Where ever you go, there you are.

This blog is my space to write about my writing journey. So I try not to talk about the mundane life stuff like work or personal matters, since everyone already gets to have their own, I don’t need to give them more. But work-life does interfere with my writing, so that part of the crossover is what I am talking about. Hopefully, this will be one of the last times I type the word Covid. but yeah, that’s part of it. The Aerospace industry had also been impacted by Covid. The one-two punch for those of us that are Boeing Subcontractors, The 737 Max production getting shut down for almost 3 years has almost killed our shop and I have watched many (of our competitors muwahahahah) completely go out of business. Our workload has decreases and we had to let a lot of good people go. Most of my crew too.

That means that I have been busy doing the work of 3 other people that I used to lean on. Don’t get the idea that I am complaining, that is not my point. The point is that fatigue and time to actually write my stories and keep up with the blog have been influenced by world events. I am pretty sure I have made similar posts with promises that I will be more consistent in posting on the blog. I apologize that that hasn’t been the case.

That was then, this is now. Covid is seemingly under control, the FAA has allowed production again and our shop is getting much busier, and hiring! (If you work in Aerospace and need a job, I know a guy 😉 ) That being said I am building my crew back and that should give me some of my valuable time back to give to you. If you have stuck with me so far, I sincerely appreciate it. If you are new to my blog, expect more fun to happen. As always feel free to comment on this post or shoot me an email at hello@hand-printsofdarkness.com or simply give it a like! Thanks for reading.

Audible Update: Chapters 8 and 9!

I just recorded Chapters 8 and 9. they were short, so I decided to combine them into one episode. I fixed the technical difficulties that prevented last week’s recording and fiddled with some settings that have improved my overall sound quality. As far as the story goes, things really start picking up speed, and gets pretty crazy from here on out. If you haven’t started listening, you’re missing out. Of course you can read it for yourself (Link embedded on the cover art). Feel free to comment or just say hi! Id love to hear what you think so far!

Audible update

Chapter 7 is recorded. As a bonus I recorded a sneak peek episode of Emergence Ascended.

Check it out on Spotify!

Character snapshot, Visual edition: Frank

I’ve been playing with Artificial “Art” generators. Honestly, I am on the fence about how I feel about artificial content creation. While I am diametrically opposed to using AI to generate content on my blog or ANYTHING that I would put my name on as my own. But I do see value in using it as a tool to spark my own imagination. I feel AI art or other content can be used in the same way as writing prompts or thumbnail sketches to fine-tune an idea.

AI is a new and fun (sometimes frightening) technology that I am willing to explore. I wanted to know what it could do, so I decided to see how close it could get to my own internal visualization of my characters. I am also curious if you had a similar image in mind of my characters as you read my story.

The first thing I learned is AI art is NOT human art. (a relief, as a human, I don’t want to be deposed as an artist). There are things that it (in my experience) just can’t get right. Faces are number one. They are always a little “off,” a tad skewed, and more disproportionate than reality has to offer. And some of my descriptions go completely ignored no matter how I word them. (Again, proving that only a fool would rely on AI to make content that you would claim to be yours)

The image I described for Frank came out pretty close (but since Frank’s appearance and a few character traits are based on someone I actually know, it’s not perfect, of course, but it’s close enough).

An expert from “Emergence Collective.”

Still lost in his thoughts and even a little excited, he must have been
driving faster than he realized since he got to the hardware store in
quick time. It was good, though; the evening was going by fast, and the
store was about to close up for the night. He got out of his Volkswagen van
and pushed open the old door of the storefront. He only got a few steps
into the store when the cashier gave him an odd look. The young kid had spiky
black hair and a ring in his nose.

“Mister… you can’t come in here like that, sorry.” The young kid sounded
apologetic and amused at the same time.

“Like what?” Frank was oblivious to any reason why he should not be
there.

“Your feet, bro. You have to have shoes to come in; it’s a safety thing.
Might step on a nail and sue us or something.” A smile indicating laughter
was soon to follow was on the boy’s face by now.

Frank looked down at his feet and realized that he wasn’t wearing shoes. The
thick calluses on his perpetually dirty feet did not feel shoes in the
summer most of the time. He was an old hippy and stuck in a time warp.
Shoes were for winter when it was too cold to go without. He chuckled at
himself and smiled back at the cashier.

“Sorry,” Frank said with a bit of a giggle. He was not embarrassed by his
attire. Look at that kid; why should I be embarrassed by the way I dress?
he thought to himself, almost laughing out loud. Nonchalantly turning
around, he gave the cashier a nod goodbye and headed for the exit. He
only felt a little disgruntled by the situation since it was a wasted
trip. He did not have anything much to do anyway, but wasted gasoline was
wasted money.

Fundamental Habits

My first Computer was a Commador Vic20; yes, I am that old. When I first started using computers, I was taught a valuable skill. Save early, Save often. Repeat, forever. Keep in mind that I was never taught the reverse, which is to delete outdated versions and keep your files system clean and tidy. I still struggle with that, and it brings its own set of problems. My computer glitched over the weekend after I poured my heart into a particularly important chapter of my WIP, “Emergence Ascended.” Of course, I had finished the chapter to my satisfaction. I use autosave on my one drive, and up until now, it had been my go-to for “save early, save often,” and I relied on it. When I wanted to give my chapter a quick review, I opened the WIP, and everything I had written was gone. I double-checked save settings, file locations, time stamps, etc. but to no avail. I was left in shock; it was a great chapter and a pivotal part in the story.

Whatever the glitch was, it saved over an old file (chapter 4, of all things). I was lucky enough to randomly open that file (not the first I tried) and noticed a line I had recently written. I carefully copied and pasted it into the correct location. SAVED again, made a copy of the entire WIP, and saved it to an archive folder just in case.

My diligence in saving early save often but using automation that is not always reliable taught me another lesson to periodically clean out the old and make copies. Learn from me.

Monday quick post

It’s Monday again, and back to the work routine. Just a quick post today. Sadly no writing or recording progress for two reasons. The first is that I have had a cold (not Covid!) over the weekend, which kind of puts a damper on creative thinking; recording audio with a cold is a waste of time unless you want to hear me sneeze and sniffle. Second, it was my son’s 16th birthday, so we had a busy weekend for that.

I will leave you with a fun poem I wrote, Enjoy!

Painted into a corner

I had a productive weekend creatively. Chapter 4 of Emergence collective is recorded, and I got Chapter 24 of Emergence Ascended sort of almost finished, maybe. Yeah, I am a little undecided since it seems that I painted myself into a narrative corner plot-wise. I am stuck with a decision that will steer the story on two different paths. The two storylines converge in this chapter.

One of the issues and how I managed to do it is I am a seat-of-the-pants kind of writer where I do not outline the entire story. I have a plan about how I want it to end, and I wander with the story as I navigate my way to the ending. By wander, I mean that as I am writing a scene, even I do not know what is going to happen next. Sometimes I have epiphanies and inspirations that feel right but create other issues that I have to reconcile with the overall storyline. Like I did Saturday, On the one hand, I am very happy with my latest bout of inspiration (It makes sense for those characters), but it has created a timing issue with the plot and a sticky situation that I have to think about and finesse my way out of.

Yes, I know I am being vague about it, but I am hoping that you might be curious enough to grab yourself a copy once it is finished. Anyway, I will ponder this for a bit, and maybe I will come up with an elegant solution. On the optimistic side of the coin, I do enjoy a challenge; without them, we only stagnate and do not grow.

Thanks for reading!

Audible update: Chapter 4 in the can!

I recorded Chapter 4 of Emergence collective. Every episode I record sounds a little better, I think. The Audio quality has improved, and my edits are less clunky. At least, that’s how I feel about it. My reading skills are also getting better too. I still have a long way to go before I feel that it meets my personal standards and that of Audible.

Chapter 4 is where the story really starts to gain momentum. You can check it out by clicking the link below! If you enjoy it, be sure to subscribe to my Spotify channel to get updates on episode releases! Thanks for reading!

Emergence collective, Chapter 4

Keeping the momentum going

In my last post, I talked about how excited I am to finish “Emergence Ascended” and the next few books I want to complete this year. Here is my list of story ideas I am excited about, but I am curious about what you might want to read in the future. Here is my list:  (Some of these are working titles…)

1. “Field notes”  A park ranger gets abducted by a troop of sasquatch in the pacific northwest.
2. “The Ghost in yellow”  A paranormal investigation team becomes stranded at a supposedly haunted Lighthouse.
3. “Will-o-the wisp” A man travels back to his home village in Ireland to investigate the strange disappearances of the townsfolk.
4. “Phantom black”  A Lovecraft-inspired science fiction. (A quick short version of the story I want to expand on)

There is the list. I would love to hear what floats your boats!  Leave me a comment below about what would be exciting for you to read! Thanks for visiting!

Lofty goals

2023 is off to a good start, and I am excited to continue the momentum. I am roughly one-third to halfway finished with my WIP, “Emergence Ascended,” the sequel to “Emergence collective.” Now that the major holidays are in the past, life is settling down, and I will have more opportunities to get some solid writing done (more specifically, no more excuses to be lazy.).

I do not formally make new year’s resolutions, though I am not obstinate about them; I am more casual about it. I fully realize goal setting and the rewards of completing them; self-efficacy is the reason why we set new year’s resolutions in the first place. I make goals, sure, but less strict than a self-promise to accomplish a specific one. I have a mental roadmap of what I want to do but no set date to accomplish them. my aspirations are fluid and flexible.

After I finish my current WIP, I have at least two more books that are begging to be put to pen. I am very excited about them and I cant wait to start, now I have to decide which one to do first. There are more ideas, too, rumbling around in the back of my mind, stories I have been thinking about for years. So I plan, for 2023, to keep the momentum going. This blog, so far, has helped keep my ADD-muddled mind in check and it has propelled my ambitions, so Thank you to all who enjoy reading it; you’re my wingman (wing person?)

Thanks for visiting, and of course, please feel free to leave a comment. I love reading them!