Hey Space Cadets, here is the next installment in my series of book reviews. This time I’m reviewing some short stories. Some of these will be outside of my normal reading Continue reading
Scott Moon
Title: Tales of Sales, Day 4
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Hey Space Cadets, I hope you’re having an awesome day! I’m doing great, I should have some new releases coming in the not-too-distant future. In the meantime, I thought I would start the new year off with a week of posts highlighting various books that are on sale for the low – low price of $0.99 USD. Some of these books were already $0.99, but I liked them and decided to share. Others, however, are books whose sales I coordinated with the author to get these sales for you! I hope you like these books but check them out now if you’re interested because these low prices won’t last forever! Continue reading
Title: Tales of Sales, Day 2
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Hey Space Cadets, I hope you’re having an awesome day! I’m doing great and have some amazing news to share with you! My anthology, Backblast Area Clear, A Mil SF Anthology, is on sale for $0.99. It’s a countdown deal, so get it while it’s hot because this price won’t last long! Continue reading
Sales and other nice things!
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Hey Space Cadets, I hope life finds you well! I am doing good, preparing for my wife’s surgery next month and trying to write every day. The good news, the surgeon thinks she will recover quickly and be back to where she was before the car accident last year! Then it’s back to the races. I still have my Order of the Centurion book in the Galaxy’s Edge Universe tentatively scheduled for late fall and I submitted a short story in the next Four Horsemen Universe anthology in September. I should find out if it was accepted soon, and I’ll let you know! I’ll have additional writing announcements soon, as a certain project is nearing a date with an editing guru! Continue reading
Daily Exercise Podcast Time
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Hey Space Cadets, how’re y’all doing this fine day? I’m doing great, and cranking away on the revisions to book four! I’ve also been exercising every day to clear my mind, and hopefully maybe fit back into my uniform before the decade ends! Okay, maybe that last part was a pipe dream, but I’m okay with it! Anyway, while I walk, I like to listen to podcasts and audiobooks. I’ll give you a list of some of the podcasts I listen to, and some good audio books in another post! Most of my podcasts are writing related, or historical in nature, so I can inundate myself with ideas to stir the stories. Hopefully, these podcasts are helpful!
Lazy Blogger Day
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Hey Space Cadets, I hope you’re all doing well. Today I plan on keeping my post short, I’m not where I want to be with Operation Breakout. Here we’ll give an update on the blog, and some of what I see as my basic policies. Nothing too sexy, but it had to happen eventually. Especially with the big plans I have for 2017, which I can’t wait to be able to tell you about.
First, I have several interview series I’m running because they’re fun for me. Hope everyone else enjoys them as well! If you want to see anyone specific, just post a comment or contact me and I’ll try to make it happen. If you hate this series, let me know and I won’t do as many of them. I can never tell which posts are well received and I’m still learning to read the WordPress analytics. Regardless, I’ll continually seek to keep the interviews fun and personable but please do sound off in the comment section.
- Warrior Weekend Interview Series
- Family Friday Interview Series
- Sci-Fi Shenanigans Interviews
- Mental Health Matters Interviews
Now, onto a topic that has been fun for me to do! Book reviews!! I love books, I love to read and I love talking about what I’ve read. I do need to explain some of my personal policies on this. I won’t review books I don’t like or couldn’t finish. My intent is to only review stuff I can give at least three, maybe four, grenades (stars) too. I’ll freely admit to my tendency to support other military veterans, but that alone won’t make me blow smoke up your six. You have my word on it. I hope that I’m as transparent as glass, and if you need clarification please ask. This is why I list if I was given the book as an ARC read etc. This desire to be transparent is why I won’t review Boss Man’s books. I love them, or I wouldn’t write in his world, but I’m not impartial enough to review them.
Another topic I wanted to cover was a YouTube vlogger I found, Keystroke Medium. The hosts, Josh Hayes and Scott Moon, are pretty friendly and the live events are a blast! They’ve discussed a wide variety of topics and interviewed a lot of authors. If it’s entertaining and about the written word, they have either covered it or will be soon. It’s a lot of fun, and worth a moment of your time. I’ve mentioned before, and I don’t want to harp on it, but I really do enjoy this team. Further, their crazy style has spurred some interesting ideas for new books. As an author, this is always a good thing!
Finally, speaking of new ideas, I wanted to recommend one last source for story ideas. The Stuff You Missed in History podcast is a great place to mine ideas. This umbrella venue has a wide variety of podcasts for you to enjoy. I will freely acknowledge the need to be able to tune out politics this, I sometimes they wear their extreme left ideology on their sleeve. Regardless of their politics, their topics are diverse and generate loads of ideas. I mentioned this, not because I’m getting political (I intentionally avoid doing so here) but to forewarn you. If this isn’t something you could tolerate, you might want to let this ship pass by. The history podcast tends to be pretty neutral, and has lead me to a multitude of plots for future works.
Hopefully, you found this housekeeping session to be entertaining! If not, then I hope that it was at least informative. If you have any ideas for resources for writers, feel free to share them in the comments below! Tomorrow I’m sharing another Warrior Weekend Interview with Sarah S. Reida, an attorney who advocates for veterans and right middle grade fiction. She became a family friend after she stood up and helped me slay the goliath that is the VA process. My wife and I call her our “Court Room Warrior Princess,” after the TV show ‘Xena’ that I watched growing up. It’ll be a hoot, so pop back over tomorrow!
Until next time, stay frosty and don’t forget to keep your powder dry!
JR
–> As usual, all images came from the Google’s “labeled for reuse” section or are screen shots taken by JR Handley and used under the Fair Use Doctrine.
Keystroke Medium
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Hey Space Cadets, I hope everyone is doing fine! I am doing great, though a little under the weather. If you live in Southern Virginia (USA), then you’re likely feeling my pain. Summer weather one day, snow the next. Ugh, take your meds already and stop being so crazy! Also, I finally broke the 50,000 words mark on Operation Breakout!! If the multiple exclamation marks didn’t clue you in, I’m ecstatic to cross that line! My original goal was to hit 90,000 words by January 31st, which means on 56% done with 10 days to get the other 44%. I’m still going to try for my February 1st turnover date, but I might be a little off. A turnover date is when I have the finished product to the next link in the assembly line of production. If you want to check my editor, he’s here and would love for you to say hello!
While taking a realistic look at the numbers, I would need 3,584 words a day to make that happen. Not sure if I’m there yet but I hope it’s a feasible word count for me down the line. Ultimately, if I started getting 2,500 useable words a day I will gladly call it a win! Heck, I’d be so happy I’d throw a party! Ideally, I’d love to reach 3000 words a day or more but I’ve learned that I can’t set unrealistic goals because it stresses me out, which is bad for my creative process.
Moving right along, sorry I didn’t post yesterday. It’s the second day I’ve missed since December 1st but it was a much-needed day off. I was busy working my way through the Dragon Training Tutorial. I’m not sure I’ll get all of the functionality out of the program, but if I can merely produce a usable first draft, one my editor won’t kill me over, I’ll call it a win. I’m already getting faster with the dictation than I can currently type. While the learning curve means less time actually working on the story, in two hours I’m getting as I did with five to six hours of typing. If I can get more proficient, and tweak my outlining process accordingly, I can see myself finally reaching pulp speed.
Speaking of editing, I recently watched a video by Keystroke Medium on the subject. I found it very informative, and wanted to share it with you. I really think it’ll have a lot of actionable advice, most of it from the practical and less on the theoretical side. While you’re in the video browsing mood, you should check out the other videos as well. They’ve got loads of good stuff, seriously, just click here. Come on, I double dog dare you!! Anyway, in this video you’ll also see mention of a contest that benefits a worthy charity. They’ve teamed up with Parkinson’s UK to help research towards a cure, a worthy endeavor. They’re auctioning off 3 Tom Edwards book covers, which are amazing works of art! Definitely worth looking into, but I don’t want to spoil it so watch the video already!
After watching that video, if the fine folks at Keystroke Medium seemed right up your alley, check them out on Facebook, or on YouTube. Josh and Scott, the hosts, are extremely friendly so you won’t regret it!
Until next time, stay frosty and don’t forget to keep your powder dry!
JR
–> As usual, all images came from the Google’s “labeled for reuse” section or are images owned by JR Handley.
J.R. Handley Blog 