Posting here has been way down, and I’m having trouble feeling bad about it. Work on the novel is going well and I need my spare time to play Animal Crossing. [Kid Cat is my new friend!]

I know! I know! Self-promotion is important. But so is paying off this Tom Nook character.

The Torment of Saint Anthony – Rumored to be Michelangelo’s first painting.

50 Pages, here I come.

On Amazon, on Goodreads, on Facebook, scrawled on butcher paper and taped to the side of your car.

Those of you who have already finished reading — please take a second and post a review online. Even if you had problems, especially if you have legitimate criticism. I’m starting from zero promoting the book, and my best ally is word of mouth. This is the quickest and easiest way you can help me – especially with an Amazon or Goodreads review. It helps boost the visibility of the book, and helps new readers make an informed decision.

Negative reviews are no problem — what you hated about the book may be the thing that convinces a new reader to give me a shot.  The initial word of mouth from the book’s release has officially subsided, and now I need to dig in for the long haul. INCREMENTAL GROWTH, BABY. So, if you’ve read the book — please, please take a moment and click some stars and type a sentence or two online. You do that crap on the regular anyway, right?

And, now on to some more unprofessional behavior, tinged by desperation.

I have copies of Spell/Sword to mail out. I will send it to your house. TO YOUR HOUSE. [US only, please.] I can also hook you up with the Kindle version if that’s your preference. If you read this far and you want to give it a shot, just drop me a line in the comments and I’ll get one shipped out. Do I want a review in return? Absolutely — but you can make it as mean-spirited as you desire.

I know the hustle’s hard, but we gotta enterprise, the carnival

-Wyclef Jean

I just like it, okay?

As is obvious from yesterday’s post, I’m dealing with a lot of grief. My mom passed last week and that post is all I really want to say about it for a while.

Segue from Maudlin to Shameless Self-Promotion — ACTIVAAAAATE.

Stanley Spudowski always elevates the mood.

Fellow fantasy writer C.B. McCullough wrote a lovely review of the book, and it makes me feel like punching the air while riding on the hoverboard from Back to the Future II. I’m going to return the favor and review his work The Path Less Traveled.

Progress on The Riddle Box continues — I met my goal of 30 pages last week, and dagnabbit I’m going to buckle down today and at least write five more.

Your brain clatters on, and your heart keeps pumping. It’s just green, after all. You’ve seen green plenty of times, it’s common and commonplace. A shade that your eyes find unremarkable as a whale finds the sea.

And what’s more, your brain can process the loss. You know what things are

The Final Illustration for Siren – Owen Gent Illustration

green, it’s as simple as math, as simple as subtraction. When you see the blank your mind ticks and says “Oh, that’s a thing that Once Was Green. Just move forward as if it were Green.”

The trees are blank, but I know they Once Were Green. The grass is blank, but I know it Once Was Green. Traffic lights present no problem – I see the yellow, the red and then the blank light. I press the gas as if it were Green. My favorite mug is blank but it still holds water.

I begin to avoid avocado and it’s blank flesh. Kermit is blank and his song just sounds like static. Blank lettuce, blank pickles, blank tractors on the roadway. Blank markers in my bag writing in blank ink.

Blank push-pins and my toothbrush is blank. Blank shirts in my closet, all of my money is blank. Pidge pilots the Blank Lion but still helps form Voltron. Obi-wan’s light saber is blank.  My eyes are hazel, a mixture of green and brown. In the right light my eyes are blank in the mirror.

Each blank is a scar. I move forward through the world, startled again and again by how much has been erased.

The blanks burn. They burn like a net of empty.

One day, will I forget about What Once Was Green? Will my mind triumph through silent substitution, the blanks covered by quick illusion?

One day I will see green trees again. I will see green grass again.

But I will know that they are blank.

It will also justify my shiny new toy: a Samsung Chromebook.

I’ve been with Rime and Jonas for a while now, through Spell/Sword and in

Phil Noto

their far, dark future of Lodestar. As every writer must, I know a lot about them. More than I’ll ever subject the reader to, more that would remotely be germane to the narrative. But still I can be surprised, and find out something brand new about my protagonists in the process of writing.

I’ve been working on Riddle Box, the second book, and it’s a murder mystery. It’s completely different from Spell/Sword structurally, and purposefully puts the kids in a radically different situation than the first book.

Today, I discovered that Rime is a huge nerd for mystery stories.

I mean, me too — but Rime is a pretty sour sort, and can be a moody jerk. It is positively delightful to watch her get jazzed up about solving the mystery of The Riddle Box.

What’s next? Am I going to find out Jonas is an opera geek?

I wrote this poem years ago, trying to explain and capture a certain feeling. An intense anxiety coupled with a desire to interact, to read, to flip between channels, web pages, build a model, read a book, watch a movie – flipping between different apps on my phone over and over. Just punching wires into sockets trying to suck up enough juice to lay quiet, to lay still.

It’s clearly rooted in anxiety, mis-directed psychic energy. It can be turned to

Artist Unknown

nothing productive, nothing useful, nothing creative.  Just more and more black wires leading to empty pages , burning through the html of the universe.

I’ve been feeling it a lot lately.

I wouldn’t call it a hell, but it’s definitely one of the tunnels that lead there.

Please buy my book so I can stay up late playing Mass Effect and quit my day job.