June 2020 Update

This month has been insane and I have much to talk about. I have discovered the advantages of setting up pre-orders on Amazon. I currently have four of them going with one being dropped on July 3rd. I will provide links after my spew for those interested. It seems like things are starting to move, yet it also points out that I still have much to learn in terms of marketing.

Without further adieu, here is my monthly update.

2020 GOALS

  1. Write 600,000 words in publishable story related projects.
    • (Bonus) Write 800,000 words as a stretch goal.
  2. Write every day of at least 500 words making words in a row at 731 days in the road.
  3. Catch up on editing allowing no more than 2 manuscripts waiting to be edited.
  4. Edit every day of 1 chapter at a minimum.
  5. Secure cover art for any book in the editing stage.
  6. Publish a minimum of 1 book.
  7. Publish a minimum of 3 books.
  8. Publish a minimum of 5 books.
  9. Publish a minimum of 7 books.
  10. Write one blog post a week.
  11. Write update blogs at the start of every month.
    • Write an update blog for the remaining months.
  12. Clean up Tokyo Tempest #1 with a proofread.
  13. Write and submit 5 short stories to markets.
  14. Publish 7 short stories or novellas to amazon.
  15. Set up a Patreon account.
  16. Set up proper social media author accounts and a proper newsletter.
  17. Have 1 paying client of editing services.
  18. Make 100 dollars one month through publishing.
  19. Make 500 dollars one month through publishing.
  20. Make 1000 dollars one month through publishing.
  21. (Bonus) Get back in shape physically by losing 20 lbs
    • (Bonus) Loose another 20 lbs

There are my goals for 2020. Notice I made a few changes. I will discuss them in the following section.

Breakdown of Goals.

As I have so many goals, and many of them build on others, I will be only going over the goals I am dealing with at the moment.

  1. Write 600,000 words in publishable story related projects.
    • I am at 307k words for 2020. This month I wrote 52,391 words. If I keep this pace up, I will be around 614k words for the year. This is good. I am writing more than I did last year. The average had been trending down due to distractions. In the later half of the month, I have turned it away.
    • You may have noticed a stretch goal of 200k more words. This is not a sane decision. I recognize this. This is due to me looking at the novels I wish to produce this year and realizing I’m not going to get the manuscripts complete. I don’t expect to get this done as in order to make my 800k goal, I will have to write 2700 words a day. This is a crazy goal for someone who types it instead of dictating. Like I said. I don’t expect to get this done, but it is not for the lack of trying.
  2. Write every day of at least 500 words making words in a row at 731 days in the road.
    • I am on day 548 of 731. I am making my goal. It is hard at times, but I am doing it.
  3. Catch up on editing allowing no more than 2 manuscripts waiting to be edited.
    • This is working. I suspect that I will be working on this goal until December. But we will see how I do. I have more to do with editing, I may have to work more on it, but with the added Bonus goal, it may be hard.
  4. Edit every day of 1 chapter at a minimum.
    • I got this one down. I have managed to make it something I do during my normal day.
  5. Secure cover art for any book in the editing stage.
    • I have decided to only do covers for books that are getting close. No need to stress over it.
  6. Publish a minimum of 1 book.
    • Done! Enlisted. Book one of the Agent O’Neal Saga.
  7. Publish a minimum of 3 books.
    • I am only counting books published and not on pre-order.
    • Kidnapped. Book two of the Agent O’Neal Saga.
  8. Publish a minimum of 5 books.
  9. Publish a minimum of 7 books.
  10. Write one blog post a week.
    • This is being done. I have yet to miss one and I don’t attend to miss it.
  11. Write an update blog for the remaining months.
    • This is to keep going. No time to waste.
  12. Clean up Tokyo Tempest #1 with a proofread.
  13. Write and submit 5 short stories to markets.
    • I should write some short stories.
  14. Publish 7 short stories or novellas to amazon.
  15. Set up a Patreon account.
    • I need to make a move on this. No one can sign up to something that doesn’t exist.
  16. Set up proper social media author accounts and a proper newsletter.
  17. Have 1 paying client of editing services.
  18. Make 100 dollars one month through publishing.
  19. Make 500 dollars one month through publishing.
  20. Make 1000 dollars one month through publishing.
  21. (Bonus) Loose another twenty pounds.
    • My January weight was 277lbs. My weight today 252lbs. I am twenty pounds lighter. This was all done by intermediate fasting. It seems to be working. As the year is only half over, then I will strive to loose another 20lbs.

Future plans.

I have much to do. My plan is to have a new title released each month. Writing a new title every month is insane. With each novel being 75k words or more, this is an insane number. This means that I will have to increase my word count to 900k or even to one million. I will try for 800k for this year, then I may increase it in 2021. I don’t think this is going to work, but I will try. Plus I need to learn more about marketing. I need to figure out how to get my books in front of people. If they don’t know it exists, then they can’t buy it.

This journey is not something I can do alone. It takes support from many people for it to become a reality. The easiest way is to visit my Amazon Author Page and purchase one of my books. They are available in all countries and for free in Kindle Unlimited. I do have a tip jar set up at Ko-Fe, where you can buy me a coffee. Or you can also visit me on Facebook. Your help and support are much appreciated.

Interlude: My Day Job

My life tends to revolve around two things; my writing and my family. I tend to talk about writing as I try not to talk too much about my personal life. Today, I am going into something different, I am going to talk about what is going on with my personal life and my day job.

In short, my day job doesn’t exist. As of June of last year, I was laid off from my job as an Estimator in a restoration firm. They had eliminated my position. I then discovered that most other companies in the area had done the same thing. In short, my job was farmed out to a third-party company that operates across the country.

So where does that leave me?

Unemployed with a wife, who is going to university, and two adventurist kids, who won’t understand why piano lessons have ended. Any job that I take will be a substantial pay cut as I have no skills outside of that industry, which is not hiring. I am back to square one.

For seven years of my life, I spent working in the restoration field. I was good at it. It wasn’t a glamorous job, at first I cleaned up shit for a living. Now, I looked at the prospect of having to start in a labourer position to earn my strips in another industry, but what?

So I took a sizeable step. I went back to school.

Fifteen years ago, right after high school, I went to film school. I graduated with a certificate. However, the industry wasn’t for me. It was the only post-secondary schooling that I had, which was apart of my problems.

With me unemployed from the restoration job, no trade to fall back on, and no degree either, it left me with the choice of minimum wage or slightly above the minimum as a labourer digging ditches.

My wife, however, knew that would be losing my soul. With her encouragement, I am now a university student. I have been going since September. I am taking a Major in Creative Writing.

The question is why. Why take an art degree when there are no jobs in the field? And don’t I already have novels published, why take schooling if I already know what to do?

The answers to those questions are simple. I know that there are no jobs that use an art degree. I completely understand. I have created my own job by being an indie author. It is about what a person makes of the situation more than the situation itself.

And yes, I do know how to write a novel and to tell a story. Writing a manuscript isn’t hard for me. I have three completed manuscripts sitting in the ‘to edit’ pile right now. However, I want to become an editor and maybe someday open my own publishing house. To do that, getting a degree is necessary.

But there are other benefits. My writing has been challenged to become tighter, cleaner. I am having an easier time articulating what I want to say. This is all necessary for growth as a writer. Before I went to school, I felt that my writing had stagnated as I wasn’t getting any better. In my honest opinion, my writing was sliding back into the abbess of shite.

So that is what has been going on with one part of my personal life. I am a university student who writes novels.

If you like what you are reading and wish to support me in my endeavours, please sign up to my newsletter, visit my Amazon Author Page and purchase one of my books. Leave a review, or buy me a coffee. Your help and support are much appreciated.

The Writing Process: The Routine

I have been writing every day for over sixty days now. Currently, I’m averaging just over 1400 words a day. I’m also editing for an hour every day. This is on top of anything that I have to do in my life. Kids, wife, daily tasks, etc.

As I have said before, writing a novel is not a sprint. It is an endurance race. Writing a book is like trying to get into shape. You can’t go to the gym for one day and expect to be in shape the next day. Same thing with writing a novel. It is not something that is done in a day.

Getting into a healthy shape is not a simple task but a lifestyle to be adopted. If you see someone that is actively working on staying healthy, it is not a task that they do for a few hours. They change their sleep habits, their eating habits, they start to walk places instead of driving.

What is similar in both a novelist and a workout guru is a routine. The guru will get up at 5am every day to go for a run. She will use some sort of calendar to check off to encourage the habit. In short, a routine is essential to getting the new habit going. Without a routine to rely upon at the start, the good habits don’t form, and the bad ones stay. A routine will keep you going when you want to quit. Clicking on a video game or Netflix after all is easy.

As I have stated before, my routine is that I write up little cards of the things that I need to do the next day the night before. The next day, I cross things off as I complete them. Due to my 500,000 word goal, I also have a spreadsheet that I keep track of. I also make sure that I finish my personal tasks first in the day before I work on other things.

For you, however, you may need to come up with different methods. The key is not to be afraid to think outside of the box and to try a new approach. Then dump whatever is not working for you. Use the method that works, discard anything that doesn’t.

Remember, a routine is your friend, but only when it works. When it fails to work, you need to drop it like fifth period french. I will go into more detail on that next week.

If you like what you are reading and wish to support me in my endeavours, please sign up to my newsletter, visit my Amazon Author Page and purchase one of my books. Leave a review, or buy me a coffee. Your help and support are much appreciated.

 

End of February 2019 Report

As like the post for the end of January, this is the post of the end of February. I am still putting my money where my mouth is.

Recap of 2019 Goals

  1. Write 500,000 words in personal, non-school related projects.
  2. Complete and publish Felix #2, Felix #3, Des O’Neal #1, Des O’Neal #2, Des O’Neal #3, Jovian Marines #1, Jovian Marines #2, Jovian Marines #3, Mech Warrior #1, Mech Warrior #2, Mech Warrior #3.
  3. Correct cover for Felix #1.
  4. Write four blog posts per month
  5. Give Felix #1 and Tokyo Tempest #1 a proofread.
  6. Complete and submit to market Terran Marine Raider short #1, Terran Marine Raider short #2, and RPG Death short.
  7. Earn $1000.00 a month from novels.
  8. Relaunch publishing company with a new, stronger name.
  9. Get 1 client for editing services.

February Accomplishments

  1. I wrote 41,013 words.
  2. I finished the first draft of Mech Warrior #1.
  3. Re-finished editing Des O’Neal #1
  4. Waiting on a cover for Des O’Neal #1
  5. Worked on editing Jovian Marines #1
  6. Wrote 4 blog posts during February

Examination of Accomplishments

  1. I wrote just over 41k words in February. It is not large enough for the 42,000 words that I set for myself, but that is okay. The base goal for February is 38,360 words. My month was far from perfect. I had many days where I didn’t make the 1500 words. I missed the goal ten times this month. However, I did manage to write over 2k words for nine days with my highest word day at 2558. This is a better month than January in terms of words.
  2. The novel with the working title of Mech Warrior #1 was started back in 2018. It is the second book of those that I had only partially completed. I had left the book 41k words, but now it has finished at 87k words. That makes three novels to be edited. I may have to figure out better editing habits as the pile is growing.
  3. At the start of the January, I had finished the edits to the first Des O’Neal book called The O’Neal Saboteur. However, after reexamining the book and learning some better editing “hacks,” I discovered that I missed some big errors. They are fixed now. I expect to publish it in the next few days. Stay tuned for that announcement in the coming days.
  4. I have been working with my wife, the artist, on a cover for the Des O’Neal book. It is coming along, and it will be a post once I can show something about it.
  5. The edits of Jovian Marines #1 are ongoing. The title of which will be The Missed Drop Zone. It will be in the Odinite Campaign Saga.
  6. As you can see from my previous posts, I have written four blog posts with them going live on Sundays. This month I wrote about story ideas and how to find them and nurture them.

Plan for the Future

Despite not hitting the publish button in the month of January or February, I consider the month of February to be successful. I start my day by editing for an hour before doing anything else. I will need to perhaps add more time to that. Maybe working on more time to write it. I need to get not only Missed Drop Zone published, but I need to get a large part of the way done editing Felix #2.  I still write my next day’s tasks at the end of each night.

I am currently working on a Military Sci-Fi for an anthology. It is still in the same story verse as Des O’Neal and the Odinite Campaign but is about someone on the side of Terra.

So far, it is working, but I have had to make some changes. I will go into details this Sunday when I drop my weekly post. Maybe I will also talk about some of the current projects that I am working on.

If you like what you are reading and wish to support me in my endeavours, please sign up to my newsletter, visit my Amazon Author Page and purchase one of my books. Or buy me a coffee. Your help and support are much appreciated.

Update July 3, 2018

So I know that I haven’t been posting in a while. I am sorry for that. I published my first book, then my posting fell off. So far this year, I have written 200k words. I have two full novels published and two smaller kids books that I did with my kids.

Plus being a dad has taken up much of my time. My son is in piano, and my daughter is a ballerina.

I know. I am creating excuses for why I haven’t been posting. The suns in my eyes… the curling game is on…

No more lame excuses.

I will be moving to post once a week for now, and maybe posting more later.

In other news, my day job was going fine. Until they laid me off. It sucks, but I have written 25k words in the last 2 weeks, and I have published one book. I have another in the editing process and a short story in editing as well. I am not letting the depressiveness get to me. I am getting things done.

I also have an outstanding cover artist. His work is fantastic and has upped the game to my novels. His cover is the image for this post.

His site can be found here: Josh Thornbrugh

So now that you know that I am unemployed and working on my novels full-time cause that is the cards that have been dealt, what’s my future?

Well, the plan is to go back to school. Learn more about the writing and publishing process. It is a scary prospect, but I will make a go of it.

I will close off here, but if you all want to support my family and me, the easiest way will be to buy a book or three. Right not they are only available on Amazon and as e-books. They will be released sometime in the near future.

The full list of my published book can be found here.

My published work. 

Until next time.

Stay Shiny.

 

I’ve been Tardy…

It’s now the eighth of March and this blog post is later than it should have been. I apologize for the lack of blog posts. I have been busy.

Tonight, I should have been in bed hours ago…such, I shall ‘try’ to keep this post short, but knowing me, no promises.

This post is intended to act as an update on my writing process and some of the issues and errors that I have made. Some that I have corrected, some that I have not.

So far I have published two books and a third will be launching next week sometime. My cover artist is busy and it is likely it will be a bit before she gets to it. It’s all good.  As of the end of February, I have made a total of fifty bucks from my books and I have realized I have made some mistakes.

My marketing needs work and I have no sense of cover design. The two book covers that have been posted, I love. I think that they are lovely designs, the issue I have with them is that they’re not drawing people’s attention. No one wants to click on my books. No clicks mean they won’t buy my book.

After that, my marketing copy is bad. Bad marketing copy means that they will not be wanting to buy the book.

I have no data on how many people clicked the covers, or getting to the sale page, or putting it in their shopping carts.

The books are included in the KDP Select program. So people can read the books for free. KDP select is the only place that people will read my Phantom Sorcerer’ books. Most of the revenue made is from having ‘Phantom Sorcerer’ in KDP Select.  So far no one has read a page of the ‘Missile Attack’ book.

I think the problem with the ‘Missile Attack’ book, is that it’s a hard market to get into. And it makes sense. The kids that would enjoy the books don’t read KDP Select and don’t have credit cards to buy it.

That means that I need a new marketing strategy for my middle-grade book before I launch it on Amazon. But what to do? More research time I guess.

But from what I see in the reports that I get from KDP select, people read it. Not a lot, but when they do, its a cluster of times that they read the books. Meaning that I think that people are finishing the books. But I have no sign-ups for my newsletters or reviews on the books.

And that is that. I am currently 90% done on my June release, while I’m working on my July launch. But I haven’t gotten much down.

I have been hit by a wave of stress and a defeatist feeling. The peanut gallery is back. My inner Statler and Waldorf have made their untimely resurrection. Their presence has halted my production down to a crawl. They are an unwanted tumor in my life, and I must again figure out how to get rid of them. They’re halting my writing process and it’s not very good.

Advice would be greatly appreciated for any of the above statements and concerns. Feel free to email me at NAPedde@peddehouse.com, leave a comment, or a Twitter message.

Until next time.

Cheers.

 

 

 

 

Thoughts on this Indi-Publishing thing 1.0

As it goes from being January 2018 to February 2018, it is approaching 15 days since I published my first book.

You can find it here. Phantom Sorcerer.

It has not been any type of success. No movie deals offered, or entry onto the New York Times List.

It just hasn’t. It has sold a grand total of four copies. I managed to give away forty-five copies one weekend, but people horde free books and never read them. So I don’t expect any reviews from that bunch.

It happens.

So does that mean that I need to give up? Like all the pessimists out there that tell me all the time?

No.

This is exactly as I expected it to happen.

I am a complete unknown with very little social media presence. I have an email list, but no one on it.

This indie-publishing thing. this experiment. Is not for the faint of heart. It is a long-term game.

Does that mean that after the first books that I should be able to make lots of money?

No.

There is a strategy that is called, “20 books for 50k”. In it, the idea is that you write twenty books you should be able to get successful. If you write twenty books, then the total sales of each book will make enough to be successful.

The traditional model of being able to write a single book a year and being able to live off of the royalties and the advance from that is dead and gone. Traditional Publishing as we know it is an unwieldy, dying beast. The indie-community knows it. The traditional publishers know it. The traditional publishing world is thrashing around to save itself.

Indie-publishing is the way to go. But it is not perfect. In the indie-publishing world, a big argument is the elephant in the room.

Amazon.

There are many publishers that an indie author like myself can go to. There is Direct-to-Digital, Smashwords, Amazon to name a few.

Amazon has 70% of the US market for indie books. It is also the only one to demand exclusivity in being able to sell on Amazon.

But it is only some of its books. It is called, “KDP Select.” In it, you get a range of promotional benefits as well as the ability to put your book into the lending library of Kindle Unlimited.

One side will argue that it is best to go wide. To not leave out the 30% of the market that is not Amazon. That you can still get 70% royalties from any books sold on Amazon and be able to sell it everywhere else.

That Amazon is an evil beast, and you shouldn’t hitch your horse to that wagon. That by saddling yourself with Amazon, you are becoming a dependant author reliant on Amazon for your lively hood. That I am no better than going with traditional publishing.

I, however, have a different opinion.

Scary huh?

While I have sold a grand total of four units, which means that I have a total of approx. $15 Canadian so far. It is approx cause the differences in the values of the currencies.

So far, I have a total of approx. 2000 KENP Reads. That is the number of pages that someone that subscribe to Kindle Unlimited has read. That is, of course, new page reads.

I don’t have any idea on how many people started the book and went to something else, or how many people have actually read the entire thing. They don’t give me the number of users that have read it.

For authors, KENP works by Amazon setting up a fund from the subscribers to Kindle Unlimited. That pot is split up to be paid to all of the authors. It is currently based on the amount of KENP page reads that has been read by a subscriber. Based on the given approximations, it doubles my revenue from that single book.

Now, this is without using any of the promotional abilities that KDP Select allows me to use other than the free days. It does not show the other side of the equation. How much could my book have made by going ‘wide?’

For an entirely accurate number, I can’t tell you. I’d have to pull my book out of KDP Select and put it up on the other markets. I may do that when I can. I may not.

But if Amazon has 70% of the market and I have managed to receive 70% of the sales possible for that book, then I should be able to get another $4.50 from them. That means KDP select is $30 while going wide is $20.

That is only a guess at the moment, based on some rough numbers. It might have gone differently if I had done differently.

Now in regards to the notion that my going exclusive with select, that I am no better than going with traditional publishing. I disagree.

As an indie author, I still hold my rights. I have the audio-books rights, the paperback. The only right that I have given up is the digital rights to the books. And it is easily returnable. I’d only have to wait 90 days. With tradition publishing, you have to wait a pre-selected amount of time that the book is out of print, or spend a boatload of money to get it back.

Those are just my thoughts so far. I plan on posting more of these posts later, once I publish more books.

Nathan’s Amazon Author Page

Phantom Sorcerer

Until Next time.

 

Plot Holes

I read a lot of books. Well, listen to audio tapes is a better description, but it is the same. I don’t have a lot of funds to spend on books though. So I listen to free audio dramas online.

Which is hard to find good audio dramas. I keep on getting a couple episodes in, and then I can’t listen to them anymore.

And it’s for silly things. I was listening to this one about an economic post-apocalypse. The concept was sound. I listened to it. At the three-quarter mark of the episode, they are in the middle of a gunfight, and one soldier yells to the other, “Throw me a clip.”

What they hell. A clip. They were modern soldiers. Modern soldiers don’t use clips. Clips are used inside rifles. Like they used for the M1 Garand or the Soviet SKS. Modern military rifles don’t use clips.

They use magazines. Magazines are a clip, but it is encased in metal or plastic, and it is attached to the outside of the firearm. Some are attached to the side, while most are attached underneath.

Another one had a lady running down the street with a shirt covered in blood. Not a single person asked her if she was alright. And they didn’t run from her either. Then there were the obvious historical problems when they went to an origin point of a long-lived character. They described the British Empire as it was during the 18th century. There was no British Empire in 1000’s AD.

But that is enough of me whinning.

Until next time.

Goodbye 2017 and Hello 2018

2017 has been quite a year. Lots of things have changed in such a short amount of time.

The first thing of note is that I sold my house and moved across the province to the warmest place in Canada. The only part of the country that gets little or no real winter. And it has been awesome. We moved primarily to get closer to a good university for my wife who is going to art school. You can see some of her work here.  Grace Pedde’s Instagram

The kids are in school, and they both love it. They are learning lots and excelling at it. Something that I could never do. I wanted to be outside playing in the mud. Not inside reading some dusty tomb about salmon eggs. My kids love reading about that. My son’s favorite subject is rocks and minerals. He has a hardcover book that he reads. He also wants to become a video game designer. But he is seven, and that may change.

The most significant thing that I have done this year is creating this site. The site has gone from an unused blog to a website. There are still places that it can go, and it is an evolving thing. I have pages to show some art from my worlds. I only have a couple, but more will come eventually. You can find it here. Concept art

I have also opened my graveyard. It is a place for those morbid peoples that want to see their name in print. No matter how. And I always need names of victims to slice open in my adult works. It’s a win-win. That can be found here. Graveyard

At the moment, I have no published works. Nothing exists out there. But I can tell you that I have made some real progress.

The first is that I have book one of my Felix the Swift trilogy getting edited. I also have four middle-grade works that I co-wrote with my kids to be edited as well. Three out of four Space Courier Books are done, as well as one out of four Evana Sweetland books. I am currently working on fixing Book 1 of my Culture Shock Trilogy. It is going through some significant changes. Once I get that one closer, I will talk about it soon.

And that was 2017 in a nutshell.

The big question of the day. What are my plans for 2018? I have mentioned some of them before, but here they are now.

The plan is to publish a title a month. I say title as if I say that I will publish a novel a month, people will think that I will publish 12 full-length adult books. But I don’t only write adult books.

I write a mix of adult books, middle grade, and young adult fiction. I say titles as a middle-grade book is generally smaller than an adult one. Fewer words mean that they are usually quicker to write.

I will be writing a blog post about the differences between the age groups later.

I also have a schedule. Most professional authors create some sort of plan on what they want to work on and when. Sometimes they have outside forces like a publisher that dictates what they write about. I don’t have a publisher. I AM the publisher. I create my own schedule. I am the eggman, I am the walrus…coo coo ca choo…

My schedule is:

January 2018- Phantom Sorcerer: Felix the Swift Book 1
February 2018- Missile Attack: Space Courier Book 1
March 2018- The Dragon Heart: The Adventures of Evana Sweetland Book 1
April 2018- Culture Shock: Land of Ash and Fire Book 1
May 2018- Saboteur Confronted: Space Courier Book 2
June 2018- Untitled: The Adventures of Evana Sweetland Book 2
July 2018- Under the Shadow of Giants: Felix the Swift Book 2
August 2018- Untitled: Space Courier Book 3
September 2018- Untitled: The Adventures of Evana Sweetland Book 3
October 2018- It Begins: Inescapable Game Book 1
November 2018- Untitled: Space Courier Book 4
December 2018- Untitled: The Adventures of Evana Sweetland Book 4

That is subject to change as life happens. Things change, and it may not be tenable. Only time will tell.

But, I will close things off with a couple sayings that I have adopted as my mantra. I will do blog posts on each later.

“If your dreams don’t scare you, they’re not big enough.”
“If you don’t risk failure, then you don’t deserve Success!”

Until next time. Happy 2018.

Cheers.

Update: Dec 9, 2017

Well, time is a fickle thing. It tends to run slowly at some points, usually when you don’t need it to. Like when you are waiting for something to happen. Like when you are waiting for work to end.

Or time will go really fast. Like when you are having fun, or you are on a vacation or the weekend. At that point, time is like a runaway train that doesn’t seem to want to stop. One moment you are yelling TGIF, the next it is Monday Blues.

Well, time has slipped by, and it is now December 9th, 2017. It is almost Christmas. I have yet to walk into a shopping center to buy a single thing. Our Christmas tree is still in the storage bin. I do not have the time to get myself out there to get it all.

The last post I did was the lyrics of a song that I altered. Well, I didn’t modify it. It was my wife. You see, I have been prepping a novel idea, the Inescapable game, that I am going to pitch on the Archivos Podcast. In the new year, I am scheduled to go on the podcast. I will pitch the story idea to the crazy guys, and we will be brainstorming it. So I thought that I should have a couple points of the story fleshed it out.

Well, I have a fickle issue with world building. I love worldbuilding, but I also hate having to spend too much time doing it. I’d rather be working on the actual story than the world. So to combat this, I tend to create worlds that I can write multiple stories in. My Agersolum world, I have at least a dozen stories planned for it.

To get back to the point about those lyrics, I have figured out a way to attach my Inescapable Game to my 500 Years Universe. Then I figured out how many novels that the Inescapable Game story will stretch to. I plan to write 15 books in the series. Split into three parts.

It was at that point that my wife started to sing that dreadful song.

So that is the backstory to that last post.

Until next time.