Endings

 The past few days have been an odd time here. Over the weekend I finished Maestra and got it ready for release later this month. I was relieved, happy with the end result, and exhausted. I didn't feel like celebrating, though.

In March our 11 year old Siberian Ragdoll cat was diagnosed with Feline Leukemia. He was losing his battle since the end of last week and it sadly came to an end yesterday.

It's absolutely impossible to celebrate anything right now. The house is sullen, the other cats are roaming and looking for their brother. My four year old is coping the way young children do. My 15 year old is spending time with her mother 70 miles away and I can't be there to comfort her during this. 

Between the pandemic and everything associated with it and now the loss of our beloved Coal McPatches my memories of writing Maestra are very mixed. I am incredibly proud of this book and how well it has turned out. I sincerely hope that some people out there connect with it, also. However, I don't think I'm going to be able to read it or revisit my memories of writing it for quite a while. It came from the ashes of a world on fire and my own mental health struggles, which have become more serious of late. Somehow, in the middle of it all, I crafted this diamond that I hope shines long after I am gone from this world. It's a fairly bleak epic. The world around us has undoubtedly influenced the tone of the book. 

Arabella's journey will absolutely tear at your heart. It's the story of wrestling control of your own destiny away from those who would control it for us. We all may strive toward an inevitable fate, but the journey there should be on our own terms. Maestra is roughly 600 pages spanning years, dimensions, and emotional highs and lows in the life of one woman who simply wants to know 'why me?' We've all been there and can identify with the concepts of her struggles, if not the specific supernatural details of it.

I will be revisiting the Concentric Worlds in the years ahead but I bid farewell to it, for a little while.

In October I will begin work on my first science fiction novel, The Dreaming Sea.

The first two volumes in The Concentric Worlds are over 200,000 words and nearly 1,000 pages of Lovecraftian influenced paranormal horror/dark fantasy that will satiate the hungriest of horror appetites:

Find The Morbid Fascinations of David Bennett on sale now, and Maestra available for pre-order (releases September 25th) here: https://www.amazon.com/R-M-Smith/e/B07ZGH16ZC/

Why Does it Have to Be Yellow Jackets?

 It's been a fairly quiet August here in the Smith household. The kids are in virtual school, the pandemic is pandemicing, the new kitten has taken over the household and I have been editing Maestra.

I'm around 70% of the way through edits and I have a self imposed deadline of the end of August to complete the project. This was thoroughly derailed this morning by a pest problem.

For the past couple of days, my wife and kids have been hearing a 'mouse' in the walls and ceiling upstairs. You may notice the word 'mouse' in quotation marks. That's because when I heard the sound this morning I decided to investigate. 

On the ceiling of my 4 year old's bedroom I noticed a paint bubble. I poked at it and there is no drywall behind it. There was a tapping sound in the ceiling all around the area. I think, 'wow, the mouse sure likes to chew up drywall.' Then I slap the ceiling to spook the mouse. The result was a chorus of buzzing and the tapping became a clamor. 

Well, that's not good.

I walked outside to get a better view of what was going on around the roof. Sure enough, yellow jackets swarming the roof where they have made a nice little hole through the fascia and gotten into the attic. I hate yellow jackets. Every single summer that we have lived in this house (seven years now) we have had issues with yellow jackets. We had to cut down our pear tree. They nest in our shed, attic (two years ago), lawn, trees, and now in the attic again. 

So, we have the upstairs bedrooms closed, towels under the doors, and everyone is on the first floor. Pest control should arrive in a few hours to hopefully handle the problem with ease. Until then, it's a fun filled day of paranoia. It's also a rare ninety degree late August day here in Michigan, which makes it difficult to keep the kids outside all day long.

In other words, not much editing is getting done today. Fly swatters and flip flops are on standby in case the striped, stinging menaces decided to invade.

Also, pick up the new and improved ebook of The Morbid Fascinations of David Bennett for just $2.99!

https://www.amazon.com/Morbid-Fascinations-David-Bennett-ebook/dp/B07ZG4N2XB

I cleaned up the text and formatting and made a few minor adjustments, overall. FYI, anyone who already owns a Kindle copy of this now has the updated version on their device. Help support the war against yellow jackets with your purchase! Thanks!

Buzzing along for now...

I Did a Thing

Before I began writing Maestra I came up with a concept of an anthology series of very short stories, roughly 3,000 to 5,000 words. It would be Science Fiction themed and all involve stories with lessons built into them from Humanity's first attempt to colonize an alien world. 

While drafting Maestra I didn't do a whole lot with it other than create a bit of an outline. Last weekend, when I finally put the final draft of Maestra to rest I set out to write the first short story in the series before going on a hiatus.

It didn't take me very long to write up a couple of drafts and edit, so here is the first entry!

It is available on Amazon Kindle and Kindle Unlimited. It is 99 cents to purchase or free through the Kindle Unlimited option if you subscribe to that service. https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B08FBRWQVF

I will eventually put more stories up in the series. 

This story serves as a nice bridge to my next project, which will be a full length science fiction novel, tentatively looking to release in Summer 2021 (if there is still a world by then.)

Now a break for a few days before I begin my edits on Maestra.

Life Hack: Low Carb Pizza

This is not a paid advertisement. I'm a 43 year old who loves pizza with a passion. I also happen to be a type 2 diabetic who struggles to find things to eat that don't taste like cardboard.

This doesn't even really qualify as a recipe but more of a 'huh, I never thought of that.'

In the Mexican section of your grocery store you are likely to find a selection of either High Fiber or Low Carb soft tortillas. My personal favorite are OLE brand Xtreme Wellness Tomato Basil tortillas. They're about 8 inches in size, 50 calories, 15 carbs but 11 are from dietary fiber.

I toast one of these up in my little toaster oven for about 3 minutes at 450 degrees.

I then take three table spoons of any given pizza sauce (this will add about 5 more carbs, typically) and spread it out over the crisped tortilla. 

Next I sprinkle a quarter cup of lowfat mozz cheese on the pizza.

You can add whatever toppings you like. Personally I go for a bit of pepperoni, basil, and garlic.

Put it back in the toaster over on 450 for another 4 to 5 minutes.

You now have a relatively healthy pizza containing roughly 200-250 calories and 9-10 net carbs. Best of all, this is legitimately tasty thin crust pizza!

Here in the Midwest, Meijer also has their own store brand low carb tortillas. They are kind of plain and have a couple more carbs but are an overall decent choice for this.

The Toll

I've been pushing myself pretty hard to get this draft done. Originally, back in November when I began writing Maestra, I wanted to be done with all the drafting by July. Despite several hiccups along the way (including a motivation sucking global pandemic) I'm not really that far behind. Most of the credit can come from a second wind that hit my sails the moment I began writing the third act of the book. Not only is it my favorite part of the book (I really love writing gut wrenching stuff...yes, I'm sick,) but I could see the end in sight -- that always helps me kick it into another gear.

In the past week I have written 12,000+ words in this draft. That's a lot. I'm also paying for it. I've had many dreams and nightmares about Maestra over the past week -- not only the story but a lot of other stuff that goes along with wrapping up a book. I've had several anxiety attacks about the upcoming marketing push, getting reviews organized, getting the cover artwork finalized, etc. I've slept like crap and it is showing. I haven't felt a decline in my writing quality, other than my spelling ability, so far. I'm trying to throttle back just a bit but, with about 20,000 words left to write in this draft, it's hard for me to want to do anything other than get this book done.

Is this book better than my last one? I can't compare like that. I will say this is my favorite, between the two, just because it was so challenging to write. I changed perspective, genre, tone between books. Maestra is either going to be viewed by fans of The Morbid Fascinations of David Bennett as a natural evolution into a larger universe, or a completely epic scale failure.

I didn't become a writer to be safe and generate cookie cutter stories to sell thousands of copies. I became an author to create art and tell interesting stories filled with troubled characters struggling to do the right thing. Will it pay off? Time will tell.

Check out Book 1 of The Concentric Worlds series, The Morbid Fascinations of David Bennett, before Book 2 comes out in September. https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/1701845431

Admitting What We Really Are

Last night I caught myself babbling to myself in the kitchen as I was fixing my dinner at 10pm. It all made sense to me. I was working out dialogue from the chapter I'm writing. My kitten was by my feet, waiting for some shreds of cheese and intently fixated on her daddy. She may have been wondering if I was having a stroke or breakdown, but was likely just waiting for me to open the bag of cheddar jack and spill some on the floor for her.

I realized what I had been doing and chuckled to myself. It would look pretty weird but I catch myself doing this kind of thing fairly often. I've also been known to zone out for minutes at a time, lost somewhere in the pages of my work in progress. I'll rouse from my reverie as my wife is shooting daggers at me for vacantly looking at a wall while she is talking to me or asking me a question.

Maybe I'm alone in this, as a writer, but I kind of doubt it. I think it's time that we all stand up and admit that we are a different breed of human being. I have come to terms with the fact that I am eccentric and am learning to embrace it. I've always been a bit aloof (which is probably why my wife's stuffy ragdoll cat and I get along so well,) but over the past year I have noticed more and more often that I will start thinking about something involving my stories and mentally leave the world around me for a few minutes.

Saturday we had some company up at the lake and we were all playing with the kids out in the lake. I caught myself wandering away from the group as I was contemplating how to add a romantic side story to part 3 of Maestra that didn't exist in the first draft. It kind of hit me out of nowhere and I didn't even realize that I silently left my group of friends, wandering out past a buoy in contemplation of how to add depth to my writing.

I'm curious if other writers find themselves doing similar things like this. I doubt I am alone in this. Regardless, I'm ready and willing to finally admit what I am:

Eccentric, aloof, solitary, quiet, reflective, obtuse, quizzical, introspective...in other words; a Writer!

Let's admit it: We're a touch odd. I am fine with it and wouldn't have it any other way (my wife might.)

Productivity Through Isolation

It's been a couple of weeks since I blogged and thought it was time for another update on the progress of Maestra. Things were going a bit slowly but kicked into at least medium gear in the past couple of weeks. That got bumped into high gear over the weekend.

At the end of last week I developed some concerning symptoms and, being in a high risk group, I decided to get a COVID19 test. That meant being presumed positive and heading into isolation until the results came in. Isolation involved being stuck in a a spare bedroom in my house that serves as a theater, office, and craft room. It's also not air conditioned and only has a couch to sleep on.

So I did a lot of writing -- like, 7,000 words of writing in 2 days worth of writing. I've now managed to get back on track to be done with this draft and go into edits by the end of July. I'm not going to celebrate, yet, because I still have roughly 1/3 of the book left to write. I'm just over 90,000 words and estimating the final word count of this draft to be somewhere around 135,000. This book is going to be a bit thick but well worth the read. 

Being forced to sit down and write was actually a great way to get some motivation back into me. 

Thematically, I have noticed some of the bleak state of the world creeping into my work, which is probably something that would be expected to happen -- but I have also noticed that the moments of hope are shining a bit brighter in this draft. 

There will be a light in the darkness.

Until next time.

Read book 1 of the Concentric Worlds: The Morbid Fascinations of David Bennett. Only 99 cents or free on Kindle Unlmited. Catch up on this dynamic universe before the Dark Fantasy sequel, Maestra releases this Autumn!

https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/1701845431