Christmas is Coming
Sep. 15th, 2011 11:13 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
sinanjuOh, I know. It isn't even Thanksgiving yet. It's not even Halloween yet. But Christmas is coming. And with it, the inevitability that many, many, (many, many, many) people will receive an ereader as a gift. And then those people will, naturally, want to buy things to read on their new toy. Or they'll be given gift cards to accompany said reader for the same purpose.
It happened last Christmas. There's every reason to think it'll happen again this Christmas. Last Christmas, I hadn't gotten into indie publishing my work. But now I have. And I want to have as much stuff as possible available for potential buyers.
So one of the things I'm doing this week is pulling apart my episodic "starship repo guy" novel. I'm going to break out the various parts--which range in length from about 4,000 words up to 33,000 words--as separate novellas, short story collections, or novels. A little rewriting is necessary on a couple of them to make sure background info is there, but there's less of that than I thought there would be. When I'm done hammering them out, I'll have four short novels (or novellas) and one collection of three shorts in about the same word range to publish.
I've decided on cover art for them--and learned that cover art for SF is harder to find online than cover art for romance or erotica. There's plenty to choose from when it comes to attractive men, women, men & women in suggestive poses for romance/erotica covers. There isn't so much when you're looking for images with the right tone for an action-adventure SF story. More compromises are necessary.
So there will soon be five books online employing the title template "Repo Book [Number]: [Starship Name]". And if they sell, I can always do more of them. In the mean time, I also want to continue writing and publishing other short stories, and possibly some longer works over the next three and a half months. The more I have up, the better. (Plus, writing is practice for writing better. So...the more, the better.)
In other news....
My father's birthday was yesterday. He's seventy-seven years old. In October of last year, he went into the hospital for a few days with congestive heart failure. He'd had open heart surgery three years earlier, and had never completely recovered. That last hospital visit was...the last hospital visit. He came home and began receiving hospice care. My mom said on the phone that he wouldn't be going to the hospital again. He has a living will and a DNR notice. Snippy and I flew back in November to visit him, fearing it would be my last chance.
But he's still alive and kicking. And showing no signs of that changing. I have mixed feelings about that. I know he never expected to live so long, and has said he's ready for it to be over. He's weak, always tired, and...ready for it to be over. But it's been almost a year now, and as far I can tell, he could live a long time this way. When I spoke to him on the phone yesterday, he mentioned that he remembered thinking his grandfather was ancient at 83, and said he thought he might make it that long. Seems unlikely, and I expect he knows that, but I also suspect he wouldn't consider it a blessing, even if it seems possible sometimes. I don't know what to wish for him, or my mom.
I think I'll probably talk about this in therapy today.
I'm in therapy, did I tell you? My lovely and talented wife suggested it. She thought I was depressed, and she was probably right. I've doing it for a couple of months now. It's been interesting. And helpful. It isn't easy. I'm a very private person...in person. I write about things much more easily than I talk about them. So talking to the therapist has been a learning experience in actually, you know, expressing what I think or feel.
...there's a gyro cart downtown. They make THE best lamb gyros I've ever tasted. Alas, they close at 5 p.m. I'm never downtown anymore except to pick up my lovely wife after work...at 5:30. Or for my therapy session at four. I can't get to the cart before it closes! Argh! But today--today I'm taking Twoson to the train station so he can travel down to visit with his dad for the weekend. So I'll be going downtown earlier than normal. And I will HAVE A GYRO or know the reason why!
It happened last Christmas. There's every reason to think it'll happen again this Christmas. Last Christmas, I hadn't gotten into indie publishing my work. But now I have. And I want to have as much stuff as possible available for potential buyers.
So one of the things I'm doing this week is pulling apart my episodic "starship repo guy" novel. I'm going to break out the various parts--which range in length from about 4,000 words up to 33,000 words--as separate novellas, short story collections, or novels. A little rewriting is necessary on a couple of them to make sure background info is there, but there's less of that than I thought there would be. When I'm done hammering them out, I'll have four short novels (or novellas) and one collection of three shorts in about the same word range to publish.
I've decided on cover art for them--and learned that cover art for SF is harder to find online than cover art for romance or erotica. There's plenty to choose from when it comes to attractive men, women, men & women in suggestive poses for romance/erotica covers. There isn't so much when you're looking for images with the right tone for an action-adventure SF story. More compromises are necessary.
So there will soon be five books online employing the title template "Repo Book [Number]: [Starship Name]". And if they sell, I can always do more of them. In the mean time, I also want to continue writing and publishing other short stories, and possibly some longer works over the next three and a half months. The more I have up, the better. (Plus, writing is practice for writing better. So...the more, the better.)
In other news....
My father's birthday was yesterday. He's seventy-seven years old. In October of last year, he went into the hospital for a few days with congestive heart failure. He'd had open heart surgery three years earlier, and had never completely recovered. That last hospital visit was...the last hospital visit. He came home and began receiving hospice care. My mom said on the phone that he wouldn't be going to the hospital again. He has a living will and a DNR notice. Snippy and I flew back in November to visit him, fearing it would be my last chance.
But he's still alive and kicking. And showing no signs of that changing. I have mixed feelings about that. I know he never expected to live so long, and has said he's ready for it to be over. He's weak, always tired, and...ready for it to be over. But it's been almost a year now, and as far I can tell, he could live a long time this way. When I spoke to him on the phone yesterday, he mentioned that he remembered thinking his grandfather was ancient at 83, and said he thought he might make it that long. Seems unlikely, and I expect he knows that, but I also suspect he wouldn't consider it a blessing, even if it seems possible sometimes. I don't know what to wish for him, or my mom.
I think I'll probably talk about this in therapy today.
I'm in therapy, did I tell you? My lovely and talented wife suggested it. She thought I was depressed, and she was probably right. I've doing it for a couple of months now. It's been interesting. And helpful. It isn't easy. I'm a very private person...in person. I write about things much more easily than I talk about them. So talking to the therapist has been a learning experience in actually, you know, expressing what I think or feel.
...there's a gyro cart downtown. They make THE best lamb gyros I've ever tasted. Alas, they close at 5 p.m. I'm never downtown anymore except to pick up my lovely wife after work...at 5:30. Or for my therapy session at four. I can't get to the cart before it closes! Argh! But today--today I'm taking Twoson to the train station so he can travel down to visit with his dad for the weekend. So I'll be going downtown earlier than normal. And I will HAVE A GYRO or know the reason why!