make your own fun

The Devil Does Promo

The interval after one gets the first sip of coffee down but before the initial blessed intimation of caffeine in the bloodstream is a liminal space. Thresholds are funny things, and this one’s no different. Technically caffeine’s one of the few substances capable of going straight across the stomach lining (along with aspirin, very simple sugar, and a proportion of alcohol) and by the gods am I ever grateful for that. It’s not so much that my brain needs jump-starting–the collection of squirrels inside my skull is always coked up and singing, thank you–but coffee seems to impose some order on the damn chorus and bring the body into sync as well.

Whew. Anyway, over the weekend I did an experimental promo thing with Moon’s Knight, offering it for $3.99US in ebook. (It’s still going; today’s the last scheduled day for the price drop even though the official promo is done.) I’m testing a certain marketing platform, and I also highlighted the sale on social media. I can’t tell which proportion of sales is which yet; those analytics should be interesting.

Of course, it was sort of a gimme, since this is the book that garnered one of my favourite Amazon reviews, in which a pearl-clutching “Avid Reader” took exception to the protagonist thinking, “fuck God” at the funeral of her best friend. Normally I don’t glance at such things, but the stars aligned in this particular case and I had to laugh. I mean, you can’t buy promo like that, it’s bloody priceless. I’ll probably find that the bulk of the sales are people who saw that on my Mastodon or Bsky feeds and said, “that sounds like a good time”.

The fact that the book almost wasn’t published at all–only the intervention and insistence of my beta readers convinced me to do so–only makes it funnier.

You all know how much I loathe marketing, but if this is the year I’m prepping to go full-feral indie, I need to get more comfortable with it. Intellectually I know that living under late-stage capitalism means we’ve got to use the tools we have, people won’t know about the books unless I tell them, and that it’s necessary and good for an artist to talk about their stuff and make a living. But the brute work of promo does not move me and I have no patience for the douchebags who want to shame artists for having to engage in it, so I’ve been avoiding the whole shebang except when I absolutely cannot.

Needs must when the devil drives, though and Mama’s got rent to pay. I keep hearing that bit in Always Look On the Bright Side of Life where Eric Idle riffs, “Incidentally, this record is available in the foyer…some of us gotta live as well, you know…”

There are far worse earworms upon a Monday morn.

Today is for setting up the next pitched battle in Highlands War and getting a protagonist locked in a dungeon elsewhere. After, of course, Boxnoggin gets his ramble and my own corpse its endorphin-producing shamble. The former will be reasonably pleasant since his leg seems well on the way to full healing, but I’m still keeping him on very easy walkies and discouraging indoor parkour. He is only moderately upset at that last bit since we’re providing canine puzzles and lots of other not-so-leaping fun and encouragement to keep him occupied. (By “puzzles” I mean “very easy Kong toys”, since…well, we love this dog, but he is not a rocket scientist, let’s put it that way.)

The morning has been passing weird, which is to be expected on a Monday. I’m waiting for the Chained Knight edit letter to drop, at which point I’ll shift to revising that book and Gamble. Hopefully this week should see some other things shake loose…but if they don’t I’ve got more than enough to keep me occupied. Rather like Boxnoggin, in fact.

Time to grab some brekkie and stagger forth.

Topographical Lunacy

Yesterday I developed the burning ambition to learn crochet, since there’s a sweater pattern I want to try. Despite being told this is madness and only topographical lunatics set out to do such things, I am undeterred. The kids, of course, never miss an opportunity for a craft store visit, so off we went. Now I’m learning magic rings and half-doubles; it’s been a long time since I tried something like this.

We’ll see where it all ends up.

There have been some changes else-web, too. I’ve had to turn off YouTube comments for a number of videos, and also take a number of them unlisted. The queue caught most of the awful stuff so most viewers never saw it, but I am tired of getting death threats and harassment for sharing my nerdy love of books. I don’t want to grant more oxygen to this particular issue, save to note that I dislike being on camera and I was doing these things as a fun service, not to make myself a punching bag for toxic neckbeards. If you wonder why I’m not doing more of certain things, the likeliest answer is, “I need to be writing instead, since that’s how my bills get paid”, but the second-most likely answer is, “I got tired of getting threatened, harassed, and yelled at.”

Anyway. The week has arisen; the weather is supposed to start getting better and there are intimations of actual rain soon. The next few days are all about copyedits for Sons of Ymre 2, and a pronunciation guide for the audiobooks. Which is weird because Ymre is a nonsense-word, the Sons do not use the Mad God’s name aloud even though they–and the awakened lirai–know it as a matter of instinctive sorcery, and also because plenty of the monster names are loving tributes to Lovecraft, Derleth, and Chambers so pronouncing them is a bit of a fool’s game.

But, like Gomez Addams, I am that dumbass. Heh.

I spent the weekend working on Gamble, and am about to dive into the escalating chase part of the suspense. Next comes a cowboy-themed casino, which will probably be set ablaze because that’s the Ghost Squad‘s method for dealing with certain problems. It reminds me of the casino scene in Hunter, Healer, which in my head was always set to Franz Ferdinand’s Take Me Out. I’d’ve loved to do more Society stories, but that would require a couple characters I’m quite attached to perishing, alas.

If all goes well, tonight I might begin the front panel on that sweater. It will require a lot of unraveling, cursing, and sobbing, but that’s all part of the fun. Especially with the weather shifting, which will mean I’m able to get back into my accepted level of yarn games. Fortunately I’m not in the mood for macramé…

…at least, not yet.

Happy Monday!

A Few Welcome Clouds

I finished revisions late Saturday, scheduled them to go out, and spent the rest of the weekend in a haze of cleaning and attempting to recover. We’re having the first heatwave of the summer–yes, I know it’s not technically summer until next month, but when it’s 90F it’s summer enough for me, thanks. I am a pale mushroom with moss between her toes, and this sort of thing isn’t good for me.

In any case, the second epic fantasy is off to editor and agent. Now I just have to write the third, including a literal Ragnarok. The fun part will be the valkyries riding winged horses, the shieldmaid seeing them and going, “Oh, HELL YEAH, I NEED ONE.” I have everything set up for the crowning book, including the Ringmaker. Who has already been stirring the pot, though readers won’t realize it until said third book for lo, I am an evil writer.

Anyway, I wrote (and decorated) a whole new master to-do list as well. Oh, and last week’s Reading with Lili is up on YouTube–it’s about Charles Bukowski. The next thing upon it is a top-to-bottom revise of Hell’s Acre before the first season is sent to the agent. We’ll see what happens there. There’s also the next serial to get off the ground; I want at least six chapters in the can before I announce it.

I have the skeleton of the book, sure, but I want some flesh attached before I start singing its name.

The morning is not as bafflingly, awfully bright as yesterday’s, thank goodness. There’s a few welcome clouds and intimations of storming later, which would be welcome save for the wear and terror on poor Boxnoggin’s nerves. I also have to get out before the heat mounts so I don’t drop dead on the morning run.

And I should probably tell you guys about Boxnoggin, Rip Van Rodent, and the (Not Tony) Hawk because though I was not shoeless during that episode, I definitely screamed like a girl. (No surprise–I am, after all, a girl.) But that’s–say it with me–another blog post, and I don’t have time this fine dawning.

See you around…

Free Shenanigans

Imagine the possibilities…

Me: “You want this? I’ll drag it home if you do.”
Daughter: “What on earth would we do with it?”
Me: “Train grapevines over? Or the hop vine? Hang the bones of our enemies inside? Teach Boxnoggin to climb?”
Daughter: “OMG imagine if he learned to climb. The shenanigans.”
Me: “He’s all shenanigan anyway.”
Daughter: “I think we can let this one pass.”
Me: “Just as well. I’d have to carry it like a hat, Box can’t drag it.”
Daughter: “…walk away, Mum. Just walk away.”

I love how she doesn’t quibble at hanging the bones of our enemies inside, Blair Witch windchime style, but teaching the dog to climb is a Step Too Far. Of course, if it’s still there this morning I may have to nab it anyway, because that will be a sign it’s meant to come home with me, right? RIGHT?

Have a lovely weekend, everyone.

Preference, Edged Laughter

The backyard crows–Carl and Sandra, with occasional visits from poor Jerry and a few more kin–have been very vocal the past few days, mostly because there’s a hawk in the vicinity. I’ve seen their acrobatics as they attempt to drive the other predator off; both the hawk’s wings have a bright spot in the middle. I’m sure it dives for the feral rabbits who have been working their way up from the river over the past decade. The widening of the freeway has gotten rid of vast banks of blackberry tangle where the bunnies used to hide, which just accelerates the process. The hawk will find good hunting at the school field, not to mention one or two parks with open grass, but why pass up other chances?

Except the crows are having none of this business. Which I wouldn’t mind letting them sort out on their own, except for the corvids’ uneasiness spilling over into constant alerts and warnings when Boxnoggin and I are out. I know they like to torment the dog, partly because he’s always willing to play and partly because he’s in-harness whenever he’s outside now, but this is a little ridiculous. Even Jerry gets in on the ruckus, which isn’t usual at all; I think he still remembers getting caught in the fence. Maybe they’re even attempting to warn me to stay inside, as if the hawk represents a danger to me or to sixty-odd pounds of fuzzy destruction on a leash.

Revisions on Riversinger and Minnowsharp continue apace. I made it through the sack of the elvish city last night after dinner, but had to stop because I suspected I was becoming ineffective. For a zero draft, speed near the end may not be essential but is, according to my experience, a given; rare is the zero that I have not finished in a breathless scrabble. But in revision, especially near the finish line, more haste makes less progress. I need to take care, even if I am itching to have this done.

Fortunately I have found I like this book, and think it serves its purpose well. It’s frustrating to be the only one in the room who believes in the work, and swimming against others’ dismissiveness or dislike makes the whole process much harder than it has to be. It’s also hard to keep my frustrations under decorous wrap. Bitching to one’s writing partner only goes so far, and I’m beginning to sound like a broken record.

Ah well. One book left after this one is put to bed, I can endure. I’ve done harder things in publishing.

I should do some more memes on Canva. ‘Tis marvelous therapeutic, especially if I get swear-y. There’s just something about stringing a necklace of blue words I find wonderfully life-affirming.

I bounced off a Norman Mailer book recently, and am considering doing the next Reading with Lili on Bukowski as a type of protest. Because if I’m going to read a deeply problematic and misogynistic writer’s work, dammit, I should at least have some fun with the deal, and since Bukowski hated himself so much more than anyone else–including women–it grants his work a deeply mordant hilarity. Mailer on the other hand is deadly serious, the type of obscenely self-satisfied honker who has you cornered at a frat party and isn’t even a funny drunk.

I prefer the laughter, however edged.

Besides, I can just hear the fanboi cries of outrage, how dare someone with ovaries speak about ol’ Hank Chinaski like that! The thought makes me near-snort with glee. I really shouldn’t, it’s not nice to taunt…but one must take one’s fun where one can, in this benighted world.

Boxnoggin’s snores from his early-morning nap have paused. Next will come the jingle of his collar as he stretches luxuriously, then a small thump as he hops off my bed and the familiar noise of him padding down the hall. It is Time for Mum’s Breakfast, according to his internal chrono, and after that comes preparation for walkies. There are things to sniff, crows to bark at, and attempts to crap in oncoming traffic for him to accomplish; he’s busy, busy dog. After that I haul my weary corpse through a run while I cogitate on the last plot problem this book needs solved (Past Me, the bitch, left it for revision), and settle to a day of getting the subscription drop out and the rest of this book handled until it’s fit for the next stage in its parturition.

Off I go.

Ivy Berries

I wish my phone would focus properly, dammit.

Ivy’s both blessing and bane in these parts. On the one hand, it’s a good quick ground cover and can help with erosion; on the other, it chokes one’s trees and turns the soil rather sterile. There’s a huge bank of it on one of our walking routes, and it’s generally alive with bees once the weather warms enough–so put that in the plus column, too. And it’s full of these berry-things. I’m no botanist, so they could be something else taking advantage of the ivy and I wouldn’t know it.

Anyway, watching them through the end of winter has been fascinating. Boxnoggin, on the other hand, knows only that the ivy is good for peeing on. His needs are simple, his observations few and direct. Such is the nature of Dog, just as mine is to mentally chew every circumstance for eternity.

Between us, we’ve got the whole range covered.

Tonight’s another Friday Night Writes. I may be finished with the zero draft of Rook’s Rose (the second and final season of Hell’s Acre) by then. One thing’s for sure, this book is gonna die. But I suppose I’d best get to it if I want any sliver of the weekend to use for recuperation.

See you next week!

Art or Prank

Can’t decide if it was accidental or on purpose, either.

Boxnoggin wasn’t perplexed by the appearance of a giant rootball on a water fountain, because it was well above nose-height for him. I, however, stood and stared for a few moments, trying to imagine the chain of events leading up to…this. The problem wasn’t a lack of possibilities, quite the opposite. There’s a variety of ways this giant chunk of roots and dirt could arrive in this situation, and all are through no fault of its own.

The absurdity only makes a burl more blameless.

It’s been rather an odd week, hasn’t it? I’m still not sure they didn’t fish some kind of small rodent out of a hadron collider, provoking the timeline to start healing itself. I suppose we’ll just have to wait and see. I plan on a really cool Reading with Lili today, and of course there’s the Friday Night Writes to round everything out. And if all goes well I just might finish a zero draft (or two!) soon.

Weirdness levels noted, fingers crossed, and all that. We’re almost to the weekend, my beloveds. Let’s finish as well as we can.