Blog Post No. 541
It’s actually happening and as I write this, I don’t know how I feel about it. This Saturday, I’m going to be in Chatham at the CKExpo with Christian for my first event since 2019. That’s just in a few days and I’m excited and nervous and feel pretty silly that something I used to do so regularly is affecting me so much. I’ll be wearing a mask the whole time (thanks for the N95, bro) and bringing a big bottle of sanitizer, and maybe a pack of wipes, I haven’t decided.
Blog Post No. 539
I’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.
Blog post No. 491
I 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”
Blog Post No. 481
Welcome to February of 2022. Right now I’m trying to figure out what this blog will look like for the year after having one of the best (in terms of views and visitors) years in the last decade. It’s hard to not take stock of the first month’s numbers, compare them to last year’s, and make predictions. If those numbers are any indication (and they probably aren’t) I won’t be breaking any records. But that’s okay. Not going out for readings or other events is strange and I’m sure it’s limiting my audience growth, but so is having as limited an internet presence as I currently have. I’m not a big fan of social media (though I check it enough). I hate making posts that feel empty. I believe in the concept of paying for a person’s attention with either information or entertainment.
Blog Post No. 458
It’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”
Blog Post No. 454
It’s August (already, somehow) and for better or worse, I’ve put the Invasion Novel aside to start the fifth novella, Snow from a Distant Sky. I had a really good plan for July that would result in me getting the third and fourth draft of the novel done and (ideally) put me in a good position to have some folks get their first look at the book. That didn’t happen. Between going back to the day job and the earwig invasion, I only managed to get the third draft done. I think I managed to make it a good one, though. I didn’t want to rush (because I would miss a bunch and it would have been a waste of time and effort) but there is still a long way to go. It’s definitely not ready for people to see. Continue reading “Starting the Fifth Novella”
Blog Post No. 438
Surprisingly, 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”
Blog Post No. 419
While Christian has been going over the latest draft of Break/Interrupt, I’ve been working on the ebook (still). I’ve made some good progress, but the deeper I dig, the more mistakes I find in my current attempt. It’s gotten to the point where I have a single major issue remaining and I’m going to (hopefully) fix it by redoing the whole thing with new encoding. That means creating a new file and moving all the code over, then reviewing my code looking for places where I can replace old tags with new one. (Tag being the wrapper for the content i.e. <p class=”first”>content</P> for a paragraph). It’s more complex than that, but really not by much. Continue reading “Sharpening the Knife”
Blog Post No. 418
One thing to get out of the way right off the bat. I am not a coder and my meager accomplishment would likely insult the sensibilities of a real coder at a single glance. With that in mind and the overwhelming amount of help I’ve gotten from Arvin (my bad code is in no way representative of the help he provided but is an example of my own shortcomings) I am on the cusp of finally having the epub version of The Thinking Machine finished. There is still the Kindle version to do, but I hope that it’s as easy as the tutorials make it seem and I can just press a couple of extra buttons in the program I’m using and it will be spat out the other side. Continue reading “Coding for ebooks”
Blog Post No. 417
Last week I finished off the third draft of Break/Interrupt and (like passing off a mewling baby) handed it over to Christian for review. There is still a lot of editing left to do, but other than more potential cuts, the story is pretty well set. With the novella out of my hands, I am trying to be productive in other ways without diving into another project that will have to be put on hold when I get the edit back. At the top of the list is coming up with some good ideas for the cover so that Glen Hawkes can turn my scribbles into something cool. Continue reading “Gaming with Friends”
Ben Van Dongen 