Apparently, I'm still sleepwalking

I've been pulling a lot of late nights lately as I'm writing book 5 in the Redemption series.  It's not a "meet the goal" thing, but more of an "in the groove" thing--I get going, and I don't want to stop until the thoughts are out.  Having already plotted out the entire rest of the series already, finding those breaking points is a challenge.

When I was pregnant, I pulled a lot of late nights too, but for an entirely different reason.  My husband reported to me a couple of times that I was getting up and wandering around the house before coming back to bed.  He thought I was doing paranoid nesting things like making sure the oven was off or the doors were locked, but when he finally asked me about it one morning, I was surprised.  I didn't remember getting out of bed at all.  Now, I wasn't entirely shocked, because I was a sleepwalker when I was a child, but I thought I had given it up sometime between the ages of ten and twelve.

I mention these two things in conjunction because I got a fitbit for Christmas.  I was looking at my data a few days ago, and noticed a disturbing trend.  Apparently, I'm still sleepwalking some nights, and staying up late seems to be the trigger.

I looked online and I'm not the only one.  For some people, it looks like the wrist band is registering hand movements as steps.  I tend to wear mine in a pocket or clipped to my hip (it registers the steps more accurately, especially when I'm pushing the stroller), so I don't think that's the case for me.

It isn't a lot--less than 100 steps each episode--but I kind of want to hook up a camera to see what I'm doing at night.  I guess it might explain some of the bruises I get on my shins that I don't remember getting.

Al

The Waldgrave series is now on Google Play!

Yay!  After an entire day wrestling with the (IMHO, less than ideal) Google book uploading process, I have accomplished what I set out to do last Spring, and the second two books in Waldgrave are live!

For anyone who wants to check them out, here are the links.

Arrival of the Traveler, Waldgrave Book 1

Deception of the Magician, Waldgrave Book 2

Secrets of the Guardian, Waldrgave Book 3

Happy reading,
Al

Verizon bill got a little cheaper

For anyone else who's on Verizon, you might want to check out this article.  Verizon is changing their rates, and customers have the option of lowering their bill or getting more data for the same price.  My husband got a call from Verizon when this change went into effect, but I guess not everyone I know got a call, and you won't be opted in automatically, so it may be worth the call to Verizon to see if you can save a little money.

I'm about 24,000 words into writing Redemption book 5 now (a little less than 1/3 done), and still hoping I'll have it finished by the end of the month.  As the season is warming up, I'm doing a little more gardening on days when the snow is melted; next week is looking a little cold and wet, so I'll probably be hitting the keyboard a little harder.

Al

A highly productive day

Today I finally got the last pumpkin out of my basement!  Huzzah!  And I got out in the garden, and cleared away the dead stuff from last year!  Double Huzzah!

And while this isn't from today (two days ago, I think?) I thought I would share.  It's likely to change, but here's the cover art for Book 5 in the Redemption series:

It still feels a little off to me...I've already received some feedback to make the leaves in the foreground a little more golden, but I feel like I may need to do something at the horizon line to break up the wall of red in the back.  The space between the top of the cover and the book title also feels weird to me, but that might just be my own perfectionism.  The title may or may not change--this was the first working title I could come up with that people thought fit the series and wasn't too ridiculous.
I am writing Book 5 now, based on a 25K outline and novel start I put together in May of 2012.  Back then, I had noted this was going to be book 3.  How the times have changed.

Al

A stack of old floppy disks

I was cleaning out my craft (read: "crap") room, which also happens to house a lot of boxes of things from my parents' house, and I found something pretty great.  I'll stop and say right now that I moved out of my parents' house back in 2007.  Okay--I partly moved out in 2003 when I went to college, but I was only going to school in Boulder and they lived in Broomfield, so it was kind of 50/50 between my apartment and their house.  (Free food, laundry that didn't require quarters, and great company.  I don't think you can blame me.)

Anyways, I was trying to straighten out my craft room, and I found this old shoe box filled with old floppy disks of books that I wrote years ago.  I found the original drafts of the Waldgrave series.  I found a series that I had completely forgotten, and definitely merits a revisit.  I found some things that were complete trash, and others that amazed me.  It was freaking awesome.  I'm hoping some of it may be fit to publish, or at least fit to rewrite, but I'll have to wait until I have the time to give it a good look.

In other news, I finished my base draft of Pale Hound, Redemption Book 4 last night, and I have set up the pre-order on Amazon here.  The tentative date of publication is April 30th, and I am so thrilled to be moving on to writing my next book.  I had a lot of fun outlining book 5, so I'm hoping the first draft goes smoothly this month.

More soon,
Al

Serpent's Bite is Now Available!

It went live this morning!  Thanks to everyone who pre-ordered!  Serpent's Bite is currently available on Kindle.  If you haven't read book 1 in the series yet, it is also available on Kindle (set a calendar reminder--it will be free to download from February 1st-3rd).

Thanks!

Al

Windows 10 for free

A few days ago a friend sent me an article about how Windows 10 is going to be offered free to 7 and 8 users for a limited time.  I hate to say it, but this kind of thing makes me tense.  Change on my laptop always does--I spend a lot of time here, and rolling the dice on a makeover of my most used space carries a huge anxiety factor.  I don't like change for the sake of change, so it should be pretty obvious...

I didn't understand Windows 8.  I don't hold it against anyone who loved this OS, but I had to install a third party client to make the tiles go away and bring back my familiar start menus.

And I still don't understand the tiles.  Sometimes I get to a screen where I MUST use the tiles to do something, and I ESC out and find a different way to complete my task.  Or I just don't complete it.  I have to wonder how much Windows 8 cost companies in productivity due to employees like me.  Don't get me wrong--I love tiles on my touch screens, and I get that some computers have them now, but mine does not.

This is why I'm not an early adopter.  I wait until after the first patch has been offered, crashed everything, fixed again, and people start complaining that they didn't fix a handful of minutiae with it.
My husband, however, did want the aforementioned upgrade (he didn't get the tiles, either), and Windows 10 does appear to be an improvement.  The tiles have been down played to occupy a smaller spot in the start menu (I still cringe when I see them, because they've beaten me with the stupid stick too many times before), and from what he says, the OS is much more cloud-centric now.

I'm still going to hold out for the first patch to get fixed.

Al