Bryce Moore's Blog, page 81
September 8, 2020
First Day of School, COVID Style
It’s a week later than we would have been having the kids go back to school, but they’re officially started now. It’s crazy to think about everything that’s happened since their school went on a planned two week “pause” back in March. That two weeks turned into the rest of the year, and the summer is gone by now as well. I’m grateful to be living in a part of the country where there are still low numbers. (6 active cases in my county at the moment. 53 total since this started, with 1 death. Our population in 2010 was just over 30,000. On the New York Times tracker, that puts us at .6 cases per 100,000.)
Tomas (11th grade) will be going to school in person every Monday and Tuesday. The other three days of the week, he’ll be attending all his classes synchronously (Wednesday and Thursday are for the second half of the alphabet to go in person, and Friday everyone is virtual). MC (2nd grade) and Daniela (7th grade) will be going in person every other day. The days they’re not there in person, they’ll be working on their studies asynchronously. For now, there are no after school activities, although sports is still up in the air. (For the record, I will be disappointed if football is allowed to proceed but things like music and drama are not. If they can make sports work, they can make other activities work. I believe solutions could be found.)
I have no idea how this will all work in practice. I believe our school district has gotten grant money that should pay for laptops for all kids from 7th grade up. It should be . . . interesting to see how each class handles the different constraints. I try to be as good of a support structure for my kids as I can, but we’re heading into uncharted waters now. Who knows how it will all shake out.
But really, I’m happy to have some semblance of normalcy returning to our lives, even if it’s also in many ways unsettling. We’ve all been home together for so long that it felt very strange to think we’d all be heading different ways today. (Ferris, our puppy extraordinaire, is not happy with the change. I’m working at home today, and I finally had to put him in his crate. There’s only so much attention I can give a puppy and still get work done. We’ll have to see how that goes too . . .)
Anyway. That’s all I have time for today, but here’s hoping this is the start of a successful school year, even if it will be very different.
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Like what you’ve read? Please consider supporting me on Patreon. Thanks to all my Patrons who support me! It only takes a minute or two, and then it’s automatic from there on out. I’ve posted the entirety of my book ICHABOD in installments, and I’m now putting up chapters from PAWN OF THE DEAD, another of my unreleased books. Where else are you going to get the undead and muppets all in the same YA package? Check it out.
If you’d rather not sign up for Patreon, you can also support the site by clicking the MEMORY THIEF Amazon link on the right of the page. That will take you to Amazon, where you can buy my books or anything else. During that visit, a portion of your purchase will go to me. It won’t cost you anything extra.
September 4, 2020
Movie Review: Downton Abbey
I don’t think anyone goes into the Downton Abbey movie expecting to be changed for life or meaningfully impacted in some way. (At least, if they do, I’d kind of like to talk to them to figure out what exactly made them set those expectations for the film.) It’s been on HBO Max for the last while, and I’ve seen it there, and I always just came up with something else I’d rather watch. Downton seemed very . . . “not now” to me. Something I enjoyed for its time, but which was over.
However, Denisa was a bit more committed, and she managed to get me to agree to watch it. (Full disclosure: I had been excited to hear the film was coming, and I’d intended to see it in theaters. Life got in the way, and my enthusiasm dwindled.) Would I really enjoy returning to the characters for a feature length outing?
Yes. Yes, I would.
The film felt like the cinematic equivalent of comfort food. Better yet, comfort food that wasn’t riddled with too much soap (opera), like the show tended to do from time to time. Was the premise a bit of a stretch? Yes. “The king is coming to Downton! But the staff is going to be shoved to the side by the king’s staff.” Will they be able to find a way to serve the king anyway? Of course they will. Will it be believable? Of course it won’t. Will you care? You’re watching a Downton Abbey movie. Of course you won’t.
I thoroughly enjoyed heading back to Downton. It reminded me of all the things I liked about the show. The characters were consistent and well played again, even if the whole thing felt like one long bit of fan service. (Probably because it was, duh.) That said, I will give the show full props for managing to make the elite be both snobbish and likable. That’s a very hard feat to carry off, and I think they manage it by setting out the rules by which these people live their lives. You understand there are constraints, and then you can see that they are good people living within those constraints. It’s a great technique.
In any case, if you’re a Downton fan, you should watch this movie. If you aren’t, you’re probably safe staying away. Let’s just call it what it is: the grownup equivalent of a Pokemon movie. Watch it. Enjoy it. And then maybe go easy on your kids when they want to go watch a My Little Pony movie or something. 7/10.
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Like what you’ve read? Please consider supporting me on Patreon. Thanks to all my Patrons who support me! It only takes a minute or two, and then it’s automatic from there on out. I’ve posted the entirety of my book ICHABOD in installments, and I’m now putting up chapters from PAWN OF THE DEAD, another of my unreleased books. Where else are you going to get the undead and muppets all in the same YA package? Check it out.
If you’d rather not sign up for Patreon, you can also support the site by clicking the MEMORY THIEF Amazon link on the right of the page. That will take you to Amazon, where you can buy my books or anything else. During that visit, a portion of your purchase will go to me. It won’t cost you anything extra.
September 3, 2020
New Nominations for Rules of Civility
As part of my semesterly “tour of classes” routine, I visited a class today that was discussion George Washington’s Rules of Civility. This was a list of 110 different rules that Washington had copied out by hand (probably from a French translation of those rules) by the time he was sixteen years old. They’re generally guidelines to follow when you want to be polite in public, and they contain things like #10: “When you Sit down, Keep your Feet firm and Even, without putting one on the other or Crossing them” and #44: “When a man does all he can though it Succeeds not well blame not him that did it.”
As you might expect, a number of them seem far too proper and stuffy for today’s social scene. (Though a number of them definitely still apply.) I was wondering what such a list would consist of today, and thought we might crowdsource it a little. First, what are some nominees from the list that you feel should still be on it today? One that I saw would be #82: “Undertake not what you cannot Perform but be Careful to keep your Promise.” I mean, to me that’s just common sense. I always try to under promise and over deliver. I want to make sure people have expectations I can meet or exceed, rather than the other way around. When you lead people to believe you can do more than you’re capable of, it can sour a lot of relationships. And that’s silly, because you’re the one setting yourself up for failure in those conditions. True, someone might be taken in by someone who promises the moon, but sooner or later those promises come due . . .
So that’s my nominee for “rule that should remain.” My nominee for “rule that should be added” would be something that seems pretty obvious to me as well: “Don’t make death threats.”
Seriously, people. I don’t know who’s out there thinking it’s okay to threaten to injure or kill a stranger on the internet, but I do know that people on the left and the right both get these death threats all the time. Has the “anonymous death threat” somehow taken the place of “signal to show I’m really upset and want to make sure you know that”? Because if that’s the case, that needs to stop now.
A bit ago, a movie on Netflix made a big splash for a controversial poster. The film’s about an 11 year old who joins a dance team (or something), and despite it not being about anything really that controversial, Netflix had the “genius” idea to market it as a film about an 11 year old girl twerking competition, with a poster of sexually posed 11 year olds to match. It was a boneheaded marketing stunt, and it caused a large number of people to call for a boycott of Netflix and the movie.
It also, apparently, inspired people to send death threats to the director. Look, this post isn’t defending a movie I’ve never seen and never intend to watch. (Even if it’s not about a twerking dance competition, there’s nothing in that movie that sound remotely like “Bryce would like this.”) But let’s assume it really was a movie about a bunch of tweenagers twerking their hearts out. Definitely not okay, but worthy of a death threat?
Certainly not.
I can’t think of anything that *is* worthy of a death threat, honestly. And yet somehow people are lobbing them around with abandon. No idea how we can get that trend to stop, but I sure do wish it would. Going from “debate” to “death threats” in under 3 seconds isn’t going to do anyone any good.
What would your nominees be?
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Like what you’ve read? Please consider supporting me on Patreon. Thanks to all my Patrons who support me! It only takes a minute or two, and then it’s automatic from there on out. I’ve posted the entirety of my book ICHABOD in installments, and I’m now putting up chapters from PAWN OF THE DEAD, another of my unreleased books. Where else are you going to get the undead and muppets all in the same YA package? Check it out.
If you’d rather not sign up for Patreon, you can also support the site by clicking the MEMORY THIEF Amazon link on the right of the page. That will take you to Amazon, where you can buy my books or anything else. During that visit, a portion of your purchase will go to me. It won’t cost you anything extra.
September 2, 2020
Mask Recommendations?
Now that I’m wearing a mask more frequently, the fogging is really getting to me. I know what to do when it’s bad: tuck the mask up underneath my glasses as close to my eyeballs as possible. That shoots my breath far enough away from my mask that it bypasses my glasses, but it’s far from comfortable, and it has the tendency of making my glasses want to fall off all the time.
So I can either have fog-free glasses that keep falling off my face every time I try to look down, or I can have glasses that stay on my face but are so foggy I can’t see through them.
Not exactly my favorite set of choices.
Of course, some of this depends on the mask, as well. I’ve got some from Target, some from the Gap, and some that Denisa made me. Some of them have a tendency to want to come off my face the more I talk, so that’s a problem as well. There just hasn’t been one mask that stands out against all of them.
So I’m turning to you, fellow glasses wearers of the world. Do you have a mask that’s really worked well for you? Any hot tips to make this all easier? I’d love to get some different masks that work better consistently.
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Like what you’ve read? Please consider supporting me on Patreon. Thanks to all my Patrons who support me! It only takes a minute or two, and then it’s automatic from there on out. I’ve posted the entirety of my book ICHABOD in installments, and I’m now putting up chapters from PAWN OF THE DEAD, another of my unreleased books. Where else are you going to get the undead and muppets all in the same YA package? Check it out.
If you’d rather not sign up for Patreon, you can also support the site by clicking the MEMORY THIEF Amazon link on the right of the page. That will take you to Amazon, where you can buy my books or anything else. During that visit, a portion of your purchase will go to me. It won’t cost you anything extra.
September 1, 2020
The Death of the Comments Section
I woke up this morning to check my local online paper, and I was met with some of the best news I’ve heard in a long time: they’re disabling their comments section! It’s interesting to me that this should seem like such good news, and so perhaps a bit of context is necessary.
First of all, the Bulldog has long exemplified the age old internet stereotypic trope: don’t read the comments section. If there was an article that touched on any even remotely controversial subject, you could depend on the fact that there would be people in the comments saying awful things. And then people would respond to those awful things, and the trolls would respond back.
From the paper’s perspective, I can see why comments sections are a good thing. Each of those responses equates to another page view, after all. If your goal is to get as many views as possible, having comments is a great way to do it. Then again, that’s sort of like a department store encouraging a gang war in their sporting goods section, because all they’re worried about is how many people actually come into the store. Never mind the fact that the store might burn down around them because of that war.
One of the main reasons I’ve felt the comments section was so bad was that they allowed anonymous comments to appear. When people can speak behind a veil of secrecy, they are willing to say much worse things than they can when people actually know who’s saying what. Which of course begs the question: isn’t it better to know what people are actually thinking than to go about your life blissfully unaware?
Up until 4 years ago, I would have said yes. It seems on the surface that those awful opinions are something that need to be brought to the light to be expunged from society. But after dealing with the current political climate since 2016, I’ve changed my mind. I feel like those nasty comments do nothing more than encourage other nasty comments. They bubble up more, as people who thought they were along in their nastiness realize they are legion. The internet doesn’t just unite for good. It unites for evil, as well.
I’m now well aware just how much our society still has to go before we’re to the point where racism, sexism, and other -isms are a thing of the past. I want to return to the times where people didn’t feel secure saying bigoted things on forums. Where insults couldn’t be lobbed with abandon.
Like I said: I’m sure this will hurt the Bulldog’s bottom line, if they make money based on ads. I’m very impressed that they were willing to do it. (Though I can also relate to their desire to be done with having to police all those comments.) Here’s hoping it really does lead to a happier, more unified community. (Or at least one with less active hostility . . .)
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Like what you’ve read? Please consider supporting me on Patreon. Thanks to all my Patrons who support me! It only takes a minute or two, and then it’s automatic from there on out. I’ve posted the entirety of my book ICHABOD in installments, and I’m now putting up chapters from PAWN OF THE DEAD, another of my unreleased books. Where else are you going to get the undead and muppets all in the same YA package? Check it out.
If you’d rather not sign up for Patreon, you can also support the site by clicking the MEMORY THIEF Amazon link on the right of the page. That will take you to Amazon, where you can buy my books or anything else. During that visit, a portion of your purchase will go to me. It won’t cost you anything extra.
August 31, 2020
Puppy Update: Stardate 08312020
We have survived another weekend. True, we haven’t exactly emerged unscathed from that weekend, but authorities are confident the current Pee Crisis is slowly, but steadily, coming under control.
Ferris continues to have accidents each day. We’ve taken to giving him treats whenever he successfully goes to the bathroom outside. This seems to be doing the trick. Early on, we were having five accidents each day. Yesterday we were down to just one. Of course, part of that might also have to do with the fact that we’re just taking him outside every thirty minutes. Can’t pee inside if he’s not inside to pee, amirite?
The bigger problem was our nightly endeavors. Ferris seemed to be taking some serious strides backward in the “don’t poop in your cage at night” department. True, some of that was due to some missed alarms in the middle of the night, but we got that problem under control, and he was still having issues. Friday and Saturday nights, Denisa got up at 2:30 and took him out. He was clean then. Tomas then got up at 5:30, and Ferris had pooped. So he got up at 5 the next day: clean cage. Put him back to bed and Daniela took over at 7: pooped cage.
This morning, Tomas got up at 5 and stayed up. That did the trick. So the current plan is to tread water there for a couple of days and then slowly move Ferris’s wake time back 15 minutes at a time until we’re less in the “why in the world are people having to get up at this unholy hour” territory. (Yes, I realize some of you actually get up at 5am as a matter of routine. That’s crazy talk, as far as I’m concerned.)
The other issue we’re dealing with in the dog department is biting. Ferris loves nibbling and nipping on just about anything that comes in his range. When that thing is Bryce sized, it’s not really a big deal. When it’s MC-sized, it’s much more serious. So we’re working on getting him to stop that. It’s taking some time, but I do believe that’s improving as well.
I suppose the good news is that we’re not thinking about social isolation nearly as much as we used to. We’re too busy trying to develop schemes to convince Mr. Drooler to toe the line.
That said, he definitely is calming down some as he learns the ropes of being around a human family. He loves playing with tennis balls and ropes, and he thinks eating rocks is the best thing ever, despite our constant reminders that he needs to stop that. He’s no longer scared of going down the front steps, and he bounds up the front steps without a thought in the world. He successfully made his first vet appointment and got a clean bill of health, even though he was very intimidated by the car ride. (He also got some deworming pills which are definitely working, to put it politely.)
While it’s been a difficult transition, and there have definitely been some times we’ve all wondered why in the world we thought this was a good idea, I’ve really loved seeing how the whole family has come together to solve this challenge. Everyone’s contributing, and that’s been a really uniting thing about the dog.
Now if he’d only stop peeing 5 minutes after we just let him in the house from another walk . . .
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Like what you’ve read? Please consider supporting me on Patreon. Thanks to all my Patrons who support me! It only takes a minute or two, and then it’s automatic from there on out. I’ve posted the entirety of my book ICHABOD in installments, and I’m now putting up chapters from PAWN OF THE DEAD, another of my unreleased books. Where else are you going to get the undead and muppets all in the same YA package? Check it out.
If you’d rather not sign up for Patreon, you can also support the site by clicking the MEMORY THIEF Amazon link on the right of the page. That will take you to Amazon, where you can buy my books or anything else. During that visit, a portion of your purchase will go to me. It won’t cost you anything extra.
August 28, 2020
Funniest Movie Scene of All Time
The semester starts Monday! Have I mentioned that? So even though I haven’t done one of these for a while . . . I’m calling in sick for the blog. You’ll have to get by without my scintillating wit today. Instead, here’s my nomination for the funniest movie scene of all time:
You think it’s over, but it’s not. That by itself is already pretty funny, but what takes it to the next level is the next gag:
Every time I watch those, I end up crying with laughter. Maybe that says more about me than about the scenes . . .
Got a different nominee for the funniest movie scene of all time? Please share! I could use a few more laughs right now.
August 27, 2020
Far From Peak Efficiency
The last week or so has been rough. Between getting ready for the university to start up again, my kids’ school to restart, Denisa to teach again, the dog to housebreak, my current book to revise, and house construction projects to supervise, I am running on empty. I’ve tried to force through it in spite of the lack of fuel in the tank, but there are times that I just haven’t been able to.
It’s frustrating. I know that I’m operating far from my peak efficiency level, and that’s always something I strive to maintain. People remark how impressed they are that I can get so many things done and keep track of it all, but the biggest secret I have is that I plan things out well, and I leave plenty of time for relaxation. When I am rested and in a good mood, my head is clear, and I can get so much more done in an hour than I can when I’m stressed and overtired.
So I know the solution. Often, it’s enough for me to take a down day, or just set aside some time for some deep breaths and some reading. Something to take my mind off things. But right now, there’s no room for that. I know what’s in front of me, and I have to push through, like it or not.
Which is . . . okay. It’s not like I haven’t done that before. Most of the time, I just tuck my head down and get back to work instead of dwelling on how much time it’s all taking. I think the current mess is compounded by all the uncertainty. I’ve said it before: I’m the sort of guy who worries about what he’s going to do when he gets off a bus. Do I have my bag? Where is it? Who do I need to keep track of? What if someone else gets in the way? It’s a silly example, but it stands for a lot with me. My mind is constantly churning through the “what ifs,” which is fine and dandy under normal circumstances. I can think out the different scenarios and plan accordingly.
COVID laughs at my attempts to plan. I’m so tired of having to constantly add the disclaimers “As of right now” and “This might all change tomorrow.” True, I try to tell myself that all this practice with dealing with uncertainty should make me better at it when COVID finally goes away and I can breathe again, but that’s sort of like telling a drowning person to think of all the better lung capacity he’s working on.
It does help to vent and get it out of me. To acknowledge publicly that I’m going through a difficult time. (Which is probably why I’ve posted about this a number of times over quarantine.) I suppose somehow I just thought this would all be easing up by the time school was back on the horizon. That things would be more certain by then, and I could get back in the groove.
I don’t know where the groove went, but for now I am most definitely not in it.
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Like what you’ve read? Please consider supporting me on Patreon. Thanks to all my Patrons who support me! It only takes a minute or two, and then it’s automatic from there on out. I’ve posted the entirety of my book ICHABOD in installments, and I’m now putting up chapters from PAWN OF THE DEAD, another of my unreleased books. Where else are you going to get the undead and muppets all in the same YA package? Check it out.
If you’d rather not sign up for Patreon, you can also support the site by clicking the MEMORY THIEF Amazon link on the right of the page. That will take you to Amazon, where you can buy my books or anything else. During that visit, a portion of your purchase will go to me. It won’t cost you anything extra.
August 26, 2020
Movie Review: Greyhound
My new iPad purchase came with a free year of Apple TV+, which meant I was able to catch the new Tom Hanks movie, Greyhound, last night. I’d heard good things, and I’m a sucker for a good submarine movie, so I was looking forward to the experience. Overall, the movie didn’t disappoint. Was it incredible? No. But it delivered a well crafted war movie, and it had an actual rare depiction of a person’s faith as a positive thing, and that earns some brownie points in my book as well. I gave it a 7.5/10.
The film’s premise is very straightforward: Hanks plays the captain of a destroyer, out to protect a group of transport ships from German U-boats as they cross the Atlantic. Surprise surprise: the U-boats actually materialize and are dangerous. It’s up to Hanks to keep it together long enough to protect the ships and get to the other side of the Atlantic.
As far as pacing goes, it was quite thrilling. I really appreciated the way they depicted the strict chain of communication that was in place to keep everything orderly. Coordinating all the different mechanisms that had to be in place in order to keep the pressure on the U-boats (and keep themselves out of danger) was a real dance number, and this movie did a great job of illustrating that. It’s cut together well, so you pretty much always know where the ships are, who’s in danger, and what needs to happen to escape it. That’s not always easy to do, especially when there’s so much chaos happening on the screen.
As I said before, the film also depicts Hanks as a religious man. Better yet (in my book), his religion is a strength, not a weakness. Too often today, religion seems to be a thing people tolerate in a person, as opposed to something to admire someone for. I understand a large reason for that is due to the people who use their religion to justify terrible actions, and I get that many terrible things have been done in the name of religion over the years. Ideally, religion gets us to be better people. (Though the real difficulty comes when you begin to demand a definition of “better.”) I know that personally, my religion gives me strength and guidance in troubled times, and it inspires me to care more for those who are helpless and in need. I don’t want this review to turn into a huge debate about the merits of religion, however. I just want to praise the film for depicting the captain as religious, but not crazy. That really does happen in the real world, people.
The film’s biggest flaw is its brevity, not something I say too often about an action movie. But in this one, they pay a little bit of attention to fleshing out the captain’s back story, and then they dive right into the action. Hints of characterization are provided here and there, but I think it would have been more powerful if we’d had a bit more time to get invested in the characters. Including the captain. As it is, the movie’s just a minute over an hour and a half. They definitely had time available to do a bit more justice to the characters, and that would have made it all more compelling.
But in the end, it’s still what I wanted to get out of a war movie. Thrilling chases. Tense moments. Explosions. Action. Is it worth the price of an AppleTV+ subscription? Sure, for a month or two at least. I still have to see if there are other shows on there that keep me coming back, though. For now, if you’re interested in the movie, go ahead and subscribe for a month and see how you like the rest of the stuff. You’d have paid more than that to see it in the theater, after all. (Though I was watching on my big projector screen. I might feel differently if I’d experienced it on a smaller scale.)
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Like what you’ve read? Please consider supporting me on Patreon. Thanks to all my Patrons who support me! It only takes a minute or two, and then it’s automatic from there on out. I’ve posted the entirety of my book ICHABOD in installments, and I’m now putting up chapters from PAWN OF THE DEAD, another of my unreleased books. Where else are you going to get the undead and muppets all in the same YA package? Check it out.
If you’d rather not sign up for Patreon, you can also support the site by clicking the MEMORY THIEF Amazon link on the right of the page. That will take you to Amazon, where you can buy my books or anything else. During that visit, a portion of your purchase will go to me. It won’t cost you anything extra.
August 25, 2020
Writing Update
It’s been a while since I’ve posted an update on my various writing projects. No time like the present, right? Writing during social distancing was difficult for me. Not because it was trickier to write, but because it was a rough patch mentally. It’s hard to push through and get creative when I’m stressed about other things. That isn’t to say I didn’t write. I did, but there was more wheel spinning involved than I would have liked.
However, I feel like I’m getting back in gear now that I’m returning to my normal work routine. (Though things at work are still far from normal . . .) Getting up, getting writing done, making progress on various projects. It’s been tremendously helpful to have a writing group again. They’ve already given feedback on SILVERADO, and I think that story has a lot of promise when I find time to go back to finishing it.
That’s the strangest things these days. Back when I was starting out writing, I preferred to have a book and work on it to completion. Now, other projects keep cropping up that always seem to interrupt what I’m writing. For example, at the moment I have XXXXX books in some stage of the drafting process:
MURDER CASTLE–Remember people! I have an actual book coming out next year. It’s been retitled to THE PERFECT PLACE TO DIE, as the thought was that MURDER CASTLE might present itself as a fantasy book to readers, and this is very much more a thriller with horror undertones. I got my edit letter back on the book a couple of weeks ago, so this is where the bulk of my writing attention is going at the moment. I took the time to reread the entire novel. (I rarely reread my own work after I’ve revised it too much.) I hadn’t worked on this since November 2018, so I was able to really look at it with fresh eyes this time. It was great to see how strong the book is, and I’m excited about the changes my editor made. I think it’s going to be a really great read, and I’m excited to share it with you next summer.SILVERADO–My steampunk alternate history has been placed on the back burner for now. Not because I don’t like it, but because there are other more immediate projects that take precedence. As I said, my writing group has finished it, and they had some great suggestions. It’s a fun book, and I hope to return to it. The first draft is mostly finished, although I never wrote the climax, and when I return to it, I’m going to have to rework what I’ve got before I can move forward. I consider the first draft complete. The next time I work on it, it’ll be the second draft, or maybe draft 1.5. I was 90,000 words in when I stoppedHOUSE OF COWARDS–My epic YA fantasy has also been set aside for the time being. I was around 73,000 words into it, which is actually a huge problem. At that rate, the whole book would have been 250,000 words. That’s incredibly enormous for adult works, let alone YA. And it’s the first book in a trilogy? Yeah. I liked a ton of what I was doing, but I’m going to have to reassess it.MAGIC AT 30,000 FEET–My writing group is reading through this right now, and I’m thinking about editing it to make it more of an adult fantasy instead of YA. Which will be strange, as it started out Middle Grade and has just kept shifting older. We’ll see where it goes. I’m not actively writing it at the moment. Just wanted to get the feedback from the group.NEW ORLEANS–The project I set aside for THE PERFECT PLACE TO DIE is where my focus will return as soon as I’ve got the revision done. This is the second book I’ll be publishing with Sourcebooks. At least, that’s the plan. I was around 24,000 words into the draft, but I’d identified some problems already that needed to be fixed. (The biggest one being that I switched who the main character was.) It’ll be the 19th book I’ve finished.
So there you have it. When I take a look at it from a wide angle, it all looks quite industrious. It’s amazing what you can get done by plodding along at 1,000 words a day. Yay for small goals leading to big goals.
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Like what you’ve read? Please consider supporting me on Patreon. Thanks to all my Patrons who support me! It only takes a minute or two, and then it’s automatic from there on out. I’ve posted the entirety of my book ICHABOD in installments, and I’m now putting up chapters from PAWN OF THE DEAD, another of my unreleased books. Where else are you going to get the undead and muppets all in the same YA package? Check it out.
If you’d rather not sign up for Patreon, you can also support the site by clicking the MEMORY THIEF Amazon link on the right of the page. That will take you to Amazon, where you can buy my books or anything else. During that visit, a portion of your purchase will go to me. It won’t cost you anything extra.
