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.

The Problem with Conspiracy Theories

I admit, there is something sort of compelling to see how any random series of events could possible be connected in order to result in another unrelated outcome. I’m a writer. I deal in plots.

But first, here’s something completely different:

I was entirely in the third column with the work that just finished posting in serial form today. 150,000 downloads and a score >8.0, and a new one-month sales record for me. But with over 100 comments on the story, many were about how I’d mis-titled The Assassin.

The blurb is this:

A non-canon story in the Swarm Cycle universe. Passing familiarity with that universe would be helpful, but not necessary. This is character driven sci fi. Having immigrated to a Confederacy planet as a child, Niall Cho rejects becoming either a sponsor or concubine and joins the planetary militia on his fourteenth birthday. He rises through the militia and challenges some of the Confederacy's basic principles and its planetary AI. All on his way to becoming The Assassin.

Especially, note the last sentence. Now here are the comments.

1.    Nearly half way through and I'm wondering if the title is a misnomer!

2.    How long until we find out the basis for the "Assassin" title?

3.    Me too, much longer & we'll be reading Assassin No More.

4.    Thus far, the only thing in danger of being assassinated is my desire to keep reading.

5.    While I disagree with the strength of your statement, I agree that the title promises content that the text has failed to deliver. The closing notes say the final book has 27 chapters, so it's got to be getting on to assassination real soon now.
The story has great world building, don't get me wrong; I just feel the title misrepresents it. We're now 80% of the way through a book called "The Assassin" and the only deaths were off-screen, and caused by a forest fire. Like a story titled "Jesus Christ", but is mostly about Joseph of Nazareth's carpentry apprenticeship.

And this reader who was exceptionally helpful in suggesting alternate titles.

6.    I know and understand what you're saying about the last few chapters; and did when I wrote that the title is misleading. "The Assassin" implies a story about an assassin; someone who kills politically important persons for money or for ideological reasons. So far we have 22 chapters about a boy who grows up to be a capable military leader and administrator; who despite intense dislike or hatred of other people, has shown no tendency to violence. Knowing _how_ to kill doesn't make one a killer; almost every human knows at least one way to kill another human.
Better title options:
"The Assassination" - allows for this long lead up, as you pointed out, with the historical reasons why the assassination happened; the lead up being context for the event itself.
"The First Assassination" - as above, but with foreshadowing a continuation of hostilities vs. Darjee AIs.
"The Administrator Assassin" - some wordplay here: we have lots about an administrator who we think may also become an assassin; but also the assassin is a killer of (bad) administrators.
Alternatively, any title that suggests the making of an assassin, rather than a story about one.
Again, I have no quibble with the content of the story; I expected a lot of world-building after reading previous stories by this author. That doesn't change the issue that the title and the story don't align well.

I finally responded in the best humor I could muster:

Having read the comments, I understand. Apparently, I should have included the last line of the description in the title: "All on his way to becoming The Assassin." But I'm not alone in having this problem. This article by historical, science, and military writer Michael Wright shows that writers far better than this one also have the problem of poorly titled books. https://mjwrightnz.wordpress.com/2021/05/22/when-the-title-doesnt-match-the-content-a-cautionary-writing-tale/

That article is worth reading, even though Wright blames his publisher for the poor title and not himself.

Ah, well. Man vs. Author. Now, where was I?

Oh, yes. Conspiracy theories. The problem.

Mind maps, like the one constructed above can and do help in the solving of real-world crimes. They require the massive processor of a genius human mind to make sense of them. They are supposed to reveal what the investigator is thinking.

Unfortunately, they make lousy book plots. A genuine conspiracy must have as few people as possible privy to it. “A dashing young ne’er-do-well conspires with the beautiful lust-interest to do away with her wealthy old husband and take his money with them to a remote Pacific Island.” That would fly as a conspiracy theory. The more people involved in the conspiracy, the less viable it is. I daresay that a conspiracy with a dozen or more parties involved will fall apart before it is launched. I might reduce that number as far as four.

The first problem is coordination. The more arms the creature has, the more energy it takes to get them moving in the same direction at the same time. There can only be one brain connecting the pieces together or they will fall apart.

The second problem is secrecy. They say a secret can be kept between two people if one is dead. Who are ‘they?’ You know. Them. Everybody knows. And that is the problem. Once everybody knows, it’s no longer a secret and no longer a conspiracy.

Ray Bolger as Scarecrow in The Wizard of Oz.

The third problem is that it takes someone really, really smart to develop a conspiracy and hold it together. You can’t have someone who is acknowledged as stupid be the brains behind a conspiracy. It can’t work both ways. Which also means that if you can figure it out and don’t understand why “everybody can’t see this,” it’s probably because the conspiracy wasn’t there in the first place.

I love it when a character takes control of a story and introduces something I hadn’t thought of before. But when I plot a story, I know the direction and the outcome. A character might introduce an obstacle or become a flaw, but that’s what the writing process is all about. You overcome obstacles and remove flaws.

Writing a book? Here are a couple of suggestions.

1)    Simplify the plot. It’s fine to have subplots and side adventures, but the plot has to move from point A to point B.

2)    Don’t write characters who are smarter than you are. Believe me, I’ve tried. No matter how much I tell people this character or that character is brilliant and a genius, ultimately, I have to show it and I can’t show it if I’m not as smart as he is. The English teacher needs to use proper English with good punctuation and spelling. The mathematical wizard needs to know that 1+1=2 and that dividing a number by 0 does not equal infinity.

3)    Recognize that other characters, other themes, other events are distractions, not part of the plot. They are things that happen in the everyday world. They may be good distractions that effectively delay the revealing of the crux, or bad distractions that confuse people so much they can’t get the point.

4)    The prize has to be worth the effort. Most elaborate conspiracies fall apart because it just isn’t worth it—to all the conspirators—to pursue it.

5)    Occam’s Razor applies. The simplest solution is usually the right one. If we have a choice between a drunk getting behind the wheel and running another car off the road or aliens shining a bright light on the highway and the driver lost control, it’s most likely there was a drunk involved.

www.devonlayne.com/team.html

And that brings me to my newest release. May 25, I put the Devon Layne book, Team Manager: Swish! on sale. This is the tale of a runty nearsighted geek, the abused kid in his class, who becomes the manager of the girls’ basketball team and finds acceptance, friendship, courage, and love. That’s it in a nutshell but, of course, it’s a long and arduous road to reach that goal. Winning the love of the girls on the team is simple compared to overcoming the odds against him staying alive long enough to know.

It's set a personal sales record for me with nearly 250 sales in the first five days. For a while it was in the top 400 of Amazon Kindle's Romantic Erotica books.

Even if you aren’t into coming of age stories that involve improbable harems and sexual relations, you can support me by joining my patrons at either:

Devon Layne: www.patreon.com/aroslav

Nathan Everett: www.patreon.com/nathaneverett

Enjoy!

Tickled Pink?

My dear old mom had a lot of oddball sayings, but one I remember her using often was when she said she was “tickled pink” about something. I did some lightweight investigation and discovered the term was known as far back as 1910 and seemed to be a variant of the much older term “tickled to death.” This in turn may have dated back to the second half of the 18th century as the result of having something “tickle one’s fancy.”

In all three instances, “tickle” is used in the sense of finding something amusing, appealing to one’s sense of humor or delight. None of them seem to refer to the common definition of lightly touching or prodding in a way that causes itching, squirming, and uncontrolled laughter.

That was an interesting etymology lesson for this beautiful, bright and sunny Sunday in Northern Idaho. I believe I was inspired to look all this up when I started thinking about how much I enjoy posting or releasing a new story—or even a new chapter of a story. It may sound weird, but I’m tickled pink to have started pre-release of my newest story, Team Manager: Swish! to patrons this morning. The really cool thing is that I’ll be tickled pink when I have the public release on Tuesday May 25, 2021. That will include both the release of the first chapter of the book for serialization here on SOL, and the release of the eBook on Bookapy.

Woohoo!

I’m also very conscious of the quality of what I put out. I can’t promise that every story will be appealing to every reader. I like to write all over the map when it comes to story genres. I look back at the most recent stories I’ve posted and find science fiction, romance, satire, do-over, occult fantasy, and (if I include stories by Wayzgoose) mystery and literary fiction.

But I do try to make each story a quality piece of writing. In order to get there, I currently have an alpha reader who basically looks over my shoulder as I write. I have beta readers, including a dozen or more patrons who look at and comment on works in progress. I have story editors who mark up content and suggest variants in how the story is written, where the story arc falls apart, where it is not consistent with the stated audience. Then there are line editors who look at sentence construction, consistency within the story, and places where confusion might set in. Finally, I have three incredible proofreaders who attack the story with gusto as they find missing quotation marks, homonyms, misspellings, variants, and bad punctuation.

Oops. I didn’t mean “finally” as in the last shot. I personally re-read every draft, and don’t simply “accept all” when an editor makes changes. And, since I do my own layout, I reread the story “one more time” in the format in which it will be published. Hence the past two days have been spent re-reading and correcting the three versions (SOL html, DevonLayne html, eBook) of Team Manager: Swish!

I found two things: 1) several dozen more errors that I corrected. 2) I enjoyed the story.

The author’s recommendation doesn’t necessarily mean you will enjoy the story, but I find that if I don’t enjoy my own work, not many others will either.

Team Manager: Swish! is the first volume of what will definitely be two, probably three, and possibly more books about high school sophomore Dennis Enders, a myopic runt who finds acceptance, self-identity, courage, and love as the team manager for the girls’ basketball team at Hugh Bartley High School in Bartley, Iowa. But the road is not easy for the abused teen nor his team, as bullies threatening kidnapping, rape, sex trafficking, drug dealing, and even murder stalk the team and its manager.

Add all that to the stress of high school, hormones, compromising situations, growth spurts, parents, and cliques, and you have the ingredients for a riveting tale. I believe you will be thoroughly hooked before you finish reading the third chapter.

According to one of my readers, this story is right in my sweet spot. Of another story he said, “Like a moth to the flame: a world where a protagonist ends up with a harem while challenging the status-quo. Irresistible, unavoidable.”

Coming May 25, 2021

 

Research and what it will get you

First of all, let me say that looking stuff up on line is not “research.” Scientists developing a Covid vaccine takes research. Archeologists uncovering an ancient civilization takes research. Translating Egyptian hieroglyphics from a recently discovered tomb requires research. Building, launching, and landing a Mars rover takes research. When I research a topic for my stories, I look things up (mostly online) and investigate so I don’t sound like a complete idiot when I write my FICTION about it. It doesn’t make me an expert on the topic.

That being said, I learn quite a lot. And I estimate that a percentage of what I learn is actually based on research. So, here are some things I “researched” for my stories this week.

“What are the best and oldest ski resorts within driving distance of the locale I’ve chosen in New York for the setting of my new work in progress, A Place Among Peers?” Working assumption at this time is Bristol Mountain near Canandaigua.

“When were their ski lifts put in operation?” Working assumption is mid-70s.

“What are the best/raciest/most popular classic French authors?” List includes Flaubert, de Laclos, de Beauvoir, de Balzac, and Sand. I add to that the expatriate writers Anais Nin and Henry Miller.

“Where can I get a butcher’s certificate like Jett Blackburn’s in my new Devon Layne WIP Drawing on the Dark Side of the Brain 2?” Madison Area Technical College.

“What kind of paint is used for body painting?” A variety that includes makeup based paint, Kryolon Aquacolor, Ben Nye Magic Liquid Paint, airbrush paint, acrylic, and food dye and ivory soap.

“Is IGA (Independent Grocers Alliance) still active?” Very much so. With store franchises all over the world! Much bigger than I anticipated. Including Russia and China? And two within the market area I was searching. Wow!

“What are the duties of a high school athletics team manager that I’ll need to know to write the new Devon Layne WIP Team Manager?” Much like a theatre stage manager, a team manager is responsible for nearly everything but directly coaching the athletes. First aid, equipment, towels, warmups, schedule, scorers, parent volunteers, and everything else!

“How much do basketball uniforms cost?” About $110-125 for a full set of home and away uniforms, tear away warmup pants, shooting shirt, and 2 pairs of socks. Many toss in matching masks nowadays.

“Did you know a female wolverine is called an angeline?” No? Neither did I!

“How do you test for basketball tryouts?” That was as interesting as the duties of a manager. There is a speed, power, agility, reaction, and quickness test (SPARQ) with eight measurable exercises to determine how well prepared an athlete is to take the court. It ain’t easy!

“Is girls’ basketball in Iowa different than anywhere else?” I really got sucked into this one! Girls have been playing basketball in Iowa since the 1890s. But in 1925, the Iowa High School Athletic Association (IHSAA) (all men), decided it wasn’t appropriate for girls to play competitive sports and refused to sanction the sport. A splinter group (still all men) formed their own association, the Iowa Girls High School Athletic Union (IGHSAU) and immediately sanctioned teams in girls’ basketball. There are still two separate organizations over boys’ and girls’ sports in Iowa.

BUT… This is where it gets interesting. The men of the IGHSAU still felt girls were less athletic and needed special rules that included a smaller ball and six player teams (six-on-six basketball). The teams didn’t run up and down the court. They were divided into three guards and three forwards. The guards were responsible for guarding the goal against the other team scoring. They were completely defensive and could not cross the centerline! They had to pass the ball to a forward, who was the offensive player attempting to score. The forwards, too, were not allowed to cross the centerline from their end of the court.

This was girls’ basketball in Iowa until 1994 when the rules were rewritten to match the boys’ game. There is a great video produced by an eighth-grader at https://youtu.be/w2aPO7xZYbg that recaps the fascinating history of Girls’ Basketball in Iowa.

“Are there still different sizes of basketballs?” Yes! According to Spalding who makes the official tournament ball (TF-1000 Legacy), the basketballs come in several different sizes. Women’s basketball is played with a size 6 ball that is 28.5 inches in circumference. Even in the WNBA. Men’s basketball is played with a size 7 ball that is 29.5-30 inches in circumference. There are smaller sizes for junior high school and elementary school.

“Are teams divided up in 1A, 2A, 3A, and 4A classes?” Only if you add class 5A! Class 5A includes schools over ~840 students (and the largest is about 2200). Class 4A comprises schools with ~375-840 students. Class 3A is schools with ~210-375 students. Class 2A includes schools ~140-210 students. And the small school class, 1A includes 110 schools with ~25-140 students. In the 1990s, 75% of girls playing basketball in Iowa were from schools with fewer than 100 students. The FICTIONAL school I’ve chosen to write about is at the low end of Class 3A.

“Do I know any more about Iowa Girls Basketball?” You’ll have to read the book to find out. I certainly know more than I ever expected to know.

I also know the federal limits to the percentage of alcohol in moonshine, the Iowa State limits on distilling, bottling, and possessing distilled alcohol, and how to get hold of the DEA in Des Moines.

http://www.patreon.com/nathaneverett

http://www.patreon.com/aroslav

That’s a writer’s life for you. Absolutely nothing I’ve placed in this blog is factual based on real research. It’s only what I needed to know to write a convincing story. That allows me to create fanciful situations that we know would never happen, but they sound like they might actually happen. It looks real. And the more mundane the details are, the more reasonable the wild speculation seems.

Which is pretty much how we got QAnon, Proud Boys, Anti-vaxers, voter fraud, and all the other conspiracy theorists who almost sound like they know facts. In reality, they’re creating plotlines for stories that I could only dream about writing!

More books, please!

 

Sunrise over Puget Sound from my window.

Whenever I’m asked “What’s new?” I start the conversation with the single word, “Books!” There’s always something new in my world. Take today, for instance. I’m announcing the release of my newest Devon Layne novel, The Assassin.

The Assassin is a character-driven science fiction story. It’s part of Thinking Horndog’s Swarm Cycle universe and looks at what happens to the slave society started by the Confederacy to fight their enemy, the Sa’arm.

Niall Cho hates the Confederacy, which has become so pacifistic the races cannot even rise to defend themselves from annihilation. So, they recruit humans to do the deed for them, subtly making sure the humans cannot pose a threat to the Confederacy in the future.

A test is established that humans rush to take to determine if they are of suitable Capacity, Aptitude, and Potential (CAP) to join the Confederacy Armed Forces and immigrate to a new world. Each immigrant can take at least two people who did not score high enough to volunteer along with their dependents. The two “concubines” are, in reality, slaves to the sponsor and females are required to breed on a regular basis to establish the human race on a hundred different planets and provide the next generation of soldiers for the war.

Niall is caught in a pickup with his mother and two sisters and taken from Earth to the agricultural planet Tara where their sponsor works the family like slaves on his farm. Niall starts working on a list of people he wants to kill for destroying his family and taking him away from his father. Upon reaching his majority at age fourteen, Niall leaves the farm and joins the militia, an alternate way of becoming a free citizen. Then he plans to hunt the perpetrators of this crime against humanity and kill them all.

Along the way, Niall makes friends, rises through the militia ranks, establishes an alternate society of free slaves, gets his own concubines, and develops a friendship with his Tuull AI. But when, after fifty years, the opportunity comes for Niall to start getting rid of the villains, neither his target nor his methods are at all like he anticipated. Nor is the apparent reward!

Available at most eBook retailers. Check The Assassin homepage at http://www.devonlayne.com/assassin.html.

We’re all still attempting to recover from the pandemic. I’m due for my second installment of the vaccine in two weeks. But one of my writer groups posed the question “What did you accomplish in 2020?” My first reaction was “What a waste.” Then I started looking back at my files.

I discovered that I published eight Devon Layne books and three Nathan Everett books in 2020! Not bad for a year I considered a waste. Some of these were older books with a new market release, but still…

     See links for all Devon Layne books at http://www.devonlayne.com, including copies for free online reading!

See links for all Nathan Everett books at http://nathaneverett.com, including copies for free online reading!

So now I’m sitting back resting on my laurels. Not.

I’ve released seven “new editions” or completely new books so far in 2021, including The Assassin (listed above). Somehow, these other six books had never made it out into the public or onto my free reading website.

See links for all Devon Layne books at http://www.devonlayne.com, including copies for free online reading!

What does that make now? According to Amazon, I have 38 Devon Layne books and 11 Nathan Everett books in the market. My website shows 45 Devon Layne and 13 Nathan Everett books, because I didn’t release everything on Amazon.

So, go ahead and ask me what’s new! Thank you. Currently, I have two new books under development and I’m making good progress again after having an ablation on February 18. They restarted my heart in correct rhythm and I’ve begun to recover my energy and focus. I’m very thankful for my cardiologist, Dr. Christopher Fellows at Virginia Mason.

The first new book I’m working on is Nathan Everett’s A Place Among Peers. This is a sequel to December’s release, A Place at the Table. The series takes place in an alternate world America where there is an established formal class system and everyone is assigned to a class by age eighteen. In the first book, Liam and Meredith struggle to figure out their relationship while Liam tries to fit into his class as a Leader. In the sequel, Liam establishes a cohort of other Leaders attending his University and discovers what it means to become a leader of Leaders. All this, of course, while still exploring his relationship with Meredith and with others who would latch onto his leadership for their own purposes.

I’m working on a sequel to the Devon Layne novel, Drawing on the Dark Side of the Brain. In the first volume, we are introduced to Jett Blackburn, an artist in his first year in college along with five of his closest girlfriends. Jett is a Digital Native, sometimes referred to as Gen Z. He has never known a time without a personal computer, a cell phone, or social media. He has, however, pursued his art in a very traditional way until he accidentally paints one of his girlfriends and discovers new ways of integrating a model into the art. But there is a dark side to Jett’s painting. People who view it—even the models and Jett themselves—are profoundly changed by the art. Sometimes fatally.

Volume 2 finds our hero caught up in financial difficulties as he struggles to pay for college, loses his job, and is stalked by a jealous classmate. And yes, like the rest of those who had to live through the past year, to deal with the pandemic.

My patrons of either  Nathan Everett http://www.patreon.com/nathaneverett or Devon Layne http://www.patreon.com/aroslav have access to the works of both authors, including free eBooks and (at the $10 tier) my developing works as I write them. You are cordially invited to join them!

Cancel Culture

I'm feeling much better now that a month ago and am pursuing my writing career with vigor. Unfortunately, I missed publishing to the blog here yesterday, so I thought I'd catch up today. And my topic is the popular riff of "Cancel Culture" being cried about by people who never thought about not having some things until someone said they couldn't have them.

I'm offended.

But also easily amused. In a world that seems to be obsessed with whether a copyright holder and publisher can stop publishing a fifty-year-old book and the gender of a plastic potato, I am obsessed with what they did to our keyboards. I loaded a picture of an old electric typewriter as my desktop wallpaper and started looking at it. Here's a change. I assume you spotted it. It's in the Return and Backspace key. Now known more commonly as Enter and Delete.

On the typewriter keyboard, the arrows point up and to the right while on the computer keyboard they point down and to the left. I'm incredibly upset about the cancel culture that did away with the correct icons for a keyboard!

Of course, there is a logical explanation, just like there is for every other cancel culture post I've read. In word processing, the Enter key moves the cursor down and to the left on the page. On the typewriter, the Return key moved the carriage to the right and the paper up a line. The Delete key moves the cursor left a space while the Backspace moves the carriage right a space.

Unless you read a language that reads right to left.

Please. I'm sure this is as important to be offended about as not being able to fly a foreign flag over our government offices.

Has it been so long?

Well, well, well. Valentine’s Day and I last posted just after New Years’. Whatever happened? I’ll get around telling you that. Mostly it’s been more isolation. But there are other things.

Since November, I’ve begun four novels and have only finished one. That’s Devon Layne’s The Assassin, which I just finished the final draft of and sent to editors at last. I’ve also released a backlog of books over the past two and a half months.

Nathan Everett, A Place at the Table

Devon Layne, Pussy Pirates

Devon Layne, Not This Time

Devon Layne, The Art and Science of Love

Devon Layne, The Hero Lincoln Trilogy

In addition, I’ve released special patron only editions of The Gutenberg Rubric, For Money or Mayhem, Drawing on the Darkside of the Brain, Model Student Books 1, 2, & 3, and Things I Never Told My Wife. To join the reading challenge, join either the Nathan Everett Patreon (http://www.patreon.com/nathaneverett) or the Devon Layne Patreon (http://www.patreon.com/aroslav).

And various others that were finished and just sitting there but had never been released outside their serialized versions, or had never been released in serial. Sounds like an impressive batch of work, doesn’t it? But mostly, it has been busywork. Mike used to tell me, “It looks like work.” It’s actually what I do when my mind is not fully functioning and I need to accomplish something.

And my mind hasn’t been fully functioning, which is why I maintain that It Ain’t Immortality But…, A Place Among Peers, and Drawing on the Dark Side of the Brain 2 have all been stuck for the past weeks. Around Christmas, my heart went back into A-fib and has been working overtime to fuel my brain with a limited supply of oxygen. It makes it difficult to concentrate and maintain my focus on projects that need attention.

The answer, of course, is another ablation and I’m scheduled for it on Thursday this week. Hopefully, once I’m back in rhythm, my head will clear and I’ll start turning out books at my noted previous rate. I released some pretty darn good books last year and plan to get back to that as quickly as possible.

In brighter news…

My daughter announced her engagement this month. I’m so thrilled for her I’m breathless. (Oh. That’s my heart. But I’m still thrilled.) We all like the guy. They make a good pair. They are planning a small wedding this summer. Nothing more specific than that. I just want the whole world to be a better place for them both!

Mostly, I’ve maintained utter isolation this winter, which hasn’t made coping much easier. I’m finally scheduled for my COVID vaccine in two weeks. The water has been shut off at the RV park for four days because of freezing weather and I’m hoping it will be back on and I can wash the dirty dishes in my sink when I get back over there after my ablation.

Currently, I’m staying with Michele and Jason until I get through this procedure. Quinne will provide my transport to and from the hospital, but the new rules dictate that she can’t stick around once I’m inside. I don’t want her exposed to anything, so that’s a good thing. Still, it’s going to be a long day. After the ablation, they say not to move for four hours. That was okay when there was someone to talk to. I’m just hoping I can sleep through most of that period. At least I can drink black coffee in the morning before I go in!

As my sister has quoted: “I’m not saying I’d die if I didn’t have my coffee, but others might.”

It is time to get back to writing the next great American novel. I just need to decide which one it is!