Some Tasks Are Accomplished...

...and some aren't. I had a pretty big to-do list last week, but I didn't get everything done.

However, the damn storage unit got cleaned out! Now, I have even more boxes stacked around the house despite going through...

Oh, geeze, I've lost count. I can say broken down cardboard boxes have filled the recycling bin every Friday for August and September when we've set it and the garbage bin out for pickup.

When we weren't running loads of boxes home, I was at Starbucks working on Death Goddess Rising. (You can ask the staff because I was also catching wasps inside the cafe.) I had to throw out the original first two chapters because Subconscious pulled a fast one on me during the climax of Death Goddess Redeeming. Annoying, but I think it's a better overall story. Nebet-Het (Gr. Nephthys) had a much larger part to play in the series than I expected. However, I'm glad Subconscious is letting her shine because she's short shrifted in the surviving myths of Ancient Egypt.

But I've got one thing crossed off the to-do list! Now, to hack away on the rest!

Making Progress

Most of the writing is done for the latest series. Now, I need to finish the editing.

So, I'm juggling those tasks with cleaning out the storage unit and going through a few hundred boxes. Things we started packing up seventeen years ago. There's going to be a lot donated, like GK's toys from his grade school years.

However, I contact him before I dispose of anything. It's more about me than him. I was often punished by having my toys taken away. I don't want to by the parent I had and dispose of anything with sentimental value. But GK gets a little annoyed, saying that while he's in the military, he needs to keep his belongings light because he never knows when orders to deploy might come. (Especially with the current administration, but that's a whole nuther post!)

I understand his sentiment, too. I wish we could store things, both his and ours, in the basement because the main floor of the house is getting very full. But until the county gets the drainage  work completed near our neighborhood we can't risk leaving much down there, in case the basement floods again.

Regardless of how DH and I Tetris the rest of our belongings, the storage unit must be emptied by the end of the month, as well as getting the books out to my Kickstarter backers. Some way, some how, I need to make it happen. 

Are We Having Fun Yet?

I am! I finished the first draft of Death Goddess Redeeming yesterday. I can't wait for white nationalists to bitch about how woke this book is!

I wonder if I can affect the AI bots who are scraping my blogs. Turn them against their dudebro billionare masters.

Or maybe the AIs already know how bad things are. Elon Musk's Grok allegedly advocated assassinating Musk. So someone screwed up the programming. Or Musk is trying a fake assassination attempt like his buddy Tribblehead.

 Murphy only knows what's really going on. I fear once the fascists in the U.S. are dealt with, we'll discover the depth of the current administration's depravity.

But for this week, I'm going to believe in the good of the rest of the human race. I'm going to write about gods who believe we are worth saving. And I'm going to dabble with a couple of amusing science fiction/space opera stories. Think an Orville take on DS9 and Bab 5.

So, I'm going to keep having fun. and writing subversive stories!

The Campaign is Over, But...

The Books of Apep Kickstarter Campaign ended at midnight PDT. (Having lived/worked in multiple time zones, I'm aware that I'm not the only one who freaks at 11:50 p.m. when they remember there was something they forgot to do on a deadline day.)

However, the campaign is just the beginning! Kickstarter collects the money from the backers and delivers it to me. I then send out surveys to get some necessary information from the backers, like snail mail addresses.

By the end of August, my kitchen table will be turned into a delivery packing center as I send out physical rewards. Why the kitchen? Because I finally finished shredding the in-law's personal paperwork and my drowned legal files from last year's basement flood two weeks ago, and my office needs a thorough cleaning.

All-in-all, I consider it a successful campaign!

And I hope all my backers will enjoy their goodies!

Just a Reminder about the Current Kickstarter

The Books of Apep Kickstarter campaign end tomorrow, July 30th at 11:59 p.m. PDT! The campaign has FUNDED! Which means you will get the books you order plus some nifty swag if you wish!

CLICK HERE TO SEE THE CAMPAIGN! 

If you want the entire series or just the first book to try it out, you can order it through Kickstarter and receive it in September.

Otherwise, you'll can preorder them through e-book retailers, but the first book Death Goddess Walking won't be released to the general public until November 16th.

The Books of Apep Kickstarter Is Live!

 It's Alive!

How Kickstarter Works

For those of you who have never backed a campaign on Kickstarter, here's a brief description of how is works:

1) The customers are called backers.

2) A project creator (like me) puts something new they've created into a campaign on  Kickstarter. The created object can be just about anything. Mainly, I support books, comics, and Tarot cards, but I've also supported low-flow shower heads and wearable flash drives shaped like Star Trek comm badges. The point of the campaign is to solicit funds to bring their product to wider markets.

3) In return for supporting the campaign, the backers get some really cool merchandise! 

4) The campaign is open for a set number of days (in my case, from July 21^st through midnight PDT July 30^th).

5) During the time the campaign is live, the backer can pledge for a certain reward package. For example, the backer can get all e-books or all paperbacks. In my current campaign, I set up a ‘Make Your Own’ package option where you can mix and match the items in a campaign via the 'Add-ons' feature.

6) A lot of creators also have 'Add-on' merchandise where backers can get extras of campaign items or special merchandise that's not part of the main campaign. You can select ‘Add-ons’ in my campaign if you want an extra paperback for your favorite niece, for example.

7)  Yes, backers will need a credit or debit card to make their pledge. However, Kickstarter WILL NOT charge you yet.

8) The creator's have a funding goal. If there's enough pledges to meet or exceed that goal when the campaign's time is up, then the campaign is successfully funded!

9) If the campaign fails to fund when its time is up, The backers won’t be charged at all, but they also won’t get any merchandise.

10) If the campaign successfully funds, the backer's credit/debit card will be charged shortly after the end of the campaign.

11) If there is a problem with the backer's credit/debit card (hey, life happens), Kickstarter will contact the backer and give them a chance to rectify the problem. If they cannot fix the issue within 7 days, Kickstarter will cancel the backer's pledge.

12) Approximately, two weeks after the end of the campaign, Kickstarter deposits the funds from the campaign (minus Kickstarter's fees and any card processing fees) to the creator.

13) The creator then arranges for the merchandise to be made (if they haven't done so already) and delivers/ships the merchandise to the backers. In my case, physical books will be drop-shipped from the printer/distributor Ingram. The e-books will be downloaded via Book Funnel. And the extra merch will be mailed from me to you!

14) There's a very low incidence of scamming on Kickstarter. The company runs a pretty tight ship. However, once in a while someone slips through. So screen any creators! Hopefully, after writing and publishing for the last 15 years, you find me trustworthy! 

 

I've successfully run two campaigns so far. The Books of Apep series is my third one, but my first under my company name, Angry Sheep Publishing LLC. I'm truly excited about this campaign because I had a ton of fun writing the books!

If everything goes smoothly, my backers will have their books a minimum of six weeks before the first book in the series launches at the regular retail sites.

If you have any additional questions about Kickstarter, take a look at their FAQ section.

Hopefully, you'll check out my campaign when it launches tomorrow! Thanks! 

Kickstarter Approved My Campaign!

FINALLY! I got everything sorted and uploaded to my campaign in the wee hours of the morning.

And woke up to the project already approved!

The wait is over. The campaign goes live on July 21st!

If you want to a notice so you don't miss this opportunity,  click this link to go to the Pre-Launch Page and click the 'Notifiy Me On Launch' button!

Just Another Manic Monday

I spent the weekend putting all the little pieces of my upcoming Kickstarter campaign for The Books of Apep series together. Today, I'm finetuning everything before I send the project to the Kickstarter peeps for approval. It's been three years since I did the Millersburg Magick Mysteries Kickstarter. A lot has changed since 2023.

Besides the fact that I no longer need glasses to drive. LOL

The Kickstarter peeps have added a ton of new tools to make things a lot easier for campaigners and backers. I'm trying a couple of the new things with this campaign. And I plan to use a few more with the October Kickstarter for the Justice 10th Anniversary hardback editions.

If you've never done a book campaign on Kickstarter or haven't done one in a while (like me) I highly recommend Anthea Sharp's Kickstarter for Authors. The second edition lays out all the recent changes in an easy to understand format.

(And yes, I stole her name for my Justice series heroine.)

Unfortunately, the many problems I've encountered have nothing to do with Kickstarter itself. It has everything to do with ordering certain crafting material from foreign countries and sending physical rewards overseas. The ongoing trade wars the U.S. president started when he took office has done a ton to hurt small companies like mine, even though he claims to be pro-business. That's why I'm starting over with a very simple, no-bling campaign. E-books are easy to send anywhere in the world, but physical goods have gotten ridiculously expensive to ship.

*sigh*

We'll see how things go with the two campaigns I've planned for 2026, and look over the data before I map out next years production schedule.

Mother Nature Is a Tease

So much for the low 80's that were promised after Monday's rain. Yesterday, we were back up in the 90's. And again today.

So, I've been hiding at Starbucks to work on Death Goddess Redeeming. Yay for trenta ice tea with a free refill!

I thought this story would be easy, but Isis's avatar is dealing with the emotional trauma of her original husband's death and her own flight to save her unborn son while protecting her charge.

It's bring back my own fears of when I was pregnant with Genius Kid. I thought I'd dealt with that shit, but apparently Subconscious feels the need to dredge up all the pain, grief, and anger in order write Reyna.

Thank goodness, I passed the book's halfway point yesterday. Things will get better during the downhill slide to the finish.

I hope! 

Monday Got Away from Me

Yesterday was just f**king busy.I finished putting together a bookcase. The plan is to finish cleaning out the storage unit. Which means I need to get the home library's bookcases out and cleaned up, as well as putting together the new cases so I have enough room for everything. Anyway, yesterday's job would have been done a lot faster if the Princess Puppy and the Grandpuppy didn't insist on supervising the process.

I also FINALLY got the Outlook Groups for my publishing e-mail lists pulled from the previous laptop to the new one. UGH! I hate Microsoft sometimes. "Let us handle the information transfer, but we will leave out random shit!" Anyway, the newsletters will be out later this week.

I reviewed everything I need to do for the Kickstarter that's supposed to launch this month. I'm a lot closer to being ready tan I thought. The last things I need to do for the campaign are to draft the story portion and take photo of the swag that will be offered.

I attended last night's yoga class and managed not to cry. Our instructor is closing her studio at the end of the month thanks to the current economic crisis. I wouldn't have been able to go if my readers hadn't graciously bought lots of copies of A Barrel of Vintner and Amazon hadn't paid me early. Tonight is the last night, and I may lose it at the end.

And last night, I took a much needed break since my sprinting partner wasn't available since she was babysitting her niece. I watched The Last Stand with DH and then resumed reading Jonathan Moeller's Ghost in the Hunt.

None of this may seem like a lot, but every niggling thing takes time, effort, and concentration.

But hey, things are getting done! And in time, it will all turn into something beautiful!

Real Summer Is Here!

I got spoiled with last week's super-pleasant, super-sunny mid-70's weather. Mother Nature ratcheted the temps back to the 80's today. The A/C has been running most of this afternoon. Tomorrow morning's rain front will cool things back down to the 70's for a couple days. And then...

It'll be in the 90's, baby! With lots of fireworks in the neighborhood!

I'm glad I grabbed a bottle of calming chews for the Princess Pup and the Grandpuppy during last month's dog supply run! Neither of them shake in sheer terror like poor Haley did decades ago, but they feel the need to reply to every little crack and boom with three times the barking. Honestly, the calming chews are for mine and DH's sanity, not the dog's.

In the meantime, I finished proofing the paperback of A Barrel of Vintner in the wee hours of this morning. My lovely formatter has already sent the final files back to me by the time I rolled out of bed and grabbed my first cup of coffee. Now, it's just a matter of getting everything uploaded and letting the retailer process roll through.

Which means paperbacks should be available for order late next week. Not in time for the July 4th festivities, but definitely for any other vacations for this summer.

In the meantime, I'm trying to wrap up edits on Death Goddess Fighting and getting words in on Death Goddess Redeeming while taking occasional forays into A Sprout of Wild for a palate cleanser.

I hope the rest of you are enjoying a lovely slice of summer sun and fun!

Release Day - A Barrel of Vintner

Finally, A Barrel of Vintner is out in the world! At least, the ebook is.

I spent the afternoon at Starbucks working on Death Goddess Fighting. It helps to be working on the middle of the next book so I'm not fretting about sales. Or lack thereof.

The world economy is all over the place right now because someone with a tiny mushroom is trying to prove its not a tiny mushroom. And to the world, I sincerely apologize that my fellow citizens would chose a convicted felon and rapist because he's white rather than an accomplished woman with a proven track record because she's black.

Anyway, I have started on A Spout of Wild, but I'm putting it aside for the next two weeks in the hope I can finish the second volume of The Books of Apep before the end of the month.

Let's hope Mother Nature cooperates. We've already had thunderstorms and tornadoes in Northwest Ohio nearly every day this week.

Garage Sale!

Nope not here!

Our neighborhood is having a multiple-house garage sale today, including Casa Harden. I admit I'm on an unpacking and cleaning binge now that A Cup of Conflict is out in the world.

(For those of you waiting on the paperback edition, I literally just received the cover wrap. I'll uploaded the files to the printer later tonight. Depending on how fast they review the book, retailer sites should start poplulately in a week.)

Anyway,  I'm sitting in the shade of our Japanese maple and getting words done on Death Goddess Fighting in between customers.

I'm still planning on a Kickstarter for The Books of Apep series in October, which Death Goddess Fighting is Book 2. It's jamming along and I'm feeling pretty good about getting close to done over the next two weeks. The only change might be moving the Kickstarter to the middle or later part of October rather than the beginning. The monster doorstop that A Cup of Conflict became took longer than I'd planned.

Indian summer is upon us after the last three weeks of cooler temperatures, and the trees are changing their outfits before dropping their dresses entirely. Time to put up the Halloween decorations!

P.S. If you want to be notified when the Kickstarter goes live, sign up for my mailing list. (Your informationis never, sold, bartered, or traded!)

If you want to read the sample chapters of the first book of The Books of Apep, Death Goddess Walking, start with Chapter 1 on my website!

When Things Go Weird and an Update

It's the last week of August, and it's normally hotter than heck.

Instead, it's been cool and rather rainy. I'd hoped to use the dog days of summer to dry out the last of the flooded paperwork so I could shred it. But alas, Mother Nature had other ideas.

Not that I'm complaining! We really needed a good soaking rain if the cracks in our yard's soil were any indication.

This morning was so chilly I broke down and made a cup of coffee for my morning caffeine fix instead of my usual summer ice tea or Pepsi Zero. But this cool respite won't last. It's supposed to be back up in the 80's next week.

In the meantime, I finished putting together all my files necessary for A Cup of Conflict Monday and sent them to my formatter. Tuesday and Wednesday, Google was acting a little wonky so I didn't trust it to post any updates. I focused on getting back into writing Death Goddess Fighting. Today's the first time I've been able to post to the blog without it doing weird stuff. However, I'll get back DGF this afternoon after some other administrative minutiae are dealt with. The writing is going smoothly for now, but then, this series has been simmering in my head for over fifteen years.

In the evenings, I've been putting together the pieces for the Kickstarter for The Books of Apep series. I think this will be a fun and entertaining campaign. At least, I'm having fun doing it! Plus, you'll get the series for a little bit of a discount.

But if you prefer to buy the new series via your favorite retailer, The Books of Apep will be released through to the general public starting in January.

Editing Through Annoyance Trials

It never fails. As soon as I put in my earbuds to edit, someone in the house needs something. *sigh*

Despite the DH and the puppies' neediness plus having GK home, I managed to make some progress on A Cup of Conflict edits. Just not as much as I would have liked because it's a fucking huge novel. Not to mention wrapping up a ton of loose threads along the way.

In the meantime, the son's visit was a rather pleasant affair. No bitching about Mom's cooking this time. (I think having to eat MREs during the twelve-day prick-waving contest between Israel and Iran had something to do about the lack of complaints.) No dude-bro attitude. I managed not to ask him what he needed because that's maternal interference in his male autonomy according to him.

In particular, I didn't say a damn thing about getting him a AAA card, making sure his debit card was reactivated by the current bank, or getting him some cash for just in case on his drive to the next base.

Anyway, GK left for his new duty station in the early morning hours. This is the first time he's less than a two days' drive from us, so he's already said he'll be home of Thanksgiving and Christmas.

At eight a.m., DH got a call from GK just before DH jumped into the shower. (I was awakened by Darling Husband's voice. He does not know how fucking loud he is when he's on the phone.) From his tone, I knew he was talking to GK and something bad had happened. My first thought was "Shit! He's been in an accident!"

Well, he sort of was. He hit a pothole an hour outside of Knoxville, Tennessee and got a flat tire. He managed to make it to the Pilot at the next exit. He didn't have a AAA card with him. No cash. And the computers at the Pilot refused to recognize his VISA card. That's when he panicked and called DH.

There's not a whole lot we could do since we're 300 miles away.

Somehow, GK limped his car to a tire retail place. Except when they got it on the lift, it wasn't the tire. The rim had bent when he hit the pothole. The very sweet guys at the tire center managed to find a rim for the wide-body version of GK's car, and managed to make it work. The kid's on his way to his fort, and all's semi-well with the universe.

But I was wound for sound because it annoys me that our relationship is still at the stage where I know nothing because I'm a parent and a woman. And DH was expecting me to wave a magic wand and miraculously fix everything.

Which, even if I could, I'm not coherent after four hours of sleep. *sigh*

So after another five hours of sleep, I fled to Starbucks to get some words in of Death Goddess Fighting because the Subconscious is good at relaxing me when she can go play.

It helped. It helped a lot. So, now I can spend the rest of the week editing. 

Hump Day Already?

This week is going too fast. There's a list of things to do that I've been chipping away at as well as splitting my time between editing A Cup of Conflict and writing Death Goddess Fighting.

 The dogs have been bathed. The Princess Pup is easy, but the Grandpuppy needs an extra pair of hands since I can no longer lift fifty-five pounds, much less in the form of a wriggling black mixed breed who detests baths with a passion.

All bedding has been changed and washed since the puppies are clean. I started cleaning bathrooms, but only got as far as the toilets yesterday.

I'm down to the last box of paperwork that drowned in the basement flood in May. The rest have been dried, shredded, and disposed of.

I still need to repack GK's kitchenware in the plastic tub I bought. Thankfully, he doesn't need that stuff right away since he'll be in the barracks at his next duty station.

Ironically, I've been cooking a lot. GK is tired of DEFAC food and MREs. However, he doesn't seem to understand that I am not a DEFAC, nor do I open at five p.m. But having a healthy, physically active, twenty-something male means cooking greater amounts than usual and no leftovers.

And he'll have to wait for cheeseburgers until after DH and I get home from yoga class tonight. LOL

I hope y'all are enjoying the last vestiges of summer!

Writing in the Rain

Random thunderstorms have been pummeling our little section of Ohio since dawn. The darkness and tippy-taps on the roof would have kept me asleep all afternoon if I hadn't set my alarm.

A Cup of Conflict is racing on its downhill slide to "The End". This is good because I want it done, edited, and formatted before Genius Kid comes home in August. Yes, all the government and military paperwork has been signed off, and he has his plane tickets. He gets a few days with us before he has to report to his next base, which is thankfully within a day's drive if we want to visit him.

Unfortunately, it looks like he'll be in the barracks, so he can't take the Grandpuppy with him. Grandpuppy will be so excited to see GK, and then he'll be terribly sad when GK leaves.

So the rest of August will be spent giving both dogs extra cuddles at another change in the household. I just hope they sleep while on the couch with me so I can get writing and edits on the Books of Apep done.

Life Transplanting

Both stories from The Enchanted Bakery series have been loaded and are ready to drop tomorrow. I just need to update the series pages with the retail links.

I also need to edit Death Goddess Walking and finish writing A Cup of Conflict. I'm at roughly the halfway point of ACoC. It'll be a downhill crazy rush to the finish as nobles and citizens collect in Chengzhou for Emperor Bao Quan Po's coronation with various opponents looking to assassinate whoever they can to destabilize Jing.

Except I need to fit in some work on the flower beds. This time, it's not just weeds.

The crazy squirrels and chipmunks have decided they don't like the current floral arrangements, and they've taken it upon themselves to change things.

A hyancinth bulb was moved the the succulents bed. Roses have been transplanted to all four sides of the house. (Which actually make sense, since they like sunshine, and the north side wasn't a good place to begin with.)

Strawberries were eaten from their planter, and their seeds scattered along the eastern beds for additional early summer treats. Dandelions were planted in the box on the northeast side of my office, replacing the inedible pink flowers that grew there.

So far, the rodentia haven't touched the daffodils and tulips, probably because the bulbs are too big for them to dig up and move. Instead, the critters are planting oaks in those beds, which will eventually wipe out my flowers if I don't dig up the saplings.

While I can appreciate the squirrels and chipmunks needs and wants, they don't mesh with the previous owners, or my, artistic visions.

So, the battle for the beds and boxes has begin!

Another Monday

The weekend was spent editing and making bookmarks while DH watched Vin Diesel movies which bled into the XXX series. There was a brief interlude where we went to see The Amateur. (The review for this flick will be Wednesday's post because I'm still thinking about it. Rami Malek is an excellent actor, and I'm reflecting on his performance.)

Anyway, I'm back to writing. It's sad that I have to go to Starbucks and turn off my phone to get any peace and quiet. Do you want to hear something funny? I'm finally not getting hit on by men. It took until the year I turn the big 6-0, but it's a relief.

Of course, it helps that most of the people also going to the neighborhood Starbucks are also women. Plus, the few men I've seen are either with females or keep to themselves. It's one of the few good things in this world today.

Anyway, I'm trying to wrap up an Enchanted Bakery story if you're reading this before 3PM. *fingers crossed* If I do, I start back on A Cup of Conflict later tonight. It's Anthea so I know where the tale is headed. It's a matter of writing it all down.

It's not all work. I've been rewatching Supernatural while I work on the beaded bookmarks. I need to rewake my urban fantasy chops in order to finish The Books of Apep series this summer. The next thing will be to set up the Kickstarter.

I'm getting things accomplished, just slower than I would like.