Wayzgoose: Blog

Is that the end? Will there be more?

One answer. Yes.

I wrote For Blood or Money in 2006 and it was published for charity under the title Security and Exchange in 2007 and professionally as For Blood or Money in 2008. It's a little late to change the ending, since it's been on Amazon for ten years. That's why I went back and wrote the prequel, For Money or Mayhem.

What I didn't tell anyone at the time was that I wrote a sequel as well. It continues the story from a few days before the end of FBOM but from the perspective of Deb Riley. The book is called Municipal Blondes. I'm nearly halfway through rewriting it and expect to start releasing it here in serial by the end of April.

So, it's the end. There will be more.

Thank you for the many responses I've received already this morning. Some expressed a modicum of disbelief. Others praised the ending highly. Please remember it is important to vote and let others know what you thought.

Thank you!

Thought I'd post from this nom de plume for a change. It's Sunday and posting a lot of blog stuff is my norm under one name or another. You can be thankful I'm not as long-winded as my alter ego aroslav. He's still asleep.

For Blood or Money will wrap up on March 22 and already I'm getting inquiries as to what's next. Understand that when I'm traveling, I often don't answer the question of where I'm going until I'm halfway there. So projecting out a few months is a little risky for me. I have two projects brewing, though, that are coming to fruition in the next few months.

First, about a month after For Blood or Money finishes, I'll start posting Wild Woods, the sequel to City Limits. I'm deep in the rewrite of Gee's story (70,000 words so far) and it's looking good for its commercial release the third week of June. I'll be releasing it here before then, about the last week of April with weekly updates. (My advance readers on either of my Patreon sites get it even sooner! https://www.patreon.com/aroslav)

Next, in the fall, I plan to release the sequel to For Blood or Money, currently titled Municipal Blondes. If you like the chameleon Deb Riley, Dag's cute young assistant, you'll be happy to follow her into this next adventure. Deb and Cinnamon team up to chase down another fraud that leads Deb to Belize, Croatia, Italy, and back to the condo where it all started.

So, that is the plan, subject to changes in the direction of the wind.

And this is where I make a huge request. Over 1300 people read and voted for City Limits at an 8.29. I was overwhelmed at the response to my first-time release of a non-sex story on SOL. But here's what I'm missing: Reviews. I have four 5-star reviews on Amazon and three reviews and scores from five readers of 4.33 stars on Goodreads. If you've read City Limits and enjoyed it, please post a review on one of these sites or at Barnes & Noble. Reviews are almost better than money in the bank for authors and despite people liking City Limits and reading it, for some reason it hasn't received enough reviews to make it noteworthy. With the release of Wild Woods just four months away, I really need reviews.

Just saying.

Thanks.
Wayzgoose

Greetings and congratulations on surviving to cross into another year. Of course, if you celebrate the Jewish New Year, 5779 began back at sunset on September 9. Or the Chinese New Year, the Year of the Pig starts February 5. Islamic New Year will be coming up August 30 this year. For us pagans, we celebrated our New Year on Samhain, October 31, but we don't keep track of a number. It's just part of the celestial wheel. So, maybe that Happy New Year greeting is as irrelevant as the arbitrary line we draw in the sand to mark off time.

I mused about that a lot in my First Exit blog post today and if you want to see more pictures of my adventures in Arizona with my daughter, you can get the whole story at http://firstexit0.blogspot.com/2018/12/another-imaginary-line-in-sand.html.

But that's not what this posting is all about. First, I would like to thank you all for the warm welcome to SOL this year. I've posted three stories and all have been well-received. Thank you. Thank you. Of course, I've been posting stories as aroslav on SOL for seven years now, but this is the first year of Wayzgoose stories from my backlist of commercial fiction.

These stories, City Limits, For Money or Mayhem, and The Gutenberg Rubric are all available in eBook and paperback. But it has become increasingly important to me to broaden my readership and to give something to the community. Not only the SOL community, but the world at large. I'm not claiming that my stories are classics or that they add significantly to the well-being of either readers or the world. But as I age, I have realized that there are a lot of readers who either cannot or will not afford books. I'm happy to sell them to those who can buy but I want to make all my books available for free online reading.

So, next is what to expect in the coming months. January 12, I'll begin posting For Blood or Money, the sequel to my Dag Hamar mystery, For Money or Mayhem. According to my calendar, it should post every three days until March 22. Here's the blurb.

You're a hard-boiled detective with all the trimmings. You've got the Seattle Waterfront office, the sexy young assistant who adores you, and an attitude to match the constant gray drizzle outside your window.

Into your office blows this high-society dame boo-hooing about her missing husband and how he always said that if anything happened to him she should come to you, Dag Hamar. The only problem is you're a middle-aged computer geek who doesn't do missing persons. Doc has told you to stay close to home while you wait for a replacement for your failing ticker. And the only clue the lady brought you was the missing man's laptop.

Did I mention she's your ex-wife and the missing man is the former best friend she ran off with twenty years ago? You can't wait to get your hands on that computer!

Enter the world of Dag Hamar and Deb Riley, computer forensics detectives who discover hidden files and computer code can be as dangerous as dark alleys and flying bullets as they enter the high-stakes game of Seattle's business world to trace a missing friend and the billion-dollar fortune that disappeared with him.

Back in 2007, when this book was first released by Long Tale Press, it became my first success in commercial fiction. Yes, even though its timeline is fifteen years after For Money or Mayhem, For Blood or Money was published five years before. That happens a lot to me. The good news (for me) is that I have two more sequels that have never been published and I'll be releasing them here in the next year!

Okay, the question that some of my most faithful readers have to ask is, "Will this have another gut-wrenching emotional downer for an ending?" (Like FMOM.) Well, things never work out quite the way Dag would like them to. So, yes, the ending won't be a happy one. On the other hand, it will probably not hit as hard as the ending to FMOM. It was, however, the clamor that readers set up at the end of For Blood or Money that convinced me I had to go back in time and write a prequel. Someday, I will also finish writing the book that comes between the two, For Mayhem or Madness.

What's next?

If all goes well, I'll begin serialized release of Wild Woods, the sequel to City Limits, sometime in April in preparation for its June commercial release. Yes, you get to read it here before it is released to the world. Chapters have started coming back from my editors and I expect to start the rewrite of my November draft in the next week or so. One of the things I will be working on during the rewrite is making sure all the loose ends of the storyline are tied up as I do not expect a third book in this series. What happened to the children? Who is Gee really? Are the families culpable? Will the preacher get his? Will the Wild Woods become part of the Forest? Anything else that needs to be covered, I'm making sure is answered in this volume.

The draft is just as long as City Limits was and follows the same thirteen-episode mini-series format.

City Limits gathered some critical praise, but nowhere near the sales that I had hoped for. I can't imagine that Wild Woods will fare better in the marketplace, but when I start a story and leave an open end, I feel honor-bound to finish it.

So, now that we have stepped over this imaginary line in the sand we call 2019, you know what to expect from me.

Thank you.

I will mention that even though many of you have been very complimentary about my stories, these stories are not eligible for Clitorides Awards. Please don't nominate them as I will remove the nominations. These are No Sex stories and the rules on the Clitorides are very clear. "Any complete and freely accessible sex story on the net, posted in their entirety or concluded during the award year is eligible. Stories in progress aren't eligible. No-sex stories aren't eligible either."

My alter ego, aroslav completed three stories on SOL in 2018 and all are eligible if you'd like to help promote my writing. This includes the recently completed Living Next Door to Heaven 3: What Were They Thinking? Thank you!

Okay. I'm a thousand words short of my writing goal for today. I need to return to my regularly scheduled story!

I wasn't paying attention to my posting schedule and here another story has come to an end. The Gutenberg Rubric posted its concluding chapters today. A helpful reader pointed out to me that Chapter 34 was actually the acknowledgments and that "The End" had been removed from the end of Chapter 33. These items were both in my original files submitted for posting, but automation won the battle. I've corrected the Acknowledgments page title and have reposted chapter 33. With luck the final symbol will be included this time.

Thank you for all the comments, assistance with correcting my German, and email about this novel. It continues to be one of my favorite stories and I'm glad you have enjoyed it as well.

What's next? I plan to continue posting stories here on SOL as Wayzgoose. I have three more published books in my backlist and expect to release Wild Woods, the sequel to City Limits in April or May. In addition to my published books (read synopses and samples of at http://www.nathaneverett.com/), I have some unpublished works I am considering releasing as well. When you have been writing as many years as I have, you end up with boxes of manuscripts that never got polished for publication.

I am still finalizing my decision regarding what book to release here on SOL next, though I am leaning heavily toward For Blood or Money, the sequel to For Money or Mayhem which was released here a few months ago. I'm working on a book that goes between the two, but I'm not happy with the dozen or so chapters I've written and as a result think that book won't be ready until late in the year (2019). I do, however, have drafts of two sequels to For Blood or Money that have not been published and I'm interested in releasing those here first. If you look at the synopses and sample chapters on my site and have an opinion of what I should release here in January, please let me know.

And to answer the question on your mind if you read For Money or Mayhem, "Does For Blood or Money have a happy ending?" No. Dag Hamar is not a happy ending kind of guy, though the conclusion to this story is not quite as gut-clenching as the prequel. You probably won't end up in tears.

During NaNoWriMo (National Novel Writing Month, November) I completed the 105,000-word first draft of Wild Woods. It is now in the hands of my story editors who will have it back to me around the first and I'll begin the tedious process of rewriting and editing the story. City Limits went through about a 90% rewrite from the first draft and while I don't expect Wild Woods to need quite that much, it will definitely require some thoughtful work on the pacing and character arc. Hence, it will be at least April before I have the polished draft back from proofreaders and ready to publish. The commercial release date of Wild Woods will be in June. It will be serialized here first.

I am camped for the winter in Quartzsite, AZ where I continue to spend my days writing and exploring. My alter ego, aroslav, is also busy at work and is nearly finished with the first draft of Double Take, Book 1. Someone suggested a do-over and he took off on it. No doubt disrespecting the genre as usual. It will also begin posting here in January as 24 chapters are already back from his faithful proofreaders.

Thank you again for your comments and email. I am glad you enjoyed this little story.

The end of summer is upon us. I'm still enjoying sunny and 70 in Idaho, but the nights are getting downright cold.

The end of my 69th year is Thursday. When I turn sixty-nine, I've decided to take it as symbolic. Sort of a theme for the year. Must make sure I'm available.

The end of For Money or Mayhem is Wednesday. I'm posting the last two chapters at the same time so you don't have to wait for the conclusion. And don't say I didn't warn you back when this story started posting. Ma/Fa, Heterosexual, Fiction, Mystery, Tear Jerker, Workplace.

The end of my planning time for Wild Woods is crashing in on me and I've hardly started. I'll be writing the first draft of the sequel to City Limits in November, going for my fifteenth consecutive NaNo win. I've invited people to read the rough draft as I write it by donating $10 (Fifth Element Level or Sausage Grinder) on my Patreon page. I know a lot of people don't want to commit to $10 per month, so you can make a one-time donation to my Paypal at https://www.paypal.me/aroslav and I'll send the link for daily updates during November. Alternatively, join my Patreon Community at http://www.patreon.com/nathaneverett in October and quit it after cards are charged on November 1. You'll still get the whole month of updates. If you are currently a $10 community member of either Nathan Everett or aroslav, you'll automatically be included in notices of reading links. Fair warning: City Limits required a near-90% rewrite after last year's NaNoWriMo first draft. When I say first draft, I seriously mean right off the keyboard. No filters.

The end of my sedate time in the northlands. Friday, I'll be moving the trailer into Spokane for service while I cut across the State of Washington for a week with the 3Fs: Family, Friends, Fysicians. I'll retrieve my trailer on the 8th of October and come back to camp here at Sun Meadow for a week while I provision for my journey south. I plan to leave on the 15th and wander slowly toward Quartzsite, AZ where I'll be spending the winter. I'm taking the route south through Nevada's Great Basin and just wandering. Haven't decided any stops or continuing routes from Vegas. Just plan to keep wandering.

So, when I say I'm at loose ends, now you know what I'm talking about.