Doing my part--I hope

This is such a difficult time for people, shut in and out of daily contact with other people. I seldom see anyone nearer than fifty yards as I sit here in an all but deserted RV park, waiting out the storm. But I'm trying to use my time productively, which includes not only writing and editing, but making my entire list of books available for free online reading at http://www.nathaneverett.com

My latest release is the fourth of my cyber mysteries, Stocks & Blondes.

Deb Riley is on the case again, this time with a dead woman named Georgia and a house full of computers. Georgia’s father doesn’t believe the police finding that she committed suicide. He’s sure there was foul play involved.

He had no idea how foul it was.

Hacking into the computers starts a deadly game as neighbors, friends, and even Georgia, prove not to be what they appear to be. Infiltrating the cabal throws Deb into her deepest disguise ever while trying to balance her real life with a new boyfriend, who might also be different than he appears.

Worse, it puts her in danger of ending up just like Georgia.

This story takes up immediately following Municipal Blondes. Reading them in order is not necessary, but helpful. The good news is that all four of the cyber mysteries are available, including For Money or Mayhem, For Blood or Money, Municipal Blondes, and Stocks & Blondes. All available at http://www.nathaneverett.com.

The newest installment in the adventures of Gee Evars, the man without a memory, is Wild Woods.

Gee Evars wandered into town without a memory, just in time to dive in a raging river and save the life of a toddler. He became a hero and the city champion. His greatest accomplishment was bringing together the City’s prized hickory Forest and the adjoining Wild Woods.

But now Gee is faced with a new reality. The Wild Woods holds secrets and someone needs to manage its exploration and discovery. If the woods has been used to manufacture drugs and to traffic in children, someone needs to go in and find out if anyone is still in danger.

That task falls to Gee and a small army of high school volunteers who are determined to clean their woods and make it safe and welcoming.

And when brainwashed children wander into town, who better to teach them than the man with no memory?

Both the original City Limits and the sequel, Wild Woods, are now available for free online reading at http://www.nathaneverett.com!

My most popular and award-winning novel, The Gutenberg Rubric, is also now available for free online reading!

Just months before the famous Bible that bears his name was finished, Johannes Gutenberg was sued by his partner for misappropriating funds to a private enterprise. When Gutenberg refused to share the secret project, the court awarded the entire Bible-printing operation to Johan Fust, leaving Gutenberg with nothing but his secret. Was it an alchemical formula? A new technology? A heretical treatise? Or something far more dangerous? Why would Gutenberg sacrifice everything?

Brilliant, eccentric professor Keith Drucker and rare-books librarian Madeline Zayne are reluctant heroes in a centuries-old search for Gutenberg’s other book. Crossing continents to follow clues from an encoded rubric and stolen manuscript, the couple faces injury, arcane rituals, and biblio-terrorists as they race to find the fabled treasure.

But if they find it, will they survive to tell the world?

This thriller joins the list of my books that are available for your free online reading at http://www.nathaneverett.com

Working to get as many of my books online as possible, I've also updated the presentation of The Volunteer.

Journey inside the head of a chronically homeless man--a man that in a less politically correct age we might have called a hobo. Gerald Good, known now only as G2, volunteered to take the place of a homeless man, believing he would work his way back quickly. Ten years later, twenty... thirty years, find G2 alone in his head, his memories, and his boxcar.

A story without chapters, we follow whatever G2 thinks of as his present at the moment. In delving into his non-linear life, perhaps we can discover what separates the chronically homeless with nothing from those who constantly collect and consume.

And soon, I hope to make the YA Novel, Steven George & The Dragon available as well as others that have never been published. I hope you'll take advantage of this opportunity to read books for free at http://www.nathaneverett.com and that it helps to make your dark days bright. Other books will also be released as I get them formatted.

Enjoy!

author Nathan Everett

Has it really been this long? What a year!

I’m sure you’ve received at least a dozen if not a hundred messages from corporations, banks, stores, governments, and others telling you what they are doing to protect customers and employees from COVID-19. I’m “sheltering in place” at the Tropic Star RV Resort in Pharr, TX where the grounds look rather empty. Of course, in this part of Texas, “sheltering in place” means board up the doors and windows, and head for your safe room because a hurricane is coming. Let us say they have a slightly less intense term for it down here. Instead of a leisurely drive up the Rio Grande Valley and a visit to Big Bend National Park, I look out my window at empty RV parking spots as far as the eye can see.

This is what self-isolation looks like to me.

I will be here for a month yet and then hope travel is permitted again. So, yesterday, I went out to pick up essentials at the grocery store. The line to get in was a block plus long, with everyone respectfully maintaining six feet distance by standing on the marks the store put down on the sidewalk. When a dozen people exited, a dozen were allowed in. I got my eggs, potatoes, bread, and olives. (How can I drink my quarantinis without olives? When I went to the store last week, they were out. Stockpiling olives???)

And I’ve been thinking about what I could do to ‘help out’ in a time like this, besides just staying away from people. One thing I’ve discovered through my vast research on Facebook is that people seem to be reading more. Music to an author’s ears, but people are also worried about surviving on limited income, unemployment, and stock crashes.

So, I’ve decided to offer as many of my books and stories as possible for free online reading.

I’ve been moving this direction for a while now and this week took time away from writing stories to completely revamp my websites and bring more stories online.

Please go explore my website! http://www.nathaneverett.com

There are still a couple of stories I want to get up there. I’ve been writing for forty years and not everything has been published. I’ll probably put a couple more up before the month is over.

By the end of June, I hope to have my newest novel published. It is being edited now and I’ll still have a few rewrites to do. But American Royalty 1: Coming of Age (likely still to be renamed) is getting along well.

I am also in the process of updating my Devon Layne website with all my erotica stories available free for online viewing. There are a lot more stories in that portfolio, so it is likely to take a good bit longer to get it fixed up. Everything is working though. Please visit:

Visit at http://www.devonlayne.com and verify you are really an adult!

I have new stories that I am working on. One is a contemporary adaptation of a book I read many years ago. It started with Mississippi blowing up in a nuclear reactor implosion and proceeded to the discovery that every man on earth had been sterilized by the event. Until it is discovered that one man was a mile deep in a lead mine at the time of the disaster. It’s like ‘duck and cover’ all over again.

I posted a few inquiries and a reader correctly identified the book as Pat Frank’s 1946 novel, Mr. Adam. I’m enjoying working on it, but every time I make up some new and ridiculous behavior on the part of people or the government, I read it the next day in the newspaper. It’s hard to keep up with pushing the envelope!

I have several other works on the docket, including a new Dag Hamar mystery that I have about half of a first draft of. I’ll get back to working on that as well.

Since I write whatever is in my head, I’m sure I’ll have some more exciting adventures upcoming. Stay safe and be well!

Lunch with a homeless man

I update blogs as I travel, including information about where I’m traveling to. So, it wasn’t really a surprise to have a guy from Texas drop me a line saying “When you come through this area, I’d welcome the opportunity to shake hands with my favorite author.” He gave me his phone number and I agreed that I’d give him a call.

I thought I’d arrange to meet him the first time I went into town, but the checkup my cardiologist wanted me to have stretched into most of the day as it started with an EKG and then the doctor down here wanted to get some lab tests and have me get an echocardiogram. Everything, by the way, checked out fine. It turns out that I’m not retaining water. I’m retaining food. Got to get a handle on what I’m eating.

That put me in the middle of evening traffic getting back home and when I checked my map, I discovered the coordinates he’d given me were all the way on the opposite end of town from where my appointments had been. But I enjoy meeting readers and set up to meet him for lunch Saturday. I thought it was a little strange that he repeated his coordinates again rather than suggesting someplace between us as it was 45 miles away from me. But I’m out here to see the country and I was happy for the adventure. His last phrase, however, was “I’m in the black truck with solar panels in the Lowes parking lot.”

So, he wanted to meet me someplace other than home. I could only imagine he lived even more remotely.

Not so. He lived in his black pickup (smaller than mine) with solar panels attached to the windshield. I suggested we grab a sandwich and he jumped in the truck with me and we went about a block away to a sandwich shop.

“Tell me about yourself.”

“I took care of my mom until about two years ago when she passed away. I didn’t know funerals were so expensive. I’ve been living in the truck since then, waiting for my pension to kick in next year.”

He was a nice guy and had read about everything I’ve written under both my author names. We chatted about different places in the country and the stories we’d been told. He had some interesting ideas when I described a science fiction story I’m contemplating writing. Aside from living in his truck in a parking lot he didn’t match up with any of the stereotypes I’ve allowed my mind to make up regarding the homeless. He was clean. His clothes were clean. His eyes were clear.

He told me he could live on $350 a month, not including the storage cubicle where he stored his mother’s things. I can empathize with the latter as my storage cubicle also costs $150 a month beyond my normal expenses. We each bought our own lunches, though his lunch was a bit smaller than mine. They were both under $10. Which tells me he didn’t eat in restaurants often if he could live on $350 a month.

I don’t even know what I want to say I learned from the encounter. I’m still piecing it together. Should I have bought his lunch? Should I have offered him a buck before I left? Should I have investigated his life more fully? He thanked me for looking him up when I came through town and we parted ways.

A week in a two-star hotel

There are no pictures with this post. I haven't been anywhere or done anything.

Monday, I turned my trailer over to Camping World to have the roof replaced. They thought they might be able to finish it in a day but to be safe, I booked two nights at the Ramada. I checked out on Wednesday and went to pick it up, but there was a problem. The gutter rails, which they normally reuse, needed to be replaced. They'd been ordered and would be in at 10 on Thursday. Also, they were having difficulty with the microwave/convection oven replacement. First it was ordering a trim kit, then it was a retired model, then the new model was out of stock. Finally, they said they had a unit in the shop they could install, but it had controls on the side and if they took out the controls on top for the old microwave, there would just be a hole there. So, when this microwave is installed, it will look like I have two sets of controls but only the ones on the side will work.

I checked back into the Ramada for Wednesday. Out on Thursday and spent the day in a Starbucks trying to get some work done while not having anyplace to land. Got to Camping World at 4:00, when they said it would be done, and the part still hadn't been delivered. Back to Ramada. No, the Ramada and every other hotel in the area were booked full for the rest of the weekend because of the Chili Bowl. That's not a chili cookoff event as I initially supposed. It's some kind of midget car race. By the time I found another hotel within the price range that I can't afford no matter how cheap, it was seven miles south in the area known as Broken Arrow.

Checked out again on Friday. Went to Camping World. No part. Rushed back to EconoLodge and managed to book another night. Different room. This time I called Saturday morning and was told that the part still hadn't been delivered so it would be Monday before the trailer is finished. I rushed to the lobby and extended my stay for two more nights. Then I went to Camping World and managed to get into the trailer to get some clean clothes because what I've been wearing for five days was about to rot off my body.

I still went to Starbucks and did my best to get some work done, but all I could concentrate on was formatting and editing. As a result, I only got about 5,000 words written this week. Not my best. If the trailer is ready Monday, it will be too late in the day to travel anywhere, so it will be another night in the Camping World parking lot before I can finally head south. Sheesh!

Well, that's my week. I hope yours has been better. I had no intention of spending a week in hotels and Starbucks!

On the road again… almost

Just a great time!

The day after solstice, I was I was working on a new story and typing madly. I’d had to run an errand and as long as I was out, I stopped at QT to try their coffee. Nothing really to write home about, but it was hot. I quickly sat down at my writing table to get back into the story and proceeded to knock over the flimsy cup and drench my keyboard (and my lap) with hot coffee. Dead computer.

I actually had my backup disk out ready to backup all my files but, of course, I hadn’t done it yet. I settled into a deep funk. That’s how I spent Christmas. But on Monday, I headed to Best Buy and the Geek Squad said no problem. They recovered nearly all my files and I restored them to my other computer. The one with the spill was toast.

Unfortunately, it was only ‘almost’ all my files. The one I was working on and was open on my screen died a horrible death. I had enough recovered, however, that I could recreate the missing part. Everything is backed up now.

I got a nice note from Google maps that included a tracking of all the places I’d visited in 2019. I have location sharing turned on so I can use the GPS on my tablet. Apparently, Google collects all that mapping information and was kind enough to share it with me.

It reminded me, however, that cold weather was forecast in the coming week, so it was time for me to pull up stakes and move south. The time at Will Rogers Downs KOA had been pleasant but bad weather was coming.

I needed some maintenance done, though. Remember my water line leak? And my bent stabilizer jack? And my combination convection/microwave oven that only microwaved? I dropped the trailer off at Camping World and took a room for the night at the Hard Rock Casino/Hotel just up the street. But, when I dropped it off, the inspection pointed out that I’d damaged my roof in a close encounter with a tree limb and hadn’t noted it.

That damage runs almost the full length of the trailer. This time I needed to call the insurance company. The adjuster got out on Friday and approved the repair but since it is a two-day job to replace the entire roof of my trailer, it’s scheduled for Monday morning.

And guess what! Thunderstorms were moving in rapidly with flash flood warnings out all over the county. These guys came out to dry off the broken part of the roof and apply roof tape to temporarily seal the hole so it wouldn’t leak. And then the rain came like gangbusters. I still got some leakage into the trailer along the wall but it would have been much worse without that temporary patch.

So, now I’m "camped" in the parking lot of Camping World so I don’t need a hotel until Monday and Tuesday night while they have the trailer inside to repair the damage, i.e. replace the roof. I was glad to be in the trailer even though Saturday was cold as hell. We had an ice storm and then snow. But if their estimates are correct, I should be able to hit the road by Wednesday or Thursday. Hopefully, this time I’ll make it more than 35 miles!

And in other news, I am working on two new books. My American Royalty 1: Coming of Age has now entered the rewrite and revise stage. I’m still getting comments from beta readers, so there will be a lot going on there. I look at the photo I’ve chosen for the cover and think of all those statues of men on horses I saw in Europe the last time I was there. It seemed like every instruction I got started, “When you leave the train station, there’s a statue of a man on a horse…” Ah well. Wenceslas has nothing on this kid.

I’m still on track to release this new book in June and will be talking to Meghan soon about repeating a release party at her venue.

I’ve also started and am nearly finished with a new Devon Layne work, Things I Never Told My Wife, True confessions of a Shakespearean actor. It all started (so I say) when a fellow was entertaining our table with the story of how he became a nudist. “The truth is, I just like boobs.” Then he hushed suddenly as he glanced around the table. “Don’t tell my wife I said that.” She was sitting right beside him and rolled her eyes. “As if I didn’t know,” she said, lifting her own prodigious bosom. That got me thinking about what little things a guy might just fail to mention to his wife and, of course, most of them were sexual escapades, but not all.

I sat down and wrote: “I met my soul mate when I was sixteen. Of course, I never told my wife about that.” And then I just kept building story after story through his life, each one getting a little more ridiculous. I made the character a Shakespearean actor because there is no place with more opportunity to misbehave than in the theatre!

‘True confessions?’ Come on now. I lie for a living.

I mean write fiction.

The difference between most of my fiction and the news we read or watch on a daily basis is that fiction needs to be believable.

Who knows where I’ll post from next? Someplace south of here!

Joyous Yule—Happy Solstice

I’ve been having a good time in Oklahoma this winter. Of course, I’ve only been here a few weeks and the weather has been colder than, say, Arizona, but it’s pleasant anyway. It was made especially pleasant with my Solstice dinner last night with Amy and her children Zack and Taryn. Of course, the rituals had to be modified a little and I enjoyed having the four of us piled into the little dining nook in the trailer.

I fixed a “Redneck Baked Brie” as an appetizer, recommended to me by an editor working on my upcoming American Royalty 1: Coming of Age novel. He suggested I get a small round of brie, spread pesto on it, and top it with pine nuts. When prepared, pop it in the microwave for 45-60 seconds and serve with toast points. Believe me, we did serious damage to the brie. I coupled part one of the ritual with the baked brie with the question of “What are you leaving behind this year?” I was pleasantly surprised by the lively interchange. The kids (14 and 19) really got into as well as Amy and I did.

For me, I’m leaving behind heart problems. I am so through with that shit!

Main course was pot roast with potatoes and carrots. I’m happy to say it turned out fantastic! In the past, I’ve had mixed success with my slow cook pot roast. I did some extra research this year. A slow cooker brings the temperature up to a simmer at 209 degrees. The difference between the low setting and the high setting is how long it takes to reach that temperature. Low, eight hours. High, four hours. That was the problem I was having. My stainless steel cooker will go from cold to 200 degrees in twenty minutes and then stay there for as long as you let it cook. This time, I manually controlled the speed at which it reached a simmer. An hour at 155, an hour at 160, an hour at 165, etc. After seven hours and ten minutes, the cooker reached 205 degrees and held there until I served dinner. Perfect!

We accompanied the entrée with the question, “What do you want remembered from this past year?” My own memories of the past year were sadly damaged by the time I was ill. But the one I want remembered most was the development of my relationship with Amy. She was sitting right beside me.

Dessert was an assortment of cheesecake wedges. Nothing phenomenal about that. We enjoyed the food and I made coffee to have with it. Darn good and I asked the question, “What do you hope for the coming year?”

There were some good things expressed. For me, I hope to become more involved in the relationships I have. That’s not just with Amy. I’ve been spending summers at Sun Meadow for four or five years now. I knew I had friends there. There are friends I meet on weekends for a martini and cigar, a crab boil, or just to hang out and watch whatever is on the big screen. There are friends I play cards with. There are friends I eat dinner with at our weekly carry-ins. There are friends I play pickleball with. I knew I had all those friends.

I didn’t realize how special those friendships were until I got sick this summer. Friends volunteered to take me to the clinic. Friends drove me to the airport or even all the way to Seattle. Friends invited me to their wedding. Friends took me grocery shopping when I couldn’t trust my own driving. Friends fixed soup for me when I couldn’t face cooking for myself. Friends packed my trailer. Loving messages from friends gave me a will to live. My family in Seattle, Quinne, Michele, and Jason, gave me a place to stay and fed me when I was there for my procedures. They took me to doctor’s appointments, sat with me in the offices and took notes, held me when I was throwing up, and called the doctor when I couldn’t breathe. Without those three people in my life, I would have died. My sister in Texas opened her home and family to me for Thanksgiving. In this coming year, I want to do more to acknowledge and participate in those relationships.

So, that was my Solstice celebration this year. I hope yours was as warm and meaningful as mine.

This morning, I’m looking at the pile of dirty cookware and silverware thinking I need to get some water heating up so I can wash it all! No plates or glasses, though. We ate off paper. That’s the current downside in my trailer. I don’t have water. I step outside to the hydrant next to the trailer and fill gallon jugs with water for washing dishes and flushing the toilet. I shower at the lodge. Before we could get to winterizing my trailer, we had a hard freeze in Idaho and I burst a pipe at the toilet. Then when I was traveling to warmer weather, I failed to secure one of my cabinets well enough and a bottle of bourbon fell out and broke the handle on my kitchen faucet. Thankfully, the bourbon was okay. It’s a couple of the things I need to get repaired before warm weather, either by summer or by the time I give up on the cold in Oklahoma and move farther south. Whichever. It’s not like I wash dishes every day anyway.

I expect to have American Royalty 1: Coming of Age ready to post a pre-release version for Patrons in January while I do some serious rewriting in order to release the eBook and paperback commercially in June. This week, I’ll be releasing the paperback and eBook of Stocks & Blondes, the fourth in my series of cyber-detective mysteries and sequel to Municipal Blondes, released last summer.

Stocks & Blondes features detective Deb Riley, master of disguise, as she goes undercover to investigate the mysterious death and computers of a fifty-year-old web entertainer. Patrons have already read the book and comments are positive.

Whatever winter holidays you celebrate, I hope your time is as joyful as can be. May the best day you had in the past year be equal to the worst day you have in the coming year. Blessings!

Traveling to My Destination

Hard to believe I’ve been on the road for almost a month. But I’ve landed now and will be in one place for at least a month, so it’s time to catch up the blog and tell you about my trip.

Quinne still wasn’t completely convinced that I could drive two or three hundred miles without needing help, so I gladly accepted her suggestion that she ride with me to Spokane when I left on November 15th. We had a good time and talked a lot as we drove across the state, even though the fog for the last fifty miles was pretty intense.

Colleen and Doug welcomed me to their house with a glass of wine and a special shopping trip to Cabela’s, then went with me out to camp to get my trailer ready to roll. Don’t know what I’d do without friends like these.

And after greeting many friends at Sun Meadow, I was finally ready to leave late Sunday morning the 17th. It was the first time the trailer had been hitched up in over six months! And yes, I remembered to put the handrail in and didn’t drive off with it sticking out.

Five days later, I beat the storm front to Mt. Shasta and made my way down into the California valley where it stayed nice and warm and sunny for the duration of my time in California.

I guess this is what I missed a few days later. I-5 was closed due to snow on the pass into Oregon. I was snug and warm in a camp near Arizona.

The trip across the mountain passes on I-40 was no problem as the weather hadn’t hit there yet. I understand that it’s difficult to maintain roads, but seeing a sign that said “Rough road next 50 miles” really made me think they’d just given up. That was west of Flagstaff. East of Flagstaff was no big problem. I had to stop in Winslow, AZ to take it easy for a bit. I sailed right on into New Mexico. Leaving Gallup, NM after the least satisfactory breakfast I’ve ever had at a Cracker Barrel, I was hit by a gust of wind so strong that I thought I’d blown a tire. The wind stayed gusty all the way across the state and on the 26th when I got to Clovis, I just hunkered down in the trailer and waited.

The next day was bright and clear and I sailed the last 60 miles into Littlefield to spend Thanksgiving with sister Sharon and family. Of course, that night we got hit by an ice storm and three days of fog, so we were careful driving into Lubbock. That Julia can sure bake a pie! Got this snap of Sharon with her daughters Julia and Kara. Too bad Jamie lives so far away.

Monday December 2nd, I was packed up and ready for the last segment of this journey. I got into Amarillo and had a burger at the Big Texan, then spent a couple of days at Oaklake Trails Resort in Depew, Oklahoma before I pulled into Claremore on the 6th. Got here in good time to get a spot at the KOA for a month and make it to the Holiday Book Fair at the Dennis R. Neill Equality Center in Tulsa on Saturday.

Of course, selling a book at the fair wasn’t what made the 3,000-mile journey worthwhile. It was wrapping my arms around Amy that brought a smile to my face. We’ll be celebrating the holiday together and that’s good news. I’m ready for winter now!

I won’t go into a progress report on writing and editing. Suffice it to say that I finished the first draft of American Royalty 1: Coming of Age and am expecting a big edit and design job coming in tomorrow. I’ll have a lot more to say about these projects next time. For today…

“That’s all folks!”

Ready, Set, Go!

That could apply to so much this week. I’m ready to go. My ablation procedure went well last Monday and I’m feeling healthier than the proverbial horse. Tomorrow, I expect to receive flight clearance from my cardiologist and will be back on the road by next Sunday! It’s time to move south for the winter.

We’ve been having some spectacular sunsets. This one was on Halloween. Later that night, I joined about a hundred other writers at the Shoreline Community College Library for the NaNoWriMo kickoff at midnight. I got a couple thousand words in on my newest work, American Royalty 1: Coming of Age. Since then, I’ve managed to get to 33,650 words and six and a half chapters! It’s going well and I should easily finish the 50,000-word NaNo requirement. Whether the book gets finished in November remains to be seen. I’m guessing I’ll be writing well into December with an anticipated release date in June. My $10/month patrons are already reading the first six chapters and will get first look at everything I write each week. American Royalty is expected to include three books, Coming of Age, Coming to Power, and Coming to Grips. It is an alternate universe story in which America has a well-defined class structure complete with its perks and conflicts.

Join my Patreon and follow the story as I write it.

In an American society based on class distinctions, someone still needs to teach the heir apparent how to behave like royalty.

I’m having a good time writing it and I think you’ll enjoy reading!

ADVENTURE OF THE WEEK

I was invited out to lunch Thursday by a fan of my stories and fellow author, Les Bagley. The catch this time was that Les wanted me to come to Kingston and be his guest at the Farm Café. It was the first time I’ve been on a Ferry in several years. And was great fun!

The trip was great. The food was incredible. I spent a lot of money on bread and cookies to go. And meeting Les’s wife tossed into the bargain made it an extremely pleasant afternoon. I even drank a cup of ferry coffee, which I learned years ago was not worth the effort but was part of the experience.

Friday, I had lunch with my editor and proofreader, Denny Wheeler. Mostly, we talked about the work I'm doing now on American Royalty. He's started reading and among the things that we all agreed on was a change to the name of the lead character. These are things you need to figure out!

That evening, I joined my dear friends, Jason and Terina Black. Jason has edited many of my books and I designed a good number of his. In addition to fabulous chicken and chickpea tacos, Terina baked an unbelievably good chocolate fudge bundt cake. Jason and I spent some time going over the new covers for his upcoming re-release of his novels. Believe me, I'll be announcing them here when they are out! Fabulous artwork.

THE PLAN FOR NOW

I have a last doctor’s appointment tomorrow morning. Tuesday, my truck goes into the shop for a major tune-up. If the hospital doesn’t get a bill for me sometime soon, Harris Ford will get paid first! There is a recall notice on my truck that I want to get taken care of before I start towing the trailer. I had a recall during the winter for the same problem and had it fixed before I headed north in April. Here’s the text of the notice:

What is the issue? Our records indicate that you previously had Ford Safety Recall 19S07 performed on your vehicle; however, the correct software was not installed at that time. Ford Motor Company wants to ensure the software in your vehicle is updated to the correct software. Your vehicle without the correct software remains at risk for unintended transmission downshift due to an intermittent output speed sensor (OSS) failure.

In other words, they are recalling the recall because it could kill me.

Quinne is planning to drive out to Spokane with me on Friday because she still doesn’t trust that I’m capable of driving myself. I’m happy for the company and will put her on a plane back to Everett from Spokane. Then I need to get the trailer ready to travel. Make sure black and gray tanks are empty. Put ten gallons of fresh water in, if it’s running, fill the propane tanks, and restock the shelves and fridge with food. Then Sunday morning, I’ll pull out of camp and head south, planning to stop the first night in Pendleton, Oregon. The second night, south of Portland. The third night in California. From there I’m headed to So Cal and then east across Arizona and New Mexico, which have easier pass crossings over the continental divide. I hope to get to my sister’s place in Texas for Thanksgiving and then on up to Oklahoma to see Amy before a book fair in Tulsa on the 7th of December. All plans are written in sand.

I’ve been here in Lynnwood since September 28th. I would undoubtedly have died if not for the care that Quinne, Michele, and Jason took of me. I can never thank them enough and love each of them to the depths of my soul.

And with another spectacular sunset viewed from their deck, I’m just about ready to mount my truck and head out!

I’m NaNoing

This is a short update because I have other things to write. Most notably, my new novel, American Royalty 1: Coming of Age. I might have mentioned this project before. Maybe. I’m sort of excited.

First of all, I’m excited to have the energy and the clarity of mind to launch a new project like this. I might have some delay or downtime on Monday when I go to the hospital for an ablation, but I’m confident in the cardiologist and expect to be out and on the road again in a week or so.

Second, now that I’m actually writing it, I’m pretty excited about the story. It has so much to be considered. Here is the logline and detailed blurb.

In an American society based on class distinctions, someone still needs to teach the heir apparent how to behave like royalty.

Long description. This alternate reality story begins on John Cyning’s sixteenth birthday at which he is told the truth about his heritage, America’s underlying class structure, and why he has been denied the pleasure of any woman’s company in the past eight years. He is then introduced to Meredith Sauvage, an eighteen-year-old of the servant class who is enlisted to teach John what he needs to know and how he needs to behave as royalty. The two become very close and support each other through the difficult years of school as they discover what a tricky role each has to play. In the end, however, nothing will alter the fact that John is royalty and his closest advisor and lover is a servant.

So, NaNoWriMo is two days old. How am I doing?

I’ve got 12,200 words written and haven’t begun today’s writing yet. No, I don’t expect to write 6,000 words a day all month. The initial stages of writing are always the easiest because I’ve been thinking about them the longest. I’m halfway through chapter three and expect to finish it and chapter four today—maybe more.

As I mentioned, I anticipate that I won’t be as productive Monday and Tuesday. And I still don’t know when I’ll be ready to travel again. But I’m very excited about it.

I will also mention that I’m not sure whether I’ll be releasing this book under the author name of Nathan Everett or Devon Layne. It depends largely on where I think the market is when I finish. I expect it to have what SOL calls “Minimal Sex” in it. It could be rather hard to avoid all sexual situations as it is a coming of age story and that is such a significant part of growing up. How detailed that mention is defines which author it will be released under.

For now, I have established a works in progress page on which $10 patrons of either Nathan Everett or Devon Layne can read as I develop the story. I’ve already posted Chapters 1 and 2 on the site, as well as a detailed outline of the first ten chapters and my development notes describing the world and characters. I post updated chapters on the site every Sunday. If you join my Patreon site (www.patreon.com/nathaneverett) linked here and at the top of this blog, you will have access to all of this, BUT I highly advise you do not read the chapter outlines unless you don’t mind spoilers and are just interested in seeing the development process and how close I come to following my outline. I had a full 13-chapter outline of City Limits when I wrote it and was off target by the third chapter and in a completely different direction by the fifth. It remains to be seen.

So, join me for this fun NaNoWriMo month and the writing of American Royalty 1: Coming of Age. I’d love to have your comments as I write.

Now back to the words!