Here, have a slightly spoilerey map for the Rubberman series! The books tell of the biggest events to happen to this post-apocalypse multi-generational bomb shelter. A hope-from-the-dark scifi series on kindle paperback or hardcover

https://amazon.com/dp/B079VR3MY5?binding=kindle_edition

Book 1: Rubberman's Cage

Subject Lenth discovers there's more than 4 people in the world when he escapes his Unit, explores the facility, meets other sub-cultures in the facility, meets a SECOND GENDER (fascinating!) encounters a room with a wall that opens and put him in another area, (elevator?? what??) doorknobs, papaya. and faces a Subject with a very different outlook, who discovers how to murder.

Book 2: Rubberman's Citizens

Leena is a Citizen, and KNOWS her quarantined section is better than any other. All the Citizens agree. Given the regimented abuse Citizns suffer under whoever the current leader of Citizenry is, those other areas must be horrifying, right? What? Citizens are locker in for the safety of everyone else?? Looks like Leena and her friends will have to take some initiative... 

Book 3: Rubberman's Exodus

Tara and Sasha and the 2 chiefs in Engineering, and maintain the generator. Routine stuff until the uranium unexpectedly runs out. The lives of everyone in the facility are turned upside down, when a call for a little extra help from outside the facility brings devastating truths.

Coffee with Golconda review

E.A. Bass treated me to their eclectic sci-fi novella that's a blend "between comedy, drama, psychedelia and mystery."

It has a general feel of a collection of short stories that seem only tenuously connected at first, until the strings begin to draw it all together.

Before I get into the review, let's drop a link to its amazon page here.

Coffee with Golconda will tell you what you want to know when it is good and ready, and you will mind your manners until it does. You will flow between unique locales, imagery and thought-teasing metaphors that bring vastly differing settings vividly to life.

There were many moments when I felt strong Terry Pratchett influences, quirky yet meticulous, though that could just by my perspective- then in the next moment, things might turn surreal, or gently philosophical from the unique perspectives of Golconda and those that encounter him- only to shift to back quirky on a dime, then back again.

The world-building is gradual, doling out dollops of information casually, sometimes paying intense attention to a tiny detail, or referencing the bigger picture almost dismissively, or casually informing you that some of your assumptions were silly. (You should have known better, and Golconda will set you straight. When it's time.)

Once Coffee with Golconda has told you what it has to say, you might want to go back and read it again to see what you could not see before.

. -oO*Oo- .

Update from me about Rubberman's Exodus, quick status update as long as I'm making a rare blog post (I KNOW I should do more here, sue me!) I am past 60% in my second editing read of the 'final' book, after which it goes to my betas, and an editor, then one last editing read from me. The cover is basically decided, but as a fair warning to my longtime readers who have paperbacks of the rest of the Rubberman series... I WILL be launching with covers in the same style to match a full set, but I DO have general plans to address ALL of my covers. I've been vain (doing them all myself) and/or lazy with my covers so far... they're not laughably bad, but they're not great... the day to fix that is coming.

Oh, by the way, Rubberman's Exodus IS bigger than Cage or Citizens, and very very nearly rivals my biggest book to date, Echoes of Erebus. 

.... Erebus' daughter might have something to say about that in the future...

An interview with a Rubberman.

Sillier and shorter than the Lenth interview. A Rubberman is supposed to convey some degree of respect- even fear, to his Subjects.. this video does not portray that. :)

Rubberman's Cage - Lenth's Interview video

Hey folks! With my next book, Rubberman's Cage coming up fast, I made a video while I waited on the editors.. it's an interview of Rubberman Cage's main character, Lenth.

It was written in an FB chat by me as Lenth, and Tabitha Ormiston-Smith asking 'Lenth' questions. One draft, ad-libbed script. She couldn't make it to the video shoot, as she's in Australia, and I'm in Vancouver, so in the video, it's only her words that make an appearance. I get to star as Lenth.. and I'm told I can kind of act!

The vid reveals a lot about the book's concept, and the life Lenth has been leading up until that point, (roughly a third through the book) He lived in a small area with his 'Brothers', supervised by a silent 'Rubberman', and this has been his normal life from birth... and then one of his Brothers became dead! And then disappeared overnight...

 ANYWAY, so check it out. The camera stinks, but I managed to salvage an interesting final production, I think.... gimmie feedback, SVP!

 http://youtu.be/qQC-0yzjs5w

Bound by the wrong voiceover

I downloaded some new trailers for a game called "Bound by Flame". 3 trailers. One had no voiceover, showing all action.. sword-guys fighting monsters and such. Yes yes, no clues if it's an RPG or action, or what. Fine, but it was pretty and entertaining.

Hei guise, wanna play?

The next trailer had a voiceover by the main character. He was speaking as if he were in that world, and was facing the contemporary conflicts. Nice, but again.. no clue what kind of gameplay. But it gave the feeling of an RPG, or at least a questing sort of adventure/action thing.

The last trailer.. (well, I saw this one first...) was a DETAILED explanation of the gameplay, the mechanics, options. That would have been great!

Except the voiceover.

A very competent fellow, who did his job well. But he was the WRONG guy for the job. I think I've heard him narrate other game trailers, and he has to stop. This epic game, with swords, monsters, war, grit and blood... but explained in a voice and tone more fitting for... I don't know.. A boy-scout recruitment video, or Wyoming tourist ad.

If that trailer was the only one I'd seen, I would have been turned right off, despite the game mechanics being appealing to be. Thankfully I then went on to watch the other 2, and it washed the bad taste of Mr. Cleaver's voice off of it.

Are you saying I CAN'T impale orcs and zombies??

Who am I kidding.. I'll never play the game. The guy that was me back when I had the time would have been jotting it down on his birthday wish list, but the me that is me still hasn't gotten through the karting game I got for Christmas. O, the shame of it all. BUT....

"Don't worry, Joe, we'll play after your kids move out, and you've written all the books you wanted to. When will those be done again? Really..? uh..."

...but Rubberman's Cage has 10 pages left in my first editing pass...

Coming... by October, I hope!.. and the cover might be tweaked a bit.....

Oblivious Lenth picks his weapon.

I posted this on my facebook page a few days ago... and y'know what? I do much more there than I do on my blog. SO, I'd decided to TRY to share what I post there, with the blog. Oh, once upon a time, FB accepted RSS feeds, and things seemed to simple... except that it took forever to update itself. Meh. So, I'll just have to remember to bring some of my FB over here... for those who are interested, you can just follow me there:

https://www.facebook.com/ozerobook

You all know the story behind this? No? Well, it's actually the "Skulltree", and is part of the back cover for Rubberman's Cage.. but some ladies on FB decided to rename it.. and now.. and now this is a thing. So. Yeah.

Fresh off the keyboard, unedited, and.. UNRATED... (there's a bad word in it.. like THREE TIMES!) from Rubberman's Cage-

~~~

The next room over was fairly large, and badly lit. The middle of the room was a semi-organized pile of blankets, presumably with a mattress underneath. The far wall displayed a selection of items.

Tools, mostly. Lenth wasn't familiar with tools in general, but it seemed obvious that some were modified by Citizens, maybe Mike.

A ball-peen hammer had a few nails attached to the head. A claw hammer had its claw battered down to be sharper than the original design. A heavy pair of gloves hung with barbed wire wrapped around them with a metal plate attached to shield the forearms. A set of crude, spiked 'iron knuckles' hung near those. Some longer tool no longer had its original working end, and the metal shaft had been hammered down into a blade, like a medium-sized sword.

Several more items filled out the display, but Lenth was drawn to the largest item, a sledge hammer. It stood on its head, handle sticking up. He knelt next to it and felt along the handle, picking it up with a bit of a grunt. He looked at Marcy, who was looking at him with a raised eyebrow.

“Like it nice and big?” she purred with a sultry smirk.

Lenth heaved it up into both hands. “People fight with these? Seems kind of stupid, by the time you get it swinging, the person you're trying to hit would like... not be in that spot any more.”

“That was supposed to get a reaction out of you,” Marcy said, slightly disappointed and slightly frustrated.

“Huh? I answered.”

Marcy unzipped her top, past the navel, and arched back to nudge out a bit of cleavage. It was a motion she'd done many times in the past, but this time she did it with no seductive smoothness. Just quick, blunt, and almost clinical. “Okay, a girl unzips in front of you, alone in a room with a bed. What does that make you think?”

“Oh. Oh! I'm sorry, I'll pick a better weapon and leave so you can get to sleep,” Lenth said apologetically, turning back to the weapon display.

Marcy clenched her fists and shrugged. “It's no fun telling you I'm not interested in actually fucking you when you don't take the bait!”

Lenth dropped the sledge hammer where he'd gotten it from, and turned back to Marcy. “I'm confused.”

Marcy shook her head. “Yeah. Yeah, don't worry about it, I'm just wasting your time anyway,” she flicked her hands dismissively at the weapons. “go ahead, pick what you want. Don't rush on my account.”

“Well, hold on, what's 'fucking', and why would I do it to you?” Lenth asked.

Covering her mouth, and reaching out with her other hand to some imaginary audience, she turned about the room until she faced Lenth once again. “Sex!” she yelled, “fucking means sex! Have you head of sex?”

Lenth nodded, and pointed at Marcy. “Yes. I have. I leaned all about it, but I don't think creating children right now would help. Having more people helping me find Six would be good, but I also learned that children take a long time to grow inside-”

Marcy screamed in exasperation, leaving a silent void.

After a moment, Lenth rallied his courage to speak again. “I'm pretty sure I remember being one, and it was a long time to-”

“Hush.” Marcy said flatly, shaking her head.

“And I've seen some children recently in the Provi-”

“Just. Just stop now, Lenth.”

He obeyed. As long as his curiosity permitted. “Marcy. Have you done sex?”

She put her hand on her forehead, and nodded small quick nods, biting her lip. “Yeah. Yeah Lenth, I seem to remember doing sex a couple of times.”

“Oh! So where are your children now?”

Marcy squinted at Lenth. “When I first met you, I said I needed to educate you. I had no idea how bad it was. Just pick a weapon already.”

Rubberman's Cage hits half way!.... kind of? Maybe? I think? And Lenth finds a rake.

50 thousand words. Which would be about half way through the average length of my other books. That makes 100 pages at 6"x9", the size my paperbacks and hardcovers are. Add space used to separate chapters, this, that, tra la la, and yeah, looks like half way.

But I'm not sure where I want to end the book. There is a point of reveal that would make a good ending, and set up the next book well, too. But I could be tempted to continue from there, nibbling at the concept for the next book a little.

Aaaaah, I have so much to tell you all, but I can't dump these spoilers!

Here's one thing you can rule out: It isn't the matrix, or a dream, or anything like that. Pretty much everything else is up for grabs.

Minor spoiler from early on which has been pretty much public for a while now, Lenth, his 3 'brothers', and the Rubberman in his ceiling are NOT the only people in existence, as Lenth assumed for most of his life, and existence is larger than the loft-sized space he's lived in all his life. Or thought he did.

Wouldn't that be dull, if you start the book with the whole environment already revealed? I like some exploration! I like books with exploration of odd environments, games with exploration of odd environments, movies with exploration of odd environments.

Lenth just explored someone's weapon rack, and now looks kind of badass! In a way.In a "my sword used to be a rake" kind of way. That's how Citizens roll, yo.

By Actual's Messenger...

Fresh off the keys, first draft chunk of Rubberman's Cage I just wrote.. it's confusing as heck out of context, but I SWEAR, it's not sci-fi!:

----------

Lenth tilted his head. “But isn't Messenger picked from the Providers? So couldn't you, or Gabe, or any Provider eventually become this... Actual?”

Contact smirked, and raised an eyebrow quite high. “Ah. Simple, yes?” He patted his gut. “I would make a poor Messenger, I think, if you're implying I have such a goal. But it isn't that simple. The Messenger becomes almost entirely removed from us. From our world. He travels beyond our realm, out beyond the Citizenry, and beyond places with no names before reaching the halls of Actual. And as removed as Messenger is from us, Actual is removed from him!”

Reaching up, Contact held his hand open, as if ready to receive from the great unseen Actual, by providence of his Messenger.



.

Echoes of Erebus Cahpter 2, Section 1.. reading and... ACTING! And a wig.

And makeup.

In other news, my site, http://www.ozero.ca is now equipped with a videos page, and the site is updated to include my WIP, Rubberman's Cage.

Echoes of Erebus prologue video... and a cat.

Fun experiment I filmed yesterday while I had the house to myself. It gave me ideas for other vids in the future. This vid is less than professional, but it was fun, and hopefully interesting enough to watch.

Oh, btw, the music that comes in now and then was cannibalized from a composition I did quite a long time ago, and probably released with 'Sonic Equinox' under my old handle 'onyx'.

The Newest of the Old Ones

I'm now writing two books at once. I'm a hypocrite. I've spoken against (typed against) writing two novels at once, but in my defence, the case I was hardest on was a friend who was writing like three books at once, which took place one after the other, giving rise to potential linearity confusion.

My two projects MIGHT take place in the same world, (I'm not decided on that... they're so far apart in any timeline that there's no reason to link them, and no reason to expressly separate them,) but they can't confuse each other. I think. I hope.

I'm not writing to any target, I have no aims whatsoever of finishing a new book for VCON this year, so I'm kind of taking it lazy.

Project one is the one I've previously mentioned, I think... a modern urban mystery/comedy about a man (The Serial Bleeder) who leaves artistic graffiti using his own blood, the gypsy who supports his mostly harmless aims, and the office cog who gets wrapped up with them.

The other is a scifi/fantasy with a very blurry line between the two. It takes place in the far flung post-apocalyptic future, which has been ravaged by (among other things) a virus that managed to kill off all of humanity, except for the redheads.

Now, do I mean, THIS kind of redhead?

Or THAT kind? Given my track record, I suppose you suspect more Jessica-like results. In fact, I think my worldwide redhead survivors will run the gamut. Maybe in opposing camps.

The protagonist is a non-redhead character I've written about before, although the perspective of time has changed them, as experience will do. The tentative title is "The newest of the Old Ones", but I'm not 100% married to that.

Excerpts from both projects may make it to the blog in the near future.

Happy Halloween! Who wants literary candy?

I've just set up on Smashwords as a new distro for my e-books. (My cut's a little lower, but they have a huge distro range, and a pile of formats)

And they encourage a 50% sample! Yeah, that means any of you can go to https://www.smashwords.com/profile/view/ozero , my smashwords page, and go down and read the first half of Lifehack or Watching Yute for free!

All you kiddies out there who said "I wanna get one, but..." You have no money, you can't do X,Y,or Z, or all your stolen creditcards have been reported by their owners... You can go read the first half of the books at least!

By then, I'll have you hooked on my sweet sweet candy. Then you will send me all your empty pop cans to get the book, and I WILL BE RICH! RICH IN MY CASTLE OF ALUMINUM! And I shall look across the lands from my sugar-sticky throne, breathing the air of caffeine, and I shall say, "Geez, I should get more writing done for Echoes of Erebus."

I know, I promised a pic of my coste for my next post, but my next post wasn't supposed ot be so soon. I just wanted to let y'all know about the free samples I have out now...!

Library trp results, new front page, got my stash, and more...

Quick note first- I got my stash of Watching Yute copies today. (Thanks in no small part to my cross-border book-runner, Gill Picard, A.K.A. dad.) The cute lil nanite on the spine lines up really nice to the one on the spine of Lifehack. If you see them together, you can see there's about one third of the lil guy still missing. ECHOES OF EREBUS ANYONE? DID I PLAN THIS FROM THE START ANYONE? EVIL GEEEEEENYUS ANYONE?

Yup. In a related story, in 2 weeks, I will be half way though the 3-day VCON sci-fi convention, where I hope to sell a significant portion of my stash. And maybe a poster or two. I might make a 'practice run' of the trip, just so I can get to know the accessibility hassles before I actually am due anywhere.

Also, I just posted a new layout for the front page of my website, which might have been nice to have before I bought a day's worth of an ad banner. (Yeah, one day's worth... who knows..)

The new layout is much cleaner and prettier, and could have channeled more visitors into sales, maybe. I'll have no Idea of my massive ad campaign did any good for a while yet, as I channel most softcover buyers thought amazon for the great shipping, and amazon has a policy of delaying the reporting of any useful information for no reason that I can think of.

While the paid ad reports having gotten a bit under 150 people to visit my site, I can't specifically guess how many of those turned into sales... especially since I stumbled upon a FREE ad venue that got me over 4000 hits.

What was it? I happened to end up on an enteratiment gossip page that was linked from a forum I go to a lot... The story was crap, but I skimmed down to see people's comments. Half of them were made to promote things totally irrelevant to the story. Well... I couldn't resist....

That's me at the top, obviously. If that kind of cheapness WORKS... well.. yay for ebing a prick! I guess....

Ack, I was going to tell a story about my trip to the big ole' vancouver library to meet random writers, but my time is kinda up... Next time...!

Title graphic for Echos of Erebus

At this point, I think the cover will likely have a lot in common with this graphic. I was thinking of adding a couple lines about Sarah there,but nah... my previous blog entry gives you enough of a taste of Sarah for now. Well.. maybe not a super accurate taste. It's not like she's always drunk or anything.

Maybe she should be. It could make her almost as silly as Regan was.

Short blog entry! Still waiting for Amazon to get on board. Got my table assignment for the VCON sci fi convention. Whee! Less than a month to go...! By the first day of it will keep me from watching the Stargate:Universe premiere. Grr.

Lifehack's Mana Drive- REAL?

Check it out!

Any of you who've read Lifehack, hopefully remember the 'Mana drive'- a city wide system where power is transmitted wirelessly.

Once, someone caught me, and guessed ole Nicola Tesla's ol timey experiments as the inspiration for that. Today, my dad drew the same conclusion when he came across this video.... This is also why I don't specify in my books what year they are. The future is coming at us faster than we expect.

Next up? NANO-DRIVEN ZOMBIES! FLEEEEEEE, B*****S!!!!

In other news: My website, www.ozero.ca has been updated to reflect the 3 available formats of both books, AND includes the new, reasonable pricing on the hardcovers, at 23.95! (the other 2 formats being the trade paperback, $14.98, and E-book, $4.98)

At this time, the trade paperback for Watching Yute isn't actually available QUITE yet, but it will be very soon, quite likely by the end of august.

That leaves just the sci-fi convention to survive...!

START THE PRESSES!

For the 'proof copy' anyway. But the extensive editing is done, and in the hands of the publishers. First I have be sent that proof copy, and approve it before it'll be available in mass quantities to the public.

Which reminds me, any of you folks local to me who want me to order you a copy when I do my personal batch, (thus saving you shipping etc), let me know if you haven't already. for the locals, I'm doing $15cdn. (Retail is officially set for $15.98 US, but such stupid little details are of little consequence for my locals.. OK... fine, I just don't wanna bother counting friggin coins and doing conversions!)

I had to create an official description for the web sales and amazon.. and choose a mere FIVE keywords! I went with lesbian,revenge,suicide,drama,nanites. Geez. So much more to say, and not a clue what to leave out.

And I thought writing the back over was tough. As enthusiastic as I was for the first book Lifehack, Watching Yute is something else. Far more personal. Lifehack is a fun adventure, sprinkled with drama and a handful of giggles, but Yute sets aside a lot of the action, so it can really amp up the drama. I should shut up. Just read it.

Codename: Echo- revving up

The third book is now in the outlining phase. Hehe, yeah, before the 2nd is even released. I'm at a phase with the 2nd where I'm waiting on outside factors, so I've got my fingers into 'echo' (not the final name, I haven't decided that yet).

So, I more or less know how it's going to end now, More or less. Watching Yute went a long time without it's ending decided. I waited for the characters to show me the way. As I wrote, it became clearer and clearer how tings were going to play out.

I suspect echo will have a similar maturation process. I encourage it. Even with Lifehack, the characters decided a lot. I reallllly went easy on Regan and Alisia. Cassidy, the hero if Watching Yute didn't have it so easy.

And the hero of echo? Will her path be easy, hard, glorious, or miserable? I really don't know yet, and that's the way I like it.

I did have names picked out for her, and her male travel partner. Yeah, this time, (gasp!) the main character is straight!... kind of. Muaha. I don't know how much to reveal at this point, but she's very... different. Getting psyched!

Yute steaming ahead.. wanna see?

Thankfully, Cassidy prided herself on level headed rational thought. There simply wasn’t anything lethal enough on hand to throw. “It kinda makes me feel like flying around in an airlimb with ridiculously overtrained bodyguards, carrying a really old spear. So far that’s working out pretty well for me.”

Just a little random snippit from Watching Yute. It's kinda fun, in that I have an outline for what happens, but now and then an idea pops up that adds a new ripple to the mix. The above quote is from a previosuly unplanned scene, where Cassidy is putting up with having a grief counsellor set upon her.

After today's writing session, I have no fears of not meeting or surpassing my target of 230 pages. My wife tells me "You can't just keep writing to fill a certain number of pages!"

Well, duh. Lifehack was around 230 pages, and I'd rather be an equal or greater size than Lifehack with Watching Yute, but of course I'm not just writing filler. There is a lot more character development and quiet times, but Yute is an entirely different animal from Lifehack, despite taking place in the same world, and handling many of the same themes.

I have given up the idea of having it out for the vancouver sci fi convention, and I'm still a little bummed about that, but it's all for the best. So, I'll be at VCON with the same book I was selling last year, (albeit at a lower price thanks to my new source) so I might pad my table out a bit with a few posters for sale

Yute progress, and elvish angst.

Quite a while ago, I wrote a scene for the book that I knew would come waaaaay later, and it sat at the bottom of my document (along with various notes and reminders) waiting for the main flow of writing to catch up to it. It was missing a few names and details, but I loved it.
I kept on writing, and knew that scene was coming up. Finally, I flowed into it. It needed a lot of edits to fit just right, but it still went well. It's a scene of one of the significant confrontations, and puts one of the major storylines on it's path to closure.

Dang I'm being ambiguous. I don't know how many spoilers I want to make public... heck, in the first edition of Lifehack, I didn't even want to reveal until the last second possible that there was a human to blame for all the zombies, but that was silly.
At some point, I'm going to have to give away some big plot points to make the book sound interesting. Otherwise, the back flap of the book will read:

In a world, where something happens, and other things don't, one man, or woman, I'm not telling, will have to do some thing or things. Or try not to do them. In the process, he or she may find love, adventure, and a big sammich. Or he/she won't.

I might call on my volunteer editors to help me decide some of that.. We'll see. Right now the book is only 160 pages. I was hoping to get to 230-ish.. I think that's still very reasonable, when I consider all that still have to be tied up, and that this is only the first draft.
A few people said that Lifehack seems to rush though the story. This was a fairly conscious decision. Personally, I hate books that ramble on and mosey through at a snail's pace.

I think of Tolkien's epic descriptions of Strider going out for a smoke into the sullen alley, where the smell of burnt greasy burgers drifted over from the burger king 3 blocks away, and the sky had 384 stars visible in it, which we will all now name in elvish song, whilest Strider picks his nose with his left pinkie finger, which to the draven folk is considered a fell err, ever since Nosebleed Hemophelicutter died at the great nosepick in the first age. At this point, Strider might have gotten as far as patting his pockets looking for his pack of smokes, and the smoke break goes on for 47 more pages, and NOT A ****ING THING ABOUT HIS SMOKE BREAK HAS ANY ****ING IMPORTANCE TO THE STORY.

Ahem. Point is, I like to get to the point sooner rather than later. Still, I'll probably elaborate on some parts when I revise.

Yeah.

The week alone. Writing Yute, watching Watchmen, and the L word.

Thursday morning, 3 am. My wife and baby (toddler?) have been out of town since Sunday morning, and will return Saturday afternoon. They’re escorting ‘Radar’ as she checks out a couple universities on the other end of the country.
This leaves me solo for nearly a week. “I can write my head off!” I thought. Well, yes. Not as much as I thought, since I got a homework list that has eaten into my writing time. Still, it was stuff that would be difficult to accomplish with kiddo bouncing around.

A few hours were spent when I went alone to go see Watchmen. I don’t know if I’ve been to a theatre alone before. For a few moments, I worry that I looked like some lonely loser with no friends, but it was midday, and my friends have these freaky things called jobs.
Watchmen itself was really neat. Three things I heard about it were verified for me. It is NOT for kids. Do NOT see it with your parents, regardless of your age, and I can now see why they say the original comic was genius. I’m ashamed to say I’ve never read it despite knowing about it for over a decade. If the movie is any indication, it is subversively political, dramatically gripping, at the same time insightful (and slightly self mocking) of superheroes.

As for Watching Yute. So far I haven’t attained the kind of page count boost I’d been hoping for this week, but what I have gotten out has been good. Freedom to churn ideas back and forth casually without the fear of a smelly diaper walking in the door, or the tight timeline of sychning meals and sleep with other people is good for creativity.

I’ve reverted to my ‘natural’ semi-nocturnal sleep cycle. (go to sleep around 4 am, wake up around noon) This means I’ll have to get back into the regulation timetable on Saturday.. I can’t decide whether to try to ease into it, or to keep going like this, and just suck it up cold turkey when the time comes.. but given it’ll be the weekend, I guess that’s a little flexible.

Anyway, the pagecount is now nearing 160, (again at a 6”x9” trade paperback format), and judging from the place in the story, it’s quite probable that Watching yute will be about the same size as 230-ish page Lifehack.
I was hoping very much to have it done for the next Vancouver sci fi convention, but taking into account time to refine, and pass through my volunteer editing staff, an October release might not be possible. We’ll see. Can’t rush it just for Vcon.

Oh, I finally saw an episode of “The L word”. As it turns out, it was the final episode of the final season. (no spoilers ahead, just in case) I knew very little of what was going on, but pieced a lot together by context. I can see why “Shane” is a fav character among many of the real life lesbians I know. Shane’s kinda hard to describe. All in all, I can’t say I liked the show. I did read that the final episode was a huge disappointment to longtime fans, but it seemed like layer upon layer of gossip, mistrust, and “she said, she said”. And for a final episode, it left a tone of loose threads untied, and unleashed a new huge mess that could have been the topic for a whole season.

I guess I’ll stick with Battlestar Galactica. There’s still a good five years left in that show, right? Right? Huh? This friday? Really? And it’s over? Oh…… ok. On to Sarah Connor then.


PS: My cat is going crazy. I don't know if it's my changes to the timetable around here, of if she misses the ladies, but the cat has gone nuts.