aroslav: Blog

...that the new story I've started posting on US Election Day happens to be my 45th story on StoriesOnline and is titled Pussy Pirates. I assure you there is no connection or direct correlation between the story and the reigning POTUS (#45). Sometimes things just work out that way.

Yeah, right. Isn't everyone? From what I've seen on my social media feeds (which I try to ignore as much as possible) everyone is expecting tomorrow to usher in the apocalypse. It makes no difference which side of the great divide you are on, we've convinced ourselves that if the other side wins, it's the end of the world. We either descend further into a fascist, white supremist dictatorship, or we are thrust headlong into socialistic ruin and lose all our guns.

That's why I'm starting the new serial, Pussy Pirates, tomorrow morning! We need something to celebrate, right? This story in Thinking Horndog's Swarm Cycle universe is just what we need on Election Day in the US because no matter who wins tomorrow, at least we aren't being eaten by alien monsters. Yet. And we can rest in the assurance that the future safety of Earth rests in the hands of computer game nerds and a bunch of porn starlets.

I knew hanging out with software developers and porn stars would come in handy some day. I had an IRL model for nearly every character, so now you can stack up your favorites and see if they appear in the story. Of course, I'll never say who was who, but you might hear the tip chimes ring!

If you are new to the Swarm Cycle, you can catch on pretty quickly just by reading Pussy Pirates. But you could also get a head start on the concept by reading a couple of Thinking Horndog's early stories in the cycle, like Average Joes and Pickup Number Eighteen. I've also provided handy references throughout the story for other stories in the Cycle that I've borrowed from or referred to.

What are they saying? Well, even though the story has been posting to my Patreon patrons for a couple of weeks, there aren't many comments yet. Here are some from other names you'll recognize, though.

"The Swarm universe is more interesting than I have given it credit for, at least as you have presented it." --Old Rotorhead

"I wondered if I'd have any interest in any Swarm Cycle story, even one from you. Turns out I love it." --Pixel the Cat

"I love it!" --Thinking Horndog

"You're a very ill man." --Zen Master

And tomorrow, you can start adding your own comments. Just remember, this has nothing remotely in common with contemporary Earth politics.

I've also uploaded the eBook to bookapy.com for your purchasing pleasure.

Enjoy!

Not today, but next Sunday. Am I excited? Hell yes! This will be my seventeenth consecutive year of writing one or two books in November, National Novel Writing Month (NaNoWriMo). According to the NaNoWriMo website, over the past sixteen years, I've completed a total of 24 projects and 1,862,052 words. I calculate over twice that number of completed projects when I include non-NaNoWriMo months of writing. Heck, last year alone, I wrote 1,141,946 words. I've been a little off that pace this year, but still managed to produce a lot of books. (I currently have 57 stories on SOL under three author names.)

What that also means is that it's pledge week. You know, like public radio? Except this is money that goes in my pocket to pay for my websites, printing, and providing ALL my books for online reading at no charge. They are available both here on SOL and on my personal websites. All thanks to my aroslav patrons on Patreon.

The benefit to me is obvious, but what's in it for you? I have two major tiers of patronage. At $5 per month, you get everything I release before I release it anywhere else. That includes new eBooks as well as online serials. Patrons are currently reading my new work, Pussy Pirates, a story in Thinking Horndog's Swarm Cycle Universe. Everyone will get it here as well, starting November 3.

Next Sunday, patrons at this level will begin reading Liam's Place At the Table, the vastly rewritten and improved version of Wayzgoose's American Royalty 1: Coming of Age. In the meantime, I'm putting out new versions of some of my older stories, like The Art and Science of Love, all of which will be released here, but will go to patrons first.

At the $10 per month level, you get to watch me making sausage. The Sausage Grinder tier gets to read everything new I'm writing, as I write it-raw and unedited. Believe me, November is a big month for these folks. I've already begun writing a new Swarm story, tentatively titled The Assassin. I have eleven chapters written on this story so far focused on concubines who join the planetary militia. The colony will also deal with a surge in concubines as they take refugees from Earth and unhomed concubines whose sponsors have been killed in battle.

Starting Sunday, I'll have a new NaNoWriMo story starting with nearly daily posts. This one is called It Ain't Immortality, But…

Theo is a septuagenarian with a heart problem. He is invited to take part in an experimental program that will reset his cellular age to his mid-thirties. He'll still be an old man. He'll still look like an old man. But he'll have the energy and vigor he had as a young man. With this new lease on life, Theo needs to decide what to do with his next twenty years.

He decides to take up photography and try to really get to know his subjects. He talks to each person he photographs on his journey and learns their story. Usually, this involves sharing food or drink and listening while the person entertains him with some important aspect of his or her life. The book will be Theo finding, photographing, and listening to the stories of the people he meets.

Chapters will be coming on a near daily basis for my Sausage Grinder patrons as I write during November. They get it raw and unedited, often giving me advice as to where the story should go next! Of course, Sausage Grinders also get all the new works the Advance Release tier gets.

So, there is my annual pledge drive promotion. Join me and get the latest and greatest from your favorite author! -aroslav (aka Wayzgoose or J-Hop)

I got numerous responses to my note about dousing my computer with coffee. Many, many suggestions, most of which could be categorized as

1. Protect your keyboard/computer from spills in the future, dummy.

2. Backup your files all the time, dummy.

3. You can do your own recovery, dummy.

Nearly all were clear evidence of why real tech support asks questions before offering solutions. I know these answers and I'm doing the best I can for a dummy.

As it happens, the Geek Squad has told me they can't get the disk to spin up to recover the files. Very bad news. After I dumped a full cup of coffee on my computer Christmas Eve, the Geek Squad in Oklahoma had the data recovered 24 hours after I brought it in. This one, not so much for what I considered a small spill.

At least I have replacement insurance on the computer, so I should have a new unit soon. I just have to figure out how to get it to happen. Where did I put those papers?

But the data.

Mostly, I'm okay. Everything more than a couple of weeks old I had backed up elsewhere. Email is a great thing when you're passing files back and forth to editors. But the past couple of weeks, I was putting in a flurry of work to get some revisions and ebooks (and print books) done. So, that work was for naught.

1. Re-proofread Not This Time and prepared html to release on my website and update on SOL. That also included designing a print book and cover that are on sale. All I have is the pdf of the interior and cover. Will have to re-do that work.

2. Re-proofread The Hero Lincoln Trilogy and prepared it for release on my website and an update on SOL. That also included designing a print book and cover for a single volume of the trilogy and individual stories. Had not yet converted it to eBook either. Will have to re-do that work.

3. Had been working through the edits and formatting them as I received them for the rewrite of American Royalty (retitled Rise and Awaken). I'll have to start over from the edited files I received in email from the two editors and re-read and correct the first sixteen of twenty-three chapters.

4. I won't need to re-do the rewrite of The Art and Science of Love because the most current version is still in the hands of Old Rotorhead and when it comes back, I'll be able to review the remaining edits and start prepping that for re-release. That will come after the first of the year and will be posted on SOL as a v-2 new story because it is extensively different than the original version posted here nine years ago.

5. I had all the semi-final version of Pussy Pirates backed up on my website, so I will be able to grab the final edits from Pixel the Cat and incorporate them to have that project still on schedule to begin posting here on 11/3 and hopefully be available in eBook and Paperback at the same time.

6. For Mayhem or Madness is complete and queued for posting both on SOL and on my website. It is also up and available as eBook and print. But I no longer have any of the production files and would have to do a new layout and eBook if I needed to correct them or expand distribution.

7. Three of my four works in progress I have complete backups of on my website and could recover. The fourth one, which I am spending more time on than any other, is a new Swarm story I've tentatively called The Assassin. I did a ton of work on it in the previous three days and that is gone. It included a Swarm Wiki entry I'd been asked to produce, a detailed outline of the whole book, and a set of notes of issues to deal with in the founding of a new township in my colony. Those three items need to be reproduced from pretty much memory. And I'd done an elaborate spreadsheet on the population growth for my planet and that is being rebuilt from the ground up. I'm getting different results than I did the first time.

So, I have my work cut out for me for the next few weeks, especially as I'm trying to get ready for NaNoWriMo in just 20 days.

In the meantime, I need to get my trailer deep cleaned in the next ten days so I can drop it off for a couple of repairs on the twenty-first, before I head across Puget Sound to Port Townsend for the winter. Guess how much of that project I've gotten done this week!

Carry on!

Yep. Fell asleep at the keyboard yesterday morning and knocked my coffee over. Got it mopped up and everything dried. Computer worked fine all afternoon. Even watched movies until almost midnight. Got up this morning and computer wouldn't start. Not even a power light when it was plugged in. Dead dead dead. I'm headed into Best Buy this afternoon to get a data recovery and then I'll take the computer over to Costco to get it repaired or replaced. This time, I bought a replacement contract when I bought the computer in January. Yeah. Right after I dumped coffee on my last keyboard. And this one was in a sippy cup so not much spilled. It wasn't like an entire cup of coffee like last time. Oh well. If I get the most recent data, which includes my newest development files for the four stories I'm working on, all will be well. Sheesh!