Legends of Windemere

First, some good news and a promo.  I did an interview with Lisa Burton over at Entertaining Stories and it caused a really big jump in sales.  Biggest one I’ve seen in a little over a month.  To be fair, it was Baron Kernaghan who did the interview, which is why this is a unique experience even if you do it a few times.  You pick a character to be interviewed by Lisa Burton the Robot Girl and do a fun back-and-forth.  I really recommend this for authors who are looking for a fun and free promo.  JUST CLICK HERE TO CHECK IT OUT!

A lot has happened since the last goal post.  We bought a Roku for our TV since it doesn’t have an Internet connection.  So far, only my son has used it to start in on the original Pokemon cartoon, but now my wife and I are back to using this TV.  We were using the other one to watching ‘Castlevania’ (Awesome!), Full Metal Alchemist Live Action Movie (meh), and start Sword Art Online (Interesting).  I spent most of last Saturday and a few random hours on Sunday figuring the whole thing out and making watch lists on Netflix and Prime. Honestly, I found more on Netflix than Prime in terms of anime and old TV shows.  Was hoping to find the live action Rurouni Kenshin movies for free since I’m finishing up the manga.  Sad to say good-bye this one and DBZ mangas are next.  Seem to be reading this quicker than before, but I’ll get into why later.

Some rough patches did appear.  A Nor’Easter hit on Wednesday with the dedication of an ice cream man who had just been fired.  Seriously, it was a little rainy and very windy in our area for most of the day.  My son made it through school and my only had to come home an hour early.  Why?  Because mid-afternoon saw snow start to fall on top of the rain and create a few inches of icy mush.  Good thing I didn’t have to drive through that . . . Is what I would have liked to say.  My parents had been in Iceland for a week and the storm didn’t stop their pilot.  Plane wasn’t even late.  I had to meet them at a train station, which was a little stressful getting to and from.  The storm also created a 2-hour delay for school on Thursday, so I lost my morning writing to my son acting like it was a holiday.

Friday saw a strange Twitter event for me.  I woke up to find that my account had been locked and I had to prove I was a human.  Seems I got swept up in a Bot Purge.  Once my account was back, I had nothing under the ‘Following’ section.  The people who followed me were fine, but I’d been pushed down to zero.  I tried my best to go through the 19.6K followers to get the other list, but it was too daunting a task.  Thankfully, nearly everything came back just after lunch with no warning.  I’m guessing the people who didn’t return were never real to begin with.

I’m going to touch on the vampires before the anaconda.  To put it simply, I made some progress on War of Nytefall: Lost.  Didn’t hit the mark I wanted, which is a problem because I want to spend the week before my son’s break doing a final edit on War of Nytefall: Loyalty.  The issue I’m having is that Clyde is starting off restrained because you can’t punch a mystery in order to solve it.  I just reached the point where he can flex his muscles, but it’s been a lot of encounters with some new characters that leave the established ones confused.  I will say one of the newbies has come out ridiculously good and I’m terrified that I’ll screw him up.  At first, he was supposed to be a psychopath, which he still is.  Yet, he talks a lot and has this incredible level of arrogance that makes even the stronger villains think twice about him.  I think I’m channeling all the insane villains I read about in comics because he’s giving me a Joker/Carnage vibe.  Going to be fun seeing where he goes.

This brings me to the invisible anaconda.  People may remember my revelation last weekend.  The anxiety attacks haven’t gone away and I’m slowly learning more about them. Breathing exercises work most of the time unless somebody starts grilling me on why I’m doing it, which ruins the whole thing.  Reading manga is helping because they’re quick and I can stop easily once I’m doing better.  Again, this gets undone if someone steps in to interrogate me.  For the love of Metroid, people should step back as soon as they’re told someone is having an anxiety attack.  Not push harder to help.  This also tends to build up over time, so Fridays might be the roughest.  The sensation makes me think an invisible anaconda is wrapped around my upper body and half-heartedly crushing me.  I figure it could always be worse since the serpent isn’t going full strength.  Still, I did notice yesterday that I get a little twitchy if the stress remains for too.  Mostly in the arms, but this went away after a few steady breaths.

So, what’s the plan for next week?

1. Write more War of Nytefall: Lost
2. Finish taxes
3. Start reading DragonBall Z
4. Try to relax a little more
5. Possibly watch Lego Ninjago Movie tomorrow
6. Start thinking of June post ideas.  How do you hype a spin-off of your main series without doing spoilers of both?