Newsletter - May 24, 2022

My writing fun-stuff and family fun-stuff overlap this week, but I'll save it for the writing section. We are planning, in the midst of all my work mayhem, to take a family trip to Boston, then on up to Maine. Yes, one's a city and one's a state, but that's the way I roll. The last time I was in Boston was in college, some 25ish years ago. I remember being fascinated by the history, but all the details have emptied out of my brain, so I get to experience it fresh. And I've never made it up to Maine, but hoping to see an old friend from high school while I'm up there. Let me know of anything I shouldn't miss while I'm in that part of the country.

The fun thing from this week was setting up a booth at a local farmer's market. My youngest daughter came with me to support and help out, and the experience was great. We lost money in the short run, between the fees for the booth, and the fact that I spent the little money we made on pies from the booth across from me (great pies... no regrets), but if any of the readers come back for later books, then it'll work out.

Things we learned:

We need book stands - leaning the books against stacks of books worked, but looked a little trashy.
We need weights for the tent legs. It wasn't so windy that it mattered, but it was windy enough that I could see it would matter.
We need a credit-card reader. I had venmo & paypal set up, but it didn't go smoothly, and I lost a sale b/c someone couldn't get either of their apps to fire up.
I need to be able to describe better what my books are about. "Young Adult Fantasy" doesn't cut it. "How young?" "Am I too old?" "Is my son too young?" I would be quite interested in hearing feedback on what is too young for my books. I considered some of the situations in my books more adult than young adult, but I've been told my books are pretty tame compared to many they find in the YA section. (I do regret the foul language in the first book--I mostly drop that in later books). But there's definitely some bad stuff that happens in my books. Oh, and no one is too old... 😎
Bring food and drink so that we don't spend our profits on pies! (unless we want to). Oh, lets face it, there's just going to be a pie tax that goes along with the booth rental fee.
My youngest got to see me be embrace my anxiety and move through it, and I hope I get the opportunity to do that with each of my kids. (People make me nervous--Introvert!) She was so cute. After my first sale, she looked me in the eye and said, "See, Dad, you can do this."

Oh, the farmer next to me didn't sell everything before we finished, so he handed me a bag of fresh wasabi. Ironically, I'd recently been wondering what wasabi came from. Now, I know, and I have some in my fridge. What do I do with it?

Uh oh... I see a friend from high school joined my mailing list. Now I'm nervous again--I kinda hope he doesn't actually read my book. He served in the Army, in Special Forces. He's going to be frustrated with my inaccuracies (and for the rest of you, there aren't any inaccuracies! 👍). On the other hand, we watched Doctor Who together 35 years ago, jumped off of a train trestle into alligator-infested waters (or so we believed), and attempted Teen Wolf van surfing, so maybe he'll cut me some slack instead of just cutting me. 😬

Countdown for Book 4