Getting It Written

If you read my blog, you probably believe the life of this writer is pretty glamorous. I travel around the country and around the world, collecting experience and background for the stories I write. I run around naked in the desert (or the Palouse), dancing and howling at the moon. And every few months or so, I magically release another book.

Oh, my friends, how I wish it were true!

In the three weeks of February past, I’ve spent 23 hours editing and formatting a client project. I’ve spent 53 hours rewriting my next big release, Wild Woods. And I’ve spent 42 hours in the guise of my alter ego, Devon Layne, writing his next erotic novel, Double Take Book 2. All of those numbers are keyboard time on the project. They don't include the hours I spend proofreading, editing, and formatting my books. They don’t include hours of research that I go through to make the stories authentic or so I can understand another author’s work.

“What is the 5k running time for competitive female high school runners in Indiana?”

“What music would a classical guitarist and a flautist play in a recital?” (hint: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PL54JVjPqRWsEWgQEsx5pi2k3dRqCM00At)

“What thorny bushes are native to Northeastern Pennsylvania and which invasive species would survive in a hickory forest if introduced.”

“What is a glass cockpit and how does it affect how pilots fly their planes?”

Just a few of the things I’ve had to learn this week.

Most of my day is spent sitting in my writing chair (substitute desk) working on one of these projects and trying to have a modicum of a life outside. The past week, it has been easy to stay inside as temperatures have routinely been in the 30s at night and rain has been falling at an uncommon rate in the desert. So, I’m afraid there isn’t much in the way of pictures this week. It’s all been writing and editing.

Here’s a little insight into the process I’m going through rewriting Wild Woods. First, I say ‘rewrite’ instead of edit. So far, in 300 pages of rewritten material (70,000 words), I haven’t used copy and paste from my first draft at all. I’ve typed every one of those 379,000 characters. Why? Because in retyping, I rewrite. I find simpler ways to say things. I find better word choices. And I quickly pass over the amount of diddly garbage I wrote in the first draft.

This is not editing. When my story editors, Michele, Michelle, and Lyndsy, got hold of the first draft in November and December, they scribbled all over it. “What? Who is this? This is lazy writing. Is this person important later? I have a hard time keeping track of all your red herrings. Ha-ha!” After reading their comments and frequent line-outs, I put a Band-Aid on my ego and started making my own notes.

“This subplot isn’t going anywhere. Delete.” “Can’t have kids this age in chapter two based on what happens in the ninth chapter.” “Stop preaching and tell the story.” There are days when I read two or three chapters (They are long at 8-9,000 words each.) just so I have a better feeling for the flow and can identify holes that need to be plugged to facilitate later action.

And then I type.

When this draft is completed, sometime in the next two weeks, I’ll reread the entire story and continue to edit and tighten before I send it to my proofreaders. And when it comes back, voilà! I’ll have churned out another lovely story on which I have bled for the past six months.

You can help! After eight months on sale, City Limits has only four reviews on Amazon, all 5-star, and none on Barnes & Noble. It has three reviews and two ratings on Goodreads, averaging a 4.33-star rating. It’s a good book. It needs more reviews, especially as I start moving toward the release of Wild Woods in June.

Please read and review this book!

If you can’t purchase the book for any reason, you can read it online for free at http://www.nathaneverett.com/releases/citylimits/. I don’t often flat-out beg for help, but I need your reviews! I don’t think you’ll regret taking the time to read City Limits!

And then, you’ll be all set to start Wild Woods soon.

Doing a Thing

I love how cultural clichés work into every day language. I read online about various friends who are ‘doing a thing’ and I often think how silly that phrasing is. But this past week, I found myself using the phrase in a Facebook post to refer to plans I’ve made that I’m not quite ready to announce but I’m too excited about to keep quiet. And so, ‘doing a thing’ became the shortcut to share my tiny bit of excitement without saying what it was. Now I'll say what the thing is.

Three years ago, I turned my back on the Hawaiian sunrise and set off West. Around the world. It was one of the greatest adventures of my life. I saw places and met people I will always cherish. So, my announcement on Facebook last week that “I’ve started the process of preparing to do the thing. Target: October 19” is to say that I’m going to do it again. This time I have a list of places I’ve never been before and a few places I simply need to return to.

The trigger for starting the process of preparing was reaching a milestone in my savings. I wanted to make this trip last year but unexpected expenses wiped out my savings and I couldn’t imagine ever getting to that level again. But I devoted myself to living an extremely frugal life since then. I chose my winter campground, for example, because I could stay here for six months for $1300. Food and fuel are cheap and I seldom venture outside my trailer.

The biggest expense of an around-the-world trip is airfare and transportation. I give both of those because, like last time, I plan to spend my time in Europe traveling by train. And possibly the time in India, too. I contacted my travel agent who set me up on such great flights the last time and his word was that I should keep planning but it was too early to buy tickets. In fact, he won’t be able to book most of the trip until mid-summer. But here is my proposed routing.

Seattle to Shanghai and/or Hong Kong. Investigation so far indicates that it is cheaper to fly to both these locations than to fly through Tokyo. Too bad. I seriously considered spending some time in Japan but when it comes down to that or the two great cities of China, it’s not contest. Traveling as a single ‘older’ man to these locations is frightening to say the least. No language, no guide, no contacts. What a way to get my feet wet for this part of the adventure.

I’ve often pondered how my Northern Hemisphere mindset affected my pagan beliefs. So, I think a great way to challenge them is to spend my high holiday of the year, winter solstice, down under where it is summer solstice instead. Australia and New Zealand are at the top of my list to spend December. And besides, I promised my daughter that when I go south of the equator, I’ll get that tattoo I’ve talked about for years. She might even join me there for the holiday.

From Australia, it is a return to two places I’ve enjoyed in the past—Singapore and Chiang Mai, Thailand. I wasn’t and am not particularly enthused about Bangkok, especially if I’m spending some time wandering around Singapore before I get there. (Pepper crabs!) But I can’t wait to spend a month in Thailand at the fabulous Enchanted Garden Bungalows. I feel like I made friends with Steve, Wanchai, and Janie on my last trip and found it to be one of the most beautiful and peaceful places on earth. January seems like a perfect time to spend there.

I’ve worked for several years with another author and adventurer, Mark Sawyer, who has given me so many good insights on India that I can’t pass up the opportunity to go there this time.

I expect to make the journey from Chennai to Mumbai overland, seeking out the holy mountain, Arunachula, and some of the people and fabulous sights Mark has described over the years. From Mumbai, I’m head back to Greece.

This is where Eurail will kick in again for my longest overland journey… I’m guessing about two months. On my last journey, I went north from Greece and toured Central Europe. This time, I want to go through Southern Europe along the Mediterranean Sea. This will include a return to some places dear to me.

I need to return to Metéora in Thessaly. Back to Rome. To see Monaco (James Bond fan). To return to the Camargue in France and then Barcelona. And I want to get to Gibraltar. I’ve never been on the continent of Africa, so it seems that a hop down to Tangier in Morocco would suit my tastes, even if I don’t make it all the way to Casablanca. Then up to Portugal where several friends who have visited recently have told me fabulous tales of the wine… and architecture and art, of course.

Assuming they still allow Americans into the country, I want to spend a fair amount of time (a month?) in the UK. First, to visit my friends, Jo, Sassy, and Michelle. That will take me from London to Cambridge to Scotland. But in between is a place that settled so deeply in my heart on my first visit in 1970 that I’ve written about it in four books and I simply must return: Keswick and the Lake District. I will return to Carles Castlerigg stone circle.

Photo by Rob Bendall, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=15746841

Six or seven months after I start this great adventure, I’ll return to my camp in Idaho by way of Seattle and spend the rest of the summer spinning tales of my adventures and writing my next great novel.

All a pipe-dream? I’m certainly not saying that the itinerary is set in stone. My agent will have ideas for routing. I've allowed too much time in Australia and New Zealand to allow the kind of time I want in Thailand and Southern Europe. My friends along the way will have ideas for who and when I should visit. And my limited funds will certainly dictate how long I stay in certain places. I can stay in Thailand for little more than I stay at Quartzsite. I can probably afford only a day or two in Singapore.

Do you have a couch I can surf for a few days along the way? Want to travel alongside for part of the journey? I want to meet more people, see more things, do more stuff. I’ll be 70 years old and I think that’s just young enough to enjoy this trip!

Where Did the Time Go?

This morning, I’m thinking that caption should go on the California DMV website. I went online to buy new tabs for my trailer on December 31, only to discover that if there was a change of address, I had to mail my renewal. And, California has no grace period, so mailing the renewal on January 2 meant it would cost $20 extra. The price went up every week.

So, I filled out the form, found the special envelope that said “Expedite: California DMV”, went to Blythe, and mailed the renewal along with my check, including the late fee. It’s now February 10, over a month since I sent it in, and the check still hasn’t been cashed. I’m pretty sure the fee for getting my tabs is now well over $300. Not amused.

I suppose the same could be said of me since it has been nearly a month since I updated this blog. Wow! Where did the time go?

Here in Quartzsite AZ, there is a winter phenomenon. In mid-January, the population goes from 2,000 to 250,000 as the Quartzsite PowWow, The Quartzsite RV show, and the Quartzsite Gem and Mineral show draw even more crowds than the Quartzsite 70 degrees and sunny show. One unfortunate side-effect is that Verizon has no concept that traffic increases in January and data speeds slow to a crawl. Seriously, half the time I can’t check Facebook or email. That slow. So much for unlimited high speed internet.

So, I didn’t do much internetting until I headed out for Las Vegas on the 20th. I was in disguise and changing appearance every day as I adopted the persona of author Devon Layne, writer of adult romance and adventure.

That’s my South American dictator disguise.

Of course, I was there for professional reasons. That was the week of the Adult Entertainment Expo and Devon is on the fringe of that industry with several acquaintances. He’s been trying to interest producers in scripts that actually have a storyline and dialog. Not much chance of that, but getting together with some of my favorite professionals in the industry is always worth the trip.

That was my Western Sheriff disguise.

A high point of the week, though, was meeting up with some of my friends from up north and enjoying the gaming, nightlife, and food of Las Vegas.

I was in my hip old man disguise there.

Well, it was a good week even though Doug and Colleen tried to get me to eat crawdads. Mike and I enjoyed a few good cigars. And we all got dolled up to go out and party one night.

So, after a week of leaving everything behind in Las Vegas, I headed back south for Quartzsite. I was surprised to find the desert had turned green in my absence. Water does such funny things.

I thought I was on top of everything. I got my Washington Business taxes filed. I even did my annual report (not due till end of February). I paid Mark his royalties for the past year of $14. I formatted and uploaded a new book, got my websites updated, and have gained 26 new patrons on Patreon since the last time I posted here. Life’s been good to me so far!

I’m still in disguise and several times was mistaken for “That guy on Jurassic Park”, Richard Attenborough. Apparently, they didn’t realize he died four years ago. So, several people got photos with the dead-at-90 actor.

Writing is progressing apace. January saw me already 30,000 words ahead of my writing pace goal, even with a few days of enforced wordlessness.

The major project on my desk as of February 1 is Wild Woods, the sequel to my popular novel of last year, City Limits. With the notes of my excellent editors in hand, I’m estimating Wild Woods will only require about a 50% rewrite rather than the 90% that City Limits needed. Whoopee! At the moment, I’m declaring myself to still be on-target for a June 2019 release.

Well, that’s my news of the day. No telling what will come next!

Giving Back What I Can

I don’t have a lot of new pictures of fun adventures to share this week, so I’ll use book covers. We had a big ‘yard’ sale in the RV park Saturday and I sold a book! What a treat, however, to find that two other people came by to tell me they had already read or were reading City Limits and enjoying it.

Those are kind people who buy books. I’ve seen precious few of those around in the past year. On the other hand, I’ve started giving them away. It’s what I can do.

Back in April, before I officially released City Limits, I serialized it online. For free! If you like or tolerate reading books online instead of having a physical or electronic copy downloaded to your fingertips, check this out. I worked hard to make a good reading experience for you at http://www.nathaneverett.com/releases/citylimits/.

Releasing it for free before it released commercially helped sales as I had people buying the book who had already read it or part of it. I’ll do the same with Wild Woods when it releases this spring.

But I discovered over the years there are many readers who can’t or don’t afford books, yet love to read. I understand that. The price of a $15 paperback is the same as a steak dinner at our local restaurant here in Quartzsite—including tip. A $5 eBook is the same price as a meal at home. I’m very careful about what I buy. My income isn’t getting any bigger!

So I followed up the release of City Limits with For Money or Mayhem, a Dag Hamar mystery. Once again, chapters were read online 75,000 times! For free! Sales of For Money or Mayhem on Amazon were the highest since its release with phenomenal new reviews. Now you can read the book online for free at http://www.nathaneverett.com/releases/money/.

It was with a little worry that I decided to release my most popular novel, The Gutenberg Rubric online. But the people who were writing to me and commenting often mentioned that they would never have been able to buy one of my books and were grateful that I was publishing them where they could access them for free. I began posting The Gutenberg Rubric online for free in October and it became my highest rated of the three books, scoring 8.6 out of 10 in reader votes. And there were matching sales online from those who could purchase the book and wanted to support the author. Now you can read The Gutenberg Rubric on my site for free at http://www.nathaneverett.com/releases/gutenberg/.

The latest entry into the field started free posting this week: For Blood or Money. My first published novel, For Blood or Money has been a staple of my backlist, seemingly rediscovered repeatedly. Now I’m offering it at no charge to readers who can’t afford it.

“Nathan, why was there no free reader link?”

The answer is simple. On my website, I release the book first to my sponsors so they get the first glimpse. They pay for making it available to other readers for free. As a result, they get to read it first. These are the people I’m pleased to call my Fellow Traveler Patrons. https://www.patreon.com/join/NathanEverett

I have two Patreon accounts and both provide income that I use for site maintenance, software, conversion of files, and cover art. The other site is for those interested in adult romance and adventure, often with a sexual theme. I protect the Nathan Everett patrons from that but if you are interested in the works of Devon Layne, you might try https://www.patreon.com/join/aroslav. Just this year, Devon has released three lengthy novels for his Advance Release Community before they were available for free to the public.

    

His newest work, Double Take, is currently being made available. Devon’s site, featuring all twenty-eight of his released books is http://www.devonlayne.com/.

It seems the one thing I have an abundance of is words. They might not be great words, but for many people they provide entertainment, inspiration, and even comfort. I’m making those words available to people who cannot or will not afford them as my little gift to the world and with the grateful support of my Patrons.

Another Imaginary Line in the Sand

I've been through the desert on a street with no name 

It felt good to be out of the rain 

In the desert you can remember your name 

'Cause there ain't no one for to give you no pain

Well, it’s that time again. The time when we cross an imaginary line and say, “That is last year and this is this year.” In reality, there is absolutely no difference between Monday, December 31, 2018 and Tuesday, January 1, 2019. Oh, I guess there is one difference. I tried to renew the license plates on my trailer online today and discovered I have to do it by mail because my address changed. California has no grace period, so instead of owing $250 today, I owe $282 tomorrow. Just another arbitrary line in the sand.

While I muse about mortality and boundaries, I thought I’d include a few more pictures of Quinne’s and my adventure when she visited. We spent a day recovering after the rigors of the Cabeza Prieta adventure and then we were on the road again, seeking new ways to exhaust the father. These pictures were taken under the Great Tree of Arizona, 1,020 years old. My 25-year-old daughter looks so young under it.

* * *

I almost understand why people are so obsessed with building a wall between Mexico and the United States. A wall or a fence or an imaginary line in the sand, all symbolize a division between what is mine and what is others’. This side of the border wall is the United States. That side is Mexico. Except it isn’t. The longest unprotected area of the US/Mexico border is in Texas—nearly two-thirds of the entire border. That border is the Rio Grande River. As evidenced by the sections of fence (about 130 miles) currently existing, the route of the wall could be miles inside the US boundary, thus excluding thousands of square miles of US territory, most of it privately owned, from the border of the United States.

I guess that is like saying you have a square mile (640 acres) of property, but you have to fence it ten feet inside the property boundary. Doesn’t sound like you’d lose that much, but your 640 acres is now only 635 acres. It’s unlikely that we’d ever even get an actual reckoning of how much US land lay outside the border wall. Some estimates place it at a little over 200,000 acres. Not that much.

Among the places Quinne and I visited was the Poston Memorial. This section of the Colorado River Indian Reservation was taken over to provide a concentration camp for Japanese Americans during World War II. Overnight in 1942, it became the second largest city in Arizona as panicked Americans fenced in American citizens because of their race.

* * *

I guess the idea of fencing and walls and lines in the sand are not just to define what is mine and yours, but also to raise a barrier to my fears of anything that is different than me. Whether it is the color of skin, the economic condition, the shape of eyes, the language spoken, or the god worshiped, we would rather raise a wall or draw a line in the sand and keep ‘other’ away.

On Kofa Mountain, known to the campers on the BLM as “Homer,” is a place called Palm Canyon. It’s a half-hour walk from the parking lot to a sign that points to the sight. Another mile away, you can barely see a canyon with the only stand of California Palms native in Arizona.

* * *

I draw lines, too. Most of them, I call chapters. Some, I call books. I even put spaces between the 880,000 words I wrote this year. But sadly, the lines on the calendar separate me from one age to the next. It is another day and another year and another few hours of writing that I have to do.

On Christmas Eve, I had to take my little girl back to Palm Springs so she could catch her plane back to Seattle. We stopped for a yummy Italian dinner before I took her to the airport.

* * *

So here is the line I’m drawing this year. I’m looking for five friends to share my life with. I don’t know who they are, but I know what they are.

• The inspired
• The motivated
• The open-minded
• The passionate
• The grateful

Which are you? We have some good times waiting for us on the other side of the line!

Into the Wilderness

I need only one ingredient to make life more interesting: my daughter. She arrived on Tuesday and already I’ve seen more of the Southwest and the area around Quartzsite than in all my previous time here. And that has not been at the detriment of our writing. We are both continuing to work on our projects and making good progress. But we also found time to teach Quinne pickleball with my friends Wanda and Brian. And to visit the Hi Jolly monument in the local graveyard.

THE LAST CAMP OF

HI JOLLY

BORN SOMEWHERE IN SYRIA

ABOUT 1828

DIED AT QUARTZSITE

DECEMBER 16, 1902

CAME TO THIS COUNTRY

FEBRUARY 10, 1856

CAMELDRIVER - PACKER

SCOUT - OVER THIRTY 

YEARS A FAITHFUL AID

TO THE U.S. GOVERNMENT

ARIZONA

HIGHWAY DEPARTMENT 1935

 Isn’t it great that here in the Southwest, there is a monument to a Arab immigrant of Syrian and Ottoman parentage named 'Ali al-Hajaya and called Hi Jolly by his compatriots, for his 30 years of service to the US Government? He set up the US Army camel experiment and drove camels in the Southwest for thirty years.

The other grave pictured above is of a Quartzsite pioneer and is one of the few wood board headstones still in the cemetery. One of the more interesting cemeteries I’ve seen. Quinne and I were discussing the idea that you could simply compile the information on the gravestones and then write an entire fictional account of this town.

Solstice dawned beautifully on Friday and that was the cue for Quinne and I to set out on a great adventure. We had to start planning this a couple of months ago by getting special backcountry permits to enter the Cabeza Prieta National Wildlife Reserve. https://www.fws.gov/refuge/Cabeza_Prieta/

The permit includes the Western Barry M. Goldwater Range managed by the Marines and used for weapons testing. But that’s the only access from the Western side of the Reserve and we would have had to drive all the way around via Gila Bend to Organ Pipe National Monument in order to enter from the east. Getting the permit required that we watch a fifteen-minute video on all the different ways we could die while visiting.

The welcome sign was clear.

The road from Wellton, AZ is called El Camino del Diablo, or Road of the Devil, named for the hundreds of people traveling it on foot over the centuries who have died of thirst there. A few graves are still visible. To us, the road didn’t look all that bad, though it was a little rough at first. The military drag huge tires down the road to fill the ruts with sand. That means you get a lot of fishtailing in loose sand as you drive. We spent most of the 120-mile trip in 4-wheel drive.

“The Road of the Devil” is a rough, unpaved route which begins in Altar and Caborca Mexico and crosses southwestern Arizona, ending in Yuma. Prehistoric peoples used the route to transport shells and salt from the Gulf of California. Spanish soldiers led by Melchior Diaz in 1540 were the first Europeans to travel this route. More than 150 years later, the Jesuit priest, Father Kino, traveled the region while exploring for routes to California. After the discovery of gold in California in 1849, thousands traveled the Camino in search of gold and new lives. Historians estimate more than 400 people died of thirst on the Camino during the 1850s. At one time, at least 50 graves could be identified along the route. Today the area [part of which is listed on the National Register of Historic places] is under restoration. Please stay on the road and help us protect this historic resource.

Luke AFB Natural Resources Management

Of course, that was just the military reservation. After we’d managed the 30 miles of sandy and colorful ‘primary’ road, we finally got to the reserve. It might help to mention why we were there. Ten years ago, Quinne completed her first full NaNoWriMo (2007) of 50,000 words. She wrote a book that has kept her busy editing and rewriting ever since and it is now in it’s final proofreading following Michele’s full edit. The book, Race Through Fire, is a teen survival story pitting teams against each other in a race across the desert. I found this 2007 image I created for her banner.

She set the book in the Cabeza Prieta Wilderness, but had never been here. So, we decided to correct that now that she is in the final edit of the book. Wow!

The day was a bit overcast, but the desert was filled with color and stark contrasts. During the entire day, we saw exactly four other humans. All Border Patrol officers (working without pay, by the way, since the government shutdown hit that day). About 15 slow miles into the wilderness at speeds varying from 5-20 miles per hour and lots of stops, we stopped for lunch at Tule Well where the road forks. The choice was to continue on El Camino del Diablo to Organ Pipe and Aja (50 miles) or head generally north on Christmas Pass Road to Tacna (50 miles). It was already half past two and it gets dark out here a little after five on Solstice, so we headed north toward I-8.

We took the road less traveled. In fact, within a mile there was little sign that anyone else had traveled this road in a long, long time. We had to stop and get out to look at signs periodically to make sure we were on the road and not on one of the ‘restricted’ areas. The final two hundred yards to Christmas Pass took us more than half an hour to navigate with Quinne walking backwards in front of the truck guiding me around rocks and away from the edge of the gully next to it.

We made it, and north of the pass, the road (a ‘secondary’ road) was clear and if not smooth, at least I could navigate around the worst washouts. Unfortunately, this entire road was very narrow with trees and cacti growing out into it. I’ll be taking the truck in to get it washed tomorrow, but I don’t know how much of this will buff out.

Nonetheless, we had an incredible adventure—possibly the most memorable Solstice celebration ever.

And to cap it all off, my daughter finally figured out the truth about Santa Claus.

I have her for another day before we need to track toward Palm Springs to get her a flight home on Christmas Eve. Today will be either going to see the Intaglio or going to Mexico or going to see London Bridge. Whatever, we’ll have another adventure.

More in the New Year!