Desert Rat.

I've become a desert rat.

Who knew?

All I need is to grow my beard out and get myself a burro and the transformation will be complete. Maybe get a pick-axe and start searching for the Lost Blue Bucket Gold Mine.

There are an endless number of trails, and I'm trying them out one by one. I have my favorite about 12 miles out of town where there is hardly ever anyone else, for when I want to get my four miles in and also write.

But when I can, I search for new trails further out into the high desert.

There is something zen about it. Peaceful and relaxing. My mind can settle into a creative groove and not worry about anything else.

I suppose some people might find the terrain tedious, but I find there is a certain beauty in it. I grew up traipsing around outskirts of Bend, never thinking anything of it. While my Mom concentrated on creating an English garden in the middle of this desert, Dad and I went hunting or fishing in the woods.

It got into my blood somehow.

If you had asked me 30 years ago whether I preferred the mountains, woods and lakes--or the high desert--I'm sure I would have chosen the former.

But I can go anywhere I want for my walks, and I almost always chose the desert. It's more solitary, somehow. More peaceful.

I'm just a desert rat, I guess.

It's interesting that my first book published was Led to the Slaughter, a western horror novel with a strong element of the real events. It got me in the mood; or perhaps my affinity for the west is what led me to the book.

I've turned into my Dad, who always had an interest in the old west. I didn't think I had that, though I enjoyed the occasional western novel. Dad even had theory about the Lost Blue Bucket Mine that got published in the local paper, the Bulletin. I came across it when I was researching. He contention was that you could draw a longitudinal graph of gold finds and where it crosses the path of the Lost Meek Cutoff wagontrain is where you'd find the mine. Of course they were wandering lost, so it's a guess.

It could be hundreds of square miles. Walking in the high desert with its endless hills and gullies makes you realize what a hopeless quest that is.

Anyway, it's become a habit. Sometimes I wish I had more of a memory for the names of these places. I had some friends growing up who always knew these things. Me...I just go places and later I may even have trouble finding where I went.

I probably should learn the names of the places, the plant life, all of that. But I just wander obliviously, lost in my own little world.

Small Business Survival Handbook.

I've already written 7 chapters of this. It's like I've been practicing it for years. I've refined my thinking on each of these topics until I have a running narrative that makes sense to me.

It should be useful to someone, if only because it might make them a little more careful.

I have no illusions. Most people will need to learn these lessons the hard way, but even then confirmation after the fact can be useful.

My friend Brett, who has owned a comic store for 29 years, made the comment that while he often agrees with my observations, he often comes up with different conclusions.

Fair enough. If nothing else, my conclusions will hopefully spark debate. Because the biggest mistake is not thinking about these things at all.

I have loads of material. I'm just riffing on each of the topics right now. I'll want to go back and refine them. I could, if I have time, go through my 30 years of notes and see if there isn't something useful in them that I could add. I'm sure there is, there are probably tons of useful things, but the problem is extracting them from reams of material.

I have notebooks that stack two feet high, and 10 years worth of blog posts. Many of my business posts I never made public. They became my business journal. Notes to myself.

I could write this even faster, but I'm trying to hold back to one chapter per day, one chapter per walk. Then spending some more time refining it.

I'm just laying out my thoughts. If it helps even a few people then it's worth it.

Good news soon.

I was sort of a loose ends when I woke up yesterday about what to do. By the end of the day, I'd decided to go forward with the small business book.

First of all, I have some good news. I can't say anything yet, but it's very encouraging. It's more progress in my writing "career" and another reset of the clock.

I think I'm permanently turning my back on the possibility of mainstream publishing. I don't have an agent, and now I'm pretty sure I don't want one. I don't want to sign a constricting contract. I don't want to have to slow down or write what they want.

For instance, my "Fires of Allah" was meant to be a thriller. I thought maybe I'd use it to try to get an agent. One agent asked me for "100 kickass pages." The phrase bothered me at the time, but I couldn't put my finger on why. It's only now, months later after the agent rejected the proposal that I realize that the whole approach was so Hollywood smarmy that it left a bad taste in my mouth. Douche-bag agent saying to the writer, "Knock my socks off, kid." Yuch.

I think I've found a home with small publishers and I'm happy with that. It's probably where I belong. I like the people and I like the atmosphere. I'm at a point in my life where that matters more.

I've been published by the mainstream and I know that it isn't a panacea in any way. It's a nine day wonder. It's very similar to my business career where I chose what felt right versus easy money. It was the right thing to do.

Anyway, my intention during my month long vacation was to finish the "Fires of Allah." I woke up yesterday still torn. Partly excited by my good news, but also doubting if the book was the direction I really wanted to go. There is no point in writing a mainstream thriller if I'm not going to take it to the mainstream. My small publishers wouldn't be interested in it.

Then I realized that I would be excited to proceed with the book if I put a supernatural element in. I instantly understood that I could put a Jinn in the story and it would be transformed.

From Wiki: "The Quran says that the jinn are made of a smokeless and "scorching fire," but are also physical in nature, being able to interact in a tactile manner with people and objects and likewise be acted upon."

How perfect is that!

What tells me I'm on the right track is that I'm excited by the book again. So I think it's a Go.

But first!

On my walk yesterday, out popped another chapter in my small business book and by the time I was done, I realized that the "Small Business Survivalist Handbook" had taken possession of my subconscious and there was nothing for it but to finish.

I'm going to write a chapter per day until it's done.

Meanwhile, my friend Jared is going to be heavily involved in the process. Jared was more or less responsible for me starting writing my fiction again 4 years ago. He gave me a good explanation of the self-publishing landscape that I could understand and buy into. He was supposed to promote my "book" (at the time, that's all we could conceive of...) but that fell through.

He seems much more enthused over this project. He's tech oriented. I think he wants this book to appeal to Millennials and Gen X'ers. I'm going to write the content and he's going to do everything else. He wants to illustrate the whole book, which is an interesting idea.

So I'm going forward with that.

When I'm finished I'll turn back to my "Jinn-flavored" terrorists setting forest fires book.

Four years into my writing, and I'm still enthused, which is an unexpected thing to have happen. I feel like the 28 year old who first published a book. Heh.

2.) Stick to Your Original Goals

2.) Stick to Your Original Goals

I'm going to jump from the exciting beginnings to the near ending of my business.

In 1992, 8 years after I bought the store, I was home watching a program about small business on PBS. A guy was fishing at a pond (my memory has it as Walden Pond, but I think that's an imagined embellishment.) The guy's business had just failed and he was giving a running commentary of how he was feeling and what he'd thought had gone wrong.

It scared the hell out of me. What I was hearing was an eerie echo of what I was feeling and thinking.  I realized I was that close to quitting.

It really shocked me. My stores were going down and I was just letting it happen.

I got up off the couch, drove to the store, took out my price gun and started doubling the prices on most of my main product. As you might imagine, my sales started dropping.

I also stopped bleeding money.

***

Back to the exciting beginnings.When I was offered the chance to buy Pegasus Books,  I went home and did the math. I'd worked in the store for 4 years, managing it over the previous year. I saw where the absentee owner had sort of dropped the ball and thought I could probably pick up business.

The math said that I needed to do about twice as well as the store was currently doing. I had no doubt I could do that. I thought there was starved-up demand.

But really, going in, I was hoping to earn maybe minimum wage, at least be my own boss in a nice place to go to every day. That's all I expected or hoped for and it was enough.

Those first years were exciting. To be able to make decisions without having to ask permission, to see how the changes I was making were working. I'd been trying to write fantasy novels in the previous 5 years, and while I'd had three books published, it was an agonizingly slow process.

Suddenly, all my creative decisions were instantly rewarded.
The main products were books, games, and comics. Around 1985 I added sports cards. This was before the boom in cards really took off. I rode that rocket for the next six or seven years before it collapsed. (I no longer carry sports cards but I'll be talking about them a lot in this book, because I swear to God I learned every possible negative lesson I could from this one product.)

Sales started doubling and then doubling again. I was undergoing exponential growth.

Someone early on in my career mentioned that the only thing worse than failure was too much success. That didn't make a whole lot of sense to me at the time, but I learned the hard way that it was true. Weird but true.

If you are doubling your sales, you also aren't making any money because every cent you're making is going back into buying product. Cash flow is non-existent. A wiser man would slow down, take some profits, build slowly.

Then again, I saw the opportunity to build the business fast, and so I took it.

Again, most of the details of this growth I'm going to talk about later, but suffice it to say, I grew fast.

That's where I made the big mistake: I opened a second store in a neighboring town, and then a third store in another neighboring town, and than a fourth store in the local mall. Visions of empire danced in my head; my "young entrepreneur" phase began.

Turns out, I didn't really know how to be a manager. Not yet, anyway.

But the real point is, I didn't set out to be a "manager." I had seven employees but they were constantly quitting for no good reason. I had to let a couple people go. Suddenly all my preparations were meaningless. (I'd trained my first manager for six months, he quit after three months when I withdrew the "Incentive" he'd taken advantage of.)

My main job seemed to be  running around and plugging holes. I'd turned into the little Dutch Boy, sticking my fingers in the dike.

Meanwhile, the competition in sports cards became suicidal; people selling cards for ridiculously low margins. I made the mistake of trying to compete with them. (When you compete with stupid people then you're equally stupid.)

I'd forgotten what I'd originally wanted from my business: A living wage, (I didn't need much), a pleasant place to work, and being my own boss.

Being a stressed out manager wasn't what I'd wanted to do, but somehow that's where I'd ended up.

It's the great American way that if you are successful, you grow. You expand, you open new locations, you take on staff, and so on.

Well, bullshit to that. At least for me, it wasn't really what I wanted.

You've all probably heard of the Peter Principle: An employee will be promoted to his level of incompetence. I believe the same thing hold true of business owners: He will expand to his level of incompetence.

I'd tried to leverage the success I'd had in my one store into other stores. But there was only one me, and the moment I wasn't around in my own store, it started to go down. I couldn't keep up the quality for any of the stores. 

So I did something that was almost as hard as growing---I shrank. Over the next few years I sold or closed the other three stores and concentrated on my one store.

Now, that one store is doing better than all 4 stores used to do, even at their peak. And I'm happy, not as stressed, and feeling somewhat secure. (Knock wood.)

Somehow I'd lost sight of what I really wanted. It was only when I was on the verge of failure that I was reminded of my original goals.

I've tried to never lose sight of them again.

Thinking about writing a Small Business book.

I'm thinking about writing a small business book. The subtitle would be, "How to Survive a Small Business."

I went on a day long walk yesterday. Drove out past Millican to the old highway to Prineville, and pulled off on one of the trails. Very much in the middle of nowhere.

Anyway, I was thinking of how I'd do a business book, and it occurred to me that I could pick topic headings, and then sort of riff on each topic.

Right away, I rattled off 27 topics, which is a small proportion of what I'd could come up with after 37 years of doing this. In fact, I was thinking of one every few minutes and purposely cut off the flow.

Then, as an experiment, I picked one of the topics and wrote about it, just off the top of my head.

So the fact is, this book would be extremely easy to do. I have a whole set of ideas I've expounded over the years, and I have examples for all of them. 

So I may do this.  Does this look interesting to anyone?

Here is the first draft of the first topic, and a list of the other topics.

"YOU'RE STILL HERE?!" "How to Survive a Small Business"

1.) Remember--most "small business" books...aren't. 

This isn't your usual business book.

After some early success, I went through what I call my "young entrepreneur" phase.  I devoured magazines like Inc. and Entrepreneur. I even wore a coat and carried a briefcase; albeit with blue jeans and without a tie. (Never a tie!)

Most books I read back then seemed to think "small" businesses were places with 50 or more employees, but I tried to glean from them what I could.

It took some brutal missteps but I finally realized that business books and magazines exist mainly to sell more business books and magazines. 

More often than not, the advice in these publications is disastrous to mortal humans. For example, when I opened a store in the local mall, I tried to create an "Incentive" program for my manager based on a gung ho article I read. It was a complete failure. I made the mistake of rewarding gross sales without enforcing profit margins. It never occurred to me that my manager would sell everything cheaply. (He didn't stick around once the "Incentive" was removed...)

This one mistake almost brought down my little empire. (The word "empire" is my "young entrepreneur" talking, not the grizzled veteran I am now. I carry a backpack these days, not a briefcase.)

Stupid, yes. But that is sort of the point. I should have been sticking to basics, not trying to get fancy. I forgot who and what I was.

So be forewarned. Many of the observations I'll make in this book are going to contradict common wisdom, and more often than not be counter-intuitive.  Notice I say "observations" rather than advice, because I think every store is different, every owner is different, and so giving advice is pretty risky. And yet, some things I've noticed over the years might prove useful.

What this book isn't is a Get Rich Quick scheme. The focus here is on making a decent living, working in a pleasant place, being your own boss.

33 years ago, I bought a very small business that I'd worked in for the previous 4 years, called Pegasus Books; in downtown Bend, Oregon. I'm still there. Somehow I survived, and I'm finally ready to say thrived. (By my standards, and that's what counts.)

This book is written with small retail businesses in mind, with a few employees.  Though some of the observations might be useful for service businesses, or restaurants and bars, it isn't specifically designed for that.

There are very few books that really address the needs of Mom and Pop style businesses. Why? I think because the Powers That Be have decided there is no money in it. And yet, a large percentage of small businesses are like mine. An owner and perhaps the spouse and a few employees, in a single location.

I won't be using business jargon. For one thing, I don't know any business jargon. I didn't go to business school. I'm not going to address technology or accounting or taxes or anything like that. This is more a book about how I survived, and after a long struggle, finally thrived.

I went up to the local community college once for business advice. The advisor told me I had a "primitive sophistication." No doubt, he was damning me with faint praise, but I embrace that description. I believe, in fact, that I survived and thrived because I didn't pay too much attention to what the business community said. I resisted writing this for a long time despite the urging of others because I didn't feel I was successful enough.  I've made a bunch of mistakes and it took some time to finally reach real profitability.

Ironically, it is these very same mistakes that make whatever observations I make useful.

This is the only time I'm going to qualify my observations. Obviously, what I say may not apply to your own experience. Obviously there are exceptions.

But that said, I'm going to try to be as honest and forthright as possible.

Stick to your original goal.
Decide if you want to be a shopkeeper or a wheeler dealer.
A lifestyle store, but a store: not a hobby and not a charity.
Start small; don't throw money at it.
Follow the herd...right over the cliff.
Where did all my neighbors go?
Competition: can't live with them, but you have to live with them.
Turnover. What does it matter?
Inventory, inventory, inventory.
Location is your store, your store is your location.
I have some quirks. So do you.
Burn out. Only thing worse than not making money.
Advertising is a scam.
Don't quit your corporate job to open a small business.
Know your town, live in it. Then open a business.
No one cares if your fixtures are used.
Bootstrap or borrow?
Don't wear the clown suit unless you're a clown.
Analyze your business. Doesn't everyone? Nope.
Fads and bubbles, a deadly opportunity.
Cagey gets you nowhere.
Selling isn't everything.
If the customer is always right, does that mean you're always wrong?
and so on and on and on. I can come up with many more.

Writing vacation over. I have to work on Thursday, but I'll get started writing again on Friday.

I'm not sure what will happen. I've not taken this much time off before because I was afraid of losing  my connection to my subconscious. I'm guessing that won't be a problem, but we'll see.

The full month off was probably a good thing. I realized that I'm way ahead of the game. I've gotten much further along than I ever expected. I'll even say this: I've probably had about as much success as I deserve, no more, no less.  ("We all deserve it, kid.")

I have the second half of Fires of Allah to write. When I'm finished, I intend to do a lot research and flesh out the book with accurate telling details. I'd like the fire fighting to be real.

I may have something happening on the publishing front. The publisher used the word "likely." But I've had a publisher use the word "likely" before and it didn't turn out, so I know it isn't a sure thing. I feel like Shroedinger's Cat, half alive and half dead. Eh.

If it happens, then next year is pretty much covered.

As I mentioned before, I'm extending the writing process by adding a couple of extra steps. We'll see if that works. 

I still feel like I"m more or less on track. Each book I write I'm learning a little more. One of these days I'm going to put it all together.

I decided to go back to my original title on Freedy Filkins.

I asked Mike Corley for a new cover to go along with it.

LOVE this cover. It feels good.

This is a sort of Hobbit Cyberpunk novel. It's the book that got me back into the groove of writing, where I threw away all doubts and worries and just did what came to me.

It was a really good feeling writing it. I loved the main character, I loved the adventure, I loved the love story. I thought it came out really well.

But I wasn't sure what to do with it, so...well, I didn't do much with it.

Coming back a couple of years later, I decided I still like this book and should try a little harder to point out it's existence. A short fun little book. (Free on Amazon Prime, by the way.)

https://www.amazon.com/Death-Immortal-Vampire-Evolution-Trilogy-ebook/dp/B00K1XI0QM/

So I woke to a 3 star review of Death of an Immortal, because it was too "Christian."

Oh, the irony! (Linda thought it was hilarious...she's been trying to get me to go to church for years...not in an annoying way, bless her, but an occasional gentle suggestion...)

That was my first response. Then I started thinking about it.

The story purposely uses the classic old-school vampire tropes of Holy Water, sacred ground, crosses, and demon dispelling Catholic prayers. Which to me are as exotic as the vampires themselves. I wanted my vampires to be vicious and evil, and yet at the same time...with a human component.

But, to be fair, the theme of the book is redemption. Now I don't think redemption is exclusively a Christian idea or value, but certainly since it is framed in a story with Christian symbols, then I can see how someone might interpret it that way.

Thing is, it is all in service to the story.

When I started writing Blood of the Succubus, I hadn't gone more than a chapter before I realized that there was going to be a whole lot of sex. Because that is what the story demanded.

When I started writing a book about a gangster Golem, (The Last Fedora), I hadn't gone far before I was using Jewish mysticism.

I think it's unavoidable that a writer's world view is going to be included in their writing. But I'm a pretty middle-of-the-road guy, a moderate. Whatever liberal leanings I have are not inserted just to be liberal, but just because that is who I am. I've gotten three less than stellar reviews because of my supposed liberal leanings. I think they had to look pretty damn hard for something to be offended by, or they were so extreme themselves that they are the one's who are off base.

Certainly, there is no extremism. I'm not Heinlein with his dirty-old-man Libertarian-ism, or Orson Scott Card's stealth Mormonism, or Frank Herbert's...whatever the hell that is. I read the Narnia books without any awareness of the Christian themes. (Duh!) I read Ayn Rand without any awareness of her philosophy. (Double duh!)

I don't have to agree with an author to read them. I know of quite of few authors who I read and enjoy who I don't agree with. Dan Simmons, Stephen Hunter, Heinlein, even Tom Clancy. I suspect that thriller and old-time S.F. writers as an overall breed are probably more conservative than I.

If I was going to be offended, Stephen Hunter is double damned. As a reviewer, he has disparaged S.F. and Fantasy and comics. But here's the thing--Stephen Hunter writes a corker of a story!

And finally, color me old-fashioned, but I think reviews ought to reflect the quality of the writing and the story, not whether you agreed with everything the author said.

I hope reviews don't follow the example of online comments (Never read the comments!) or they'll become pretty useless.

I'm giving myself the Christmas present of my original books: Star Axe and Snowcastles/Icetowers.

They've got terrific old/new covers designed by Mike Corley. (The original Sword and Sorcery artwork by Romas updated.)

You know how they say everyone has one book in them? Well, Star Axe would have, could have been that one book. Except, well, I had more books in me. But it came from my pure love of LOTR's at a time when there wasn't a excess of LOTR's type books.

(My father challenged me to write two more books, and offered to get me a new Selectric typewriter if I did. So I wrote Snowcastles and Icetowers.)

I've scanned them, which is a messy process. I have to go through them line by line, which is a bit tedious. So I've decided to take the rest of the month to finish Star Axe at least. Snowcastles should be easier because I just downloaded a pirated version. (Heh). Icetowers is also going to be a chore. But I think I can get them done by mid-December.

Thing is, these books sold many more copies than anything I've currently written. They were mass market at a time when that was the market. They were in all the bookstores and newstands.

I got a single royalty statement for Star Axe which had numbers I may never again achieve. The publisher had a bankruptcy reorganization shortly after, so that was it. (Dorchester lasted another 30 years, the bastards. I took it to a lawyer and he scoffed at the paltry amounts. Paltry to him, but a few thousand dollars would have been nice back then.)

Snowcastles undoubtedly sold even better, because it was sold in the British Commonwealth, by a different publisher. They seem to be all over the world.

However, I was in my mid-20's when I wrote these, a pretty immature mid-20's at that. The innocence actually works pretty well for fantasy, but the writing is a little clunky compared to my current abilities, so I kind of wince my way through the transcribing.

I decided about a fourth of the way through Star Axe to change the more egregious sentences. I've decided that as long as I don't actually change the real content, improving the writing here and there isn't a crime. The book seemed to be liked by people--very much liked by some--so I don't want to change that.

But...improving a sentence only makes sense. I'm certain that no one will notice the difference.

It will be fun to have these available online, and why the hell not? Right?

Two week non-writing vacation.

Feels weird. But I'm going with it. I still want to finish Fires of Allah, but I had to break off twice in writing it before, and each time it's harder to get my head back into it. I want to be absolutely sure nothing will get in the way of finishing it.

I worry if I take too much time off, though, I'll get used to it. I might start liking it.

Meanwhile, at the store, I'm finding that I'm not in touch with what's happening as much as I'd liked. On the other hand, the store is doing great, Cameron is excelling as manager, and he and Matt are the faces of Pegasus and that's a good thing.

We are reaching subscription levels we haven't seen since the mid-nineties. We almost always have a big day on Wednesdays, which is when the new comics come out, and which is an indication of enthusiasm.

New books continue to do well, and I think as I continue to focus on them as my main job at the store they'll continue to do well.

In most ways, things are going extraordinarily well. Knock wood.

Here's the thing. I have several years worth of books finished.

Yes, several years. Finished, done, edited, covers. Ready to go. (There is some clean-up left to do, but that's just a matter of doing it.)

So what's the hurry?

There is no hurry, but I do have the concern that if I'm not compulsively obsessed with writing that I won't write at all. That there is no middle ground.

I guess I'm about to find out.

Shocked, Shocked! Tourism in Bend!

So to the person quoted in the paper who moved to Bend a grand 11 years ago, who wanted a "small town mid-western" feel: you can actually move to the mid-west for that. Of course, it won't have mountains or high lakes or a world class ski resort or Smith Rocks or...well, the list is endless. That's why we have tourism.

People often ask how I feel about the growth because I'm a native.

Hey, my store couldn't exist in the town I grew up in. 13,000 people, max. The 20,000 extra people in town on summer days is what makes my store possible. Without them I wouldn't have a store, or it would be a very different store. (My rent would be a lot cheaper too, I suppose, but whatever...)

The other answer is--I find the craziness easy to ignore. The traffic is the only thing that really impacts on me, and as a local I know ways around that most of the time and it certainly isn't a dealbreaker.

The outlines of old Bend are still here. I just ignore those other places. Northwest Crossing could be in another country for all I notice. I have no reason to go out there. No reason to be upset by anything they do.

Here's a rule of thumb I've found to be true. The first stop on a tourist route will be twice as crowded as the second stop, which will be twice as crowded as the third stop, and so on. So if you're willing to go a little further off the beaten track, you'll be fine.

I go walking every day in the high desert. On my path, I've run into people 3 times in the hundreds of times I've walked it.

But if you go to Tumalo Falls, or Sparks Lake, or Drake Park in the middle of July and August, then yeah, it's a zoo. If you go to the festivals, or the concerts, or any of the other venues, then it will be hectic. But, come on...those of you who moved here instead of the real mid-west, you kind of like that activity, don't you?

If you really hate the crowds, then don't do that.

If you want to see places like Dillon Falls, or Lava Butte, or any of the other cool places, you have April thru mid-June, September thru mid-November to do so. The weather might actually be nicer.

Live your life as normal, ignore the rest, and we still have nice small town.

Tourism IS Bend.

Ridiculous article in the Bulletin today about tourism.

So some of the newcomers don't like all these newer newcomers.

Downtown Bend faces gridlock. No one goes there anymore--it's too busy.

Still, we promote and we promote and we promote.

So now we want to complain about our success? Now we want to reverse course?

Too late, folks. Unless you want to depend on retirees spending money--and they don't spend money--tourism is what we got.

Tourism IS Bend.

All in all, my writing is on track.

I've thought of a couple of extra scenes for Tuskers IV. I have a couple of major characters who kind of fade in the second half of the book, so I've figured out how to include them again.

I'm  eager to get Fires of Allah finished.

I took a week off from writing while family was home. It was good timing, with Tuskers IV finished.
Been doing my walks in the cool of morning instead of the evening. Doesn't work when I'm writing, because I really don't get going on the actual writing until later in the day.

I've refined the process I'm going to be following from here on out. Roughly speaking, I'm doubling the time I spend on a book. The actual writing will probably be about the same. Once I'm in the flow of a story, I really write at the pace the story comes to me. But I'm going to spend some time thinking about the book before I start. I'm adding a step of editing the previous days writing in the morning, I'm going to do a full rewrite before I send it to my editor, Lara, and a full rewrite when it comes back.

I'm in no hurry. I can still produce a goodly number of books at this rate and it's time to try to apply everything I've learned.

Meanwhile, I've got what I think is a very cool idea for my next new book. I'm very excited by the possibilities of it. I haven't decided if I want to make it the next Virginia Reed book, which will require putting in a supernatural element (which happens to be kind of cool) and changing the time of the real events.

Or I can write it as a straight historical.

I've got until the first of the year to decide. Like I said, Step #1 is to fully think through the book before I start.

I'm applying some of this new process to Fires of Allah, which means it will take up most of the rest of the year. In the in-betweens, I'm going to finish off my Lander series. I still have to write the ending of the 2nd book, Zombielander, and I'm undecided about whether to try to include a fifth book. But the other four books just require that I finish them and polish them up.

Like I said, I feel like my writing is right on track. I believe I'm getting better, I'm getting the hang of what a good story should be, I'm refining the process of creation. So all that is going smoothly.

The publishing front will always rely on the other guys. When and how and where is up to them. While somewhat frustrating, the difference in sales is Night And Day. The publishers have their own followings, which really helps.

When I put out my own books, sales are slim to none.  And yet...strangely it doesn't seem to matter to me that much. I still get great satisfaction out of writing the books, making them as good as I can, getting them edited, finding nice covers, and simply putting them out. Every book I put out is up to my standards, so the books I put out myself are just as good as the ones the publishers are doing.

It's just that I've filled all the available slots already, and I don't know if I want to go searching for other publishers too.

So I'm just plopping my own books out there every few months with zero expectation.

It's as if I was a painter who finished a painting he really liked and he just hangs it on the wall of his own office. It may only be seen by him and a few family and friends, but the painting is still the painting, and there is something to be said for that.

I've thought it all through, and I'm pretty satisfied with the way things are going. The quality of the books isn't dependent on sales, really.

I was on fire at work on Thursday. I think I sold 8 to 10 of my books. I did it out of sheer enthusiasm.

I had two separate instances of readers coming in specifically to tell me how much they enjoyed my books. I mean, they really did mean it. I could tell.

That counts for a lot.

So I'm just going to keep on doing what I'm doing. 

Anyone feel like reading a Virginia Reed adventure in these hot pioneer days of summer?

True story: In August of 1845, the famous Lost Meek Cutoff wagon train wandered the high desert east of present day Bend, Oregon. Stephen Meek, the no good brother of the famous mountain man Joe Meek, had promised them a shortcut. (Seems like most Oregon Trail tragedies involve "shortcuts.)

Somewhere around Hampton Butte they stumbled across gold. The Lost Blue Bucket Mine.

They were never able to find it again...or so it was believed.

As usual I tried for historical accuracy.

And ghosts.

Historical accuracy and ghosts.

https://www.amazon.com/Darkness-You-Fear-Ghosts-Bucket-ebook/dp/B01FW5FANE/#nav-subnav

Tuskers IV is finished.

I still have half a dozen chapter headings to write. Those usually don't take long.

I want to give it a quick read/re-write, then send it to Lara.

I'll print out a copy to work on while she has the book, then do a final rewrite in a month or so.

Meanwhile, I'm going to finish Fires of Allah.

As I've mentioned, I've decided to refine my process. I'm going to give myself plenty of time to finish this book. I'd like it to be at least 80K and would be happier at 100K, though the story is the story.

I'm going to do more research on this book than I've done on any other book. I'd like to try to get the firefighting down as correctly as possible.

When I'm done, I'm going to set it aside for month or two, then completely re-write it, and then send it to Lara. And give it a rewrite after it comes back from Lara. This is the new process. A little more intensive and time-consuming than what I've attempted before.

During the waiting times, I'm going to try to get my backlog cleaned up again. Starting with getting Star Axe and Snowcastles/Icetowers back on the market.

Starting next year, I'll start putting my finished books out every few months.


The real change will come with the next book.

My old process. Find an idea that I like and that I think will sustain a book, sit down and write it straight through without any major changes. Get it edited. Give it a brief rewrite.

My middle process. Step one, the same. Step two, think about each chapter before I write it, then write it, but otherwise write it straight through. Get it edited. Do a more thorough rewrite if I can.

The new process. The same way I've been thinking about chapters before I write them, apply the same technique to the book as a whole. Try to identify my strong points, what I do best. Work out all the ramifications in advance. Take a longer time to finish the book with more thought between each chapter. Set it aside, and then come back and give it a really thorough rewrite and only then send it to Lara.

I'm attempting to find more depth in my writing. At the same time, I want to focus on conflict and tension in the first page and ratchet it up from there. For depth, the characters need to be more detailed, and there has to be emotional possibilities. For tension, the plot has to be tight and focused.

Since I'm only as talented as I am, I have to try to use time spent as the improving factor. More time and thought.

But--I have to be very careful I don't block myself. And even more careful I don't ruin the book by overthinking or overwriting.

So it will be a fine line.

I don't even really know what the next book is going to be, yet. I'm purposely avoiding thinking about it too much until I'm done with Fires of Allah.

So I want to be as focused as ever on writing, but try to slow it down and put some more thought into each stage. Pretty clearly, I can finish a book. That doesn't seem to be a problem.

Wrote the penultimate chapter of Tuskers IV, where one of the major characters dies.

Was reading it to Linda, and I thought it was OK. Looked up and Linda was crying. "Oh, poor ****, he didn't deserve it."

Success! (Yes, I have a weird reaction to Linda crying.)

What I've discovered about major emotional pivot points is that the less "emotional" words you use, the more effective it is. That is, you underplay the drama in words and let the actions speak for themselves. The opposite of what you might think.

I still have a last chapter to write, and the epilogue, and a few chapter headings, but I'm almost there. Should be done by the end of the weekend.

Phew.

That means all my obligations have been written. I've done my yearly Virginia Reed Adventure, and finished the Tuskers saga. There is nothing anyone is currently waiting for.

So a bit of freedom.

I've decided to slow down slightly, change the process. I want to think more fully about a book for before I start writing it. Slow everything down. Basically, my goal is to try for more depth.

I always say, you can't write a book deeper than you are. (Well, you can, sorta, but...)

But if I take adequate time to think it through, and have a disciplined process, gravitas should happen. Heh. 

I'm almost finished with Tuskers IV. One last chapter and the epilogue. I have some chapter headings still to write. But the book is more or less finished.

It's coming in at close to 80,000 words, or 25% longer than the other Tuskers books. I hope that won't be a problem, but I'm trying to wrap up four books worth of characters and plotlines. I feel like I've accomplished that. It has a suitably big climax at the same time as concluding the story arcs of the characters. I hope.

Who knew this would be a 1000 page epic!  Really amazing.



After I'm done, I'm turning my attention to Fires of Allah. I've pretty much missed this fire season, which was my goal, so I'm no longer in a hurry.

I'm about 40,000 words into this book.

I've started research, and it's helping a great deal, but I want to do more research, make it as accurate as possible. What's weird is, just like rewriting, research really helps my books. I'm pretty good at picking out pertinent and interesting details. And yet, like rewriting, I don't really like doing it.

I like having done it.

I'm giving myself permission to slow down. Take my time. Fully flesh this book out. Work on the characters. This has the potential of being a good book. It has completely engaged my interest, which is always the true test.

I think, I hope, that whatever engages me will engage the reader.

Just trying to become a better writer, little by little. 

Faerie Punk is live!

I'm going to be putting out a book every few months for the foreseeable future. Five years worth of writing and re-writing and setting aside and coming back and writing and polishing and arranging editing and covers and putting them aside for the next thing and on and on.

I love this book, but I didn't send it anywhere. I don't know where it will fit, and I don't think I have the patience. It's my biggest book so far, about 140 thousand words, or twice the size of most of my other books.

This time all I'm doing is announcing it. I do hope you'll read it.

Here's the synopsis:

A story of coming home to a place you never knew existed.

The genius half Elve, half Dwarve inventor Joseph Tindermaker has died, leaving his inheritance inside his unbreakable Vault, which only his true heir can open. Iggy Sinclair, a punk bounty hunter unaware of his heritage, is approached for what seems to be a straightforward job: find Carter Tindermaker, the missing son of the great inventor.

Meanwhile, Grendor, the evil Ancient One, who was banished by the humans’ One God ten thousand years ago, has returned. He has infested an artificial intelligence and is intent on taking over both mankind and Faerie. All of Faerie must choose sides.

On a journey from Oregon to New York City, Iggy discovers that Faerie and the Mortal Realms exist side by side, and encounters Pixies and Trolls and Ogres…oh my! It is up to Iggy, along with his Changeling sister Kerrie, the half-Elve lawyer Maggie Cleeve, and the Ogre Chuck to make their way across a magical America to stop the Ancient One.

Part American Gods, part Wizard of Oz, part Kerouac, this an urban fantasy road trip through Faerie and Mortal Realms.  

Adding a new book distributor.

I've set up an account with Ingram's Book Distributors, which means I'm only one day shipping away from getting any book. 

When I first approached Ingrams, ten or fifteen years ago, they pretty much slammed me. "OH....you're a comic store..." 

"Yes, I am. And you carry graphic novels, and besides I want to try my hand at regular novels."

The woman pretty much made it clear that I wouldn't qualify, that I wouldn't be approved. She mentioned I had to buy at least 1000.00 wholesale each month to start. (As this turned out, it wouldn't have been a problem, but it was a new category for me and I wasn't sure I could sell 1600.00 retail worth of books every month to start with.)

Anyway, graphic novels have only gotten bigger, and new books did well for me, and now I'm expanding again. 

Ingram's was considerably more welcoming this time...

I feel a little guilty. Baker and Taylor, the other major distributor, was very nice to me. They've been very good. Now I have to split my purchases between two distributors. Hopefully, by paying attention to the category I can increase sales so that B & T won't notice a drop off. 

Maybe it's time I got serious about being a real bookstore. So far, I've done it the easy way. Carrying my favorites, and the classics, and the books with a cult following, and the obvious tie-ins to a pop culture store. This has been more successful than I expected, and I probably should build on it.

Not so much the bestsellers. That probably won't change. I got a gander at the bestseller list this morning and it was pretty awful. Wow. This is the stuff that is half-price at the feeding trough at Costco.

But I can be more responsive to reordering the books I have and maybe a little more expansive in my selection. As always, the problem is room.

I'm getting ready to take out the sports card rack once and for all. That should allow me to add 3 bookshelves. I have to decide what I want to do with that. I'm thinking a non-fiction section, which I don't currently have. Again, just the best of the best. Things like Hunter S. Thompson, and Malcolm Gladwell, and stuff like that. Pop culture non-fiction, if you will. At least one shelf of that.

I could turn one shelf into "Current Bestsellers" I suppose, if I use a loose definition of that. Maybe a shelf of history, which is a subject I like. 

That will free up a couple of shelves to fluff out the inventory. 

Really, all that's stopping me is the buying of the shelves, and the dismantling of the mammoth card rack, which won't be much fun and will be very messy. Probably should just hire a truck for day and toss a bunch of crap into it and pay whatever dump fees I have to. 

It's work, dammit, and I've gotten lazy.

I'm not normally nervous about my writing--except for the endings.

This seems to happen every time I get within a few chapters of the climax. Suddenly, I'm worried about getting it just right.

I didn't go for my walk on Wednesday, then I worked on Thursday. Friday I wrote a chapter, but I was unsatisfied with it. It was more like the way I used to write. I had a vague idea (without any details or hooks) of what I wanted and just tried to do it.

Didn't go for a walk. Too hot.

Saturday spent the entire day coloring a mandala--yes, my wife has been pro-craft--inating for a few months, but up until yesterday I avoided it. It is entirely too addictive.

I couldn't think of what to write. I'm like 3 chapters from the end, folks.

Again, it was too hot, but I couldn't stand it and went for my walk anyway. Why do I keep talking about my walk? Because it appears that it has become a crucial part of the process.

I was discouraged at the beginning of the walk, but by the end of the walk I had fleshed out the details of the ending. All the cool little details that make it work.

So now I have the hooks that will pull me into the story, and that's what I need. I won't be finishing today, the end of the month, like I'd hoped, but will finish in the next couple of days.

Only one worry. Apparently, I've wrapped my walks into my writing process so much I can't seem to write without it. Fortunately, there are only a few days every year where I can't walk. Just a few days in the winter were too cold or snowy, and only a few days this spring where it rained hard, and a few days this summer where I thought it was too hot.

But I suppose I can always go for a walk, no matter where I am, so that seems like an unnecessary worry.

Besides, it gets me out of the house and is good for me. I tend to get in a little box when I'm writing and feel all constrained if I don't watch out. The walk instantly airs out my brain, my stress drops away, and I'm in the moment.

So cool either way.