Seems fairly simple and to the point.  Only time will tell if they’re going to be a bigger force in Windemere than I realized.  Kind of excited to find out myself.

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Infographic: How Do Colors Affect Purchases?

Posted on November 6, 2020 by Charles Yallowitz

Nicholas C. Rossis's avatarNicholas C. Rossis

I have written in the past about how to use color in your book covers and how color can boost your book sales. Today, I came across a Kissmetrics infographic on LexisClick (thanks to Mike Guess of InSync Media for the tip). The infographic includes a ton of useful information on how colors affect purchases. As LexisClick reminds us,people are visual beings –90% of all information absorbed by the human brain is visual. People process visual information60,000times faster than textual information.

It’s no surprise, then, that consumers place visual appearance and color above other factors when shopping. A full 93% of online shoppers place the visual appearance of products as the most important factor affecting their purchase and 85% of shoppers consider color as a primary factor when making the buying decision.

Use the information below to choose the right color for your designs, depending on…

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Immortal Wars: The Summoning Part 43 #fiction #throwback

Posted on November 5, 2020 by Charles Yallowitz

(Previously on Immortal Wars.)

(Again, we shall revel in my teenage originality.  Everyone groan in unison.)

Disclaimer: Immortal Wars was the book I came up with and wrote in high school.  I hadn’t even hit college by the time I wrote the first two books.  That means I hadn’t developed my style yet, wasn’t good at self-editing, and the story was fairly basic. So, you’ve been warned that this is the ultimate author throwback segment for my blog and will show my author origins.  FYI-  I put the first book (The Summoning) through a Print-on-Demand publisher and the second one (Light, Blood, & Tears) never saw the light of day.  Enjoy!

The battlefield resembles ground zero of an atomic bomb explosion once the thick cloud of dust has been cleared by an alien wind.  Large rocks and other charred pieces of debris are scattered all over the area.  The villain’s Black Tower has been toppled onto its side and their great warship has been annihilated.  Many of the evil immortals are either unconscious or buried under heavy piles of rubble.  Most of the Clan of Fire had run away when their masters starting fighting with the guardians, but some of them were loyal enough to stay around and they were ripped apart by skin piercing projectiles.  Only the pit that Miracle and Hydrana were previously kept in was not been badly damaged.

“Wow.  I can’t believe he actually did it.  I never thought that he would be noble enough to do something of this magnitude,” whispers Adriana from the bottom of the pit.  During the fight she had fallen in and had woken up in time to see the angry tempest above her head.  Of course, she wasn’t the only one in the pit.

“Did what?” says Fate as he clambers out from under a small pile of rocks.

“Solix really didn’t bother teaching you and your friends about the toys that you will be wielding if you defeat us.  That’s his mistake and your problem though. To explain in a very simple way, your leader used the ultimate power of the Solstar medallion.  Again I’m surprised you didn’t realize that.  He just committed suicide and didn’t even bother killing me.”

“How do you even know Solix is dead?”

“I really wish Solix told some of you about the true power of the sun weapon.  He could not have expected me to stop trying to kill you in order to give you the background story.  Do I look like a narrator?  But I guess none of the information I have really matters anyway.  No one can use the Solstar medallion ever again.”

“I wouldn’t be so sure of that,” claims Fate.  He presses against the side of his neck and causes the sign of power to appear.  The blue comet marking still pulsates with infinite power, but Fate doesn’t notice the twinge of energy anymore.  When Adriana sees the glowing mark, she makes a quick lunge at him.  She stops in mid-stride as soon as she recognizes the sword of light pointed at her head.  Adriana goes into a slow crouch and eyes Fate like a hungry lion would eye a wounded tiger.  Her face shows great respect and anger toward her younger opponent.

“I don’t believe this.  You defeated Draveon and stopped me from eliminating the planet guardians all by your lonesome?  The final battle you had help, but if you had not broken the cage and saved Hydrana, your victory would have been a dream.  It looks like I underestimated you, Fate.  I mean, I really underestimated you.  So, I guess we’ll be seeing a lot of each other until one of us is dead.  That is if you choose to spare my life right now,” mentions Adriana.  She puts the sharp point of the sword against her breast and waits for the feeling of sharp metal to slowly cut through her beating heart.  The blade does cut into her hand and she smiles as Fate notices the blood dripping onto the ground.

“What do you think you’re doing?  Let go of the sword.”

“I’m giving you an easy shot.  Come on, Mars guardian.  Plunge the sword into my chest and this war is over before it really begins.  The others will be totally confused and start fighting amongst themselves if I’m dead.  By the time they are done, the guardians only have to sweep in to clean up the survivors.  I’m the glue of this entire organization and without me they are enemies to each other.  Come on, Fate.  At this range, you can’t possibly miss me.  Unless you’re blind, but with your luck powers that wouldn’t matter.  So, come on.  Kill me.  I can see that you’re just dying to do it.”

“No.  I’ve seen enough death for one day.  I’m not going to kill you.”

“Why the hell not?  You know that deep in your heart you want to.  And if you don’t kill me now, you’ll only be giving me a chance to destroy you later.  Trust me, Fate.  Given the slightest chance I will slaughter you.”

“Try all you want, Adriana.  I can handle anything and everything that you’re capable of throwing at me.  You’re out of your league,” announces Fate.  He lowers the sword and starts to look for a way out of the pit.

“Out of my league?  You have got to be kidding.  Please don’t ever lose that sense of humor, kid.  I’m your eternal equal in every possible way and, unfortunately, both of our futures are entwined.  You see, as leader of your enemies, I will personally get the honor of killing you in our final battle.  On the other hand, only you will get the great honor of killing me in our final battle.  Do you see where I’m going with this?  Probably not.  If anyone is out of their league, it’s the rest of the immortals because none of them are as powerful as the two of us.  Except for my darling daughter of course.  She takes after me in power and skills,” explains Adriana.  She seductively walks up to Fate and puts her slender arms around his neck.  Without warning, she kisses him and presses her body hard against his.  Fate pushes her off as soon as he feels her perfect teeth bite through his lower lip.

“Not into the kinky stuff?” ask Adriana with a sultry smile.

“How do you know it will end with me against you?” replies Fate ignoring her unusual question.

“Good question.  Startrix is a very powerful seer.  She can see the future and predict what will happen, but her power tends to be unpredictable.  Once we arrived in this galaxy, about eighteen years ago, she had a vision concerning me.  She said that the final battle in the first year of the immortal wars will be between me and the guardians’ leader.  I thought she meant Solix, but it looks like my destiny is linked with yours.  You see, Startrix’s visions are kind of hard to interpret.  Also, I think it’s classic for the leaders to have the final battle against each other.  There are some rules that years of wars in this universe have developed.”

“You don’t sound too depressed about Solix not being in charge.  He would have been a lot easier to beat than me.”

“I know.  Of course, Solix is not as easy on the eyes as you are.  If you weren’t a major threat to my life, I would have a really good time playing with you.  Then again if you ever decided to change sides like a good little boy.  Or is that like a bad little boy?  Eh, who cares?  You know what I mean.”

“That doesn’t look like its going to happen.  Ever.  So, you have no idea which one of us will survive.  What makes you think only one of us will win?  Both of us could be killed in the final battle.”

“Maybe.  Startrix fainted before the vision had ended and she has never had it again,” says Adriana.  She watches intently as Fate nimbly climbs out of the pit by jumping from one rocky wall to the other.  As she swiftly leaps out of the pit in the same manner, Adriana hears a weird droning noise.  She recognizes it as Hellax’s stolen vertigo battle-axe.

“What should we do with him, boss?” remarks Hellax when he stops spinning his jewel-encrusted battle-axe.  Fate quickly flips Hellax into the pit, but gets tackled and beaten down by Cybro and Psylon.  The two murderers finish binding Fate and disarming him as Adriana makes a final flip out of the pit.

“I’ll tend to the Mars guardian in a few minutes.  Who are we missing, Startrix?” Adriana asks.  She finds the staff of healing where it had fallen near the pit and she swiftly kicks it into the air before grabbing it.

“Kilanus, Mindtrigger, and Draveon are not here.  Mindtrigger was thrown over those far mountains by a gust of wind because he tried to fly away, but I have seen that he will return in a day or two.  We think Draveon was somewhere in the warship when it blew up.  You do not have to worry, Psylon.  Your husband is alive somewhere under all those heavy rocks and the remains of our warship,” reports Startrix.

“Who cares about Draveon?  That guy could survive anything that could possibly happen to him.  Where is Kilanus?  Where is my daughter!”  Adriana grabs Startrix and begins shaking her friend like a little child.

“Calm down, Adriana.  Your daughter is alive and well.  Infinity locked her in the cage we had made for the guardians.  She’s asleep in the cage as we speak,” answers Tegam as he points to the nearby cage that is lying upside down.  Kilanus is silently curled up like a cat inside the broken cell and the remains of Mindtrigger’s device are strewn about her.

“It looks like Solix let all nine of us live and only destroyed our warship.  Is there any sign of the Solstar medallion?” says Adriana.  Startrix hands the powerful necklace to her old friend and goes to let Kilanus out of the cage.

“What do you plan to do with it?  Hey, I’ve got a great idea.  Use it on this pathetic guardian,” Psylon mentions with a twisted smile.  She lets go of Fate and watches Cybro toss their prisoner in front of Adriana.  Fate closes his eyes expecting the worse to happen and takes a very deep breath.  In the back of his mind, he tries to find a way to escape.  But every idea is shot down by the fact that he is outnumbered.

“I have a much better idea,” whispers Adriana.  She yanks Fate to his feet by his shirt and she stares at him with cunning, blue eyes.  Then she does the unexpected.  Adriana puts the Solstar medallion around the Mars guardian’s neck and lets go of his shirt.

“What are you doing?  Have you gone totally around the bend, woman?  If you have not realized yet, this boy is our enemy!” exclaims Cybro.

“I know that, tin man.  If I choose to give him back the medallion then that is my final decision.  Do you understand that, Cybro?  Because if you don’t, I will personally turn you into sheet metal.  The guardian also gets the sword of light.  Beating Draveon by himself and without large weapons has earned him a decent prize.  Now, I want everyone here to go repair the Black Tower!  And if you want, you can try to dig Draveon out of the rubble as well!” orders Adriana at the top of her lungs.  The other villains leave her alone with the somewhat stunned, and very confused, Mars guardian.

“Why didn’t you kill me and keep the Solstar medallion?” asks Fate after a few silent minutes of staring at Adriana, who is looking on at the work of her fellow immortals.  Adriana turns to him with a friendly smile and heals him with her staff.  All the cuts on Fate’s body disappear and his energy is replenished.

“The answer to that is simple.  You’re the only one who can use the sun weapon now that Solix is nothing more than a rapidly fading memory.  That weapon is useless to me, so I see no reason for keeping it.  Besides, you can’t use it for a very long time, which gives me several chances to kill you.”  Adriana starts to go help the others, but stops twelve feet away from Fate and turns around.

“You really want to know why I spared your life instead of destroying you?”

“I wouldn’t mind if you let me in on your little secret.  Is it because you aren’t as evil and twisted as you act?”

“Not even close.  I may not be as insane as some of the others that I work with, but I am not nice and caring when it comes to my enemies.  But the one thing I have never done in my centuries of life is left a favor, no matter how small, unpaid.  You could have killed me in the pit, but instead you decided to let me live.  I am grateful for your show of honor and compassion on this wretched soul.  Just consider this a favor being returned.  Our future encounters may not be so pleasant.  Then again, I am very unpredictable.”

“There has to be much more to it than that.  What’s the real reason you let me go?   In the pit, you seemed a tiny bit on the affectionate side.”

“You’re cute, but not that cute, Fate.  Though I will not say that there isn’t some strange attraction that I feel towards you, but it is very far from love or lust.  I can’t quiet place why you strike a cord in my brain.  But my real reason for not killing you deals with that vision I told you about early.  I’m not ready to eliminate an opponent as skillful and powerful as you are.  You see, I relish in playing games and competing with worthy opponents instead of killing them without having any fun.  They don’t get any worthier than the leader of the planet guardians’.  Don’t make me a liar by disappointing me.  Until the next time, Mars guardian,” explains Adriana.  She turns away and leaves Fate alone.

“Until the next time, Adriana,” whispers Fate as he runs off toward the guardians’ space skimmer.  The others are calmly waiting for him and intently listen to his long story for the entire trip back to the sun base.

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Garians and the Dawn Fangs #fantasy #vampires

Posted on November 4, 2020 by Charles Yallowitz

This might be something that I revisit later, but I realized recently that I never brought up this anomaly in War of Nytefall.  For some quick background, the Garians are a holy order who follow Gar the God of Knowledge.  Those who read Legends of Windemere might remember seeing him show up in a pantheon meeting scene or how his great library was visited by Trinity.  I find myself using them a lot lately, which is what made me realize that they are fairly unique among the temples.  This deals entirely with the Dawn Fangs and their origins.

If you pay any attention to fantasy where holy magic and undead are involved, you would know that these don’t mix.  Priests, priestesses, druids, and paladins are all trained to destroy such creatures.  It’s one of their most important tasks aside from healing and, if the author does so, convert people to the faith.  This is where your battle-oriented priests tend to shine because it raises them above the role of healer.  Of course, this is fairly nuanced since you need undead for the powers to be of use.  In a world like Windemere, you don’t have to worry because there are skeletons, zombies, ghouls, ghasts, ghosts, vampires, liches, and all manner of undead wandering about.  So, I always used priests and priestesses from the more ‘anti-monster’ orders like Durag the Sun God and Zaria the Purity Goddess.

Then, I reached the Dawn Fangs who can be affected by holy magic, but they can recover from it faster.  It still hurts because they have some undead nature, especially with their magical auras.  As I was preparing the books, I thought they would always have a problem with priests.  Loyalty even had a big focus on the Duragians, who returned to be a threat in Eradication.  This was how I thought it would be until I reached a point in Loyalty where Clyde and Mab had to infiltrate a temple.  This was a tiny footnote and supposed to be a section that shows off their thief skills and teamwork.  I didn’t have a plan to reveal much information beyond something to send them in a direction for the rest of the plot.  Made perfect sense for the book.

Instead, something went sideways in the form of High Priest Huntley Pyodorus.

I think this happened because I felt like I couldn’t just call this guy they ran into the ‘priest’.  Once he had a name, he needed a personality and then I had him be friends with Gregorio Roman.  This introduced the concept of species tomes and turned the Garian order into more than a collection of libraries.  I mean, I always knew I’d make them bigger because Gar is an ascended who played a major role in the ‘Tears of Gola’ trilogy that I want to do at some point.  This managed to push the evolution a lot quicker and in a different direction.  Not only the Garian order, but the Dawn Fangs and the whole of Windemere in general got a new facet.

Under the new perspective, I saw that Garians wouldn’t set out to destroy undead or any other creature.  They are gatherers of knowledge and educators, which doesn’t fit with the more warrior types.  Even healing is secondary to cataloging history and teaching people about it, especially after the Great Cataclysm.  They do know how to defeat undead and will do so if they find themselves in a dangerous situation, but they won’t go out of their way like other orders.  This makes them a stranger, pseudo-ally of the Dawn Fangs at times.  They would see these new vampires as something to be observed and studied instead of erased.  It would become even more apparent that they will change Windemere when they learn of Clyde’s dream of unity.  At times, I felt like I was going borderline pacifist with the order too.  It really made them stand out among the other orders that acted fairly uniformly in regards to undead.

I’m starting to think about other orders that will be turning up down the road.  In the next series, I have conjoined twins with each one being a priestess to a different order.  One follows the Goddess of Pain and the other follows the Goddess of Joy.  It’s from the game that the main character originated in and a big part of it is them wanting to get separated because they don’t really get along.  Anyway, that’s a story for another time.  The point is that I’m not trying to think of how those orders work in a unique way.  They won’t all have the Dawn Fangs or Huntley Pyodorus to act as catalysts though, so I might have gotten lucky with how the Garians worked out.  Only time will tell.

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Teaser Tuesday: Masters of Disguise #fantasy #vampires

Posted on November 3, 2020 by Charles Yallowitz

Cover Art by Alison Hunt

Here’s a fun excerpt from War of Nytefall: Rivalry.  I was originally going to do this scene the other way around, but couldn’t pass up the opportunity for humor.  I don’t think Clyde would either, which is why this makes sense to me.  He enjoys getting rises out of people, especially since he can’t find a good fight.  Enjoy and get your own copy for the whole story.

Continue reading →

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Songs of Nytefall: Ravenous

Posted on November 2, 2020 by Charles Yallowitz

 

Now, I know this was supposed to be an October event and things were going to go back to non-music during November.  The problem is that I felt wrong doing this for all of the books, except for War of Nytefall: Ravenous.  Next Monday will have songs for the overall series too just to give people a warning.  I stumbled onto a lot of songs that worked for both, which is why I couldn’t stop until it was all on the blog.

At first, I was going to use this for another book, but the words made me think of something in Ravenous.  Not Desirae Duvall, but I could make that connection.  It’s the addiction subplot that kept popping into my head when I thought about where this song fit into the series.  I just imagine the suffering character practically begging with the addiction to be left alone.

Surprised it took me this long to use an anime theme.  I was trying to avoid it, but this song is too perfect.  You have Desirae with her high libido that she doesn’t hide.  You have the person whose hunger has gone out of control.  The character with an addiction that they obviously can’t control.  You have people lusting after Desirae too.  Characters are just consuming and feeding their urges all over this book.

Linkin Park songs are always thrown into the mix when I’m writing.  At least, if Pandora is being nice to me.  I was torn between this or ‘Crawling’, but I didn’t feel the addicted character was at the second song.  This one makes me think about how the vampires consider time.  Some act like immortality gives them all the time in the world to reach their goals.  Others are never satisfied with going slow and need to continually make progress to justify their existence.  Then, you have ones who have fallen into the trap of immortality where pain doesn’t go away.  They begin to feel that nothing matters, but they don’t have an ‘end’ to look forward too.

Find out the connections in
War of Nytefall: Ravenous
On Amazon!

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Off and Running #NaNoWriMo

Posted on November 2, 2020 by Charles Yallowitz

Mae Clair's avatarStory Empire

Happy Monday, SEers!  It’s day two of the November write-a-thon known as NaNoWriMo.

water splashIf you’re participating, no doubt you geared up for yesterday and made a huge splash with your word count. Go you!

At the same time, pace yourself. The danger with any race, especially a long-distance event, is burning out too soon. As someone who has done NaNo several times, I put the bulk of my energy up front. I’m one of those writers who burst from the gate with a bullet of speed. My first day word count in 2019 was 9,037. Pretty impressive, huh? (I’m writing this post ahead of time,  prior to November 1, 2020 when, hopefully, I knock it out of the ballpark again).

But like the hare and the tortoise, slow and steady wins the race. It doesn’t matter how splashy your entrance, only that you cross the finish line.

tortoise in grass fieldHow do you…

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Personal Anthem?

Posted on November 1, 2020 by Charles Yallowitz

I’ve been thinking a while about doing a list of songs that show how I’m feeling or describe myself.  It’s something that I’ve done in the past, but it’s fun to use newer songs.  To be honest, I haven’t had any luck finding the perfect one . . . ever.  It’s either too dark or too happy or has only one aspect that fits me.  So, I didn’t have many hopes for what I was going to use this time.

Then, I began hearing ‘Overwhelmed’ by Royal & the Serpent.

Honestly, this one has me thoroughly pegged.  I can even remember having the reactions that are mentioned like eyeing exits when in a crowd.

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Happy Halloween Goals!

Posted on October 31, 2020 by Charles Yallowitz

First, Happy Halloween!  (Had the above song on loop while I wrote this.)

This was a week that shall be written in the anals of history!  You heard me!  Look, I survived it with all limbs attached even if they’re a bit twitchy.  Whatever could go wrong would go wrong, but then the really big disasters would fix themselves at the last minute to leave only a horde of minor headaches to handle.  This was in school, parenting, and everything else.  I really couldn’t catch a break.  Even when I went out for a few drinks with a friend, my positive mood got brought down almost as soon as we went our separate ways for the night.  This trend went all the way until last night when things finally took a turn towards tolerable.

Obviously, I didn’t get any writing done this week.  Last time I worked on War of Nytefall: Eulogy prior to last night was the previous Friday.  I’m 2 chapters away from the end and I’ll get at least 1.33 done before Monday.  My hope to finish this series by the end of October didn’t happen, which is disappointing.  Good chance that I’ll finish it by the end of Tuesday.  I might use the rest of the week to work on outlines for a few stories and think about what to write next.  I wouldn’t be able to get to it until after the next period that I have my son, but that gives me more outlining time. Ruins of the Zodiac Gods can be put to semi-bed by that point, which is a victory.

Since Curing Bedlam is going to be in outlining mode for a bit, I think I only have one project to tackle and it’s making me nervous.  Do I Need to Use a Dragon? (Fantasy Writing Tips) is the only one that is ready to go and I might be able to blow through it relatively quickly.  I’ve made detailed notes to help me craft the 2-3 page entries that will be done in a blog style.  Yet, I’m having doubts.  With blog traffic and sales down as well as seeing more successful people be celebrated, I really wonder why anyone would listen to my advice.  Who would look at my Amazon rankings and barely there audience then think I have any idea of what I’m doing?  It was pointed out a few months ago that people only make writing tip books after they’re successful.  So . . . will my words have any impact on anyone?  If anything, my inability to sell things will be a hurdle.

You can tell I had a rough week because I’m feeling down.  Had a lot of panic attacks this week because of the barrage.  I’ll be happy to rest and get some writing done this weekend.  I get my son for Halloween evening/night too, so we’ll wander the neighborhood to see if any candy bowls are out and enjoy the decorations.  Then, I’m going to show him ‘Gremlins’ and maybe ‘The Last Kids on Earth’ before I have to bring him back to his mom.  He had a good week as far as eating goes, so I’m hoping that storm is over.

Guess this is a short one.  I’ve got nothing else of interest to share.  Watching ‘The Slayers’ after finishing ‘The Boys’ Season 2.  I saw ‘New Mutants’ this week, which isn’t worth talking about.  Saw good ideas scattered about, but the final product felt like it was tossed out just to get it over with.  It’ll probably be a while before I start anything new since I’m moving slow through ‘The Slayers’.  Part of the reason is because I’m passing out fairly quickly in the night.  The oddest thing is that I try to watch the show while lying down in bed, start to doze off, stop for the night, and then I’m unable to fall asleep for another 30 minutes.  It’s like the TV itself is making me fall asleep even though I’m interested in the story.  The mystery that is me.

Goals for the week:

  1. Fun for Halloween!
  2. Finish War of Nytefall: Eulogy
  3. Outline other stories
  4. Maybe start writing Do I Need to Use a Dragon? (Fantasy Writing Tips)
  5. Make it to Friday
  6. Try to get one round of biking in.
  7. Succumb to the cold weather and wear long-sleeve shirts.
  8. Have a few drinks when the time is right and safe.
  9. Try to stay warm.
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Halloween Funnies!

Posted on October 30, 2020 by Charles Yallowitz

Tomorrow is Halloween, which means . . . I really don’t know because I’m setting this up in late July.  Trick-or-treating might be a thing since masks are part of costumes.  Unlike last year, I’ve got my son for most of the holiday.  On a Saturday means we can stay up late as well.  Anyway, I’ll be busy tomorrow and it’s usually the ‘goal post’.  That leaves today for for the funnies:

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