No, I Don't Have A Cyberpunk Problem...

      Hi guys,

      Happy 2021, what a year already! (And that’s if you discount last Wednesday)

      And um, yeah, that was, well I gotta say, a long time coming. He has form, it was all there in the Birther days, and those people had been courted by the mainstream. What happens next is, um, yeah, let’s just say I don’t think it’s over, and the calls to “heal and move on” are coming from those who need to examine themselves and clean up their act.

      But enough about Politics Gone Wild, I’ve been doing, well, not much writing. Or any. The Friday 15^th I’m writing this on is the first time I’ve turned my laptop on all year. (Egads!) I know, I know, bad author not authoring, but I tell you solemnly I don’t have a Cyberpunk 2077 problem… or a problem making horrible fashion choices in Cyberpunk 2077… or a problem loving having a certain famous person as a character stuck in my head.

      Okay, I do. Fine, I’ve been (mostly) loving the game, now that the story has developed I can really appreciate the Sci-Fi, though having that story shovelled down my throat every time I finish a quest – even down my throat TWICE in the middle of a drive around town side quest – is grating on my nerves. And the fact it’s a bit of a Bethesda game with all its bugs, the least it could let me do is un-tag the main quest like Oblivion, Skyrim, Fallout.

      Too much to ask? Evidently so is getting a game devs to PLAY TEST THEIR GAMES! Ugh, the gamer life. At least it’s only crashed on me six times, and I’ve been good, quick-saving like crazy. But… It is time I stepped back from it, feeling so personal in first person view, filling my head in the middle of recovery meetings, when I’m trying to get to sleep, etc. And the writing is suffering.

      To think, I last touched The Ways Out sometime before December. And it had been a hard slog, only a page or two at a time trying to get a chapter done. Maybe the very few sales I made are slowing me down. Maybe it was the meds not lifting my mood (changed them, and after a shitty few weeks, this week has seen a boost). Probably both.

      Monday is the day to start cracking, and brave the Golden Crowned Lurgy still gadding about the country (low here, my thoughts to other nations copping it worse than us). I think it put me off getting cracking, ¡Hola Cyberpunk! (Jackie rules, btw, awesome character!). I’ll just see how I go, not heap expectations on my shoulders.

      As for The Ways In, someone else read it (or some someones a few pages here and there), but yep, nothing sold, will have to splurge on ads and hopefully a virtual book tour. And to join that random no comment 5-star review on Amazon, I have another 5-star on Goodreads, replete with comment, and, all trepidation aside, here’s the review on Goodreads.

      But that said, it’s from the GF. Yes, I linked to that. Go on, call it biased, decry it if you will. The GF just happens to be an avid reader who lives and breathes books. But as an intro to me, the book having that autobiographical main character and all, it was perfect to share (and that was before she got the copy on Kindle). And as it turns out, the story proved interesting and entertaining.

      Yep, I can smell the flack in the air. “Don’t trust a family/friend review!” “You can’t use that as a review!” “5-star reviews on self-pubbed books are BS!” “Blah, Snyder cut Batfleck, ruagh!” Whatever floats your boat. But… To hell with that, judge if you wish, that’s up to you. Tick it unhelpful, be my guest.

      But in my view an avid reader is an avid reader, and if a 1-star, DNF review from a stranger holds more value than a 5-star finished review from the reader GF, then fie on the world and its negativity.

      Okay, I’m done. I’ll get off the soap box. But yes, it’s good to blog again, as it was to get back to recovery after Xmas, as it was to reclaim some time to myself I whored out to a video game (helped with the getting to sleep last two nights). And hope to be back in three weeks. Or whenevs. See what happens.

So I Missed Another Blog Date

       Welp, I’m late again. I do that. It’s one of my things… Okay, was with the GF and let this lapse. #GoodLife

      And the results are in, and The Ways In moved a total of (drumroll)… 99 copies.

      Wait, what? Not even a hundred? When I hoped for at least 300? Insert King George III from Hamilton gif here (you know which one). And what has this netted me review wise? One 5-star rating. Better than nothing, but, well, cue disappointed author face, and insert that gif again.

      Oh, yes, evidence:

      And, um, well… yeah. High hopes dashed. The perks of being independent and self-published with minimal advertising spend. Also, nails bit on dwindling hope of something I can use to boost sales of book next time I give it away. The perks of potential reader going, “Five stars? For what?” Also, worthless feelings. The perks of anxiety, the low side of my bipolar.

      How much of my book has been read? I don’t know. The reports only show 690 pages read on Kindle Unlimited and whatever KOLL is. That could be a total of two readers out of 99 for all I know. The perks of free books going straight into the To Be Read pile. When? Maybe until those people learn that Dante’s hell is frozen over. #Shrug.

      I really don’t know how I feel about it. Empty? Definitely hollow. There’s a lot of me in that thing, and readership means the world to me. Hateful? I hope not. Okay, I’m dismayed by the poor showing, and I’m certainly taking the shine off the 5-star rating and whoever was kind enough to give it to me. Sour grapes? Yeah, I’ll take it.

      Oh well, here’s to another three months in the wilderness, and I’ll go free again, this time with a virtual book tour so I have more exposure, and see if that cast net, well, nets any fish. Yep, this isn’t the end. Hope lives on, and maybe I’ll have nails with a handful of reviews to put at the front to get more readers the third time I go free.

      That coaxes me out of the doldrums. And that’s really all I have to say today. All the best, and have a good one!

      T. M.

The Bolted Ram and Shovel

THREE WAYS - THE WAYS IN

Available in Paperback or on Kindle, get your copy today!

Australia/NZ/US     Ireland/United Kingdom      Canada

      Hi guys,

      Welcome to The Bolted Ram and Shovel!

      No, I haven’t opened a craft beer bar (aww) but if you’ll go for a copy of Three Ways – The Ways In, you’ll get to go there, a place with a main bar, upstairs restaurant, downstairs club with a 90’s dance night twice a month, and some craft beers (including some by the proprietor).

      Okay, so Cole and Jane will go there (yay them). Halm Dresden, too (well, the one in Caral-Hilde when I put The Fear, The Sundering, The Journey out there). You might be thinking, “Why am I being invited?” Well, author here, I do need readers. As for how to get them…

      Well I could just hope people find their way to my Sample My Work [link] page and click on the links there. Or I could just put TWI on KDP Select, make it free for five days, and advertise it using a cover pic and the ultimate get a free copy on a Facebook ad and see how far up the Kindle charts I can get.

      That’s it, that’s the big announcement, The Ways In will be FREE this coming weekend!! And I’ll be keeping tabs on copies sold, and the Amazon rankings to see how far up I can go, and gloat over the results next post… Fine, I’ll be humble, but I’ll still be cheering if I can break the 500 copies moved, and stoked if I can get some reviews (even crap ones).

      “But, hey, isn’t it your birthday this week?” Um, well, yes, it is. And yes, you can say I’m giving the presents. And presence. Ahh, the joys of advertising to generate interest.

      And, well, there you have it. And if you happen to have a million friends… a boy can dream of going to number one, yeah? Really, I’ll be happy with 301 copies moved, because then I can officially put this picture up:

      Nothing further to add, I’m really excited over doing this while I’m still on the low budget days, the future may bring the complete edition with better cover art. We’ll see.

      Bye for now, and have a good one!

      T. M.

Arise from the Drops

       Hi guys,

      Yep, missed blog week again.

      I don’t mind, really. It’s probably for the best, as nihilistic as my intended post was going to get. Not Macbeth level – though the murdery crazy guy has a point – but, well, something best left unsaid for now. Trent 1, the doldrums meh.

      Honestly, I don’t know what to peck into shiny laptop of a word processor now. I’d hit a bottom recently, c’est la recoverie vie (gasp, French!) and was due the restart, the constancy of it debilitating in its way. I went and got both of them, and here I am a week later, filling my blog with letters grouped in the shape of English words, and all in all balanced.

      Ahh, a shudder-buzz. Found the right thing. The joys of understanding your own psychosomatics (gasp, big word!). Not so much the feeling of loneliness despite being in church right next to the GF, or the triggered thoughts at, well, I’ll call them inopportune times. But there it is, I’m balanced, and that is a good thing.

      But now I have a big question for myself, and wondering if I have the energy to go through with it. The Ways In is going nowhere, and there’s been no movement cover-wise, but such is my decided lot with that. And writing The Ways Out? Well, um, yeah, I, uh, I’m doodling up the map of a medieval fantasy kingdom. #WriterLife. And yes, it’s making me happy.

      Another shudder-buzz. Yay me.

      Also, it’s mildly possible I’ll have an announcement soon. See how I go.

      In other news, weather continues poorly, quite Melburnian this last week in ye olde Sydney towne. Also Melbourne has been let out to play now the virus is in check, yay! (And I think I have it tough). And I really have nothing further to add.

      I’ll leave it there, short and sweet. Hope you have a good one!

      T. M.

So, I Missed a Blogging Date...

 

      Hi guys,

……Yes, it’s another case of the welps, because yes, I didn’t blog three weeks ago. Maybe it’s because I had nothing to say. Maybe it’s for the best. Maybe I made chocolate evaporate somewhere in the world. Anyway, now to the current, what’s a guy to blog?

      No, seriously, send me a topic. 2020 and how it’s like Thanos riding Cthulhu? The great Xbox X shortage and how Microsoft should have played Age of Covid? (Yes, I’d like to buy an Xbox. Yes, I’ve put a deposit on Cyberpunk 2077 because it comes out on my birthday. Yes, I can wait until then, but still, WTH?!) How hoping a certain someone who recently got Covid dies makes you a terrible person?

      Maybe that lack of nicety is a good point. I don’t know if I want to go into it, “Who are you to push your morals on me.” It’s certainly saying something of divisive characters raising the hackles and ire of whole tracts of society, just as it’s saying something about you to celebrate illness – in my view, you may as well be mocking people with cancer. And given said individual mocked someone disabled, it makes you no better than them.

      But there’s more to lack of nicety in the external. What about the internal? Self-loathing is a thing; I know it because I’ve been there, got the T-shirt, still wearing it. These last two weeks I’ve had the S. H. I. T’s, especially on the roads, and as much as I said my piece on external un-nicety times three Friday, it came back to me on my recovery journey and a trip to the meeting room rather than on Zoom.

      Yes, those S. H. I. T’s are mine, related to my internal pain rather than traffic or dabblers in schardenfreude; well, highlighted, too. Not getting my way, getting slowed down, held up. Seeing spitefulness, lording it over on people disliked. Yes, there is an external cause of these things, but the hate is really against me. The only options are to let it lord over me, or do something about it. But what?

      I found the answer to that this morning, thanks to that breeding dog known as hindsight, courtesy of recovery. Maybe it can work for everyone in the self-loathing boat, but many of those boats are far out to sea, the external and/or internal pain causing it makes abstinence difficult, or nigh impossible. The short of it is marking it as something not to do; the long of it is it takes a lot of work with stumbles along the way, and needs help.

      I don’t know if I’m waffling on here or making a point. Maybe there isn’t a point, it’s for the best, and I’m sorry about the chocolate. But please have a think about the self-loather, and what’s going on for them to feel that way.

      Hope you have a good one,

      T. M.