aroslav: Blog

If comments, email, and general righteous indignation are any indication, I expect I've lost about 20% of my readership of Double Take this week. Sorry to see you all go, just three chapters from the end of the story. Your choice.

In 2016, it was a surprise to me to discover I was a liberal. I didn't know that. I thought I was just trying to be a good and kind person. Apparently, however, I simply don't have the hardcore binary worldview necessary to be anything else. I don't work on a binary mindset. Black and white views of the world don't mesh with the technicolor vision I have acquired through my travels and life experience. Call it liberal, progressive, socialist, anti-religious, or whatever you want, I will continue to paint realistic and accepting views of people of all kinds and will not be subjected to narrow visions of sexual identity, religious ideology, or political parties.

Hit hard by the response to my story, I decided I might as well offend as many people as I can and write about my position regarding the anti-abortion laws that are popping up around the country like cancers on our civil liberties. You can read the blog post, if you have the stomach for it, at firstexit0.blogspot.com

Since I've had such a good time beginning chapters of Double Take with quotes from other, more famous and better written stories, I'll leave you with this:

"And I certainly refuse to change the story to suit their whims." -Isaac Asimov, The Best of Isaac Asimov

Here's an extra that applies to the whole story:

"Don't go getting offended my friend, I have much worse things to say to you."
― Riley Amos Westbrook, Journey from Atremes

I left Quartasite on schedule, Tuesday 4/16. I've been here in Vegas a lot longer than I planned to be. Was just going to pull in for supplies Wednesday and leave Friday. Then I discovered this is the busiest weekend of the year for Valley of Fire and Cathedral Gorge State Parks. Those were tops on my list for my next campsite. With the park ranger's advice, I booked in this downtown RV park for three more nights and will be heading out tomorrow morning.

So far this month, I've succeeded in writing a chapter of Double Date every day. Double Date is book 3 in the Double Take series that is now called "The Transmogrification of Jacob Hopkins". Double Take (book 1) is nearly complete on SOL and has finished for my patrons. Double Time (book 2) will begin on June 1 on SOL. And Double Date (book 3) is currently slated to start about November 1. And yes, I believe there will be more. I have titles selected for about ten! On SOL, Double Take has just entered its fourth and final part. This book ends at chapter 47 and Double Time picks up at chapter 48, Part V.

In the meantime, I've started posting under the name Wayzgoose this week with Wild Woods, the sequel to City Limits. Thank you for the positive response in email and comments to this first chapter. It will post every Friday into July. This coming Saturday, I'll begin posting Municipal Blondes, the sequel to my recently finished For Blood or Money. I hope to start the rewrite of its sequel, Stocks and Bondage, in June, so it will be ready by fall.

Three books, Wild Woods, Municipal Blondes, and Double Time are set to release to the public on June 23. Since Amazon chose to ban the publication of Double Take on its site, I don't plan to offer Double Time to them. Doesn't make sense. So I'll be selling them direct and will provide the purchase info when it is released.

In the meantime, I find that Jacob's world continues to deviate further from the reality he understood of his V1 world. And he from his V1 personality. I've just reached the point where Jacob is about to reveal his secret to Beca and Rachel. Their responses are quite different!

So far, I've spent all morning working on blog posts, website updates, and my Patrons. If I'm going to keep up with the pace of a chapter a day, I need to wrap this up and start writing.

Hope you've all had a great Ishtar weekend filled with sex and fertility!

It's like this every time I get ready to travel. I'm ready to hitch up the fifth wheel and pull out, except I'm nowhere near ready! Nothing is packed away. The laundry isn't done. There are dirty dishes in the sink. The table top hasn't been seen in two months. My stock of books is in the middle of the unvacuumed floor. I haven't taken down my banner or sun screen. I need to empty the tanks. Something crawled into the storage space and died. And it's headed toward 85 degrees today so I need to do it all in the sun.

All so I can leave Quartzsite AZ and head north to Worley ID on Tuesday. The maps say its 1200 miles and 24 hours, so I figure I should be able to make it at my typical rate of travel in fifteen days. If you think you're along that route (Laughlin, Las Vegas, Ely, Twin Falls, Boise, Lewiston, Moscow) and want to get together for a drink or dinner, ping me.

In the meantime… my Advance Release patrons are finishing Double Take Book 1 today and will start Book 2 next Sunday. The Sausage Grinders-those brave souls who would rather read with all the errors than wait for the editors to get a whack at it-are getting a chapter a day this month of Book 3!

But not to be outdone, my alter ego, Wayzgoose, is uploading Chapter 1 of Wild Woods for posting here on SOL on Friday this week. It will post weekly for fourteen weeks. And since he's a glutton for punishment, he'll start posting Municipal Blondes on SOL on the 27th. That's the sequel to For Blood or Money, so if you thought that was the end of the story, you've got another one coming!

So, once again, as aroslav and Wayzgoose, I'll have three stories posting simultaneously for the next three months. And I only have 1200 miles to drive.

I suppose that if I'm ever going to get out of here, I'd better do the dishes.

I should have had the presence of mind not to post an important announcement on my Patreon page on April Fool's Day. The first thing I got back was an email saying, "You're kidding, right?" The second thing I should have had the presence of mind to think of was to include the announcement in my regular weekly blog post here.

That should tell you that my mind is simply not present but I've often been told I'm not all here.

So, here's the big whoopty-doo. During the month of April-and as long as I can maintain it afterward-I am posting for my Sausage Grinder patrons a chapter a day of Double Take Book 3.

A chapter. Every day.

'Wait a minute,' you might say. 'What happened to the rest of book 1 and book 2?'

Yeah. They get them all. And, no, it doesn't affect the completely free posting of the entire story here on SOL for as far as the eye can see. I've written enough of this story already to get us all the way to 2020 without a break. I continue to be committed to providing completely free access to just about everything I write, both under the aroslav/Devon Layne moniker and under the Wayzgoose/Nathan Everett identity. It's my Sausage Grinder patrons who make it possible for me to continue focusing on writing the stories that you get to enjoy here and I want to thank them in every forum.

Let me explain.

My Sausage Grinder community comprises enthusiastic fans who would rather read the copy before it's even been edited and cleaned up than wait for it to be released here on SOL. They get that rare privilege (or burden), usually reserved for my editors, by subscribing for $10/month at https://www.patreon.com/join/aroslav. Sometimes I even go back and change things that appear chapters earlier in order to make something they're about to read work. They live with it. One patron wrote to me recently to mention that something I posted really needed to be proofread. Yep. It does. My Sausage Grinder Community watches the raw words being ground up and stuffed in the casings of the story.

And because they are generous in contributing, I don't try to find other sources of income to support my writing. Being on a fixed income myself, I fully understand the desire to read stuff for free. I could never afford to buy all the stories I read here on SOL. I want to thank the authors who post here as well as all the people who support them and me.

So, as a result, my Sausage Grinders already read the final chapter of Book 2 last Sunday in my normal weekly posting. But since April is Camp NaNoWriMo month, I decided to up my game and pump out a chapter every day all month long and until Book 3 is finished. Today, I posted Chapter 105 of the ongoing saga.

New patrons who join, by the way, get access to everything in the series and to other stories I haven't published at all!

It might have been April 1st when I made the announcement, but it was no April Fool's joke. I'm just a little not present.

Another sign of how not present I am is that I thought I posted this blog last Wednesday. It was still sitting in my drafts folder.

Just a quick note to remind you all that a week from tomorrow, on April 15, I'll be hitching my fifth wheel and wandering north. It might get a little crazy as I wander in and out of areas where I can get an Internet connection. So, if you happen to pass a fifth wheel pulled to the side of the road someplace in the Great Basin, there's a chance it will be me, hurriedly writing down what my characters have said while we were traveling along the lonely road.