Howdy!

I’ve got a the number one trick to write a lot, and I’m going to share it with you now.  All you have to do is (potentially) slip a disc in your back, and then you’ll get steroids that keep you up at night.  No, I don’t recommend it, but it hasn’t come without some ridiculous benefits.

At midnight on Sunday morning, I woke up and knew that it wasn’t going to be a good time to try and head back to sleep.  Once I was sure there was a decent amount of snoring happening around me (I won’t say whether Rhianna or Luna is louder), I decided to retreat to my writing nook and write until I felt tired enough to nod off again.  By the time two o’clock hit, I was already at my word count for the day.  I looked back at my word counts over all the projects that we’ve had over the last year or so, and realized that I could have my best writing day on record if I just did a little over double my word count.  Because hey, if I can write that much in two hours of a midnight session, what’s to stop me over the course of a whole day?  Other than video games, The Witcher, cleaning up the house when I felt like I could stand, and trying to take the dogs on a walk.

Well, the good news is… mission accomplished!

After securing my highest word count of the 2020s thus far (as far as I know), we’re incredibly close to finishing this latest short story.  It’s almost a two-parter in a way: a philosophical, thoughtful opening, and a wacky, unexpected close that I think work well together.  With luck, I’ll be done with this story by the end of the month, if not the end of the week.  Then, I just have to turn my attention to one more Rhys story before I help Rhianna with Shadow Serenade.

While we’re waiting for all that, I figured it would be a good time to return to the first of these Rhys stories.  It’s been four months since I finished the first in the trilogy, Shards of Time, and with this one coming out soon, it’s nice to revisit.  Newsletter subscribers were able to see the story early, so if you were waiting for a reason to subscribe, besides free books, that short story might do the trick for you.

My hope is that by this time next week, I’ll be ready to preview the second story for newsletter subscribers while I’m working on the final Rhys story for Tales Volume 2.  After that, it’s just one more story to go before the second anthology is ready to send out into the world.  Then it’s a quick pivot to Quantum Quest again before resuming Wild Magic.

It’s looking like it’s going to be a busy first half of the year, and we have a few other little projects going on, like a children’s book (which newsletter subscribers saw early as well), and most likely the launch of the Quantum Quest expansion, after so many years of it being ready and just waiting for the right time to debut it (which sadly hasn’t come yet due to COVID).  There’s a chance that’s a back half of the year project, however.

There’s also some other things you might notice changing.

 

Mike Takes Marketing Advice

So, I feel like I’ve got the writing side of storytelling down pat, slow pace notwithstanding.  But one of the things that I’ve always maintained I’ve had a problem with is the marketing.  Well, I’ve recently received some advice on how to tackle that, so you’ll likely see a few things changing in the newsletter and here on the site.  It won’t be so much as to be distracting, but will help to integrate the other things that are going on a little bit.  One of the things that I’m supposed to be doing is clapping myself on the back a little bit whenever good news comes my way from other people, which I have a hard time doing for some reason.  I almost have to hype myself up to be my own hype man, which is strange considering how often I’m promoting the work of others.

So, in an effort to try and change for the better in that regard, I’d like to share two articles related to D’Aprile’s Fools.

The first is an interview that I was lucky enough to have with my good friend, Kev Gallagher.  He and I have been best friends for a while, and he is beginning to promote books and other projects the way I promote fantasy.  I wanted to help him get the word out about his gigs, so it was a little bit of a “you scratch my back, I scratch yours” sort of situation.  The good news is, there’s perhaps no one out there who would be able to conduct this interview that didn’t know as much about the behind-the-scenes as Kev, so it went off without a hitch.

I also submitted my book to Outstanding Creator Awards, and ended up receiving a glowing review for D’Aprile’s Fools.  I cannot get over the kind words, and am going to throw some of that onto the Amazon product page for the book before the end of the week.

One of the other things that my marketing expert recommended was trying to integrate everything a bit better.  That means you’ll see a bit of overlap from the newsletter on the website, because I’m going to start using the newsletter to blog a bit.  You’ll still get all the exclusive bits, but the blog will encourage readers to sign up.

I’m also going to work on integrating some media buttons in the newsletter from here on out.  That’s because Tellest is everywhere, and I don’t show it off in all its forms as much as I should.  Part of that means keeping up with those social media accounts a little better, which may mean looking to collaborate with someone to help me out, but we’ll see where that all ends up.

The good news is that there will be more places to follow me if you prefer to look at art on Instagram, or pin new fantasy items on Pinterest.

And as we move forward with other little bits of marketing improvements, you’ll likely see some other projects begin to pitch ahead.

 

Riddle and Reward!

Did you know that Tellest newsletter subscribers are able to participate in pretty frequent giveaways?  It’s true.  Every week or so, I run a riddle in the newsletter, and subscribers can answer it for an entry into a giveaway for a $5 Amazon gift card, or a 4-pack of Tellest posters.  Just one more reason to consider subscribing if you haven’t already!

We’ve got more than a few things on the way, so keep on your toes for next week.  There’s likely to be a big blog post coming your way!