What’s Going On?
Only a few weeks between blog posts? It’s a miracle!
Things have been a whirlwind as I have a number of things going on with books. I sort of feel like a squirrel on coffee; darting from thing to thing. But here’s what I’ve been doing:
Learning Vellum – Vellum is a program that easily formats manuscripts into ebooks and paper books. It does a fabulous job of formatting and making the book look attractive. The great feature is that you click one button and it generates all of the formats at one time. One drawback (but not for me) is that it’s only available for the Mac. There’s not much to learn about it, but it is such a big time saver. Here’s what the new first page of The Reluctant Captain looks like now:
The Reluctant Captain Hardcover Edition – I’m trying my hand at publishing this in a hardcover edition using IngramSpark to do the printing. The current paperback version is printed via KDP which is part of Amazon. I’m hoping that by moving to Ingram for the hardcover (and possibly paperback), I could get my book in honest to goodness bookstores!
Republishing the Ebook and Paperback Editions of
The Reluctant Captain – Using my new found skill with Vellum, I intend to republish the ebooks and paperback editions with a reformated interior and updated covers to indicate that The Reluctant Captain is Book 1 of the Reluctant Series. I think it’s safe enough to say that now that the release of Book 2 is on the horizon.
The Reluctant Captain – Using my new found skill with Vellum, I intend to republish the ebooks and paperback editions with a reformated interior and updated covers to indicate that The Reluctant Captain is Book 1 of the Reluctant Series. I think it’s safe enough to say that now that the release of Book 2 is on the horizon.
Secret Agent Man
And speaking of Book 2, what’s up with that, you ask?
The book is with the editor right now. She hasn’t flung the manuscript back at me in disgust, so I think it’s going well. The current hope is to get the book back from the editor by the beginning of April and aim for a mid to late May release. This will be dependent upon a number of things and I don’t want to get anyone’s hopes up with an actual date. Stay tuned for more details because I am going to try to do blog more often.
That’s all for this post.
Happy Journeys!
Mike
Read More2019 – A New Hope
As usual, I’ve been delinquent in providing an update. First of all, a (belated) Happy New Year to one and all! I hope that 2019 is a year filled with wonder and love for each and everyone one of you!
What’s New Pussycat?
I successfully survived the holiday season. In my alter ego as a musician, the holiday season is incredibly busy; this year was busier than most. I played in two tree lighting ceremonies and five concerts between Thanksgiving and Christmas. When a proposed Christmas Eve service fell through, I was disappointed, but mostly relieved.
This was balanced with spending time visiting my mother in a long term care facility that’s about an hour and a half from my house. I’ve been taking my dad down there 2-3 times a week after I get home from work, so with the aforementioned concerts, December was a bit of a grind and I’m glad it’s done.
What’s Up, Doc?
What is on tap for 2019?
- The Reluctant Agent – This will be the year that The Reluctant Agent finally makes its appearance in the world! My book is in the hands of an editor and I can make plans for the release of the book. Come back for more announcements, or better yet, subscribe to my email list over there on the right. I will start sending updates via the mailing list.
- Updated versions of The Reluctant Captain – Without going into too much detail, I’m going to be releasing an updated version of The Reluctant Captain. I’m not changing the story, but I am updating the formatting. My hope is that I can make the book available to find in actual bookstores! Stay tuned for more updates…or sign up on the mailing list.
- The Untitled Horror Anthology – I think that this won’t see the light of day this year. But, hope springs eternal!
- Begin work on the next book in the series – My desire is to have another book in the Reluctant series sometime next year. That’s a lofty goal considering it took me almost four years to get The Reluctant Agent to the point of release.
- Upgrading my author skills – Besides doing more writing, I’m working through some courses in my spare time. I’m taking a video course on how to use Scrivener (my new writing software) and I’m going to be taking another video course on podcasting. While I’d love to podcast, that is not in the cards any time soon.
We’ll see how much of the list gets done, but I’m definitely focusing on the first two items in the list.
And Now a Word From Our Sponsor…
I don’t like the hard sell, but I’m hoping you can do one or two things to help me get ready for the launch of The Reluctant Agent:
- Join my mailing list – I promise that I won’t bombard you with email – in fact, to date, I’ve sent out zero emails. But I would like to keep people up to date on what’s happening and it would be a big help!
- Review my current book – If you’ve read The Reluctant Captain, I would love it if you added a review on Amazon, Good Reads, or the platform of your choice. Reviews are a big help both to me as an author and as a way to get more attention.
Until next time…
Happy Journeys!
Mike
Read MoreThanksgiving
It’s certainly been a crazy year and particularly, the last few months. The one good thing about Thanksgiving (besides eating yourself into a food coma), is that it makes me think of the things for which I am (or should be) grateful.
Things For Which I Am Thankful
- My Family – I thankful for my family, particularly my wife and son. They put up with me when I’m writing and when I’m stressed out and overtired.
- My Job – I’m thankful for a reasonably stable job that provides for my family. Having been through times without a job, I realize how fortunate I am.
- Music – I’m thankful for being able to perform music. I hate practicing, but I love playing. Although this time of year, it can get a little crazy (7 concerts within the next month).
- Writing – I’m thankful that I’ve been able to finish another book and I’m well on my way to finishing the first draft of another.
I know there are many things I’m not remembering. What are the things that you are thankful for?
A Holiday “Tradition”
And what would Thanksgiving be if I didn’t bring out my Thanksgiving story…
The Call of Cthurkey
by Michael Tefft
(with apologies to H.P. Lovecraft)
The most merciful thing in the world, I think, is the inability of the human stomach to tolerate the most obscene combinations. Cooking shows on the Food Network strain in each direction to inspire more and more strange combinations, but so far, none that our stomachs can’t handle. But someday, we will find the combination of foods that will surely drive us mad.
My knowledge of such a thing occurred this Thanksgiving. As was tradition, we assembled at the house of my parents. In the morning, we gathered in front of the television to watch the Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade, as was our want. I could smell a strange odor coming from the kitchen; at once delicious, while at the same time repugnant. Strangely, my mother would not let me help in any way with the cooking, saying simply she was trying something different and wanted to make it a surprise.
After some time, I asked my father if I could borrow his computer to check the hockey scores as cell reception was nearly zero at my parents’ house and my fantasy hockey team was not going to run itself. He grunted from his recliner and I went to my former bedroom, now the home office.
As I brought up the browser window, I noticed that one of my parents had left the browser brought up in a page full of strange and arcane recipes. As I read the page, I looked in horror at combinations of gelatin formed into translucent prisons for meat, vegetables or fruit. As the dread rose along with the bile in my throat, I read the “Comments”. And buried in the comments was a link to what was described as the most forbidden food combinations put together. The link simply read “Crockernomicon”.
With some trepidation, I moved the mouse and with a deep sense of foreboding, clicked the link. The site loaded; I immediately felt like I had stumbled on some lost and forbidden lore. I saw recipes for Jellied Chicken Loaf, Shrimp Aspic Mold, and Pickle Stretcher Salad. The more I read, the more my stomach gurgled and I swallowed hard to force down the rising bile. And then at the bottom of the page was a link to “A Truly Unique Thanksgiving Treat”. To my horror, I realized that the link had been already visited. With trembling hand, I clicked the link.
At the top of the page, I saw the phrase “In his tureen of Gr’vy, Chturkey waits for dressing”. Before I could read any more, my sister came to the door to tell me that the feast was ready. I closed the browser before I could finish looking at the screen, sure that I saved my sanity.
I followed my sister to the dining room table and froze. Before me lay a tableau out of a nightmare. A collection of abominations that would destroy a man’s sanity covered the plates and serving trays. First, a transparent green tower trapped what looked like coleslaw within its shiny emerald walls. Nearby, a translucent white mound with flecks of red and green; the whole thing wobbling as the plate was handed from person to person. More and more of these transparent or translucent concoctions were handed to me. I knew what was expected and with rising dread, I scooped the various congealed food onto my plate. As I stared at the utter horror awaiting me, I was snapped from my daze by my mother’s voice. “Now for the main course.”
Nothing that I had seen in my life prepared me for the horror that arrived on the platter. On a bed of brussels sprouts that looked like the spawn of the Triffids, lay a true abomination. A fully roasted turkey with the tentacles of an octopus and the legs of a crab stretched the limits of sanity of my mind. This could only be one thing: the dread Cthurkey. Nothing I had seen in the Crockernomicon had prepared me for this. My father took his electric carving knife and hacked into the monstrosity. When asked if I wanted white meat or dark, I asked for white in fear that I might be eating turkey stained with the inky blackness of the octopus.
I ate and soon the strain was more than my brain could handle. Dinner became a blur. I must have passed out as I awoke alone on the recliner in front of the television, dimly aware that a football game was playing. As I tried to shake the horror of the feast from my mind, I kept hearing the words from the dread Crockernomicon in my mind:
“In his tureen of Gr’vy, Cthurkey waits for dressing”
I hope everyone has a wonderful Thanksgiving!
Mike
Read MoreThe Times They Are A Changing
Hello again! It’s been a while since I’ve posted. The major reason is that my mother has been in the hospital (She’s being released on the day I write this). What that’s meant is that I have had almost no time for writing. That will probably continue for the near future. I realized that if I want to keep writing (and I do), I need to change how I write and I think I’ve come up with an approach that works
The Good Ole Days
As I’ve mentioned before, I’m a programmer in my day job. I’m used to dealing with manipulating large sections of text. That’s why I’ve had no issue writing in Microsoft Word. I would open up the Word Document and just pick up where I left off. If you had to rearrange paragraphs, it wasn’t great, but I could make it happen. And it supported the way I write. In the writing world, writes tend to fall into two camps. Plotters outline and plan each chapter and scene in detail before writing. “Pantsers” write by the seat of their pants; they just dive in and see where the story goes. I have been much more of a “
Changes
A couple of months ago, I decided to buy a program called Scrivener by Literature and Latte (what an awesome name for a software company). The product is made to help you organize and produce documents. You may ask, “What’s big deal? Word can do that.” And the answer to that is “Yes, it can.” But Scrivener can do some much more. You can keep notes about characters, setting, or any research you need within your project. If you break your writing down into smaller units such as chapters or even scenes, you can move them around and rearrange them to your heart’s content. And when I, you click a menu item to turn this back into a Word document or even into a digital book.
Since I realized that I am mostly going to have short blocks of time to write, I decided to plot out my short stories in more detail. I took each story (except the previously completed story) and broke each of them down into the scenes I needed for the story. I think that’s going to help me in two ways. First, I think I’m an impatient writer. I know, how can I say that when I’ve been working on The Reluctant Agent for three years? What I mean is that I really want to get the plot out. I think that means I tend to want to race right to the plot (especially in short stories) and I sometimes skimp on things like characters and description. Plotting out the scenes helps get that out of the way and I’ve scratched that itch. Second, I now have a roadmap for getting work done. Since I’m likely to have much smaller units of time, I can work
Here’s a screenshot of my current horror story anthology project;
I don’t know if this will work, but I’m giving this experiment a try. I have mixed feelings about my potential success. As a writer, I’ve been lucky that I’ve always been able to outline in my head. Doing all of those outline exercises in English class felt so tedious for me because I just did it in my head; why did I have to write it out?. On the other hand, Scrivener feels in some way like the Visual Studio of Writing. I use Visual Studio for programming. In modern programming design, you break things down into very small units that have certain properties and can do certain things. To write an application, you have to tie all of these units together to make the program do what you want. I can’t help but think that Scrivener is just like that. So maybe this experiment will work after all.
In Other News
You may have noticed that I just made The Reluctant Captain available on Kobo, another e-book distributor. I’ve been doing a tremendous amount of driving lately (approaching 200 miles a day), so I’ve been listening to podcasts to past the time. I’ve recently started listening to The Creative Penn which focuses on the business side of being an author. It’s an excellent podcast and I’ve learned so many things. One of which was that I really should make my book available via Kobo, especially since all of the work to create the e-book was already done. I took about thirty minutes, set up the Kobo account, and uploaded my book. The very next day, I had a new sale. So, yeah!
In a few weeks, I’m taking a mini writing retreat. I’ve reserved a cabin for two nights and I’m hoping to get a bunch of work done on these horror stories. We’ll see if this experiment helps. If it does, I intend to use this approach with my next novel.
That’s all for now.
Happy journeys!
Mike
I think because it’s Fall, I’m thinking of all things macabre. While the editing work begins on The Reluctant Agent, I thought I’d take the time to write some horror short stories. I’ve previously had written one story and was expired to write another one after our vacation this summer. So I decided to pull to
Read MoreWhat I Did Over the Summer
Good gracious, it’s been a very long time since I’ve posted…anything. As usual, it’s been a very hectic summer. And as we near the end of summer, I’m resurrecting the time-honored bane of every student’s
Music
As usual, I spent a very large part of the summer playing in community bands. This summer, I played 15 concerts in 3 different bands and also played in the orchestra for a musical. Summer band season wrapped up with my last concert on August 24. I love playing, but I’m glad it’s over for this year.
Family
My mother has had some health issues over the last few months, so factored into all of this has been visiting her on a regular basis after work. I’m adjusting to a new normal now and I have to make real choices about how I spend my time.
Vacation
I did, with all of this craziness, find time to get away a couple of times. Earlier this month, we went shared a HUGE house in Williamsport, PA with my wife’s parents, sisters, and their children. It ended up being a perfect blend of doing stuff and doing nothing. We also just got back from a long weekend in Lake Placid where we saw many of the Olympic venues, purchased insane amounts of olive oil and balsamic vinegar, and had a good time.
And the thing you’re (hopefully) curious about…Writing
And, believe it or not, I made progress on the writing front. I completed the fourth revision on The Reluctant Agent. I’m letting that sit for a bit and I’m working on some other projects. I finished a horror short story I started in January and I’m writing another horror short story based on something from my vacation. I also have ideas for another horror short story and a brand new idea for a novel that is not in my planned Reluctant series. Strangely, I’ve been remarkably creative, even though I haven’t had as much time to write as I’d like.
What Continues To Motivate Me To Write?
The answer to this question is two fold.
First, it’s readers. I’ve been blessed that many people have read and enjoyed The Reluctant Captain and that means the most to me. Sure, I’d like to be a best-selling author, but I’m really happy to have people who genuinely anticipate my next book. To you, I say thank you…and be patient. It is coming.
The other answer is being part of the writing community. In this case, it’s an online community. I don’t have many writers that live near me, so I’m not part of a writer’s group. But as I mentioned in my last post, I’ve found podcasts that have really helped me feel part of the writing community. I’m now listening to three writing podcasts and finished a podcast about creativity. The podcasts are:
Writing
1. Write Now by Sarah Rhea Werner
2. Horrible Writing…and Whining by Paul Sating
3. The Creative Writer’s Toolbelt by Andrew Chamberlain
These podcasts offer three different things. Write Now is inspiring and nurturing; Horrible Writing…And Whining is the kick in the pants you need to get going; and The Creative Writer’s Toolbelt is, not surprisingly, about the nuts and bolts of writing. I’ve really enjoyed this podcast because it’s the creative writing class I never had in college. A key feature common to all three podcasts is author interviews. I think I learn something from every one of these interviews and it really helps me feel like I’m part of the greater writing community
Creativity
1. Magic Lessons with Elizabeth Gilbert
This podcast starts with Ms. Gilbert interviewing a person who is having some sort of creative issue. After she gathers the facts, she suggests an assignment to help move the person forward. She then discusses the issue with some noted creative person who has had success in that creative field and gathers the advice. She checks in later with the person to see how they are progressing. It’s very inspirational and I know I related to one or more of the people in the podcast. There are only two seasons, but I think it’s worth a listen.
Wrap It Up Already…
That’s what I did with my summer. I hope that you had a great summer as well.
Happy Journeys,
Mike
PS – I know that summer is over so you won’t be taking a book to the beach, but it will be cold soon and you’ll want to snuggle up with a book. You could always jump over to the link on the top right of the page and pick up my book…I’m just saying…
Read MoreOne Is The Loneliest Number – Finding a Writing Community
Writing is a solitary pursuit. It’s your mind versus a blank screen. You spend hours locked in battle to get the words that sound so magical in your head to appear as magical on the page. Or simply staring at the screen not knowing where to begin. Until that story is out of your head on the page, it is just you.
And that can be a very lonely place.
Getting By With A Little Help From My Friends
As I’ve relayed here (on more than one occasion), I have a real problem fighting the Imposter Police in my head telling me I’m a fraud. In the last month or so, I’ve been able to quiet the Imposter Police to the point that I can ignore them and get work done.
How did I do that?
I became part of a community of writers.
I’ve been listening to two writing podcasts: Write Now by Sarah Rhea Werner and Horrible Writing…and Whining by Paul Sating. They have two totally different styles but have the same basic mission: they want people to write. The podcasts connect me with other writers so I feel like my struggles are not unique. Sarah started the I Am A Writer Facebook group as a place for writers to congregate, ask one another for help, celebrate our successes, receive sympathy and support for our failures. I’m more of a lurker than a contributor, but I do contribute.
I’ve also had the pleasure to communicate with both Sarah and Paul. They are both incredibly busy people, but not so busy to acknowledge an email.
All of this has made me feel not so alone. I’m sure my wife is glad. I know she’s sick of me bouncing into the living room because, on the third try, I’ve finally fixed that scene so that it now adds to the story instead of taking a left turn. Just being able to say “I’ve finally fixed my plot problem” to an audience that understands what you go through helps so much. And it helps me claim the mantra, “I AM A WRITER”
I’d love to be part of a physical writer’s group. I’ve tried a couple of times, but the group seems to fall apart (maybe it’s me?) If anyone is nearby and wants to get the ball rolling, let me know! I’d be happy to assist. Until that happens, I’ll continue with the podcasts and the Facebook group.
Happy Journeys!
Mike
PS – Summer is nearly here and that means beaches…which also means reading. And if you need a book….take a gander to the right. I’m just saying.
Read More