Once I finished my post last night, I put my head on my pillow to take a nap, with the intention of getting up a little after 10PM so I could go and mingle at the after parties. I need to engage with this conference in more ways than just attending the table down in the dealer’s room. After parties should be good for that.

My body had different ideas. I woke up, but only long enough to take off my clothes and climb properly into bed, then sleep until the morning. I must have slept close to 11 hours, and I was still tired when we got up. I’m adjusting to the time zone by treating all hours of the day as suitable for sleeping.

Most of today looked a lot like Saturday. We got the table set up, registered our inventory as we rearranged the layout, then prepared to greet hungry book buyers. I didn’t expect to sell any more copies of The Repossessed Ghost today since all we had left were hard covers, but we sold 2. We sold a lot of books I didn’t expect us to sell. According to our records, we have outperformed Arisia 2023 says significantly.

The highlights of the day for me has to be the interviews for the Small Publishing in a Big Universe podcast. I helped record some interviews at Baycon in 2023, and I interviewed some new authors for the December issue. Over the last couple of days, I’ve been recording Live from Arisia content, and it’s been a lot of fun.

The interviews today went very well. I didn’t overthink it. I kept my canned questions simple, and I allowed the flow of conversation to influence my questions as we went. I’m sure the people I interviewed had a good time, too. We all left the recording room with smiles.

If you’re curious what the recording setup was like, I used my Blue Snowball microphone, now with a broken stand, plugged into my Surface Pro 6. I recorded using Audacity, and we took advantage of a quiet room near the pool in which masks were optional. If we’d left our masks on, we might have come across sounding like the adults from a Charlie Brown cartoon.

When I get home, L. A. Jacob will receive all of the audio files and edit them into something presentable. Hopefully, there will be enough material to make a good episode. I did record a comedy bit with Steven D. Brewer, which may or may not be useful. It was definitely funny.

Tomorrow is our last day of the convention. It’s nearly 10PM local time, and I still have some hope of going and mingling with people outside of the dealer’s room. I’ll pack up first, just in case. We’ll likely take our bags down to the dealer’s room with us tomorrow and stow them under a table. Our timing for hitting our next flight might be a little tight.

I haven’t seen much of Arisia, but I’ve had a good time, just the same. I wonder how Boskone will compare.

With the setup behind us, today was the first full day of the convention for us, and we spent almost all of it in the dealer’s room, behind the table, selling books.

We didn’t have continuous customers, but we sold some. We sold out the soft copies of The Repossessed Ghost and we’re down to 4 hard copies. We sold quite a few of all the books on the table, and it’s getting easier and easier for us to describe all of the books, and not just the one I wrote.

Several of the other Water Dragon authors took some time at the table. It wasn’t just me and Melissa, though there was a short time this afternoon where Melissa handled both the Water Dragon and Small Publishing in a Big Universe tables all on her own. She did great! In that short span, she made more sales than I did the whole day.

At dinner, in the same Irish pub we visited last night, Melissa asked me something along the lines, “Is what we’re doing worth it?”

We had been talking about finances and such, and I said, “I don’t think of it along those lines?”

Melissa pushed the question again and I pointed out that if we completely sold out of The Repossessed Ghost, our personal profit wouldn’t be enough to pay for our meal. It probably wouldn’t be enough to pay for the hard cider I was drinking.

At this point in my writing career, most of what I’m doing is not financially sound. If you track my hours, or my mileage, or how much we spend on hotel or meals, or any part of it, and if you look at it only in terms of income versus expenses, we should not be going to conventions. It isn’t really possible for us to make enough to justify all of these costs.

I don’t think of it along those lines. I see it as planting seeds.

I’m meeting people. I’m putting my book in front of some people. I’m creating little, tiny ripples, not really significant to be noticed, but over time, they might amount to something. There’s more to it than money.

At least one other author I know has pretty much stopped going to events where they see no viable way to make up their expenses through sales. It’s purely transactional, for them. And I get it. If I lose my day job, I might start looking at events the same way.

In the mean time, I see myself drawing money from my job, and investing it into my writer career. I might be buying myself opportunities down the line. Or, I might be throwing my cash into a trash fire. We won’t know for a while.

Those are my thoughts and my justifications for going to these events. In the fullness of time, we’ll see if the seeds I’m planting today will bear fruit tomorrow.

The difference between Boston and Sacramento is 3 hours.

We got in late, and then I had some homework to finish before I went to bed. Boston time, we tried to sleep right around 2AM, which is 11PM Sacramento time. From our body’s perspective, we were trying to sleep a little bit earlier than normal after an intense day of travel. There were no howling cats in our room, so we fell asleep right away.

Then we got up at 7AM Boston time. That’s 4AM Sacramento time. That amounts to about 5 hours of sleep, but it felt more like 3 hours.

That’s how we began the convention.

We went downstairs and had Expensive Hotel Breakfast, which was perfectly fine. When going to these conferences, you have to expect at least one Expensive Hotel meal. At Baycon last year, we brought food and an electric skillet, and we managed to eat much more reasonably. Except for the night we took everyone out, but I try to do that once at every convention, because it makes me feel like a successful author.

What was I saying? Oh yeah. Arisia, Day 1.

Setup in the dealer’s room went relatively smooth. The whole conference is running well, from my perspective. They had a hitch with registration, and it caused a delay of minutes rather than hours. Other conventions I’ve been to, it would have been a critical problem, but Arisia rolled through it. I think they have their stuff together.

We spent most of the day in the dealer’s room, as expected. I talked with a few young writers that came by the table. It was fun geeking out with them about books and writing. One even bought my book.

Sales were a bit low, but I have it on good authority that’s normal for Friday afternoon. We should expect more sales tomorrow. I only brought 10 copies of The Repossessed Ghost, and it would be a fantastic problem to run out.

It’s now a little after 11PM Boston time. The difference of 3 hours is adding up. We need to get up early again tomorrow, and I’m about to pass out at my keyboard.

Before I go, let me tell you that One for the Road is out today.

Here is a link. I’ll spend more time talking about it tomorrow.

For the next couple of days, I’ll break from the format and just talk about what’s going on with me at Arisia. Perhaps this adventure will be a good story. Here is the beginning.

It’s not quite 10AM and I’m sitting at a table in the airport. I bought a breakfast bagel from Peet’s, along with a decaf Americano that is okay. Melissa sits across from me, her $5 water still unopened. I’m using the airport wifi, which appears to be faster than the internet I get at home. This all sounds ideal, right?

I should have noticed the first hint of trouble last night, when American Airlines sent an email saying, “Are your plans flexible?” No, American Airlines, my plans are not that flexible. If I could get in sooner, that would be better, but all of the options you’re presenting me with will get me to Boston later, and I’m already not too happy with getting in after 10PM. I’ll pass.

This morning, we finished our packing, hopped in my car, and made it to the airport with enough time. It didn’t take too long to find a spot in Economy, and the shuttle driver was fun to talk to. He’s a huge fan of the Kings, and his interest is strong enough that it has me thinking I should watch some highlight reels and get caught up on basketball.

Then we went to check our bags and discovered that we had been rebooked. Oops! We only thought we were going to leave Sacramento on time. The flight is delayed, and since we can’t catch the connecting flight in Phoenix, that’s been rebooked to a later time, with seats that no longer keep Melissa together, or towards the front of the plane.

Here you go, Mr. Buhl. Please enjoy your complimentary downgrade. We hope you like sitting in an airport a few extra hours, and that extra legroom you paid for is no longer available. Did we mention that we’ll reimburse you in any way? Of course not, because that’s not how any of this works.

I hate flying.

Scratch that. I hate airports, airlines, and airport security, and the empire of bullshit we’ve created that makes the miracle of flight something to be despised. I hate anticipating the inconvenience and the discomfort. I hate all of the aspects around flying.

Actually riding in a plane? That part is cool, actually. I’m a nervous flyer, and so the takeoff and landing has me gripping the seat. A few times I’ve been in turbulence that rattled us around like dice in a cup, and that was not super fun. It’s safe for me to say that I find flight exciting, sometimes terrifying, and I respect it and look forward to it. I think it would be amazing to learn to pilot a plane. That’s probably not going to happen during this lifetime, though.

Anyway. That’s all off my chest, now. I’m looking forward to getting to Boston. It looks like sleep will continue to be a scarce commodity going forward.

Let the adventure begin continue.

I just got home from another day in the office. This is the 10th post in a row. I’m not sure it will be very long, but we’ll see what we can do!

Personal News

The thing about going into the office is that I have to get up early, and I don’t get home until late. My day is shrunk, and I’m generally more tired by the end of it. After two days in a row, I’m exhausted. Almost like having a cat in heat, yowling in the wee hours of the morning.

I’m tired, but it’s Wednesday night, and I want to play games with my friends. I still have some packing to do, but it doesn’t usually take me very long to get ready.

Upcoming Events and Such

The only event in my mind is the one directly in front of me. Arisia 2024. I’ve never been to it, and I don’t think I’m going to know very many people there. I’m not on any of the programming. All I know at this point is that I’m going to work the Water Dragon table as much as I can, and hope that I do a good job.

The Topic: Finishing Projects

As a writer, it’s extremely important to finish your projects. It’s equally important for programmers.

When is a story finished? When the writer types “The End”? After the final edit from your publisher? After the last copy of it has been sold?

The line is different for different stories, I think. There’s a few stories I’ve written that will never see the light of day. There are some that I started and abandoned. Then there The Repossessed Ghost which is out in the world, and One for the Road which will be out in the world Soon®.

I believe that a story can be finished multiple times. Or, a writer is called upon to finish multiple stages. It is a milestone to finish the first draft. It is another milestone to complete the next revision, and the revisions after that. There is a finishing point after submitting the story to your critique group and taking in their feedback. And for some of us lucky few, there are stages during the publishing process.

If you’re struggling as a writer, it’s good to narrow your focus to the stage you’re on, and just finish that. Finish the first draft. If that’s too big a target, finish the chapter. Or finish the paragraph. Some days, it’s all you can do to finish each sentence. Finishing one can give strength to finish the next, until you have a whole pile of sentences that hopefully, someday, you can shape into something presentable.

I just got home. I don’t normally go into the office these days, because there isn’t much point. Today, my boss was in, and a new developer started today. If I didn’t go in today, I might have missed out on a free lunch!

Personal News

For those following the tragedy that is a tiny black cat in heat, I have important news: she’s settled down. She didn’t yowl throughout the night. She is behaving like a regular cat once again. We can all rejoice!

I still had to get up much earlier than normal in order to make it into the office on time. And, I have to get up relatively early tomorrow to do the same. It’s okay, though. Thursday, our flight isn’t until around 10AM, so we can sleep in. Our departure can be leisurely and carefree. It’s almost like we’re taking vacation.

Upcoming Events and Such

I check in for our flight tomorrow, and we flight the next day. I checked the weather, and it doesn’t look as bad as I thought. There will be freezing weather and precipitation, and it’s altogether much colder than I like, but I don’t see anything to make me think our flights should get canceled.

I’ll wear sweaters and jackets and be just fine.

The Topic: Maybe One for the Road?

While One for the Road will definitely be available online on Friday, it looks like the physical copies I was hoping for aren’t going to be printed and shipped on time.

This is a huge bummer, but it’s not the end of the world. There’s still one more surprise surrounding this story, and it may or may not be revealed on Friday.

It’s possible that this is a blessing in disguise, as my campaign for promoting the story — talking about it on this blog — may not be the highway to success. I’m not sure what else I can do, though. I’m not posting to Twitter. I’ll post more to Facebook once I have links for purchasing the story. I can spread the news around my day job, but the reality is I just don’t have that much reach.

I don’t exactly have a fanbase.

Well. Maybe if I keep writing and keep trying, something will happen. What else can a person like me do?

Okay, let’s write a real post tonight. The cat’s still in heat, but we’re soldiering on. Melissa read somewhere that this can last up to 21 days. Worst case scenario, we’ll have a chance to get good sleep in Boston this weekend.

Personal News

I’m heading into the office tomorrow, assuming my car starts. I realized around lunch time that I hadn’t driven in a while, so we were going to take it through Wendy’s. Unfortunately, it wouldn’t start. The battery got too low. I have jumper cables, and I have an EverStart jump start device, which is plugged in and charging as I write this. The EverStart has never worked for me before, but we’ll give it another try and hope for the best. If my car starts, Melissa and I will go for a long ride.

Upcoming Events and Such

Not much new to report, with Arisia still right in front of us. Boskone is the next month after that. My birthday is in March, and I’m not entirely sure which events we’ll do later in the year. There are some I want to do, but it’s hard to commit at this point.

The Topic: Writing is a Magic Trick

I wanted to get back on topic and say more about One for the Road. It’s about a couple of well-meaning witches in a modern world. The main character, Tina, is recruited by her best friend Alexa to help with a dire situation, because there is certain magic Tina knows that Alexa needs.

Magic.

Recently, I was talking with someone about writing, and they were talking about how they needed to go into great detail about some part of the story that didn’t really have anything to do with the plot or the characters. They just felt compelled to fill in the blanks, because stories are supposed to have depth, right?

Well… not really.

Good writing is a magic trick. The writer creates the illusion of depth where none exists. Given a few key words with the right connotations, the reader fills in the blanks themselves. The writer doesn’t have to go into painstaking detail about everything. In fact, if the writer attempts it, they’re going to create a slow, lumbering slog that readers won’t enjoy. Chances are, the writer won’t enjoy writing it, either.

Short form writers have to learn this more than novelists, though all writers can benefit from this idea. Just provide the details necessary for the story to remain structurally sound, plus a little bit more. This keeps things tight and the opportunity to speed up and slow things down according to the demands of the story. It also allows the reader to be a more active participant in the story.

Readers will imagine details the writer leaves out. They will imagine details that are difficult to put into words. And they’ll do it without thinking about it. If the writer crowds them out with the minutia, the reader will get bored, and the story will be less vibrant.

Good writing is an illusion made up of a bit of misdirection and a smattering of obfuscation.

It’s magic, which is what One for the Road is all about.

Good evening. Right meow, I’m doing what I can to keep the blog streak going. But it’s not easy.

Personal News

The cat is still in heat. Melissa and meow haven’t been sleeping very meow.

Didn’t I mention meow didn’t sleep very well? I tried to nap, but that didn’t work out very well. The weekend is almost over, and I’m so, so tired. Meow.

Upcoming Meow and Such

Rowr meow meow rowr rowr. MEOW! Rowr rowr rowr.

Also, we board the meow on Thursday morning, so Meow and I should get some sleep in Boston, at the very rowr.

The Topic: Cat Cat Cat

There’s not meow for me to say, really.

I tried to get ahead on the work berowr going on vacation, but meow couldn’t focus. I meownaged to get some, done. But not e-meow.

Anyway. Tomorrow, I’m meow’ing things are better.

Good evening! It’s Saturday, and this is day 6 of my 366 day death march blog challenge. I just finished meeting with my critique group, and I’m all fired up! Let’s begin…

Personal News

I think Pancakes is starting to settle down a little bit. She was still yowling well into the wee hours of the morning, and she woke me earlier than I wanted to get up. For the last several hours, though, she’s been quiet. That’s good. I need a break from her feline shenanigans. I need to rest this weekend.

I’m writing this from my work laptop, because I’m still focused on Day Job activities. I need to find a break and get back to fiction writing, but that’s easier said than done. There’s still too much to do, and not enough of us to do the work.

Upcoming Events and Such

There’s nothing new to report for events. Arisia is less than a week away. I met with Steven earlier today and we went over last minute details I’ll need in order to be effective in Boston.

I also ordered my own Square Reader, so I’ll have that as a backup in Boston. I’ll also have it whenever I go to an event on my own and have the opportunity to sell my books.

The Topic: Keeping it Real

Ideally, I’d like to be saying something more about One for the Road, but it’s a short story and there’s only so much I can say about it before it’s out. It’s a good story that you’re going to love. You’ll love it less if I beat you over the head with it.

I’m going to take a break from the plan tonight and instead talk a little bit about what’s going on with me, and one of the reasons this blog project is important.

The depression isn’t really gone. It’s still there, in my mind, offering ideas and thoughts that are not good for me.

Tonight, while offering critique, I felt myself pulling away from my friends. I was fairly convinced that the critiques I was offering were not useful or good. It’s not good because I’m not good. I’m a terrible writer, and whatever I have to say about their stories should be dismissed out of hand, because I should be dismissed out of hand.

I recognize the lies, and I’m able to shake them off. Part of why I can do that is because I’m doing this. I’m writing something. I’d rather I was writing fiction than opening up on this public forum, but the act of writing is giving me strength to put myself in my place.

[Quick Note: The cat just started yowling, so the misery of being in heat continues, it seems.]

One of the stories I read today, from Spencer, was an allegory about the mindlessness pursuit involved in capitalism. The people in the world of that story were all about making paperclips, because there was money in paperclips. There were people that could not pursue their passion because their passion didn’t pay the bills, even though what they were doing was more useful than making paperclips. Everyone was on a treadmill, and no one could see a way off.

That story hit home. I’ve been feeling it. I need to pursue my passion in order to hold myself together, but at the moment, I’m not seeing a path in which I can sustain myself on my writing.

Anyway. I needed to let some of that out. Tomorrow, hopefully I’ll get more sleep, and I’ll return to writing about something a little bit more fun.

It’s the first Friday of the new year, and boy was it long. I’ll talk more about that in a moment. This is 5 in a row, and it almost didn’t happen because of a really long work day.

Personal News

Pancakes, Chris’s cat, has entered her slut era. Can I say that?

She’s in heat. It’s ridiculous. None of us got good sleep last night, and I thought I had an early meeting this morning. I did not. I zombied my way through the day, took a brief nap during lunch, and then had to push through some more work which stretched on to just before 10PM. Not ideal.

As I write these words, Pancakes is in the other room, loudly voicing her distress. Chris tried hooking her up with some catnip, but she seems uninterested in it. She wants out of the house, and she wants what only another cat can give her. She is inconsolable.

None of us will survive.

Upcoming Events and Such

Tomorrow, I meet up with my critique group. I don’t have any submissions this time. I need to get up early and get my reading done. I’m also going to meet up with Steven of Water Dragon on Zoom, I think, so we can go over anything I might have missed for Arisia. He won’t be able to make it to Boston, so I’m going to try and fill in as best I can.

It should be fine. It’ll keep me busy.

The Topic: The Demand for Sequels to One for the Road

Melissa would like me to make writing her a new story every year a regular occurrence. Specifically, she’d like a sequel to the story that’s coming out a week from today.

I would love to write more stories in that world! Melissa wants the next story to feature Baby New Year, and I have a loose idea what that might be.

Is there a downside to writing this sequel? Well…

My ability to focus on writing is circumstantial. When I have the time, energy, and focus to actually draft, I want to work on something that can go out into the world.

Generally speaking, sequels don’t sell as well as the first book, so if the first book tanked, you’re pretty much wasting your time writing the next book. It’s one of the reasons I recommend other writes avoid writing sequels before the first book has sold.

I’m not saying One for the Road is going to tank. It’s one of my best stories! I think it has very broad appeal, and it’s short enough that people don’t have to commit too much to enjoy it.

I will say that I have never put out a story this short before, and I’m not sure I’ve done a great job of marketing it. I’m talking about it here on my blog, and I’ll post some more information to the social media I’m on, but social media really doesn’t translate very well into sales.

Another way to look at this… I will write more stories in the One for the Road universe, even if I’m only sharing them with Melissa. But if more people clamor for the sequel, I’ll be that more incentivized to spend my time writing it.