Changes Are Happening

The Creepy Days of Tiberius (a FREE! book day!)

It's October, and we all know what that means. We all do, right...?
It means the days are shorter and the shadows are longer. The shadows can reach farther and seem to never go away.
That's fine for most people, because the shadows don't care about most people. Most.
But there are those, those few, whom the shadows want, and when the shadows grow long and the veil grows thin, the shadows can act.
Tib has always known the shadows were after him, but he didn't always know he could fight back...

Get Shadow Spinner: Tiberius (Collection 1: Parts 1-5) today for FREE!
Seriously, go get it now! It's only FREE! for a limited time, so don't miss your chance.

And watch out for the shadows...

Moonless (a book review post)

Generally speaking, I would say that the amount of description an author uses in a book is up to the author. Generally. It just depends upon how much detail the author wants the reader to have to supply and how important those details are to the story.

For instance, The House on the Corner has a lot of detail in the descriptions about the places, especially about the house, and time period because those things are important to the story. Shadow Spinner has less detail, almost none, about places, like Tib's house, and time period because I wanted the reader to be able to fill in those details based upon his/her personal knowledge so that Spinner would feel like it was happening anywhere and anywhen.

Which brings me to my point: There are some genres that require heavy description, and anything historical falls into that. It's the detailed description in historical fiction that allows the reader to enter into some other time period. Moonless fails in every way to provide any kind of description that allows the reader to enter... whatever time period it's supposed to be set in. "Jane Eyre" is not a time period but the closest the author gets us to establishing an era for us, and that's a phrase in the product description. All we get from the book itself is the vague sense of a big house and a horse and carriage.

In fact, there is so little description that when the gathering of people -- and we have no idea who's involved in this gathering, just the vague sense of a crowd -- gather for the evening's entertainment, it has the feel of a school assembly, including teenagers flicking spitballs at each other. I'm pretty sure this is not the atmosphere the author wanted to evoke.

Then, there's the issue of the girl, herself. All we get about her is that she's not pretty. There is some indication that she's awkward or ungainly or something, but all we know is that she considers herself ugly. Except, when she goes to her room for the night, she looks in the mirror and, suddenly, she's beautiful. Personally, if my appearance changed so drastically during a... whatever kind of performance it was... I would wonder what was going on, but the protagonist pretty much just takes it as, "Huh. I'm beautiful, now."

And, of course, there is insta-love, because what historical, paranormal romance and go without insta-love? Even when the protagonist believes the object of her affection is a murderer and, possibly, wants to murder her. Now, let me tell you, that is a recipe for attraction.

But, you know, even with all of that, I was willing to keep reading. Right up until the love interest/antagonist(?) showed up in her bedroom to watch her sleep.
Wait. What?
What book are we in?
Yeah, that's when I was done. Finished. Through. Whatever.
I didn't have time for Twilight, and I don't have time for some cheap Twilight knockoff, either.

So here's the part where I'm honest: I didn't finish reading this book. I gave it my best effort, but I couldn't do it. Maybe it gets better, but it would have to get a lot better, magnitudes better, to make it worth struggling through.

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"!

The Serial Bowl Is Empty

Well... here we are at the bottom of the bowl. One bite left and some milk to sip from the bottom.

This whole thing has kind of reminded me of when I was a kid. Every once in a while, we would just have cereal for dinner. It wasn't one of those kinds of things where my mom would just decide not to cook and we just ate whatever we wanted; it was an actual, declared cereal night. Yeah, it seems kind of weird to me, now, too, so I can only imagine those happened because my mom or, possibly, my dad wanted the cereal. Specifically. Like, "I want cereal tonight." Anyway...

When we had cereal nights, my dad always used one of the great, giant salad bowls to have his cereal in. All the rest of us would be using normal bowls, but there would be my dad with this huge bowl that was bigger than all of the other bowls combined. He'd pour in, like, half a box of cereal and something like a quart of milk. Maybe, it was closer to half a gallon? I don't really know. I think I'd probably have to experiment by making a bowl that big, but I'm quite sure I wouldn't be able to eat all of it.

And I could never believe that my dad could eat that much either. It was so much cereal! But he did always eat all of it. Amazingly. It was rather... impressive. At least it was to me when I was eight.

At any rate, the Shadow Spinner serialization has been more than a bit like one of those giant bowls of cereal, and being here at the last chapter is somewhat reminiscent of watching my dad take that last bite and, then, tilting the bowl back and drinking the last of the milk with whatever crumbs were left behind.

I can't believe it's over... but, here we are at the end.

Not that I haven't given my thoughts previously on the whole serial experience, I figured, now that it's actually over, I should probably sum it up or give final thoughts or... something, so here are some final thoughts (but, really, if you want it all broken out by points and stuff, go back and read that other post):

I think one of the things we're going to be seeing as we transition away from traditional publishing (and, yes, we are transitioning away from it, at least as it is in its current iteration) is more shorter works and more frequent publications. Rather than indie authors writing full-blown novels, we'll see series of novelettes and novellas. Sure, there will still be the occasional epic fantasy piece, and long, literary pieces will probably continue as they are for quite a while (they are the most resistant to change), but I think we're moving toward things that people can sit down and finish in a sitting or two. People just like that.

And, no, I have no data to back that up. It's just my feeling of how things are going. I could be wrong, but I don't think I am. This will continue our move, culturally, away from physical books, because the expense of printing tiny 20-30,000 word pre-novels will just be too high.

Personally, I've been pretty happy with the experience. It's a lot of work releasing a book chapter by chapter, especially when if you devote a significant amount of time to author's notes the way I do, but I think it was worth it. I know that I brought in a lot of readers and made many connections that I never would have if I had only released Spinner as a single book.

Yes, I have another serialization some time in the future. But that's the future...

For now, here's the last part of Shadow Spinner along with the list of all of today's FREE! offerings.
"Part Thirty-four: Uri'el" (also FREE! tomorrow, Tuesday, October 1)
"Part Thirty-three: Justice"
"Part Thirty-two: The Gate"
"Part Thirty-one: The Serpent Strikes"
"Part Twenty-four: The Serpent"
"Part Twenty-three: The Harlot"
"Part Eighteen: The Angel"
"Part Seventeen: The Tree of Light"
"Part Sixteen: The Dark Tree"
And that's that. Nine FREE! parts today, which, granted, is not as many as on some days, but, well, I've used up all of my free days for a while. Still... Look for something special coming up round about Halloween. No, I mean it. Something special and not just from me. But that's all you're getting out of me for the moment about that.

For those of you that have been following along with Tib's adventures, I hope this brings this (first) story to a satisfactory conclusion. I'm not saying there will be another story about Tiberius, but there could be. One day. Maybe. Mostly, I'm toying with the idea of the origins of Michael and Edward; I'm just not sure I'll have time to get them down on "paper."

Lego "Justice" (a Fair post)

So, okay, you got me. There's really nothing to do with justice and Lego (by the way, did you know that "Lego" is the plural of "Lego"? (I think I mentioned this before, but I don't feel like checking)) in  this post. At least not together. I suppose if this was a Lego Batman post, we could talk about Lego and justice together, but it's not. No, this is about the Lego exhibit they have every year at the Fair. (We'll get to the justice part in a bit.)

The arts and crafts stuff at the Fair always includes a fairly large Lego exhibit which is something we spend a lot of time at. At least, we spend a lot of time at it in comparison to the other arts and crafts. Mostly, this is the fault of the boys. Actually, my wife and my daughter usually just glance at them and go do something else while I hang out with the boys while they examine every piece. Okay, not every piece, because my younger son has incredible disdain for kids who send in their boxed kits as their entries.

And I get it. It's supposed to be original creations. But, you know, how do you tell that to a six-year-old? Or to his parents that don't really know the difference. Or the judges who are almost certainly old(er) people that barely know what a Lego is. Yeah, I know I'm generalizing and stereotyping, but, since the contest is supposed to be about original creations and (at least) half of the entries (including some that win prizes) are just kits you can buy at the store, I have to assume that these people don't have any working knowledge of Lego.

Anyway... there have been some really incredible builds the last few years. Some guy made a huge model of a scorpion (and, when I say huge, I mean somewhere in the 3-4' long range not counting the tail) from the technic type pieces and, I'm assuming the same guy, some other similar type bug thing another year. I wanted to share pictures of those, because there was nothing quite so impressive this year, but... well, I can't seem to find those pictures. [They got put into storage (off my computer) at some point, and I don't know where they are (probably because we moved since I did that). And I did, actually, spend several hours looking for those discs to no avail.] All of that to say, you'll just have to be satisfied with the pictures of this years' creations (and hope that I find those other pictures at some point in the future).

My son assures me that these are not from kits (and I don't know of any kits of these, but they are so well done, I thought, maybe, there was some older line of military vehicles or something that I didn't know about). As you can see, they won first place in their category.

Yes, someone touched the plane on the left. My son really wanted to fix it, so I had to remind him about his feelings on the subject and whether he'd want someone he didn't know fixing it if it was his creation.

(I wanted to fix it, too.)

And, now, for the most impressive thing this year

(which is nowhere near as impressive as the things from the last couple of years).

That's the Lego show from this year.

My son always wants to enter something, but, when presented with the knowledge that he would have to submit the piece for judging at some point before the Fair starts and that it would be on display for weeks (where other people could touch it and potentially break it), meaning that he could be without his Lego for more than a month, he always decides he'd rather not. Then, he walks around grumbling about how his thing was better than this-or-that thing. Except he never said that about those Lego creatures. That just made him want more Lego so that he could build something that big. I told him when I sell a million books that we'll talk about it.

Speaking of books!

Today is the penultimate release of the Shadow Spinner serialization! Yes, the end is almost here! Want to find out what happens to Tib, Michael, and the Man with No Eyes? Well, this is your chance to do it. Not to mention the Serpent and... the Angel, Uri'el! This is one climax you don't want to miss! Grab "Justice" today!
Here's your list of today's FREE! offerings:
"Part Thirty-three: Justice" (FREE! Monday, September 23 and Tuesday, September 24)
"Part Thirty-two: The Gate"
"Part Thirty-one: The Serpent Strikes"
"Part Thirty: Called in Judgement"
"Part Twenty-four: The Serpent"
"Part Twenty-three: The Harlot"
"Part Twenty-two: The Undying"
"Part Seventeen: The Tree of Light"
"Part Sixteen: The Dark Tree"
That's only nine parts this week, but, hey, running these things for FREE! every week uses up the free days pretty quickly. Next week: "Part Thirty-four: Uri'el" and, maybe, something else new!

The Things People Make (a Fair post) and a Judgement

I'm a fairly crafty person. I mean that in that I enjoy craft-type activities, not that I'm all plotty and crafty like a fox or anything. And, yes, I know the phrase is "crazy like a fox," but it's the same kind of thing. Anyway, for a long time at my kids' school, I was kind of known as the crafty guy and, when working in their classes, teachers always wanted me to lead the craft projects. Now, I'm known as the writer guy and people have mostly forgotten about all of the craft project stuff. But, well, you can see that I gravitate toward artistic expression because of my "crafty" tab up at the top of the page there.

All of that to say that I enjoy seeing the kinds of things people build and make. Seeing where imagination can take someone. Actually, that's one of the reasons I really like getting these Imagination Room stories, like the one by Bryan Pedas, "Like An Axe Through Bone," that's at the end of "Shadow Spinner: Collection 1: Tiberius (Parts 1-5);" I like seeing the places I haven't thought of that can come from something I initially envisioned.

But I digress (even if you should go buy Collection 1 (and review it))... The Fair is always full of all kinds of cool things that people have made, so I thought I'd show off a few of the ones I like best from this year.

If you look behind the clock on the left, you will also see an impressive hand-carved dolphin sculpture.

And, now, for some cakes! There were actually more cakes than I felt like taking pictures of, but I did get pictures of the ones I think were most impressive.

The dragon only got 2nd place.

To this, which is awesome.

And, look even Max!

A few other cool things:

There were also tons of cool paintings, sketches, and photographs, but I didn't take pictures of that stuff.

Also, today: "Part Thirty: Called in Judgement"! Yes, the big 3-0, and it's FREE! today (Monday, September 2 and tomorrow (Tuesday, September 3)! And don't forget, "Shadow Spinner: Collection 1: Tiberius (Parts 1-5)" is also available for the low, low price of only $1.99!

Here's the complete list of today's FREE! offerings:

"Part Thirty: Called in Judgement"

"Part Twenty-nine: Loss"

"Part Twenty-eight: The Shadow Place"

"Part Twenty-seven: Leaving"

"Part Twenty-two: The Undying"

"Part Twenty-one: The Chase"

"Part Twenty: The Sword of Fire"

"Part Nineteen: Lost in the Garden"

"Part Sixteen: The Dark Tree"

"Part Fifteen: Food of the Garden"

"Part Fourteen: Anger and Laughter"

"Part Thirteen: The Clearing"

"Part Nine: The Shadow of the Tree"

"Part Eight: The Cold and The Dark"

"Part Seven: The Moth and the Shadow"

That's 15 of the 30 parts for FREE! this week, which is, actually, more than half of the available parts since the first five have been collected. We're getting close to the end! Don't miss out!

The Hand of Neil

Let me just start out by saying, Neil Gaiman owns his very own copy of Shadow Spinner.

"What?!" you may be asking, "How is that possible? And, if it was, how would you even know?"
Well, give me a moment, and I'll get there.

Gaiman has, perhaps, been more influential on me as a writer than anyone else, but it's not his writing that did it. Which is not to say that it wasn't something he wrote; it just wasn't any of his stories. As I mentioned waaay back in my post 400 Words, it was something Gaiman said about Terry Pratchett that finally convinced me to put my pen to paper and stick with it. If not for that one thing, that thing that gave me my "ah-ha!" moment, I'm not sure The House on the Corner would ever have been written. For that reason alone, Gaiman is important to me.

More specifically, though, and I talk about this more extensively in the author's note for "Part Five: The Police Car," Gaiman's character, Corinthian, was one of the primary sources of inspiration for The Man with No Eyes. When I got to the point that I needed a villain for Tib, I sat down (figuratively speaking, since I'm sure I was already sitting) and went mentally through the images that have most freaked me out in my life. The Corinthian is one of those images. So Shadow Spinner was directly influenced by Gaiman and his work.

All of that to say, when I found out that Neil was actually coming to my little town on his Ocean tour (the last signing tour he says he's ever going to do), I was very excited. In my normally subdued way. Meaning, you'd never be able to tell. Sometimes, that particular attribute of mine frustrates my wife. I'm sure it's related to why caffeine doesn't affect me. Or alcohol, apparently. The fact that I don't ever even get tipsy also frustrates my wife. Anyway...

I went to see Neil Gaiman. He read a bit from The Ocean at The End of the Lane, he answered questions, he read a bit from Fortunately, the Milk (which is not yet out), and, then, he spent the next four hours or so signing autographs. I know, because I was in the last batch of people.

By the way, Shirley MacLaine once pulled his hair. That was a funny story. And Gaiman thinks that everyone should have a hobby that could kill them. His is keeping bees. I'm not sure I quite agree with that, the killing potential of your hobby, but I think it's cool that he keeps bees. I like having bees around, especially when there are enough of them that you can hear their buzz in the trees. Or rosebushes. Or whatever. But I'm not thinking I'm going to take up skydiving or bungee jumping or, even, bee keeping, at the moment.

Yes, Mr. Gaiman was as entertaining as you might imagine. His stories were funny as were his answers, including the one to the question of whether he wears a hair piece, to which he responded with something along the lines of, "If I wore a hair piece, it wouldn't look like this." He was also polite and gracious, even at 12:30am, after he'd been signing for all of those many hours.

Other than The Ocean at The End of the Lane, I got my (1st Edition) copy of The Graveyard Book signed for my son. Neil drew a cute, little picture for him:

And I got the first two issues of The Sandman signed.

No, I did not go out and buy them special for this event, as I was asked by more than one person; I've owned those copies since they were the price on the cover. [I wanted to get my platinum edition of Death: The High Cost of Living #1 signed, but I'm not really sure what box it's in, and, once I had my Sandman issues, I figured that was good enough.]

The other thing I did was hand a copy, signed to Neil, of Shadow Spinner to him, which may be presumptuous, but I did lead off with, "...this is not a request for you to read this." Which it wasn't. Not that I would be upset if he reads it, but who knows if he will ever pick the book up again. What I did want to do is give him something back that would not exist if not for him. The House on the Corner might also not exist, but, maybe, it would; I don't know. Spinner, at least as it is, would not. So I thanked him for his stories and the stories they inspire and gave him the book.

He looked a bit surprised and, then, genuinely thankful. He began to look at it, but someone came and took it away from him and put it in a box with all of the other things he'd been given during the evening, none of which were books. Then, he shook my hand very firmly while looking me in the eyes and told me "Thank you." It was... nice. But, yes, I have washed my hands since then.

So there you go. Neil Gaiman owns his very own copy of Shadow Spinner with his name in it and everything. Not that he couldn't just write his name in it if he wanted to, but... well, I'm sure you get it. At any rate, it's nice to get the chance to say "thank you" and show your appreciation to someone that has meant a lot to you, so, even if it was presumptuous, I took my opportunity to show my appreciation.

And, well, at the least, I hope he loves Rusty's cover, because it's awesome.

Chasing Thrones and Other Stuff

First up, today is the FREE! release of "Part Twenty-one: The Chase," which is pretty much what it sounds

like except without any cars or boats or anything like that. But more about that in a moment...

The next bit of news I have is that I'm now part of the Out of Print group. The blog is going to be about featuring short stories. I have one coming up in June, but there are already two on the site. Drop by and check it out, leave a comment, all that jazz. Maybe, there will be jazz. Not right now, but you can't rule that kind of thing out, especially if I say, "Hey, we should have jazz," which I probably won't, but you never know. And I mean exactly that, you never know.

Now for the other thing:
Our washing machine broke. That happened in the middle of a-to-z and all the crazy deadlines I have coming up here at the end of the school year, so it took longer to take care of than I really wanted it to. What that means is that I had to completely rearrange the garage so that we could have a new washer brought in and the old one taken out.

And I just have to say that it's more than a little bit bogus that we had to buy a new washing machine. Not that we had to buy one in-and-of-itself, because the old machine was, well, old, BUT the last time it broke (granted, that was something along the lines of 15 years ago), we were able to get it fixed at a reasonable cost, but you can't do that anymore. Basically, the cost of having the old washer fixed was going to cost us the price of a new one, and that just bothers me. It bothers me that you can't have things fixed anymore, because our society doesn't believe in fixing the old stuff; it only believes in buying new stuff. I do like the new washer; it's all water efficient and stuff, which is good for the environment, BUT I hate that everything is made around this idea of throwing it away and buying something new when the time comes.

But all of that is beside the point, because the point is this: While I was rearranging the garage, I found

Yes, that is a first edition copy of A Game of Thrones, only read once, by my wife before I met her (and that is, indeed, my thumb in that picture). She didn't care enough about it to ever want to read the next one, so it's just been in storage, mostly, since then. I checked around ebay and copies like this one (sans dust jacket) have been going for over $100, so we're going to sell it. However, before I stick it up for auction, I thought I'd see if there are any of you out there that might be interested in it before I dump it off on the highest bidder. Aside from the fact that it doesn't have a dust jacket, it's in great shape.

As mentioned above, today is the FREE! release of part 21 of Shadow Spinner, so, if you can't afford the copy of Thrones, you can still come away with FREE! stuff. Here is today's list of FREE!:
"Part Twenty-one: The Chase" (FREE! Monday, May 13 and Tuesday, May 14)
(The rest of these will only be FREE! on Monday, May 13.)
"Part Twenty: The Sword of Fire"
"Part Nineteen: Lost in the Garden"
"Part Eighteen: The Angel"
"Part Fourteen: Anger and Laughter"
"Part Thirteen: The Clearing"
"Part Twelve: The Gash in the Floor"
"Part Eleven: The Kiss"
"Part Ten: The Broken Window"
"Part Eight: The Cold and The Dark"
"Part Seven: The Moth and the Shadow"
"Part Six: The Man with No Eyes"
"Part Five: The Police Car"
"Part Four: The Cop"
"Part Two: The Kitchen Table"
"Part One: The Tunnel"
So there you go... 16 of 21 of the current Shadow Spinner pieces available for FREE! today. Spread the word! Spread it like peanut butter. Not regular butter. Unless it's melted. That could be okay. But don't try to spread it like cold butter, because that just rips your bread up and makes a mess.

Softball and Food

It's softball season again. For my daughter, that is. Well, for all of us by extension. The fact that she had her first practice this past Saturday was all she talked about last week. About the fact that it was coming up, not that she'd been to her future practice and was talking about it, although that would have been pretty cool, because, then, she could have gone to practice twice, and she would have loved that. Practices this year are at the most inconvenient times possible for us, which has meant, for starters, rearranging her accordion lessons.

Practice is also much more organized this year due to her leveling up. Or, maybe, it's upgrades? No, I'm sure it's "Level Up!" She's a "10 and under" this year instead of an "8 and under." Her team name, though, took a hit, and she's gone from being one of the "Dragonflies" to being one of the "Ducks." I don't know about you, but I can't, in my head, associate ducks with softball. It's probably because of those movies, but I just can't do it. Although... maybe there was a Donald Duck cartoon with him playing softball? I can't remember. Maybe, I'm just thinking about the wrong kinds of ducks...

Like I said, her first practice was this past Saturday. I wasn't there for the whole thing (because I had to make a coffee run (9am softball practice requires coffee for adults (just sayin'))), but, from what I saw, she's easily one of the best (if not the best) catchers on  the team. Keep in mind that she hasn't picked up a softball since a few weeks after the season ended last year. That's, probably, my bad. I intended to facilitate her keeping up with her skillz during the off season, but, man, it's tough to hold that in my head with all the other stuff that's in my head, especially when it's not something that's happening RIGHT NOW, like it is now.

Opening day is about a month away. I don't watch sports, but I am looking forward to her games starting back up. I'm sure there will be progress reports.

The kids are also out of school this week. Well, two of them are. It's just their school, though, so this week promises to be one of ambivalence for me. On the one hand, I don't have to the school routine for the younger two, but I will still have to be up at 5:30am for the oldest one two of those days, because he does have school. And, since it's just their school, all of my daughter's neighborhood friends will be at school, so she'll have no one to play with, which means she'll be in the house all day bugging me or fighting with her brother neither of which is happy making for the writing. Or anything else. But, you know, no school routine. If I quit posting after this week, you'll know it's because my head exploded.

In other news, today is "Part Fifteen: Food of the Garden"!

Tib gets hungry, and he's in a garden! But, well, there are... issues.
It's FREE! today, Monday, February 18 and tomorrow, Tuesday, February 19 for the Kindle or Kindle App. Make sure you stop by and pick up your copy. I'd say to click the little "like" button, but those seem to have gone missing from Amazon; I'm wondering if it has to do with the lawsuit against facebook over their "like" buttons, but I haven't seen anything about it anywhere.

Also, FREE! on Monday:
"Part Fourteen: Anger and Laughter"
"Part Thirteen: The Clearing"
"Part Twelve: The Gash in the Floor"
"Part Eight: The Cold and the Dark"
"Part Seven: The Moth and the Shadow"
"Part Six: The Man with No Eyes"
"Part Two: The Kitchen Table"
"Part One: The Tunnel"
"The Evil That Men Do"

Charter Shorts

Listopia and "The Clearing"

Goodreads is one of those great resources for writers (and readers) that I have yet to take full advantage of. Mostly, it's a lack of time to really investigate the website. I keep telling myself, "After the next book, after the next book," but I keep adding things to my list of things to do, so it's getting more and more unlikely that I will ever get around to figuring out how to fully put that site to use. I do know two things at the moment:
1. You can add me on Goodreads, which you should do if you're on there. If you're not on there and you read, you should be on there.
2. They have this thing called Listopia that allows you to put books on lists and/or vote for books on lists. This is really good for two things:

• you're a reader and you're looking for something to read
• you're a writer and you want your books to get more visibility

The problem, then, is that there are a LOT of lists. I mean, there are really a lot of lists. I've been told by many people that I need to get my books on some lists, but it's one of those tasks where I go over there and look and blink a lot while being overwhelmed by the sheer bulk of the number of lists involved and I can't figure out which list to start with.

However, I did stumble across one list that seems pretty perfect for Shadow Spinner: the list for Best Serial Novel.
So here's the favor I have to ask: If you have read any of Shadow Spinner (you can see all of the parts listed to the right), please go over and vote for it. It would also really help if you could leave a rating for the parts you've read. All of these little things can be a great help to us poor writerly folk.

Oh, and if you really want to help me out, if you see a list that would be good for either Spinner or The House on the Corner (or "Christmas on the Corner"), please feel free to add them to the list and give them a vote. If you let me know that you've added anything to a list, I'll make sure to mention it.

And, now, for the big NEWS of the day, today is the FREE! release of "Part Thirteen: The Clearing"! It will be FREE! today, Monday, January 21, and tomorrow, Tuesday, January 22.

This chapter of Shadow Spinner marks a turning point for Tib, so, if you've been following along, and you should be following along since I give them away for FREE! as often as I can, you'll want to know what's happening since Michael... um, well, just in case you're not quite caught up, I'll not say what happened in part 12.

Speaking of Part Twelve: The Gash in the Floor, it is also FREE! today. Other FREE! parts today are
Part Seven: The Moth and the Shadow
Part Six: The Man with No Eyes
Part Five: The Police Car and
Part Four: The Cop
That's nearly half of the parts available for FREE! this time around.

Also, don't forget about The Great Chocolate Contest! The prize is a box of the absolute best chocolate in the entire world (that I've ever tasted). You don't want to miss out on that!
There might also be an extra special prize added to the chocolate. I should (hopefully) know about that one by the end of the week.

Now, go pick up "The Clearing" and get to reading!

Nothing Beats a Warm Puppy

I've been talking about my cat a lot, lately. I think that's because it's really an odd thing for me to be attached to a cat. I've never owned one before (unless you count the one we had when I was around four, but we didn't have it for very long, because the neighbors thought it was fun to torture the cat in order to torture me, so we had to get rid of the cat to keep them from escalating to killing it, which, evidently, they told me they were going to do (I was four, and I don't really remember all of that; however, I do remember them tying it to their ceiling fan (on their front porch) and turning it on until the cat flew off)), and I never actually wanted to own one, so all of this with the cat is new to me.

I grew up having dogs, and I feel like I've been neglecting my dog in my blog posts of late in preference to the cat, not that the dog knows this, but it makes me feel bad. After all, nothing beats a warm puppy.

I'm not sure there is anything cuter than that, my little foxy dog. Well, except maybe this:

Speaking of warm puppies, we have the Snoopy Ice Skating Arena here where I live, and they have a cafe attached to it: the Warm Puppy Cafe. See, you can't beat a warm puppy! Here's the real proof, though:

Yeah, that's me after the dog has put me to sleep, because she does that. She's so warm and cozy, if she gets in my lap, she just puts me to sleep. It's like she secretes endorphins right into my brain, and I can't resist. It's a pretty awesome feeling. As close as I'll ever get to what it was like to nap with my kids like this when they were babies, that is until they have grand kids. And as much as I want that, I don't want it for a very long time, so the dog works pretty well in the mean time.

It's been a long time since I've done any of my "Let's Go for a Walk" (with the dog) series,

so expect another one of those sometime soon. I still haven't told y'all about the ruins.

So... I love my cat. Man, that is so weird to say. Wait, let me try that again: I love my cat. Yeah, that's weird. I worry about him, because he's out and about during the day. I don't worry about the dog like that. I don't have to, because she's right here with me all day long. Most often, she's curled up in her little bed down by my feet, and I love having her right here. If I want to get some cuddle time in, she's right here, and I can go sit on the couch with her while I try to work out what's happening next to Tib. [Speaking of Tib, the next part of Shadow Spinner, "Part Thirteen: The Clearing," should be out this next Monday, January 21, and it marks a whole new direction for Tib. If you're all the way caught up through part 12 (like you should be), you'll know that something happened at the end of that one, and nothing will be the same after.] So, as much as I love my cat, I love my dog. I want to say I love my dog more, but I think I just love my dog different. She's always here for me.

And, well, even the cat likes the dog, that's why we ended up with the cat to begin with.

(That's my younger son, who just turned 12 against my will, getting into the picture there.)

A Blog in 3 Parts

Part One


The big news today is Shadow Spinner! Shadow Spinner is my next planned release. I'm hoping it will be completely finished before the end of the year, but, until then, I'm going to be releasing it serially. I experimented with this a while back here on the blog, if any of you remember, which is what prompted this experiment. Of course, I'd meant to start doing  this months and months ago, but I had to wait for art. It was worth the wait!

"The Tunnel" is now available for the Kindle. I'd really like to make it free, but Amazon is being... problematic and telling me that they have no "option" for that. Duh, I knew that. I also know that they can go in and make something free, so I'm working on it. However, even though it's $0.99 as its set price, I'm making it FREE for the next many days, as many as Amazon will allow me for this selling period. Since it is free, I'd really appreciate it if you'd (yes, you, the person reading this post) go over and download it. I mean, you can't beat the price, and, even if you don't have a Kindle, there are plenty of free Kindle apps for whatever platform you have. After you read it, please click the "like" button, because I'm just gonna assume you're going to like it. What's not to like? If you could see your way around to leaving a short review and a rating, that would be great, too. This is just the first chapter of Shadow Spinner, and it's quite short, so it won't take up much time. Look, here's the link! Go get it now while it's FREE!!!


Oh, and I didn't forget: The incredible art has been done by the artist who may or may not be Rusty Webb. He's kind of undecided at the moment, but it's incredible despite his identity crisis. Somewhere around chapter 4 or 5, there will be an alternate cover, and it's even more cool than this one!

Part Two


I ran a contest last week. It may have been a bad week to run a contest as traffic was down and comments were way down. Oh, well. It is what it is. You can go back and look at the contest post if you missed it. At any rate, Donna, over at Mainely Write, has walked off with the prize. At least, she will have once I hear back from her so that I know which option she wants. By the way, if you haven't visited Donna before, you should. She posts lots of great poems. I find most modern poetry less than satisfying, but Donna's stuff tends to the great, so go check her out.

Part Three


Remember back in April when everyone was A-to-Zing? Back during that whole thing, I discovered a bunch of books and stories I wanted to read about things that were fictional at the time but are now, if not real, on their way to being real. My "V" entry was about virtual reality, and I mentioned a short story by Stanley Weinbaum, "Pygmalion's Spectacles." It was an appropriate follow up to my recent read of the After, as they both deal with themes of reality and what, exactly, reality is.

However, Weinbaum's story was written in the 1930s and has an incredibly accurate look at what virtual reality might be like. How real does "real" need to be. How much will our own brains supply to fill in the gaps? Is virtual reality as real as real reality? It's pretty short and well worth reading. And it's FREE for the Kindle, so you should follow the link and go check it out.

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.