Category Archives: website news

Can’t be productive, too surly

Here’s what I did today instead of anything useful:

  • Added a statement to the Healers page explaining that it is not categorically cozy fantasy, FFS, please stop complaining that it’s not (and I know that won’t stop anyone, but hey, I tried)
  • Editing out the “Uncategorized” tags on this blog
  • Breaking up the “Checking In” tag into its component parts – usually games nattering, anime nattering, and book nattering – and leaving “Checking In” for year-end posts and other truly uncategorizable whatsits

Why? Because the next thing on my agenda, aside from beta reading an excellent book that I’m about halfway through, is diving into Healers 4 planning. And as much as I love this world/story, I’m daunted. Almost discouraged. Let’s be honest, though, I’m going to make a solid try of it. Because I love it too much. It’s just hard to take that first step right now.

Let’s wish one another good luck and try again tomorrow.

We have some lore.

Lore!

Is it yet another procrastination tactic? Yes.

Is it something I’ve been meaning to get around to for ages? Also yes.

For now we’ve got places, groups, belief systems, and a summary of the magic in the series. Eventually, I’d like to add character profiles, especially since it’s been several lifetimes between the book releases, and I don’t expect anyone to remember who the hell any of these people are.

You’ll notice none of these statements say “maps”, and while maps are fun and a classic addition to any worldbuilding, I am not good at drawing them (or anything else, really). I’m also a bit wrapped around the axle over all the mistakes I’ve made in placing mountains, rivers, biomes, etc. etc. etc. even in the vague geography mentioned in the story so far.

But who knows what the future brings! Maybe I’ll finally learn to use one of those fine mapping softwares out there (some of which I’ve already bought). And figure out how to fix the rain shadows / tectonic plates / etc. It could happen. Anything could happen.

For now, we have lore. Goodnight.

Time for a new tag

…I have a dark sense of humor, so… no offense meant. [edit from later: this referred to the “Checking In” tag, which was originally called “proof of life”. I later repurposed Checking In to use specifically for numbers posts.]

Still writing. Still here, along with my loved ones; we’ve been very lucky and as careful as we can be. Mostly lucky, and fortunate enough to be able to work from home at our day jobs and isolate fairly well.

Yet Another Draft of Book 3 seems to be creeping ever closer to completion, so I’m trying not to lose hope. Do I remember anything about formatting ebooks? No sirree. Those are skills I learned just long enough to do the task, much like how I learned calculus in college. Short-term memory only. That’s okay. Maybe it’ll come back to me. If not, relearning it is my next “fun” “new” “project”.

Also turned off comments, so hey bots, find somewhere else to spam. I’m too lazy to keep on top of your flood of nonsense. Humans, on the off chance you want to contact me for something that is not trying to sell me snake oil: I can be found at u/ofthecageandaquarium on the gayer, less reactionary areas of Reddit or technically, by the email listed on the About page, though to be honest, I don’t check that either.

This is what separates the hobbyists from the pros, I think. I’m so bad at social media. If I could think of something interesting to post on Twitter that isn’t burning trash, maybe I’d do that, but uh, not so much! I do use it to read other people’s stuff, so if you want to contact me for something that isn’t a trash fire, I’m technically at @sadsackgetdown.

(two unrelated handles, both They Might Be Giants references. Yes.)

Either way, if you’re trying to sell me something, you are trying to get blood out of a stone, friend. If I had money, I’d be hiring an editor for these beasts or supporting my many causes.

Anyway, still writing, hope all is well, stay inside if you can, wear a mask until further notice, don’t be an asshole, goodnight and good luck.

Mistakes… were made.

So, uh… funny story. Not so much “funny ha-ha” as “funny I think I’m going to hurl.”

I had to update my payment info for website hosting because, as happens so often these days, my card was compromised in a data breach. So I updated that. So far, so good.

Bear in mind, my website hosting skills and understanding are still pretty much mired back in the late ’90s, when you could hand-code a site in basic HTML, FTP it up to your host, and that was that.

After updating the payment stuff, I thought, you know, I don’t use one of the domains I’m sitting on anymore — at all, ever — so why don’t I just let that expire? I’m paying for it for nothing.

What I meant to do was to stop using that URL.

What I actually did was to delete everything based on that domain, including the previous incarnation of this site.

Because, originally, this domain piggybacked on that one. It was just inkandscissors.com/serobertsonfiction instead of, genuinely, serobertsonfiction.com.

I’m, uh… rather upset with myself.

So here’s the deal. I’m going to try to rebuild all this jazz. Better? Smarter? Hopefully? And I will do the giveaway, but I will do it properly on Goodreads like I should have at the outset. Links soon.

Edit: Today I learned that it costs a hundred and nineteen dollars to do a print giveaway on Goodreads. Woooooooooow. I mean, I’m not begrudging them their business model, but I can’t afford that. So. Email it is. Details on the Books page.