Unless you were living under a rock last year, you know that I was lucky enough to be chosen to write a story for the Ministry of Peculiar Occurrences. (check out my story here and buy a copy for just 99 cents).

Well, big news! The Ministry is raising money to create a Role Playing Game based on the universe they created! I’m super, crazy excited about this. GO HERE! Go HERE NOW! Help this game become a reality! There’s a long way to go and they’re already 1/4 of the way there. I know they’ll make it, but you can get some great fiction, a great game (designed by Galileo Games who are responsible for Bulldogs) (Side Note, Bulldogs was a game some friends of mine created in high school that the characters from V&A Shipping came from).

As I said, I’m really excited about this. This is HUGE! I hope you’ll take a moment, check it out, and throw a few bucks their way to make this happen. I can guarantee it’ll be a great product.

So excited!

If you’ve followed along at home, you may have noticed that Starla Huchton is responsible for some of my covers (and will be responsible for many covers in the future). That said, I want you to check out her cover for HER OWN BOOK!. Yes, Starla isn’t just a great cover artist, she’s also an author! WOO WOO! The book isn’t ready just yet, but will be available for purchase soon and I’ll be sure to post when you can get your own copy. She’s also done covers for the likes of Paul Cooley and Nobillis Reed. Check out her work at Designed by Starla and her author page at Starla Huchton!

Speaking of books, if you listened to the latest Get Published podcast, you’ll have heard the announcement I made. My rather insane announcement that I plan on publishing (myself) 28 books in 24 months. That’s my grand plan. Guess what. I’m currently on target. That’s huge! As of this writing I currently have put out six books. This month may see another, or next month will see Three. It all depends on covers and editing. That will put me at nine for the year. For the rest of the year, here’s what I have scheduled:

My Teacher is a Witch

My Teacher is a Ghost

Asteroid Bunnies: Zanahoria

Billy Barbarian: Sethopolis

V&A Shipping II

Golden West: Season 1

Supernatural Learning: 8th grade (this will collect My Teacher is a Zombie, Werewolf, and Vampire)

Of Gnomes and Dwarves: Book 1: Chance Encounters

Astel: Chosen (re-release)

That’s right. Nine more books. That will put me at 15 on the year. That’s if I don’t decide to drop something else in the mean time. I did pull two books I had scheduled just because I wanted to make sure I committed more time to the projects I’ve already laid out. I don’t want to put too much pressure on myself with all I have currently going on.

Speaking of all that’s going on, life have been busy these past two months. Writing time has been extremely sparse. By that I mean I’ve only written about 20,000 words in the past two months. I’m 45,000 words behind schedule. That means I pulled the giant robot story I was writing. I also pulled To Fall From the Sky. Should I get back on track, I will add these books back into the mix, but for now they’re off the schedule until I can get back to them. I don’t want to rush any of the stories I’m currently working on. Just because I plan on releasing a large number of books doesn’t mean I’m going to skimp or cheat or put out a poor quality product just to get it out the door.

Now, in order to achieve my goal I will be cheating a little. How? Quite simple. I’ve already written nearly all the books that will be put out this year. The ones I haven’t written yet are only 20,000-25,000 words in length (middle grade books). I will be writing those once I finish with Golden West: Season 2 (I’ll talk about Season 1 in a bit). I plan to write the next few books in the Supernatural Learning series in one shot so they’re all ready to go long before their release dates. I hae two for this year and four for next year (completing 9th grade and going into 10th grade). I’ll then work on the first two or three in the Asteroid Bunnies series. That will complete all the shorter works for 2014 that will need to be written. Yes, I’m self publishing and I could just drop them at any given time, but I want to release these on a schedule so the series will have time to grow an audience.

Yes, I realize that I’m dropping a LOT of book out in a short time, but why not just drop everything once it’s completely written? Quite simple, if you were to see my schedule, each book I’m writing is in a series (except for a few stand alone books) and I plan to drop only one in a series in a given year. Honestly. I am working on books that will be released next year and I have a schedule for this year. I want to make sure that the books are ht best I can make them and by doing a majority of the work on my own, I need to make sure I put out the best product I can.

Back to the writing. I said I’ve only written 20,000 words in two months and I’m way behind. Those 20,000 words that I did write were written over a four day span and a two day span. I write very fast. I always have. If I were more consistent with the number of days I spent actually writing, I’d have a lot more accomplished at this point. I’m only shooting for an average of 1000 words per day. Not a lofty goal, but I need to hit that goal in order to have all the books for next year written and ready to release.

Work slowed to the point where it won’t invade on my personal time as much as it has. Yes, last year was a busy year and between writing and blogging I wrote 490,000 words. I didn’t write nearly as much new fiction as I would have liked and that’s what I changed for this year. I’m focusing only on words of new fiction written. Not these blog posts. I know I can beat my 365,000 word goal. I plan to blow it out of the water. I’ll be spending some time doing that today. I’ll write at least 4,000 words today. I’d like to actually finish writing Golden West by the end of next week. I’m currently sitting on 8000 words and I need to get to somewhere between 55,000 and 60,000 words. Yes, I need to write a lot today, tomorrow, and during the week to hit that goal. I think I can do it. This will put me in great shape both with the podcast and with my writing schedule.

Speaking of the podcast. My writing partner just dropped his episode and I’ll be getting that up this weekend. So very VERY sorry for the delay in the final episode. Once we have it complete we’ll be dropping them into podiobooks so people can get their fix that didn’t want to wait a month between episodes. I won’t put it out there until the ebook and print book are available.

There’s a lot more going on behind the scenes, but now you’re up to date on all the writing stuff. I’m glad you’re with me on this journey.

Until Next Time!

WOO WOO!

Very soon I will be releasing a book unlike any other I’ve released in podcast form or in print. My Supernatural Learning series is a Middle-Grade series and is great for the younger set. This book is not.

Paradise Palms: A Murder-Mystery in a Time-Traveling Trailer Park is something for the older crowd. I would tell you more about it, but for now, just enjoy the cover created by Starla Hutchon. She does GREAT covers. Check out some of her other work.

I will hopefully have this book ready to go in the next couple of weeks along with Billy Barbarian. I will be blogging the contents of the book so it you can’t afford a copy, it’ll be here for you to read one chapter every other day or so.

Until Next Time!

WOO WOO!

The third in the Supernatural Learning series, this completes the 8th grade collection. The next book will start the characters in 9th grade. There will be 4 books for the 9th grade collection and involve more creatures of the supernatural world.

AVAILABLE NOW! Stanley doesn’t want to be in summer school. Worse, he doesn’t want to deal with another teacher that isn’t that they appear to be. He’d rather be with his friends looking at the moon or playing their game or reading comics. Instead, Stanley and his friends need to investigate what they caught overnight on their camera and determine if it’s a threat or not. Stanley wonders if just once he could get a normal teacher. Purchase your copy today eBook ($1.99) SmashWords | Nook | Kindle | Kobo Print ($4.99) CreateSpace Signed edition! ($4.99) Get the ebook free!

The dream started out at a party. I’m not sure who the party was for, but people involved weren’t there, that’s all I know. An old friend had a friend at the party and kept trying to give me three things. 1) Viagra. 2) X. 3) two neon green folding chairs. I kept refusing and asking why the friend sent them to me. Apparently they thought I know some high-up person in a company that could help them sell these chairs as a great idea. They kept shoving the drugs in my hand saying they were for me. Later they gave me an obscene amount of both drugs and said to take the chairs and give this high-up person the drugs and the chairs. I was going to ask how to get a hold of them to let them know I accomplished this task, but I was suddenly in the Millican’s bedroom.

The bedroom was completely rearranged and at first I thought they were living in a new house. They weren’t, but things were terribly messy. By messy I mean I was knee-deep in laundry and picking washcloths out of the pile to dust a dresser piled high with ‘stuff’ (necklaces, random jewelery, receipts, rocks, tiny dumbbells). I picked up what I could and started dusting and the Millican said just push it all on the floor. He was sitting on the bed (the sheets in a twist at the end of the bed) which was the only other piece of furniture in the room. As we talked about something the laundry depth continued to move up. His youngest daughter poked her head in to say hello and disappeared. His wife came out of the closet and said hello and disappeared. My wife and favorite daughter appeared on the balcony out of their room and waved. Then I got sucked under the clothes.

Then I woke up wonder what the hell that was all about.

Any ideas?

Until Next Time

WOO WOO!

First off, I was having fun posting my dreams. I haven’t stopped having them, I just haven’t had the opportunity to sit and write them. For example, last night I was fishing in this wide fishing boat, alone. For some reason I was still tied to the dock. A HUGE fish, bigger than my boat, jumped out of the water and landed on the dock. It rocked my boat something fierce. The fish died as soon as it landed on the dock. I looked at it and had no idea what to do.

Then I woke up. Then I fell back asleep and had another dream that was…odd. I’ll leave it at that.

I will resume posting my dreams when things settle down.

So, My Teacher is a Vampire is live all over where books can be found. I’ll post links and cover art and all that just as soon as I’m able. I love the cover Dan Dan the Art Man did for this one. I’ll be pestering him again soon for My Teacher is a Witch. I hope to release that one come July.

Paradise Palms: A Murder Mystery in a Time-Traveling Trailer Park has been delayed. I’m getting more editing done on that one. I’m a bad, bad writer. Well, maybe not, but that one needed lots of cleaning and it’s being scoured. It may need a little re-writing in spots, but it will be coming this month.

Also this month I hope to drop Billy Barbarian: Sethopolis. This is a fun book and I can’t wait to get it out into the wild. This one was done as a podcast and before you ask, yes, I’m planning a sequel.

Next Month will see Of Gnomes and Dwarves: Chance Encounters. This is the first book I ever wrote and has been completely re-written. I’m super happy with the way this one came out. I added a lot, I took out a lot, I changed things around. Overall I made the book the best I could. I’m anxious to write the sequel for this one.

My giant robot story has stalled on me. I’m going to put it aside. After trashing 25,000 words and starting over I got 10,000 words in and I’m struggling with it at this point. I do plan on finishing it, but I’m not as excited as I was the first time through. I need to work on something else to find my writing mojo once more. I only knocked out 10,000 words last month and I don’t like that. Yes I was crazy busy with editing, work, helping friends with their webpages, and everything else life throws at me, but that’s no excuse for such a poor word count. I need to get back on track and I know just the book to do that for me.

Speaking of life throwing things at me, I found myself at Metal Jam over the weekend. This is a charity even for autism and I’d heard about it before, but my brain never made the connection. Turns out it’s founded by my high-school buddy that I haven’t seen in about 20 years. Yes, we’ve talked on the phone many times, but I haven’t been up to see him in a LONG time. He only lives two hours away, so what was my excuse? Life.

So I went up so see him. I had to. He has a son that’s 20 years old and severely autistic. Jeff started this event to raise money to help kids with autism and all the proceeds go to help the fight. The best moment of the day was when Jeff brought his son on stage and played Into the Void by Black Sabbath. For some reason his son really responds to this song. It was hard not to cry as you saw Jake on stage with his dad rocking out. It was a beautiful thing.

I also met Derek Riggs there. Derek is the artist responsible for all the Iron Maiden artwork over the years (well, a vast majority of it). He’s such a great guy and donated his time so sign anything people brought by. He also donated the artwork for the t-shirts (and hoodies and prints). I got much swag. I was astounded by just how much was donated. I mean, holy cow! There was so much that they had a hard time getting rid of it all.

What Metal Jam is, other than a fund raiser, is a place where musicians gather to jam together. Over 100 musicians showed up to play 25 songs. On the site there’s a posted song list and artists can sign up for one or many songs. The talent ranges from pros (The Iron Maidens, Electric Funeral, Dias, Just Like Priest) to people that sit in their room and jam on their guitar and know a few songs. This was a chance for those people to mix, mingle, and have a great time for a great cause. Me? I was just a spectator, but I so wanted to have a base in my hands and jam with them. Who knows, maybe I’ll start playing bass again so I can join in next year for a song or two.

This weekend I’ll be back in Long Beach for a volleyball tournament. Might meet up with Jeff and his girlfriend again for dinner. Then when we get back on Saturday I hope to head out to the Gaslamp Gathering and meet Jay Lake. Unless things change, this will be my only opportunity to meet him. That saddens me and I need to get out there to say ‘hello’.

So things won’t slow down any time soon, but hey, that’s life. I can do all this and write as well.

Speaking of writing, I’d better get doing something.

Until Next Time!

WOO WOO!

The wife and I were in the woods, way back in the woods far from civilization. We were with a large group of people out to watch an experiment. The giant building we stood by looked like a long-abandoned office building of some sort, but very wide! The entire bottom floor had been gutted, the windows knocked out, and almost nothing inside but debris. Off in the distance someone counted down and the walls of the bottom of the building fell away. Like completely fell away. This left the remainder of the building floating and there was much applause.

We went up a ladder and into the floating building and wound up in an Asian (I’m not sure what kind) restaurant. We sat with a family of Asian folk and for some reason my food was brought out first. It was a heaping plate of noodles and veggies and chicken and it was yellow and delicious and I started eating and tried to get others to join me. They were having none of it.

Instead the rest of the people (the wife included) waited for the next round of food which turned out to be lobster. Giant lobsters. HUGE lobsters. They weren’t cracked and had a green sauce drizzled in a zig-zag pattern and sesame seeds sprinkled on them. They looked tasty and I broke off a claw and started eating the meat and scooping up the noodles with the claw and eating with the the claw.

Then I woke up with a tummy ache.

Make of it what you will. My mind creeps me out some times.

Until Next Time!

WOO WOO!

That’s when a homeless person comes rushing up and starts yelling at us for violating his space. We’re not supposed to be there. No one is supposed to be there. We need to get away from there in a hurry or he’ll hurt us. My nephew had kept going and was now in a precarious position. We got out of there, I gave the man back his knife and we left. Now that it was getting dark, we needed to be even faster in getting where we needed to go. Though we did spend time trying to catch tadpoles in the water. I guess we weren’t in that much of a hurry.

We wound up on a sidewalk walking past a lot of other homeless people. Most of them far dirtier than the street they were on. None of them wanted anything. None of them begged, but they were all in a line waiting for something. Well, all of them save one man that stuck out.

There was something wrong with his legs, that much I knew due to him lying stomach down on a wheeled device. He had his arms removed just below the elbow and in order to move, he had to crunch his stomach and then release much like an inchworm. He yelled at me when I asked if he needed any help. He said something like “Do I look like a cripple?” I was a bit taken aback, but we let him be.

We wanted to find out what the line was for so we went inside the building the homeless people were waiting outside. There was a lot of orange and blue and greens, but I didn’t recognize the company. There was a large woman dressed in dirty rags arguing with a little man in a suit, balding, wearing glasses and looking quite annoying with the large woman shaking her fist at him. The complaint was that the company had used images of these homeless people in an ad campaign that proved to be highly successful and now these people were the ‘face’ of the company. Unfortunately, because they were homeless, they were given a small fee of $5 for their picture and made to sign a release allowing the company to use the images any way they wanted. Now these people wanted to be properly compensated. The arguing got louder, the people flooded the building, and my favorite nephew and I were late.

Then I woke up.

What does it all mean? Where does my brain come up with these things? Where do stories come from? We may never know.

Until Next Time!

WOO WOO!

We landed on the side of the lake/pond and my dad disappeared. I watched the people for a while and they appeared to be sitting in the middle around the body as if waiting for something to happen. I decided to walk out and join them. They water wasn’t clear, but more opaque blue and an unnatural color of blue at that. My first step onto the water and I found I could walk on it like ice. It was firm when I reached down and touched it. The closer I got to the middle, the softer the surface became until I started sinking into it and I decided I didn’t want to get my new shoes dirty, so I left.

Then I was packing up my crane. I was about half-way done demolishing a house. People booed me as I was clipping up the cables. I tried to tell them it was going to rain, but people didn’t want to hear that. Then it went from fairly sunny to dark. Not like a cloud moving across the sun dark, but the street lights came on dark. Then thunder and lightning. People oohed and ahead and when the hail came, they ran for home. That’s when I decided it would be fun to operate the crane in the rain and started it back up and smashed the rest of the house by driving over it again and again with the treads of the crane rather than deploy the boom.

Then I woke up.

I had a couple smaller dreams before finally getting up, but those one escape me.

I think the lake/pond was filled with pudding that had firmly set at the edges, and was not fully set in the middle. I’m wondering why people gathered in the middle to look at a dead person. Hmmmm. I wonder about my dreams at times.

Until Next Time!

WOO WOO!

I found myself sleeping in a recliner and when I woke up, I realized that the animals hibernating the in the basement would be waking up because the last snow was finally melting. And I was right! First the bears left through the back door. Most of them were small and lethargic. I stayed in the recliner and watched them leave. The last bear was so large that he shook the entire trailer as he left and I rolled off the recliner and hid behind it to watch him leave. I was happy to see him go. He scared the bejezzus out of me.

Then the last animal left. This one wasn’t a bear. It had a bear’s forelimbs, but a tiger’s rear end and a head that looks like a mash up of the two. It was narrower than the last bear, but taller. I watched as it left and once I knew it was fully out the door, I leaped up and rushed to close the back door (it shifted from the side to the back once the last animal left). I watched through the screen door as the animal walked down the hill. It stopped, sniffed, and turned back around. I knew it was hungry and I was stupid for watching. I should have just closed the door. The thing came back.

He head-butted the back door several times and shifted the trailer off its mounts and caused a split in the side. Wolves saw the opportunity and came through the opening. Then I woke up.

My second dream wasn’t nearly as vivid. I can still smell the animals leaving. Maybe that’s just me. Hmmm..

So in the second dream, a tarantula was running for president…and won. I think it’s because I was watching “All the President’s Men” documentary last night. I need to finish watching it tonight. Great stuff. I also need to watch the movie with Dustin Hoffman and Robert Redford. I’m wondering why my brain translated Nixon as a tarantula.

There is much to do this week! Two books should be headed your way! Paradise Palms and My Teacher is a Vampire. I will, of course, let you know when they drop!

Until Next Time!

WOO WOO!

The one I can remember isn’t nearly as exciting as the one I forgot. The one I forgot I woke up all excited (not that way!) and felt like I needed to go somewhere. I blame being shut in the house for a couple days and being down all day yesterday being sick.

So, the dream.

My Team Lead (from work) and I were driving a 4×4 out in the woods. We were chasing our other team mates who were on quads. There was much mud, many dirt roads, and racing through the trees. For some reason we were playing vehicle tag. In my dream it wasn’t nearly as dangerous as real life would be. We ‘tagged’ someone and then drove off into the woods. I don’t recall who was driving, I just know my team lead and I were in the vehicle. My sense of perception was in front of our vehicle, not from inside.

We drove over to a pool that was shaped like an O, but squared off. We crossed a small platform to the middle and stood there watching people swim around. I wanted to jump in and wearing only my shorts (where did my clothes go?!) I almost did. Then I remembered that I had my keys (the wife’s actually) and my cell phone so I couldn’t go swimming.

A woman was getting ready to go into the water. She put on her headphones and clamped her phone in a waterproof case and away she went. I thought that was quite interesting (I’ll have to see if this is a real product). The case was filled with a waterproof/conductive gel that allowed her to still use the phone while it stayed dry.

My team lead and I hopped  back into the vehicle and drove away. For a short time we made our own road through the woods, knocking down trees, plowing through a river, scaring small woodland creatures. Then we got back on a dirt road with huge dips and ruts.

Then I woke up wishing I could remember my first dream. It’s a hot morning and will likely get hotter. At least I’m not feeling crushing pressure on my brain from my sinuses today.

Today I’ll spend some time writing, some time editing, and some time working on a friend’s website. Should be a good day.

Until Next Time!

WOO WOO!

—

My two cents:

I decided to go the Indie (self-pub, whatever you want to call it) route. I’ve been writing since the 90s, been submitting stories and books since 1999. Been on these forums for quite some time. I’ve developed quite a thick skin. Over those years I’ve written over 100 shot stories (most of them are terrible) and 14 novels (a few of those suck and a couple have been completely rewritten). I’ve submitted to publishers and agents both big and small both via snail mail and email. I’ve collected a large number of rejection letters (all of them form letters for my novels). I’ve even attended conferences and had one publisher that said pull me aside for a personal conversation and had me pitch him my novels and asked me to send them along. After more than a year with no response, I decided it was time to take matters into my own hands.

First of all I’ve been watching the self-pub movement for quite a long time. I’ve watched the vanity presses suck in authors with hopes and dreams and watched people get taken. I’ve watched people toss their one book they spent 15 years writing and re-writing and watched them fail because no one bought their one book. I’ve watched podcasters skyrocket to stardom (Scott Sigler, Mur Lafferty, Nathan Lowell, Tee Morris, Philipa Ballantine) and a couple do very well being persistent and release multiple podcast novels to coincide with their novel releases (both traditionally and self-published), and others release one novel, release a book, and wonder why it failed. I’ve watched J.A. Konrath and read all his blogs. I’ve watched Dead Wesley Smith, Kristine Kathrine Rush, Michael Stackpole, Amanda Hocking, and many others go the self-pub route and have great success, but I’ve also watched a LOT of other smaller name authors have a level of success that has allowed them to quit their day jobs and write full time pulling in a nice annual income with many titles.

What I’ve seen is those that can produce a large volume of work reap the rewards. Those with one or two titles generally fail because they don’t see immediate success and throw up their hands and give up. This isn’t a game of throw your book out there and you’re guaranteed success. You can’t force people to your book in 6 months and expect it to be a hit. That just doesn’t happen. All of the people I know that have made it spent years working hard to improve their craft and wrote a lot of books. Amanda Hocking release 9 books her first year and did so in a hot genre that helped her gain popularity. J.A. Konrath acquired his backlist and got better editing, better covers, and re-released them all. Same with others I mentioned. They fought for their backlist, got it, and put it out there. People couldn’t find their backlist due to publishers not giving these authors priority. They’re a rare handful.

As for me, I’ve done a couple podcast novels, but due to life happening I stopped. I had released one novel myself, but again, life happened and I stopped. This year will be different as I never stopped writing. I have a backlog of 14 novels and several in process of being written and/or plotted out. A couple of my older books I will be re-writting because I know I can make them better. I have a great and inexpensive cover artist. I have three friends that all proof read my work (one is a technical writer with a background in editing, another went to school for editing because when she retires she wants to be an editor, the other is just good at picking my stories apart for content). It’s taken me many many years to reach the point where I’ ready to get my stories out into the world. I also have a backlist of my own stories that I’ve had edited, I just need covers, book layout, and I can get these books out the door and into readers hands. I’ve spent nearly a decade watching the market, the self-pub movement, and keeping an eye on what’s worked and what hasn’t.

I didn’t come to this decision lightly. I would love to have a standard publishing contract from a major house, but I’m not getting any younger and I’m frankly tired of waiting and submitting and waiting and being rejected. I haven’t been idle and I know it’ll take a long time to gain readers. Going this route, for me, won’t mean overnight success. It might take me another five or ten years to gain an audience, but I need to keep at it and keep trying. Getting my books out there, going to cons, doing interviews on podcasts or where ever I can, and doing blog tours, anything to get my name out there. I also need to keep a steady stream of books flowing out. I need good covers. I need good editing. I need to be patient.

If you’re wondering, I currently have 5 titles out (2 middle grade, 1 collection of short stories, and 2 novels). I currently sell about one book every other day. That’s since the start of this year. I’ll be releasing two more books next week (1 middle grade in the same series, 1 sci-fi thriller novel). I’ll be releasing another novel next month. I’ll be re-releasing my first self-pubbed book with better editing the month after that. I’ll be releasing at least one novel per month for the rest of this year. If I’m lucky, I hope to sell a book a day by the end of the year). I’ve got next year planned out and I’m writing books to release next year, this year. I’ve got 10 years worth of books planned out and I have no real intention of stopping. I’ve got many more ideas than I can write in a short period of time and I am a fast writer. Last year I wrote 490,000 words. This year I’ve written 100,000 thus far and I’m shooting for 365,000 as a good goal given my release schedule. I’ve got a spreadsheet to track my progress. I’ve got friends pushing me to stay on track. I’ve communicated with my family my goals for the coming years.

Even with all of this in place, I still might fail. That’s a very real possibility. But if I don’t get books out there and try, I’ll fail before I start. I can’t have that. I have to give it a try.

So what am I getting at with all of this? Don’t just jump into self publishing without being aware of what you’re getting into . Don’t think this is a road to riches. If you’ve got one book, I would recommend rethinking and keep trying to get that book through a traditional publisher. Write another book, and another, and another while you wait. If you’ve built up a number of books and you’re still not getting anywhere with traditional publishing, then consider self publishing. Understand that you’ll need to learn cover design, you’ll have to learn scheduling, you’ll have to learn book layout, you’ll have to build your blog and your website, you’ll have to learn all the distribution outlets for your book and ebook, you’ll have to learn all those systems for getting your books into the hands of readers. Yes, you could take your word doc and throw it up on kindle tomorrow, but ask yourself what you’re hoping to get out of it? You’ll only get out what you put in and there is so much to learn.

I said a lot more than I intended. Wow! I’m sure I could say a lot more, but suffice to say, do your homework before making the jump. Don’t just jump and hope. Hope doesn’t sell books.

First dream was weird. Well, okay, all my dreams are weird, but last night I cannot even begin to explain. The first dream we were on a family vacation. Everyone was there including all of my wife’s family and all of my family including my dad (we lost him a few years ago). That wasn’t the weird part of the dream. The weird part was we were at an abandoned water park with a broken sign. Everything was dirty, dark, and rather ugly. I’m not sure why we went there. Dead leaves blew around. The water was murky. The alligators looked hungry. Despite all that, we got into rafts and went down some sliding rapids that went on for a long time and had to dodge alligators all along the route. At one point it was my turn to jump off a platform and into the water, but the alligators were waiting for me just swimming around. So I jumped, landed on the back of one and woke up.

Then I fell back asleep and my dad and I were running away from an alien invasion. Buildings were burnt out. We needed to get away. We wound up inside my Uncle  Bob’s apartment.

Quick aside, my Uncle Bob is…special. He’s been declared as a paranoid schizophrenic. When he’s not medicated properly he had some peculiar behaviors. He’s also invented a number of great devices over the years, but due to his condition he’s never been able to successfully market any of them. He’s also an incredible artist.

So in Bob’s apartment we needed to find some things to help us. We got out a couple of expandable backpacks. By that I mean they opened all the way up and had many smaller pockets to put things in. We loaded up one for my dad that when folded properly, looks like a regular backpack. Mine, on the other hand, was HUGE! and was like carrying an unrolled sleeping bag. I kept asking my dad for help, but he’d gone off. So I tried to do it myself, but saw a small cube on a dresser that lit up. It was made of hard, white plastic mesh with colored flowers. Each flower had an LED light that complimented the color of the flower (Yellow flower had an orange LED, blue flower had a purple LED, etc). It was fascinating. I started to take it apart to try and figure out why it was lit up. There was no power anywhere in the world. This thing shouldn’t be working. It was plugged into the wall and when I unplugged it, it stayed lit up. I pulled the cord from it so I could take it with me, but it started to fall apart once I did that. My dad showed up and asked what was taking so long. I showed him the pieces of the box and started to cry.

and then I woke up. Confused.

Then I fell back asleep and had dreams about going to the bathroom in public (in fountains, on people’s lawns, in a lake, next to a river.) Then I woke up and realized why I was having that dream.

I don’t claim to understand my dreams, but they can be entertaining. I blame this one on two nights of taking good sinus medicine.

Until Next Time!

WOO WOO!

Onto the dream!

So The wife and I went out to dinner to a new restaurant. It was all fancy and everything. It was also inside a parking garage. Not like sectioned off, but inside. Stalls had been cordoned off to show where the restaurant was. So the cooking area had 3 or 4 stalls marked off and each table was in its own parking spot. The waiters had to cross moving traffic to deliver the food. It was interesting to watch them dance across the traffic with trays of food and not get hit.

Then I was in a different eatery, a deli? with a laptop open and typing something. A man sat across the table from me also on  a laptop. We were in a chat room and he was asking me questions. I didn’t type with my hands,but words appeared on the screen. I knew he was asking me personal information and for some reason I felt he should have anything he was asking for. He asked for a lot of things that were personal, but not damning and nothing he could exploit (where did you grow up, who was your best friend in 5th grade, things like that). Then he suddenly slammed his laptop closed and motioned with his head that I should follow him.

I did.

We got into separate vehicles. I got into sputtery truck and followed him. We were parked in a field and went to a mall and drove around a department store. I got yelled at and lost the person I was following so I got out of sputtery truck and started to push it. This made the perfume ladies happy and they stopped complaining that I was driving through the mall.

When I finally mananged to get outside the mall once again, I was outside, the sun was shining, and my alarm was going off.

Some day I’ll understand my subconscious, but not today. No idea what all that meant.

On the plus side, I installed an application last night that I spent all of last year working on and much of this year. It felt good, but now come enhancement requests for changes, new features, and everything else.

Until Next Time!

WOO WOO!

The second dream I was in a yogurt shop. I mean a HUGE yogurt shop. I had a dish of raspberry frozen yogurt and I was looking for toppings to put on it. The strange part was it was a small dish. I never get a small dish of FoYo. Okay, maybe that wasn’t the strange part. The strange part was I couldn’t find a topping I wanted to put on my yogurt. It’s not that they were not toppings I wanted, it was that the place was a mess. When I went to find the mini M&Ms (I never use mini M&Ms so why was I looking for them?) they were covered in something that looked like a cross between peanut butter and chocolate sauce (Nutella?). I wanted to fish some out, but even the serving spoon was covered in the goop.

I went looking for cookies or something to put on my yogurt and all the cookies were crumbled into a fine, powdery dust. I licked the tip of my pinky, dipped it in the cookie powder and gave it a try. Yuk!

When I tried looking for fruit (fresh fruit, fruit in that sugary sweet syrup, any fruit) the manager started to follow me around. He kept telling me that my yogurt was melting and I’d better find toppings fast or my yogurt would go to waste and he wasn’t going to give me a refund just because I took too long to pick out my toppings. For some reason I didn’t complain about the state of the toppings bar (and it was a disaster). Some of the containers were empty, but the rest were all mixed with something I wanted with something I wouldn’t put on my yogurt. Like chocolate chips mixed with peanut powder, some crushed nuts with coconut, the M&Ms mixed with some goo.

Somehow, and without my doing, I wound up with two toppings. One was little colored vanilla wafers with letters on them. They spelled something, but my brain couldn’t translate it. The other was an oddly shaped piece of chocolate. By this time my yogurt was amply melted and the manager kept saying ‘No refunds! No refunds!” and for some reason stood behind me looking over my shoulder trying to get me to the register as quickly as possible.

What does it all mean? Pfft. I don’t know. I hope I never end up in this yogurt shop.

Until Next Time!

WOO WOO!

The first part of my dream had me waking up and checking my phone. My alarm had gone off. Looking at my phone it was only 1:30am. Confused as to why my alarm had gone off, I went to turn off my phone and it melted through my hand. I sat up and fought to keep the liquid goo from getting away because I didn’t want to lose my phone and I still needed my alarm to wake up in the morning.

Yeah, that one woke me up. I had to touch my phone to make sure it was still on the nightstand. It was. So I went back to sleep. And oddly enough, I checked the time. I was a little freaked out that it was 1:40am.

My later dream was a little more interesting. The wife and I were looking to play some basketball. We had a ball. We had out uniforms on (a mash up of a Lakers’ uniform and some other team with black and white checks). It looked cool in my dream. We found a game at a church. The building was a large cube with towers at the corners. Each tower was rounded off at the top. The inside of the church was filled with broken pews and lots of torn up bibles and hymnals. We didn’t know where the game was until we heard the whistle and we ran for the roof!

Up the stairs and we were on top of the church. They’d laid asphalt on the roof and put in a basketball court. I didn’t question the wife going up and making a dunk. I was just happy. We played ball for a short time before it began to rain. I have no idea who all the other people were, but we played basketball on top of a church in the rain. Then the wind started. My favorite daughter appeared and said it was going to get worse. I reassured her that things would be alright. She punched me.

Then the wind really started up. The towers on the corners of the church started to sway. The rooftop court was suddenly inside and we were looking out windows. That didn’t protect us from the wind and the lifeguard seat the referee sat on also started to sway wildly. The towers crashed down. The lifeguard seat with its bright-yellow umbrella crashed down. We all too the spiral staircase that appeared in the middle of the court down into the church. We decided it wasn’t safe to stay there because the floor turned to mud. Sitting at the pews were a few of my favorite daughter’s friends. I don’t know who they were, but we tried to encourage them to come with us. They wanted to wait for their parents. I clicked the remote on the car and our massive, double-sized hummer crashed their the wall of the church. I told everyone to get in.

Then I woke up. I wanted to go back to sleep, but it was really 5am this time. I had the feeling that when I touched the screen on my phone to turn off the alarm my finger might go through it. It didn’t.

I’ll post more of these as I remember them

Until Next Time!

WOO WOO!

So I’ve been doing my spreadsheet for some time. I went through and started scheduling the titles I’d like to release and gave them each a ‘window’. In this case a month window when I’d like to release them. This is an ambitious thing I want to do because I have a lot of books I’ve already written and a LOT more I’d like to write. Most of these are in a series so I wanted to put out one in each series each year. I write fast. I can do that, right? After all, I’m only shooting for 80,000-90,000 for the bigger titles and 20,000-25,000 for the middle grade books.

Then I started looking at all the series I have. I did this before, but it’s fun to do it again. Plus I’ve added a new series. I’ve shown the series and potential length of each book.

V&A Shipping (80,000)

Billy Barbarian(80,000)

Giant Robot Planetary Competition(80,00)

Golden West (60,000)

Jack Kane(70,000)

Astel(60,000)

Of Gnomes and Dwarves (80,000)

Supernatural Learning (20,000)

Unnatural War(25,000)

Asteroid Bunnies(25,000)

Now in order to write just the ones on this list, I would need to write around 600,000 words a year. Not an insurmountable feat. I’m sure I probably could write that much. The trouble is I also need to edit, layout, get cover art, re-write certain pieces (like trashing 25,000 words and starting over with GRPC). There’s a lot going. Plus I still have a full-time job, a kid that goes to school, plays volleyball, a wife, other family. I would LOVE to write enough to put out one of each in these series each year, but sadly, it’s just not going to happen. Well, unless I start selling thousands of copies of my titles a day and I can support myself, my family, and my lifestyle solely on my writing.

So what’s needing to happen here? I’m going to schedule everything right now. In order to write the books I want to write in the next two years, I need to write (over 24 months) around 770,000 words (all the series titles plus a few stand alone titles). That’s just shy of 400,000 words a year. My current target is 365,000 words of new fiction a year. Now watch as I close my eyes and do math again. This is dangerous, please don’t try this at home. 730,000 words is my current target. Now if you REALLY look at my release schedule (not included here) I’ll be publishing over 1,000,000 words over the next 24 months (from Jan 1st of this year to Jan 1st 2015). I’ve already published a number of those books as well as completed a number of those books. Many others are currently either plotted, being written, or needing editing.

Actually, let me edit here. I need to write 1,500,000 words for all the titles I WANT to release. I’ve written 750,000 of those words. So I’m half way there. (Sorry, Jay keeps typing, looking at his spreadsheet, typing more, making mistakes. I’ll have him flogged later for his lack of cohesive though before writing a blog post).

So over the next two years, just to stay on schedule, I need to write around 750,000 words. Can I do it? Maybe. There’s so much I’d like to throw in there like short stories, blog posts, emails to friends, etc. I’d also like to get outside once in a while. Perhaps watch a TV Show.

Okay, all kidding aside. I’m going to try. If I can stick to my schedule I have a shot of getting 28 novels out in 24 months. THEN I can slow down. A little. The trouble is, I have 690,000 schedule to produce in 2015. Now that might be a little more difficult. That’s when I’ll need to step back and reassess my release schedule. Take a look at what titles are doing well, which are not. Perhaps one title will get pushed back in the release schedule. There are some close to my heart, but if they’re not performing and bringing in money, then they’ll have to take a back seat while I produce titles that are succeeding.

This is known as the shotgun approach. Fire out a bunch of titles, see what sticks, and run with one. I’m not sad that one will have to wait. I’ve scheduled out ten years of titles I’d like to write. There’s a LOT of room in those last five years, and not so much in the first five. I’m going to give myself ten years to be a success. I’ll figure out where I’m at after each year to determine if I’m heading in the right direction. Am I being ambitious? Hell yes! Have I stretched myself a little thin? Perhaps. But remember, I’ve got a lot written and so much more that I want to write. It’s just a matter of making the time.

One thing I’ll make note of here and now. I have done no advertising of my books. I’ve mailed out a couple review copies. I’ve had a couple of contests. I’ve done one free giveaway. You may ask what I plan on doing. Well, nothing. I plan on writing a lot at the moment. Once I have a number of titles out and in people’s hands, THEN I’ll get out there and I’m sure many will be surprised to see what I’ve produced. That’s kind of my plan at the moment. Sneakily release titles until people are shocked that I’ve been as busy as I’ve been. I want to do something that gets people talking about me rather than me having to talk about myself. By putting out 1,500,000 words of fiction across 28 titles in 24 months will get people talking (or so I hope).

So what can you do to help with all this? Well, tell a friend. Actually. Hold off for right now. I don’t have a lot available (only 5 titles) and if you’re excited about one title in particular, hop onto your favorite book review site and drop me a review. I should be everywhere and if you don’t see me somewhere, let me know and I’ll try to get there.

Well, like I said, there are a lot of words to write and I’ve got to go write them. Well, I need to do the day job first, but THEN I’ll do some writing!

Until Next Time!

WOO WOO!

As an interviewer of the SuperEvil (you can find my interview with Dr. Nefarious in this forthcoming tome) I can say this delights me to no end. I had thought that the SuperEvil of this town had gone soft. It’s not often in this line of work you get to see the Super Evil actually pull one off. If we’re lucky, Mr. Plested has not completed his editing work. I would hate to see this compendium of Evil Knowledge fall into the wrong hands (those of superheroes!). The interviews I have performed were never intended for their eyes. If you happen to see this book out in the wild, make sure to buy it, read it, and burn it before it can fall into the hands of heroes like Mik Murdoch! (no relation to this interviewer. See, his name ends in an H, mine ends in a K! K for EVIL!)

Hopefully in the near future I will be able to get a hold of Lord Aquarius to see what his plans are with the offensive Plested. I’m sure whatever his dastardly plans are, they will not go far enough! Stay tuned! I will be back with more on this topic in future posts!

J.R. Murdock – Interviewer of the Super Evil!

So I was cruising away writing my giant robot story. I was having fun, things were moving along. I had plotted before hand. I was excited. I’d nailed down 25,000 words. I was rocking and rolling.

Then, of course, life happens and I took a short break from the story. I was able to spend time reading and what did I pick? Oliver Twist. A story of an abused orphan boy. His life sucks and really doesn’t get any better (at least as far as I’ve read.) He’s got challenges that he’s ill equipped to deal with.

Oh crap.

I looked at my story and my main character was suffering from ‘Mary Sue’ syndrome. His life was simple. No challenge. Everything handed to him. Here’s a giant robot, now go fight. That’s where I’d intended for the conflict to take place, but it was weak. Sure I’d have giant robots fighting to the death, but there was little personal threat. He had nothing involved. So little at stake. He was even expected to lose, but they’d hope he’d do better. Everyone was nice to him.

blah blah blah

Yeah, that’s 25,000 words that no one will ever read. I had tried to justify it to myself explaining that I was world building. The action would come later. The personal struggle would come later. It would all come later. No, I was going the wrong way and Oliver Twist showed me why.

Ravi, the main character, needs to struggle. He can’t just have things handed to him like his privileged. This can’t be something that people aspire to do, this needs to be something that his life is at stake. There’s needs to be a very real chance that he’ll die. People need to look at him like something lesser and he needs to prove himself and overcome. A whole different sequence of events needs to take place.

I’ve spent time going over and over in my head the new direction. Yes, this book will be darker. Yes, this story will be stronger. Yes, this will be the story I should have waited to write instead of getting all excited about giant robots and just bashing away on the keyboard. I should have taken the time to allow the story to gel in my brain before putting pen to paper. Rather than jumping in feet first, I should have plotted and let it sit for a couple weeks.

Like I said, I’ve played this game before. I’ve written books and usually when I’m all excited, I’m heading in the wrong direction. I did that this time, but I know that the story will be better for the re-write. I could just keep going from the point I’m at, but the entire tone of the novel is going to change and there will be so many differences from this point forward that I just need to scrap the whole thing and start over. It’s for the best.

Do I feel bad? Oh heck no. I’ve written a lot of words that will never see the light of day. This is just 25,000 words. It’s not like scraping an entire novel and starting over (that’s called a re-write). Yes, I’ve done that multiple times. So this doesn’t break my heart because it’s all part of the process.

Speaking of the process…

Until Next Time!

WOO WOO!

Much has been going on, but I’ve been so crazy busy that I haven’t had time to write or blog or nothing. I hate when that happens.

Half of the time off has been voluntary. The other half has been pain, headaches, work, stress, etc.  I missed my Lent goal, but I did get just over half of my goal. I came in just shy of the 88,000 I wanted to write during Lent. I guess that’s got to be good enough. During March I wrote 29,088 words and I didn’t even write half the days of the month. I feel good about the number, but I’m capable of writing so much more. Between family obligations and everything else, there just wasn’t more time to write. When I did eventually sit and get words written I would get a lot out (one day nearly 6,000 words). It’s just frustrating to look back and see all those holes in my word count spread sheet.

I keep waiting for the days to free up and give me a nice block of writing time (like right now while I write this blog post) but it’s not happening.

So what’s on my plate coming up?

1) Paradise Palms release and blog. I had planned on doing this under a pen name, but decided not to. This has a bit more grown up content than most of my work and I will note that in the novel description and on each blog post.

2) Billy Barbarian release and blog. I’m excited to get Billy out into the world. I’ve had a lot of great feedback on this book and I can’t wait to jump into book 2

3) My Teacher is a Vampire release. This will be the third in the Super Natural Learning series. I’m having a great time with these characters and I can’t wait to jump into the next book!

4) Astel re-release. I’ll be re-editing this book and putting out a cleaner version. I also can’t wait to write the sequel to this book.

5) Finish my giant robot book. I’m currently 22,000 words into this book and chugging along. I will probably end up higher than the 80,000 words I’ve projected for the novel and I’m good with that. I’ve done extensive world building (galaxy building?) that I hadn’t done in the V&A Shipping universe. This makes a great addition to collection and I’m already excited to work on the sequel.

6) WRITE MOAR! I don’t feel like I’m getting words out fast enough. I’m feeling a little pressure, but that’s not a bad thing. It’s forcing me to keep on a tight timeline and not get distracted. I’ve got dates plotted and set up and I’m attempting to hit all my targets. I’m confident and as long as I can find a little more free time to write I’ll have no trouble hitting those goals.

7) Short Stories have been getting rejected all over the place, BUT, I’m getting much better rejections with wording like “After reading and discussing it, and then holding onto it through several rounds of further consideration…”. Yes, still a rejection, but so much closer to an acceptance to a PRO market. Yes, PRO market. Everything I’ve had published to date has been semi-pro, but I’m trying to step up my game.

There is so much going on that I’m doing my best to keep everything straight. Hopefully I’ll have news later.

OH! I almost forgot. Between my two goodreads giveaways I have over 1000 entrants. I call that quite a success and I can’t wait to get the books in the mail (tomorrow?).

There’s a lot going on and I’ve got a lot of words to write.

Until Next Time!

WOO WOO!

1) Sputtery Truck: Yes, it was sputtery truck again. Dag nab it. But the Millican helped me figger it out once more and after replacing a bad coil (remember that I replaced all of those?) sputtery truck stopped with all the suptteriness and once again is happy. One day I hope it’ll stop acting up and demanding attention from me, but he, who knows what that’ll happen.

2) Moving: This might be something in my very near future. I will keep you posted. This isn’t a bad thing. This is a good thing. Jay might have an office one day soon! WOO WOO!

3) Writing: Last week I suffered from work. It ate up my brain and made it extremely difficult to get anything done. Well, that and a large number of personal things (see #2) that kept me coming and going and losing track of time all together. My hope is that next week will afford me at least some time to sit down and make the keys go clickety-clack and get further ahead with my latest project. Writing about Giant Robots is AWESOME! I wish I had this idea before, but hey, the stars aligned, my brain fired the right synapi, and POW! I’ve now got Giant Robots living in my brain along with all the other characters.

If I keep pace, and stay on schedule for this year and next, J.R. Murdock will be putting out a glut of books in 24 months. Already I’ve got 4 out, and another 7 on the way (all completely written and in various stages of edits/getting covers/etc). But I have many more in my head screaming to get out. To give you a quick idea, the Supernatural Learning series will see 3 more titles this year and 4 next year. Those are short and I can write them quickly, and I have a blast writing them. I also have an idea for another such series that will be intended for younger readers that will be around the same length (20,000-25,000 words) and I’ve got 5 I want to write in that series over the next two years. And, of course, I’ve got Billy II, Of Gnomes and Dwarves II, Life of Lists, Almost-Super Heroes, V&A III, To Fall From the Sky, Golden West Season 2. I’ve got so many ideas and my spreadsheet is bursting at the seams!

Yes, my PLAN is to write at least 365,000 words a year. I know I can keep up the output. It’s just a matter of not getting distracted. I hope to write even more than that, but we’ll have to see how it goes. On a good day I’m sitting and putting out 5,000 words. On a bad day I’ll only get out 1,000. Then I’ve had a series of missed days that are hurting me more than you can possibly know. Obviously writing these blog posts slows me down, but I feel the need to empty my brain of all these thoughts just to help keep them straight.

4) Submitting: Yes, I’m going to self-pub everything. I’m going to blog as much as I can. But I’m submitting short stories to major magazines for exposure. To try and get my name out there and get people talking about me. I want to try and generate some word of mouth about my works.

The bad news, no new acceptances. The good news? I’ve gotten better rejections. I’ve also had stories held for a lot longer than your standard rejection. What do I mean by longer? Meaning at least twice as long as a standard rejection (I’ve done my own tracking over the years and I have also checked the Grinder to see what others are averaging). What do I mean by ‘better rejections’? I mean that I’m getting different form letters. One actually said “After being reviewed and held for additional consideration…” This tells me that I was damned close to getting that one published. I, of course, re-read it and sent it right back out.

Suddenly I’ve found myself in a strange land where I don’t have any ideas for short stories. Everything I want to write is novel (or novella). I also can’t think of any good shorts I’d like to write, but I know when those ideas come, I’ll write them up and get them into the submission wheel.

5) RSS Reader: gReader has been my feed reader for some time. I was sad to see that Google decided to stop supporting it (coming June or July). I moved over to Feedly after much research and trying out other readers. This wasn’t something I wanted to stop and spend time to perform, but I needed to make sure I took care of this before I didn’t have the ability to take care of it.

6) Keyboard search 2013: I’m a tech geek. What can I say. I’m love me some technology. I’ll write up a much longer post much like I did with my mouse search. I need a keyboard that can stand up to endless hours of typing and bashing out words. I also want one that’s got programmable buttons, back lighting would be nice. Something that’s not obscenely large. I don’t mind weird looking (you’ve seen my mouse, right?). I’ve also like it to be mechanical. Yes, I know that means it’ll be a little louder than what I currently use, but that also means it’ll last longer. Like I said, I’ll write all those up later and get it posted with pictures and my thoughts about the whole process. Should be fun.

7) My Favorite Daughter: The kid is playing volleyball and still having a great time of it. She’s off next week fro Spring Break and we’ll be taking a trip up to Lemoore to visit family for Easter. Should be a great time. We haven’t been up there since June and it’ll be fun to take a long drive. Now that Sputtery Truck is cooperating I feel better about the drive.

8) Work: Yes, work has been eating my brain. The good news, much of what I’ve been toiling away at is going to a head and will be going out soon enough. It’s been beat up, wrung out, and stomped on enough to make my head spin and it seems that each time I sit down, my instant messenger is going off. If I try to get up, my instant messenger is going off. I’ll have a steady flood of email. I’ll be working on a defect. Trying to get things under control only to have more dumped on my plate. Thankfully things are starting to slow back down to a normal pace and I can see the light at the end of the tunnel.

That being said, yes, I work for AT&T. I’ve said this before. Sadly, the West did not ratify a contract so I’m on alert should a strike happen. If a strike happens I could be called out at a moment’s notice to fill the spot of a union member who’s out. That’s part of the job and I need to be ready. Needless to say, it puts me a little on edge being that I’d like to go out of town next week. We’ll see how that goes. Both sides are at the bargaining table trying to hammer out a deal.

I think that gets you up to speed on all that I’ve been up to. Whew. I need to stop letting so much time pass by between posts. Oh, I also need to post a movie review of the Groods. That was a fun movie.

Until Next Week!

WOO WOO!

Chapter 85

The six months on Planchar, waiting for the Acid Rat to be fully repaired, gave Joey time to really become one with the team. He and Vic spent a great deal of time flying the Iron Butterfly. June even taught Joey how to fly it.

Joey flew it the day they all went back to Earth. He and June stood on the scorched Earth waiting for the rest to disembark.

He and June had spent a great deal of time together. During the move off their base from Munchkada to Planchar, at the request of Chancellor Pitrine, the two of them had grown closer. Much closer. He put his arm around her shoulders and she slid her arm around his waist.

He would have smiled, as her touch always made his smile, but the complete emptiness of the streets unnerved him. Nothing moved. Not even the air. Everything had a red haze in the hot, stale air. The sun burned far brighter than it should have and if it weren’t for the special sunglasses June had gotten him, he was certain he’d be blind.

Vic exited the Acid Rat first. He no longer wore his black pants, black boots, black vest with his white shirt. He now wore white pants with a red shirt.

Argmon, next off the ship, had healed. He refused to have any prosthetics to replace his missing arms. He looked lopped-sided with two arms on his right side.

Finally Dexter waddled off the ship. They’d probably all be dead if it hadn’t been for Dex. The suspicion Joey felt for the tri-ped had dissipated over the past six months and they’d had quite a number of their own little adventures.

Behind the three of them, a large cart carrying two coffins exited the ship.

“Where are we?” Joey asked.

Vic put his arm around Joey’s shoulder and pulled him away from June. “Kid, if you’d been on Earth, you wouldn’t have lived to see this place. This is San Diego in the future as you would have known it. I came back here and didn’t find anything to explain what happened on the planet when the sun went mini-nova. I don’t think I’d want to. It’s bad enough to just look at it and know that everyone is gone. It’s just you, June, and me, kid.

“I tell you what, I don’t feel as bad as I thought I would. I thought it would be hard coming back for the third time, but I think knowing that I’m not alone anymore, or even alone with June, I feel somehow better about it. You know what I mean?”

Joey guessed he knew, but seeing everything intact and no people, he didn’t like it. He felt sick looking at it.

“Kid, don’t dwell on it. Let’s get going.”

Vic led the way down the street.

“Where are we going?” June asked.

“Well,” Vic said as he turned around and started to walk backward. “I’ve got to bury my dad.”

“Who’s in the other coffin?” Joey asked.

“I figured since none of us knew where Joop-Nop came from, I’d bury him here as well. He didn’t do much on the ship, but he didn’t deserve what he got.”

Vic turned back around and kept walking. Joey sidled along side of him and matched his step. Vic held his head high as he walked. Joey did likewise.

They came up on an ancient cemetery. The headstones all bore marks of age, but because no more air moved, they had to have eroded long ago. They were ancient even before the sun went mini-nova. That put things into perspective.

Vic made his way through the headstones unerringly and stopped in front of a small, flat headstone and bowed his head. June pulled Joey back.

“Give him a minute.”

“What’s up?”

“That’s his mom’s grave. I guess he’s going to bury his dad here too.”

“Yup,” Vic said, raising his head. “They were meant to be together. Even if dad lost it in the end.”

Vic turned and picked up a shovel off the cart. Joey looked at Vic’s clean clothes.

“You’re not thinking of digging a hole, are you?”

“Oh hell no.”

Vic placed the shovel in the ground and gave it a turn. A section of dirt moved aside as easily as opening a door. He then pulled a control from his belt and pressed a button. One coffin rose off the platform and with the control, he guided the coffin into the hole, turned the shovel, and the matter was over.

“Quite impressive,” Joey said.

June hit him. Vic knelt down and pressed his closed fist to his head. He could have stayed there for a long time. Joey looked about the cemetery. Maybe his parents were buried here as well. Maybe he could find their grave site.

“Don’t,” said June. Almost all of these graves…”

“I’ve got to look.”

“Okay, if you’ve got to look, there’s a directory inside the office. That’s how Vic found his mom.”

Joey didn’t even wait for June to stop talking before he sprinted to the office. The glass had been smashed out, presumably by Vic. The map on the wall had faded in many areas and the writing, tiny writing, was barely legible. None of the plots were in any kind of order. So many graves. So many dead people. How could anyone…

“Provoski,” he muttered to himself. “Joey Provoski…Senior.”

Tears welled up in his eyes. The next plot he saw Alice Provoski. The writing had nearly faded away, but he could see their names. He had to see their grave. He just had to.

He ran from the office. He barely noticed June, Dexter, and Argmon sitting on the cart with the second coffin. He ran through the cemetery. Their plot sat at the far end. He ran the entire way. By the time he arrived in front of two crumbled head stones, he had to gasp for breath. The hot air made it extremely difficult to breath.

Please have lived a long life. Please. Please.

He looked first at his mom’s. The writing on the stone was all but worn away. 1966-2056. She’d lived to be ninety. Ninety years old. At the base of the stone only partial words could be made out. Joey’s imagination filled in the blanks. “I will never forget my baby boy, Joey.”

He wiped the tears away with his sleeve.

On his father’s it read “I go now, to be with my boy, for I’m sure he has gone ahead of us.” And the date, Joey had to read it twice. 1963-2097. he’d lived to be one hundred-thirty-four. Joey sat looking at the dates, amazed his dad hung on so long and right up until the end he thought about…

“Me…”

Joey crumbled to the ground and cried. If only he could have been there. Somehow the finality of his parents being dead brought the reality of what he’d gone through to heart. He could have easily continued living in ignorance, but he had to know. He had to see for himself. That didn’t make it easy. He pounded the ground with his fist.

He could have been there five minutes, or five hours. The sun hadn’t moved in the sky, and his friends waited, patiently. All four waited for Joey to return on his own. The second coffin was no longer on the cart.

June hugged him as soon as he returned and Vic slapped him on the shoulder.

“That’s as tough as it gets. Trust me on that one.”

And Joey did. He trusted Vic. He would trust Vic with his life for as long as they both lived.

Vic smiled and adjusted his sunglasses. “Should we go see who needs something shipped?”

Epilogue

B.T. Justice scratched at the wall with a rock he’d procured from the yards. Yards where big rocks were made into small rocks. Yards where he had to toil in the sun for hours a day and he’d lost nearly all of the paunch he’d once carried around. If nothing else, the six months he’d spent on the prison planet, Brakthanian, had gotten him into the best shape he’d been in since attending the academy.

He wanted out. He needed out. He needed a hamburger. None of that would happen though, and he knew it. Today, just like every other day, he’d go out to the yard and hear the warden shouting over the P.A. system “All you criminals need to think about why you’re here toiling under the hot sun making big rocks into little rocks.”

The pain of sore muscles he’d gotten used to. The annoying and constant prattle of the warden he hadn’t. He doubted he ever would.

Only one thing kept him going: getting out. Getting out of the prison and tracking down Vic and Argmon of the SS Acid Rat. The crew that had eluded him and defamed him and gotten him thrown into prison. It was their heads he saw each time he brought him hammer to bear on a rock. It was their skin he scratched, not the wall, to mark off the days he’d served.

The six months were nearly up. Soon, very soon, he’d be out. He wouldn’t be a Sheriff anymore, but that didn’t matter. Only one thing mattered. He had to find the SS Acid Rat. He had to put an end to them.

“Buford T. Justice! Get up. Time to go to work.”

Justice eyed the guard. He stashed the rock back under his mattress and rolled out of bed. The guard led him to the yard.

The sun hadn’t crested over the peak of Lifesaver Mountain, the name given to the mountain because it saved the prisoners from the first three hours of direct sunlight. They’d work a couple hours more before lunch, then sweat away the afternoon under the blazing sun. If it hadn’t been for that mountain, many a man would have died.

B.T. Justice looked up at the peak of the mountain. A ship, a large blue and gold ship, crested the mountain and descended down toward the prison. A blue and gold ship that Justice recognized as the Apprehension. A smile crossed his lips.

“Junior,” he said under his breath. “Bring me a hamburger.”

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Chapter 84

Vic looked at his crew; no, not his crew anymore. His friends. He didn’t know how to break it to them. How did he tell Argmon that the shipping business would close its doors? How did he tell June, a woman who would rather spend time in space to help her forget about Earth, that he didn’t want to fly any more? And Dexter, hell, he didn’t really even understand Dexter or the tri-ped’s motivations. Joey would probably take the news best. He’d only been with them for a short time.

All of them rushed, but Vic held up his hands. “No hugging! No hugging! I’m still in bad shape. I don’t need any rib crushing hugs right now.”

In all honesty, he did. Even though he wore new clothes, he noticed that June and Joey wore new clothes as well, and he looked good, he wasn’t certain as to his condition.

The smell of food, real food, not hospital food, entered his nose. All thoughts of telling them anything faded until he could eat a decent meal.

“Is there anything to eat?”

June smiled and led him to the table where the remains of breakfast sat. “I can order you something. The government is picking up the bill.”

“I don’t want to wait that long.” Vic put his hand to his stomach. It rumbled in response.

“Well, there’s plenty of left-overs.” Joey picked up a plate with a half eaten omelet.

Vic sat and ate. He only paused when he finally looked at Argmon and noticed the bandaged left side of his friend. As if feeling responsible for June and Joey being here wasn’t enough, now his father had gone and wounded Argmon. Another burden he’d have to carry thanks to his father.

“How are you doing?”

Argmon patted the bandages and shrugged.

“I’m sorry that happened.”

Argmon shook his head and chuffed.

Even though Argmon didn’t blame him, Vic still felt guilty.

But why should he? He hadn’t made his dad pull the trigger. He’d tried to stop him as best he could. No, he shouldn’t feel guilty for what his father did.

He couldn’t shake the feeling. He hadn’t gone back to see if his father had survived. He hadn’t come searching for his father sooner. He hadn’t stopped when everything his father had done to try and stop his shipping business. He had driven his father to do what he did.

“Vic, stop,” June snapped at him.

“Stop what?” Vic looked at her, confused.

“Feeling sorry for yourself. Like all this is your fault. We’re all big enough to make choices for ourselves.”

“Oh.”

“I’m sorry, Vic. I just don’t want you to take the blame for everything that happened. You weren’t there when I pushed the button in your father’s machine.”

“But it was my father’s machine that sent you here.”

“Vic,” Joey said. “I did the same thing. I went in there and pushed that button.”

“Yeah, but my mom put you up to it. How do I not take blame for that?”

“Because you’re not your mom,” said June.

“I understand that. I should have never come after my dad. I should have stayed home and torn that machine apart.”

Joey sat up. “The hell you say. I mean, I didn’t have a bad life, but I always dreamed of something better. I never thought I’d end up in outer space. Granted this isn’t anything like what I had expected it to be like, but I’m here. I’m alive. I didn’t die a nobody back on Earth like everyone else.”

“But you didn’t get to live out your life either. You’re here instead.”

“And maybe I’m supposed to be here.”

“You two calm down,” interceded June. “Now this isn’t getting us anywhere. We’re not going to talk about who’s at fault. Vic, I wanted to talk to you about the business.”

Finally it was out. Vic put the fork back on the plate, wiped his cleanly shaven face with his napkin and looked up. He looked from one to the next. Argmon, Dexter, Joey, and finally June. He had to word this carefully.

“I’m getting out of the shipping business.”

June gasped. Joey wrinkled his brow as if he hadn’t heard right. Dexter blinked his eyes out of synch. Argmon barked and yowled.

“Stop! Stop. Stop. I’ve had a lot of time to think about this. After what my dad said and after he stuck a knife into me, I did a lot of thinking about what he said.”

June held her hands up. “He’s wrong.”

“Just give me a minute to explain. I don’t think he was wrong. I mean, he’d built his machine to search the galaxy, to answer the mysteries of life, and to discover the unexplored. What did I do when I got here? I went to work. I didn’t go seeking any greater good. I didn’t do anything my father would have. I’ve wasted time I could have spent doing things for the benefit of people, not just for myself.”

“But Vic, you have.” June shook her head. “Look at the people here on Planchar. They worship you. You’ve brought them a shipment of something that could save their people and their planet from possible destruction. When no one else would help them out, you took a risk and you did.”

“I nearly got us all arrested.”

“But you didn’t.”

“Then I took us on a bet. A dare. And I nearly got us all killed. I acted irresponsibly.”

“You’re impetuous.”

“If I even knew what that meant…”

“You make snap decisions. That doesn’t mean you should stop the shipping business. It just means maybe you need to take some time before making a choice and maybe even a little input on those decisions. That’s what I wanted to talk to you about.”

“Huh?” Vic sat up in his chair. “What do you mean?”

“What I mean is I wanted out. I almost left. On Munchkada I had an appointment to buy my own ship. I thought I could do this job better than you. I don’t need to do this job better than you. What I need is for you to listen to me. And not just me, but all of us. I need you to stop being so headstrong and listen to us. Your crew. Your friends.”

Vic looked at the food on the table, not really seeing anything. He had to process all that. Was she right? Did he just need to listen? Had he really been doing what his dad would have been doing? No, but then he wasn’t his father, was he? He’d grown into his own man. He’d started a business with Argmon and they’d done quite well for themselves. They’d done quite well for everyone on the crew.

He looked up. June crossed her arms. She didn’t look stern as if she’d intended to be mean, but she looked ready to counter anything he could say against not staying in the shipping business.

Joey, his innocent face still bruised from his battle with Mike, looked more grown up somehow. As if the week he’d spent in space had somehow brought him into manhood. He had an edge now and didn’t look like the soft creampuff Vic met.

Dexter, well, he was still Dexter.

Argmon narrowed his eyes at Vic, waiting for an answer.

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Chapter 82

Joey tried to scream, but the gag prevented him from doing so. He twisted and fought his bonds to no avail. June also thrashed in her seat trying to get free and get to Vic. He could feel her trying to break free.

Dexter, after the first blindingly fast kick, kicked Hector a second time. Joey had taken one of those kicks and it had knocked him out. Hector looked to be affected, but he didn’t go down. He took blow after blow from Dexter.

Dexter kicked and knocked Hector through the balcony doors. A final kick and Hector flew over the railing. No scream ever came. Hector just slipped over the railing and disappeared.

Vic groaned. This prompted June to begin her thrashing once again. Dexter darted over to June and untied her hands. She stood up and promptly fell back down into her seat. Dexter next untied her legs. She untied her gag as she hurried over to Vic.

Joey felt his bonds slacken and he pulled at his gag. Once his feet were free, he rushed to June’s side.

“Check on Argmon. He was shot.”

Joey didn’t question, he just reacted. Even when he heard June say, “Hold on Vic. I’m going to call a doctor. Hold on, oh God please hold on.”

A wash of sorrow erupted from June and flooded onto Joey, nearly knocking him to the floor next to Argmon.

The big dog-thing had taken a hit, that much Joey could make out, but with all the blood, it was difficult to tell where. Argmon still breathed, but lay in a massive pool of his own blood.

“Oh no.”

Joey finally figured out what wasn’t right about Argmon. The shot from the blaster had taken his two left arms. They had been blown away in an explosion of blood. Joey gagged, then vomited behind the door.

“Joey! How’s Argmon? A medical crew is on its way. They’ll be arriving at the balcony any minute. Joey?”

Joey felt much better after throwing up. He looked over Argmon’s wounds. As best he could tell, the blaster had cauterized the destroyed limbs. The only blood must have been from the destruction of the limbs.

“Argmon? Argmon?” Joey nudged the Shathar. “Argmon, wake up.”

Argmon’s throat rattled, but he didn’t move. The big guy would live, Joey felt certain of that.

“He’s going to be okay, but he lost two arms.”

“What?” she screamed and ran into the room. “Dammit, where’s that medical car?”

She disappeared. Joey didn’t know what to do next. He couldn’t lift Argmon. He had no medical training at all. He felt helpless.

Sirens filled the air and bright green and yellow lights flashed about the room. Joey backed out of the way as four heavily muscled men entered the room and in a matter of two minutes, strapped both Vic and Argmon onto stretchers and disappeared back out the balcony, leaving June, Dexter, and he alone in the wrecked rooms.

“What happened?” Joey asked, still staring out the broken balcony doors.

“I heard them say they need to pick up one more down below. That must be Hector. Dex, I think we all owe you our lives.”

“Eep. Eep. Eep.”

“Don’t be modest.”

“Eep? Eep? Eep?”

“I’m sure Vic and Argmon will be fine. They’re in good hands now. Vic lost a lot of blood…”

“Argmon too. Look at it all.”

Joey wrapped his arms around June and hugged her, fighting back tears as he did. No matter how strong June sounded, her fear radiated out from her. When she started crying, he did too.

When they broke apart, June called the front desk. New rooms were found and all three went to the same room. Dexter took the couch while June and Joey took the bed. They’d exchanged their robes for pajamas, but that didn’t matter. Sleep didn’t return.

When the sun did finally peek up, all three got up without a word and got ready. June phoned and found out where Vic and Argmon had been taken, so they left the hotel and took a cab to the hospital.

Vic had been put into intensive care for a severed artery and punctured lung, but Argmon was released. His left side where the two arms were missing had been bandaged. Argmon not only looked tired, he looked downright beat. They returned to the hotel with him, not being able to get in to see Vic.

June and Joey talked about Earth and the differences between their times. They didn’t laugh or joke, but spoke in somber tones about Earth.

It wasn’t until the following day that they were allowed to see Vic, and only then for a brief time. And even then, only June had been allowed to go inside. All the while Argmon stood with his head pressed against the door as if he’d be able to commune with Vic through the door somehow.

Chapter 83

“So when do you get out of here?” June fought to keep her emotions in check. She could feel Vic’s pain deep in his gut. She didn’t want to make him talk a lot, but she needed to know a few things.

“Soon.” Vic coughed.

“Can I bring you anything? Anything special you want when you get out?”

His voice came out low and strained as he spoke. “A beer…and a smoke.”

“That’s so like you.” She didn’t want to beat around the bush any longer. “Vic, your dad, he’s dead.”

Vic closed his eyes and nodded. “I kind of figured that must’ve happened if all of you were still alive. How’s Argmon?”

“Well, your dad shot off two of his arms.” Vic winced at this news as if he’d lost the arms. “The Chancellor said there may be hope for prosthetics being that they were sheared off cleanly and if he would accept them, the city would present them as a gift.”

“Argmon’s not one to take charity.” Vic coughed again. “You don’t have a smoke on you, do you?”

“Vic, we need to talk about the business. About the shipping.”

“Yes, we do, but here isn’t the place and this isn’t the time. We all need to talk together when I’m doing better. The doc said my lung is nearly healed, just some excess fluid or some such thing. I’ll be out of here tomorrow.”

“I think that’s a great idea. Tomorrow. With everyone. We can have dinner and talk. As a team, not a crew.”

Vic smiled.

“Miss, I’m afraid your time is up,” a mechanized voice said.

“I’m going to miss Tootsie,” replied Vic and he closed his eyes.

June took his hand and gave it a quick kiss before leaving.

Back in the waiting area she let the others know Vic would be out the next day. They adjourned to the hotel, dined, and slept. During breakfast, Vic arrived.

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