Discovering New Worlds, One Syllable at a Time
AVAILABLE TODAY! It’s Mr. Frankie Substitute Dragon!
Dragon for a Day
Mr. Frankie always wanted to be a substitute teacher. After the last incident with the accidental blob, though, no school will hire him! And that’s when he sees an ad.
Being a substitute dragon shouldn’t be harder than being a substitute teacher . . . right?
Sometimes ideas get a little weird.
This week my wife and I came to an impasse. I wanted to accomplish a publishing goal, and she posited that it was impossible.
As is usual in such matters, my wife was right.
We just finished fulfilling our Kickstarter rewards for Mr. Frankie Substitute Dragon, and it releases… tomorrow! (I think you should check out the book, but I might be biased. Expect a post tomorrow with more about it.)
I wanted to get another Kickstarter going. I have a YA steampunk trilogy drafted. The first two books are pretty polished, and the last book is ready for its first round of edits. So why not run a Kickstarter in October for the trilogy?
Alas, the lead time on Kickstarter projects is… well, let’s just say running the campaign in about thirty days isn’t feasible. At the least, we’d have to perfect the story blurbs and get covers made before launch. While all that is possible, it’s not likely. We’d be able to get it running in November, but neither November nor December are good months for Kickstarters. So maybe January? The good news is that it means that the books should be about ready to print and ship whenever we actually run the campaign.
But as we were hashing all this out, I mentioned a side project I’d been pursing: I post a story a day on Twitter (never X). Each story is a tweet long. My plan had been to make a little collection of the stories and sell it cheaply. 365 short stories! Woo!
And then my wife in her wisdom suggests… why not make into a page-a-day calendar?
So, now we’re investigating that, because, well, it sounds like a fun idea to me!
Meanwhile, I’m also drafting the footnotes of a book I came across called How to Be a Dragon first written in 1882 (we think). I’m doing tons of research into this book and finding a bunch of fascinating things. Nonfiction isn’t usually my thing, but sometimes it’s fun!
So yeah. All sorts of things going on.
Why am I sharing all this?
Well, what weird ideas do you have? Make them real. Craft them into some form that can be shared. Your ideas may never make you money, but there is real value in creating simply to create. And who knows? Your words might be the exact shape someone needs to fit into the hole in their heart.
Go be weird. Have some fun ideas and make them real.
Contrary to popular belief, writers are not brains wired to typewriters. We actually have bodies like most people. In fact, most of us even have things like fingernails and hair. (Well, some of the better writers are bald, but that’s beside the point.)
The problem with having a body is having to care for it. Most authors require food. In fact, some authors require a good deal of food. And sometimes they’re picky. They need more than kibble.
Please don’t be offended or surprised by this. Authors, having bodies, have bodily needs. Just like normal people like stonemasons and plumbers.
So, not taking care of an author’s body means no words from that author. And an author with no words typically means a grumpy author. Even more alarmingly, it means no books. And without books, well, authors will have even harder times being able to eat. A vicious cycle, that.
Authors do need more than food, though. In fact, they need sleep.
This author I know, let’s call him Jon for some random reason, well, his kids just started up their school year again. Jon was elated. An empty house should mean more ability to produce those words that authors love using their typewriters to clunk out!
Alas. The kids require rides to school. And school starts at an ungodly hour.
Jon lacks sleep.
So for the last week, he has stared at the blinking cursor on his electric typewriter some call a laptop, and he has been unable to create through the haze of inarticulate exhaustion.
Poor Jon has a body. He has fed it. He has watered it. But more sleep is required.
Be kind to your authors. Make sure they take care of their bodies. Otherwise, well, your authors might get moody and create books that won’t be quite so pleasing.
Ah, summer! A time to relax. A time for family. A time for vacation.
And the summer has indeed been delightful. I got to watch many fun shows with the kids. Many games were played. We visited friends. All very, very good.
Ah, but the writing… that has suffered. You see, with the kids out of school, I wanted to spend more time with them. And that extra time with kids means less time for writing. Every time I thought, “Ah! I can get some writing done now!” that writing time would last a week, and then something would shift the schedule and I couldn’t keep up with it. Routine was not routine.
This last Thursday, though, the kids went back to school. That means during weekdays… no kids.
Now, I still have my “day job.” I work hard at that job. Thankfully, though, I can work at my own pace there. Which means that I should be able to get back to work on writing as well. We’ll be back to a mostly-normal weekly schedule.
And that’s good. One of our recent TikTok series went viral, talking about a book I found called How to Be a Dragon.
There is no book by that name. I made it up.
But I guess now I’m gonna write it.
Also, I’ve outlined a six-book series with my teen daughter. We’ll be cowriting it. I’m really excited for this series. I’ve never cowritten before, and I want to make sure the books are as much hers as they are mine.
So, I’m thrilled that from now until around Thanksgiving we should have a relatively normal schedule, allowing me to set a routine and get back to writing regularly.
How about you? Do you find routine helps in your writing? In your reading? Or is chaos your first, last, and middle name?
Yes. It ends today. Here’s the last post of pellet reviews for the year!
Continue reading “Year of Books 2024: WILL IT NEVER END?!”
Jonathon Mast: Author