aroslav: Blog

I barely got my Patreon updated this morning before I hit the road and headed East from the Seattle area. So, I didn't put out a notice that I've started posting the four books of LNDtH2. Book six, El Rancho Del Corazon, is out today. I see some people have already discovered it and made their purchase. This is the book in which the Clan of the Heart makes its move after high school to start their college careers. If they can figure out a place to live, how to continue producing Brian's Young Cooking television show, and can survive the groups who still think the ranch is party central.

Now available on Bookapy! (And of course, those other sites.)

Here's something that's such old news, you've probably forgotten. When I first released this series back in 2017, Amazon decided they wouldn't release book 7: Hearthstone Entertainment. They froze it and sent me a warning that it didn't meet their community standards. I tried to get a response as to why and what I could do to correct it. The response I got was simply to say they didn't like the cover and some material on the inside. No ability to mitigate or correct or explain. The cover is part of a series of ten that are all by the same artist and in the same style. Apparently, Hearthstone Entertainment just got a reviewer with a stick up his butt about erotica.

As a result, I offered the book free on my website. Unfortunately, I believe many people never found it. I'll be doing the same with the new edition. Next weekend, I'll offer it for free on my site, on Bookapy, and elsewhere. Everywhere, in fact, except Amazon. Poo on them.

Now that you've had the announcement, suffice it to say that I'm home in my trailer in Idaho. And I'm happy there is mild weather and good air. This past week, a fire broke out in the state park and forest area just a ways south of here. This is all tribal land, and the volunteers responded immediately. They were joined by seven other teams, including air support, and by yesterday, the Toetly Fire was fully contained. They held it to about 750 acres and lost only three primary structures. The farthest north the fire reached is about a mile and a half from my camp.

I'm going down to the tribal office tomorrow and make a donation toward the feeding and equipping of the fire fighters who are still on the scene making sure the containment holds.

Later this week, I'll be calling my RV dealer in Yakima to try to get a date for delivery of my new trailer. The last I heard it was slated to come off the production line on August 24. That's Tuesday. Of course, it has to be shipped from Southern California to Yakima before I can get it and there are--you guessed it--fires between here and there. I'm just hoping they will be able to give me a delivery date sometime Labor Day week.

Until then, I'm back in the raw and pumping out more words on volume three of Team Manager. My Advance Release Patrons ($5/mo) received the final three chapters (43-45) of Team Manager SWISH! this morning. In two weeks, they'll be starting on Team Manager SPRINT! That is slated to hit here on SOL just after the first of October. Of course the Sausage Grinder Patrons ($10/mo) who don't care if there are typos or incomplete sentences, are gobbling up chapter 20 of the third volume this morning in its raw unedited condition, straight off my keyboard.

Thank you to all who read my stories, whether as patrons, book buyers, or serial readers online. I sincerely hope you are enjoying these words.

I've been contemplating a huge psychological issue this week as I drove twice across the State of Washington after my daughter's wedding this week. Now I'm sweltering in her non-airconditioned home pet-sitting while she and her husband take their honeymoon cruise and suddenly I am moved to contemplate the issue further.

Have you ever started a thought with the phrase "I just know he's going to..." I know I have. There's an old story about a man who had a flat tire on a country road at night. He looked in his trunk and discovered he didn't have a jack. Inconvenient, but all he needed to do was walk to the next farmhouse and ask to borrow a jack. He could see a light in the windows and thought it looked friendly. The farmer would say sure and to please bring the jack right back. Or better yet, he might say, "Let me give you a hand with that," and drive the man back to his car and help him change the tire.

As he walked toward the farmhouse, the light in the window went out. "Oh, dear," the traveler thought. "He's gone to bed. Now he'll be irritated that I woke him up. He'll probably want to be paid for loaning me a jack. Well I'll show him. He's so unneighborly, I'll offer him a quarter.

Then he'll probably say, "A quarter? You wake me up in the middle of the night and want to give me a quarter? A dollar! That's what you need to give me." I can't believe the gall of this farmer. He wants a dollar to loan me a jack for ten minutes. I'll tell him! "Sure, I'll give you a dollar! Not one penny more you old skinflint. Your jack is probably rusty and won't work anyway!"

By the time he got to the door, he was all worked up. When he knocked loudly and angrily, the old farmer poked his head out the upstairs window. "Who's there? What do you want?" The traveler with a flat tire was so worked up by this time that he shouted out, "Just keep your stupid rusty old jack, you miserly skinflint!"

Of course, there's a reason I've thought of this. I've been wondering how much our own imagination of the terrible way things will turn out in a story prevents us from enjoying the story as it's written. I know I do it. I start reading a story or watching a television series or a movie and there comes a point when my expectations jump ahead of me and I think, "I can see where this is going. There's going to be a lot of angst and someone's going to die and they'll have a huge fight and they'll break up and he'll cheat on her and he'll lose his job and and and...

Sometimes I put myself back in my kennel and relax so I can enjoy whatever comes. Sometimes I close the book, turn off the TV, or get a divorce. Oops. That might have been a really nice story!

I guess that's enough random thoughts for the day. Enjoy your Sunday!

By the way, want to borrow a jack?

If you've ever seen the musical Fiddler on the Roof, you know what that phrase is all about. When did my little girl grow to be so tall? In just a few hours, I'll be walking my baby girl down the aisle, as it were, to hand her off to her new husband. The aisle, in our case is a hundred-foot-long path along the lake to the dock at the point where the ceremony will be held.

The yard and garden and courtyard (my ex-wife's home) have been transformed into an enchanted land and I've hung some three thousand faerie lights in the bushes and trees to welcome the guests. We only have a few dozen things on our to-do list this morning before we can actually get dressed for the wedding. Last evening I spent half an hour practicing the father/daughter dance (to The Beatles "In My Life") and didn't do half bad. She asked me if I was going to cry all the way through it because she was likely to. The answer is yes, of course.

I've had a really great time the past ten days helping get ready for everything. It's been hectic and I'm sore and tired, but I am incredibly excited about the event this evening. I'm sure you will all appreciate the fact that I haven't done much writing this week. I'm hoping to do some catch-up for the next two weeks and get back on track. I'm eleven chapters into the third volume of "Team Manager," SWISH! and really want to get rolling on it.

Not to mention being eighteen chapters into the next Wayzgoose story about Liam Cyning, A Place Among Peers. Oh, and don't forget the sequel to Drawing on the Dark Side of the Brain that I'm thirteen chapters into. I have a lot of writing to do!
But not today. Today, I will be out of touch for the next several hours as I celebrate with my family. Lift your glass for us if you are so inclined!

As usual, I almost forgot what I was going to say in today's post. Chapter 27 of Team Manager: SWISH! is up this morning and everyone has to deal with the aftermath of the drug raid and the injuries that were inflicted-physical and mental. I hope you will find it cathartic.

Yesterday, chapter three of Jackie the Beanstalk posted. That story is getting complicated for Jackie as everyone expects the Warrior Wizard to go out in the storm to face the Mountain Monster and rescue the child. Jackie just wanted a good night's sleep.

Enjoy the reading!

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!