The one where there’s an exciting announcement and silly update

Silly update first: I have moved into my new house! Mortgage approved, all systems go, haven’t stopped moving for weeks now.

I am making progress on Salient Dreams, a new fantasy novel, and it is progressing well if not quickly.

But more important than any of that, The Last Dragoon has been released on Kindle, should now be out for Nook, and paper copies are coming along shortly. So if you need a last minute gift, or last minute break from reality, I’ve got you covered.

When was the last time you believed someone who said: I will love you forever? What if they proved it?
What is forever in comparison to the power of love?
In the end, what is the raw power of the human soul?

The Ivy City is dying. It flails under a sea of the risen dead, the holy churches broken, the nobles largely destroyed, the population leaderless and alone, the city itself is bleeding and growing cold. Tattered crimson ribbons of blood fill the gutters. A despicable wizard, scion of the noble line, has shoved the Ivy City to the brink of death as he seeks what he sees as his rightful throne.

Doomed by his forbidden love, discarded by the crown, forgotten by the people, a disgraced hero rises from the ashes to combat the rising darkness. Accompanied by a novice of the god of death, this armored savior will crash headlong into the ranks of the undead. As the legions of the unliving surround and entrap him, he faces the dark truths of his own failures, and discovers the limits of his warrior will.

He will fight because of his oaths to the crown and because of his oaths to the city. But, in the end, he will fight against a horde of nightmares because he has sworn with the totality of his soul to the crown princess, whom he has vowed to love forever.

The only questions that remains are:
What is the raw power of the human soul?
And can it be enough against an army of the dead?

the one where I let slip how it works

OK, so I’ve been trying to buy a house, settle into Pittsburgh and finish a novel I’m 3 months behind upon. This means my blogging time has been a bit, well, heavily curtailed.

Then, I was poking around and found a release for a game I’ve been looking forward to.

I watched it once. Then, filled with some uncontrollable storm, I wrote. Not what I was supposed to be working on, not even anything that is going to go anywhere. Might as well post it here.

                They say it was a time of flags and glory. They say a lot of things. They never tell you how there were nights where any one of us would have killed for a can of god damned beans. The memories of old men are too good to remember anything but the truth, but when they look down into the glittering eyes of grandchildren too young to remember the sound of artillery it is simply easier to stand tall before a flag than to remember leaning into a bayonet until it pierced the hollow of a throat.

                Maybe it is the need to wash the hands in the streams of time, sending the blood away even as clots hide in the fine hairs and under the nails. Everyone knows, at least almost everyone knows. We let the Beast in. We fed him tenderly. We gave credence to his words. We had long lost sight of nature red in tooth and claw. We had replaced help with dependence and reduced mathematics to a popularity contest. Words were twisted in their meaning. America had flown so high that we had lost contact with the very ground underfoot. And the sun was oh, so warm. We forgot that some words, no matter how professionally delivered, should not be heeded. That lies were still lies, no matter how dreamy and how spun from golden sunshine. I can hardly look my own children in the eyes and admit we did it to them, and they very well know. So why should it be any different for anyone else?

                We thought the lies built palaces, the lies bought prosperity, but all they did was silence the opposition while loans flowed like a tsunami in order to bring about a fool’s golden age. Pyrite crowns cracked and tarnished as everyone was told that need had replaced work. If you needed, you should not have to work for it, it should be given. If it was not given, it should be taken. That was the dangerous lie: That it could be taken.

                You can take any man’s money. What you cannot take is his wealth. Take cash from a rich man and he will be poor. Give it to a poor man, and he will soon be poor again, for he has nothing of real value. The wealthy man builds himself. He is the architect of his own destiny. No matter his level of treasure, the wealthy man will work, innovate, and adapt to build wealth for himself and anyone who knows enough to follow him into the world. That trait cannot be taken, stolen, or redistributed. It can only be crushed. And when Taxing wasn’t enough, and when stealing wasn’t enough, all they had left was to crush the wealthy.

                That’s when the guns were loaded. That’s when the knives were sharpened.

                At the time I hated them, for making me fight, for making it necessary. Now I think they were just as afraid as I was. But they had been told that when a man climbs a stair, he must, had to, push others back behind him to progress. Failure was a plot by unseen masters that sought to restrict access to the lofty heights of success. So attractive were the lies, so beautiful was this fairy tale that we could not convince them, even unto death, that the staircase was built of failures. Every step was a painful sacrifice. They would never believe that riches can be passed to any, but wealth can only come to the worthy. Least of all, that worthiness could be attained by any who tried, and failed, and tried again.

                We, who remembered the old days, who were weaned on the legends of the America That Was before the books were poisoned and leveled and fairnessed into casting us as a bloody handed giant of the world, we remembered being the shining city. At least we thought we did. Everyone knew that the tree of freedom must be watered with the blood of tyrants, but forgot also patriots. Maybe that war was like this one, whitewashed for the sanity of the men damned to its confines until their memories finally fled their broken minds. If we were the greatest evil, then why were we the dream of the world? Why were we once free, and wealthy? Why did evil increase with the number of cameras, the number of prisons, of rules and laws, regulations, billyclubs and bureaucrats if it was caused by freedom?

                Begging could be met, demands could be matched, taxes could be paid, but when they beat down our doors looking for what they were owed by right of breath, that was when we fought. And we were punished for fighting.

                And from that point, war was not an option, it was a religion. Freedom was our goddess. We who fought it were her priests. We took up weapons -suddenly so clear why they had fought to restrict them- we had nurtured for over two hundred years . We died by the millions. They died in numbers so great we walled up cities as tombs for them, with signs that they never be opened lest the beast be free again to ravage the land. All so a man might earn, might share, but not fear the theft by one or one million. For, in the end, all that is earned is paid for with life, with time. Property law is the basis of all law, for the first property one has is one’s self, one’s life, and one barters time for money. Thus, anything taken is a loss of life. To give one’s life in service, or charity, is noble.

                To have it stolen, even bit by bit, is a murder by inches.

                But now my children have the America That Was, again. And their children.

                And now we must sacrifice more, for we must write it all down. We must admit every lie, every failure, every cursed good intention that lead us to the place where lead rains from the sky and the clouds burn, for if they do not remember -  and remember with the clarity we were denied – then it will happen again.

                It will all happen again.

                                                                                                -Andre Adams

                                                                                                General, Ohio Fifth Militia (ret.)

Maybe it is the upcoming election, maybe fears of the coming economic trauma. Maybe the mention of gun control at the last debate. Maybe threats by some to riot if the election goes against them. Maybe all of that. But, for the curious, you are filled with the hopes and dreams, the fears and loves of people who never lived. They dance around in your brain until you tell their story.

That is what being a writer is like.

 This is the original song, which I don’t like as much as the blues-ey one.

Edit:

My Google Fu is getting stronger, I found it!

the one in which I am not allowed to say anything

This webpage has gone dark in protest of SOPA.

Stop Censorship.

Take action .

Or forever hold your peace.

https://www.google.com/landing/takeaction/

the one in which I make an important request

Preditors and Editors (see what they did there?) has put up the Annual Reader’s choice poll!

I’m actually nominatable (nominable? Nomi-? Nom-? I am eligible) for several categories. I am asking – well begging – for votes in order to try to claim any of these areas.

The process is simple, well simple-ish. Click on the link, look for my name or the title for I Know Not, click the bubble, then at the bottom fill out your name and  email address. Once you hit the submit button, you will get an email confirmation. Click the link in the confirmation, and your vote is then cast (this last to prevent spamming).

I am overjoyed at the performance of I Know Not. I adore my fans. I love readers. But moving forward, I need some recognition from official channels, which will lead to more conventions, more interviews, exposure. It is one small part of my next step, and to take it I need the help of you, your friends, your mom, her coffee klatch, your school mates, my school mates, and so on.

The polls are open only for seven more days, and thank you for your support.

Fantasy and Science Fiction Novel Category – http://critters.org/predpoll/novelsf.shtml -

I Know Not, by James Daniel Ross

Publisher Category – http://critters.org/predpoll/ebookpublisher.shtml

Currently Nominated – Dark Quest Books (my publisher)

Authors Category – http://critters.org/predpoll/author.shtml

Currently Nominated – James Daniel Ross

And also, if you could see your way clear, please consider voting for a woman that has helped me greatly:

Writer’s Resource or Information Site – http://critters.org/predpoll/writerinfo.shtml

Currently Nominated – The Literary Handyman Blog (Danielle Ackley-McPhail)

Anthology Category – http://critters.org/predpoll/antho.shtml

Currently Nominated: No Man’s Land, edited by Mike McPhail

The one where I give hope.

See? There I go lying. And at Christmas, too.

I’m not sure if I could give hope, that I would give hope, to be perfectly honest. It’s no longer ‘hip’, or ‘in’. Apparently anyone who doesn’t believe that fairly soon several dozen dystopias are going to have a wild Mortal Combat Style Armageddon all over the earth is just not living in reality. Most of those that espouse this belief are environmentalists, but several are survivalists, and even some fairly straightforward gun owners. I have found, however, that the further left – politically -  the orientation of those I’m talking to, the more I am treated as a hostile force for stating, in effect:

Have hope.

And I don’t mean that people get a little snippy because we disagree. I mean they start wagging a finger at me, continue by poking me in my chest with it, and end with them sticking it in my eye and screaming that I should apologize for getting my face in the way of his finger. I have been called an idiot, a racist, and a cynic. I get asked a lot of questions, a lot of them nonsensical. Others come down really to: yeah, who sez? Well, that’s the one I can deal with. You see, I know who says:

History.

Let me be completely honest: I do not believe in Anthropomorphic Global Warming. I believe it is a scam of the highest order meant to fleece people of money by the truckload. I do, however believe in acid rain and brown air. Neither is good, and we can take steps to curb these facets of modern life. I do believe there is sufficient reason for developments in technology and society to occur in order to solve these problems. History abounds with examples.

At the turn of the 20th century everyone was sure the primary mode of transport was going to end civilization. Hundreds of thousands of people were living in one place at one time in the largest cities the world had ever seen. Long ago, city planners had developed a plan for dealing with the… leavings… of their fellow humans, but then came the horses. Owned by more and more people, used for transport and mechanical power, each ate so much that people starved as the prices of foodstuffs were driven up as horses competed with families. Excrement lined the streets. How much? Wonder why homes built during that time have steps from the street up to the front door?

There were areas cleared, pits dug, and then filled and filled until they became mountains. Vermin were everywhere, rats and roaches and worse infecting, and biting and infesting. The city – all cities – smelled like being locked in a garbage truck with a herd of incontinent animals.

But just as everything seemed darkest, and it was certain that civilization had run into the brick wall of its own waistline, a miracle happened.

Actually that is another lie, and it shows an incredible lack of understanding. A guy comes along and invents the internal combustion engine. That’s right: The car ended an environmental catastrophe that threatened all of western civilization: The horse.

So, do you know: Nicolas Joseph Cugnot?
Remember in the 60′s when people were looking at massive earth overpopulation, that there was no way to fee d so many people? Has anyone read that India, Russia, and China needed food so badly, but America’s breadbasket could not sustain much more… Then there came ANFO, fertilizing the dwarf wheat that Norman Borlaug developed, allowing more efficient use of the soil. Populations continue to rise, and – if governments stop subsidizing and meddling in the markets, we can do it cheaply.

You know what makes me angry? You know what turns me into a towering inferno of rage? You know what makes me want to forge weapons made of my very own fangs and bile and hurl them into the faces of the pessimists that scream about Armageddon? This is history. It has happened. It is the pattern of human kind since the beginning.

Despite the fact that history says the hero we so desperately need is already here, already working, and we probably won’t remember his name or give him any credit once he does what he does, they have spent all this time trying to convince you that we stand on the edge of oblivion. And when you call them on it they sputter, and moan, and then they attack as viciously as any pack of scavengers.

Let me circle back around. I don’t believe that man created Global warming, but I don’t like pollution. The person working on the next generation of energy and transportation is almost done. I know this because history tells me so. Just like the stock market, where everyone is waiting for a crash like a bored spectator at a NASCAR rally: They trumpet the downs, but the trend is always upwards. Slow, steady, shaky from time to time, with downs to be sure, but human history always looks toward the point above the horizon.

I first said I wanted to give you hope. Then I admitted that this was a lie. Hope is internal. You must give you hope. You must nurture it. You must want it.

No matter how uncool hope is, it is history, it is the truth.

And everywhere I look, I am proved correct.

 

the one that is so short because truth weighs more than a black dwarf

At moments where I feel the old me come creeping back, the doubt, the hurt, the feeling that maybe I am not me and maybe everything is just a swirl of ego, luck and lies, when all the world fades into the darkness woven by boogeymen and all sentences run on forever, I feel it start deep inside. It is a voice, powerful as storms and strong as mountains. It burns like the sun and it flows like wind edged in razor toothed ice. It is me. It is my voice. It is mighty. It is loud. And it buoys me up.

It stares into the darkness without fear.

And it speaks two words.

And those words could crack the gates of hell.

 

the one where I argue for eating Ed

Selective outrage of the moralist.

We know them. We’ve heard them. They are everywhere. They tend to be very loud, and not very shy, and very-very sure of themselves. I just wish they had some perspective.

You see, perspective is the trait that allows you to understand that, say, once you look at the whole globe, everyone that makes over $29,000 a year is part of the 1%. It also keeps you from being seen as a high handed blowhard that praises federal workers when the president is part of your party, and demonize them after the next election. But it also gives you the precious second needed to back away from saying something that will reveal you to be a rampaging moralist.

Anyone that has paid attention probably knows I’m not the President’s biggest fan.

Still, on Thanksgiving Day, Obama signed a bill legalizing the slaughter of horses in order to export the meat for human consumption.  Immediate outrage culminated with numerous articles from hand-wringing people thoughtlessly moralizing about “who would save the poor horses!”

And I have to sigh. And kick them. Twice. With the heaviest boots I can manage.

Madeline Bernstein is one such luminary that should be nudged very gently in the butt.

Look, Bernstein doesn’t want to eat horse meat. I don’t want to eat horse meat. Most of you out there probably have no intent or desire to ever eat horse meat. Some people, however, will. Now, let’s trace things back and square them with what we know.

We know horses are extremely expensive animals. Then you have the cost of breaking, training, room and board… Well, you’re talking about thousands to buy in and thousands more to keep.

Why are they expensive? Because they take forever to train, provide much less meat than a horse or a cow, and make much better workers doing other jobs than feeders being taken to the slaughter.

So, either there is a huge cannibal like cabal looking for taboo meat to feast upon, or people need cheap meat. Now for the final point. If you are a cheaty-cheat-cheater, you did what Bernstein did not and you thought ahead to the end of this point: Nobody is going to slaughter expensive animals. Yes, even if they are Eeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeevil.

There has always been a hierarchy to animals. I can’t remember what it is called now, but it comes down to: Some we have as pets, others we eat, others we exterminate.

But horses are beautiful, or not, and that is immaterial to the discussion. The important thing is they are expensive and less efficient than cows for meat. Even an ‘evil corporatist’ would want to raise cows for meat instead of horses, thus getting more return for the investment. So, it isn’t good vs. evil. What is it, then?

Historically, poor families are those that eat horse meat. Why? Because horses are only converted to food animals when they are overpopulated or when the cost to keep exceeds the cost to sell. The meat is sold as a means of recuperating costs of raising and feeding animals that would otherwise starve. It is not in demand. Thus the cost is low.

I have had pet rabbits and guinea pigs. Both have been raised specifically for food. Anyone attempting to  eat any of my pets would meet all the raging dragon-ninja-knight bladesmanship a 12 year old hyper-nerd could bring to bear (But that’s another blog.) But we are not talking about pets. We are talking about animals that can no longer be kept or fed. Starving horses die, as I understand it. Now, if the horses are slaughtered, and some poor people can eat, I do not have a problem with that. Sorry. Some poor kid in Mexico getting a full belly is more important to me than anyone who has internalized one too many episodes of Black Beauty.

The moralist lacks perspective. For that reason she is perfectly comfortable arguing that we must find some way to keep horses from slaughter, but gives no thoughts to feeding the poor. And the poor of Mexico or China eating horse meat may disgust you. But until you start sending food donations to them, I think they’d rather eat than impress someone in another country that they don’t know, that makes far more cash.

And the sad thing is not that there are poor in the world, or that animals – even cute ones – have meat. It is when there are poor people that must eat horse meat, a highly trained lawyer writes about animal cruelty instead of how to help the poor become more successful so they can buy and keep the unwanted horses.

Well, I have a few extra days off, and I’m spending them leading panels at the Regional Gathering for Cincinnati Area Mensa. If you are interested, I believe that Friday night is free for prospective members. Come to the Doubletree hotel, and meet card-carrying geniuses… and me.

The one where I sound slightly mad(der)

Forgive me, this one could be will be disjointed and rambling.

It’s not wholly my fault. I am like a marathon runner that long ago smashed the runner’s wall, only to get knocked from his feet halfway through the race. I am battered and bloody, and something salty is dripping into my eyes and mouth. Every time I try to get up, something else trips over me and puts me back on the asphalt. This is my first, small attempt to get to my knees. Yes, my knees. Giggle if you want, but I am proud to kneel if it is on my way to standing again.

Not making much sense, am I? Told you that would happen.

Let me chain myself to reality for a few precious seconds and try again.

130-odd days ago I Know Not was released. As I announced, It sold an unprecedented (for me) 1,000 copies in 97 days.

A party was had, and my publisher (the precog) said: “And lo, you should-eth get-eth me-eth another fantasy novel soon! For as people purchase-eth and enjoy-eth, they shalt google-eth.”

Which, once I deleted the -eth’s, made perfect sense. I launched into a new novel: The Last Dragoon, with an idea of fast-tracking it into production. For a industry that normally works in years and centuries (at best) fast tracking means months.

I am still working a full schedule at the day job, but I kept myself to a fairly harsh word count requirement: 2,000 words a day. A little more than the average term paper, every day, rain or shine. That’s what I meant to do.

Well, in October, more news came in. IKN had tripled sales, selling 960 copies in 30 days. This would be a massive disappointment to Stephen King or Terry Pratchett, but to me it’s like hitting the lottery. I am hoping against hope the people who like the novel will tell friends and acquaintances about the book, and push more sales. I can’t do much to help that along (like blog consistently, for instance) because I am working full time at the day job and (say it with me) writing 2,000 words a night.

Odd things have come from it, though. I have posted my nightly word counts on Facebook as a kind of public service, extolling others to keep writing, and give hope to those faced with writer’s block. I have gotten a lot of positive feedback about it, and I’m hopeful that the words are worth the announcements. That brings up an interesting… thingie.

National Write a Novel Month is November, every year. The idea is ostensibly to write a novel, to prove it can be done. Really it’s about setting goals, sticking to them, and blowing past all the mental blocks that are, when you get down to it just mental.

That being said, in one month I had 50,000 words, not quite up to my goal, but I knew it was ambitious. Then, well, the US government stepped in.

At work, we go through a semi-unscheduled yearly audit from the US government. I can’t resent the need, just the timing. My weekends have been cancelled. I’ve worked probably 42-44 hours in the last four days. We’re just prepping for the audit that begins in earnest tomorrow. It should only last 7-14 days, and then I can get back to writing. In the meantime most of my hours and nearly all my neurons are spent prepping for a semi-surprise audit that can shut the store down if we fail.

Granted, we prep all year to stay ahead of the power curve, but it’s still a time for controlled panic.

That is the update for, despite all my needs and wants that burn inside me like the rumbling heart of thundercloud, I owe it to my coworkers to do my best to put the best face forward for the store. Then I can get back to my dream.

I just find it slightly maddening that during NaNoWriMo I will wind up putting fewer words on paper than last month, as pressure to put material out continues to skyrocket. Plus there is the stress, which has both made me incredibly creative and inversely (perversely?) dry up of words like a severed tongue in the desert.

So excuse me if I’m going slightly mad. It is my natural state.

 

Oh, and I did have some fun just before my life exploded. I was able to stage a book cover for The Last Ride of the Iron Cowboy, an upcoming steampunk novella.

They came out great, thanks to Joe Cowles.

Trouble brewing in Nowhere, Indiana.

The one where I do the blog equivalent of a drive by

Must do this fast, because things are happening fast, and I have to be off again before… well before.

You see, today my publisher got his email from Amazon and it recommended I Know Not. That is, needless to say, advertising you cannot buy. As of this moment Here are the rankings:

Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,596 Paid in Kindle Store

#17 in Books > Science Fiction & Fantasy > Fantasy > Magic & Wizards
#32 in Kindle Store > Kindle eBooks > Fiction > Fantasy > Epic
#45 in Books > Science Fiction & Fantasy > Fantasy > Epic

I’ve crested 1,000 copies, and sales are going strong. That being said, people are sifting through and buying copies of other books I have released. That is BIG. Now my only problem is… well… I don’t have enough books out. So I finished the shorts I had committed to, and have started on my next novel. I’ve given myself 60 days to get 120K words. Yep, kinda short time frame, but I have to build a base and I have to do it fast. If these people buy the book and like it, they will need to have more before they forget who I am. I want to write for a living. That means lots and lots of writing. I must produce.

And that seems what they will carve on my tombstone.

It helps, though, because I keep getting a little notes from people. They see my tweets, my FB updates, and they say: I write more because of your updates.

And for those of you that think this is a small thing, I just have to say that it is not. The hardest thing for a writer to do is actually sit down and write. Seems odd, but it is so personal, so exposing, so intimate a thing, putting your thoughts and beliefs on paper – no matter how veiled – has given birth to a whole set of jokes about avoiding doing what you love most that only writers understand.

But I can’t give into that. I have to keep running, and as always, accelerating.

the one in which I make an announcement

No, I am not pregnant, in fact I have lost 10 pounds. But that isn’t the announcement. Just nipping a few things in the bud.

There are professional moments, of which, I am especially proud. When I was published. When I was accepted into anthologies with much more experienced, and in some cases Hugo Award nominated and winning authors. When my daughters read my story told from the perspective of a teenage girl and didn’t cry foul at any of her thoughts or feelings. When I told a story that was hard for me to write, hard for people to read, and yet they read, and finished it because it was so GOOD they hungered for the last period. Here I am. Another milestone. The power of it has me shaking.

There is an interesting psychological thingie (and that is the technical term) I like to call: The Million Dollar effect. Look at someone and ask: What happens if you get 1 Million dollars?

Most of them no longer want to work, or go on vacations, or buy houses, yachts, planes, and so on. Well, then they start looking at a million dollars. Though it is more money than many of us will make in a year – a decade – lifetime even – once you have a million dollars, even theoretical ones, you realize there is little you can do with it. Yes you can live in the same apartment you live in now, eat the same stuff as now, and drive the same cars, plans very quickly eat up the excess cash. That doesn’t even touch charitable giving, funds for later generations, and so on. It turns out one million is just another number.

So, a few months ago my publisher and I were walking down the halls at a convention. He asked:

“So, Dan, what are your goals?”

I curled my fingers into a shaking rock, “Rule the known universe with an iron fist!”

He sighed, “In publishing.”

The reply was instant, “New York Times Bestseller.”

He nodded, “Agreed, good, but more… short term.”

I actually had to think about it. I mean, I’m the kind of guy that sees the top of the mountain and that’s my goal. To this day I don’t know if he was worried about me burning out, feeling that I needed encouragement, or if he’s precognicient, or just a sneaky bastard (you’ll see). So I said: “I would like to sell 1,000 copies of one of my novels in a single year.”

This may seem small, but I did not speak blindly. Can’t remember where I saw it, but googling this phrase gets three billion hits:

                Of 1.2 million books published in 2004, only 10 sold more than a million copies; fewer than 500 sold more than 100,000, and only 25,000 sold more than 5,000 copies. Another 200,000 sold fewer than 1,000 copies, and the remaining 950,000 sold fewer than 99 copies.

Now, this is lifetime sales, but after the first year things slow down a lot. I had sold dozens, then hundreds of my titles in a year, but I had never broken 1,000. It was the next step to go from one out of a million authors, to one out of thousands. I was satisfied with this. Well, I think he knew something I did not. I am pretty sure of it in fact. See, he gets reports from places and sees how fast/slow something is moving, and can predict trends and see where the ball is going to bounce. As an author I get a check once every six months and a report, but it’s all six months late and full of hindsight.

So the publisher calls me a few weeks ago and says: “I Know Not is outselling your other books.”

After a Tex Avery style reaction involving soda in my sinuses and on my laptop screen, I asked, “Which one?”

“All of them.”

And then, and then I did not ask the question that is obvious now. I got my royalty check and did a dance, expecting even greater things next time around. What I did not ask, however, was: All the books EACH or ALL TOGETHER. That question was answered in an email two weeks later:

                Dan,

Get out the celebratory drinks and prepare a new goal. I Know Not is set to sell the 1,000th Kindle copy on Wednesday, September 21st

–Your Publisher (and don’t call me a sneaky bastard, you jerk! My wife reads your blog!)

Which now that I read that again, maybe lends credence to the precognicient thing.

In any case, I danced around again, then I realized that things were even better: these are only Kindle sales. Print sales have not been figured in, and while most scifi/fantasy titles are heavily weighted toward kindle/ebook formats, it means that I am already there, already past there with more to come. I’ve gotten to the next base camp. And I’m sticking with the mountain climbing thing because I feel like I need oxygen tanks. I’ve done it. Again. And while it is a trifling thing to sell 1,000 copies for many of my friends, it is new to me. Then I remember the book has only been out for 13 weeks, the busy season has yet to happen and… uh… I need to sit down for a minute!

I am one step closer to being able to do this for a living. I am a little bit nearer to my real goal.

Next is 5,000. Two novels published in a single year. I would also like (God, are you listening?) to have some geek icon seen reading my work.

And I want to thank all the authors, editors, and publishers, that have gotten me this far. And thank you to my wife who refuses to be surprised at my success, because she believes in me so thoroughly.

Because reaching a goal is no reason to stop. It is a reason to run faster.