T.R. Neff's Blog, page 5

Post-Mother’s Day

I know it’s a little late, but to all the mothers out there, hope you had a fabulous Mother’s Day!

I didn’t have kids–not for lack of trying, but it just wasn’t happening for my then-husband and I–but I don’t get all bent out of shape and hurt around the holiday, nor am I triggered into a puddle of spineless goo because I don’t have kids. I just take my mother shopping where she wants to shop and eat where she wants to eat and spend the day with her. Oh, and we watched sumo, since the Grand Sumo Tournament started on Mother’s Day. All is well.

However….my mother’s been calling me a ‘mother hen’. Why? Due to the additions to the family. And there are more, now. Four. Here’s one:

Peppercorn, at 10 days old.

We picked up four more, two red sex-link and two the farmer called “American Chocolate”, though I can find no reference as to what the girls will look like. They were completely black at a day old, but gradually some of the coloring is coming out. Note the white throat, red cheeks and red flecking in the feathers. They also have white rumps and black feet and beaks. If anyone has any suggestions as to what she will be, don’t hesitate to leave a comment below.

So, yes, I am being a mother hen. I’ve got six in the coop (sounds like a mental illness!) and four more who will join the flock when they’ve feathered out and when I can introduce them under a watchful eye. It takes a lot of care, some fencing and some patience. Chickens can be violent, especially toward one another, and pecking order is a very, very real thing. And that’s what moms are for, sometimes. Breaking up fights.

WRITING STUFF

Eater of Dreams is now out and published in Vella just over 80K words which is 64% of the planned length. I’ve made decent headway in spite of some life-hits-you-hard setbacks.

I am at a stage where I can also start thinking of the next project I will be working on, after I finish the revision of the novel set in the same universe as Clones Are People Two. That’s been put on hold so I don’t sacrifice time on EoD.

I’ve got quite a few novels and some short story collections waiting to be revised but haven’t cracked them open just yet. That’s where you, my reader, comes into play. I am going to be opening a poll to my newsletter readers asking which project they would find most intriguing. It will be based on sentences/blurbs I developed for the books. If you want to take part in the poll, you’ll need to sign up for the free newsletter. Besides the story, “Whispering Dusk”, which takes place in the Eater of Dreams universe, you’ll also get updates, fun news, etc. every other week. You can sign up via the link in the sidebar/below or here: In Other Worlds…

You can also click on the sidebar/below Promos, and it’s in there as well, along with lots of other free/on sale books. You’re sure to find something entertaining to read.

Coldest Spring – Writing Blue

Here’s a lovely bluebird. I can’t tell if he’s happy or not. Most birds look angry.

Normally, I would be outside drafting stories or revising in the sunshine this time of year, but it seems like winter has decided to make a bit of a comeback in my part of the world. After a bout of absolutely gorgeous weather, we’ve got a cold snap. I lost motivation to pull the patio furniture out of “mothballs” just yet, but there are still plenty of things needed to be done, weather or not.

I put in some new trees to replace those we lost last winter (not that they’ll grow to the sixty+ feet overnight) and even a few fruit trees, now that there’s safe, sunny space where the deer can’t demolish the fruit and tender buds. I love those large critters but they can wreck a young tree in no time. We put in more blueberries, and there are some grapes as well. The felled trees wrecked my wild raspberry patches, but not all of them. Time will tell if enough of them survived.

There’s also the need to take care of the chickens, who have been out for one full week as of yesterday (24APR2023), and seem to be enjoying it. They thoroughly foraged all of the weeds in the old chicken run we revamped for them, and are almost ready to have the door standing open for them to wander at large in the yard. Chickens–all birds, really–are fun, silly creatures with definite personalities. Nash still comes running out for me. I think he thinks he’s a dog or a hawk. Or both.

I really want to be outside writing. I always get better results when I remove myself from the technology, just use a notebook and pen and really concentrate on what’s going on in my head. Of course, nature can be distracting too, and I will frequently find myself stopping to listen to the calls of the birds* or some shuffling critters in the blanket of dead leaves. It’s all inspiration, though, especially when I need to ground a scene in the senses.

Anyway, keeping this one short so I can get back to writing. I’m going to have to uncurl my frozen fingers, however, in order to grip the pen. Until next time, stay warm my friends!

*Titmice are my favorite birds around here–tiny and clever, and amazing to see the little things take off with a whole peanut in their beak (not just a little nut, but the nuts in the shell!). The best bird call comes from the Carolina wrens, though. They fly around calling out “Jeremy! Jeremy! Jeremy!”. Jeremy never seems to answer, though.

Eater of Dreams is well underway – 23 episodes uploaded to Kindle Vella, roughly 61,000 words. For those interested but not quite ready to delve into the investment of tokens (I totally get it, many of us are being hit with the hammer of hard times right now, me included), the first three episodes are free, and Kindle will gift you 200 tokens as well. Episode costs vary by length, but none are over 50 tokens (Example: Errand Boy costs 24 tokens, Heat is 32 and Camp Discipline is 19). You could read all the way up to Episode 10 – Vrenith: Amidst the Cinders.

Best news is that those 200 tokens are just for the claiming–no purchase necessary, no “buy 1000 get 200 free”. I’m guessing you need an Amazon account, and we all have an Amazon account. Do we know anyone who doesn’t?

New Members of the Family

So, recently we lost our pup, a 14-year-old beagle rescue named ‘Memphis’ who warmed our home for the last four years.

Pardon the Anglo-Saxon, but it’s well deserved in this case: “F*ck cancer”.

The idea of getting another dog became something of an emotional debate–nothing can replace any of our beloved pets, but sometimes you need someone else to help you through the grief. We got Memphis shortly after we lost our Penelope, a Golden Retriever we had had since she was a puppy, all the way to the age of 14, because the sound of dog tags jangling in the house made the place unnervingly and heartbreakingly quiet. As far as I am concerned, they could live to be one hundred and still part from us too soon.

We aren’t going to rush into getting another too soon.

What we did do, however, is add six new members to the family: Chickens.

Neff Family Peeps – That’s Nash in the corner of the box, trying to be an Angry Bird Here’s Nash now–all attitude, and more than a little of the T-Rex in him

We got them as peeps, but they’re growing fast. If you’ve never raised birds, it seems outrageous to realize they’re doubling in size over a few weeks. Right now the poor things look horrid and mangy because their feathers are coming in. They outgrew what seemed like too much space for them in just the span of three weeks, and here’s hoping that their feathers grow in quickly and the outdoor temperatures to match so we can get them into their coop and run. It’s easy to spoil them–there are all kinds of healthy treats and when they catch a bug, look out! They play keep away and there’s a literal feather-flying (alright, down mostly) as they chase after the prize. I’ve only given one a name, one I am pretty sure is a cockerel, and he’s been ornery from the start. From the moment I saw that little eye staring up at me defiantly, I knew I had to bring him home.

We call him “Nash”.

This isn’t our first rodeo–we had Rhode Island Reds years ago, with a rooster named Diego of such a size that he put all of the Agricultural Fair prize-winning birds to shame. I wanted to enter him, but we decided against it. Why? He was too big. He was also a free-range guy, and very protective of his hens* and would be miserable in the tiny cages they provide. Multiply that by a week and you have one seriously stressed-out bird. In spite of his spite, I remember him fondly, too**.

Eventually, we hope to add more to our flock, and are seriously considering Silver- or Gold-laced Wyandottes, or maybe Brahmas. Anyone know of sellers in the Susquehanna Valley of Pennsylvania looking to rehome some pullets?

You may even be wondering after reading this far (thank you for that) what chickens and pets have to do with writing?

Well, for one, this blog was written. Just kidding. It’s really about considering facets of the human condition. We invite things into our lives, and love them and then they’re gone. It doesn’t matter if it’s a human, or a bird or a dog or whatever. It shares a part of us, and we share a part of ourselves with it until one of us is gone, if only for a little while. When we connect with a story, especially one dealing with loss and grief, its because we have experienced the joy and heartbreak in our lives. That empathy makes the stories real to us, and leave us with a deeper connection–and maybe a deeper understanding–of what makes us tick as humans.hick

*Penelope was terrified of him, and rightly so with his massive spurs and an insanely sharp beak that sliced clean through my wrist when he snapped on me when I reached into a nesting box for the eggs. I still bear the scar. He hated all females of any species save for his hens.

**Diego, like our hens Edwina and Fuzz, died of old age. We kept them for eggs then as pets, even beyond their laying years. The girls were sweet tempered and friendly, unlike Diego. He’s a story in himself.

And just like that, Sumo’s over. Boo…

No, this has nothing to do with sumo, but it’s hilarious and just more proof that Medieval monks were just as zany as we are today.

*Sigh*

There was a lot of upset, though. Those whom they call the “rank-and-filers” showed up and put the yorikiri (that would be ‘frontal force out’) to the ozeki and former ozeki. Ura, our favorite, finally got a kachi koshi (more wins than losses) so we were quite pleased. It only lasts for two weeks, at least the tournament. One of these days I’m going to get to Japan and be able to spend all day watching the tournament in person.

But I digress… and on to other musings.

I’m actually interested in YOU. I want to know who my blog readers are.

Did you reach this blog on a recommendation from WordPress?

Did you find my books and work your way back to this site?*

Was it by accident? Curiosity?

I have plug-ins that give me some information, but not the whole picture of course (God forbid the day when the machines can ascribe our motives for why we humans do things the way we do).

So if you’re willing, let me know how you discovered my blog, and you can tell me what you think. I only ask that in your honesty to be tactful and not let loose with pure vitriol. Thanks!

*If you didn’t know it already, I write fiction. You can check out my catalog of work here or by viewing the gallery on the sidebar or scrolling down if you’re viewing this on a phone.

Sumo’s Back! WOOHOOT!

So who else out there is into sumo? Who else would plan a trip to Japan that coincided with one of the six tournaments that make their rounds on the island?

Yesterday night Mom and I watched Grand Sumo Highlights (which, thanks to DST, shifted to 1930 instead of 1830. Japan doesn’t use DST, just JST) and it was a much-needed diversion from the recent and unexpected loss of our very beloved (and severely spoiled) pup. For a half hour, we got to root for our favorite rikishi, and watch some of the slick and sometimes unexpected moves. We particularly like Ura, if only because, win or lose, he always seems to be smiling. And anyone who holds out a hand to help another wrestler back into the dohyō after tossing him out gets a point on the respect scorecard. Oh, and Endo, because when he wins, the announcer draws out his name with one long OOOOOOOOOOOOO, and he wears a dark purple–my favorite color!–mawashi.

Ura in his silk ceremonial apron.

One of these days I’m going to have to incorporate sumo into a story. As it is, I have the character who was born of my love for MMA, Ennid the Havoc, so maybe I can introduce a sumo-inspired fantasy bout in his universe, somewhere.

Wish me luck!

Have you ever watched sumo?

T. R. Neff Titles on Kindle Unlimited

“Reading a book in train” by alubavin, CCBY2.0

As of today (1MAR2023), my titles are available on Kindle Unlimited — but only for a limited time!

So, whatcha waiting for? Go over there and get reading!

Also, don’t forget to check out the promos in the sidebar for all genres of fiction reading goodness.

Special Request: Book Identification

NOT an image from the book in question, but a lovely painting by Maul Tindal Atkinson called A Fairy with Her Attendants.
I especially love the dogs.

I’ve got a different sort of request today, from a reader trying to find a story he remembered from his childhood that he hasn’t been able to identify. I’m hoping it’s familiar enough to someone out there on the Interwebz to give it a name and an author for him.

Read on for his description:

It was a story about a little girl who was somehow transported to a parallel universe. Where she landed was near a large glade-like area. There were a lot of cute forest animals grazing and sleeping there: rabbits, squirrels, baby deer, etc. One of the rabbits looked up and saw her. It gave some kind of signal and all of the animals started looking at her. Suddenly they all seemed to look angry and began snarling and baring their fanged teeth. They began coming toward her. She was afraid and began to run. They chased her, making the most horrible noises she ever heard. Just when she was sure they would overtake her, she heard something yelling at her. “Over here! Hurry!”. She looked and it was an alligator with wings. She got scared again and almost stopped running. “Don’t stop. Get over here and jump on my back. It’s the only way I can save you”. She looked back and saw the horde of animals was much closer. She ran over to the alligator who lowered itself to let her get on. “Hold on!” it yelled. He began running and suddenly he left the ground as his wings unfolded. They soared up just beyond the lunges of the frenzied animals and flew away. 

If you’re getting some Wizard of Oz vibes from this, you’re not alone. A lot of stories of that book’s era told tales with young children as protagonists in fantasy settings, but it’s not from Baum’s work as far as we can tell. You are certainly welcome (even encouraged) to correct me on that.

If this seems at all familiar to any of you, please reply and help out.

And don’t forget to check out the new promos on the side bar (or below, if you’re checking this out on mobile).

So It’s Valentine’s Day Once More…

There’s probably a song in there somewhere.

I guess would be remiss if I neglected to wish everyone a Happy St. Valentine’s Day, since the blog falls conveniently on the day. Nowadays I’m more the kind of person to wear the T-Shirt that says “My Dog is My Valentine” (or “Cat”, since I have one of each and God forbid should I leave one out, hehehe. And where’s the shirt for the rest of the mammals, or the fish, or the birds, or the reptiles…?).

It’s also Taco Tuesday, so there’s that For once the local Mexican restaurants are going to be more crowded than those 5-star fancy-schmancy $$$$$ steakhouses for the romantic holiday. Cheers to that! (I don’t mind dressing up every once in a while, but I’m really more of a jeans/t-shirt kinda gal.)

Long, long ago, and far, far away I wrote an article on the actual Saint Valentine and how he and all the symbols came to represent the current holiday, but I cannot

But since I have your attention (I wish I could hand out free tacos!), I’ll note that I’ve got my latest project up and running on Vella, Eater of Dreams, and it’s doing…well… okay. It could be doing better. And if you’re interested in that kind of thing, remember that Vella’s first three episodes are free, and that each episode, from 500-5000 words, is unlocked separately via tokens to unfold the whole story.

Eater of Dreams
Story and Vella Cover
by T. R. Neff

I’ve been asked why I chose to go the route of Vella, releasing in episodes versus all at once. Let me first say that I intend to publish all of the episodes in a single volume once it’s complete, with a final cover that’s NOT the one above.

I chose Vella, however, presents a certain challenge, one for the good, that got me to really analyze my writing and revision schedule. I’d been cutting myself a little too much slack getting work in front of the eyes that were ready to read it, and setting up a publication schedule on Vella meant I had to impose strict deadlines on myself to get the words revised. (I already missed one, slightly, and it shoved the “Wednesday Update” off to Thursday. *Sigh*

Or, as I am finding out, get some new words written and then revised on a regular schedule. I had another part of the storyline I needed to introduce sooner in the narrative, so…

It’s definitely forced me into a comfortable schedule. I know, I know, sounds weird, but it’s a lot better on the nerves when you know what you need to accomplish by what date than to go loose, figure out on the fly and get frazzled when you realized there’s a big OOPS in there.

So I totally nerded out and set up a spreadsheet in LibreOffice with all kinds of formulae to calculate my “Must Start” and “Must Finish” dates (I think I mentioned before that I’ve been looking into good single-purchase Gantt Chart applications, but so far none have really tickled me. If you have any suggestions, let me know.)

Basically, the TL;DR is that I now have strict deadlines I must now meet, and, barring any emergencies, so far so good. I even built in a few places for when I just need to take a break, and now I can anticipate when the entire project will be completed and when I will collect, polish and publish in Kindle. That date and its final cover will be revealed, but only via my free twice-monthly multi-genre newsletter, here. (or in the sidebar, or below if you’re reading this on your mobile phone) You can even get the free story, “Whispering Dusk,” that takes place in the same universe, while you’re at it.

And, once again, Happy Valentine’s Day!

FREEBIES AND SALES

Check back on the site tomorrow (15-FEB-2023) for two new promotions appearing in the sidebar: Fun Fantasy and Sci-Fi Booksale! and Horror Giveaway

AND – I will be putting my books up on Kindle Unlimited starting 1 MAR 2023. To make it even easier for you to check out, click here (Note that Eater of Dreams is exclusively on Vella and “Whispering Dusk” is available only through the newsletter, but the rest will be on KU!

New Release-In-Progress

I’m excited to announce that, starting tomorrow (1FEB2023), the Eater of Dreams story will be published in serial format on Vella. It took a lot of cooler heads and some difficult decisions, but I decided to put it out as I go. It doesn’t hurt that it helps to keep me motivated and on-schedule because it requires hard deadlines for the different stages (btw, if anyone knows of some easy-to-use, one-time purchase app for Gantt that’s not too expensive, let me know. I’ve been testing some lately to help streamline and manage the stages of my projects but they are… meh).

I’ll update this post tomorrow when the story goes live to put the link in here.

The first three episodes are free. Afterwards, it’s a token-based thing so the costs vary depending on how many you purchase at a time, but it’s generally rounding out to about $0.01US per hundred words.

And yes, sadly, I am aware that Vella is only available in the US at this time, but I’ve been busy on a workaround that I’m testing with my newsletter subscribers. If you want to join the newsletter–it’s free–the link is at the left if you’re on a desktop and below if you’re on a mobile phone. The workaround also requires an account (also free, for readers) in StoryOrigin, which is a really great place to find all kinds of free, on-sale and new reads.

Let’s Talk Fantasy Genre Expectations: Maps

If you’re an avid reader of fantasy fiction like me, then you’ve probably noticed something. Many of them come with maps. My guess is this stemmed all the way back with J.R.R. Tolkien when he included his map of Middle Earth in The Hobbit (but my ancient set of The Lord of the Rings doesn’t have maps, so there’s that…)(oh, and when I got my copy of that other R.R.’s novel, there wasn’t a map there, either (we got half-an-inch of genealogy instead, which is okay. Necessary for his books, in fact), but some exist now and these official ones are particularly beautiful.)

See, I’m a map junkie. Back when my Dad had a subscription to National Geographic, I pulled out the maps and would pore over them for hours. I still have many of them. They may even be worth something, but right now they’re worth more to me to keep. Maps in any kinds of books thrilled me as much as (and sometimes even moreso, depending on the book) than the words within.

Nowadays, most video games come with maps that are not only built in, but ones that make it almost too easy to navigate the game world. No fun. Way back when video games came in boxes with a disk and a manual, they also came with physical maps and had no in-game mapping system. I still have a bunch of those physical maps in my collection too, including some gorgeous but generally unhelpful ones (yes, I’m talking to both of you, Faery Tale Adventure and The Last Ninja.)

And I wasn’t content with just collecting maps. Sooner or later I’d start making my own. For one, they’re a lot of fun, and they’re also a fantastic (pun intended) world-building tool. Mostly it was just free-hand fun, but my serious cartography, if you will, started when I picked up a copy of this guy right here, the World Builder’s Guidebook by Richard Baker for AD&D*.

World Builder’s Guidebook by Richard Baker

The appeal was that you could start small, on a regional map, or go hog-wild with a world-sized one where you would take in all the considerations like globe size and age, tectonic plate movement, weather, all the way down to placement of villages and hamlets based on the spread of agricultural requirements for civilizations, etc.

Which path do you think I chose? (**tries desperately to hide the giggling that quickly turns into maniacal laughter**).

It didn’t stop there, as you could add cultures and pantheons and all that, but I generally just stuck with the maps themselves. The book also came with a pad of different types of map layouts so you could pick your favorite to build on, like the polar display, or the polyhedral display, which you could ostensibly cut out, fold together and tape to form a… 20-sided world. Like a 20-sided die. Not that I’ve drawn my world and cut it out and hung it up only to watch it be batted into oblivion and shredded by the vicious claws and teeth of some Chaotic Evil Feline. Now there’s an adventure for you right there, GMs: Save the World from the Feline Overlord.

But I digress…

I am currently working on updating this map I created for the world of Eater of Dreams. At the time, it was just a “quick” sketch in Photoshop, but I’ve since moved away from Photoshop to Clip Studio Paint and had to rebuild the file so I thought, why not? I ALSO found about Wonderdraft, which I bought and use somewhat, but only after defining the land masses in CSP. Wonderdraft (I’m not an affiliate) is great for building on the fly, but it also takes some of the fun out of it for me. When it is finished, the map will be available as a newsletter exclusive.

So, readers, when you pick up a fantasy novel, do you expect to find a map in the front or as part of the endpapers, or is it just something nice to have? Let me know in the comments.

*I’m grumbling even as I type this, due to Wizards of the Coast’s malicious attempt at property-grab. You can Google-fu what they are up to by looking up OGL 1.1, but the TL;DR is that they, back in the day, gave anyone generous permission to make materials and supplements for their Dungeons & Dragons games, even commercially**, with the Open Gaming License. Now, they’re butt-hurt that they’re not the ones making money off of it** so are claiming ownership of everything made under it (definitely from OGL 1.1’s official release on out and probably retroactively) and want creators to register their products and/or work out licensing deals with them.

**Don’t get me wrong, I’m a capitalist all the way. Creators SHOULD earn money from something they create if it is willingly given by the actual consumer of our creations, but when you grant an open license, probably with a team of lawyers behind it then, and then you regret it, that’s on you. Not to mention that WotC has created NONE of what they are now claiming to be theirs.