Want to Hear What I Sound Like?

 I'm going to be on the radio show "D&D Live" Friday, October 14th, at 9:05 am Eastern.  I'll be talking about my latest collection and whatever else they ask me about.  If you live in Highlands County, Florida you can tune in at 730 AM or 95.3 FM.  Not local?  You can tune in the livestream at https://www.newstalk730am.com/

Shore Leave 41!

Once again, I will be traveling to Hunt Valley, MD to participate in Shore Leave 41.  Shore Leave is at the Delta Hotels Baltimore in Hunt Valley and will go on July 12th-14th.  Below is my schedule if you want to meet me and say hi!

Friday, July 12th:  

Other than Meet the Pros at 10 PM, I have nothing else going on.  Meet the Pros takes place in the Hunt/Valley corridor and goes until midnight.

Saturday, July 13th:

10 am-11 am: "The Worth of Workshops and Writing Classes" with Kelli Fitzpatrick, Jim Johnson, Derek Attico, Danielle Ackley-McPhail, and Lorraine Anderson.  Derby Room.

11 am-noon: "Own Worst Critic or Greatest Fan?" with Aaron Rosenberg, Dayton Ward, and Dave Galanter.  Chase Room.

2 pm-3 pm: "Avengers: Endgame" with Rigel Ailur, Dave Galanter, Glenn Hauman, and Michael Jan Friedman.  Salon E.

3 pm-4pm: "Captain Marvel" with Rigel Ailur, Hildy Silverman, and Keith R. A. DeCandido.  Salon E.

Sunday, July 14th:

Unfortunately, I have to leave in the morning to catch my flight back home.  So I am not on any panels.  Will probably be busy saying goodbye to people.  :)

Hope to see some of you there!

Would you like a free short story?

I am giving new subscribers to my newsletter a FREE short story, "Murder for Dinner," as a way of saying thanks.  All you have to do is sign up on the form on the left hand side of the page.

(You can check out a short blurb about "Murder for Dinner" on the ebooks page of the blog)

Once you sign up I'll send you instructions on how to get "Murder for Dinner" for free.

The newsletter is occasional, mostly when I have news to report.  I promise I won't flood your inbox with postings.

I hope to hear from you!

Tuesday Thoughts: Post colonoscopy

Yesterday there was no Monday Musings because yesterday I had an endoscopy and colonoscopy and was loopy enough from the anesthesia that I didn't think I could come up with anything coherent.

There are a number of people who get nervous about this procedure and think of all kinds of reasons to put it off.  I have to admit I understand their concern.

Preparing for the thing is no fun - I spent Sunday near the bathroom.  And you have to more than likely take a day or two off for it (I gave myself permission to take Sunday and Monday off from the writing due to this).  It's a little unsettling, given what takes place.

The three worst things about it for me?  The prep, certainly.  Yesterday the poor nurse had to try two different spots to find a vein for the IV, and that brought not a little pain.  And whatever device they put on my mouth for the endoscopy bruised my lips - it looks like someone socked me in the mouth.

The procedure itself?  Thanks to anesthesia I slept through it.  No biggie.  And today, other than being a little tired and having puffy lips, I am fine.

And the good news is I have no cancer.

You see, the reason I endure this is because of the simple fact that colon/rectal cancer has no warning signs.  And in the past I've had pre-cancerous polyps in my intestine that were removed.  This latest procedure was to make sure they hadn't come back.

Yes, it's a pain.  Yes, it's not on my list of fun things to do.  I'm glad it's done.

But cancer would be worse.

Check with your doctor and if he/she says you need to have this, get it done.  Believe me, it beats the alternative.

An opportunity

Sorry it's been so long since I last posted.  Let me offer you an opportunity to have fun with other writers and maybe learn a thing or two about the craft...

Don't know if I'm going or not but you might want to check it out!

A new tactic: Dedicated writing computer

I had heard for years that a great thing for a writer was a computer totally dedicated to writing.  Take a computer, strip off anything remotely distracting, and poof!  Your writing production would improve before you knew it.

I resisted this advice.  I had one laptop which I did all kinds of things besides writing on.  I couldn't just strip everything off it - it was also my travel computer and I needed it for Internet and other things.  My desktop computer is a gaming computer and there was no way I was converting that.

But I kept hearing, "get a cheap computer and convert it."

After hearing this advice yet again two weeks ago in an online workshop I'm taking I decided to bite the bullet.  My two conditions: it had to be very cheap, and I had to be able to pay for it using money from my business - no taking money from household funds.

Well, I cheated a little.  I have a line of credit associated with my business account.  I tapped a portion of that to use towards the purchase of a laptop I found locally for under $250.  It was new and it did have the drawback of having Windows 8.1 on it, but it would suit my purposes.

I also bought a cheap copy of Microsoft Office and an inexpensive case.  Total expenditures came to just under $400.  (This did not include anti-virus software I was forced to put on the thing even though it would rarely if ever go online.  Let's hear it for unexpected expenses)

After downloading the few things that needed downloading, I disabled the wifi and made sure it would be a pain to turn back on.  I checked to make sure there were no games on it.  I didn't even put my music on it, though I occasionally like to listen to music while I write.  I figured that's what my iPod is for.

So I've had it about 10 days.  What do I have to say about it?

Well, I don't know if it's the only factor, but I've written every day since then (except the day I got it - I spent that time setting it up).  Granted, sometimes it's only been a few hundred words, but this week clocked out to be my best in terms of word count in a while.

And my brain is starting to figure out that when we fire up THAT computer, it's to play with words.  Not to surf the net, go on Facebook, or play Minecraft.  That's our writing time.

So I think so far it's been a rousing success.  I'm looking forward to all the words I'm going to write on it.

If you're easily distracted, think about getting a computer just for writing.  It's helping me - it might help you too.

In the meantime, happy writing (or, if you aren't a writer, happy reading!).

A great article on e-book covers

Fellow writer Karen Abrahamson has a great article here on branding your books.  She discusses it from the position of an indie publisher doing her own covers.

Karen is a great writer who is, like me, braving the new world of ebook publishing.  Her article contains a lot of useful information for those of us still learning the trade.

Check it out if you're interested!