aroslav: Blog

I've often received messages from readers in Australia and enjoy hearing from you. This time, I'm asking for some pointers and guidance.

In book four of the Photo Finish trilogy (or maybe it will be book five--not sure yet), my hero, Nate Hart will be visiting Australia for a two week intensive course at RMIT in Melbourne. (Photography) This is in January 6-20, 1971.

Can you offer suggestions of key things Nate should do, see, or experience during his two weeks in Oz? Let me know what your ideas are.

Thanks!
aroslav

I expected dancers in mini skirts and go-go boots on the counters, but alas I think I'm just getting breakfast (with no illegal drugs). We'll see how they handle their corned beef hash here. The Hash House is a Las Vegas chain that is only open for breakfast and lunch (until 2:00). Part of my quest to find more breakfast places while I'm living down here in Las Vegas. There's a 45-minute wait if you want a table (at 11:00 a.m.), but I got seated at the bar right away.

It's tempting to have a bloody mary while waiting. They say it will still be 35 minutes until the food comes up. So, what better to do on a Sunday morning than to communicate with my friends at SOL.

You might detect that I'm in a good mood. I am. I have managed 34 straight days of writing an average of 5,000 words a day on book four in the Photo Finish Trilogy. I already know there will be a fifth book and I'm waiting to decide if there will be six. If I make it to that, maybe I'll retitle it the Photo Finish Sexology. That sounds appropriate.

My patrons, by the way, are reading the story as fast as I write it, with raw content posts each day. Of course, that isn't the story anyone else will read. This one will go through a pretty extensive rewrite before my editors even see it. So, my NaNoWriMo challenge for November ended up being 152,000. Four days later, it's 172,000. If it goes over 300k, I'll split it. There's the sixth book!

I'm also working on that other guy's next story. Wayzgoose will have the sequel to Steven George and The Dragon out sometime in January if the rewrite continues to go well. I expect to start sending it to my editors this week!

-BTW, the CBH at Hash House is specacular and arrived in about ten minutes instead of the expected half hour plus!-

I'll be headed up to Seattle in a couple of weeks for the holiday season. it's really wonderful to have passed the family Solstice tradition on and have my daughter hosting this year.

In other miscellaneous news, of the ten women's basketball teams I'm following in Iowa, only one is still undefeated. The one I modeled the Salter Crusaders after is in the midst of a losing season so far. However, the school where my favorite high school player went (the one whose record I modeled Natalie after) is still undefeated and she's getting some good playing time in. Only problem is that this is an NAIA school and not a Div III school, so I'll never see her play against any of the other schools I follow!

Well, that's the news from Lake Woebegone South. Have a great week!

Happy Thanksgiving week.

It has come to my attention that many of my fans live outside the US and therefore do not celebrate this unique US holiday. In fact, I'm told that in the UK there are no holidays between Lammas and Yule. What a long time to be without a celebration.

There for, I have declared this week Devon's Good Wishes Week, a new and nationally independent holiday that can be celebrated by anyone who will accept my good wishes for Health, Happiness, and Safety.

I give them freely to you!
aroslav/Devon Layne

By this time, you all know that I write stories way ahead of when they are posted here so that the story is complete and scheduled for uploading through the end. I'm 73 years old and never want to risk a story coming to an untimely end if I do.

Not that I expect to.

This month, I'm writing book 4 in the "Photo Finish Trilogy", F/Stop. It's my 2022 NaNoWriMo project. NaNoWriMo is a challenge to write 50,000 words of a new book during November. So far, I have written 100,000 words as of this morning. I think I can do another 50,000 before the end of the month!

Unfortunately, that won't get me to the end of this one. I expect it will be like Full Frame and run around 250,000 words or more. With luck, I'll have it finished by Christmas. And be ready to start writing Follow Focus by the first of the year. Yes, that will be book 5 in the Photo Finish Trilogy. Can't count.

Of course, life would be boring if all I did was write. Right? I've been getting out to at least one show each week since I got back to Vegas. Last night, it was Christmas in Hell. The key line in the musical is "In Hell, every day is Christmas." Instead of wishing people Merry Christmas this year, we're supposed to tell them to go to hell. Can you just imagine: Christmas every day for eternity?

And NCAA Div III Women's Basketball has begun! I've already had to increase my hot spot bandwidth to the maximum Verizon allows (150gigs), and I'm already up to 110. ten more days in the cycle to go!

I got hooked on Iowa Women's Basketball last year while I was writing the Team Manager series. Specifically, The American Rivers Conference. So far, I'm sorry to say, I don't believe any of the nine teams in the conference have escaped pre-conference play with a perfect record.

On the other hand, the NAIA team I'm following because the player I modeled Natalie after (her playing, not her character) graduated from high school and is now playing for that college. She's had a few minutes of play in each game so far, but as a freshman, she hasn't worked her way up yet. Still, the Red Raiders are building on a perfect season and are ranked 25th in the NAIA.

And then there's Thanksgiving. I hope whatever your plans are they are safe and happy. I'm not going visiting, nor am I expecting visitors this week. I've established my own little Thanksgiving tradition since moving to Vegas for the winters. I'm going to the Boulder Station Broiler--wearing a jacket and tie--to enjoy Thanksgiving Dinner of Prime Rib, Baked Potato, Salad, and a glass of wine. The best part of this tradition is that I will take home enough of that meal to have for dinner the next two days!

Best of all, it will only interrupt my writing day for about two hours. Not bad!

However you celebrate, if you do, I hope you stay healthy, happy, and safe. If you don't celebrate the American Thanksgiving, please stay healthy, happy, and safe anyway!

That means I have a fresh bag of Tootsie Rolls, a new can of Stephen's Gourmet Dark Chocolate mix. Plenty of Cafe Vienna, and a new computer. Not so sure about the wisdom of that last item, but last week, a crack in the case of my laptop became a break and a chunk of it fell off. This new one has "issues" that I'm dealing with. Most of the time, though, it lets me type.

"What..." you may ask, "are you writing for NaNoWriMo this year?"

I might answer.

Of course, the short answer is that I'm writing the fourth book in the "Photo Finish Trilogy," F/Stop. Yes, and there will be a fifth book, too. Some trilogy.

My Sausage Grinder tier patrons, who want to see what I write without the benefit of rewrites and edits, will start getting access to the new draft Tuesday evening. I'll be making daily updates to my draft, and they can follow along almost as I'm writing it. Of course, the first drafts of Shutter Speed and Exposure will remain available to Sausage Grinders throughout the month and probably longer.

I don't want my Wayzgoose/NathanEverett patrons to languish. I'll also be posting the rewrite draft of my Steven George and The Dragon sequel, Steven George and the Terror for patrons. That one is not a NaNoWriMo entry because I entered it in first draft back in November of 2008. It's been sitting in my files patiently waiting for a rewrite which is now in progress. Editors can expect that one before they see F/Stop. It's much shorter.

This is my nineteenth consecutive year of participating in NaNoWriMo, and I have "won" every year. That means I completed 50,000 words of a new book. Add to that, nine "Camp NaNoWriMo" successes. Most of the books I've written while producing 2,271,924 words in those eighteen years, have been published. I am grateful to each of you who have found it in your hearts to buy one of them. Thank you!

Aside from all that, things are peaceful in Las Vegas. Have met up with my friends Al and Donna and we have already been to two shows: Reckless in Vegas, and Gary Lewis and the Playboys. Both fun shows.

I got the dental implant taken care of last week, so I shouldn't have any more problems with that. The rent is paid. I think I'm ready to roll.

Here's an interesting tidbit, though. Maybe you'll give me a hand. I hope you've read and voted for your favorite Halloween contest stories--or will tomorrow when they are released. Last year, my story didn't place. It was a Wayzgoose story called "The Burgundy Chamber." I'm thinking now of expanding it. I could create a whole series of short stories with this cast and setting, or I could do a novel that launches from this point. I've started doing research on some of the holes in the short story. It is intentionally vague about time and place, but it liberally mixes things up. If I turn it into a real novel, I need to know the time and place of the story, and a lot of backstory on the main characters. I'll probably need to find a Victorian country mansion to model the house on that fits with some of the preconceived notions I've already painted. I'd guess there is a good three months of background work and plotting to do before I jump into that story, but if you've got ideas, let me know.

Happy Halloween!