Musings & Thoughts for Sunday, April 21, 2024, or: Weekend Update, Part the First – All is Unquiet on the Novel-Writing Front…and I Got Some Royalties Coming!

Late Morning, Sunday, April 21, 2024, Madison, New Hampshire

Hi all.

It’s a beautiful – if perhaps chilly – spring morning here in Madison’s Eidelweiss District. The current temperature (as I write this, anyway) is 48°F (9°C) under sunny conditions. With the wind blowing from the west at 6 MPH (9 Km/H) and humidity at 46%, it feels like it’s 59°F (15°C). The forecast for today calls for mostly sunny skies and a high of 55°F (15°C). Tonight, the skies will be clear. The low will be 34°F (1°C).

Weekend Update, Part the First – My Saturday

Because I’d only managed to write part of the first scene of Reunion: Coda’s Chapter 15 on Friday, I grappled yesterday with the “Do I work today, or do I take it easy since it’s Saturday?” dilemma. I was relatively well-rested when I woke up on Saturday morning, and I am trying to meet a self-set Midsummer 2024 publication date for my novel, so I spent several hours trying to talk myself into at least finishing the scene before allowing myself to, you know, go into R&R mode for the rest of the day.

Unfortunately, the more I thought about the scene – which in my biased opinion is off to a good start – the less I wanted to work on it on a weekend. I’d open the Word document with the manuscript, scroll down to Chapter 15 – which, by the way, is not numbered but titled – and re-read the 452 words (including the chapter and scene titles) I wrote on Friday, and try to will myself to get the scene anywhere beyond the 500-words mark.

Nope. Nothing doing, the writing part of me said firmly.  Watch a movie. Read a book. Listen to music. Play a computer game. Think about women.  Argue with strangers on the Internet, for all I care. Go outside, and get some fresh air! Just let me be until Monday.

If the Creative Writing Division of my central nervous system refused to cooperate with me, I had a snowball’s chance in hell of finishing Scene One on a designated rest day.

Bottom Line: I didn’t get any work – beyond blogging on WordPress, anyway – done yesterday.

I, however:

• Listened to several music albums on Amazon Music
• Went outside – on the front porch – and got some fresh air and sunshine
• Played Regiments – on Medium skill level
• Thought about women (those I knew who loved me and enjoyed my company, at least…plus ones I’d like to be with….)
• Read (in dribs and drabs) from H.G. Wells’ The War of the Worlds
• Tried to watch – but couldn’t get into much – Ridley Scott’s Alien: Covenant
• Argued with strangers on Facebook and Twitter
• Worried about my future (unpleasant activity, that)
• Hoped that more of my book-reading friends (apparently a tiny fraction of my friends’ circle) would buy and read Reunion: A Story
• Heated a can of Chef Boy-ar-Dee Spaghetti-Os for dinner

And that, folks, is the sum of my meh-worthy Saturday in the lovely but lonely Eidelweiss District, Madison, New Hampshire.

In the Some Good News is Better Than No Good News Dept.

As for my Sunday so far….

I don’t have much to report since it’s still morning here. I woke up early, as is my habit, so I already had breakfast, argued with strangers online, blocked a “friend” (who friended me just for the now-vanished Facebook game Mafia Wars ages ago) who doesn’t like my anti-Trump stance, and played a few rounds of Solitaire. (I lead such an exciting life, do I not?)

I also checked my AOL inbox, and along with the usual barrage of campaign solicitations from politicians on my side of the aisle and other unimportant emails, I received this nice message from Amazon Accounts Payable:

This royalty payment notification is for Kindle Direct Publishing (KDP) sales recorded in the US Kindle Store. Payment will be made to your bank account and should appear in your available balance within 2 to 5 business days after the Payment Date. Details of the payment will be available on the Payment Report (https://kdp.amazon.com/self-publishing/reports ) after it has been processed by your bank. If your KDP account is registered on the KDP Japan site, you can check your Payment report at https://kdp.amazon.co.jp/self-publishing/reports .

Payment made to:          ALEX DIAZ-GRANADOS

Payment number:          123456789

Payment date: 29-APR-2024

I keep an eye on my Kindle Direct Publishing account semi-regularly, so I know I can’t expect a Stephen King (or Danielle Steel) level royalties payment. I’d be surprised if I could get a medium pizza at a theoretical Pizza Hut (there is no Pizza Hut restaurant in the entire Madison/North Conway area) for the amount of money involved.

Still, a royalties payment is (or will be) money in the bank. And for that, I’m grateful.

(I would be more grateful, though, if more people that I know buy books on Amazon and are aware that not one but two books I wrote are currently available would buy one of them. Even if either title is not from a genre they would normally read…. Ah, well. I can dream, right?)

Well, I still have most of Sunday left to try and relax and not work on the novel, so I’ll just close here. Until next time, ciao!