Gonna Be Another Hot Day

So, you Californians who moved here to Seattle for the mild climate and then changed it all to LA heat… I mean, there has to be some reason, right? Expected to hit 100 today and as high in the area as 110-115 tomorrow. That just isn’t right. But let me remind you there is no such thing as global warming.

It reminds me of that time back in college—1969-70, I think—when it was 110 in the Shade. Not the temperature, but the musical. What a fun time when we closed up production of Hamlet and started the winter musical, 110 in the Shade.

I worked tech on the show, so none of those actors are me. And it was the middle of winter in Indianapolis, so the temperature was lucky to reach 10 in the shade, but they acted it all out and it was a refreshing show.

Well, we’re all lying on the floor with the fans blowing on us, trying to stay cool. It’s 91 at noon here today and still climbing.

Enough reminiscing, I suppose. What am I writing?

The answer is “Not much this week.” I’ve released the first five chapters of my new fantasy, Jackie the Beanstalk to Tier 3 patrons this morning. I stalled a little, but had a good lunchtime conversation with my alpha reader, Les, and I know what direction it’s headed now and what I need to put down when I switch documents this afternoon.

Eighteen-year-old Jackie is surprised at her high school graduation when she’s given the keys to her grandfather’s mint condition 1968 Fairlane 500 Fastback. Jackie, her 25-year-old Aunt Misty, and dog Roadkill, jump in the car to start a road trip that leads them straight into an alternate reality. Jackie discovers she is a Warrior Wizard and her ever present basketball is a powerful weapon. Of course, her entire graduation cap and gown and regalia are weapons, as well! And it’s amazing what she can do with a pocketful of beans.

Now if she could just convince herself that this is real and not just a dream…

Monsters and ogres and werewolves and ghosts and giants… Oh, yes! And a dragon. All she needs now is to defeat the opposing army that faces her newly acquired friends!

On the Devon Layne front, I’ve set a one-month sales record for my newest book with over 600 copies sold in the month! Team Manager: SWISH!  is doing well. I’ve finished writing the sequel and am ready to start working on the next volume.

But since Living Next Door to Heaven won 2^nd place in the Classic Clitorides awards this year, a sudden uptick in interest in the series has prompted me to prepare a new edition of the ten-volume epic. So, I’ve been working on that this week as well. I expect the first five volumes ready by next week.

When I’m not writing or editing or formatting or planning, I’m helping out around my friends’ house as he recovers from hip-replacement surgery. There are the dogs, the cooking, and the icepack to tend to! He’s coming through great, but chafes against the enforced immobility during recovery.

Well, that’s the news from Lake Woebegone. Carry on.

Fumbling along

Happy Fathers' Day to all those who are fathers, have fathers, have acted like a father, or were just a good friend. I can clearly remember the day I became a father (judged either by the act that planted the seed or the result of the fertilization)!

That little baby was here this morning to make a lovely Fathers' Day brunch and sit around talking about her wedding plans. Hard to believe she's 28!
We also talked about what series we were watching on Netflix, and what the characters were doing in my new book. Some fun! I'm currently involved with three series, all of which are fun quests.

First on my current list is The Shannara Chronicles. An Elvish tree, known as the Ellcrys, is dying. The bad news is that the tree has been the only piece of magic that protects the Four Lands from the Demon World. Amberle Elessedil is the only one who can save the tree. But she has to unlock magic that the Elves haven't used in thousands of years. With the help of Wil Ohmsford, she travels to find the lost magic. But it won't be an easy task. Written by Chris Green, based on the novels by Terry Brooks

Next is Shadow and Bone. In a world where dark forces have taken over, a young mapmaker, Alina Starkov, accidentally discovers that she has the power to change the fate of the war. She is the only one who has the power to summon light and this will make her play a key role in this war. Written by Cinemoviez

Finally, there is The Untamed. 

Sixteen years ago, the cultivation world was ruled over by five clans: Gusu Lan, Yunmeng Jiang, Qinghe Nie, Qishan Wen, and Lanling Jin. The carefree Wei Wuxian becomes fast friends with the righteous Lan Wangji, and during their adventures, the pair find out that the head of the Wen clan is the evil mastermind behind a series of plots that would wreak havoc upon the lands. Wei Wuxian's attempts to protect the innocent members of the Wen clan from unfair persecution leads to disaster, and he passes away in the process. Wei Wuxian reappears sixteen years later, and works together with good friend Lan Wangji to solve a series of murder mysteries, eventually finding and defeating the true culprit.

Those are merely the top of the dozen or so movies and serials I'm in the midst of watching. But, they represent what I'm currently working on--a quest story.

Jackie the Beanstalk. I'm ten chapters into writing this story and half the time I'm laughing. The other half, I'm thinking "How do I get her out of this one?"

Jackie is a fresh high school graduate, still in her cap and gown when she is given the keys to her grandfather's 1968 Ford Fairlane 500 Fastback 390. Jackie, her Aunt Misty, and her dog Roadkill jump in the car and take off following an old fashioned TripTik map into an alternate dimension. In this new dimension, Jackie is a Warrior Wizard encountering robbers, mountain monsters, ogres, rival clans, obstreperous customs officials, a stowaway princess, an adopted bobcat kitten, werewolves, ghosts, giants, and dragons--all on her way to rescuing the Sovereign's kidnapped son. As she travels, she discovers her magic powers, and the powers of all the weapons she carries--her cap and gown, honor cords, stole, basketball, and things she picks up along the way--including a pocketful of magic beans.

Probably not a children's story, because there is some language and adult jokes, but a fun read for adults who like to read YA novels. I expect to finish this one in the next couple of weeks! 

That's my story for this week. Happy Fathers' Day!

What I do with all my time

Fun times have come to Sun Meadow. This week we started afternoon ‘Hand and Foot’ card games. I won’t explain the entire game, but suffice it to say that I really enjoy playing and chatting with the others who join in. I spend a couple of hours each afternoon up at the lodge to play. That is two hours I’ve reserved just to relax and not think about anything else. Much.

I was asked by a reader the other day, how much time I spend writing and researching each day. I thought about it briefly. Even with my two hours out of the day to play cards with other old folks like myself, I spend around eight to ten hours a day writing, researching, proofreading, editing, and formatting my books. Here’s an example of the writing portion back when I was still keeping track of my time on projects. (I abandoned tracking everything because I just didn’t have time to keep these records and had already answered the question satisfactorily for myself.)

Those are the writing hours on one project at a time when I was working on three, and preparing two books for publication in December, and re-reading/editing/designing a series for special re-release editions for my patrons. But it gives you an idea of how fast I work and how long when I’m writing a first draft of a new book.

Remember that first draft has to be re-written a couple of times before it goes out to various editors who send it back to me all marked up. I read those returned manuscripts as I decide whether each correction needs to be made. Sometimes they are a matter of opinion regarding a correct word or punctuation. Sometimes I discover that I really didn’t say something correctly and I need to re-write again.

I typically produce four ‘final’ versions of each book. I do all my own coding, formatting, cover design, and posting of my books. I produce two html versions, one for serialization on StoriesOnline.net and one for release on my own website at either nathaneverett.com or devonlayne.com. Then I design an eBook and a paperback, generating ePUB and PDF files for uploading to major distribution sites.

For the past two-and-a-half months, since I first conceived the idea for the Team Manager series, I have been writing the first draft of a 3,500 word chapter each day. These first draft chapters are followed by my "Sausage Grinder" tier patrons on Patreon. I dreamt the idea for this series on March 14 and started writing furiously on March 15. The first volume was published May 25.

But the area that I probably spend the most time on is research. The reader who asked the question speculated that I knew a lot about girls' basketball. He was referring to my newly-released book, Team Manager: SWISH! So I responded with the list of things I’d been researching in order to write the 155,000 words of this book and the 125,000 that I’ve written so far in the sequel.

I’ve researched the history of girls’ basketball in Iowa, dating from 1924 forward, the creation of the IGHSAU, 6-on-6 basketball (abandoned in 1994), corn production in Iowa, hog production in Iowa, the Omaha District of the DEA (Drug Enforcement Administration), the Iowa Department of Criminal Investigation, the relevant state and national laws on moonshine and distilling, the tournament schedules and results of the state basketball and track tournaments, eye surgery, corrective lenses, makes and models of AR15 type rifles, school year schedules, weather patterns, Title IX, driver’s license qualifications, hay production and process, various tractor types and manufacturers, stretching and warmup exercises, SPARQ fitness testing, shared education programs with local community colleges, drug trafficking and sex trafficking, cheerleader competitions, sizes of basketballs, weights of shot puts, how to become a referee, Child Protective Services, athletic taping techniques, residential mental and behavioral inpatient centers, jobs for the handicapped, lethal doses of fentanyl and alcohol, wood chippers, Family and Consumer Sciences, sports management responsibilities, personal training vs. athletic training, choroidal folds, and Old Mother West Wind stories. Just as a sampling.

That doesn’t include things like searching for cover art, type fonts, reference photos for characters, national sports records and rule books, the cost of uniforms, the difference between silage and fodder, the difference between pig, hog, and boar, aerial photos of towns and sports fields, maps, the sizes and specifications of various basketballs, and what’s in a standard sports first aid kit.

Those are all for one series. I’m working on three different series at the moment. It’s not difficult for me to spend hours link surfing. I just pretend I have a reason to.

When it comes down to it, I spend all my time coming up with new ways to entertain people with my words. I don’t write for a living; I write to live.