The Synthetic Albatross

Blog Post No. 539

cropped-33621371_10213371886664408_8274364330942660608_n.jpgI’m feeling a little disconnected right now. It’s April and for the previous five years in April I had a book come out in the Synthetic Albatross Series. This year I don’t and it’s very strange. Normally, this would be the time when I would be scrambling to get the final copy to the printer, or anxiously waiting for the review copy to come in so I could see what horrible mistake I missed (costing me more money) or what kind of horrible state the printing (or binding, or positioning) would be in. Not that I’m doing any of that in 2023.

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Broadcast Wasteland – Behind the Writing

Blog Post No. 519

Broadcast CoverI didn’t intend to wait this long to write a Behind the Writing for Broadcast Wasteland, the third novella in the Synthetic Albatross Series. I didn’t expect to write one now, either, but I’m running low on ideas for posts while closing in on the end of the year and I felt like it. Initially, I waited because the book came out at the start of the lock-downs in 2020 and I was expecting to go back to events later in the year. I figured that after I sold the first run of orders, I would have enough of an audience that writing this would make sense. I have no idea when I’m going to get back out to sell again, so I figured, now is as good a time as any.
*Spoilers Ahead, though I tried to keep them to a minimum for those who haven’t read it, yet.*

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A Holistic Approach

Blog Post No. 518

coffee_time_futuramaA friend of mine shared a great concept with me regarding last week’s post about Everyone Being Tired. He put it in a succinct and catchy phrase, too. He said he likes to “Earn the Tired”. While he’s been going through the same fatigue that it seems everyone is, he finds when he’s tired from work (be it physical or otherwise) the next morning doesn’t hit so hard. Not only was it nice to have an conversation based on something I’ve written, his comment made me think about what I’m doing (or not) to earn the tired.

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Snow from a Distant Sky is now Available

Blog post No. 491

20220414_161437_hdrI may be milking it a little by now, but this is a short post to announce the official release of Snow from a Distant Sky. In case you don’t already know, it’s the fifth book in The Synthetic Albatross Novella Series that started with The Thinking Machine in 2018. As I’ve mentioned a number of times, the series is now on hold for the foreseeable future. One of the main reasons I wrote the series was to have new books each year for the annual events I was attending. Now that I have Broadcast Wasteland, Break/Interrupt, and Snow in my pocket for when I do go back to events (you can read last week’s post to know why I’m not taking part, yet) I think my time is better spent working on some novels. Continue reading “Snow from a Distant Sky is now Available”

Never Enough

Blog Post No. 478

giphy-1I’m off from the day job again for pandemic reasons and while it’s mostly a good thing (both having time off and not being at risk with omicron running wild) I’m also not making any money. You’d think that with this sudden time off, I’d be writing up a storm or getting way ahead on edits for the new novella, Snow from a Distant Sky. Unfortunately, edits grind to a halt when you have to wait on people to get back to you with their beta reads. As for writing, I’m still struggling with short stories as a whole and I still haven’t cracked the ability to write while in the middle of an edit. Continue reading “Never Enough”

Bowling Ball and Pinhead

Blog Post No. 470

20211104_121451Most of the artists I know don’t have a ton of extra scratch to pay for things. Sometimes when you’re making, say, a book, you need things like good looking covers. How does an artist pay for a good looking cover when they don’t have enough money to get a kindergartner to finger paint for them? That’s right, they trade for it. I was lucky enough to find someone to trade with in Glen Hawkes. He did the covers for Broadcast Wasteland, Break/Interrupt, and is working on the cover for the upcoming Snow From a Distant Sky. He’s not only a talented painter, he’s a skilled graphic designer, so he knows how to make a cover.

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Update: Snow From a Distant Sky

Blog Post No. 469

giphy-1My main project at the moment is editing the fifth novella in the Synthetic Albatross Series, Snow From a Distant Sky. Like the last two books Broadcast Wasteland and Break/Interrupt, I wrote the first draft in a mad sprint. Broadcast was started in September but seeing as it went long, I bumped Break up to August. (It ran even longer, so it was good that I gave it the extra month). This time, I actually managed to get the first draft of Snow in before the end of August and I somehow kept it from ballooning out of control. Continue reading “Update: Snow From a Distant Sky”

First Draft of Snow from a Distant Sky

Blog Post No. 459

giphyIt may not be a record for the most words written in the shortest amount of time (I’d have to do math to verify it) but it is a record for the fastest first draft I’ve ever written. In 29 days I managed to write just under 40 000 words and somehow managed to stop writing any more. That is to say, the last three installments in this novella series all went longer that I had intended (some much longer than others). But now it’s early September (and the weather has finally gotten a little cooler) and I’m done the first draft of the fifth novella and taking a short break before jumping into the edits. Continue reading “First Draft of Snow from a Distant Sky”

Cold Writing in Hot Weather

Blog Post No. 458

hgj5g8dn6h711It’s hot outside. Like, seriously hot. Some people have no idea what the part of Canada where I live is like. The area used to be a swamp. In the summers we get heat waves that may look quaint to people who live in more southern climates, but our heat is wet. It sticks to you. When we reach 32 degrees Celsius (about 80 Fahrenheit) it feels like 40 degrees with the humidity (104 F). Again, that doesn’t look like much to someone who sees 120 F in Arizona, but the humidity is a killer. Continue reading “Cold Writing in Hot Weather”

Surprise, Surprise

Blog Post No. 438

20210413_135426Surprisingly, the sample copies of my new novella, Break/Interrupt, came in earlier than expected. Not surprisingly, there was a mistake and I had to pay to upload a new file in order to fix it. The books came in last week, but I spent the weekend searching for coupon codes online in hopes of avoiding the steep cost of making the fix. It was just a little thing. The text on the back cover was off centre. Some of the issue is from the wildly varying printing and cutting tolerances that comes from print-on-demand books. Also, I was relying on the previous book’s cover as reference and since this book is significantly larger, the spacing was off. Continue reading “Surprise, Surprise”