Finally put a stake in it!

 I've been working on 'Auntie Renita's Galactic Motel' for what seems like years. Wait. It HAS been years, technically! ;-)

I have some valid excuses though. A bout with 'choledocholithiasis' early last year took me out of circulation for weeks. It's when a gall stone lodges in your 'common bile duct'. If you're interested, and who isn't, google it. Just don't do it around lunch time.

I turned a lovely shade of yellow and couldn't stop shaking. I won't bore you with the details, but it took another month before I was clear of the all the issues surrounding the offending stone.

In the mean time, I had to postpone a procedure to implant an ICD (Implantable Cardioverter-Defibrillator). Once I recovered from the gall stone episode, I had the ICD inserted in a 'pocket' in my left chest. Fun. Again, google can tell you all you need or want to know about these life-saving devices. We live in amazing times!

In the meantime... Amazon KDP notified me that they were winding down their 'Vella' program. That program was supposed to address the idea that Readers would embrace an 'Episodic' delivery of stories.

The idea was to publish stories one episode every week or so. Basically break your story into chapters and publish a chapter or two at a time. Readers would sign up by buying 'coins' and uses those coins to buy each chapter of your book. The first few chapters were free.

I put two stories on Vella. I had a little success at first. But it quickly petered out. I wondered if it was my stories, but several readers had good things to say about them and encouraged me keep going. After a long lull between reader comments I decided to look around Vella.

95 percent of the stories were Werewolf porn, Romance porn, and Zombie/Apocalypse stories. Sigh.

I have zero interest in writing in those genres. Even if I did, I'd be lousy at it. Funny Zombie/Monster stories I could write. Maybe. But the 'serious' stuff? Nah. Not my thing.

So. Enough about my excuses. Once I got back on track I took one of my Vella stories, 'Auntie Renita's Galactic Motel' and have been turning it into a novel. Now we're cookin' with Crisco.

I've been working almost everyday for months now. Writing. Rewriting. Adding characters and action. Correcting some really terrible mistakes I had made in the original storyline. It's been a really fun project. Lots of humor and action.

Today I wrote 'The End', at last. 

Now comes the 'write/rewrite/rewrite' task. I've started on it today as well. After a couple of typo/phrasing passes to reacquaint myself with the story line, I'm going to start at square one and add interest and action to the base story.

Then I go back and recheck for typos and content.

Wish me luck!

A quick update...

 Yesterday, we baked a Chicken Pot Pie for lunch and made a simple salad. Dessert was a mixed-berry cobbler with ice cream! We had some friends over to share it and then play some games. 

It was so good. 

Today I read more of a story by a new author I found on Amazon, Chris Tullbane. His series about John Smith, a detective with an unintentional paranormal clientele is action packed and tons of fun.

Chris Tullbane series check it out!

After lunch to finish off the chicken pot pie and cobbler, it was time for a short nap. I find 'naps' one of retirement's greatest benefits. I wake up refreshed and calm.

After a post-nap cup of coffee, I hit my Nerd Cave to write another couple of chapters in my WIP, 'Auntie Renita's Galactic Motel'. It's a SciFi adventure with a sense of humor. My kind of story. I'm having a ball with it. With any luck I'll be able to publish it next month! Keep you fingers crossed.

It's been a slog at times to push this story forward. I'm trying very hard to add 'meat' to the story line and keep you interested in the characters and plot. That means lots of rewriting and editing. That's a good thing. Time consuming, but the result will be something I'm proud of and that hopefully you will enjoy.

I have other stories waiting in the wings. Some will end up as short stories and some have the protentional to be full-fledged novels!

I can't wait to finish Auntie Renita's and move on to my next story. I find it hard to ignore those stories calling from the corners of my mind while I try to finish my WIP. 

Have a great week everyone!

Cold Saturday morning...

 Brrr! It's 59 outside with snow in the forecast for next week!

In Texas!!! ;-)

One of my #WIP stories takes place in the Panhandle of Texas near Levelland where I was born. I remember those hot, dusty summer days that seemed to last forever. Mom kicked us out of the house right after a bowl of thick, pasty oatmeal made the pressure cooker pot. No sugar. No milk. Just hot sticky oats, boiled into a grey mush. Yum...

"Don't get into trouble and stay out of the back lot!" she would yell as we tore out the back screen door. Sure, what possible trouble could we get into on a 4 acre lot with huge elm trees, a wash house, water well shed and a rickety old horse barn in the back of the lot? ;-)

Clods were our favorite weapon, right after 'stickery weeds' and cottonwood stick swords. Mom went through a whole big bottle of Mercurochrome and several boxes of band aids every summer. Yes, Mercurochrome. The stuff that was banned in the late 90s because it contains mercury. And it stung like blue blazes!

My story is set in the early 1900s, when land in the Panhandle was dirt cheap (pun intended) and the prairie 'Dust Bowl' era was ending. The Great Drought that started in the 1930s finally ended and soil conservation steps helped the land heal at last. How would you like to look out your back door and see this coming?

It centers around a family struggling to scratch a living from the soil with their last few dollars invested in the land. A few livestock, a used tractor and a small farm house is all they have.

We forget today how hard the previous generations had it here in America. Our prosperity is a direct result of their hard work and suffering. Families around the World had it just as bad if not worse that Americans, I know, I read history books. We would all do well to remember all of them, for our daily lives are infinitely better than theirs because they strove to make it that way.

Writing about the Dust Bowl era has given me a new respect for my grandparents and great grandparents and all of their families.

I hope your 2025 provides you with opportunities to live life to the fullest and share what you have with those who have less.