Still There

 Even though I haven't been writing full time lately, that doesn't mean my characters aren't in my head at all. Every once in a while, one of them wanders in to say hello. Here's one of them:

Reggie Hawkins decided that if he kept his head down, he didn’t have to acknowledge that he was alone. He studied the label on his beer, which hadn’t changed since the last time he studied it, and took another drink. It didn’t taste any better than the solitude.

He finally shifted his gaze down the long wooden bar to where the bartender was wiping the same glass he’d been wiping for the past half hour. It must be hard to look busy when there was no one around. Maybe he was just waiting for Hawkins to leave so he could drop the pretense.

Hawkins had thought that some of his crewmates might come down, but it was getting late and that looked unlikely. He really ought to return to his room, but it wasn’t any better than this place, although the bed was probably a little more comfortable than the bar stool.

He took another drink, unsure why he’d come down here in the first place. Maybe he’d thought there’d be people here and he could find something in their chatter that didn’t exist on the television or his phone. It was a good thing the ship was scheduled to leave the next morning or who knows what he would have tried next.

He picked at the label, which really wasn’t a label since they’d gone to etching to save on paper. The trees were probably happy, except that they were no doubt used for something worse, like toilet paper. He bet they’d rather be beer labels.

Hawkins sighed. The truth was that he missed Nick Bartucci. He had no shortage of friends—on and off the ship—but no two friends are alike and he missed the one who was Nick.

The memory made him realize there were two things he needed to do: decide if he’d have trouble being aboard Penumbra when Nick wasn’t there … and get over it.

It still took him by surprise when some random thought pierced his brain and he was brought up short, as if walking into a wall that he hadn’t seen there. It made him shake his head, wondering why the memories wouldn’t leave him alone. They could be caused by anything, really: a laugh, something irritating, a baseball cap he spotted on a passerby. It didn’t seem to matter. Each time, he felt a sharp dig in his midsection, followed by shortness of breath and sometimes a coughing fit. A few seconds later, all seemed normal.

Sometimes Hawkins recalled a memory on purpose, just to avoid the surprise, but it still affected him the same way. And this had been going on for a few months. It was time to get past the whole thing.

He just didn’t know how to do that.

Hawkins turned his head. The bartender had set down the glass and stood at attention, gazing at the front of the bar as if he’d seen a miracle. Seconds later, the sound of voices told Hawkins what had caused the reaction. Three young people, two men and a woman, sailed into the room and docked at the bar, where they placed cheerful orders and carried on a lively conversation. Drinks in hand, they barely considered their options before selecting a booth a few meters from Hawkins, apparently unaware of him or the bartender smiling at them.

Hawkins offered his own smile at the beer bottle as he listened to the animated chatter, punctuated by laughter and occasional mock outrage. His muscles relaxed and his spine straightened a bit. After a while, he was ready to go upstairs and try to sleep.

“Hey,” he said as he reached for his phone.

The bartender gave him grudging attention.

“Put their first round on mine,” Hawkins said.

The bartender nodded and poked a few buttons on his monitor.

Hawkins saw the balance change on the little screen built into the bar next to his bottle. He tapped some information into his phone to increase the balance to include a hefty tip. Then he tapped the phone against the screen and put it away, which he also did with the last of the beer.

Then he headed to get some sleep before the next day's flight.

Finally

You might not believe it, but the fifth novel of the Penumbra series is now out!

Here's a look at the amazing cover by Nicole Smith:

It's now available on Amazon. There were a few glitches getting it there, which is why I didn't post here right away, but I think most of it is fixed. I see that the "Look Inside" feature isn't yet working for the paperback version, but I hope that will be functional soon.

Wow. I hardly know what to say. I'm very excited to finally get this done, but I'm sorry it's in the middle of a pandemic. I don't know if anyone is buying physical books anymore, but maybe the Kindle version will do well. Who knows?

At this point, I can say that this will be my last novel for a while. As sad as that makes me, I have to acknowledge that I don't have anything else written right now and life is so strange that my imagination feels a little insignificant.

I love my characters with all my heart. I know that they'll live on in my head, and maybe someday they'll have another adventure that I think is worth writing. If so, you'll be the first to know! For now, please enjoy the five novels I've released ... and please write a review if you read any of them. Reviews are very important in getting a novel noticed!

I'm going to try to promote this novel and then I'll consider whether I'll continue this blog or not. I suspect that I will because I don't want it to disappear, but I've learned that what I think about the future isn't always the case. 

Thank you so much for reading the blog. I've tried to be honest and not ridiculous, to give some advice and some insights, to share what I've gone through. I've written some posts on my life outside writing, so maybe I'll continue with that. It remains to be seen.

You can always check out my Facebook page for more information: Diane's Facebook Page

Thanks for your support. Stay safe!

Update on Parting Shot

Once again, I'm sorry it has been so long since I last wrote here. Life has an odd way of intruding on my intentions sometimes.

I hope you're doing well amid the chaos of our current lives. I find myself feeling a little like I've stepped into the pages of a novel ... and it's not one of mine! Whose novel is this and how do I get out? We need to have a few words about the writing style, I think.

Anyway, I do have some news! It definitely looks like I'm going to release the fifth novel, Parting Shot, this year.

I know it's hard to believe, since it's been four years since the last one and I've already said there would be a new one this year, followed by mostly silence. I don't blame you for feeling skeptical. I'm trying not to be skeptical.

I really thought it would be sooner, because I had the text ready to go in February, but then the coronavirus decided to get into the act. My artist and I were affected in different ways, but we both got sidetracked and delayed. We did the whole thing remotely, which is a testament to her creativity and patience because I found I don't always excel at describing what I want/expect in an image. We kept working, though, and I think you're going to like the result.

Here's where I am: I have uploaded the whole interior of the novel and the cover image to KDP. Both have been accepted, so I ordered a proof copy. (The Other Side taught me how crucial it is to do that every time.) The proof should get to me in a little over a week (because I'm too cheap to pay to expedite it), so we'll see what happens then. If the proof copy looks good, I'll be able to publish Parting Shot. Sometime in there, I'll also get the Kindle version available.

The end is in sight! I will keep you updated, I promise.

Thank you for your patience. Stay safe.

Title for the Fifth Novel

First of all, I must apologize for not writing sooner. I'm not going to make any lame excuses, but I will say it's a little surprising how crazy life gets sometimes.

In between counting birds this weekend for the Great Backyard Bird Count (go to birdcount.org for more information), I'm actually working on my fifth novel.

And believe it or not, I'm finally past the rewriting stage. It took me a lot of time because I sent it off to two very helpful readers, who pointed out a few things that didn't work or just didn't seem quite right. That led to me discovering a few other problems, so I had to put in quite a bit of time to tweak and rewrite. I'm not complaining: I'd rather get it right! Thanks to Bill and Deb for your help.

At some point, however, I realized that I HAD TO STOP REWRITING. That's one of the hardest things for me to do! I keep thinking there's one more error to be caught, and I keep reading it over just in case. I could keep doing that forever, but it's a little hard to get it published that way.

So here I am. I've signed it up at the KDP site and now I'm formatting the whole thing. This involves several steps: adding the front and back pages, setting the margins, justifying the text on all sides, adding drop caps and setting the trim size. After that, I need to scroll through the whole thing page by page, looking for awkward breaks in sentences. For example, I don't want a character's whole quotation and name to be on one page with "said" on the next page. That one little word looks lonely by itself, so I have to tweak things so it can join the rest of the sentence. You might find this surprising: I don't consider this process tedious at all. In fact, I enjoy it. I don't know if it's because I'm crazy or because I realize that I'm actually getting closer to finishing the whole process, but I don't mind spending the time.

The good news for you is that when I signed it up on KDP, I had to submit the title. That's right: there's finally a title ... and here it is!

The fifth novel will be called Parting Shot.

Some of the characters and events in Another Shot are mentioned in Parting Shot, so I like the similarity in titles. I hope it helps tie the whole series together.

You may be wondering if this is the final novel in the Penumbra series. The short answer is that I don't know. I had five novels in mind when I started, and this one sort of ties up a lot of things, but I can't guarantee that I won't find that I want to explore these (and possibly other) characters some more in the future. Or I might start a new series. The only guarantee I can give you is that I won't stop writing. I might not publish again, but I can't promise that either. I'm going to leave that open for now.

I will let you know as I proceed, especially when Parting Shot is available.

Stay tuned!

Trust Your Readers

Part of your job as a writer is to set the scene, to explain to the reader what is happening, but you need to be careful: unnecessary information can be distracting … and sometimes annoying!

For example, if I wrote that Hawkins went to the starboard side of Penumbra and then I added an explanation that the starboard side is the right side of the ship, my readers would roll their eyes and sigh. Yes, Diane, we already know that. If they didn’t know that, I apologize, but they can certainly look it up. That’s what Google is for, right?

How many times have you read a story and wondered why the writer insisted on telling you things you already know? It’s simple: the writer doesn’t trust you.

This includes the distracting facts that tell you the writer is simply showing off: how fast light travels, how many bones are in the human body, what the square root of 3,472 is. Most of the time, the reader doesn’t need to know these facts to appreciate the story. Only if it is directly relevant—for example, the forensic scientist found 202 adult bones, so four are missing—should these little tidbits be included. It’s never a bad thing for a writer to know these facts, but it’s in bad form to include them in the story when they’re not needed.

It’s also bad when you tell the reader things that he/she should be able to figure out from what’s happening in the scene.

For example:

    Bobby kicked open the door and hurled his keys across the

room. He muttered under his breath as he slammed the door

shut and flung himself into a chair.

    Katrina appeared in the bedroom doorway. “What—?”

    “Shut up. I don’t want to talk about it.”

Now let me ask you this: what is Bobby’s mood at this point? Do I need to tell you or can you figure it out for yourself?

How about this?

Bobby slammed the door. He was angrier than he’d ever been.

Katrina appeared in the bedroom doorway. “What—?”

“I’m so mad at Joe!” Bobby shouted.

In this case, I’d be a little ticked off myself, mostly because the writer doesn’t trust me enough to figure out Bobby is mad on my own. As a reader, I never appreciate it when the writer decides to spell out the obvious for me.

I admit that it’s a fine line. Sometimes you’ll need to step back and pretend you’ve never seen this scene before; then decide if everything you’ve included needs to be there. You could also have someone else read the scene and tell you what can stay and what should go.

When in doubt, though, trust your readers.

Closet Spaceship Part 19

I was looking for Reggie when Tim Caswell spotted me in the corridor of Penumbra.

“Hey,” he said.

I winced, hoping he’d forgotten our last talk. “Hi.”

He laughed. “Caught you.”

“I was actually looking for Reg …”

“Is it important?” he asked.

“What?” I said. “Uh, well, no, I guess not. Not really.”

Sometimes I have to stop to admire how articulate I can be. This was not one of those times.

“Good,” Tim said. “Then it can wait.”

He beckoned and led me into the radio station, where we sat down in some chairs a few meters away from the microphone.

I fidgeted a little, wishing I could hear the song that was playing throughout the ship so I could lose myself in the words or the instruments, but he’d turned down the volume so it was inaudible. I looked at the blinking lights on the control panel, the crumpled candy wrapper on the floor next to the wastebasket, a scuff mark on the floor that looked like a bent cactus.

In short, I did almost everything but ask him what I wanted to ask.

Tim might not spend a lot of time around people, but he’s not dumb.

“You want me to find Reg for you?” he asked.

“No, thanks,” I said. “I can’t ask him any more than I can ask you.”

“Ask us what?”

“What’s going to happen?” I slouched down in my chair. “Don’t answer that.”

“Happen where?” Tim asked.

“In my novel. In my life. In the U.S. Everywhere.”

When I saw the puzzled look on his face, I added, “Sorry. Never mind. It doesn’t matter.”

“I can’t tell you anything,” Tim said, “but maybe I could walk out of here and leave the database unlocked.”

I shook my head. “I’m trying not to get you fired.”

“Okay, so what set this off?”

“A lot of stuff. Amazingly enough, having the Cubs win the World Series didn’t solve the world’s problems. Or mine, although it made them a little less obvious for a while there.”

Tim started to say something, but then he shut up.

“No,” I said. “You can’t say whether they did it again. Why am I even having this conversation?”

“So you won’t have to tell me about the cubicle?”

I laughed, which felt good.

“If I did walk out of here,” Tim asked, “would you look?”

“No,” I said without hesitation. I’ve always had a fear of knowing the future, because if it’s not good, I can’t do a thing about it. If I don’t know, I can still hope for the best. “Would you?”

He thought about it for a while. “No, I guess not. But I do know this: you’re not going to tell me about working in a cubicle.”

“Not if I can help it,” I said. “You’re better off not knowing.”

“It’s funny,” Tim said. “I’m not a big fan of secrets, but we can both keep ours: don’t ever tell me and we’ll be even.”

“It’s a deal,” I said.

I can hope for the best, but will I?

I’ll try.

Three Years

Believe it or not, today marks the three-year anniversary of this blog! (It doesn't look like it because my first official post was July 28, 2013, but that's because I accidentally deleted the first post from July 23! I was off to a great start there.)

It's hard for me to believe that I've written posts weekly for that long. It's hard to believe I found that much to say. I don't consider myself particularly thoughtful or opinionated, so it makes me wonder what all of those posts were about! Ha.

I would like to thank you if you've read one, all or some of my posts. I'm not exactly sure how many readers I have out there, but I thank all of you.

Here's the latest news on Diane McCallum and the Penumbra series. My fourth novel, The Other Side, is published and awaiting copyright registration. It's also in the local bookstore, Spellbound, so be sure to check it out! There is a fifth novel, but it needs so much work that I can assure you it will not be out for more than a year. I have a tentative title, but it might be a while before I release that.

I intend to release news about the fifth novel when I feel there's something worth mentioning.

However, the weekly blog is going to have to stop. I'm very sorry, but I am truly running out of things to say! When I have a novel that I'll be releasing soon, that keeps the ideas coming and I don't have any trouble writing a blog, but when there's no novel scheduled, that leaves a bit of a void (especially in my brain!). I've spent three years pushing to get the word out there and I won't just stop, but I have to take a break. That way I can spend more time on the fifth novel.

Please be assured that this blog won't die. If a certain team wins a certain series, you'll probably hear something about that. If a thought strikes me, I'll share it, whether you want to know or not! When there's progress on the next novel, I'll let you know that, too. My goal is to write something at least once a month. If I find that I'm posting at a particular time of the month, I'll let you know, but I'm afraid I can't give you any specifics right now. You can also follow me on my Facebook page: DianeMcCallumAuthor

Please keep spreading the word to your friends and family about the Penumbra series. I'd love to share my novels with a lot of people. My dream is to have people discussing the characters and plot (especially if I get to hear the discussion).

Thank you again for reading this blog and putting up with me. I will try to post again next week, just to round it out, and then we'll see what happens. Please check back!

Why Sci-Fi

Ha. I chose science fiction just so I could have that cool rhyming title someday.

I've had people at work tell me they're astonished to find that I have all these stories of remote planets, spaceships and wormholes in my head. I guess that tells you how boring I am in real life, since they're so surprised by it.

But how did I choose science fiction as the genre for my series?

Part of it is because of Ray Bradbury, my greatest inspiration, but I can't attribute it all to him. For one thing, he didn't write only science fiction. He had a story to tell and he didn't particularly worry about the genre. Wherever the story led him, that's where he went. This is also true for me.

I've always been drawn to science fiction, though. Some of my favorite movies are in that genre and I like the freedom it offers. (That seems appropriate for Independence Day weekend, doesn't it?)

Besides that, I'd already ruled out a few genres. I don't have the money to travel around the planet so I can describe various locations effectively. I enjoy historical fiction, but I've never been particularly strong at history. I don't have the patience to write a romance. I didn't want to spend years on research.

Don't get me wrong: I did have to do research. I had to learn a lot about wormholes (thank you, Kip Thorne), spaceships, microgravity, etc. I have a lot of geeky physics books on my shelves. But once I'd done that, it was pretty easy (and cheap) to travel to distant planets: I just had to close my eyes (even that is optional) and dream.

When you think about it, the genre is only a small part of the equation. There have to be strong characters, a compelling story and a few ideas guiding the whole thing. If you don't have those, the genre will be irrelevant.

At some point, though, I did make a conscious decision. I think it was about the time I discovered Sean aboard a spaceship heading to a prison colony. I'd been toying with several ideas, but that one seemed to speak to me the most so I went with it.

And I've never looked back.

Happy Independence Day tomorrow! Thanks for reading.

The Other Side

If you scrolled down the page on my blog in the past few days, you might have noticed that there's a new book cover in the lower right. That's right: The Other Side is now published! It's available in paperback on Amazon: The Other Side  I hope to have it available for Kindle by next week.

What a process this one has been! It really tested my patience (which was probably good for me), but I'm so glad I stuck with it.

I want to thank Nicole Smith, the artist who created the cover image, for her patience and willingness to work with me to get the image right. She put up with a lot of emails from me and she was always gracious and helpful in response. Thanks, Nicole.

I also want to thank everyone who put up with my hand-wringing and eye-rolling throughout the long journey that led to this novel. You were all very kind not to tell me to shut up and get control of myself.

Now I hope at least a few people will read it ... and like it! Please spread the word that the fourth novel in the Penumbra series is out: no one will read it if they don't hear about it. (And if you buy the novel from Amazon, please write a review.)

Thanks for your help!

Finally Some Good News

I just returned from Nebraska, where I spent some time with my parents and sister. The weather was spectacular for us, except for one brief downpour that managed to drench me thoroughly. We did a little sightseeing (driving past the Nebraska State Capitol never gets old), watched a little hockey and baseball, and did a lot of talking, which was the most enjoyable.

It's always nice to spend time with people who accept me for who I am and don't seem to mind my company, amazingly enough.

When I got home, there was a brown cardboard package waiting for me in the stack of mail. I knew it was the latest proof copy of The Other Side ... and once again, I was a little afraid to open it. We've had so much trouble with the cover image and I wasn't sure I was ready to go through that again. However, I knew I had to do it, so I opened it.

I think this is the one! The image is much better and I think the artist has fixed the problem. I can't tell you how happy I am to report that to you.

Tomorrow after I get unpacked and do the laundry, I'm going to try to go through the whole book once more (just a run-through, not a complete rereading), and then I'll most likely approve it at CreateSpace.com. When that's done, it won't be long before The Other Side shows up on Amazon!

I must admit that there were times I wondered if that would ever happen, but I was determined to see it through, so we're almost there. You can either watch for the news on my Facebook page DianeMcCallumAuthor on FB, or keep checking Amazon, or check back here next week for the latest news on when it will be available.

Tell all your friends that it's almost time for the fourth novel in the Penumbra series to come out!

And thank you again for your patience.

Small Setback

I have a proof copy of The Other Side in my hands! (Well, not while I'm typing, but you get the idea.)

It came two days early, so I thank CreateSpace for that. Also, I see exactly why it's important to order a proof copy because there's a small problem with the cover: the image is darker than expected so a silhouette in the image hardly shows at all. Thank goodness I had a chance to see this before the book officially comes out!

I've already notified the artist and she's working on it, so I'm sure we can get this fixed. She's done a great job so far and has always been very patient and willing to make adjustments. (I'll tell you more about her when the novel actually comes out.) Meanwhile, I'm proofreading the text to check for any typos or stray things that need to be fixed.

I have given you some teasers for this novel, but I thought I'd give you a first look at the cover blurb:
       Reggie Hawkins has been in some bad situations ... and being confined to his
     house for weeks has to be in the top five. No appliance is safe when a mechanic
     gets bored.
       Things are about to change, though: a messenger with a warning is on the way
     and gunmen are storming his brother's law firm. Hawkins will have to act quickly
     to rescue his kidnapped brother.
       What he learns about who's behind all this will lead him and the crew of
     Penumbra on a quest to the far reaches of space, where they'll make their
     most stunning discovery yet.

I hope that will pique your interest! It's never too early to start spreading the word about the new novel coming out soon, so we can build interest for it. I'll be sure to keep you updated on its progress.

Stages

Remember that skeletal park I visited in February? I finally got a chance to go back today ... and it's certainly not skeletal now.

The trees are still mostly bare, but there's an undercurrent of green across the ground. Here and there I caught pale purple flowers or the bright pink of redbud trees. One bush had delicate white blossoms. The park isn't fully dressed yet, but she's starting to put on the initial layers of finery.

The birds are arriving, too. The air was punctuated by titmice calling everywhere I went. Carolina wrens tried to fool me into thinking all that noise couldn't come from such a diminutive bird. A barred owl made me smile with its call of "Who cooks for you? Who cooks for YOU??" Throw in a few cardinals, a fish crow and some goldfinches, and it was almost a symphony.

The bare bones were fascinating, but I have to admit that I like the dressed-up version better.

I'm getting close on The Other Side. I have an ISBN. The interior has been submitted and accepted. However, there's a slight problem with the cover image so I'm working on that with the artist. I'm hoping we can get it figured out quickly so I can move on and get to the proof copy stage. I'll keep you posted.

Thanks for reading my blog! Please spread the word about the Penumbra series and leave a comment if the mood strikes you.

And happy spring!

Update on The Other Side

Rewriting The Other Side has taken a lot of time, as you can tell by looking at the calendar. This is the latest I've ever gone without releasing a novel, but I feel I need to take as long as necessary to get it right. I'm sorry for the delay.

Right now, though, I'm formatting. That's good news because it means the rewriting is mostly finished. Yea!

The initial formatting is done because I put together a binder with instructions on how to do it and that really helped. There are a lot of steps involved with margins, gutters, headers, drop caps, etc. and my brain doesn't like to remember all of that after a year so it's nice to have a reference.

That means I'm at the hard part: making it look good. I think I've written about this before. Sometimes when I'm scrolling through the document, I'll see a sentence that has a paragraph at the end of one page and a single word of that paragraph on the next page. It looks terrible!

For example, I found this on one page: Lamont turned on the radio. “This is Captain Ben Lamont asking you to cease fire. Who are you and what

On the next page I have this: do you want?"

That's not the worst example I've seen, but it makes the reading a little awkward. I'll have to check the first page to see if I can remove a word or two so the last part of his question can go with the rest of it.

It's amazing how hard that is sometimes. I've written it the way I want ... and now I have to change it! I'm trying to add words on some pages and remove words on others. It can be frustrating.

I'm hoping to get the bulk of it done this weekend, however. After that I'll get an ISBN and we can move forward!

If you want to review the teasers I've given about the novel, here they are: Teasers

Please remember to spread the word to your friends and family (and complete strangers) about the Penumbra series. Word of mouth is the best way to let people know about it!

Also, if you happened to buy a copy of any of my novels on Amazon, thank you and please consider writing a review there.

Thank you! I'll keep you posted.

Contest Result

I hope you had a fun and entertaining Halloween! How it got to be the end of October is beyond me, and I feel a renewed sense of urgency about working on The Other Side. Once the Two Big Holidays get here, things will get crazy and it will be harder than ever to find time, so I'll try to get as much done as possible before then.

Since I spent two whole blog posts on the short story I was writing, I didn't think it would be fair if I didn't let you know how I did in the contest. Out of five entries, I came in second. I think that's respectable, don't you? (I was actually quite pleased.)

I want to thank Spellbound Bookstore & Cafe for holding the contest. Some of the entries were quite chilling! If you're in the Pittsburg area, you can stop by the store and check them out. Mine is called "Fall."

I have a friend who's going to partake in NaNoWriMo (National Novel Writing Month) next month. If you've never heard of that, it's a group that encourages writers to write 50,000 words of a novel during the month of November. You can find out more here: NaNoWriMo

I did NaNoWriMo in 2006 and it was incredible to me how many words I had to write each and every day. That's not easy, especially for someone like me, who often writes in short bursts. It was a struggle and the result will probably never see daylight, but it was good for me and I did it!

All of this reminds me that I need to keep pushing myself and my writing. I don't want to fall into a rut and I don't ever want to find that I've stopped writing altogether, no matter how hectic and crazy my life gets.

Thanks again for following my blog. Please help me spread the word about my Penumbra series of novels.

Keep It Short Part 2

Believe it or not, I finished my short story and submitted it to the Spellbound bookstore contest today, one day short of the deadline. Whew! My husband was a big help, with a lot of good suggestions, as I rewrote it several times. I think it's pretty good now and we'll see what happens.

Now I have a much better idea about what makes a short story different than a novel. I touched on this last week, but here it is in a little more detail:

1. Character development happens a lot more quickly. It seems you've barely identified the character before you have to demonstrate how that character evolves. I'm used to letting a character evolve over chapters, not paragraphs.

2. You have to get to the point quickly ... and you can only have one or it's going to get messy. This is very hard for me because I usually have a bunch of points I want to make and I'm not that fast at getting to any of them. I had to listen closely to my character to find out what she wanted to tell me about her wishes and decisions for this story.

3. Almost everything in a short story has to be there for a reason. In a novel, I can have some scenes that might set the tone or give you a little more insight into a character but aren't strictly necessary to the story. In the short story, I couldn't do that. I had to cut out all kinds of descriptions and sidetracks. Now almost every word has a reason: a "lonely" item reflects its owner, a spreadsheet showing the character's job at the beginning is used to show what choice she must make later, etc. This was more of an issue in this story because I was limited to less than 1,000 words, but I think it's true in most short stories.

4. My favorite aspect of a short story, though, is that you can pay close attention to every sentence because there are fewer sentences to work with. I went a little crazy with metaphors, but I really enjoyed getting to use more of them and stretch myself a little. I included more details in some scenes than I might have done if I was in the middle of a long chapter. Whether it made the story better or not might be up for debate, but usually more detail means a stronger story.

This does not mean I'm going to stop writing novels! I might try this again, but I think I'm too hooked on novels to give them up in the near future. I leave it up to you if that's good news or not!

Thanks again for reading my blog. Please spread the word about my Penumbra series!

Lunar Eclipse Tonight

What are you planning to do this evening? If you don't have any particular plans, I'd like to suggest that you go outside and stare at the sky.

Okay, I'll be a little more specific. Tonight we'll get both a "supermoon" and the fourth of a lunar tetrad, which will lead to a "blood moon."

A supermoon happens when the moon is full at the time when it's closest to Earth. You won't see the moon filling the sky or anything like that, but it will be a little bigger than usual.

The lunar tetrad is a series of four consecutive total lunar eclipses, which is pretty rare. The blood moon happens when the moon is fully eclipsed and turns a sort of reddish-orange color.

Take a look at this website: timeanddate.com It shows a cool animation of what to expect when you're looking up at the eclipse (no special glasses or shields are necessary for a lunar eclipse). It also gives you a lot of information about where and when you can see it.

I recommend giving it a try. The so-called "blood moon" is a fascinating sight, and it's also interesting to track the path of the eclipse as the moon first darkens (in Earth's penumbra) and then turns color (in Earth's umbra).

As you might guess, I have a certain fondness for anything involving a Penumbra.

I hope you'll give it a try. I plan to be out there, once again baffling the neighbors by standing there with my head thrown back while I stare upward. Maybe they're used to it by now and won't even notice!

Work continues on The Other Side. There's still a lot to be done, but I'll keep working on it. Thanks for following my blog!

Third Video

Happy Labor Day Weekend! For many of us, it's a chance to rest and recharge our batteries before we launch ourselves back into the labor that helps us pay the bills.

For me, it's been a chance to finally finish my third video! I think I must be the world's pickiest person because I spent a lot of time this morning adjusting transitions and effects. It's a good thing I'm not a movie director because considering how much time I put into a one-and-a-half-minute video, can you imagine how long a two-hour movie would take??

This video is for the third novel in my Penumbra series, In the Shadows. Please share it with friends and family.

Here's the link: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ozZbYu15Q_I

I appreciate your support!

The Desk

We recently had some windows replaced in our house and we needed to move stuff out of the way so the workers could actually get to the windows. I also realized that there would be dust involved, so I wanted to cover what I could. In the end, I decided to remove everything from my desk.

Wow.

It's amazing what kind of stuff accumulates on a desk (or any surface where you might set things you intend to put away later). It was almost like an archaeological dig! I found a list of possible titles for the series of my novels ("Penumbra" was second on the list). I found random notes of plot ideas or character studies. I found sketches for the videos. I found a list of possible ship names. I found a list of Amazon rankings for Outsider (the highest is 241,491 and the lowest is over 2 million).

Not all of it was book-related. I found a great photo of my co-workers (taken two years ago), some Dilbert cartoons, a scribbled note about an elliptical machine I was considering two or three years ago, a Kansas bird list and a nice postcard of the Colorado Rockies.

It was pretty easy to shove all of it in drawers or a bag before the window guys arrived. It wasn't so easy to take it all out and decide what to do with it after they left. In fact, the bag sat in the living room for a week before I worked up the courage to open it.

I recycled a lot of it. I filed some of it. And I started a new stack of "I don't know what else to do with this" items on the corner of the desk.

There's a lot less clutter than there was before. Let's see how long that can last.
In the meantime, if I need a new ship name, I know where to look!

Spring Forward

Now that I have In the Shadows done, I can just sit back and put my feet up, right?

Not exactly.

For one thing, I'm still trying to drum up interest in it through this blog, Facebook, word of mouth, etc. And I'm working on another video to possibly catch the eye of people who might not otherwise have heard of the Penumbra series.

Then there's the fourth novel. Oh, yes, there's another one ... and I've learned my lesson with In the Shadows: this time I won't be waiting until September to start working on it. That was my fault and caused me all sorts of problems last year, so I'm going to try to avoid it this time. I'm working on a particularly difficult scene today (sorry, no hints yet!).

Does this mean I spend all of my time on the novels? Certainly not (although sometimes I wish I could spend at least a little more time on them). I have this thing called a job and it takes up quite a bit of time. Until some rich person feels like paying me to write, I'll be going there on weekdays.

But I do other fun things, too. I'll be joining my Audubon group tomorrow to trek into the country and look for short-eared owls. Trooping across a muddy field is well worth it when you get to see such amazing creatures (I'll let you decide if I'm talking about the owls or my fellow Auduboners).

So life goes on. I'm just glad it's going on while the temperature is starting to go up again! Longer days, too!

Thanks again for your support. Please keep spreading the word.

In the Shadows Now Available

That's right, it's finally ready!

I only missed the deadline I'd set for myself by ONE day, so that's not too bad!
(I published it on February 1.)

Here's the link to Amazon: In the Shadows  I'll try to add it to the right side of this blog like the first two novels.

I'm a three-novel author! Wow, it's hard to believe. This one was the most challenging so far, but "what doesn't kill you ..."

I want to thank the artist, Kristi Kranker, for the cover image, and I also want to thank CreateSpace for making this dream a reality.

I hope to have the Kindle version ready by tomorrow, so look for it on amazon.com in the next few days.

And please tell all of your friends, family, co-workers, acquaintances, neighbors, etc., about the Penumbra series. Word of mouth is the best advertising, right?

Thanks again for your support!