Let’s just get right to it. I’ve been talking about a ‘life event’ since August, but it really started happening at the beginning of December. August was when I learned that this might be coming and tried to fix things. Had no idea it was all in vain and 2019 would be a year for me trying to glue myself back together. Anyway, this is the most amount of detail I’m going to go into about this because going too far will cause trouble. Probably going to get in trouble for this, but too many people here have made wrong guesses about the ‘life event’ and it’s gotten awkward. Here we go:
Divorce
My focus since then has been on my son and my Teaching Assistant job. The latter helps to be a distraction because I’m busy and it’s fun. People know what I’m going through, so I sometimes get asked how I’m doing. Nice to be asked that and know people care, especially this week when things happened. The harder part is helping my son through this. He’s still confused on everything and his special needs makes the bouncing back and forth a challenge. Still, he’s been a trooper and worked with us. Though, he has his moments and those tear at my heart like Wolverine on a massive rampage. I try my best to explain things, but I don’t want to drag him into the middle of the whole thing. Both me and him have shed plenty of tears together over this, which is why I’m happy to get this long weekend with him.
I’ve been trying to add writing to my schedule, but it’s hard to get into the mindset when you’re in pain. Doesn’t help that part of War of Nytefall: Eradication involves a newly minted couple that were based around my ex-wife and I. Can’t do anything to change that too because the relationship is integral to the overall story. Probably why this book is taking me 6 months instead of the usual 6 weeks. By the time I get home from work, I’m tired because I go right into either wrangling my son or getting into conversations about stuff. This is why I’ve put more time into jigsaw puzzles than writing because it’s a different brain half.
So, how am I doing? I’ve been angry, depressed, sad, hopeful, lonely, heartbreak, and several other emotions. The fact that I’ve kept it together most days is amazing, but I have to thank all of my friends and family for that. Situations like this show you who you can trust and who really cares. Not sure what else to say though. I’m starting to cry because it still hurts even though it’s been months. I have moments where I start thinking about how I’ll die alone or how I feel lost. There’s more, but I can’t go into that part because it would definitely get me in trouble.
I want to talk about victories of the week, but the divorce overshadows all. I mean, all I really did was finishing watching ‘The Punisher’ Season 1 and reading ‘Naruto’. This coming week might be a little better and next weekend is me on my own. Sort of because a friend might come out for a ‘John Wick-end’ (He said it first!) and another friend is at a convention that I’ll pop into. I hope to get a chapter done by the end of it all. My goal is to finish the book before summer camp starts at the end of June. It’s feasible since I only have 5 chapters to go. I might be able to write a bit this weekend after the kid goes to sleep too. Depends a lot on my mood.
No idea what else to say. I don’t have it in me to make any actual goals. So, I’m just going to do a general list:
Son
Work
Healing
Writing
Well, there it is. The life event has been revealed. I’ll be busy tomorrow, but today and Monday are low-key fun days with the munchkin. Happy weekend.
You may remember that Amazon has recently adopted a more flexible way of reading keywords. You see, Amazon provides you on their KDP bookshelf with a set of 7 separate keyword boxes, giving some authors the impression that they should enter just one keyword or keyword phrase per box.
However, each box holds 50 characters and the more keywords you can add, the better the chance a customer will find your book when they search. The difficulty is in fitting your keywords efficiently into those boxes (they don’t tell you how many characters are left or even that you have 50 to begin with), not duplicating words across boxes, etc.
A struggle within the flesh
Deeper than the bones
Pulsing along the veins
Neurons
And the soul
The problem is not a ‘them’
It is a ‘me’
The hero is the villain
Battling to become a better self
A conflict we all have had
Person Vs. Supernatural
A threat beyond nature’s scope
Yet still part of the world
Ghosts and goblins in the shadows
Vampires feasting on supporting cast
The eerie ones thrive here
Pushing heroes towards darkness
Forcing them to think
Outside the box of reality and rules
Some in realms of magic and monsters
Where more than specters are along the path
That a bitter destiny has forged
Blogging is a commitment… it takes time, energy and work to produce a respectable blog. What starts as a free site often begins to cost money and, every so often, you will wonder whether or not the returns are worth the effort.
A lot depends upon what you want from blogging. It may simply be a place to air your personal views, share your creative work. You may want to make money from blogging and have found that is not as easy as it may seem. It may be an author platform where you can engage with readers, or it may support a cause. What ‘returns’ might you get from blogging, and are they really worth the effort?
Eight years ago, I tentatively set up a WordPress blog, just to see if I could work out how to do it. I had no idea what blogging was about… or why…
Ciao, amici! I’ve got a bonus for you. I was with my daughter last week (and a lot of this week) so I didn’t post last Friday. I did, however, save a lot of links. I didn’t have time to read them all—only some—so I can’t guarantee they’re helpful, but they looked promising. Long story short, I have two week’s of links for you. Hopefully they’re all as good as their titles indicated.
On that note, my inbox, as you might imagine, is laughably out of control. I’m never going to catch up, so I’ve decided not to try. If I missed some (or any) of your posts, I apologize. Moving forward, things will be back to status quo.
I took this time off because I don’t know when I’ll see my daughter again. We tried to figure it out when she was here. Our best guess is it’ll be…
As usual, here is your warning that this story has cursing, sex (not graphic), innuendo, and violence. It’s my Rated-R action adventure called Derailing Bedlam. This is the fourth outing (third official) for Cassidy and Lloyd, so feel free to click on one of the two covers to see how it started. Each one is 99 cents!
Here’s set 2 of the ‘Conflict’ poems. Hope people are enjoying these. They’re not as easy to do as I expected.
Person Vs. Nature
Hurricanes shredding towns
Earthquakes and tidal waves
Decimating landscapes
Alien worlds
That greet earthlings with violent death
A hero’s spirit is tested
As they endure the wrath of nature
Tales that show how one survives
And clings to hope
In a land that wants us dead
Person Vs. Technology
The push for progress
That has fueled mankind
Makes a lethal turn
Threatening the world
It was supposed to improve
Either in the open
Or with most unaware
Robots marching on cities
Some all steel and others partial flesh
Cures transforming into plagues
Unleashing a global threat
Some glitches are by design
While others are bad luck
The warnings are all the same
How far can man push into the realm of creation?
Ciao, amici. Today’s post is a continuation of the Story Bible series. So far, we’ve had an overview and discussed the series premise and character sheets. Today, we’ll cover settings.
If you thought the character sheet was easy, you’ll love this one. It’s even simpler. And, if you aren’t creating brand new worlds (like a sci-fi or fantasy author might), you have even fewer fields to fill out. (Or, if you have OCD tendencies like me, you’ll fill them out anyway, but it’ll only take a few seconds.)
If you did an extensive and exhaustive job of describing the story world in the series premise section, you’ll already have a head start on completing this sheet.
I created a simple table in Word. If you’d like to download it (to use as-is or change it to suit your needs), just click on the graphic.
