It’s finally, truly honestly FALL! Well, at least it feels that way here in the vast wilds of western PA. It’s been cold enough to switch from the AC to the heater at night and I’ve had to break out the hoodies of various colors and warmths. Time for soup, tea, hot cocoa, and mulled cider.
Honestly, just a simple shift in weather has boosted my mood a little, and lord knows it needed some boosting. Of course, finally finding a new therapist has boosted my mood a lot more. I’m not embarrassed or ashamed to say that right now I need help dealing with my mental health, so I’m going to get it. 2025 has been kicking every sane person’s proverbial ass to some degree, and I’m certainly no exception. Not saying that I have worse it than anyone else, but I can recognize when I’m flailing and I’ve been for a while.
I have an amazing and an incredibly supportive spouse who has been a tremendous source of strength to be me during this last year. I couldn’t have made it as long and as far as I have without them. Still, it’s not fair to expect them to be a partner, a friend, a confidant, AND a mental health support system. It was time to get back into therapy. After a couple false starts, I seem to have found a potential good fit for what I need, so we’ll see where that takes me.
I’m also, slowly, starting to find my way again, writing-wise. Yesterday was the three-year anniversary of when I first started writing Tales of a Stranger Sister and I’m still amazed how quickly those three years passed through drafting, beta-readers, revisions, rewrites, and SO. MUCH. EDITING. It still kinda blows my mind to look at my shelf and see MY BOOK just sitting there. Like, how did that get there? Did I actually make that happen? Now, all I want is to give it a shelf sibling.
That said, while the next novel may still be a ways off, I did get some inspiration for a short story/novelette that I’m currently working on and hope to put out in the world next year. Turns out I wasn’t done with Riv, Sam, and the world of Litia just yet after all, though that’s all I’ll share about it for now.
Cozy the Day Away has come and gone and Tales was a part of it. Overall, the experience was positive. I wish I had sold more copies, of course (show me a writer who doesn’t want that), but in the same breath, I managed to have my best month sales-wise (and with a week left in the month at that.) I also made my first sales through Draft2Digital, so that’s another milestone, too. I may not making money hand over fist, but that doesn’t mean I can’t focus on the positives of this whole endeavor.
Moving on, I’ll have a more detailed review of the fall anime season when we come to the end of it, but I have to gush a little about what might be my favorite show of the current crop, If I May Ask for One Final Thing.
Last season, Anne Shirley was my favorite show because I needed something sweet and wholesome to help me cope with a world that was anything but. This season I was surprised to learn that I NEEDED to watch Scarlett beat the ever-loving fuck out of rich assholes for no other reason that simply because A. They Deserve It. and B. She Wanna.
Needless to say, I highly recommend it if you have Crunchyroll and have a desire to see awful people get much deserved justice delivered five knuckles at a time.
Ok, so with that, time to head back out into the world, but please allow me to leave you with these words of wisdom:
“Be the ass-kicking, Aristocrat-punching, oligarch-pummeling chaotic force of nature you wish to see the world.”
October 11th and 12th is the next Cozy the Day Away sale, in conjunction with HearthCon, the world’s only free online cozy fantasy convention. From today until Monday evening, Tales of a Stranger Sister will be only .99¢ (or the closest international equivalent.)
So, please check out the 150+ cozy and cozy-adjacent books (Like mine and my amazing spouse’s) and help support indie writers working in a unique niche of the fantasy landscape. All the books and deals that are part of the sale can be found here:
And if you’ve come to my page from the sale, then hello to you! My novel isn’t 100% cozy, but I believe it is a positive experience and we could all use more of those these days. Anyway, next pot of tea’s on me.
Okay, after all that waxing angst, I thought that it would be nice to use this space to also talk about the things that make me happy that don’t necessarily involve writing and… uh… writing about them.
Anyway…
The Summer anime season just wrapped up and the Fall shows are just starting, so I thought it’d be neat to share what my spouse and I watched the last 3 months or so, which ones we enjoyed, and which were meh.
Anne Shirley
Let’s start with one that actually began during the spring season and continued through the summer. Anne Shirley is a 24-episode adaption of three of L.M. Montgimery’s Anne Novels, Anne of Green Gables, Anne of Avonlea, and Anne of the Island.
I never read the books as a kid or as an adult, but I fell in love with this show. Sweet and very slice-of-life in a time before smart phones, A.I. and social media. I give this one my highest recommendations for both fans of the books and complete strangers to the characters and world. It’s just so damn well done from the opening theme to animation to the pacing.
Dan Da Dan Season 2
This one was probably one of my most anticipated shows this last season, the first season completely catching me off guard and quickly becoming one of my favorites of the last 10 years by a wide margin. The second season did not disappoint, expanding the cast in interesting and fun ways while never losing focus on the true heroes in Momo and Okurun who retain their championship for most adorkable couple in anime after season one.
My Dress Up Darling Season 2
Which brings us to the only couple with a chance to challenge for that belt in the form of Marin and Gojo. We had watched the first season after it had come and gone after seeing some positive reviews and fell in love with the characters and premise. Honestly, the best and most refreshing thing about both this show and Dan Da Dan was how they both treated their females leads as people and not eye candy or prizes for the male protagonists, which is something more Shonen and Seinen series would benefit from emulating.
Sakamoto Days Part 2
Sakamoto Days is sorta guilty pleasure shonen show for me. It’s basically what if John Wick became a family man, let himself go, and was still the worst’s deadliest hitman. It’s cartoonishly violent, features a million one-shot antagonists with weird gimmicks and a million other side characters with even weirder gimmicks. Honestly, it’s dumb. Very, VERY dumb. But like dumb in that fun way that doesn’t make you feel dumb for watching or even enjoying it. I’m AM enjoying it and looking forward to Part 3, but I’m not staring at the calendar counting down the days.
Turkey! Time to Strike
Turkey! Time to Strike was quite possibly the oddest duck this season. First off, as this was an anime original and not based on a manga or light novel, no one had any idea what the story was about until it finally aired. When the first trailer came out, it was presented as a “Cute Girls X Hobby” anime about a high school girl’s bowling team with all the expected drama of both being teenage girls and being on a sports team.
So, it was only at the end of the first episode that everyone learns that the studio absolutely and completely bait and switched the audience.
It’s not a “Cute Girls X Hobby” anime. Well, it is, but it’s also actually a “Time-Travel X Isekai X Cute Girls X Hobby” anime, when our five protags find themselves transported via magical pin reset mechanism to medieval Japan (The Sengoku period to be exact). From there an adventure commences as our heroes have to figure out a way back to the 21st century without wrecking the future and their possible existences.
Also, they still bowl. Like, A LOT. It’s still a bowling anime, albeit, for sometimes utterly bizarre reasons.
And it’s GOOD. Like it’s a genuinely fun watch even if you find yourself asking several times “Yeah, but why BOWLING?!” The characters are, for the most part, fun and not annoying or grating. The story itself is pretty good and even with so much potential to go completely off the rails and crash and burn before the end, it manages to actually stick the landing, though not perfectly.
Honestly, this was a bizarre and fun idea, and I can respect it for taking risks in a genre that seems strangely averse to doing such. That said, this show would’ve definitely benefitted if it had been 24 episodes (or 26, if you’re an Old-taku like me and remember when that was the standard length of almost 90% of shows). With 10 protagonists total, basically all the character development feels either very rushed or inadequate. Honestly, I almost feel like 2-4 characters were unnecessary and served no purpose other than to check off a box on the archetype checklist, which is a shame as I would have liked to spend more time with some of them to really understand them as people.
With all that said, I do recommend it. It was fun and weird and sometimes that’s all you really want. Though, I’d still like a straight up bowling anime one day.
City: The Animation
City is another odd duck. It’s a comedy and there were several times I found myself genuinely laughing hard. But there were just as many times that I found myself staring at the screen, baffled. It’s very Japanese in its humor and some of the best jokes were meta humor around anime and manga itself. I don’t regret watching it, but I’m not sure I would recommend it to everyone.
With You and the Rain
This was both a strange, and yet very grounded show. A writer adopts a stray tanuki and they cohabitate as pet owner and pet. It’s slow, sometimes sweet, and there’s always a hint of surrealism in every episode. It’s very much in the vein of The Masterful Cat is Depressed Again Today and if you liked that, I’d definitely recommend this.
Reborn as a Vending Machine, I Now Wander the Dungeon
The last in our flock of odd ducks, we’ve got another Isekai with a bizarre premise. A Vending Machine otaku (Yes, they do exist) dies and is transported to a fantasy world as an actual vending machine. I’m always a fan of shows with bizarre premises and am happy with creators take chances. That said, I do think Season 1 was much stronger because it focused on our protag, Boxxo, learning about both his new body and the world he’s found himself in. This season, he’s pretty much established and figured out how to communicate, move, and fight and its settling into a pretty standard comedy fantasy, it’s just that the hero is, again, a vending machine. I’ll watch season three when it comes out, but it might fall into that category of shows that we watch when we don’t have a full itinerary for the season.
Kids on the Slope
This show is already over a decade old and came out in 2012, but we watched it over the last 4-5 months, so I wanted to at least bring up a few feelings I had on it.
Feeling one: I wish they would’ve pulled the trigger and actually made this a queer coming of age story set in the 60s. Then again, considering how campy they made the one queer-coded character, maybe it would’ve ended up a total disaster instead of a mild-disappointment.
Feeling two: Die in a fire, Brother Jun. You’re 60’s hipster trash along with many other kinds of trash. I hate you and I am glad I never have to see you again.
Okay, that pretty much covers the anime we just watched last season. We have about a half dozen lined up for the upcoming Fall season and a few on the back burner should we need a show to watch during our down time. If you like this kind of content, and want to see more like it, drop me an email or a DM/Comment on my Bluesky.
We’re nearing the end of September and we’re finally entering Fall proper, even if we have to drag it out from wherever it was hiding kicking and screaming.
September hasn’t been a great month for me mentally. I mean 2025 as a whole hasn’t been great for a lot of people and I recognize that so many people have it like a gazillion times worse that I will ever have. I’m not going for a gold medal in the Suffering Olympics here. This is me simply verbalizing my feelings and those feelings are that I’ve been in a bad headspace for a while.
Dramatic representation of my current mood and outlook about the world
At a macro-level, the world at large is just… uuuuugggghhhhhhhhnnnnn. It’s literally exhausting to wake up in the morning and know that by the time I come back to bed that evening, the world will be a little more, well, shittier in some way or another.
On a personal level, I’m flailing creatively. I don’t think I’ve truly ever adapted to my new routine because of my career change 5 months ago. Before that happened, I was hybrid 40/60 WFH (2 days at office, 3 at home). Most days I would have like 90 minutes to 2 hours of extra personal time to spend as I wished (a portion of which I spent writing/rewriting/revising/editing). I was done at 4PM and was able to get things like the dishes and dinner prep done before my spouse came home and still had time to unwind, and I could even keep on top of things like laundry during the day.
But now, even though I’m still getting up at the same time every day, I’m getting home almost two hours later, and then my spouse and I need to do all the things I used to have already done before they would’ve come home. In short, I’ve lost a lot of the free time I used to have and the already reduced chunk I have now is further eaten away by simply trying to keep a household running like a normal adult. Furthermore, as I have less time, I feel like I need to maximize what I can do in the time I do have, which has never been conducive for creativity for me. I need to properly unwind and clear my head of work before tackling creative efforts and thus, when I force myself to sit down and write, I struggle to the point where I find myself resenting having to sit there.
And honestly, I’m not even sure what I want to write about right now. One of the reasons I wrote Tales of a Stranger Sister was because I wanted to create something positive and affirming. I wanted to make something to mirror the world I want. Right now? I feel angry and tired, pretty much all the time. I don’t feel like creating something affirming and beautiful, but rather I want to take all that anger and exhaustion to create something visceral and ugly and throw it at the world as hard as I can for being so damned shitty right now.
Ultimately, I don’t think I want to release something like that because I honestly don’t want to add more ugliness to the world that is already overflowing with it. So, this might be a situation when I need to spend time putting something brutal on paper, just so I can get it out of me. Then I can shut it away in a drawer somewhere, never to be seen by another’s eyes. A literary purge of the soul, if you will. Hopefully, after doing that, I can find the focus to create something better and more positive.
There are a couple other factors that are contributing to my current mood of blergh. I must admit that my novel’s disappointingly underwhelming performance during the Narratess sale was a blow to the ol’ ego. Was I expecting to sell hundreds or thousands of copies? Well, no, but I was expecting to do a little better than it did for a three-day event that was supposed to cater to readers seeking out indie and self-published works. That feeling of disappointment was then further magnified as September has come and gone and I’m looking to pitch my first zero sales/zero reads month despite going wide almost a month ago.
Lastly, I need to address how returning to social media has been impacting me and my mood. I don’t think it’s a coincidence that I was finally able to write a novel after truly quitting Twitter in 2022. It was not a healthy place for me mentally and cutting out 2+ hours a day of doom scrolling and snark dunking did wonders for me both creatively and focus-wise, as well as emotionally.
That said, now that I have a novel that I’m trying to sell to the world, there are very little options one has to get the word out and promote it that don’t involve throwing disproportionate sums of money at an algorithm and hoping it sticks to someone’s attention enough to generate a click and a sale. So, I rejoined social media somewhat by creating accounts on Reddit and Bluesky and have been trying to use them to both promote my work and rejoin the online community as a whole. Unfortunately, I once again find myself falling into the same bad habits on Bluesky that made Twitter such an awful place for my particular brain.
So, what’s this all mean in the grand scheme of things? Probably not much to anyone outside of me and my immediate family. Blog post like these tend to serve more as form of talk therapy for me than useful news to anyone actually interested in my book or my (hopefully) next one.
I had hoped to use this fall to get a first draft of my next novel written and spend the beginning of 2026 revising it for my alpha and beta readers. As the calendar turns to October, I look at what I’ve managed to get done so far and that plan seems… Unlikely.
Time for a new plan.
First, it’s time to adjust my routine, so when I sit down to write in the evening, I’m actually ready, and more importantly, willing to do so. Second, I need to purge some of this anger and frustration from my brain, so it looks like for the immediate future I’ll be doing some exploratory writing of those feelings to clear out that distracting rubble blocking better things inside my brain from coming out.
Lastly, it’s time to step back somewhat from social media. Not completely because I still need to use it as a tool to promote my work, but I need to better recognize the bad habits I’m falling back into because of it. That means better curating my feed and muting/unfollowing those who mostly post content that feeds into my bad headspace and habits, and also no longer using the explore tabs because that’s where I really get in trouble as that it has become a major source of “Hey, get a load of this asshole and the horrible thing(s) they did/are doing!” content, which only further feeds my righteous indignation about… well, everything.
Now, while I hesitate to call my book “cozy” out right, it is at least in the same neighborhood as books that are. The nice thing about CTDA is they offer a category for Cozy-Adjacent books like Tales, Healers’, and Therapist for the readers who dig the vibe but don’t mind a difficult feelings and themes with their tea and magic. The ebook of Tales of a Stranger Sister will be 99¢ (or the closest international equivalent) in all online stores that weekend (and if you happened to have bought my book during that sale and have subsequently visited my site because of it, hello from the past!)
Okay, time to get off the floor, dust myself off, and get back to it. And by it, I mean writing. Also, life. Mostly that second one.
Welcome to September. The spiritual end of summer, if not the meteorological or calendrical one. That also mean its the beginning of fall, and while we sadly get very little of it in my hometown these days, it remains my favorite season, nonetheless.
Well, both yes and no. My sales for all three days combined were anemic, and that would be putting it very politely, so my first real chance at exposing my book to a large number of new eyeballs was met with a deafening yawn, which was exactly the reaction I wanted least.
That said, it wasn’t zero and I am grateful for that. So, to the handful of people who took a chance on my debut novel this month, you have my sincere and heartfelt thanks and I hope that my story is an interesting experience for you.
Staying focused on the positive, the sale did generate my first sales in the UK and Germany, so now I can say my book has a presence on three different continents (waves at Australia and my first international reader.) That’s pretty neat.
And while I did not get the desired results from joining the Narratess sale, there were things about it I did appreciate (as well as some criticisms) that I think will help me plan future marketing attempts.
In terms of the things I liked about it, the sheer volume and variety of titles being offered was amazing and truly shows the breadth and depth of what is being offered by independent & self-published writers and storytellers whose stories would never have had a chance to earn their creators money, let alone even be seen just 15 years ago due to the nature of traditional publishing. That in itself is a win for everyone, regardless of sales generated.
The other thing I really appreciated was how the sale website was set up, displaying the titles being offered in the sale randomly with each refresh, meaning that new books were always being shown each time the page was loaded. It made it feel like a thumb wasn’t being put on the scale, which is very much appreciate by those who work in niche genres and styles. It also had a filter search, making it easy to find books in your preferred taste in genres.
That said, the website did have some issues in regard to the filters, which seemed to treat everything as an AND, and never as an OR, meaning that unless you absolutely wanted a book that was both A AND B, it would not show books that were A OR B, which can be frustrating.
And while the website was built to show all sorts of books with no deference given to any specific titles, the author community participating was very much not of the same mindset and most social media posts promoting the sale and making recommendations seemed to keep pushing the same dozen or so titles. By the end of the weekend, it felt less like “Here’s a great sale with over 300+ unique titles to check out!” and more “Hey! Here’s your chance to grab these dozen books on the cheap and if you have a spare buck or two after that, maybe grab on these other books, or whatever.”
Finally, there were the bundles. I’m not opposed to bundles. I think they are both effective tools to promote multiple artists/projects and great for consumers who may have such limited disposable income that taking a chance on unknown piece of art is legitimately hard to do financially. My problem is running both a sale and bundles within the sale. Basically, the bundles got a ton of promotion before and during the sale and if your book wasn’t in a bundle (and there can be many reasons why you might not wish to participate), then you were relegated to “Oh and maybe buy these other books if you have any money left.”
That said, there is no sour grapes here and I will not begrudge anyone else any success they had last weekend, whether they were in a bundle or they had wrote one of the more popular titles being offered. Their success was earned and deserved and did not come at my expense. I can be both disappointed in my own lack of success and happy that others found some of their own.
This experience has not soured me on group promotions. I do plan to participate in another in October, though that one is much more genre focused and while my book isn’t a textbook example of the genre in question, it shares enough characteristics to be in the same neighborhood if not on main street. I’ll have more here about that when the time draws closer.
The other thing this experience has not done is deterred me from writing my next book. Indeed, the lack of interest in my book during the sale has only added fuel to a fire that had been smoldering for most of the summer. Taking a month off has also given that fire some much needed oxygen and it’s once more burning brightly to the point where I’m writing 4-5 sticky notes a day at work, so that I remember to type them up when I get home in the evening. I’m back to work, starting the first draft of what I’m pretty damn sure will be my next release. Some writers need coffee and scented candles to find the mood and energy to write. I apparently need video games and spite. I can accept that about myself.
Anyway, I’m not ready to drop any details about the before-mentioned next book, but I do feel I’ll be talking about it in more depth sooner rather than later, so stay tuned to this space for that.
Before I go, I wanted to take a quick moment to give both a hearty congratulations and much deserve plug for my awesomely amazing and amazingly awesome spouse who releasing their 12th book today! The Strangers’ Sanctuary is an authentic and beautiful story and I am incredibly proud to have been part of its creation as both an alpha and beta reader, but as also as a general cheerleader and sounding board as they worked on it. I honestly cannot recommend this book highly enough because any praise I give it would feel inadequate. This is a book that will make you feel… all sorts of things, but you will feel something, that I promise you. It’s an experience and its one I think worth exploring for everyone.
Okay, that’s it for me for now. If you have it where you are, then enjoy your fall. Take a walk, wear a sweater, enjoy some foliage, sit by a campfire, drink some cider, & perhaps even read a book or two.
While this won’t be my first time running a promotion, this will be the first time I’ll be part of a large-scale group promotion. I had hoped to be a part of the last Narratess sale that was held in April, but of course, when I had learned it existed, the cutoff for signups had already passed, so I ran a solo promotion that same weekend to, well, ah… let’s say results, and just leave it at that.
Honestly, this is something I’ve been looking forward to ever since I published my debut novel. Living with a self-published author for these last 11 years, I’ve gotten to see how these group promotions tend to go, and my spouse/editor/publishing guru always seems to come out on the other side of these ventures seeing very positive results. So, now’s my chance to be a part of this and, honestly, it couldn’t have come at a better time for me.
We’re coming up on the six-month anniversary of the release of Tales of a Stranger Sister and sales, so far, have been… uh… Well, I won’t say they’re disappointing because I legitimately worried that no one would actually want to read my book at all, so the fact that a dozen people were willing to take a chance and give me actual currency in exchange for my work is something I will never not be both thankful for and in awe about.
That said, I’d be lying if I said I didn’t wish that number was more. I’m proud of this book and, dammit, I think there are people who would absolutely love it if they found it. It’s just been hard finding those people and putting it in front of their eyeballs, despite it feeling like I’m doing everything short of hurling copies at people’s heads and screaming “READ THIS!” So, this is my first real, true opportunity to expose my book to a large number of people and, in turn, hopefully generate sales, and, more importantly, eventually generate more reviews and ratings which can only help boost its footprint in a vast internet ocean (Footprints in the ocean? Sorry, I think that metaphor got away from me.)
So, I’m excited for this weekend to finally see what my story can do with actual exposure to a its potential audience.
And I’m equally terrified.
Because there is also the chance that it completely fails to generate any interest with the indie book-buying public, and I will no longer have that excuse that sales have been slow because no one knew it existed. I would have to face the fact that I might have created something that no one wants, or worse, even if it was something they wanted, what I’m offering is mediocre or even bad. That I am a bad writer who wrote a bad book and the best I can hope for is a dozen readers who are too indiscriminate with their disposable income and too kind to tell me to eff off with my bad book.
So, yeah, I got that running in the back of my mind. Good ol’ imposter syndrome with an unhealthy dose of insecurity. Boy, what a fun blog entry this turned out to be, huh? Aren’t you glad you stopped by?
Okay, enough of that! I’ve always said that I wrote and self-published this book the way I did because I wanted to have the freedom to make the creative decisions I wanted to make and to let the book succeed or fail on my own terms. So, I guess we’ll see, won’t we?
That said, as there are over 300+ books in this sale, written by fellow indie authors from all across the vast spectrum of humanity, I should also do my share to support them as much I hope they’ll support me. So, here are a selection of some of the titles I plan to pick up this weekend to help carry me through the fall and winter reading season (Please click on the book below to see the full-sized image and description):
And, of course, I’d be a real dingus if I didn’t also give a hearty, full-throated endorsement of my amazingly awesome and awesomely amazing spouse’s own entry for the sale:
Seriously, it’s great, and you should grab a copy this weekend if you haven’t gotten one already.
And also speaking of my better half and partner in literary crimes, their newest novel, The Strangers’ Sanctuary, is now available for pre-order and will be out on September 1st! It’s amazing, honest, & authentic. A genuinely good read, so check it out if small-scale fantasy is your proverbial cup of tea.
Anyway, I hope you all find some books this weekend that scratch whatever itch your imagination has at the moment and if mine happens to be that particular backscratcher, then thank you! Thank you so very much!
This will be my first opportunity to put my book up for sale alongside my fellow Indie Author peers, including my always amazingly awesome and awesomely amazing spouse/editor/publishing guru!
So, please, come check out indiebook.sale on August 23rd through 25th and peruse the over 300+ books on sale, including mine, which will be available for 0.99¢ (or the closest international equivalent) for that weekend. It’s time to stuff your e-reader of choice with all the indie books to carry you through the all-too-short fall and long cold winter to come.
I now return you to the too-damn-hot summer, already in progress.
We’re a week into my August self-imposed vacation from writing, and the results so far have been interesting. I do feel like taking the time away from sitting down every evening to write has let my brain get some much-needed breathing room and as a result, new ideas are already beginning to flourish.
The biggest benefit of this has been that I think I finally nailed down what my next project will be. It’s an idea I first came up with like 5-10 years ago, but really, it was just a setting without an actual story attached, so the idea kinda just sat there waiting for an actual story to come along.
I think I finally have the beginnings of that story. Now, this comes along with a lot of big ol’ caveats. I only have a handful of story beats even remotely fleshed out in my head and on paper, but what I have is the general 10,000-foot up view of what acts 1, 2, and 3 will be about, along with some character notes, and some other general hodge-podge mish-mash of scene ideas and plot points.
Nothing that makes feel like I must cut the vacation short and rush back to the writing desk, but enough to also not make me dread that rapidly approaching time when I will. I’m excited about starting this new project but not necessarily chomping at the bit.
Yet.
So, what else have I been do with this time away from the literary grindstone? Mostly getting our new gaming rig set up with all the stores and emulators I’ll need for the next wave of games. I did treat myself and picked up the Silent Hill 2 remake from Bloober Team when it was 40% off on GOG.
Silent Hill 2 holds a special place in my heart as a video game. Both it and its precursor mark the first time a video game made me feel legitimate dread and unease while playing, which is quite the feat for any game from the PS1/PS2 era. The first game’s atmosphere was something that few “horror” games had attempted in the 90s, as most preferred to rely on the classic jump scare. The sequel, however, might just be not only the best written horror story in video game history, it might be one of the best stories, period. Now, nearly 25 years later, a remake built for modern graphics expectations arrived and I’ve been eagerly waiting to travel once more into the quiet, foggy town of Silent Hill.
I played the original PS2 version of Silent Hill 2 at least a half-dozen times, so I’m well versed in the story and the narrative twists and turns James’ journey takes him through. I wondered if I could possibly feel that same sense of dread and foreboding playing this graphically superior version.
The short answer: Yes. I find myself tensely gripping my controller as I try to navigate even the earliest parts of this story. The game not only looks absolutely gorgeous; the atmosphere of isolation and loneliness has been perfectly preserved. Logically, I KNOW I shouldn’t be running into anything too difficult or deadly this early on, and yet, I’m cautiously creeping along wondering if even the most basic monsters will eat my face. Indeed, the limit amount of combat I’ve seen makes me realize that if I can avoid it, that’s the smart play because James is as physically fragile as he is emotionally (which is as it should be, IMO.)
As it is a remake of a late 90s/early 2000s game, it definitely retained some game design elements from that era, for good and ill. Just been stabbed? Better drink an energy drink! That’ll patch you right up. Now, why would you think that you could walk up those stairs? Can’t you see the single bucket blocking your way affixed to the earth like it was Mjölnir waiting for Thor. That is something you absolutely definitely could never EVER just STEP OVER. Nope.
On the other hand, the voice acting is much improved from the original. I mean, the original part 2 was leagues above part 1’s, but even then, there were bits where you could tell Konami was not going to pay for a second take, which leads to some, um, interesting choices on how the actors read their lines. In the remake, it’s clear (so far) that the actors took the time to try and understand their characters and match the performance to them.
Anyway, I’m not even out of South Vale and I’m taking this playthrough deliciously slow (also, I’m avoiding playing too close to bedtime because I do not need THAT running through my brain as I sleep. Further updates as warranted.
Next, as we’re firmly into August, let’s look back at July’s sales figures for Tales of a Stranger Sister:
Well, it’s not zero, so that’s something, at least. Do I wish it was more? Oh, most definitely, but I won’t say that the two people who took a chance my debut novel is nothing, either. I’m still blown away that anyone would want to read my book, so the fact that there have been multiple someones is something I will celebrate.
I won’t post a graph of Kindle Unlimited page reads for July because, well, there were none. In the last five and a half months, there’s only been one complete readthrough and one where someone got five pages in and noped out (which is their right, and I won’t begrudge them that.)
That leads me to my next bit of business. My current term on Kindle Select / Kindle Unlimited runs out right before the end of August and I think it might be time to leave the program and go wide for the ebook version. It’s a shame, really, because Kindle Unlimited actually pays me MORE per full read than what I charge for the ebook version, but it doesn’t matter how good the royalty rate is if NO ONE is reading it there, so this is the official announcement: Tales of a Stranger Sister will be leaving Kindle Unlimited on August 27th. If you are interested in reading it with that service, please download it as soon as possible as if you download it before it leaves the program, you will still be able to read it using Kindle Unlimited after it leaves.
Once I get the book set up on other ebook services, I’ll make the announcement here, so stay tuned for that as well as for some other ebook-related news in the next week or so (fingers crossed.)
Okay, I’m gonna wrap up things here for now. I’m hoping to have some good/interesting news in the next week or so and if it comes, I’ll share it here. So, until then, stay cool folks.
Okay, so let’s talk writing and productivity and, more specifically, the lack of it. Ever since I published Tales of a Stranger Sister, I’ve been trying to make real, substantial progress on my next book.
Results have been… well, not great to be honest. I’ve attempted to start three separate projects in that time and while I penned several thousand words across these three projects, I wouldn’t exactly say I’m satisfied with much of it. I think I have three interesting and fun ideas to write about, but what I don’t have is a single story amongst the three, and certainly not one that would fill a novel.
As I said in my last post, this last year has been interesting. Between finishing the debut novel, jumping into promotion and marketing mode (“BUY MY BOOK!“), career changes, family health issues both human and feline, and the state of the world being what I could charitably describe as “a radioactive septic tank fire”, it’s possible that it all might just have been a touch too interesting for me.
But beyond that, I spent over two and a half years straight working on Stranger Sister. Every day. It became a habit, a part of my daily routine and, frankly, it’s been hard to break free from the mindset of needing to sit down and tweak that text just one more time.
Lastly, and to be at my most blunt, I’m tired. I’ve been adjusting to a new life routine that is very different from the life routine I had while drafting and editing Stranger Sister. It just feels exhausting to force myself to tack on trying to create a new story every evening. It’s starting to become where I now resent the time I set aside every evening for writing. A time which I normally love but am growing frustrated with because nothing I writing right now feels like it’s moving me toward my goal of having a second book.
I am well aware that resentment than easily morph into hate and loathing and I very much don’t want to hate the time I spend writing. So, knowing that, I have made some decisions on what my next moves will be in both the short and medium term.
I’m going to take a short break from writing. Not a hiatus. More like a vacation. Possibly even a working vacation.
Until the end of August, I’m taking some time for myself. I’m not stepping away from writing 100% during the next 5 weeks or so, but I’m also not going to force myself to sit at my laptop for 1-2 hours every night trying to force words for a story that just isn’t coming right now. If I get ideas about one of my premises that might finally blossom into an actual story, I’ll take the time to write it down. If I do nothing writing related that day, I won’t angst about it. No pressure. No writing or creative obligations for 5 weeks.
I plan to catch up on some media I’ve backlogged for the last 4 months, play some games on our new gaming rig, and even read a few books from my TBR pile that I’ve neglected for far too long. In other words, expose and immerse myself to other stories and let myself get inspired again. Get out of my head and let someone else steer my imagination for a while. Honestly, that usually helps a lot when I find that I’m spinning my wheels.
As I said before, this will be a bit of a working vacation. I still plan to promote Stranger Sister during this period, and indeed I have some plans in the works for late August in terms of both promoting and expanding the availability of my debut novel. So, I will obviously have to still dedicate time to that, but I’m feeling optimistic that it will ultimately be productive for me as a creator.
Now, seeing that this is day one of my self-imposed writing vacation, that means I managed to write 1200 words of notes on a story premise I backburnered five years ago and an entire blog post today.
…
Because of course I did.
Tomorrow. I’ll start my writing vacation tomorrow.
It’s my birthday weekend! I’m now, officially, in my “Late 40s.” So, um… yay? Yay.
No, seriously, yay! YAY, even! This has been a, let’s say, interesting year to say the least, but I’m still kickin’ and I’m still moving forward every day, even if it’s only a few measly millimeters (Yeah, I’m throwing metric at all yinz.)
This year has been marked by some drastic life changes for me and my spouse, some health drama, and, of course, *wildly gesticulates out the window at the world* all THAT. But in the end, my spouse and I are still standing and even, dare I say, thriving.
Probably the thing that had the biggest impact on my life in the last year was that of some upheaval in my professional life. I prefer not to go into the specifics here, but it looks like I’ve come out the other side of it finding myself in a similar, if possibly slightly better (in some ways) place. The second biggest thing was some medical drama involving my awesomely amazing and amazingly awesome spouse. Again, we’ve managed to come out the other side of it relatively fine, everything considered, to which I’m extraordinarily grateful to the universe for.
Which brings us to the third most impactful item of the last year: Finally publishing my first novel. But what do I mean by impactful? Do I mean it has impacted my life financially? Uh… no. Not really. I’ve sold maybe a dozen copies in the last 4 1/2 months. Has it impacted my life in terms of fame? Again, no, because A.) I write under a pen name, and B.) even if I didn’t, I’ve, again, sold maybe a dozen copies so the number of people who are even aware I wrote a novel could all sit comfortably on a city bus.
Conceptual depiction of the fans of my book all gathered in one place
And yet, I can’t help but feel like the simple act of creating a book and putting it out there has changed my life forever, even if I can’t define how in easily tangible ways.
Anyway, as it is my birthday, let’s talk gifts. I decided to give myself a gift this year and bought my spouse and I our first high-end dedicated gaming PC. I have been a console gamer for years, but was getting steadily frustrated with not being able to play everything I’ve wanted to because it was either A.) exclusive to a console we didn’t own (e.g. The Last of Us), or B.) already on a console generation beyond what we already own. So, instead of dropping money on yet another console that won’t have like 35% of the games we want to play/try available for it but will cost several hundred dollars and take up space we don’t have on our entertainment center, I decided to make the investment to buy a gaming PC. The biggest benefit of which is that like 97% of console exclusive titles are available on Steam for PC and I’m now set up to play all the upcoming games in the franchises I love or have been meaning to try for years, but couldn’t due to lack of correct console.
In any case, I’m practically giddy with anticipation about playing Borderlands 4, Silent Hill 2 Remake, Silent Hill 1 Remake, Silent Hill F (Wait, a non-Remake Silent Hill and it’s written by the team behind Higurashi?! Well, sign me the eff up!), The Last of Us I & II remasters, Grand Theft Auto VI, The Outer World 2, and somewhere in the far, FAR distant future, Elder Scrolls VI and Fallout 5. Oh, and the library of some like 200+ games we’ve already accumulated from Steam, GOG, and Epic. Also, I love watching my spouse play some of their favorite games, so even when the joystick’s not in my hands, I’m being entertained. That’s the classic win-win.
Moving from gifts for me, let’s talk gifts for YOU (Yes, you reading this!). That’s right, I’m pulling a Hobbit and using my birthday as a chance to give gifts to others For the next 24-hours or so, the ebook version of Tales of a Stranger Sister will be 0.99¢. That’s nearly 66% off! Heck, let’s be generous and say it’s practically 67% off! If you’ve been thinking of checking out my debut novel, or you have and know someone who might enjoy it, then today’s the day to grab a digital copy!
So, looking ahead, what’s on the horizon for the next trip around the angry flaming ball in the sky? Well, besides all the gaming I’m about to do? This next year will be interesting as I try to balance marketing the book I’ve already written while continuing to try and pen the next one. Do I expect to have a second book out by the time we meet back up here in a year’s time? Honestly? Probably not, but I do fully expect to have a clear idea when it will be ready for release as I hope to be fully engaged in the revising, rewriting, and editing phases of that project by that time. I’m not making any promises other than I’ll work hard and try my best to not make anyone hoping for another book wait an unreasonable amount of time. As I get closer to a finished draft I’ll more likely than not start sharing details of the next story, so there is that to look forward to.
So, let’s put a bow on this chat and close it out by telling anyone reading this the following:
Thank you!
Thank you for checking out my site and blog. Thank you for following me on social media. Thank you for checking out my book. Thank you for especially buying it. Thank you extra especially for reading it. Thank you extra EXTRA especially for rating and reviewing it. A year ago, I wondered if any of the previous statements could ever be true, but they’ve all happened and that might just be the best gift of all.
It’s time for another go-round on this 584-million-mile ride on a ball spinning at 1,000 miles per hour as it flies at 67,000 miles per hour through effin’ SPACE.
So, please, keep your hands and arms inside the vehicle at all times.
