Hi everyone!

Did January seem as long for you as it did for me? Part of it was that we spent a lot of the month socked in with freezing fog, plus there was that week of subzero temperatures that got down to -18F. Fortunately, even though our old furnace and boiler system was being cranky (yes, it's been fixed--a loose wire in the furnace thermostat), we had the wood stove backup. And unlike parts of Oregon to the west of us, we didn't get the horrific ice storm coupled with wind.

We just had cold. And snow.

Now, of course, it's warmed up, is raining, and the snow has melted. Not a good thing for next summer, but...still a couple of months left for us to acquire the necessary lowland (as in down to 3500 feet) snow. Otherwise, hay's gonna be expensive for next winter, and the risk of wildfire is going to be a lot greater than before.

Oh. Ducks. Well, one thing that happened during the height of the cold was that a MASSIVE flock of mallards settled into the wheat stubblefield across the road from the ranch where I board the horses. Just like the picture above, only several hundred more.

I'm not kidding.

They clustered in groups like the one pictured above. Now I have to figure out how to work this image into a story....

Stories.

I am scaling back my plans for 2024 by quite a bit. Goddess's Vision will be released in 2025, and my focus for 2024 will be to get The Cost of Power trilogy out. One reason for this is that I'm just plain burning out on the pace of writing I've been doing over the past four years. Another is that I want to make this last Martiniere series the best of the lot. Which means a lot of thoughtful analysis. Plus I haven't had as much time available to read as I would like, so...reading time this year! And yes, I will talk about things I'm reading.

To go along with this, I also want the Goddess's Vision series to have the same degree of mindfulness. I'm also in the process of writing a number of blog drafts that will be posted on my website, on my Dreamwidth, and sent out to subscribers via SendFox.

The other thing is that I am regrouping and considering new promotion and sales alternatives. With the rise of A.I., Amazon has been flooded with A.I. generated books. One of my concerns about Substack (besides the obvious political drama) is that it is losing money and I just get those old LiveJournal vibes from everything I am seeing there. While I get support for my blogging/essay writing there, it really didn't carry over into my fiction. So...I'm looking at promotion possibilities and will be trying new things (another reason to slow down the writing is so that I have time to--ugh--promote my work. I am not the best at marketing, SIGH).

Sales-wise, I am going to be investigating and developing direct sales alternatives as well as subscription/patron support through Ko-fi. At this time I have a small ebook store on Ko-fi and will be loading more books into it. Buy the book, and the link takes you to the excellent service at BookFunnel that will help you load your purchase into your ereader of choice, using your format of choice. I will also be enabling direct sales of paperbacks through Ingram Spark sometime in this forthcoming month.

Check out my Ko-fi here!

My Ko-fi shop will match the sales prices on any distributor. At the moment, I have The Heritage of Michael Martiniere and A Different Life: Now. Always. Forever. on sale for $2.99. Federation Cowboy will go on sale in March.

As for actual writing, I'm closing in on the finale of Crucible, aka The Cost of Power Book Two. One thing I am really loving about this trilogy is that it allows me to dive deeper into Gabe and Ruby's past, as well as the complex relationships within the Martiniere Family. And, well, this is one set of books where Gabe's temper ends up causing him many problems.

Ah, well, this is getting long. In the next couple of months I will start offering short pieces tied to The Cost of Power as newsletter subscriber exclusives. One of those will be an interview with Gabe, Ruby, Philip Martiniere, and Justine. It's...something. I have some other bits and pieces that don't really fit into the books that I'll be offering as well, including a short unfinished screenplay scene opener.

In any case, stay safe, be careful, and have fun! I'm off to read a book now.