Oh, How I Miss You Blogfest

So I was thinking...
Yeah, I do that from time to time. Usually, it's dangerous, but, this time, it actually worked out.
So I was thinking, "Boy, there are some blogs that I used to really love to read, but the bloggers have disappeared. I sure do miss them." And that thought lead to another thought which lead me to talking to Alex Cavanaugh and that lead to dragging Matthew McNish into all of it, and that lead to the

It's a pretty simple idea in all actuality, and I'm surprised no one else thought of it first. Here is all the official spiel:

Oh, How I Miss You

November 16, 2012

Hosted by Alex Cavanaugh, Matthew McNish, and Andrew Leon

The bloggers we really miss...

and the ones we would really miss!

Do you have a couple of blogger buddies that aren't posting as often? Those who've pulled back and seem absent from the blogging world? Do you have blogger buddies you're grateful are still around but would miss if they vanished? Now is your chance to show your appreciation and spotlight them!

On November 16, list one to three bloggers you really miss and one to three bloggers you would miss if they stopped blogging, then go leave a comment on those blogs letting them know.

Our blogger friends are special; it's time to let them know!
The sign up list is down below all the news. Make sure you don't miss it!

Item #1: The Great Review Contest
As far as I can tell, since no actually came back and said, "Hey, I left a review," I got four new reviews during the contest. Using super secret technology to choose a winner, also called having my wife pick a random number, Rusty Webb is the winner of the free e-book! Yea, Rusty!
I'm grateful for the four new reviews I got. I can't say how much. This review thing is tough, so every little bit helps. Thank you all so much!

Item #2: Shadow Spinner
I'm about to hit my rollover on the first part of Spinner, "The Tunnel," and that means I'll get five new free days for it! Woo hoo! But before that happens, I have one FREE! day left that I want to use up. No sense in letting those things go to waste, right? So, today only, Monday, October 22, I'm making

"Part One: The Tunnel" FREE! Because that's just the kind of guy I am. Also, because part two is nearing its rollover date, also, I'm gonna throw it onto the FREE! train along with part one. That's "Part Two: The Kitchen Table" for FREE! for one day only! If you haven't picked them up yet or know someone that hasn't, make sure you drop by and do it! Don't forget to click the "like" button when you do!

And now back to the blogfest!

Sign up on the linky list below:

Come Back Monday (This is not (quite) a post)

Yeah, all I'm here to say is come back on Monday. And tell all of your friends to come back on Monday, too. Part Seven of Shadow Spinner will be coming out next week, and it's far enough into the series that I'm sure there are some people not picking up the new parts because they don't have the old parts, so, on Monday, I'll be making parts 1-5 FREE! again. This is a one day thing, so, especially if you don't have one or more of those early parts, make sure you pop in.

Also, I'll be talking about Douglas Adams. You can't lose with Douglas Adams, you know.

Just as a visual reminder, on Monday, you'll have the chance to get

for FREE!
Also

and

and

for FREE!
And, yes, there is a reason I put all of those up there like that. If you can figure out why (the first person to tell me only), I'll let you have one of these

for FREE!
Oh, yeah, there will also be one of these

on Monday for, you guessed it, FREE!

See you all on Monday, and, remember, bring your friends!

Damn It, Jim...

Today, I am guest posting over on Still Writing...
You should drop by to see what the title of this post is all about.

"Part Three: The Bedroom" is still available for FREE! through the end of today. So far, it has peaked at #37 on the contemporary fantasy list and is currently at #38.
Interestingly enough, "Part Two: The Kitchen Table" made it back up to #73 on that list yesterday while it was also free.

That's all for today. Come back tomorrow for "Guns and Adverbs Part 2."

The Bedroom without the Window

Today is the day for the next Shadow Spinner release!

"Part Three: The Bedroom" will be available as a FREE! download Monday, August 27 and Tuesday, August 28. Don't miss out!
As an added bonus, I'm making "Part Two: The Kitchen Table" FREE! for today only. Pick up your FREE! copies, and, if you need it, go back and pick up "Part One: The Tunnel." Sorry, it's not free this time, but Amazon won't let me get away with it as much as I'd like to. If I could, I'd just make all of these free all the time, but Amazon seems to think that 5 days of FREE! out of every 90 is enough. Unfortunately, these are only for the Kindle, but there is a FREE Kindle app for whatever device you might need it for, so you should be covered.
Also, don't forget about "The Evil That Men Do." It serves as a prequel or a prologue or whatever you want to call it to Shadow Spinner, and it's only $0.99.

"Part Four: The Cop" has a planned FREE! release on September 10.

And I have to say it even though there hasn't been a lot of follow through with this (as in almost none), if you go pick any of these up, please click the "like" button and, then, come back after you've read them and leave a rating and review. It would be a big help. Thanks!

Something funny happened on  the way to the bank...

Okay, so I wasn't really going to the bank. And it's probably not all that funny to anyone but me, but, still... I'm gonna tell you anyway.

I lost part of the title for this week's Shadow Spinner release. Yeah... I'm not sure how that happened. The actual title is "The Bedroom Window," but, when I made the list of titles out for The Amazing Rusty Webb (I think he should change his name to that! It's so pseudo Spider-Man!), I listed part three as simply "The Bedroom," so that's, now, what it is. At least, that's what it is until I release Shadow Spinner as a complete book. Maybe, it will get changed back. I haven't decided yet.

As I mentioned last Friday, The House on the Corner: First Person Edition is a year old! There was also a contest... a contest that didn't really get any responses. Not that there weren't any comments, but no said, "hey, I want a free copy." So even though I said I would announce a winner today, I'll have to think about the whole thing. If anyone wants to make a case, today, as to why you need a free copy, please do that, and I'll add that in to the thought process.

School and "The Kitchen Table"

Well...
Here we are at the beginning of another school year. It seems like the summer has just burned away like early morning haze. One moment it's there, the next it's gone. Not that it's not always like that, but, this summer, it was even more so, because we did so much stuff. As a family, we took two trips this year, which is two more than we took last year. Or the year before that. Or the year before that. You probably get the picture. In fact, in the last nine years, these were trips #2 and #3 for the family, so, I suppose, that means we are averaging one trip every three years.

My younger son took an additional trip to scout camp which was his first time to camp and his first extended trip without us. He got to kayak, which, surprisingly (to me, anyway), he loved. That's really the only thing we've been able to get out of him about the trip other than that, yes, he did earn his swimming merit badge. And he got to cook one of the meals which everyone complimented him on.

My oldest son is off, right now, on a trip to Maine with his other family, but he often gets to do travelling that we don't. The perks of two families, I suppose. Last summer, he went to El Salvador.

Anyway...
Somewhere amidst camping, Disneyland, the fair, fireworks, sleepovers, and, well, everything else, I managed to get some writing accomplished. Not as much as I would have liked, but, still, it wasn't a wasted summer on the writing front. I finally got all of my hand-written material into the computer, made some progress on Brother's Keeper, made a lot of progress on Shadow Spinner, got parts of Shadow Spinner ready for serial release, and wrote an entirely new story that's part of a long term project I've had bouncing around for a while. It's about... well, that would be telling. It will be coming up soon enough.

Now that school is starting, I should be able to focus a tad bit more on writing.
Goal #1: finish Shadow Spinner
I'd like to have the whole book out by the end of the year at the latest.
Goal #2: Brother's Keeper!
I have so many people asking me when this is going to be ready, so, as soon as Spinner is finished, I'm going to be concentrating on BK until that's done.
With school starting back up and the fact that I'll be reading The House on the Corner in another class this year (by request and not one that one of my kids is in (for the very first time)), I'm sure the "when's the sequel coming out?" questions will be bombarding me again.

Of course, there will also be blogging and my creative class, so, when I say concentrating, I don't mean concentrating in the strictest of senses but only as much as I can between whatever else is going on. I have hopes, though... I do have hopes.

Speaking of Shadow Spinner, "Part Two: The Kitchen Table" is now available! You can pick it up FREE today and tomorrow.

Here's the update:
"Part One: The Tunnel" got over 200 downloads during the three days I had it available for FREE! That was enough for it to peak at #26 on the contemporary fantasy free chart. It would be really great to get "The Kitchen Table" even higher, so let everyone know that they can get it for FREE on August 13th and 14th.

Now the catch:
Once you've downloaded "Part Two," please click the "like" button, and, once you've read it, please leave a short review and a rating. It would be a great help. Also, if you picked up "The Tunnel," it would be great if you'd hop over to that page and do the same. With over 200 downloads, it only has 4 reviews.

The future:
"Part Three: The Bedroom" will be available August 27th.
"Part Four: The Cop" will be available September 10th.
"Part Five: The Police Car" on September 24th.

Remember "Part Two: The Kitchen Table" is FREE today, August 13th and tomorrow, August 14th! Pick up your copy today!

Oh, and stop by and let Rusty know what a great job he did on  the cover! Man, I can't wait to show y'all the cover to Part Five!

Moving Like Glass (brought to you by IWSG)

This post is going to be a bit different from my normal kind of post in that I'm participating in Alex Cavanaugh's Insecure Writer's Support Group this month. People tend to believe that if you're a writer then you're insecure about it, that those two things go hand in hand. I'm actually not insecure about my writing, so I've been inclined to skip these posts in the past. Skip writing them, that is (I don't skip reading other people's posts), especially since many of my posts tend toward what I would consider support posts for other writers anyway.

However, although I'm not insecure about my actual writing, I am insecure about the whole writing career thing. One thing in particular constantly nags and pokes at me: everything seems to happen so slowly! I feel like a piece of glass.

Did you know that glass is a liquid? Okay, so, maybe not. Actually, the state of glass is still being squabbled over by Science, but, for my discussion, we're going to go with the "glass is a liquid" side of the argument. And, no, I'm not going to try and explain the argument, but I will say this: glass does not crystallize as other solids do when it's cooled. For this reason, it's generally called an amorphous solid or a supercooled liquid. Yeah, I know: if you go touch it, it feels plenty solid, and it can break, but if you want to go read up on all the science behind it, you go right ahead. [There's a good discussion here if you want to read up on it.]

Anyway...

Did you know glass is a liquid? The way it was explained to me (in Science) is that glass is a colloidal suspension. A simple example of this is Jello. Basically, you have a liquid into which is introduced a solid that is in suspension within the liquid causing it to hold it's shape. Or that's the case with Jello, at any rate. It doesn't actually have to be a liquid/solid suspension, but that's what works for my example. With glass, the actual glass is a liquid and has to have foreign particles introduced into it so that it will solidify and retain the shape it is cooled in. Most manufactured glass is soda-lime glass, known as such because of what is introduced into the system to help it retain its shape.

The theory is that glass then, only being a colloidal suspension, continues to flow very slowly over the years. Very slowly. Very, very slowly. So slowly in fact that this is also debated by Science, but, for my purposes, we're going to side with faction that believes in glass flow because it's a liquid.

And that's how I feel! Like a piece of glass moving so slowly that you can't tell I'm moving. I don't mean on the actual writing front. I'm not sitting here with writer's block or anything. But on the selling front, on the getting my name out there front, I feel like nothing's happening. See, I know that's not quite true, because I do have people reading my work and leaving reviews, but it's not spontaneous at this point. And that makes it feel like it's not happening at all.

And that makes me insecure. The feeling of no movement.

I suppose the good side of that is that it makes me want, even more, to finish my next project and get it out there.

Speaking of that next project, it's called Shadow Spinner (for those of you coming by for the first time today because of the IWSG thing. The rest of you should know this!). The first chapter, "Part One: The Tunnel" is available for free this week for the Kindle (only) over on Amazon. It would be so great if you'd go pick up a FREE copy of it, click the "like" button (something that seems to be difficult for most people stopping by), and, after you read it, leave a short review and rating. Yeah, okay, so I'm asking a lot, but it's a short read because it's just the 1st chapter, so there will be plenty of time left over for a short review! Make me feel like heated glass!

The cover has been done by the fantastic artist formerly known as Rusty Webb:

Did I mention it's FREE?!?


["Part Two: The Kitchen Table" will be available soon.]

Double Fail

Do you ever have those moments where you realize you've forgotten something or mislaid something or, I don't know, lost a child? I know someone that did that, lost his child at Disneyland because he forgot she was with him and just walked off and left her. There's that moment of panic that sets in when you realize that you forgot. It's a horrible moment.

Until today (Sunday, July 29, 2012), the worst experience I've had with this was forgetting about my creative class one day last school year. It's not that I forgot the class itself, I just forgot what day it was. I was busy writing, what can I say? I was being very cognizant of what time I needed to leave to pick up my kids from school, but, about half way through class, I suddenly realized "oh crap! it's Thursday I'm supposed to be teaching class!" That was a moment of panic.

Mostly, I don't have those, though. I've never forgotten to pick my kids up from school or anything like that. When I used to wear glasses, I would have those moments where I'd wonder where my glasses were while I was wearing them (no, I didn't switch to contacts... it's a long story (okay, not that long, but I'm not talking about that, right now)), but, really, I'm pretty good with remembering things or, at least, knowing that I'm not remembering and asking. I've never even forgotten birthdays, or, um... anniversaries.

Well, until now, that is.

I realized this morning... well, I was reminded this morning (remember, this is Sunday morning) that it's my wife's step-twins' birthday is today. That's not a big deal. The problem was that as I was being caused to remember their birthday, I had the sudden realization that their birthday is after my wedding anniversary. It's after our anniversary, and my wife and I hadn't done anything for it. Or even mentioned it. Or talked about anything about it all month. My immediate response to realizing that I'd missed our anniversary was an interior "oh, crap!"

Because, see, my wife hadn't mentioned it. She also didn't seem mad. I didn't know what to do. I mean, had she also forgotten, or, as I thought was more likely, had she remembered but not said anything because I hadn't said or done anything. Was it a test? This was bad! What the heck do you do in that kind of situation?

I briefly considered just not saying anything. I mean, you know, if she had forgotten then everything was cool. But, no, because if it was a test of some sort, the longer I went, the worse things would get. And if she had forgotten but remembered and I still hadn't said anything... I had to bite the bullet. That's all there was to it.

We go out for coffee on Sunday mornings. It's the only time we have without the kids all week, and that's what we do together. We drove over to the coffee shop to get our Aztec mochas (you can read more about the whole Aztec thing here), and, as we got out of the car, I said, "I realized this morning that I've forgotten something," to which my wife responded, "What did you forget?"

That wasn't a very good response for me. So much for fishing for information, right? So I start trying to explain to her about remembering what I'd forgotten without actually telling her what the thing was while I tried to figure out if she knew, and she just kept saying to me, "What did you forget?" until I finally said, "I realized that we missed our anniversary." My wife kind of stopped, like she got stuck for a moment, and then said, "What?" I could see her figuring out days in her head until she finally asked the date and then she kind of didn't believe that we'd missed it and tried to tell me that I was wrong, but I reminded her that it was the twins' birthday, which is after our anniversary, and, then, she couldn't remember the date of our anniversary to figure out when we were supposed to have celebrated it.

So I got points:
1. Because I remembered first!
2. Because I knew when it was supposed to have been!

And, then, she said, "What does that say about us?"

Which is a good question.

And I didn't really have a good answer except that I finally answered that it says we have very busy kids, which we do, and it's so difficult keeping up with all of their stuff that we can't remember our own stuff. Which is actually true. But, still...

We forgot our anniversary. Both of us.

However, I went out Sunday afternoon and bought some good food and cooked her a great anniversary dinner for Sunday night, and that was nice. Even if we did have to share it with 2/3 of our children.

My wife's final response was, "Well, at least it wasn't our 15th or 20th that we forgot, right?" And that's true, except that we still have the opportunity to forget those. I'm trying to figure out ways to drill this into my head, now, so that I can remember not to forget next year!

I still say boarding school is the answer...

Note:
Don't forget to pick up your FREE copy of chapter one of Shadow Spinner: "Part One: The Tunnel" for your Kindle or Kindle app! "Part Two: The Kitchen Table" will be coming soon!
When you pick it up, please click the "like" button. After you read it, a short review and rating would be awesome! Thanks in advance!