"The Glassbreaker Goes Home" Novella Release Date: August 20th

Almost there!  I'm 1/3 of the way through my final copy edit.  Beta readers should be getting the goods Saturday or Sunday.  Promised them two weeks instead of making them rush this go around, so that means we're looking at August 20th as the most likely release date, given no emergencies, with August 24th and August 27th as backup dates.

I'm pretty happy with this one.  Happier than I was with the last one.  Granted I haven't caught the flu 3 times in a row while editing this go around, so that helps a little bit!  Still just a novella (150 pages-ish), still just a slice of life, but its very much King Henry being King Henry.  The smaller scale was actually really refreshing.  Even the last school story in FM6 was pretty weighty, so this was a nice change of pace.  As I've said before:  it's a dinner party at Shithole Price.  Sound fun?  Cool!  Buy it!  

King Henry is the POV, Val tags along.  Old Man Price, JoJo, Susan, and Vega are guests.  Marge is there.  Couple other characters show up who you might not expect ;)

Next week I'm 100% into writing FM7 finally.  Or at least the school story half.  Still have those 40 handwritten pages to type into the laptop so I'll probably start there.  We're still under the assumption we're going with the Plan A straight split, but we'll see how things develop.

FM7, man...scary book to write.  Something happens in this book that's...just...something happens!  There's basically two ways I can go with it.  One is awesome, heart pumping like crazy badassdom and the other is just...blow your mind insanity and throw your Kindle across the room kind of shit.  I suppose there are levels within each choice too.  I've known this fork in the road was there for years now and coming up on it I still don't know which way I'm going to jump.  I wish I could do both, really do.  I've gone back and forth a bunch of times.  There's just all these angles and possibilities within each choice...it's going to be so much fun!  Scary, but fun!

I might put up a sample chapter for Glassbreaker if you beg enough...

Blarg Notes

1,  Few days back I spent 6 hours on about 2k worth of material.  Had a couple good jokes, very nice character moment for Val, but it had some counteracting character motivations in it that needed fixed.  I cut it up, switched paragraphs around, wrote in new, switched THAT around, wrote more new material, cut old material, etc.  Just...an exhausting amount of editing.  Got it to a point where I thought it worked, finally moved on and then...about a page later in the novella...realized that you know what would work EVEN FUCKING BETTER?  If I cut out all that work I just did and connected two OTHER moments together, would really keep up the pace.

So...that happened.

2.  It's never the chapters you expect that really smack you around.  It's the ones you ignore.  Never would have thought I'd need to use that much brain power on what is basically the made-for-tv Hallmark movie novella of the Mancyverse, but it happened!

3.  So what's left?  I have the last chapter to edit.  Formatting it for ebook.  I have my kindle copyedit.  Probably two to three weeks of beta reading after that.  Meaning that The Glassbreaker Goes Home will release at the end of August.  17th or the 20th maybe?

4.  I just want to repeat again that this novella is LITERALLY a dinner party.  That's it.  Granted a dinner party with many of your favorite characters... ;-)

5.  So HOT.  SO FUCKING HOT!  I think Fresno hasn't had an under 100 degrees high for about two weeks now.  Also according to the supposed weather experts, it's not likely to drop from that for the next month.  So... *cries*.

6.  I started running some advertising directly through Amazon and--shockingly--I'm actually seeing some decent results with it this time.  Do still think that Amazon, The King of Metrics, can't tell me if someone is picking my book up on Kindle Unlimited or not is weird however.

7.  Editing Mode just destroys my media consumption.  I just can't turn my brain off and I get super critical of everything, especially other authors.  Extra especially myself.  Even the format.  Like...why isn't there just a dream-sucking machine already, world?  If I could just put that good RR juice into other people's heads directly instead of having to work in this flawed system of words and punctuation!?!?

8.  As such watching lots of gaming youtube channels.  Can't wait for TI8, are we really at TI8?  How did that happen?  Getting older and older these days!

9.  New release next month, Foul Mouth fans!

King Henry Tapes Reading Order

I suppose the series has gotten complicated enough now for me to do one of these up as a point of reference.

Author's Suggested Reading Order

The Foul Mouth and the Fanged Lady

Little King Henry, Short Story

The Foul Mouth and the Cat Killing Coyotes

Conquering Hero, Short Story

Friendship is Madness, Short Story (T-Bone)

Second Take, Novelette (Welf)

The Foul Mouth and the Troubled Boomworm

Griefing, Novella

The Foul Mouth and the Headless Hunny

Meet the Bonnies, Novelette (T-Bone)

The Foul Mouth and the Mancy Martial Artist

King Henry and the Three Little Trips, Novella (T-Bone/Eva/KH)

The Foul Mouth and the Pit of No Return

Assault on Dread Fortress Paine, Novella (T-Bone/Eva)

The Glassbreaker Goes Home, Novella (SOON!)

The Foul Mouth and the Runaway Rumble (forthcoming)

Whirlwind Writing Notes

1.  My AC broke for like 5 days...incredibly not fun.  Pretty much living in a hot cave with all the lights and electronics possible turned off, still sweltering but survivable.  Not exactly premier writing conditions however.

2.  Also had to babysit 2 dogs and 4 cats for a week, one of which was my cat who decided that in addition to all this she should get sick all over the house with every fluid and solid available to her so...so much fun!

3.  Back to work now.  I'm just kind of floating around between all my projects at the moment, if one seizes my fancy for the day then I stick with it and then I'll flirt over to something else tomorrow.  Not exactly the most structured or efficient I suppose, but I'm enjoying the novelty.

4.  Gave up on handwriting again...for now.  Something I enjoyed while doing, but after having to spend a week typing/editing 80 pages into my laptop while getting nothing "new" done, I remembered why I only write by hand as a last resort.  Plus my wrist was dead for half of June...

5.  Edit on Glassbreaker is going good, even if I'm obviously not rushing this one out like I did the last one.  When it gets done it will get done.  And you'll enjoy it, I hope :)

6.  Outlined the SUPER SECRET PROJECT.  Well...one of them ;)  Even wrote the first 500 words or so!

7.  One chapter down on FM7's school story, 7 to go, partway into the next already.  King Henry being King Henry!

8.  Renamed the Vicky Welf POV sections from Glassbreaker to "Vicky Welf and the Mancy Masquerade" which I really love as a title...do kind of want to use it as a story, but unsure if I have time to work on it before FM7.  Also don't know if ANOTHER novella/side novel would be fair to you fans.  Know you're already pushed to the limit as it is :)  But...there's a lot of good stuff I can do with it.  It will take place just prior to FM7 during the Old Mancy winter party scene and I think you can imagine how crazy rumors and gossip is spreading through the supernatural community during the intervening months from Eureka.

9.  Gush?  What's Gush?  Actually I opened the file up the other day, how 'bout that?  I looked at the first page, oh yes I did!

10.  Westworld S2...wow, umm...again I don't like being negative towards other artists, but, man, WAY too smart for its own good this go around.  When you're getting Neo talking to the Architect Matrix 2 vibes then something has gone seriously wrong!

11.  With the whole AC and animal babysitting thing I did have TONS of time to catch up on television.  Watched season 2 of Versailles, great show if you're into historical stuff.  Flew through season 2 of GLOW also, still love the 80s nostalgia that show blasts you with.  It's just off the charts!  Halfway through season 1 of Ozark.  Pretty dark.  Also, since about 25% of my genetic pool comes from that area, a little terrifying!

12.  Dived back in anime again too.  My Hero Academia Season 3...this show just does hype and OMG moments about as well as any media ever has.  Megalobox...only part way through it, love the 80s/90s-esque art style, a bit annoyed they dropped the mecha-boxer-rig angle to have the main character seem like even more of an underdog.  Bit too much.  Saiki K season 1...hilarious stuff, loved it.  Tried Re:Creators, didn't dig it.  Lot more I need to catch up on and try!  Plus, Attack on Titan Season 3 coming up!

13.  No movies really...

14.  Books.  Reading "The Great Game" by Patrick Hopkirk.  It's about Russia and Great Britain fighting over Central Asia during the 19th century.  Lots of intrigue, political backstabbing, traveling adventurers...great non-fiction read if political history is your thing.  Finally picked up "Silent Falling" by Patricia Briggs.  She's one of the authors I kind of read just to keep up on Urban Fantasy and what's going on in the genre.  Also halfway through "An Echo in the Bone" by Diana Gabaldon (started reading the Outlander series because I liked the Outlander tv show, because I like the exec producer Ron Moore who made the 2005 Battlestar series, so...the Cylons made me do it) and that is one thick book.  Makes FM6 look slim in comparison.  Like, my kindle winced when I downloaded it.

15.  Anyway, hope you're all having a fun summer.  Stay cool, read, watch, and enjoy life.

16.  Oh, yeah...World Cup semis tomorrow!  I think Belgium probably deserves it the most, but I just really want to see a France vs. England finals for the hype of it all.