aroslav: Blog

You wouldn't think that adding a link to a review here on SOL would cause the posting gods to assign a blog post to "Followers Only" purgatory, there to rest invisibly watching the viewers go by not reading anything. So, read this blog post and scroll down to get the whole story of the release of Jackie the Beanstalk on SOL and Bookapy today! You might even find out who I am.

Besides which, I totally forgot to mention that because Jackie the Beanstalk went on Bookapy today, I'm holding book six of LNDtH2, "El Rancho del Corazon," for release next Sunday. Wow! That was what the post was supposed to be about in the first place.

Celebrating the release of my alter ego's new book, Jackie the Beanstalk. The Wayzgoose novel posted the first chapter here on SOL, so you can read happily. Don't miss the review by gmbusman here on SOL: https://storiesonline.net/library/get_review.php?id=25541

Here's the story blurb:
Tall skinny Jackie is a fresh 18-year-old high school graduate, still in her cap and gown, when she is given the keys to her grandfather's 1968 Ford Fairlane 500 Fastback. Jackie, her 25-year-old Aunt Misty, and her dog Roadkill jump in the car and take off following an old fashioned TripTik map into an alternate dimension. In this parallel universe, Jackie is a Warrior Wizard encountering robbers, mountain monsters, ogres, rival clans, obstreperous customs officials, a stowaway princess, an adopted bobcat kitten, werewolves, ghosts, giants, and dragons-all on her way to rescuing the Sovereign's kidnapped son. As she travels, she discovers her magic powers, and the powers of all the weapons she carries-her cap and gown, honor cords, stole, basketball, and things she picks up along the way-including a pocketful of magic beans.

This "fractured fairy tale" takes place in a folk tale reality where you'll almost recognize the world we live in and fairy tales you read as a child-monsters, ogres, giants, werewolves, and ghosts! Oh, my!

Hope you'll join us for a fun ride with Jackie, Aunt Misty, Roadkill, and Shasta. And Princess. And Freedom. And others.

Are you confused yet? Here's my disclaimer or whatever you want to call it.

I've had a couple of messages regarding confusion over my names. Me, too. Pixel the Cat got tired of addressing me by my aliases and just changed my email name to 'Whatever'. So, in full disclosure, I have three identities on SOL.

aroslav: my original identity under which I have released some 48 stories here.
Wayzgoose: the identity that I had in other online forums where "serious authors" are recognized. I've posted 15 stories on SOL under the name Wayzgoose.
J-Hop: the identity I adopted so I could publish a story under the name of the leading character in aroslav's Transmogrification of Jacob Hopkins series.

It is challenging to keep the voices in my head separated. But wait. There's more.

In the world of commercial publishing, people generally use names rather than avatars. The published name of aroslav is Devon Layne. The published name of Wayzgoose is Nathan Everett.

So, when you see my works on Bookapy, they won't be by aroslav or Wayzgoose. They will be by Devon Layne and Nathan Everett. I know it can be confusing, but the world is not a simple place.

Speaking of which, I managed to make the trip across Washington with only a bit of smoke around the gorge. Since getting here, I've spray painted lawn furniture, carted firewood, walked dogs, and commiserated with the other parent. And we practiced walking up the garden path together. (Only the Princess of Wales had a longer wedding march.) Then we had to go shopping for wedding clothes for Dad. And shoes today. Even my sister is getting into the game by sitting here hemming my ex-wife's dress.

And a week from today, my little baby girl will get married. While her father is a sniveling wreck. I need to finally finish my posts for today and go out to spray paint the iron fence.

Up, up, and away!

Well, in keeping with my promise to release all the Living Next Door to Heaven books on Bookapy, today I've released book five, The Rock. This completes the five books that make up LNDtH1 on SOL. With luck, I'll have the first of LNDtH2 up next week. I'm glad you are enjoying them!

There are lovers who are just fun and lovers who come with a commitment and girlfriends who aren't ready to be lovers and multiple relationships and a whole group of people who have begun forming family units. It gets pretty confusing until the forty teens involved decide to formalize their relationship as a clan with different casa. Without his direct input, Brian is accepted as the patrón of the clan. But on the night of their organization celebration, a phone call changes the tenor of the gathering.

Hannah has been hospitalized by her unstable boyfriend. Brian has had enough and vows to bring her home. When he faces the hyped-up, steroid and meth-driven boyfriend, he must become the rock that Whitney has taught him to be.

Bringing Hannah home is only the first step. Injured, depressed, and near suicidal, Hannah believes she deserved what she got. Now Brian must become a different kind of rock-one that Hannah can cling to as she climbs from the stormy seas of her depression.

This morning, I began pre-releasing my new Wayzgoose story, Jackie the Beanstalk, to Fellow Traveler Tier patrons on Patreon. Next Sunday, the story begins here on SOL. Assuming I get my butt in gear and get it formatted for SOL and uploaded!

Jackie is a tall and thin new graduate from high school. She's given the keys to her grandfather's mint condition 1968 Fairlane 500 Fastback and, without a second thought, takes off with her Aunt Misty and dog Roadkill on an impromptu road trip that takes her to a parallel universe. Still in her cap and gown, the apparent uniform of Warrior Wizards in this world. Jackie has every expectation of waking up when her name is called to receive her diploma during commencement. But that wake-up call never comes. She needs to learn to survive and thrive in the Land.

Chapter 1 will post on August 1, 2021 and the book will be available on Bookapy that day.

Aside from that, I'm actually making progress on three different stories. Team Manager: SPIKE! is coming along well and I'm releasing the raw, unedited version to my $10/month patrons as I write it. I've picked up again in writing Drawing on the Dark Side of the Brain 2 and A Place Among Peers. Both of these stories were neglected while I was consumed first by Team Manager: SWISH! and SPRINT! and then by Jackie.

So, all told, I'm staying productive, out of the smoke, and ready for my daughter's wedding. Easy-peasy!

I'm moving forward on several projects and will soon be getting more new stuff up on SOL as well as other venues. First off, I finished my new Wayzgoose story, Jackie the Beanstalk, and it is in final editing stages now. I expect to start publishing it about August 1, I hope. Still several steps to go in getting the eBook ready and files formatted, but it looks good. It will start posting to Advance Release (Fellow Travelers) patrons next Sunday.

When Old Rotorhead finished his proofreading pass this week, he said, "I recommend you post it with an author's note to the effect that it's going to be a weird ride but the reader should just roll with it." So, there you have it from the master himself. Expect a weird ride!

Today, book 4 of LNDtH1, Deadly Chemistry, was released on Bookapy. So far, I'm managing to stay ahead of the release cycle in getting the books formatted and updated on Kindle and Nook as well. If you purchased the series on one of the other sites, the second edition should download to your device automatically when you sync.

That reminds me that I need to make a disclaimer. My release on SOL was first draft. When I released the series in eBook form, I had to make some significant changes to names of people and places that sounded too much like real people and places I knew back in my misspent youth. However, people were so emotionally invested in the characters on SOL by that time that I didn't update the stories posted here. The second eBook edition has several significant differences when compared to the SOL version, not the least of which is another four or five rounds of proofreading.

That brings me to LNDtH3, What Were They Thinking? I wrote this serial several years after the others, so it was written with the new names. I'm sorry. I'll say the biggest changes were renaming Rhonda to Hannah and Joanne to Jessica. Even though the original owners of those names are now well into their 70s, I didn't want to put a book out with these names so prominent in them. So, please bear with me. It doesn't take long for the changes to settle into your mind and you'll hardly notice. *He said, confidently.*

In other writing, I've completed four chapters of Team Manager: SPIKE! now (book #3). It's not yet going quite as fast as the previous two volumes, but it's picking up speed. I only say that to let you know that by the end of the year, when Team Manager: SPRINT! concludes (that's book #2), I should be ready to start posting volume 3. I'm still not convinced that is the right title, but we'll see after I get enough written to make a good decision. Of course, my Sausage Grinder tier patrons are reading the raw copy as I write it. I'm sure they'll let me know if the title should be changed.

And finally, the forgotten child, still simmering away on a back burner even though I haven't written anything on the story since March, but I know what comes next in the story and will try to get back into it soon. Drawing on the Dark Side of the Brain 2 is the first, and hopefully only, book that I'm writing that actually takes place during the pandemic and deals with the disruptions in the lives of my crew of college students. It's a promising storyline and I'm anxious to get that next chapter written.

As a grocery store meat cutter, Jett is considered essential personnel. Kelly can continue her online business as a cam girl. But they may be the only ones in the house who still have an income. Times are going to be interesting.

So, there you have the life and times of an author. I'll be leaving in two weeks to play with my family in the Seattle area as we get ready for my daughter's wedding. We still have to choose the father/daughter dance music and practice it!

Good reading to you!

Milestones take a different shape for different people. Some of them may seem insignificant, but be meaningful just the same. This morning, I woke up to the discovery that Living Next Door to Heaven 2 had just achieved a voted score of 9.00. That is likely to be a short-lived achievement. With 2350 votes tabulated, you'd think it was fairly stable. But based on the algorithms used at SOL, the 2,351st vote that is less than a 10 will drop the score back to 8.99, where it has been for most of the past three or four years. Still, it's the first time I've had a story score a 9.00 and I'm damn happy about it.

And in the vein of Living Next Door to Heaven, I'm continuing the release of the individual books in the series. This morning, the third book in the LNDtH1 series, Foolish Wisdom, has been released on bookapy. Creating the 2nd edition releases in this series has given me an opportunity to once again sweep the text for errors and come out with a much more attractive final result. No doubt not perfect, but the best yet.

In the meantime, I'm continuing to write, even as Team Manager: SWISH! is posting a chapter every three days. This week, I finished writing the new Wayzgoose fractured fairy tale, Jackie the Beanstalk. It's now gone off to my fine editors and I hope to begin posting here by the end of the month (July).

Remember The Adventures of Rocky and Bullwinkle and Friends? Please tell me I'm not the only one old enough. They were on American TV from 1959-1964. This show featured such memorable characters as Boris Badenov, Natasha Fatale, Mr. Peabody and Sherman, Dudley Do-Right. And one of my favorite segments, "Fractured Fairy Tales." Perhaps that is where I first learned to take story concepts and themes and totally munge them up to come up with a different take on the situation. (Note my do-over stories, Damsels in Distress stories, Swarm Cycle stories, Pygmalion stories, and coming of age stories.)

I didn't set out with a specific fairy tale in mind when I started writing Jackie the Beanstalk, other than the obvious twisting of the title. But various mythical and fairy tale creatures and adventures picked their way into the story as I wrote. I can only call this a fractured fairy tale.

No sooner had I written "The End" on Jackie's manuscript, than I opened a fresh page and wrote "Chapter 1" for the next Team Manager adventure. The third in this series is tentatively titled Team Manager: SPIKE! in honor of the beginning of volleyball season. However, Dennis is making drastic changes in his life and has been tapped to lead conditioning exercises for the cross country team. But so much is happening in the school's expanded athletic program. Volleyball, cross country, football, and cheerleading all have a claim on Dennis's time. What's left, of course, is for his girlfriends.

In the first chapter, Dennis inadvertently issues a challenge: "Let me tell you, Dave. Football is for those guys who can't keep up with cross country." I have a feeling Dennis will need to back up those words with action! This is not quite the same thing as shooting foul shots in basketball.

Of course, my Patreon $10/month patrons are reading the chapters as I get them written and have chapter one in their hands this morning.

I think that's the news for today, other than it's over 90 here in Idaho and we've already got smoke filtering into the area. I want to sit outside, but I also want to breathe. I'll have to choose one or the other, I suppose.