The Life of the Writer's Son (a local color post?)

Well hello there, readers of Andrew’s blog.

If you didn’t look at the title, this isn’t actually the man himself, Da- Andrew. This is his son. The writer’s son.

Or, perhaps, the writer? Who is the son of a person who also happens to be a writer?

Or maybe I’m the person who happens to be the writer as well. Perhaps because my father is a writer? I honestly got no idea. (Bad grammar... and I thought I was good at writing...)

So, dad assigned me to write this post. Why? I’m not sure. He felt like it. He likes to torture me.

But I do know that I wasn’t assigned to write this to beat down dad’s feelings with hurtful words about how mean he is to me. No, that would only get me grounded...

I was assigned to write about writing. Woah. Write-ception.

Um, anyway, so. The writing. The subject of this mess. Let’s get on with it.

While I’m doing the writing, it’s not the best thing in the world. It seems really boring, like a waste of my time. I would much rather be doing other things. Sometimes, only sometimes, I actually get writing really quickly and I like it a little. It’s sort of fun then, but when I’m stuck and going slowly it’s not so great.

And I do get stuck. I actually get stuck quite a bit. I am currently working on three different stories and I don’t know where to go with them. I say to myself, “How do I get this character out of this situation? I’ll solve that today,” and then when I try I fail. That’s not a nice feeling, not nice at all.

The nice feelings happen when I complete a story. A good story. Seeing a story all finished and fancy gets my hopes up; I feel like I’ve accomplished something. Have I really? I’ve got no idea, but it sure does feel like it. Although, when my stories go into collections or when I earn money off of them, I’ve probably done at least a tiny morsel of good.

Hmm, the collections. Every year, dad makes a collection of stories out of the good ones that he gets from the elective he teaches at my school (this year he actually has his own entire class period on Friday afternoons) called Charter Shorts. It’s nice to have a story or two in there, and I’ve had at least one every year. My favorite is actually the first one I ever wrote, one that combines the House on the Corner -- the book that my dad wrote -- and Star Wars. I know you know what the latter is. If you don’t, may I hang you on a ladder?

Okay, I’m honestly sorry for that pun. It wasn’t any good. Please forgive me. Don’t eat me alive.

Okay, um... well, I don’t have anything else to say. Is this the most awkward exit ever? Quite possibly. Uh... bye bye. Go away now.

No, really. If you’re still reading this, then there’s something wrong with you. Leave. Leave before I drive you insane. Maybe I should just write this entire thing out again. Which would turn it into an endless loop of itself, since this is at the end of it. Okay, fine. Let’s do that.

Well hello there, readers of Andrew’s blog...

***
Actually, don't leave yet!
There's a reason I wanted my son to write a post for me about writing, so let me get to that. Just ignore him telling you to go away. And, by the way, for those of you out there that write, did any of those problems sound familiar?

My son mentioned his first story, so let's talk about that. He won a prize for that first story which he is still proud of even though he tries, sometimes, to play it off as no big deal. [He was only 10 when he wrote it, by the way It's impressive talent for a 10-year-old.] Because it fits the parameters of what I wanted as backup stories in the Shadow Spinner collections, I thought I'd share it. So, today, the fourth (and final!) collection of Spinner chapters is available! WooHoo!

You can pick up "Collection 4: The Undying" right here. And you should totally do that! And leave a review.

But wait! There's more!
My son has this other story he wrote, "The Language of Nythos," that I absolutely love. It is my favorite thing by him (at least until I get to the stuff he's working on for this year's Charter Shorts). But there are a couple of problems:
1. Although it works fine as its own story, he actually wrote it as the introduction to a longer story.
2. He refuses to write more! He says he decided he doesn't like his idea and just will not continue it, no matter how much cajoling I do.
3. Briane Pagel has published the story over on his site lit, so you should go over and read it.
4. Leave him an encouraging message (if you like it) so that, maybe, just maybe, he will be inspired to write some more of it!

Hmm... Okay, so that was more than a couple. Just go read the story and leave him a note. And don't forget to pick up "The Undying"!

Vampires: Day 2 -- "Locked In"

Beyond "Choose Your Own Adventure" books, second person perspective isn't used much in fiction. There's good reason for this. If it goes on for any length, it bogs itself down and becomes repetitive. When the only personal pronoun you really have access to is "you," it gets more than a bit tiresome. There have been only a few novels of any note written in second person -- like Bright Lights, Big City, which was also adapted as a film -- but I do think the format can work well in certain short story settings. A couple of years ago, I had my creative writing class play around with the format (you can find their 2nd person stories in Charter Shorts), but, although I got some good results from it, I decided I'd leave that alone for the foreseeable future and just get them proficient with third person. Some of them are quite proficient with first and third but enough are not that it's better not to muddy the waters by trying to have them write in second.

Anyway... I did my own story along with them (because I often do that), so I'm going to share that with you today. I have, actually, shared it before, but it's been a couple of years, and my blog readership has changed quite a bit since then, so most of you probably haven't seen  this before. I hope you like it.

Locked In

You wake up slowly. But not gradually. Not smoothly. You wake up in fits and starts realizing that hunger gnaws at you. It is with annoyance that you realize that you’ve slept longer than you had intended. A lot longer if the hunger pangs are any indication. Your previous exertions must have taken more out of you than you had thought.

You climb out of what passes for your bed, grimacing at the stiffness in your limbs. Yes, you have, indeed, slept longer than you had intended, and your body cries out for sustenance. Idly, you wonder what the date is. Not that it really matters. Dates don’t mean anything to you.

You climb the stairs leading up from the cellar into the darkened interior of the house you make your dwelling place. How lucky you were to have found it flits into your head, but you correct yourself. Fortunate, not lucky. You don’t believe in luck. And you did pay the agent handsomely to find a house that suited your needs. Yes, you were fortunate to have found such a perfect house. The sheet-draped furniture looks ghostly in the darkness, vaguely reflecting the dim light sifting in from outside. The twinge of a smile hints about your lips, but it is not related to the décor. Tonight, you have no time for ambiance. Tonight, you feel the need only for the hunt.

You feel the setting of the sun, and you step outside, pulling the door closed behind you. You don’t bother to lock it. Few are foolhardy enough that they would try to enter your sanctum, and you would welcome them if they did. Welcome them in the way that a spider welcomes a fly that enters its web. There are children still at play outside. They freeze at the sight of you, sensing your presence in the same way a hare senses the hawk above as its shadow passes overhead. Although they are wise to fear you, they have no reason for that fear. You know better than to hunt where you live. Not that they aren’t… tempting.

As you move slowly down the steps of the house that everyone tries to avoid looking at, the children relocate to the front porch of a house at the other end of the street. You move in that direction for no other reason than that it brings you pleasure to see them squirm. Squirm like vermin in the dirt when a stone is moved or like termites when a rotting log is suddenly split open. This time, the smile is not fleeting.

It’s been too long since you’ve had a young one, but the desire is alive in you, tonight, thanks to those children. If the humans didn’t get so worked up over their missing young, you’d partake more often, but you have to be more than careful to not be discovered when you go after the young. Still, every so often, you can get away with it, and tonight will be one of those nights.

You move through the city, all of your senses alert in a way that no human’s ever can be. You are as much a part of the night as the darkness and the wind. And, like the wind, you flow from place to place being felt but not seen, leaving a quiet shudder in those you pass by, the angel of death, and they never know of their good fortune on this night. How magnanimous you feel, allowing them to go their way, keep their petty, fleeting lives.

Finally, you find what you are looking for, a gathering of young ones. And in a church, which makes it so much better. They will probably think that their faith, that the church itself, will protect them, and, once, long ago, it would have, but so very, very few people have faith anymore. It’s the ones that think they do that you enjoy the most. It makes it so much more… fun.

There are a couple of dozen people inside the little church. A matronly woman and a few of the teenagers in a small kitchen. A young man hardly older than a child himself in an office with another of them. The rest are in the chapel watching a movie. Two of them, thinking themselves clever, have sequestered themselves back in the pews to make out. Young lovers in a church locked up tighter than a drum. You wonder if it could possibly get any better. Of course, you will kill them all.

The locked building is of no hindrance to you, and, reveling in your power, you decide to play the part of the cat and toy with your food, first, before you feast. After all, you have no idea how long it will be before another opportunity like this one will present itself, so you should make the absolute most of it.

You creep along the ceiling allowing a hint of your presence to wash over the pitiful humans below. You smile as they grow restless and uneasy for no reason that they can understand. When their fear reaches ripeness, you drop down amongst them bestowing panic upon them like a benediction. You exalt in the chaos and screams and reach for one of them, the one with long, flowing blond hair.

You bare your fangs at her, preparing to sink them into her smooth, warm flesh that pulses with life, but she passes out in your hands. With a growl, you fling her aside. There is no pleasure without the struggle; you’ll come back for her when you have finished with the others. You reach for another, but you are suddenly and unexpectedly pierced with pain.

You can’t figure out what is happening. The pain is incomprehensible, piercing through your back into your heart. Slowly, and with full awareness, you fall to the floor, sprawled out on your face. You hear one of them, “Is it dead?” And another, “Why doesn’t it turn to dust?” And, “This isn’t Buffy, stupid.”

“Go get my copy of Dracula from my office, Tom.”

You feel confident that is the young man. You can now feel his faith, true faith, washing over you in revolting waves, sickening you. But you can’t move. You lie frozen on the floor, helpless, and you find yourself wishing that you had some deity to pray to. You begin to hope fervently that they believe the stake has finished you off. You have a chance if they just toss you out like this.

It grows quiet. The silence is a torment. The silence of the true grave. Faintly, you hear the turning of pages. There is mumbled talk of beheading and burning, and you wish you could scream. How pitiful… taken by your own prey. They lift your body and begin to drag you to the small graveyard behind the church, and you know that you go to your final resting place.

Note One: "Shadow Spinner: Collection 2: The Man with No Eyes (parts 6 - 12) is just released and many of the parts (about 10) from 13 - 34 are still FREE! today. Pick up the collection and grab the freebies. You can see the list on yesterday's post.

Note Two: Don't forget about the "Oh, How I Miss You" blogfest! Click the link to read about it and get to the sign up list. It will be here soon!

The Problem of Support

As an independently published author, I feel the need to try and support other independently published authors. For most people, this means doing cover reveals or blog tours or promo pieces or whatever... all for material they have (usually) never actually read. And, while I think it's great to support your buddies, I can't actually bring myself to support a work that I haven't actually experienced. It's one thing for me to say to someone, "Hey, I read this and really enjoyed it; I think you should try it, too;" it's another thing entirely for me to say, "Even though I haven't read this [and probably never will], I think you should buy this book." This is nothing against those people that do host people and books and stuff; it's just something that I can't do.

So I try to read as much "indie" stuff as I can and post reviews. I feel, for myself at any rate, that that's a more honest way of dealing with the whole situation. Of course, then, I won't give a good review just to give a good review, which has meant that I've made more than a few people less than happy and feeling rather unsupported. The thing is, though, I feel like honest reviews of indie works are the only way to strengthen the indie book market overall, so that's gonna keep happening. But I can also understand how some people can get upset by it, and I sympathize, BUT...

Well, a few weeks ago I went to this presentation about indie publishing and the woman speaker, who was part of this group of indie authors all working together to get their books out, said that the practice of this group is for each person to 5-star any work that comes out of the group. No matter what. It's required. And, well, that upsets me.
But I digress...

Anyway, it's hard to be supportive when you have people emailing you to ask that you not review their books. Which tells me two things:
1. They don't believe in the quality of their own book, which means it probably shouldn't be out there anyway.
2. The book is probably going to be something I won't enjoy for whatever reason, so, hey, thanks for saving me the time, because I can just take that off of the reading list.
As contrary as I can be, I don't actually like reading bad books. Though, you know, I will if asked to review them.

It still leaves me with the question of how to be supportive of other writers, especially other writers that I like. One review only goes so far, and I can only read so fast, which isn't that fast at all with all that I have going on. I have read a disappointingly small amount of books so far this year, a fact which is greatly distressing me, and I can't just read indie stuff, because there's traditionally published stuff I want to read as well.

But I did have an idea. Some of you may remember that back around the beginning of the year I held the Great Chocolate Contest. The idea was to have people write short stories based on The House on the Corner, and I did have a couple of great entries (one from Briane Pagel and one from Rusty Webb), but, as I said later, I don't seem to be all that great at running contests, even when they involve chocolate (and, Rusty, I just realized I haven't sent you your chocolate, yet, so don't let me forget about that when I send you your book). There was one other entry that didn't make it in on time, because, well, it was just finished recently, but it was from talking to Bryan Pedas about his story that I got my idea: why not feature the story at the end of one of my books.

So that's the big news. Shadow Spinner will be out as a physical book before the end of the June, and it will feature Bryan Pedas' short story "Like An Axe Through Bone." For the time being, this will be exclusive content for the physical book. I'm very excited about this inclusion and that Bryan wrote this story for me. I'm very pleased to be able to be showcasing his work like this if for no other reason than that he wrote the best book I read in 2012: Demetri and the Banana Flavored Rocketship. Seriously, this is a great book, and you all should read it. Well, go read the review and then go read the book.

I'm hoping to feature a "special edition" short story from another author in all of my full length works from now on. I can't actually think of a better way to support the indie authors that I enjoy reading than to say, "Hey, I like this author so much, I'm putting a story by him/her in the back of my book, because I want all of you to read it, too." That's the plan, anyway. And I have some other ideas, too, but that's what I'm working on at the moment. First up is Shadow Spinner with Bryan's story, and, then, hopefully, before the end of the year, there will be a revised edition of House out correcting some typos I've rooted out with a story by someone else. And, if I'm really good, Brother's Keeper will also be out before the end of the year with another story in it. If I have enough interest from people, I may even have different stories for the different types of publication, but I haven't decided that one for sure, yet.

There you go: My Big Idea.

But wait! Before you ask! No, this does not mean the end of the serialization of Shadow Spinner. The book will only be released as a physical book for the time being. The e-format book is on hold until the serialization is complete. For the time being, though, I'm going to be working on collecting the existing parts into collections, because, as Briane Pagel was pointing out recently, for anyone stumbling across Spinner on Amazon, it could be rather daunting to get into seeing as how there are currently 22 released parts, which would mean spending $22 for anyone that doesn't know I run as many as I can for FREE! on release days. And that's not what I want. I've actually been intending to do this for a while, but I was just too busy to take care of it with editing both Spinner and Charter Shorts, Too at the same time. Over the course of the summer, you should see things like parts 1-5 disappear and become just section one or something of that nature.

As with so much of what I did, this whole thing is kind of an experiment. It's certainly not something I've ever seen done before, having someone else's work sampled in the back of a book. I hope it's a good thing. I mean, I hope it works out to be a good thing for everyone involved. Of course, it's not like my sales are setting in charts on fire, BUT every little bit helps, right? and, if I can introduce even one or two readers to another author that I think people should pay attention to, then I want to do that.

[If you think you might be interested in sticking a story at the end of one of my works, let me know.]

Last Friday Night (or Friday Night Magic)

If you've been following along this week, you're aware of how this past weekend went and ended, but I left out how it began, so let's go back to last Friday night. Okay, actually, let's go back to April...

Remember how I mentioned that during the midst of a-to-z that my washing machine had broken? Well, it did. Part of dealing with that was rearranging the garage, and part of rearranging the garage was finding things (like that first edition copy of A Game of Thrones). Well, it also meant finding a bunch of my old Magic cards.

As I've stated before, I love Magic: the Gathering. Best game ever made. I love Magic so much that I did a whole series of posts about it and how it relates to writing not all that long ago (you can find part one here). However, I haven't really played it in... a long time. Aside from games with my kids every great once in a while, but, considering that I used to play tournaments and stuff, that hardly counts. For me, anyway. I play it with them to enjoy an activity with them, not because it gives me the kind of game play I want.

At any rate, having unburied all of these cards, I thought it was probably time that I sort them out and sell off all the extra stuff I have. Because I have a lot of extra stuff. But, see, the sorting through them really made me want to play again. I mean play for real again. It is something that I miss doing. So I started checking into the local tournament scene...

There was a big problem with that, a problem I knew would exist, but I was just checking, so I was willing to ignore it for the moment. What problem? Well... see, here's where it gets complicated for those of you (I'm betting nearly all of you) that don't know anything about Magic, so I'll make it as simple as possible: My cards aren't current.

Yeah, I hear all of you non-Magic players out there: "What does that have to do with anything? Cards are cards." Which is true if I just wanted to goof around and play casual games, but it's totally not true for tournaments. To make it simple, due to the large number of expansions and the cost of the older cards, Wizards of the Coast has various formats for tournaments. The most common of these are modern and standard. Modern format tournaments allow cards printed after 2003; I stopped collecting in 2004. Standard format tournaments allow cards from the last couple of blocks of expansions, which means the last couple of years. Basically, I don't own any cards to build decks for these formats of play. That meant that "constructed style" tournaments were out (tournaments where you build a deck beforehand and bring it in to compete with).

Fortunately, in the time since I quit playing draft tournaments have become a big thing (a "draft" tournament is where everyone gets some booster packs of cards and chooses one out and passes it to the next player to choose and so forth until all of the cards are gone); they barely existed back when I dropped out of playing. I'm assuming the rise in popularity is because, theoretically, they put everyone on a somewhat equal footing. And you get to keep the cards you draft, so, even if you lose, you don't come away empty handed. This was exactly the kind of thing I needed. I could compete in a draft tournament.

Except for the one snag.
The draft tournaments are on Friday nights. Friday night is special family time night with a big special meal and all of that.
My wife was not going to be happy.

And she wasn't, but we worked it out. In the end, it was decided that I would take my oldest son, who had never played in a tournament, and go this past Friday night. Probably not the best choice of nights, but it was the only choice of Friday nights anytime around now. The prior Friday night, he was busy. Tonight, he is busy; actually, we all are, because we are going to see him in an improv show with his school drama group. Next Friday night, the whole family is busy, because my younger son will be performing in his school musical. I'm sure you get the picture with our Friday nights. Even with as busy as the weekend was going to be, it was the only Friday night available, so we went.

So, while I was busy working on formatting issues for Charter Shorts, Too and trying to get that finished, my son was looking up rules and stuff. And he kept trying to talk to me about the stuff he was reading, which I couldn't really do at the time. I answered his questions as best I could, but, whenever he would say something like, "hey, listen to this," I told him I couldn't. Now, that's important, so pay attention. In fact, in some ways, it's the point of all of this.

My son and I made it to the store where the tournament was being held at and got all signed up. We were asked multiple times by various employees "have you played in a tournament before?" and "have you played in a tournament here before?" I was very clear about our answers: 1. My son had never played in a tournament before. 2. It had been over 12 years since I had played in a tournament. 3. Seeing that that store had not existed a dozen years before, no, neither of us had never played in a tournament in that store. I kept waiting for some response to that question, or, at least, some kind of clarification as to why it was being asked, but the answer never seemed to get more than a nod, and at no time whatsoever did anyone bother to explain how anything worked.

I became that annoying kid in class that kept asking questions... except I really didn't know what questions I should be asking. And I didn't really get any answers, anyway.

At any rate, being totally unfamiliar with the cards, my son and I began drafting our decks, the slowest people at the table. Of course, once I had my colors worked out (blue and white), I sped up and even had to wait for stacks of cards from the people next to me. My son didn't get any faster and became the bottleneck at the table. But we got through it with only minor difficulties and miscommunications and got our decks built. 60 cards, right? Because that's been the minimum deck size limit since... well, since almost the beginning.

So I played my first match. It was against one of the top players in the store, and it was clear that he expected to win. And he did. Fairly easily, too. But, see, here's where it gets interesting. He took the time to put the cards he'd drafted into sleeves before playing [Sleeves are special flexible plastic covers for the cards so that you don't damage them while playing. I've never been a big fan of sleeves, but a lot of people use them.], so I didn't notice anything about his deck. But, once I had lost, I went over to watch my son in his game, and all I kept thinking was, "His deck looks really small." [Just don't even go there, okay.] So I got worried that he was playing a below minimum deck, but I didn't want to call him on it in the middle of the game. Afterward, though, I asked him, and he was playing with 40 cards.

Which had been one of the things he'd been trying to tell me earlier, that it was just a 40 card deck, because, at home, we always play with 60, because "them's the rules." Except for draft tournaments. Only I hadn't known that which is why that guy beat me so easily. It was definitely a "D'oh!" moment. The only issue I had about the whole situation was that none of the staff ever bothered to give any kind of run down of the rules despite making us repeat we'd never been in one of their tournaments before.

After dropping my deck down to 40 cards, which you can do in a draft tournament--mess with your deck as much as you want between matches (maybe even between games) as long as you are only using the drafted cards--I went on to win my other two matches and take home a prize. My son won his first match but lost his next two, so he didn't get a prize. But, now, he's totally hooked on tournament play. He really loved it and wants to go play again. Except, well, the next several Friday nights are booked.

Moral of the story? Take the time to know the rules and don't expect anyone to tell you what they are, even the people that ought to tell you. After seeing how my modified deck played and watching the guy that beat me play a couple of other games, I feel fairly confident that I would have won that match against him had I known about the 40 card thing. But that's what next time is for.

The Charter Shorts Project

Some of this will be a repeat in history, but it's probably better than linking to previous posts. Generally speaking, I've found that people don't go back and read linked posts no matter how relevant they are, so let me just start at the beginning. If you know this part... well, that's just too bad.

Last (school) year (the 2011/2012 school year), I started teaching a creative writing class at my kids' school for the middle school portion of it (they run K-8). Don't get all excited; it's not a paid thing, just a worthwhile thing. I didn't really expect much out of it; after all, they were middle schoolers. I didn't have a lot of kids last year, just about half a dozen over the course of the whole year, but I had all but one of those for the entire three quarters of the year. The really neat thing about that class is that I had writers. What I mean by that is that (most of) the kids I had already spent time writing. For fun! Another of them really wanted to write and to get better at it even though she hadn't spent much time doing it. It was a good group, and we worked on some ongoing projects. [In fact, it was because of that group that I ever started writing Shadow Spinner. The book will be dedicated to them.] At any rate, it wasn't long before I realized that their work, their writing, deserved some form of recognition and thus was born Charter Shorts.

The only real problem with that idea was that I had it too late in the year to develop it the way I wanted to. In an effort to have more material for this year's Charter Shorts, I went from teaching the class from one day a week to two days a week, thinking that would give more students a chance to participate, and to start working on the collection earlier in the year. Well, I certainly had a lot more students. Lots more. But it didn't really turn into having more material, because I didn't have any of them, this time, for the full year because of the way the elective classes work and the days I chose to offer the class. By the time most of the kids were finally beginning to get something down on paper, the quarter was over. Or someone would turn something in, and I'd say, "Let's work on this," but the next quarter would start, and it's hard to keep them working on stuff when they're not actually presently in the class.

So I ended up not being able to start the collection early because I didn't have anything to work with until close to the end of the third quarter. A lot of good stuff got left out because the student never went back and worked on a turned in story or turned it in too late to get ready it in time. Which is how I got my first taste of having to send out rejections, so to speak. One boy in particular was crushed when I told him his story wouldn't make it into the book, and I felt horrible, but there was nothing I could do. He turned it in too late, and it needed a lot of work, especially since it was very similar to another story in the book. Basically, I was left with the choice of working with this one kid on getting this one story ready in time or getting the other 10 stories I had that needed only minor editing work ready to go. Hopefully, he will hold onto to the story for next year's edition (because, yes, we are already working on plans for next year's creative writing program and how we can blend the experience from my first year teaching it and the second year teaching it).

All of that to say that Charter Shorts, Too is now available. I encourage you guys to check it out if for no other reason than to support the creative writing program for these kids and to help develop the next generation of writers. Yes, the funds from these books, such as they are, do go to supporting the program.

One other thing I will add:
Last year, because of how few students I had, I purchased copies of the book for each of the students published and gave them to them. I wanted them to have a copy since they were in it, you know. But, last year, I had only four students published that weren't my own; this year, there are more than a dozen, and I just can't afford to buy a copy for every student. So I put out order forms thinking that surely the parents of the kids would, at least, buy them a copy. I mean, I know that each of the kids with something in the book want a copy. They've all told me so. But... I only had orders come in from two parents, which means that about 10 kids will not get a copy. And here's where you can help: any copy of the physical book purchased, will enable me to purchase a copy of the book for one of the kids (I think it works out to 3 of the Kindle editions to purchase a physical copy (or 2.5)). If you'd like to help out, buy a copy of the book and email me or leave a comment letting me know that you've purchased a copy, and I will mark a copy to go to one of the students that isn't getting one. Hopefully, I can make sure that each student gets a copy, because, for most of them, this is their first time (and maybe only time) being published, and it would just suck to never have a copy of that. You know?

On another note, in comparing the two editions, I think the first Charter Shorts is probably better overall, but I think that the highs of this new edition are much higher than the highs of the first edition. I'd tell you which are my favorites, but, just in case any of my students read this, I'm going to choose to keep that information to myself. I will say that I have some talented kids. And, as I related recently, more talented than some adults I've read. I hope you'll give it a look.

"...one of -those- weekends."

Softball update as we approach the end of the season:
They did lose the game I thought they'd lose (which makes us 9-4, at the moment), but the coach of the other team (the undefeated team, I should add) said we were their toughest competition all season (both times we played them).

And here's a new one I heard at Saturday's game (spoken by the opposing coach to one of his batters as she was getting struck out):
"I can't come and swing it for you."

So, yeah, Saturday started bright and early with a softball game. Prior to the softball game was gassing the car and retrieving coffee. After the softball game was the end-of-season party even though the season isn't quite over yet. Evidently, you can't actually have the end-of-season party after the season ends because no one will show up, because, you know, the season is over. [Let me clarify, this was the end-of-season party for just my daughter's team (yes, there's a reason I'm clarifying).]

Then it was rush home and get the final cleaning in on the house before my daughter's 10th birthday slumber party. [Are you seeing a theme here, yet?] It was a small one this year, because we inadvertently planned the party for the same night as a school fundraiser which involved going to an A's game. [See, not being a baseball fan, I had completely dismissed the fundraiser in my mind so didn't realize we were planning my daughter's party for the same time slot.] She lost several of her friends to the game, so, on the one hand, I felt  bad for my daughter (and for her friends that were upset that they were going to miss the party), but, on the other hand, it was kind of "yeah! we'll only have nine girls!" (instead of 15). Still, nine girls make a lot of noise. [Seriously, the girls never stop talking and I can't hear any one of them over the constant chatter, and there's always at least one of  them trying to talk to me. Parties for my son (the younger one) are never like that.]

And one of them climbed a tree and got "stuck" and, then, went home because I didn't cause a drama over the situation. Basically, I told her she could stay in the tree or I could go get her parents (she actually lives next door, so that was an option (and also why she could just go home)), but she didn't like those options, so she came down (I watched her climb back out of the tree) and, upon arriving back at our house, announced that she had decided she would go home to sleep, which was fine with me. And, while I was dealing with TreeGirl, two of the other girls chased my cat down the street. When I say street, I mean, they chased the cat down the middle of the street to almost a block away. This was after I had told one of the two, specifically, to leave the cat alone, because he wouldn't come to her anyway. And he didn't, so they chased him. Then I had to go fetch him back which was also a bit of a chase, because he was freaked out by all the girls to begin with and, then, by being chased by two of them.

And the night just got better and better as they achieved a kind of synthetic agreement to not sleep. They've never done this before. At previous sleepovers my daughter has had, by the end of the movie, most of them have been asleep. That happens when you start the movie around 10:00 p.m. But not this time. No, at the end of the movie, they were all still awake. So I had to put in another movie. I do plan ahead, though, so I already had one set out. However, I wasn't able to make it through the second movie. The girls had mostly calmed down (after another incident of going off and doing what she was told not to do by the girl that had been told not to go after the cat), and my eyes were melting out of my skull, so I went to bed. I want to say that was around 1:30 a.m., but I'm not really sure.

And I say I went to bed, because I never really went to sleep. There was talking and some amount of moving around and such once I went off to go to bed, which elevated when I heard The Goonies being over. I just waited it out hoping they'd go to sleep, and, eventually, I nodded off sometime after 3:00 a.m., which I know because I got up to go to the bathroom just prior to the nodding and checked the time while I was up. It was short lived. At around 4:00 a.m., I was awakened by one of the girls doing her best Lionel Richie impression, by which I mean that she was dancing on the ceiling. Or something. Maybe galloping through the house on her ghost steed. I'm not sure if she was alone in the cavorting that was going on or if she was the only one brave enough to respond to my shout down the hall that no one was supposed to be up:
"But I'm not sleepy!"
"I don't care. Be in your spot."
"Someone took my spot!"
"I don't care! Find a place to be!"
"But I can't find my blanket!"
"Go to sleep!"
And she did. I know because, 20 minutes later, the cat started scratching on the door that he needed to go out. I've learned that scratching on the door means, "I have to go potty!" Also, he was probably just trying to get away from the girls and only came out at that moment because he figured it was the first time all night that it was safe for him to do so. "Finally! They're all asleep! I can escape!"

But here's the thing with that. The cat has recently switched his eating schedule to eating in the morning before he goes outside from eating in the evening when he comes in. And, normally, I wouldn't let him out so early (so wouldn't be up feeding him so early), but I felt bad for him, because the girls just would not leave him alone when he had been trying to go to sleep after the whole being chased down the block incident. Every time he laid down, someone would put her hands on him, and he'd have to move. It was like a compulsion with them; it didn't matter that I kept saying "leave the cat alone." I mean, he would have been happy to lay down next to one or two of them (which he tried to do) if they would have just quit trying to pet him.

So, anyway, the cat wanted out, and I figured I should feed him, first, so I got up, turned on the lights in the kitchen (basically 10 feet away from where all the girls were sleeping), and banged around to feed the cat. The girls were completely zonked out and didn't stir at all, including the one that had just said to me, "But I'm not sleepy!" After the cat ate, I walked over all of the girls, as did the cat, so that I could let him out. I halfway expected never to see him again. I'm not sure I would have ever come back if I had been the cat. I'd have been all, "Meesa outta here!"

The funny thing with that is that when the girls did get up, about half of them tried to claim that they had never been asleep, including Miss "But I'm Not Sleepy!" One of them tried to claim that she had only been pretending to sleep, but none of them remembered me being in the kitchen or turning on the lights or letting the cat out. heh

I gave up on sleep at that point. Or I tried to. It was only an hour or so before I was supposed to get up and start working on breakfast, and, by the time I was finished with the cat, I was awake. Or so I thought. At any rate, I sat down at my computer to work, but I couldn't focus enough to do that, so I mostly just stared at the screen until I decided I'd go do some more work in the garage because that required standing and some movement. I managed that until sometime after 6, when I thought I'd try to get in a 20 minute nap before the alarm went off at 7, my new time for starting on breakfast since all the girls were still asleep. So I laid back down in bed and had just dozed off... when my daughter's alarm clock went off. 6:30 a.m. I sighed and got back up. [Oh, and there was some stuff with the dog in there after the stuff with the cat, and it was the dog that kept me from going back to sleep after the cat went out (because she had to go see if the cat had left any food, and wouldn't stop bothering me until I took her to see that it was gone).]

Then there was the morning drama, which I won't really go into except to say that it's hard to cook when you have to round up a gaggle of girls and yell at them for the misbehavior. It got the day off to a great start, let me tell you.

Eventually, though, all of the girls did leave, including my daughter, because she had to go to her end-of-season league party. Which, again, had to happen before the season actually ended. The boys had gone off to other places so as not to be home during the sleepover (a wise decision), and they weren't home, yet, so I thought, finally!, I could get some sleep, but that pretty much wasn't to be, because the dog decided to spend the afternoon barking at stuff.

There's more stuff to include, but that stuff will come in other posts, because, really, this one is long enough, and I haven't even gotten to the BIG thing, yet, which is that in between all of this I finished getting all of the last things accomplished for Charter Shorts, Too, and that is now available!

This is the collection of short stories from my creative writing class for this year, and there is some really good stuff in there. Some I was surprised by. There are more students represented this year, since I had some many more, so that's nice. Still, I wish I had more stories from them for it. Maybe, next year, with the changes I'm hoping to get for the program, the book will be longer and won't need anything from me to fill it out. Still, there is only one from me this, year, so that's good. I hope some of you will pick it up and support these kids and the work they're doing.

"The Ohnegott"

And now it's time for another of my infamous book reviews...

I learned something new about goodreads today: If someone deletes his account, you lose any mail you may have exchanged with that person. What the heck? Seriously, why is my email deleted because someone else deletes his account?

So... back around Christmas, I received an email from Charles Timm asking me if I would review his "book," "The Ohnegott;" I say "book" because it's barely longer than a short story, but he's treating it as if it's a full length novel. I explained to him that I was busy with several projects and had other reviews I needed to do, so it would take a while (as you can see, it's now May (and the only reason I stuck it into the list, even now, is because of how short it is)); he said that was fine. I also explained as explicitly as I could that any review I would give would be completely objective--there would be no automatic positive review. I told him he should check out some of my reviews so that he would know what he was getting into. I don't know if he ever did that, but he said he understood and wanted the review no matter how it turned out. And, see, that was the part I wanted to save, because it's good to have it in print when someone tells you to be harsh.

At the time of the request, "The Ohnegott" had no reviews. It does, now, mostly negative ones, and he deleted his account, so I have to wonder if those things are related. And the email that I saved is gone. Oh, well...

The first thing I looked at when Timm gave me a copy of his story was the length. I don't have an exact word count, but it can't be more than 10,000 words or so, but he's charging $2.99 for it. My immediate response to that back in December was to tell him that he's charging too much for a story of that length. He agreed with me, yet the price is still $2.99. That seems unfortunate to me, because I would actually be angry if I paid $2.99 for this. I'd probably shrug off $0.99, because Amazon doesn't let you charge less than that, $3 is the author taking advantage of me both because it's not long enough to warrant that kind of price, unless it was exquisite, and, because, this "book" is the opposite of exquisite.
[As a complete aside, the next Charter Shorts is just about ready for release, and, if "The Ohnegott" had been a submission from one of my middle schoolers, it would not have made it into Charter Shorts, Too. Seriously. And it was written by a guy, supposedly, with a degree in English.]

Let's start with grammar and punctuation because that's oh so much fun, right? I have no kind way of saying this: He needed to get some. The story is littered with inappropriately used semi-colons and commas. Semi-colons used as commas. Anywhere he could put a punctuation mark, he did. Sometimes just stuck between words for no apparent reason. Frequently, there were long strings of sentence fragments strung together with said commas and semi-colons so that, in the end, the string of fragments didn't actually say anything. To cut to the chase: a degree in English does not mean one knows how to use punctuation correctly, and Timm is in desperate need of an editor just to deal with the punctuation. Not to mention that his verb tenses didn't always match and not all of the words he used meant what he thought they did.

And that part, the part about using the incorrect word in a sentence brings me to the next bit. I think he was trying to write in "lofty" language. To elevate the story by his word choices. But it just reminded me of my dad and how he used to use "big words" to sound more intelligent except that he'd use the wrong word and just sound... well, I'll just say that when I was teenager I was often left embarrassed whenever my dad would open his mouth to talk. "The Ohnegott" felt just like that to me, like Timm was trying too hard to sound grand and bigger than life but left it looking like a bunch  of five-year-olds playing dress up. Only, it's cute when five-year-olds do it.

Sometimes, though, the worst grammar problems can be overlooked if the story is good enough, but this one wasn't that. In fact, it was more along the lines of one of those five-year-olds wishing he could be good enough to cause his birth to magically have been a royal one and find out that his dad is really the king and he's really a prince. Frederick's desire to work hard enough and become worthy enough to have been born a royal makes absolutely no sense, but let's forget about that for the moment. Let's go to the incestuous attraction that Frederick and his foster-sister, Carina, have for each other. But they're not really brother and sister, you say? Well, it's completely unclear that they know this. From the presentation, it appears that they believe they are brother and sister and each has a secret love for the other, which, in the end, turns out to be okay, because, surprise!, they're not really related (except not a surprise, because the reader knows they're not related; it's just a surprise to them making their long secret love for each other okay).

Beyond all of that, the story is illogical and inconsistent. The king has had all of the churches burned down for no apparent reason, and, evidently, no one knows where the king's castle even is. But I'll give you an example right from chapter one where we are introduced to... well, I can't tell you that, because the character has no name. Let me let you catch up:
Right at the beginning, our brother and sister meet a monk in the woods. Only he turns out to not be a monk, he just likes to wear the robes because they're comfy. Probably because he's fat. Monks have to be fat, you know (Timm tells us this later in the story, the thing about monks being fat). [Remember the part about how the king has burned down all of the churches? Evidently, he kills monks, too, but this guy is waltzing around in monk's robes. (Yes, we are told in the first paragraph that churches are outlawed.)] As soon as the "monk" reveals he's not a monk, the siblings realize he's just a kid. What the heck? Suddenly, he looked younger than the mature man he'd looked only moments before! I'm going to just assume he's a teenager, because Timm is never clear on just how old the kid is. When it comes time to exchange names, we find out the not-monk has no name.

Let me take a logic break here. This kid, teenager?, has no name. Not even anything he calls himself. Nothing anyone else has ever called him. He's homeless, see, but he did live with a string of women at some point (a whore's kid, then?), but, evidently, not a single one of them ever had anything she called him. He doesn't even make up a name; he's just all sad about how he doesn't have a name. Oh, wait, more logic break. He's homeless! At this point, he's living mostly in the woods scrounging for food (and we get his thoughts about how good it will be to actually get to eat), but he's fat. And he knows how to read, although he's never had a family or anyone take care of him, and he's very knowledgeable about medicine.

Which takes us to the next thing, they decide to take this nameless not-monk (although the sister promises to get him a name) back to their house to attempt a cure on  their sick father. I'm thinking, at this point, that we have the set up for the story. But, no, because that whole thing never happens. They just take the not-monk back and feed him and the whole thing about him healing the father never comes up again. In fact, the not-monk's presence in  the story is rather questionable except to fit the "fat monk" archetype. Which he doesn't do.

After that, other things that make no sense happen. The only saving grace the story had was that it was short. If it had been any longer, I would have backed out of reviewing it. Which, after reading the first chapter, I wanted to do, anyway, but, then, I couldn't email Mr. Timm to tell him that (because of the closed account), so I sighed and finished the read. I'm going to have to start turning these requests down. I have too many things I want to read on my list to take time out to read something like this, even if it didn't take very long.

I'd Rather Be Writing

If you've been following along, you'll know that I finished the actual writing of Shadow Spinner back during January. ["Part Sixteen: The Dark Tree" is still available as a FREE! download today!] That means that since then what I've been doing is editing. Have I mentioned before how much I hate editing? I'm pretty sure I have, but it may have been awhile.

Now, don't get me wrong, I don't hate editing in general so much. For instance, lately, I've been doing editing for Rusty, which is good. For one thing, I get to see his work before everyone else, but, also, I get to help him get it out to everyone else, because he has some stories that people need to read. I've also been editing various works of my creative writing students, which is not quite so likable as editing for Rusty, but that's frequently because I'll get to the end of something to find it not finished. Which is not to say that it wasn't turned in as finished, but it's quite apparent that the student, after writing 1000 words (which is a lot for many of them), just decided to be finished rather than actually finishing the story, and, then, I have to go take it back to the student and say, "Hey, you need to add an ending to your story." This can often result in me never seeing that particular story again as the student has lost interest in it and moved on to something else (which is less a middle school problem and more a pre-published writer problem), but it certainly means that I will have to edit the same story a second time when I get it back (sometimes still not finished, so repeat), which is a waste of time. [Remember, these are middle school kids. The only issue here is that we're getting close to the end of the school year, and I'm trying to get their completed stories in so that I can get them ready for the second Charter Shorts collection.]

However, when it comes to my own work, I hate editing. Once I've finished writing it, I just want to be finished writing it. If you get what I mean. I'm not one of those speed writers that can whip out a 40,000 word novel every two months and, then, spend the next four months revising, rewriting, editing. I hate all of that stuff, so I spend a long time with my work when I'm doing it the first time. It does, at least, cut out the revising and rewriting. It doesn't matter how careful I am, though, I can't make the editing part disappear. Spell check is great, and I'm able to catch an awful lot doing my initial draft, but it doesn't catch things like left out words (my bane!), homophones, or things with an "s" tagged onto the end for no apparent reason (Seriously, I have no idea where they come from or how they get there. Why does my brain want to make so many things into plurals? If you know, please tell me).

What it all really comes down to is that I would rather be writing. And, now, after over a month away from any serious work on any project, I'm starting to feel it. I get... all antsy. Kind of irritable. When I don't feel like I'm getting enough writing time in, I get... well, my wife says I get cranky. I don't think I've been cranky yet, probably because I am having time to work even if it is editing, but I'm starting to feel that way on the inside. It's like... I don't know... It's like being dissatisfied with everything all of the time. I mean, geez, Brother's Keeper is calling to me! Yelling at me, actually. "Finish me! Finish me!" And, to make matters worse, my side project, The Destiny Murders, is also poking at me and saying things like, "Finish him!" It's kind of a Mortal Kombat kind of thing. I say that because it reminds me of how my kids are when one of them is waiting for another of them to get off the computer.

"You've been on for an hour; it's my turn!"
"Just give me a moment!"
"How long is that gonna take?"
"Just a moment!"
"But it's my turn!"
"Just let me finish this!"

That can go one for 20 minutes, sometimes. And that's what the inside of my head feels like right now. Yeah, it's not really a lot of fun.

Of course, you can add to that the mounting pressure of A-to-Z which I had intended to be finished with by now (the writing of the posts) but which I haven't even started researching yet.

Thinking about it, I think the inside of my head feels like the inside of a bag with a couple or few cats in it.

I often see where people are talking about how they've taken a break from writing for a while and how good it was, but, really, I just can't take it. Seriously. Last summer when we were off on vacation (the first vacation in more years than it's worth adding up), my favorite part of it was sitting out on the deck in the mornings with my mocha and writing. And, when we went to Disneyland, I wrote a whole short story (which will be available as soon as I have a cover for it (unless I feel compelled to do another editing pass ("don't do it!" (that was one of those other projects objecting)))). All of that to say, I don't want a break. I'm no good with those. They make me all itchy on the inside.

Basically, I'd rather be writing.

The Big 30-0! and the Great Chocolate Contest!

So... something happened yesterday that I wasn't paying attention to. The problem with this is that I was paying attention to paying attention to it, because I wanted to do something special for it. BUT I thought had more drafts in my draft folder than I actually did, so I didn't realize until after the fact that I had posted my 300th post! In less than two years, which is much better than I thought I would be doing. But there it is! 300 published posts (301 with this one) and a handful of drafts of things in progress (not to mention my handwritten notes for post ideas that got packed away when we moved that I still haven't located). I'm not really sure why 300 seems to be a significant number to me, but it does. I'm think I won't do another one of these until I get to 501, and if anyone gets the reference, please let me know. The 501 is significant.
[Yes, I know that's not much to go on, but it will separate the men from the boys, metaphorically speaking.]

Stepping to the side for a moment, I mentioned recently that I had discovered the best chocolate ever. And I have! This stuff is the BEST chocolate in the world! At least, it's the best chocolate that I've ever tasted, and that's saying something. No, I don't know what it's saying, but I'm sure it is. Look, I like to taste things (be nice!)... I like to try new foods (is that better?), so, when I get the chance, chocolate is one of the things I like to sample. I've tried lots of different types of chocolates over the years, and this stuff is by far the best ever. It's all hand made right here in a store not all that far from my house. The stuff is divine.

Back when I mentioned that I'd discovered this chocolate, I also said that I would try to think of a contest for which the chocolate could be the prize, well, I've done that. Yep, in honor of 300 posts, and in honor of my birthday, which is coming up, and in honor of the birthday of the first edition of The House on the Corner,

which, quite by accident, turns two on my birthday (the one pictured is the 2nd edition, but that's the one that's available), I have a contest!

To some extent, this contest is a little not fair, but it's my contest, and I AM going to be giving away the best chocolate in the ENTIRE world, so, oh, well, you will just have to deal with it.

So here's the deal:
I have been thinking for a while that it would be fun to do a collection of short stories based on The House on the Corner and the Imagination Room. Those of you that have read the book will understand how that can work. I actually have two already: one that I wrote that is included at the end of the book called "Let Down Your Hair" and one that my son wrote called "Into the Trench" that is included in Charter Shorts. There's so much room for more stories there, though, and I just don't have time, right now, to write any, so, hey, why not get some other people to do that work for me, right? It will be kind of like Tom Sawyer convincing his friends to pay him to do his chores.

And here's how it works:
Write a short story based on a trip in the Imagination Room from The House on the Corner. Submit it to me by February 6, 2013. I'll pick the best one based almost completely on, just, which one I like the best, although I may have my kids help with the choosing if I can't decide. The author of the story I pick as "the best" will win a box of the GREATEST CHOCOLATE in the world. And, maybe, another special prize as well, but I'm not completely certain about the second one yet (but I'll let you know as soon as I am). There may even be more than one prize if there are multiple entries that I think are just awesome. It would be really nice if I had your permission to include your story in a special collection of House short stories as well. Oh, and just to be clear, I want short stories, so that would make your cutoff point 7500 words (though I'm not gonna quibble too much if it goes longer than that (although it would be nice if they were under 10,000 words)).

Yes, I do realize that you have to have read The House on the Corner to be able to enter this, so, if you haven't, you ought to get on that, don't you think? And, no, this is not really a sneaky way to get more sales or reviews or anything like that, although both would be nice. I just think, since quite a few of you (at least 3 or 4), have read it, that this will be a lot of fun. Assuming people actually submit stories. You can even post the stories on your blogs once you write them, and I'll link over to them.
One other note, because so many of my students at school have read the book, I'm gonna open the contest to my creative writing class, too, so you better bring your best, because some of those kids can really write!

Well, there you have it. I hope some of you decide to take part and that this is a fun idea for more than just me. If I'm wrong about that, please let me know. Otherwise, get to writing!

The Great Review (Contest)

Here we are on another Shadow Spinner release day. Today is "Part Seven: The Moth and the Shadow."

Of course, it's FREE! today, Thursday, October 18 and tomorrow, Friday, October 19. Make sure you pick it up! Also, "Part Six: The Man with No Eyes" is also FREE! today only.

Here's something interesting:
I like the idea of switching covers every so often. I mean, when you're doing a serial book, why have the same cover all the way through, right? Why not offer the consumer some variety? Especially when you have someone as talented as Rusty Webb doing your covers! It seemed like a cool idea to me.

Evidently, it wasn't such a good idea. On Monday when I had parts 1-5 available for FREE! there were an undisclosed amount of downloads on parts 1-4 (because I think I'm not supposed to post my actual numbers or Amazon will get upset), but there were only about 25% as many downloads on part 5 as any of the other parts individually. I can think of no other reason for this than that the cover changes at part 5, and the visual recognition just wasn't there. I find it really kind of odd. I had another cover change in mind that would happen around chapter 12 or 13, but, now, I think, maybe, I shouldn't do that. The whole thing is a little disappointing, but it's a good thing to know.

This is the part where I would normally start begging for reviews. I'm growing tired of it, and, if I am, I'm pretty sure you guys are too. But, see, "The Man with No Eyes" is sitting at just one review and "The Cop" at three. I'm starting to feel like little Oliver, "Please, sir, I want some more." Because I do. It's enough to make the idea of purchasing reviews tempting, but, you know, only not, because that still steams my ears. The difficulty of getting people to leave a 20 word review makes me understand the temptation, though. Especially since begging doesn't seem to work. So here is what I'm going to do:

The Great Review Contest!

Between today and, oh, say Sunday, for every review you leave for one of my works, I will put your name in a drawing for a FREE! book. Yes, that's right, a FREE! book, and it doesn't even have to be one of mine. However, there are some qualifications:

1. It must be an independently or self-published work (this includes small publishers). No big, traditional publishers here.
2. It must be an e-book, and
3. It must be for the Kindle or Kindle app.

So go and leave some reviews on any of the Shadow Spinner parts or on The House on the Corner or even for "The Evil That Men Do" or Charter Shorts (which doesn't have a single review!). After you've done that, leave me a comment here to let me know where you've left reviews (and under what name you left them), and I'll mark you down for an entry for each and every review you leave! It's that simple! And, really, 20 words is not that many. I mean, a lot of you are writers, so 20 words should, you know, come out when you sneeze.

I'll announce the winner in Monday's post (which also has a super, secret announcement!). If you win, just let me know what book you want, and I will buy it for you and send it to you. It's as easy as that! ANY BOOK! Well, not any book, but you know what I mean. I hope you do, anyway. It can be one of my books, or it can be any of these great up and coming authors that we all want to support. And, hey, I just did a review on a great book that you could choose!

And just to be clear, I want a real review, meaning an honest review. I'm not offering to buy 5-star reviews here; I just want to get some activity going, so, you know, I'm not gonna secretly mark you off the list if you give me a bad review.

However, if offering incentives to get people to actually stop and leave a review (and click the "like" button) doesn't work, I may have to resort to coming to people's houses. And none of us want that!

It's Time for a Bicentennial Celebration!

Okay, so that's not precisely true. I have not been blogging for 200 years, although it would be very impressive if I had. I just wanted to say it, because in hitting my 200th post, I started thinking about the bicentennial when I was a kid. The Bicentennial. I was six. I was a very patriotic lad. I still have souvenir type things from 1976. Which includes my brother, since he was born only a few days later. It makes me wonder how we'll celebrate the 250th birthday of the nation; I'll be surprised if I'm still around for the 300th.

Anyway... This is, indeed, my 200th post. When I started blogging, I don't think I ever thought about getting this far. 200 posts is a lot, especially when you tend to the longer side of posting. I mean, my posts tend to be in the 1000 word range, so that means that I'm hovering in the 200,000 word range in my posts. That's a lot. Hopefully, they've mostly been "good" words.

Since this is post #200, I'm gonna make it about me. I figure I can do that every once in a while. BUT! There will also be a contest, so keep reading!

First, here are some recent things that have been said about my book, The House on the Corner:

"When you read a book and get so into it that when you reach the end you feel lost and alone because you miss the characters and want to know what comes next. Thank you Andrew, for introducing me to the Howard's. I cannot wait to read more!"

"That was a great book I cant wait for the next one :)"

"Omg how could you end it like that?!?!?!?!?! You need to hurry up with the next book!!! "

"Clearly I loved it, since it's 5am and I stayed up to finish it."

"Loved it, loved it, loved it Andrew! Loved the viewpoint of children. You could always tell who the voice was because you wrote the characters so clearly. The story was "real" and down to earth, even though the subject veers off into the realm of fantasy - but the family itself is rooted in the familiarity of the real world and I loved that. Great book! Really enjoyed it! Well done!!!!!!!"

I think those are some great quotes. Of course, I also think you should read my book. Just to note, I am debating about the idea of raising the price on it. A lot of the newer research/reports suggest that people view books at the $2.99 price point as indie authors just trying to grab the 70% royalty rate and that's where the "crap" sits. The view is that if the book is not priced at at least $3.99, it's not worth buying. So, yeah, buy it now while it's still $2.99!

Oh, and for those wondering, I am working on the sequel. I promise! 
One other thing, if you've read House (and liked it), it would be a great help to me if you could pop by Amazon and click the "like" button on the page (both Kindle and physical would be great). The links are off to the right over there. Thanks!

An update on "The Evil That Men Do":

Well, this is not precisely an update about that story, but it is an update about Tib. I have some preliminary cover art for Shadow Spinner, and I'm working hard on finishing it. Theoretically, I should have the first few parts coming soon for the Kindle. Remember, "The Evil That Men Do" sets up the events in Tib's life. I only don't include it with the rest of the Tiberius stuff because it's more of an adult story while Shadow Spinner is appropriate for kids, too. Be on the lookout for more great artwork from the inestimable Rusty Webb! I mean, I've seen it, and it's great! Especially the one he's done of the Man with No Eyes! Oh, man! It's almost enough to make me want to show you, now, anyway, even though it's not finished!

At any rate, I think "The Evil That Men Do" has been under appreciated, meaning that almost no one has bothered to pick it up, but it's only $0.99, and it has a perfect 5-star rating! At the moment.

The Contest!

Oh, yeah, I mentioned a contest, didn't I? Yeah, I think I did. But it's not going to be an easy one. It will require some work on your part, too. 

As a writer, one of the things I hope is that I am not writing in a bubble. That includes blogging. I mean, I don't want to be like that Dragon Tattoo guy who never got read until after he was dead. That would suck. Which means, I don't blog strictly for my own entertainment. I could do that without putting it online. That means this stuff I throw out here into the void of the Internet is, hopefully, stuff that is of worth to you people that read what I'm throwing out. As such, it's time for some feedback from you guys!

Here's what you need to do:

1. Go back and read all the other 199 posts. I'll give you a few minutes to do this.

2. Okay, no, you don't really have to read all of them.

3. Okay, seriously, now, of the posts that I've written and you've read, decide which one was your favorite and/or the most helpful to you.

4. Have one picked out? Now, tell me about it. Why is that particular post your favorite? Why was it helpful to you.

5. And, you know, if you want to skim back through my early posts, the ones I wrote before I had any followers, feel free to do that. Some of those are quite good, too. Well, I think they are anyway.

6. Just to be clear, in the comments section, leave me a comment telling me which post is particularly meaningful to you in whatever way it is, and you will have entered the contest.

7. You have until midnight (PST), Friday, July 27 to get your comment in.

The Prize!

The prize is going to be a little self serving, too. Deal with it.

Back at the end of May, I released a collection of short stories from the kids in the creative writing class I taught last school year. That release was met with a lot of support and a lot of people posting about it and, yet, there were almost no sales. It was a bit disappointing, because the kids did a great job, and some of the stories are really good. They're all good, but a few of them are great. You can see the link to Chart Shorts over there on the right side of the blog. Since I should be teaching this class again this coming year and since I'll be putting together another collection of short fiction from the kids, I really want people to see what was done this past year when I went into the class without any intention of putting together a book.

So that will be the prize. A signed copy of Charter Shorts to the person that has the "best" comment about which post they liked best. Of course, the book won't be signed by all the authors, but I'm pretty sure I can get three different signatures in there. As an added bonus, I won't necessarily stop at just one copy! I'll give away up to three copies of the book depending on the worthiness of the responses. Basically, if you guys make me unable to choose a "best," I will give out more than one prize. I'm  not like those Pulitzer people that just decide that no award shall be given at all.

The fine print of that does mean that you will have to be willing to give me your snail mail address if you want the book. However, if you don't want to do that, you can choose an e-copy instead. As long as you are Kindle friendly, that is.

Well... There you go. My very first contest. 200 posts. A great prize. And speaking of the prize, because we were, I'll announce the winner(s) on Monday, July 30. Probably. I mean, I don't see why I wouldn't. But, you know, don't tie me down.


And if I have time, I'll try to put together a top 5 or so of my favorite posts just because I think that might be interesting. Next week will be pretty busy, though, so it might be a few weeks before I have a chance to sit down and figure out my top 5.

4 TEH WIN!

Wow! What a week of awesome news! Okay, well, maybe not a whole week of it, but... well, hold on, I'll get there.

First, I have some thanks and acknowledgments to hand out.

On Monday, I announced my first bit of awesome news which was

(You can read the original post here)

This was one of those things that, really, I expected people to "ho hum" over and say "yeah, whatever." I mean, it was just kind of my own little thing and so many people are dismissive of kids that I didn't really expect people to be excited about it. I was SO wrong. So a big THANK YOU to all of you who have shown your support, but an even bigger thank you to a few people who went an extra step all on their own and posted about it. I can't even begin to express how gratified and grateful I am that you people care enough about this to do that (and did I say I didn't even ask? Well, I didn't!). So... extra thanks and kudos to the following friends and bloggers!

1. Elizabeth Twist
2. Briane Pagel (and he has a plan to give out some free copies, so you should all pop over to his blog and read the rather complicated details about how to earn one)
3. Shannon Lawrence

So thanks guys! Your posts spread through the week making it a week of awesome!
See how that works?

And, now, on to the other awesome news!

My daughter played softball for the first time this year. Not just outside having fun playing softball, she played on a team for a local league. Her team, the Dragonflies, was one of three teams in her division, the 8 & Unders. Let me just say that it was all very interesting.

Of the 10 or so girls on her team, only one had prior softball experience, and that prior experience had taught her that the proper way of hitting a ball with a bat is with your eyes closed. I think that served as an equalization so that it amounted to a team of girls that had never played softball before. One of the girls was five.

The next team, the Fire Flies, was... well, they were just little. I mean, we had one five-year-old, but they had at least three girls about that size, so, even though they had a couple or few girls that had played before the fact that their team was so... small in stature was a distinct disadvantage. Plus, they had coaches that found it hilarious when the girls would do things like run out of the baseline to avoid getting out. And I don't just mean run out of the baseline, I mean, there'd be games of tag going on on the field while one of our girls chased one of their girls around with the ball while their coaches giggled and slapped each other's knees about how cute it was. At any rate, the Fire Flies didn't win any games all season; although, they did tie us in one of the early games (because of the runs per inning cap of 4 which is quite necessary at this level of the game).

The other team, though... well, the other team made our blood run cold: the Blue Ice. They were as big as the other girls were small. And experienced. At least half of the team had prior experience in the league. Basically, all the girls that played last year ended up on that one team. No, it didn't happen by chance, because people were allowed to make requests about what team to have their daughters on, so, of course, all the girls from last year that weren't going up to the next division ended up on one team. I'm not thinking coincidence; although, I have no proof to the contrary.

Blue Ice dominated the games. Most of their girls could hit the ball from the machine pitcher rather than having to go to the tee, and a couple of them could even catch pop flies, something none of our girls ever managed (although, we did have a couple come close). To say that our girls were scared of them would be something of an understatement.

But the coaches worked hard with our girls, and there was a lot of improvement. They went from being a team that almost always had to hit off of the tee to being a team that could hit from the machine almost as often as the tee would need to be brought in. They became a team that could get outs. Even assisted outs, which was nothing short of amazing considering that at the beginning of the season if the ball was within 5 feet of whom they were throwing to, we considered it a good throw. Really, they became a team.

They even, once, beat Blue Ice. We were all stunned. No, seriously, we were completely blown away, because we didn't think they were beatable. Of course, the next game they came back and slaughtered us 12-1. My daughter was the only run to come in that game. That was our last regular game against them of the season, too.

Which brings us to the playoff and the championship. Yeah, yeah, I know. Three teams, but that's how it works.

Tuesday night was the playoff game between the Fire Flies and the Dragonflies. I was bummed, because I couldn't be there. I had this event where I was reading a bit from my book, The House on the Corner, that had been scheduled for weeks, and I didn't feel like it would be a good idea to ditch, so I told my daughter that she had to win so that I could come to see the championship game on Wednesday night. I don't know if what I said to her had anything to do with it (probably not), but they did win. [That was, by the way, only one of two games I missed all season. Just sayin'.]

And there we were... Wednesday night against the Blue Ice after a 12-1 loss to them. We just wanted our girls to do their best. I have to say, though, that my daughter voiced her opinion several times that they were going to lose. It doesn't stop her from trying, because she's competitive that way, but she kept saying it to the other girls on the team, which isn't a good thing, so we had to tell her to stop. More than once.

We were the away team, so we got to bat first. They stopped us at 3 runs. But 3's not bad, right? Right? It's not 4, but it's close. And, as I said to my wife, it was 3x more points than we had scored the entire previous game, and it was just the first inning. Blue Ice went to the plate...

and we stopped them at 1 run. Seriously. Our girls were on it. They made their plays. They held them at 1.

The second inning started, and Blue Ice held us to 2 runs that inning making it 5-1. If only we could stop them again.

And we did. Almost.

It was 2 outs and 1 run, and the Blue Ice girl hit the ball. Our girl at pitcher-right scooped up the ball and ran over to tag  the runner. She intercepted her on the baseline, but the other girl went around. Out of the baseline. The Blue Ice coach called his girl safe (no, there are no umps; it's an honor system). The Blue Ice went on to cap the score for the inning bringing it to 4 runs and tying the score at 5-5.

Then there was a... disagreement. One of our coaches called into question the "safe" call, and I joined him on the field (he's my neighbor, for one thing, and I wanted to support him, and I was going to approach the other coach and ask, anyway, so I figured since it was already being brought up, it was a good time, not to mention the fact that all the other parents were grumbling about the call (remember, we'd had lots of issues with this with the Fire Flies)). Unfortunately, I don't have a good sports background, and the other coach started "quoting" rules about how far off the baseline the girls could go, and the decision was that, basically, our girl had not been aggressive enough in trying to tag the other girl and had missed her opportunity. The call remained "safe," and the score remained 5-5.

The situation was tense.

We were up to bat, and we needed 4 runs. The head coach told the girls that's what we needed, and the girls went out and brought in 4 runs; although, they hit 2 outs, so we were all holding our breaths to see if that last batter would be the 4th run or the 3rd out. So it was 9-5, and we needed to hold the Ice back to win.

We didn't do it. Blue Ice brought in 4 runs, and we were left with a tie situation: 9-9. There was a conference among the coaches on the field. Only the Blue Ice coach had prior experience with the league. And with coaching, for that matter. None of our coaches had ever coached before, and none of them had planned to coach at the beginning of the season. It had been one of those "we don't have enough coaches, please volunteer" things. We'd play an extra inning and see what happened.

We were up to bat. Our coach told the girls it was a tie game and that they really needed to get out there and bring in 4 runs. But our 5-year-old was up to bat first, and that was always scary, because she's not the fastest runner, and her batting helmet is almost as big as she is. But the Ice's first baseman missed the catch to first, and our girl made it to base. There was a collective sigh from the parents.

We proceeded to load the bases. No outs.

My daughter was antsy. She wanted to hit again, but she'd hit last the previous inning. She wasn't going to make it back up to bat this time. Either we'd reach 3 outs or 4 runs before her turn came up again. My daughter's the best batter on the team and had the best hit of the game, the only fly into the outfield (and no one actually keeps players in the outfield, because the balls (generally) don't go there unless they roll).

The girl at bat hit the ball, but got out going to first. We were at 1 run and 1 out. Everyone was holding their breaths again. But we brought in 3 more runs without another out. The score was, now, 13-9.

My daughter is also the best fielder on the team. She plays first base because of this. However, she was having an off night with her grounders, and the first Ice batter hit a ball her way, and she let it get past her, and the Ice had a runner on first.

Then, it happened again. Two grounders to first base that my daughter missed, and they had runners on first and second. We were all holding our breaths again.

They loaded the bases. Then, we got an out at third, but they brought a run in. 13-10. Ah, I can't remember where the next out came, but they brought in another run, and we ended up at 13-11, 2 outs, with runners on first and third. The ball was hit, pitcher-left missed the grounder, but the second baseman intercepted it, but she was far from the plate. She turned and ran back to second...

And made the out! Like just a step or two ahead of the runner coming to second. It was amazing! And it was awesome! We held them to 2 runs in an extra inning of play, and I say "we," but I mean "the girls," because it was all them. They did such an amazing job of coming together over the course of the season to become a team that worked together and win the championship. A group of girls with no prior softball experience against a group of girls that were bigger, stronger, and experienced. It was absolutely amazing!

And they got trophies. Which were on standby for whichever team that won with their names on them, to which my daughter said, "My first trophy!" I can't say how proud I am of her and her whole team.

I should also mention the injuries. We went all season with no injuries until that game. Four different girls got hurt, one of them twice, one of them bloodying both knees, but she stayed on third while her knees bled without calling attention to it (and when I say bled, I mean down to her socks, not just a scrape), ran home on the next bat, limped into the dugout and asked for a band-aid. It was impressive. But, you know, there's no crying in baseball.

And here's the application that I'm sure some of you knew was coming:

Writing is kind of like this. You start out all new and inexperienced. You don't know what you're doing. There are some people, like my daughter, that just have an unfair amount of natural talent (that we don't know where it came from (except, secretly, I do know where it came from, because it came from me, because I was just like that when I was a kid (although, my wife doesn't believe me, because there's nothing left of it in me, now (which isn't my fault, but that's a story for another time)))) and do well even without prior experience. There are those that, even though they've played before, have trouble not closing their eyes when they need to keep them open. There are some that are just smaller than everyone else. And everything in between.

To make it worse, you might end up with people telling you what to do that don't know what the heck they're talking about. That think it's funny when you're playing tag on the field and don't know where to go with your manuscript. Or just plain don't know the rules and tell you to do wrong things. Or you may end up with someone that's just after "the win" and doesn't have time for you if they don't see you as someone that can perform.

The real trick is to stay out there on the field and to keep doing your best. It may sound cliched, but it's true that failure comes from giving up and going home. And believe me, over the course of the season, we had all of that. We had bad attitudes. We had crying. We had quitting. We had girls that didn't want to play when they needed to. But all of them kept working at it anyway. They practiced throwing. They practiced catching and stopping grounders. They practiced batting, and, most of all, they practiced working together. And they won. Even when they thought they couldn't.

We all get discouraged. It's tough when you're starting out, and, even if you know how to play, even if you're good, no one believes you because you don't have any previous experience. You have to keep working at it and working at it.

My daughter will be going up to the 10 & Under league next year. So will the coach for Blue Ice. He's seen her play, now, and has complimented her on many occasions. Next year, they'll be drafting players instead of having them assigned or requested. After the game, he told my daughter to "play bad" during tryouts next year so no one else will draft her before he gets a chance to. Keep playing your best no matter what. Eventually, someone will see it.

[And I just want to add that I have total respect for the coach for Blue Ice. His goal was not about winning but about making sure the girls had a good time. And I was in agreement with his call of safe on that one play, or I wouldn't have walked off the field. With the information I had, I was accepting of his decision. I hope my daughter is on his team next year.

And this is funny:
After the game, his girls were asking him who won the game, and he said, "Who's happier?"
The girls said, "They are."
And he said, "Well, they must have won. But we have cupcakes!"

I'm not sure that our girls would not have traded places. Some of them, anyway.]