tiffanyshearn

Ship in the Void – Pt.1

Dream a Little Dream

Today is all about catching up on all my ARC activities. I’m at or behind several deadlines related to sending out review copies, and today is the one-month weekend mark before Hidden Memory is officially released. I still need to set up my Bookfunnel account, perform final checks on the copy to be uploaded, finalize my ARC sign-up form, create the MailChimp ARC invite that points to Bookfunnel, and identify bookstagrammers and others like that to request reviews. Today marks one of the final milestones before the very last Amazon uploads, so I’m hoping I can get it all complete.

I will share some of the details next week if all goes well. In the meantime, I had an odd dream recently. Usually, I don’t remember much of my dreams, but this one had some of the details stick with me more than usual. I wrote them down in bullet form, and I have decided to turn them into a short story here on my blog. It will be the draft version with the only editing from Grammarly, and if it ends up making no sense…Well, it was a dream. So, while science fiction is not my go-to genre, here is part one of my sci-fi short, Ship in the Void:

Stage one – Liftoff

I looked up at the clear sky in anticipation of my imminent ascent. Despite having made numerous AG lifts before this, it still made her pulse race every time. The speed. The altitude. The weightlessness. It was like skydiving with additional exhilaration from going well beyond the stratosphere.

“Final check!” Tryss, our unit commander barked out. “T-minus ten minutes to liftoff.”

Tryss was…intimidating. Gifted with Amazonian height, she topped everyone else in the unit, measuring 6′ 3″ barefoot. When you added in the leanly corded muscle, stellar record, strong voice, and eyes that missed nothing, she could inspire awe in anyone.

She was also gorgeous. Her head was shaved, accentuating sharply defined cheeks and full lips. There was a warm glow to her smooth brown skin, and it echoed in the melted chocolate color of her eyes. I’m certain her appearance gave her no end of grief as she made her way up the astrocore ranks. That certainly did nothing to lessen my jealousy.

At Tryss’s command, I quickly started performing final equipment checks with the rest of the squad. We were all wearing our AG (anti-gravity) suits. When I compared AG lifts to skydiving, it was not only about the feel of flying.

AG suit design supports AG chute use for lifting humans into space and bringing them back. Each suit carries three ascent chutes, two drifters, two descent chutes, and thirty-six hours of compressed oxygen. They regulate body temperature, even in space, and process liquid waste. The drifters, extra oxygen, and waste features are all to get us back into the atmosphere without burning or breaking up on re-entry.

Checking my gear at this stage was primarily about the monitors on all this equipment and the suit itself. As my gauges read in the green, I started with the boots and worked up through each piece. The suits were constructed of an ingenious fabric that was self-repairing and self-sealing. A code activated each suit’s connective properties. Once it was “on,” each piece was sealed in place when put on.

The boots merged into the pants, which melded to the shirt, then the gloves, helmet, and equipment vest that integrated and monitored me and all my equipment. All-inclusive, it was over 100 lbs of gear wrapped around my torso and settled squarely on my hips.

All the seals were looking good, so I did a final check of the face shield. The helmets were made of the same flexible fabric with a sturdy frame around my face. It contained the shield mechanism and a holographic HUD I could toggle visually or manually. The shield functions measured air pressure and would maintain a healthy atmosphere in the suit, adjusting resistance and air consumption from either my reserves or the environment accordingly.

To test it one final time, I slowly touched my nose with my bare left hand. The face shield flared, sparkling a faint orange glow and producing a soft tingle against my skin. Finally, I put on the final glove, and it merged with my sleeve. By all measures and senses, I was clear to go.

“T- minus two minutes!” Tryss called out.

I looked up to see others touching their noses and putting on that final glove, ignoring how stupid we all looked. My position was number twelve, so I lined up.

“T-minus one minute,” she called. “Get in line and sound off!”

“Twelve, go!” I yelled out when it came to me.

Tryss looked at her wrist as we finished the sound off. We were all a go. No one would miss this lift.

“Ten!” she started the final countdown.

My adrenaline spiked, and I shook out my jittery limbs as I waited.

“Three. Two. One. Mark one, go!” Tryss shouted, and the first of our unit deployed, shooting upward.

“Mark two, go!”

One by one, we took off, until finally, it was my turn. My jitters always settle in the buffer-time before a lift, and it was a steady hand I raised to my interface.

Three. Two. One.

“Mark twelve, go!”

To be continued…

Deafened and Blinded

This week continued the trend of super busy weeks, with a Sounders game on Monday evening and D&D on Thursday. While still a lot to handle, both were fun escapes from all the learning and deadlines at work. I was cracking up at the D&D session this week, and I was not alone.

Mad Mage – Continuing Level 2

Nothics informed the group of a locked door to the west in the prior session, so they planned to address that door first. Well, it turned out that the door in that room was not locked, and it opened just fine into a hallway heading off in multiple directions. They already promised the revenant, tagging along with them to get some healthy revenge, that they would go after his former partner after addressing the door. So, they turned around and headed east instead.

It ended up being a riskier situation than they previously thought, as they ran smack into a fight with a fiend who could cast cloudkill. That is enough damage from one spell to drop a couple of the party members in one turn. If they had known this upfront, they might have retreated and adjusted their strategy. Unfortunately for them, they found out about the cloudkill after two of their party had already charged forward, and the revenant ran in shouting accusations of betrayal at the human in the room. Backing out? Not an option anymore for some of them.

Two people went down more than once. They threw a ton of party resources into that victory, but everyone survived. The combat took a long time (real-time), but it did not feel like it dragged because there was so much going on that the dynamics and sense of dread it conveyed kept you invested. I’m happy with my revised combat note page, as it helped me keep track of all the special monster abilities. It all adds to the atmosphere.

We had time for one more room after the first big battle. They decided to take the remaining hallway to the east in that same section and heard muttering as they moved down a hallway.

“Does this sound like the same kind of muttering we heard from the first gibbering mouther?” they ask.

“Why, yes. Yes, it does.”

“I prepared silence,” the cleric noted during their planning.

So they plan to go in, the cleric casting silence on the mouther when he sees the monster so that its muttering won’t drive them insane. The PCs will be deafened in the radius too, but that shouldn’t be a problem. Plan in place, they charge boldly forward…it turns out there are three mouthers this time.

Okay. No problem. I allow the cleric to catch two of them in the zone of silence. They can deal with those first. This plan will still work.

As they are charging in, the mouthers shoot off these phlegm-bombs of flash-spittle that can blind you. Now they are in the room, right next to a blob-like mass of mutely muttering mouths, and they can’t see or hear them. Even better, the ground sucks them in, so they can’t move away.

I’m rolling really well with this flash-spittle reload and can shoot it off every round, while they are rolling poorly and are continuously blind at this point. The mouthers are not doing much else, honestly, but the fumbling around is pretty hilarious.

To be fair, rules-as-written for blinded and deafened means that they can attack and move around with the knowledge of their player. A character simply has disadvantage to represent the impact. I think this is dumb and makes no sense with stacked status effects like this, but some of my players get rules-grumpy. It is my game, and I can overrule them, but I did not think it was worth it this time. Instead, I told them to play it how it made sense to them.

(Two of my players did end up playing the situation more realistically how I would have. Guess who is getting inspiration in the next session!?!)

Once they dealt with the two in the zone of silence, there was one left, and now the muttering madness came into play again. Most people only lost their turn when hit by the insanity, but one of my newer players got hit by it where she would end up attacking a random person.

“Go ahead and make an attack,” I tell her.

“I’m going to use feinting strike,” she replies.

Everyone else at the table groans while I laugh maniacally.

“What?”

Ashe is now chuckling as well. “Nothing. Do what you are going to do. This will be entertaining.”

“Does an 18 hit?”

“I don’t know,” I say with another laugh and evil grin. “Ashe, does an 18 hit you?”

It did hit him, and she ended up doing more damage in one strike than all three mouthers had managed the entire combat. We were all in stitches by that point.

It was a good night.

Thanks for stopping by, and I hope you found some humor here as well. Until next week!

As a Writer Who Works

Writing as a Job?

The title “as a writer who works” is not to be confused with a writer whose work is writing. Someday, I might transition to the latter, but the math on that is pretty daunting. I’m selling my ebooks for $5 each, so let’s see what it would take to bring in a salary of $50K annually.

First, we need an estimate of royalties per book. Here are some rough estimates:

$5 @ 70% = $3.50 – 0.75 KDP fee = $2.75 – 0.222% of $5 B&O tax = approximately $2.739 per book.

Next, I will translate that into the number of sales necessary annually.

$50,000 / 2.739 = ~ 18,255 books

My series will have four books in it. If we assume everyone who buys one will buy all four, that translates to 4,564 new customers of the series needed every year. This calculation is not factoring in any costs for cover art, copy editor, or other costs associated with publication.

While this is not impossible, I don’t expect to achieve this level of popularity anytime soon without some serious advertising and promotional backing. Book four is still a couple of years out as things currently stand. What all of this means is that I need to keep my day job for a while longer.

Work/Write Conflicts

I have struggled to find balance this month. In a previous post, I mentioned it is budgeting season at work. This process sets the budget for my organization for the entirety of next year. It is the measure against

which we will score our financial performance, and it is due this week.

The whole process is a lot of numbers work, and it is complicated this year because I just started with this company in July. I’m still learning all the terms and measures for a company and industry that is new to me. It translates into long workdays and a fair amount of stress. The latter is mostly due to my limited experiential knowledge. The budget is an important deliverable, and I constantly feel like I am missing something that will become a big problem for us next year.

With this on my plate, when the workday ends I don’t feel like writing. The computer reminds me of work, and I think about everything I still have to complete. Instead of writing, I spend my hour of downtime in front of the TV. October is almost over, and I have only gotten through one chapter of my book in the entire month.

I could probably force myself to use that hour to write, but the result would likely be something unreadable and need to be completely re-worked later anyway. This is one of the perils of being a writer with a different primary job. A person’s brain only has so much capacity for everything demanding our attention and time. At some point, you become overloaded and need to step back and prioritize. What is important? What is urgent?

Years ago, I took a 7-Habits mini-class that focused on using those questions to prioritize, and I often fall back on it to determine my next steps. Any goals can be daunting if you don’t break them down into the component steps. That is what I’m doing now.

Work will slow down, and I will get my weekends back. As long as I revisit my book outline and re-read the recent chapter additions, I will be able to hop right back into it without too much issue. Until then, writing will remain on hold. With a clear head, the entire writing process will go more smoothly than if I tried to force it while there is so much other activity.

Hidden Sanctuary has an August 2022 release date. A month of work drama—maybe even two—is baked into that schedule. I’m a writer who works, and my time is not always available for writing, but I will push through!

Hang in there, fellow writers, whether to are a writer who works or your work is writing. If you are stuck, break the tasks into pieces and keep moving forward.

Happy Halloween, everyone!

The Cats are Alright

Bookbub

My research into Bookbub has led me to this: it is the largest book-related newsletter audience you can find as an author. Becoming one of their hand-picked books recommended to their readers is extremely difficult, costs you a chunk of money, but is usually worth the effort and money simply due to the reach it provides.

I was not selected for their “New Release” picks coming up. I will probably submit for their “Featured Deals” promo, but not until I have another book or two. Based on feedback from other authors, it might be worth it, but the best use of your advertising money, if you get a featured deal spot, is if you can leverage it across more than one book. I’m scheduling Hidden Sanctuary for release in August 2022, so I will probably look at offering a deal on Hidden Memory around that time.

No website updates yet. I’m waiting on those until a) work slows down and b) the preorder for Hidden Sanctuary is also live.

Annual Vet Visit

This week I squeezed in a vet visit for both cats at the same time. It was a little late for Big Cat and a little early for Little Cat, but close enough for everyone involved.

I’m happy to report that Big Cat put back on two-tenths of a pound! This is exciting news after he had lost so much weight in recent years because of his stomach issues. It looks like his kidney problem has degraded a little more, but no meds for him yet. We are hoping to keep him eating right and regularly for now. He remains a super picky eater, but maybe I can sneak in some kidney-care-related food somewhere.

As for Little Cat, the message was basically “make sure she does not gain more weight.” She is good where she is, and the vet wants her to stay there. Now I have to keep her from eating Big Cat’s food and away from the plastic. She loves gnawing on plastic like a little bunny. I’m sure it is going to give her indigestion someday, or worse.

With the weather turning, they are both becoming lap-cats again. That is perfectly fine with me, as I welcome the heat on my legs as much as they enjoy the warmth of a lap. It is a bit more problematic when they try to sit on my husband’s lap while he is playing computer games. Everything works fine until one of them wants to move, and then everyone is just in the way. I find it all adorably hilarious.

Photo by stein egil liland on Pexels.com

Stay dry out there if you are on the west coast of the USA with me. It looks like we are in for more wind and rain!

Brain Clutter

Work is still crazy with learning things AND finalizing budgeting for 2022. That work adds to publication activities. Then I add other hobby activities like Sounders games and D&D. I have to admit that I’m no longer at the top of my game. As a result, I have not been doing much writing in the last couple of weeks. I’m trying to prevent this draft from being filled with holes.

Right now, book 2 is out with my alpha readers, and I have been working on the concept revision of book 3. I mentioned this before, but my drafts usually go in this order: concept, revised, alpha, revised alpha, beta, final draft, edited final. The Hidden Series has four books planned, and I have a pretty good start on all of them, but each stage takes time.

Book 1 (Hidden Memory): Edited final set for publication
Book 2 (Hidden Sanctuary): Alpha version is with alpha readers
Book 3: The concept is complete, and I’m working on the revision
Book 4: The concept is complete

I have rough publication timeframes on the “My Books” page for each of the four books, and I plan to post Hidden Sanctuary for preorder in the next couple of weeks. That is so I can include the link at the end of the first book. I need to work on the book description for that to happen.

Mad Mage Campaign

The brain clutter impacted my D&D game this week. The game still went fine, and everyone had fun, but I forgot so much of the monster abilities and negative stat items for the players that they walked through combat like it was a day at the beach. Now I have a “reminders” section on my notepad to help me keep all of these moving parts in mind.

My players strolling through level 2 in Halaster’s dungeon.

I’m trying to warn my players that combat will be more difficult going forward. That they should be careful when deciding their course of action. Words are not internalized like experience, though. They will plow into another combat with half health and zero ability resources left, and someone’s character will die. Or my warnings will drive them to rest all the time, and I will have to attack them to break them of that overcorrection. Fun times for me either way!

Bookbub

Next week I will share some of what I have learned about Bookbub from some of the Facebook groups I’m part of and hopefully an acceptance letter for their “New Release” feature (super difficult, so cross your fingers, but don’t hold your breath on my account). If I release book 2 for preorder, there will also be more changes to the website!

Those are all the remotely coherent sentences and complete thoughts I can string together for today, so have a great weekend, everyone!