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Reprieve From Summer

It’s still in the 60s in the middle of summer? 🌈PARADISE!😎 I’m enjoying every minute of it.

Reprieve From Politics

The political ads are driving me bats. 🦇🦇 Having to listen to Creepy Joe and his designated VP lie continuously about basically everything is damned near intolerable. 🖕 Having to listen to them not address the chaos in the streets is infuriating. 😠 Can’t wait til the election is over.

More Happy News

Allan is back to his schoolwork and has been getting very good grades.

Dorothy is enjoying her cosmetology school and seems to be learning the skills she’ll need.

Emmeline & Connor will soon begin classes in earnest albeit virtually. Hopefully, they’ll be able to return to the classroom next semester.

Rose, Larkin and Lysander are still fuzzy and cute.

Kelly is still shapely, sexy and vivacious.

Less Happy News

I’m still waiting for my job offer to come through. It’s been a bit of a slog getting this far. We’ll see what comes of the wait.

I’m having some difficulty breathing of late. When I get stressed, my chest tightens up and constricts my breathing.

Everyone thinks I’m sighing grumpily about something but, no, I simply can’t breathe.

World Building

How to Create & Use a Worldbuilding Bible

The advantages of working in a story world that is very similar to our own are that people can take most things for granted. You only need to explain the differences. This makes writing stories in the Sentinelsverse easier than completely original settings such as those found in Auringia or the Far-Flung Reaches of the galaxy.

I decided last year that the Holiday Season Serial Romances would also take place in the Sentinelsverse even if they don’t feature any of the superhero characters. Last year’s did feature some intervention from Mary Christmas. This year’s probably won’t unless I slip in a cameo.

I’ve been doing a fair amount of study to get Auringia’s fantasy world set in my head. I already have a large piece I had been writing by hand back in the 90s. There are aspects of the story that I know will stay. There are some that need to be tweaked. This setting is a bit more complete than the Far-Flung Reaches, but I still need to nail down some of the details.

Outer space adventures have certain conventions that people have come to expect. I’ve been watching some sci-fi to pick the bits I want to include in the Far-Flung stories.

There are a lot of different ways to handle an outer space story. Star Trek, Star Wars, Star Blazers, The Expanse, The Black Hole, Wing Commander, Battlestar Galactica, Alien, Predator, Space 1999, Tom Corbett, Rocky Jones, Flash Gordon, Buck Rogers and so many others have their own take on what goes down in outer space. Each of these franchises has a lot to offer conceptually and visually.

I haven’t settled on a time period yet. It needs to be far enough into the future to make the events of today relatively obscure and academic but not so far in the future as to require enormous assumptions about future leaps in technology. Definitely a work in progress.

Solid 🤑 Cash

The only sensible ends of literature are, first, the pleasurable toil of writing; second, the gratification of one’s family and friends; and lastly, the solid cash. ~Nathaniel Hawthorne

The pleasurable toil of writing definitely comes first. If it’s not pleasurable, you won’t toil. People choose to be writers because we are compelled to tell our stories. I’ve got notebooks full of evidence.

As to the gratification of family and friends, back in Mr. Hawthorne’s day he had the luxury of being one of the most entertaining people around. In these days of streaming content, nobody can take for granted that family or friends will spare you a moment to have you read your latest masterpiece to them.

We do have the blessing of instant global communication. Even if family and friends can’t be bothered to listen to your current bit of work, you can plug into a voracious base of readers and potential fans. So much the better. If your captive audience isn’t into the genre in which you prefer to write, it could be very discouraging not to be able to share your work with anyone.

Even in the days of Mr. Hawthorne, you had to have some scratch to get on in life. Writing for writing’s sake is one thing if it’s a hobby. Writing like you mean it is meant to result in revenue.

Some of the figures I’ve heard from indie authors on YouTube are rather dizzying. Thing is, you can only achieve these numbers if you’re “doing it right”. I’d like to get a firmer grip on what “doing it right” consists of.

What I do know is that it takes some time to build up the fan base necessary to achieve a sustainable income. What I also know is that worldwide calamities can drastically impact your sustainable income. I got the idea that I might have jumped on the train a bit too late, but I don’t think that is the case.

Even in these troubled times, people still seem to be buying entertainment of every kind. Knowing what the proper strategies are these days is hard to discern but giving people what they want will always result in profit.