I’ve been posting every day for a while, so it feels weird to let things be quiet. The blog needs some activity, especially since many of us are either running late, showing up insanely early, realizing the clock in the car is off by half a day, or any number of tragic comedies.
Simple interaction for a few moments of amusement:
What song defines your mood at this moment?
Here I am due to various events both real and fictional.
Professor Farnsworth
That title can be taken so many ways and I’ll get one out of the way quickly. This insane, incessant, inane, intrusive election will be done within a few days. I managed to avoid getting involved in a lot of this for a while, but the sense of inevitable doom drew me to the news channels and discussions. Then I stopped and stuck with the funny stuff when my IBS started rearing its head. Nothing says ‘no more politics for me’ than an intestine trying to turn itself into a balloon poodle. I’ll admit that I brought this on myself by not staying strong and avoiding it. At least I only have a few days to avoid the topic and enough DVD’s to survive.
Speaking of Purge Day, the son will be home and that means no writing for me then. He will also be home on Friday and I won’t have parental backup. So really no writing for me unless it rains and he does a movie marathon. Angry Birds, Lego Movie, Inside Out, and both Hotel Transylvania movies are in the rotation. So much better than nonstop Frozen or Inside Out. I really wish there was a video game arcade around that I could take him to and have some fun. There is a small one, but it’s all tickets and he isn’t allowed near skee-ball since he hurls the things. Not on purpose, but he releases too high and doesn’t always have his arm straight. He’s just excited about playing, so his mind locks in the ‘YAY!’ moment.
This is going to be a rambling post since the week was a blur. I’m exhausted and the stomach issues haven’t helped with sleeping. Finally got some medicine on Thursday, but I didn’t need it until last night. Is it all the election and chorus of people screaming ‘The End Is Coming!’ no matter who wins? No because I began writing . . . come to think of it, I have no idea what I was doing Monday. Oh, that was Halloween! My son had his costume parade at school and then 2.5 hours of trick-or-treating. I did errands that day and found that a few stores already had rows of Christmas stuff, which is ridiculous. The Jack O’Lanterns haven’t even started to rot and the turkeys we’re going to eat in a few weeks are still alive. Nobody needs this much time to prepare for a holiday.
I veered off course again. I started . . . anybody see the Wonder Woman trailer? Yeah, I’m stretching on that one. You see I wrote the first 3-ish chapters of Legends of Windemere: Warlord of the Forgotten Age. Not as easy as I thought for multiple reasons. It isn’t really that it’s the last time I’ll write about most of these characters that’s getting to me. They start this off so broken because of what happened in The Spirit Well and Ritual of the Lost Lamb. There’s no calm before the storm, so much as tears and tension. This goes until Chapter 5 and I really wish I could explain this better, but it could reveal several points. Let’s just say that the champions have suffered a blow that has damaged most of their relationships, but they still have to walk into the final battle. How do you fight when you aren’t fully trusting each other or even talking?
Besides the heavy emotions from myself and the characters, my mind is having trouble focusing on the task at hand. This boils down to two issues. One is that I don’t write if I make myself believe that I don’t have time or simply not in the mood. This happened last night with 3 hours to spare, but I just couldn’t get the mojo going. The other is that my brain is running several chapters ahead of my progress. It really wants to get to that big battle, but I need to work up to it. You can’t just start the fight in Chapter 1 and keeping it going for 15-18 other chapters. Not like I’m writing the final book of Percy Jackson here, which was entertaining. This is another thing that is bringing the finality to it all and I think this series will hit me harder than any others. I’ve spent too long with them to say good-bye easily, especially since some are on the chopping block. This final battle will be brutal and bloody. Even if the Baron wins in the end, he won’t be getting out clean and in one piece.
I’m hoping to get a little done this weekend and next week, but two days with the kid and a busy Monday will make that difficult. Maybe I’ll get 2 chapters done and I’ll have to use my nights if I muster the energy. The goal is to finish this book before my son’s break in late December and try to finish the year editing Chasing Bedlam. January has a plan too now. Outlining the next series War of Nytfall, which is a series title that I’m still working on. It involves the rise of the Dawn Fangs and the vampire civil war that happens because of them. Not really a war, but a band of anarchists led by Clyde spending a couple years carefully eroding the old world vampires’ power structure. Basically, Clyde is happy to be patient and only attack when he see sit will really hurt his enemies. I think he has a few bios around the blog and I have him as part of a conversation in December. January might see the set up of another Ichabod Brooks story that will go live in the summer and I’ll see if I can get anywhere with the next Raven entry. 2017 is going to be weird and I’ll be a little lost. 2018 will be even more of a haze.
Goals for the week?
The Obvious Answer
Being an author can be thankless at times. You toil over your book, fatigue over edits, stress over publishing, and go nuts over promoting. All for even one sale or a review that will make you happy. Just something to make it all worthwhile. Now, we’ve all heard that buying the book, sharing the book, and reviewing the book can make an author smile. What about the lesser known pick me ups, especially if you know the author personally?
Blog tour is underway. It’s been going on since October 24th. Lots of fun touring around the blogosphere in places I’ve never been before. I’ve been sharing the posts on FaceBook and Twitter. For those that don’t follow my other sites, but know about this blog, I’ve put together a list of these posts so you can maybe go by and show the hosts some blogger/comment love.
The blog tour kicked off with the Press Release posted on Florida Book News and My Bookish Pleasures.
One of my favorites is a guest post that was posted on The Writer’s Life eMagazine: “Writing Humor into Your Work”. It will tickle your funny bone and maybe teach you a little something. It was a fun one to write.
My cover artist received some much deserved attention in a post for Book Cover Junkie: “Guest Post by S.K. Nicholls…
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Well, Raven’s Game ended a few days ago and I hope the few people who read it to the end had fun. It’s tough to keep up with something like that in both the writing and reading, which seems to be more difficult when it comes to horror. I learned long ago that this is a very niche genre at times because not everyone likes to be scared or they have certain terror standards. No gore, but love suspense. No jump scares, but love the blood and guts. Everyone is different and many simply don’t like being scared in the first place, so this was an uphill battle. Anyway, thank you to everyone who stuck with it and gave feedback.
The ending does allow for a third entry to the Raven Series next year. Only question is if I can figure out the story. Last year, I said I wasn’t sure about a sequel because I couldn’t get it right in my head at the time. Same situation here, so I probably have to wait until something comes to me. Also, I need to make sure there’s still interest. I will say that having a month like this allowed for me making more progress during the day since the posts were at night. At least I think it would if I didn’t have all those other headaches going on.
Let’s get down to the brass tacks, which is a phrase I never understood. What did people think of Raven’s Game? Would you read a third entry? Please try to do so without spoilers too because there might be those who waited until everything was up.
I am very pleased to be asked to be interviewed by Gwen Plano host of the Rave Waves Behind the Pen show this Saturday, November 5th at noon Central. The show can be listened to live or if you miss it on the archive edition. The direct link is http://www.blogtalkradio.com/ravereviewsbookclub/2016/11/05/rrbc-rave-waves-blogtalkradio-behind-the-pen-with-john-w-howell
Gwen is the author of Letting Go into Perfect Love. Click the cover to go to Amazon.
So come listen. I think you might enjoy it.
Yahoo Image Search
I’ve seen posts and articles about this as well as bringing it up myself. Now that there are only 2 months left of 2016, I feel like opening the floor. Then again, most people might not even be aware of what’s going on. Either you haven’t been effected or haven’t noticed in general. Let me try to explain a bit, which is coming from my own perspective.
For some reason, 2016 has been abysmal in terms of book sales and reading. It’s really hard to put into words. The big names like Martin and Rowling aren’t having any trouble, but that’s easy to figure out because they’re established. They also have non-book media that helps them. I’m talking more about the indie authors that are plugging along and trying to figure out how to stay afloat. I’ve done whatever I could for promotions against a tide of distractions and personal events. Yet, I can’t get a spark and I’ve talked to other authors who are finding the same problems.
Free sales seem to help as well as giveaways, but those can only be done so often. I’ve been told people aren’t interested in series, which could explain my problems. Yet, I also hear that full-length novels are being ignored as well. Perhaps people simply didn’t have as much time as they did in previous years. Life went nuts for everyone and it was more about making it to 2017 instead of relaxing.
The flood of negativity, hate, and divisiveness caused by politics definitely didn’t help. This added a weird dimension as I saw authors try to promote their books by utilizing the election. ‘Stick it to Trump by buying this unassociated zombie book’. ‘Stick it to Clinton by buying this butterfly-themed cookbook’. ‘Screw the election and buy this book about a footstool that dreams of being a ladder’. I’ll admit I tried a little of this with Crossing Bedlam since the story had a slight connection to politics. Now, I’m saying this because it does feel like the election may have caused a lot of people to ignore ‘escapism’ stuff out of fear of missing reality. That or the whole circus was so surreal that no amount of fiction could compare. Either way, I do think the emotions brought out by the election had an effect on people’s interest in fiction. Anger, fear, hate, and sadness don’t really drive people to the fun stuff unless they are consciously trying to eliminate those emotions. I don’t know of a lot of people who were doing that.
My honest opinion is that a lot of factors have created a slump year for many authors. I do think the negativity created by the election and other world events caused people to spend more time with the news than fiction. I also think there are fewer marketing options unless you have a lot of money. The cheaper or free ones have become crowded or turn into part of the background. Every few weeks, I went searching for new sites that I could sign up with for marketing or get an interview. I found very little and many of the old ones are gone. Yes, there are individual reasons for each author like me pushing a series that is very long or others who have become too busy to promote their work. It’s almost like an epidemic of slump as I watched the year unfold.
I might be alone in thinking that this year is the worst ever. Honestly, I’ve only been at this for 3 years, but the drop in sales, social media hits, and everything was so abrupt that it was like a switch was flipped in mid-January. I hope 2017 is better and that I can keep doing this, but this year was horrible. Let me know what your experiences on 2016 is and if you think anything changed.
Legends of Windemere 