aroslav: Blog

I got the message on Wednesday that my new home, a Lance 2465 travel trailer, had been delivered to my dealer in Yakima WA. I drove over on Thursday and picked up the gem. I'm thrilled! It's truly everything I imagined it to be. I've not yet moved all my stuff into it because I'm not sure I want to mess it up, you know? I've made three trips to Goodwill with donations in the past ten days and expect a couple more trips this week. Maybe I can get rid of half my junk!

I tell you, it's a great 72nd birthday present. I expect to be in this trailer until the carry me out on a gurney. May that be far in the future!

It's hard to believe there are only two more chapters of Team Manager SWISH! left to post. But don't worry. Team Manager SPRINT! will begin next Monday! (a week from tomorrow) When the last chapter of SWISH! posts on Friday October 1, the eBook of SPRINT! will also be available on Bookapy.

I'm currently writing chapter 39 of the third book in this series, Team Manager COACH! I thought it would be only 40 chapters, but the story isn't ready to quit yet and I anticipate around 45 now. It just isn't as far along as I wanted to get.

I'm in the rapid planning stages for my NaNoWriMo novel, coming up for development in November. I met with my "Story Consultant" last night (an interesting way of saying "invited for birthday dinner") and we had a blast brainstorming some of the scenes that I'll be writing.

I've declared my November WIP to be Bob's Memoir: 4000 years as a free demon. Perhaps you've never heard of a demon named Bob. Well, it happened like this: Back in about 2,000 BC in Knossos on Crete, a Minoan prince (Drakomaxos) wanted an air conditioned house so it would "remain cool year round." He employed a local mage to work an enchantment on his house to cool it. The mage, Pinaruti, was an inept adept. He had all the books with all the spells that he had created over the years and that were passed down to him by his own master when he was an apprentice. But Pinaruti had a weakness for alcohol and always took a little wine to settle his nerves before working a major spell.

Only a bottle or two.

Pinaruti decided the best way to make the house cool would be to summon a powerful demon to infiltrate the walls and keep the house cool. In attempting to summon Beezlebub, Pinaruti slurred the name to Beetlebob and our friendly demon had his start in the human world. Sadly, for Pinaruti, the reality of having summoned an actual demon so shocked him that he died of heart failure on the spot, his body forming a convenient bridge from the heart of the summoning circle to the outside world. A bridge that Beetlebob happily crossed.

Now, the happy-go-lucky (mostly lucky) demon travels the human world, enjoying the company of women (and occasionally men) of every age; and occasionally, working a spell or two of his own. These spells seldom turn out exactly the way he planned (just like Pinaruti's) but they usually turn out okay. Sometimes surprisingly so.

So, there you have the makings of my NaNoWriMo work in progress. A little spooky. A little sexy. A lot funny! Probably, a Devon Layne novel.

During November, my Patreon $10/month patrons will be able to read over my shoulder as I post what I've written each day. Don't miss out! It's often as much as six months between when I write a story and when it gets posted here.

Now, I need to finish emptying the fifth wheel (just a few items like my socks and underwear, the bottles of alcohol, and whatever it is I stored under the front bin. Then I have four days to finish moving into my new trailer before I have to head across the state again to Seattle for the annual doctor appointments.

Wish me luck!

If you are not familiar with the pagan wheel of the year, Mabon is the celebration of the fall equinox (in the Northern Hemisphere). It's also sometimes referred to as "Second Harvest" as most of the grains are now in from the fields.

For me, it's a more important day this year. Just got a call from my RV dealer saying my new digs arrived at his location late last night. They're doing the final prep and going over the whole trailer to make sure everything is perfect. If all goes well (and I expect it will), I can arrive tomorrow at 1:00 to get hitched and sign the papers. Fantastic!

So, today, I'm boxing the last items that are still inside the trailer, which will include emptying the basement. (A "large" storage space in the front of the fifth wheel.) Then, early tomorrow, I'll pull the fifth wheel over about 100 yards to a temporary storage place before I take off for Yakima. I need to be on the road by 8:00 a.m.

I was beginning to think the new trailer was just a myth, but happily, it appears the domicile will apparate tomorrow! I'm really celebrating autumn!

This morning, I've released Living Next Door to Heaven book 10, What Were They Thinking? on Bookapy and in other venues. This was released as a serial on SOL as LNDtH3. In publishing the books, the three serials became ten long novels, totaling over 1.5 million words. The stats indicate the saga has been downloaded on SOL, well over two million times, which translates to somewhere between ten and twenty thousand actual readers. THANK YOU!

I have managed to release the series on Bookapy weekly for ten weeks. Wow! What a challenge! I hope you enjoy the eBooks.

In other news, we're just four chapters from the end of Team Manager SWISH! I've already uploaded the first chapter and cast list for Team Manager SPRINT! to begin posting three days after SWISH! ends. And YES! The eBook will be available at the same time. That will all happen right after the first of October.

The "production" date for my new travel trailer has now been changed to a "ship" date! With luck, it will be in Yakima by the end of this week and I may be able to pick it up for my birthday on September 27. Nice way to turn 72. They say the birth anniversary that matches the day of the month you were born (27 in my case) would be your golden birthday. I don't think anyone celebrated those when I was in my twenties. But I think that the birth anniversary that is the inverse of the day of the month you were born (72 in my case) should be a diamond jubilee! I'm going to strut that for the entire next year.

Nearly all my worldly possessions are packed in sealed plastic bins, stacked on the patio of my RV site, and covered with a tarp against the rain and wind. I have about two more boxes of clothes and kitchen items to pack, and then I'm moved out of this trailer.

I had a lot of trouble getting a cleaning service to come out to clean the trailer. Something about me living in a nudist park, I think. Reading about my difficulties, my friend and neighbor, Colleen, volunteered to come and help me clean. I accepted. We spent four hours, scrubbing floors, kitchen surfaces, bathrooms, and windows. I was so thankful for the help! However, I nearly lost my cool when she showed up at my door in a little French maid outfit! What a trip! I just need to thank her again for helping get this place ready to sell.

One of the big advantages of completely emptying a domicile is the discovery of things you thought were lost and gone forever. Among those items in my trailer, I found a box of manuscripts from the 1970s and 80s that I thought had been lost forever. These are all short stories and humorous essays. I plan to start posting them here as a collection, probably under the Wayzgoose moniker, since I hadn't invented Devon Layne or aroslav at the time. That will come sometime after the first of the year. I need to get some other stories cleared from my desk before then.

One of those stories will be my November novel. I'm going for my eighteenth consecutive "win" during National Novel Writing Month (NaNoWriMo). Currently I'm just continuing to make notes on the Minoan society of 2000 BC and its evolution into Mycenean Greece. That will get me through the first two chapters when I start writing, and I need to brush up my Homer for the Trojan War after that.

One common theme in Bob's Memoir: 4000 years as a free demon is the demon's success and failure at courting women in the different ages of man. It seems that from the Bronze Age forward, Bob could always find a woman who would. This will be a little bit spooky, a little bit sexy, and a lot funny as we follow the adventures of a happy-go-lucky (mostly lucky) demon through human history.

And that's this week from the heart of your favorite author. Or one of them. Sort of on the favorite side. At least tolerable. Most of the time.

Continuing to get all of Living Next Door to Heaven released in eBook form. This morning, I've released book 9 (last in the SOL serial LNDtH2), Heaven's Gate, on Bookapy. This is the longest individual book in the entire series at 195,000 words! It was a challenge getting it all reformatted for release.

Next week will be the last of the LNDtH novels if I can get the editing and formatting done by then. This one will be book 10 (SOL LNDtH3), What Were They Thinking? I've been enjoying the series over again, even complete with the tears, as I've prepared it for this release.

Weird things at the South American jungle company. In uploading files for release there, I can no longer get the .MOBI files downloaded as a proof. When KDP displays the link for the copy "to preview on my computer or tablet" it sends me an HTML file as a .zip. It's actually just the ePUB file returned to me and it does not display on my tablet or in Kindle at all. Not sure what they are pulling there, but it seems to be the latest in a long-line of author-prevention "features." When they finally subsumed CreateSpace completely, they started splashing a bar across print copies ordered as an author proof that declares the book as "Not for Resale" so I can't turn around and sell a proof copy. OF MY OWN BOOK! Amazon thinks they own the rights, I guess.

Oops. I didn't mean to say their name.

As a result of not getting converted files back from the behemoth, I'm using Convertio to turn my ePUBs into MOBIs. (Yes, I've also got Calibre. Haven't seen a difference in the output.) I have to admit that the conversions are not up to the standard of the files I used to get. For example, I no longer get drop caps at the beginning of chapters. Also, the table of contents gets repeated at the end of the book with links back into the book. I'm not seeing the chapter hierarchy so that chapters are collected into parts, etc. However, I'm seeing the same problem in the ePUBs I'm currently generating from Adobe products. Investigations continue so that I can produce the best possible quality of eBooks.

I got notice this week that the NaNoWriMo (National Novel Writing Month) site has opened for writers to post their November project descriptions. Oh, dear! What shall I do???

The answer is obvious. A couple of weeks ago, on my drive to the grocery store, a new character interrupted my thoughts and has been demanding attention ever since. It seems he wants to be my November project: Bob's Memoir: 4000 years as a free demon.

It seems that 4,000 years ago, a drunk inept adept attempted to summon Beelzebub but slurred the word to Beetlebob. Then, just as Bob was apparating, the magi had the courtesy to die, scuffing out the confining circle into which Bob had been summoned. The newly created demon walked out of the circle a new man. Or demon. For 4,000 years of earth's history, he has romped through civilization as a mischievous, happy-go-lucky (mostly lucky) being. (Thanks to Doug for the "mostly lucky" comment.)

Bob's Memoir promises to be a little spooky, a little sexy, and a lot funny as he discovers the disadvantages of immortality and the different attitudes people of different ages have toward supernatural beings. Immortality would not be fun if he was just a charred ash. On the other hand, a new country means a whole lot of new women with different customs than where he last fled. Oh, boy!

I'm looking forward to a lot of fun in 2022!

I've released the eighth Living Next Door to Heaven book this morning. I have two more to go. Becoming the Storm was probably the most difficult story for me to write ever. There will be tears, anger, and frustration, but the Clan of the Heart will come through the storm.

I clearly remember writing one chapter in the book. I was camped near the Pacific Ocean in Oregon. I finished the chapter and slammed my computer shut. Then I spent two weeks screaming myself hoarse at the ocean.

But oddly, I felt purged. A great deal of my life's pain was washed away with my tears and Brian's ability to overcome his pain and self-doubt to lead his clan to the other side of the storm.

Anyway, that book is now available.

New chapters are being written in the Team Manager series. I'm nearly 3/4 of the way through writing the third book and can almost see a fourth taking shape in the future. But to answer your question before it gets asked, Book 2, SPRINT! will be released for purchase on October 1 and will start serializing on SOL October 4. There will be no break between that story and SWISH!

I have other books for both Wayzgoose and aroslav in the works but have been focused on Team Manager while I get my trailer emptied and cleaned for sale so I can pick up my new home soon. It won't happen this week as I originally was told, because it just came off the production line on Friday. Then a long holiday weekend, scheduling transport, and navigating around fires to get the trailer to Yakima so I can pick it up from my dealer.

So, I took a drive into Coeur d'Alene to get my characters talking earlier this week. I expected some word from Dennis, Liam, or Jett. No, they were silent. Instead my head was overcome with non-stop chatter from Bob.

"Who is Bob?" you might ask. I did. It turns out that Bob wants me to write his memoir. But there's a catch. The memoir is to be titled Bob's Memoir: 4,000 Years as a Free Demon. Oh, man! What am I going to do with this? I'd never heard of a demon named Bob. It appears that 4000 years ago, he was conjured by an inept and drunk magi, who was trying to conjure Beelzebub, but slurred his words and they came out Beetlebob. Then he had the courtesy to die and scuff out his protective circle, freeing Bob.

I need a stove with more back burners!

And what is happening with the jungle? I uploaded books to the giant and discovered they are no longer accepting .MOBI format books, nor are they returning .MOBI for proofing! The proof was listed as html, but turned out to be the exact same .ePUB file I uploaded. I'm going to follow their instructions and see if it will open on my Kindle. I don't actually trust them all that much.

Well, the AQI is over 130 again today, so I'm staying sealed up in my trailer, hoping the wind blows the smoke away. Have a good Labor Day!