The Journal, Thursday, 10/12

Hey Folks,

First, welcome to “fan2orcas,” the most recent subscriber to this Journal. Glad to have you aboard. I’m going through a personal transition at the moment, so not a lot of substance here for a few days. But hang in there. It will pick up again soon. (grin)
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Woke up to good news this morning. I have another book, The Platinum Blond Perturbance (novella), in an upcoming bundle from BundleRabbit. I’ll post details on the website as they become available.

The request for that book caused me to look at my other similar books. I realized I have two series characters going. City police detective Lou Galecki and the PI Stern Richards. Hmmm. Wonder how they’d work together?

Actually, the last novel I finished, the one I recently got back from my first reader, has Stern Richards and a police detective, but it isn’t Galecki. Maybe I ought to change the name of the detective before I publish that one.

And that reminds me I haven’t published that one yet. I need to do a cover and get that thing outta here. I’ll do that today.

More notes on quitting smoking…

Feeling a little better this morning. Intellectually I know it takes three days to flush out the poison, but that’s not much more than an annoying little factoid when you’re actually going through it. (grin)

Wow. I started creating the cover at around 5:30. That and uploading the book to D2D, Amazon and BundleRabbit has taken 3 hours. The entire process usually takes an hour or less. Still operating through a haze.

I remember, before I took up cigars, there was a certain extra-clarity in everything: thoughts, vision, hearing, all of it. It isn’t that way again yet, but because I remember I know it will be. Clinging to that knowledge keeps me on task.

I was telling a friend this morning that I’ve discovered quitting cigars is considerably different than quitting cigarettes.

Actually, I expected it to be different, but I assumed it would be easier, maybe because I didn’t inhale smoke from cigars, there weren’t as many, etc.

But I’m finding the resurgent cravings are just as frequent but a LOT stronger. There are times when all I can do is sit and focus on taking the next breath.

Now, don’t get me wrong. I won’t give in. That simply isn’t an option. But it’s interesting (to me) to note these things as I’m going through them. It’s a kind of research, I suppose.

Interestingly, today (Day 3) seems as rough as Days 1 & 2, so I’m also wondering whether it might take longer than three days to flush the poison out of my system this time. I guess I’ll know more tomorrow. (grin)

Hope you don’t mind me sharing this stuff as well as the writing stuff. If my experience helps someone else, it’s all good. And I guess if you DO mind, you can just skip over the parts you don’t like. (grin)

I’m just looking forward to getting back to writing. A few days from now I’ll be wondering what all the fuss was about. I hope.

I’m feeling… different. I’m going to take one more day off. I have a feeling I’ll be fully back tomorrow.

See you then.

Of Interest

Via The Digital Reader, see “The great writers forgotten by history” at http://www.bbc.com/culture/story/20171010-the-great-writers-forgotten-by-history. (I was disappointed when I tried to order the ebook and found it was available only to customers in the UK.)

From Linda Maye Adams on Dean’s site, an article on how the mega corporations get writers to write free at http://authorkristenlamb.com/2017/10/welcome-to-the-matrix-you-work-for-free-there-is-no-payday/. Though I must admit, I got lost after awhile. My be my mental cloud or it might be the article going on and on or maybe both, but I still don’t know a) how to unplug or b) from whom or what to unplug. Sigh. I was so looking forward to being unplugged.

Fiction Words: XXXX
Nonfiction Words: 630 (Journal)
So total words for the day: 630

Writing of Pulp Novel 5 (a Stern Richards novel)

Day 1…… 1080 words. Total words to date…… 1080
Day 2…… 2167 words. Total words to date…… 3247
Day 3…… 1370 words. Total words to date…… 4617
Day 4…… 1840 words. Total words to date…… 6457
Day 5…… 1193 words. Total words to date…… 7650
Day 6…… 1407 words. Total words to date…… 9057
Day 7…… 1180 words. Total words to date…… 10237
Day 8…… XXXX words. Total words to date…… XXXXX

Total fiction words for the month……… 12462
Total fiction words for the year………… 446608
Total nonfiction words for the month… 7000
Total nonfiction words for the year…… 159683
Total words for the year (fiction and this blog)…… 606291

The Daily Journal blog streak……………………………………… 683 days
Calendar Year 2017 Novels to Date………………………… 9
Novels (since Oct 19, 2014)………………………………………… 27
Novellas (since Nov 1, 2015)……………………………………… 4
Short stories (since Apr 15, 2014)……………………………… 182