Wayzgoose: Blog

Thank you all for the kind words in response to the conclusion of American Royalty 1: Coming of Age. The current status of the book is that the rewrite is in my line editor's well-washed hands and she is sifting through the story even as I continue to write more.

I am working on making all my books available for free online reading. I think that as we discover the impact of social distancing, we might all need some extra reading material and not have the cash to feed the hopper of our voracious appetites. All but one story in my backlist is now available here on SOL. I will work on converting that book for my readers here as I continue to write new material, both as Devon Layne (aroslav) and as Nathan Everett (Wayzgoose). The final backlist book is a Young Adult collection of "Once Upon a Times" reminiscent of Grimm's Fairy Tales. The title is Steven George & The Dragon. With luck, you'll see this one start in May.

I have been blocked from continuing my anticipated journey across the south to Arizona and then north to Idaho. RV Parks are not admitting any new travelers, so for the next month, I'll be resident in Pharr, TX, just north of Brownsville. I hope that when April 23 comes around, I'll be able to make a run straight north up I-25 to I-90 and home. I have a doctor's appointment in Seattle on May 12.

I am also revamping my two websites during this down time. Hope you will check them out. They are simply nathaneverett and devonlayne. A few broken links and repairs still to be done.

I found myself humming a new tune while I washed my hands yet again. For years, since my daughter was tiny, we used "Twinkle, Twinkle Little Star" as our hand-washing song. Suddenly I was humming a different tune and had to figure out where it came from. At first, I thought it was the clock music from the old 1950s TV game show, Beat the Clock. It wasn't. I finally located it as the Jeopardy thinking music. Anyway, another perfect 30 second reminder.

I have been working on a humorous story for aroslav called Adams' Apple, but every time I think up some ridiculous situation for the story, I end up reading it the next day in the news. Turning out to be more satire than humor. Maybe I should try a story called "21 Ways to Cook Toilet Paper" with a special section of "5 Delicious Hand Sanitizer Desserts."

Though I need both bread and eggs, I understand people rushing out to stockpile them so the store shelves are empty. What I don't understand is the store being out of pickles and olives! No olives? What am I going to put in my quarantini?

And this news just in: "In an abundance of caution, both the MLA Handbook and Chicago Manual of Style are re-instituting the 'two spaces between sentences' in solidarity with APA. Please be safe out there."

Be well, my friends. Thank you for your continued support, comments, and email!

Deb Riley's adventures in Stocks & Blondes have come to an end today. Will there be more? Probably. I have another title for the next Deb Riley mystery: Blonde Ambition. I also have another Dag Hamar mystery partly written: For Mayhem or Madness. I'm not sure how soon I'll finish either one of those.

But I have another story queued up and ready to launch next week!

American Royalty 1: Coming of Age will debut here next Sunday. It will post weekly over a ten week span. By then, maybe I'll know what I'm working on next. I'm still struggling with the genre for this new piece. Currently, I'm calling it a 'literary romance'. It more closely resembles my other literary fiction like City Limits and Wild Woods. But it has that element of romance that we all love in a good story.

American Royalty 1: Coming of Age is set in an alternate universe in which American society has developed a well-defined class structure. But unlike other class structures you've heard of, this one is not based on wealth, occupation, or heredity. It is based on careful evaluation of a person's character and inclinations through their years of schooling. In fact, the entire educational system is designed to facilitate discovering the student's class.

But in this structured class system, someone still needs to teach the new heir apparent how to behave like royalty. And who better to mentor a royal than a servant?

This story is a departure for me on several fronts. First, the edition that will be posted here will be coded as "Minimal Sex". There are a couple of pretty hot scenes but the first three-quarters of the book is spent building the tension that makes them possible.

Second, I'll be posting three chapters to start and two each week thereafter. The odd numbered chapters are short (1,000 to 2,000 words) and focus on giving an insight into the different classes. Each one has a different point of view. The even numbered chapters are the main story line and each chapter is between 8,000 and 10,000 words. So, I'll be posting a long chapter and a short chapter each week. Don't skip the short ones! They often contain information that explains or sets up action that just occurred or is about to occur.

The main storyline will be presented from the alternating point of view of the two principal characters. Chapters two, four, eight, twelve, sixteen, and twenty are from the POV of the hero of the story. Chapters six, ten, fourteen, and eighteen are from the POV of the heroine. The shift in POV is always made obvious in the chapter heading.

And finally, the language used in this story is considerably more formal and somewhat stylized. You will find it far more resembles the language of an old black and white movie than that of Star Wars or whatever else is popular at the moment. The time of the setting is a bit ambiguous. It strongly resembles pre-war America in the choice of music and manners. But it also has a plethora of telephones and automobiles. Just no cell phones and limited if any commercial air travel. There are televisions, but the emphasis is on news (real news) and not on entertainment.

Before I manage a commercial release of the book in June, it will be substantially rewritten to soften some of the sex in the book. My commercial readers just aren't prepared for that. As a result, I'll not be offering an eBook of this unexpurgated version. I will announce the eBook and print book in advance of the release so you can purchase them then if you so desire.

I'm happy that I'm able to write both some serious literary work and some fun erotica under my two author names. And I'm equally happy that you seem to enjoy both. So, stay tuned. Next week we begin American Royalty 1: Coming of Age.

My patrons already have five chapters of this story in pre-release. Both aroslav and Nathan Everett patrons have access to the story. We'd love to have you join either community!

I have been leaving the weekly updates to my alter ego, aroslav, for a while. But today is my day to shine. I've begun posting Stocks & Blondes, the sequel to the Deb Riley mystery, Municipal Blondes. This story will once again have Deb in disguise as she travels from trendy Seattle to stately Savanah to cold Cincinnati and finally to steamy Las Vegas as she uncovers the mystery of six computers and a dead body. The story picks up immediately following the last chapter of Municipal Blondes and while it stands alone, it will make more sense if you've read that story first. I'm preloading the entire story to post two chapters every three days.

In other news, I arrived in north Texas just ahead of the weather and was snug for the holiday wind, ice, and cold at my sister's house. Tomorrow, I'll start northeast from here to Tulsa, OK. I'll be exhibiting at a book fair at the Oklahoma Equality Center in Tulsa on Saturday Dec. 7. I'll be playing both roles as Nathan Everett and Devon Layne. If you are in the area, stop by and say hi.

I've also successfully completed another NaNoWriMo with a total of 95,000 new words on our next book, American Royalty 1: Coming of Age. "Our book?" you ask. My split personality is arguing over whether this is a Nathan Everett book or a Devon Layne book. It could go either way at the moment. I have two more chapters to write and will be ready to do the rewrite in January. We'll see then which way it goes and expect it to start posting here in April. Either way, it is a minimal sex story.

So that completes the update for this week. Whatever you are celebrating this winter, be safe and happy!

I'm happy to announce the beginning of another serial tomorrow. I'm serializing my 2013 novel, The Volunteer. This book has been on Amazon in both paperback and eBook for almost as long as I've been on the road. It's already sold all 12 copies it will ever sell. But it was a tale that needed a voice.

The Volunteer is not a story. It's a journey inside the head of a chronically homeless man. It's not a particularly happy book, but its realism shows a sign of hope even in the bleak life of the homeless. The Volunteer is where he is meant to be. It has been divided into ten 'chapters' for posting and display purposes but the original book, published in 2013, had no chapters. This is an online presentation of the original book. No other edits have been or will be made. It is finished.

This journey is not my life, though when my elder sister read the book, she immediately called me and said, "We have to talk. You obviously had a different father than I had." It took a while to convince her that no matter what of our home life and settings she might have recognized, the narrative was fiction, not an autobiography.

Yet, in many ways, it is also the beginning of my journey. In 2013, I set out in a truck and travel trailer to live the life of a nomad author. I have been on the road ever since. I let G2 open the door for me.

My daughter, who loves dark literary fiction, believes this is the best of my novels. I love her anyway.

This is not a story for everyone. If you decide to brave this literary work, I'll look forward to your comments. It's a No Sex Story.

In other news that must be mentioned, both my alter ego, aroslav, and I have been brutalized by what the doctor has chosen so far to term as "asthma." I'm 70 years old and see no reason for asthma to have suddenly developed. X-rays show my lungs are clear. Blood tests show no sign of infection. But none of what the doctor has said explains why I am out of breath when doing a simple task like fixing breakfast or why as soon as I drop off to sleep, I wake up hyperventilating. It doesn't explain why I've lost my appetite, haven't had a glass of wine for a week, and only drink about half a cup of coffee a day. Those are the things I consider indicative of an emergency!

So, I'm in the Seattle area this week, to see my doctor again and try to resolve the issues. It was serious enough that I chose to pay exorbitant airfare from Spokane to Everett Washington rather than drive 350 miles in my sleep-deprived state. It was a good choice. Last night I slept an entire night. I feel almost human again.

The worst side-effect of this physical discomfort is that It has left me unable to concentrate on anything. I've (aroslav) been writing chapter 232 of Double Team (Book 5 of "The Transmogrification of Jacob Hopkins") for three days and have managed only about 1400 words so far. My average for the year has been in excess of 4,000 words a day. This hits me hard-not that real life is interfering with my writing, but that this imaginary physical limitation is interfering with my real life. I have thousands of words, dozens of stories to tell. I need this lack of breath and sleeplessness to go away.

So that is the status of both aroslav and Wayzgoose. We have separate minds but share the same physical woes.

Today, Wild Woods has come to an end. Thank you for your many kind comments, email messages, and votes. Wild Woods was released commercially on June 23 and is available in both eBook and paperback from Amazon and Barnes & Noble. Or you can donate via my PayPal account (see end note to story) and receive a direct link from my website.

I'm working steadily on the next Deb Riley mystery, though it is going a little more slowly than anticipated. I still expect to start posting it near the end of next month or early September. Until then, I'll be pretty quiet as my alter ego aroslav continues to pump out chapters of "The Transmogrification of Jacob Hopkins."

I expect to start traveling by mid-October and my posts will come from around the world as I travel in celebration of my 70th birthday. I'm looking for the perfect place to retire and everywhere in the world is a possibility.

Once again, thank you for your support. I'm glad you've enjoyed the saga of Gee Evars--the man without a memory.
Wayzgoose/Nathan Everett