Sunday, August 18, 2013

Tiberius, "The Shadow Place," and Change

Well, this is it, the day of change. I'm  not actually a huge fan of change; I tend to like things to stay the way they are even if I don't like the way things are. Which is not to say that I don't want to be on the other side of the change; I just hate the process of the change itself. I blame my mother.

No, seriously, I do. When I was a kid, especially when I was in middle school, she used to like to move the furniture around all of the time because she'd get bored with the layout. I was the furniture moving guy. My brother was to little (I'm six years older than him), and my dad just wouldn't do it. There was a point early on when I think she was asking him first, but he would always say "later" until she'd get frustrated enough to make me do it. Eventually, she wouldn't bother to ask him anymore. My assumption is that the furniture moved so much during those years was because I was finally big enough to do the heavy lifting and it was before I quit being home all the time. That is to say, once I was a sophomore in high school, I was never home anymore, so she no longer had anyone to help her with the furniture, so it went back to staying put.

I just want to say, here, that if it had just been the normal kind of rearranging the furniture, everything would have been okay. But it wasn't...

See, when I was in 7th grade, we moved into a two-story house. There was a spare room that ran the length of the back of the house that connected to my parents' bedroom but could also be accessed through one of the bathrooms. My mom had a crusade to put that room to some kind of use beyond just being a spare room where stuff paused on the way to the attic and, then, never left.

Her first big plan was to make it into the "family" room. That meant moving the entertainment center we had in the "family" room up to the spare room. This thing was huge. It was, like, seven feet tall or something. It only just fit up the stairs with less than an inch to spare, but it wasn't the trip up the stairs that was the problem. It's just that it didn't really take all that long, a couple of months, at most, for my mom to realize that sleeping in on a Saturday morning would never be possible with the TV right outside of her bedroom (it didn't bother my dad; he could sleep through anything), so the entertainment center had to go back down the stairs. That was the hard part.

Then, she decided she would make that room the laundry room. It would be more convenient, she said, to have the washer and dryer right there in that room rather than lug the clothes down to the back porch and back up again. Yes, I had to move the washer and dryer up the stairs into that room. We won't go into the altercation my parents had over the issue of getting water to the washing machine. Eventually, though, the washer and dryer went back to the back porch; I'm pretty sure it had to do with the fact that my brother and I were travelling through my parents' bedroom all the time to get to our clothes.

And I'm not even gonna start on the time she wanted to move the piano up the stairs...

So, yeah, me and change... not hand in hand. Just ask my wife.

But here I am changing things up. Today is the release of the first collected volume of Shadow Spinner parts:
"Shadow Spinner: Collection 1: Tiberius (Parts 1-5)"
Yeah, that's a lot of colons, but what can you do? You try taking a colon out of a place where it's needed and see what happens. But, anyway... the biggest process of change is recovering the 38 reviews I have scattered over the first five parts of series. It's kind of like moving furniture except that I have to ask other people to help out. "Collection 1" is only two bucks, which is less than the five bucks it would have cost to get the parts separately, so I hope you will pick it up, read it, and leave a review. PLUS! There is the excellent bonus story by Bryan Pedas, "Like An Axe Through Bone," which is actually longer than five chapters I have in this collection. It's worth the price all by itself.

[Oh, and just a note: I'm still looking for at least one more author to feature at the back of one of these collections, so let me know if you're interested in writing an Imagination Room or House on the Corner related story!]

So, now, after asking you to spend money, I'll give something away, because today is the FREE! release of "Part Twenty-eight: The Shadow Place." And, remember, there will be a new chapter every Monday until the serialization is finished. And, hopefully, the second collection will be ready in a few weeks as well. Here's the list of today's FREE! offerings:
"Part Twenty-eight: The Shadow Place" (also FREE! tomorrow, Tuesday, August 20)
"Part Twenty-seven: Leaving"
"Part Twenty-six: The Bitter Fruit"
"Part Twenty-five: The Light of Knowledge"
"Part Twenty-one: The Chase"
"Part Twenty: The Sword of Fire"
"Part Nineteen: Lost in the Garden"
"Part Eighteen: The Angel"
"Part Seventeen: The Tree of Light"
"Part Fifteen: Food of the Garden"
"Part Fourteen: Anger and Laughter"
"Part Thirteen: The Clearing"
"Part Twelve: The Gash in the Floor"
"Part Eleven: The Kiss"
"Part Nine: The Shadow of the Tree"
"Part Eight: The Cold and The Dark"
"Part Seven: The Moth and the Shadow"
"Part Six: The Man with No Eyes"
That's 18 parts for FREE! today. You can't beat FREE!, right? Well, unless someone is paying you take it...

25 comments:

  1. I really, really, need to take a speed reading course or apply myself or something.

    I loved this story of your Mom wanting the furniture moved all the time. Not sure if I buy the argument that it caused you to dislike the process of change but I sure wouldn't go so far as to say you are wrong. My Mom never moved the furniture except to clean and I think I'm okay with change. Some might argue with that...

    On a dif subject I did lookup Maslow's Hierarchy of Needs and found it fascinating. Thank you!

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  2. Cool, I'll snag it today!
    My wife used to be a moving the furniture around person. But since I don't like it to move, and she needs me to help plus my approval, it doesn't have anymore. I do give her free reign on the spare room though and I can't even tell you how many times that room;s furniture has shuffled about.

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  3. I'm an old fuddy duddy and don't like change either. It messes with my psyche.

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  4. Meanwhile, I need change. Too much monotony kills me. Or maybe that's just the stay at home writer in me.

    Good luck with the release. We gave you a shout out!

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  5. I grew up in a home where my parents were used furniture and antique dealers. I'd wake up in one bed and go to sleep in a different one...furniture changed, not just position!
    Got the collection! Will post my review post-haste and give it a mention tomorrow for teacher visitors to my site!

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  6. I'd really rather buy it all at once in one convenient package.

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  7. "You try taking a colon out of a place where it's needed and see what happens."

    Words to live by!

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  8. I got my copy. I think I put a review up too. That makes me way more on top of things than I ever have been. Don't know what to make of that.

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  9. Love the story on change and moving furniture. I used to do it a lot too, hubby hated it, so did the boys. Guess I'm more settled now, don't do it anymore.

    Free, I can handle that, thanks!

    Oh and all men claim they don't flirt, but I think it's part of their makeup!

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  10. I wish I could move the furniture around. I can only get one configuration to work in my living room. And that's a great idea putting the stories into small collections.

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  11. David: Well, it makes a good parallel, you know?
    Glad you enjoyed Maslow's. That was one of my favorite bits of psych classes.

    Alex: I think part of it for me is that I don't get bored easily, so the furniture being in the same place for a decade just doesn't bother me.

    JKIR,F!: Me, too!

    ABftS: Thanks for that! It was even painless. heh
    A bet you mean getting and doing something kind of change, though, not shaking your personal environment around. Or am I wrong?

    Donna: Thanks so much!
    I'm not sure how I'd feel about not knowing whether my bed would be there when I got home.

    PT: Well, that's what the actual, physical book is for.

    TAS: They are, aren't they.

    Rusty: You did! I saw it and your "verified purchase" thing. Awesome! Thanks!

    Yolanda: Here's the thing: if you flirt with me first, I can probably flirt back, but if I have to initiate it... It's just probably not going to happen. I am the king of missed opportunities. I even suck at flirting with my wife when she opens the door for me to do it.

    L.G.: Well, we have that issue where we are, now, too. Small room, not a lot of options.

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  12. I used to love to move furniture around too. That was when I was younger and had much more energy and lots less furniture.

    Good luck with your book!

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  13. Elsie: I have to wonder if it's a gender thing. I have never known a man that likes to shuffle furniture.

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  14. We're glad to help! Oh, and really, I did mean shaking up my personal environment. My office is pretty much where I spend 16 hours of my day, and sometimes I need to mix it up otherwise I'll go crazy. So I'll Feng Shui the hell out of that place and move the desk around, the couch around, etc. Keeps me sane... I guess.

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  15. ABftS: Wow... that's impressive. I take back my comment to Elsie.
    Man, it bends me out of shape if someone moves one of my pens.

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  16. That actually makes perfect sense as for why you hate change. What a chore. At least this time the change is worth it, right?

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  17. Jeanne: I don't know, yet. I've traded way down on the reviews, at least for the moment. I'll have to see how things turn out.

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  18. Yes it did and it is odd how some people like thinking about this stuff and others hate it. When the elder called yesterday afternoon, I asked him about it and he sort of chuckled, said it was a bunch of phooey, and began complaining about the traffic in Houston.

    Of course he doesn't think it is a bunch of phooey but he's not going to discuss it.

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  19. When I look at these on Amazon, they are still all showing up as $0.99 each, and that's the only option I'm getting. Am I doing something wrong?

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  20. BOY, THIS ANDREW LEON GUY JUST ROOKED ME INTO BUYING A WHOLE NEW SET OF...

    Oh, there you are! Didn't see you come in.

    HA HA I cracks me up.

    I just rebought and reposted my reviews. Glad to help you out. I'll work on the Goodreads thing.

    As for moving furniture around/spare rooms, I can relate, but I'm more on your mom's side. I love rearranging furniture. It's like living in a brand new house, without all the extra hassle (and, admittedly, with still the same old macaroni-colored carpet.)

    We also have a spare room, that was originally billed as a fifth bedroom but which adjoins the lower level of our house and has a separate back door, so we thought it not terribly smart to put one of the kids in there. In the time that we've lived in the house (10 years) it's been a storage room, homework room, study, spare bedroom, study again, storage room again, flooded and unusable, and then it housed the inflatable jump castle we bought the boys, then it was a playroom and now although it is is nominally a playroom, it is actually just a storage room for some toys.

    But I'm thinking I could make it into a study again...when are you available to move some furniture?

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  21. Ouch! I can't imagine how hard it must have been to lug heavy furniture around like that.

    Best of luck with the new release. :-)

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  22. David: There's been some pretty intensive study about Maslow's hierarchy, and, while agreeing that a lot psychology (especially pop psychology and positive psychology) is bull hockey (and I have a degree in psychology), Maslow's is pretty grounded in the way people demonstrably behave. We can't always see that in the USA because we don't have a lot of people not getting their physiological needs met.

    Callie: That would be because you're a day lat. They were free on Monday. Only part 28 is still free today. However, next Monday, when part 29 comes out, many of them will be free again.

    Briane: I'll tell you what; you fly me out there, maybe set up a book signing for me and do some kind of tax write off or something, and I'll move your furniture around for you.

    Misha: I don't really remember it being hard. Well, not most of it. I remember getting that entertainment center back down the stairs as being hard, but that was mostly to do with it being awkward and not wanting it to slip and go out the windows on the landing or anything like that.

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  23. Oh drat. I don't have time to read my feeds every day anymore and I didn't notice it was from yesterday.

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  24. I do love the story about your mother making you move stuff. Your brother wasn't roped into the scheme once you tired of it?

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  25. Callie: No problem, and you won't even have to wait that long for more FREE!

    TAS: Well, no. My brother never had to do chores when we were growing up. Since I was so much older than him, I was already trained in all of the chores, so, when I hit high school and quit being home, it was too much trouble for my mom to try and train him in anything.

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