A hell of a month

It has been, in a word, a hell of a month. Just when I thought things were settling down, real life decides to beat me about the head soundly. That having been said, I did get quite a bit of planning and some writing done, so hopefully we'll be able to see updates to Enchantress coming down the pipeline soon. I have the sequel thoroughly planned out, then a capstone for a trilogy. I'm very excited about it all. Less so, however, when I realize I need to really budget more for cover art. But I'll get to that point at some point.

This last month I've been doing house repairs and dealing with family crises, but I've also been absorbed with the release of the newest edition of Dungeons and Dragons. In case it was difficult to tell from my works, I am a huge tabletop gamer. I can't stop praising the new edition enough. It feels like I've finally come home to a system that is both new, and yet respects the history of the game. For me at least, it has thus far almost made up for fourth edition. Almost. We shall see what happens with the monster manual and dungeon master's guide.

In other news: In the near future, rather than posting chapters of serials I'm already posting elsewhere, regular readers of this blog can expect to see some shorter works posted here from time to time. I hope that this will encourage people to come back more often, as God only knows that my random ramblings can only go so far.

Busy Busy Month

I assure you, I am still alive.

It has been a busy busy month, and yet I don't have a release to show for it. Progress on The Enchantress of Ingley has been pretty steady, and I've got another fantasy work in progress that is more adventure based, but not enough to show at the moment. Mostly, it's been just a bad case of terrible timing all this month.

I suppose the release of the starter set for  D&D's new edition didn't exactly help with my time allotment either. What can I say? I'm an old school gamer at heart. I could ramble on for hours about it, but let's just say that from what I've seen so far, the system is largely redeemed from what they did in 4th edition in my eyes. Of course, the main core books aren't out until the coming months, so I just hope the trend continues.

Now I guess I best get back to writing. If I really buckle down, I might be able to get something up for release early next month.

Oh no!

Whilst wandering around doing some basic writing on my tablet, I dropped it. It landed flat on the face exactly on the hardest point of the ground I was walking over at that moment, and it just about exploded. Parts went everywhere, the touchscreen shattered into a spider web of cracks, the casing broke, and the sole USB jack snapped off at the bottom.

I kind of stared at it in shock for a while, but thankfully, I had backed up the notes for Enchantress of Ingley to the cloud, and was somewhat consoled. It was only later that I recalled I had the notes for the Scoundrel's Answer sequel and about 80% of Lilian's Task actually written on the damn thing and that they WEREN'T on the cloud.

Gravity: 1. Me: 0.

So without usb connectivity, and without bluetooth set up, the only recourse would be to try to access it via the wifi, but it was a no go. But the story didn't end there, no. Somehow the thing still had the speakers attached, and I was awakened by the familiar alarm tone I had set up to wake me up the next day, emanating like some ghostly, taunting cry from the shattered remnants of my broken tablet.

However, without any working buttons or touch screen, I couldn't shut it off. Fortunately it shut itself off after a good twenty minutes, but for the next few days, each morning started with a jeering reminder of my own clumsiness.

It appears as though I need to start quickly if I am going to get a paid exclusive release out next month.

In other news, I have another chapter of the Enchantress of Ingley up, which, well, at least there's that, right? Now, the question I'm wrestling with at the moment is this: Should I post free releases on the blog as well? If I do it when I finish editing, they'll hit a few days before they will on literotica, which has a moderator process. It would be a little bit of a bonus for those who regularly check my blog to get them a few days early, for those who are interested. If you would like to see this in the future, please leave a comment!

Now yes, I still intend to release cleaned up, edited, and compiled versions of what I put out on literotica as paid ebooks. There are several reasons I do this:

1) A lot of readers prefer a story in a format that's neat, edited, gathered together, that they can read off line, without relying on a site with its ads and so on and so forth.

2) There very well may be some readers who only run across my works through the ebooks.

3) Right now, purchasing an ebook is one of the few ways to show that my work is valued, besides reviews and feedback. I hope to add patreon and donation buttons in the future, on the off chance someone might care to help support these projects in that way.

4) I apparently need a new tablet now. *sobs* Those things don't buy themselves, and every little bit helps.

In all seriousness, I seriously appreciate each and every purchase I see roll through on my ebooks. It brightens my day, and often inspires me to get cracking on writing more. I realize that I'm not exactly writing great masterpieces here, just fun adventures that straddle that line between oldschool sword and sorcery fantasy and pure naughtiness. So the fact that people are still interested in reading what I have put out simply amazes me. Thank you all.