Recapturing Escape Artists - New Book Supplements Released
Have to be flexible on a farm. Grass is always greener for a few. Meanwhile, I keep writing/editing/publishing books.
Hi,
Glad to have you open this once again (or even for a first time). Yes, life (and writing) goes along on this farm with trials, tribulations, joys, and marvels. And my daily/weekly writing continues as well. Glad to share this all with you.
Farming News - I have a few cows who have a penchant for finding holes in the fences.
Writing News - All 8 books published now. Kickstarter in the offing.
Fiction News - 6th in series (of 8). Did you get your copy of the new anthology?
Expectancy Factor - Practice (with your own vision) makes permanent.
Farming News
A top-down view of cattle mowing our front yard - no, that’s not a drone capture… Yes, these are behind fences where they belong.
I was actually on the roof ridge, just over the chimney. a morning shot from a couple years ago.
Yesterday morning, I was reminded of how you have to be flexible on a farm.
Sitting at breakfast, finishing off my coffee and perusing the “news”, I was just about to open Notes and start commenting on Substack, when one of my sisters walked in. The short hand was that after we exchanged hello’s, she showed me a picture of a couple of my cows out on the road she was driving on.
She had stopped and “shushed” them back over to our side and then drove up to our main house to tell me - of course, she was there to take me Mother out for the day, not to help me herd my errant cattle.
So I thanked her, gulped down the rest of my coffee, and headed out to get my chore boots and gloves on. Outside, I picked up a half-bucket of feed mix, put in in the back of my cluttered pickup bed, then drove down where they were last seen. Of course, they were now obediently eating soybeans out of the field right next to where they should have been. Parking the truck way up the side of that field, I took that bucket (yellow, the color they see best) and called them. No real response other than looking at me curiously. So I shook the bucket and one (the ringleader) took a few steps toward me, then stopped. Finding a bare spot of ground I poured out some of the feed mix and stepped back — calling again as I did.
That was the trick. The three cows and their two calves came forward and busily started nosing each other around to get the treats on that ground patch.
I walked off a bit and waited until they’d gotten most of it. Swishing the remaining quarter-bucket of mix, I called again. Two cows were licking up the rest of the ground-mix while the ringleader just stood in the shade halfway between them and me, just looking my way, curious..
So I turned and started singing my collection of four or five short ditties so they could hear my voice while I walked away.
The next thing to do when leading, is to find a path they already know which was going the way I wanted them to wind up. And with my yellow bucket and semi-tuneful bellowing, we made our way along.
And eventually, I took them up the hill through an open gate (that shouldn’t have been) and up to the barn. Inside the open gate, there was plenty of water. I poured the remainder of the mix into the standing bale ring, and then got out of their way. I did have to get out and around the two calves to help them decide to join their moms. Then shut that gate into the barn and fed them some hay as well from a leftover bale I’d started when I had that limping cow there a month earlier.
Getting that empty yellow bucket in hand, I let myself out and double-checked the other gates in the barn - since these were my more opportunistic adventurers of the heard, caution is a good investment.
Back down to shut that fence gate, back over to the truck, and drove back to the house.
My wife had a second cuppa waiting, but my morning was now figuring out and fixing the phantom hole my escape artists used.
I’d planned on starting another gate post replacement for that morning. But by the time I’d walked along the fence row and back, another half-mile or so, I was a bit worn out.
Flexible. Cows have to stay where I expect to find them, or they could get hurt. Still, I got my exercise in…
Tiny Home News
We got our title deed in the mail. Now we have to work out payment. The next big project is to get the shed-to-home structure worked out.
I finally got an estimate from a local construction contractor we’ve used before. Sticker shock. I was expecting a few thousand, but not five-figures worth. He was insistent we put in a full foundation. I’d been told that the shed could simply sit on a compacted gravel bed.
His estimate just doubled the cost of the whole project - and we’d have that much again to install the electrical, plumbing, and insulation. Then there’s flooring and outfitting.
Whoof.
But - when I called another guy, who deals in gravel (and also sells us our hay every year (my dad had known and used his dad’s services before they both passed) — he was able to drop the price on the gravel drive, and offered to give an estimate on a septic system in for us (also for probably less.)
The difference was that the contractor would arrange for subcontractors, and that was another layer of costs in between.
As for the foundation, I called up the guy we’ve been working with on that shed - and we talked about their installing piers - which were about a tenth of the cost. And gave us a crawl space underneath to hook up the plumbing and whatnot. As well, having them spray foam insulate the bottom meant we cut later costs of having to crawl under there and insulate ourselves - and not having to rent a crane to pick up the whole shed.
That’s my continuing education into home-building and ownership.
Meanwhile, my wife canned another 16 pints of green beans and also churned another quart of cream into butter. She also found the Amish store sold Jersey butter (from a cow breed known for their high fat content milk) — and so bought several pints of this to freeze. We were getting about a pint each of butter and buttermilk from churning a quart of cream, but paid about the same for each pint of butter. (A pint is 16 oz, that’s mostly equivalent to a pound of butter - so the old phrase goes, “a pint’s a pound the world around” - unless you use metric.)
We’re both reconfiguring how we want our shed-home to wind up. I’m trying to get the plumbing and heavy-duty stove wiring to be as short as possible, Both for installation cost and maintenance. Plus, she wants a common are with room for a couple of easy chairs and a TV. So her plan and mine will have to meet somewhere in the middle…
Writing News
That article I posted last Monday on writing scenes (as linked and below) is tending to twist my head into a different direction now. Before, I was happy with a simple plot that ran along, and then filling in everywhere in between somehow. Then I kept running into this idea of scenes as a building block. And got stuck into the construction and inter-connecting these. I thought I’d have to start over in my writing - until I found out that scenes, like our monomyth plotting, is built into our reading and writing.
What we enjoy most is where the author or storyteller smoothly tows us though a river canal through both smooth sailing and turbulence toward where we want to end up. The trick is that we already expect to find interconnected scenes in our writing. Learning how to write scenes is just fine-tuning the native skills we already have.
This learning is to use what we know about editing - to find where the bounces are, and then back track to see how that author erred. While similarly taking the time to re-study the truly smooth reading we encounter and then dissect that as well.
I’ve covered this earlier - it’s reading each book or story three times before you’ve gotten everything out of it. And another reason to keep a library of printed books where you can dog-ear and tab that book - while you hand-write the passages into a notebook which are the best examples of writing devices to practice.
And yes, I’ll be going over these writing craft points again - soon.
Meanwhile, I published the rest of the supplementary books in the WriterpreneurOS series. These are on my store.livingsensical.com site, ready for download. (Under Latest Releases…)
They are all ebook-only digital supplements for the Kickstarter and, of course, limited to those who need-to-know. (So visit today.)
Writerpreneur: The Journey from Algorithm to Artisan - a collection of 19 ebooks into a big bundle - for that Kickstarter - only available from my site.
Cracking the Cashflow Code - ebook only, but included in WriterpreneurOS.
The WriterpreneurOS Workbook - reader magnet for the Kickstarter, ebook only, from my site.
The Only Two Ways to Write a Story - by John Gillishaw, excerpted, also in the public domain, also a reference work from my site..
Again, here are the major books I’ve published recently:
Writerpreneur: The Basic Formulas of Fiction - that’s a beta-reader edition for you early adopters. I’ll have a commercial link for you next week.
Here’s what was already published (links for your use.):
Writerpreneur OS - why authors have to learn and run a business as an entrepreneurs in order to make a decent living.
Writerpreneur: Copywriting for Authors - the evergreen principles and proved techniques that have come through the ages, ever since the first copywriter was hired (since about 1905).
Death by Advertising Anthology - a nice cozy series of short stories that follow the interesting lives and mysteries of a writer, his loves, and his offspring - though five generations.
Coming soon - only available on store.livingsensical.com:
Kickstarter
It’s coming down to the point I need to get this Kickstarter rolling. So this week, I’ll set a final date and start the emails and notices for it. Expect some marketing in your in-box from me - but with helpful notes and tips, as usual.
Setting up and ordering the hardback proofs is also on for this week - Just to ensure we have decent final goods. so figure we’ll be into mid/late October for early November for that Kickstarter launch.
Be sure you’ve signed up with Kickstarter (links below) to get announcements for this release..
WriterpreneurOS Posts
This is a selection from that latest Basic Formulas of Fiction book above - and is, again, something I’ve not seen anywhere else. Books are built with interlocking scenes - and this gives the formula for these.
Fiction Posts
Fifth book in the “Death by Advertising” Anthology posted this week.
Here’s the sequel to Triangle - A Memoir. It ties up loose ends in that novella, by introducing another generation of this reclusive-author lineage..
Another ICYMI: Here’s the full list of stories we’ll be re-telling. Probably end of October when they are all done - that third one is a longish novella, so I may have to split it up.
Death by Advertising
The Caretaker (under the C. C. Brower pen-name)
Triangle - A Memoir , Part 1
Death by Sales Pitch
Triangle - A Memoir, Part 2
Last Chance
Death by Marketing
The Chrysalis Cure
I’m searching around for fiction book collections that don’t interact with the Ghost Hunter series to post after these.
Hooman Saga still probably the next book to serialize here. I’ll take suggestions from fans, though…
Expectancy Tips
Are you reviewing your vision every day, twice each day?
This is the key point that made Hill’s “Think and Grow Rich” so successful. And as Wayne Dyer pointed out, “practice makes permanent.”
That book, along with Bristol’s “Magic of Believing” and Nightingale’s “The Strangest Secret”, are what makes the Expectancy Factor available to you. And yes, when things don’t turn out the way I’d like (expect) them to, going back to the key datums out of these books gets me back on track.
Just a reminder.
Still working on my bonuses in the paid subscription area. You can visit https://store.livingsensical.com for my numerous discount-priced collections of books, courses, materials. As usual.
Kickstarter Previews
Still could use your feedback on the Kickstarter preview.
Please visit the preview and use their comment area to tell me what needs to improve - or just give me (needed) attaboys.
Kickstarter display page here:
https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/1481356435/1548894263?ref=a5wy7u&token=315549e4 (Feel free to share that preview…)
Sign up to be notified when it goes live: https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/robertworstell/writerpreneur-cracking-the-cashflow-code-non-fiction-book (Sign up now. Share that link with anyone you know who it could help.
PS. I discovered late pledges have been implemented by Kickstarter - so mine will have these for all who missed the initial roll-out. Lots of great stuff. When we get back to it.
Thanks for being there, opening this.
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Leave a comment if something strikes your fancy.
I hope your life is not too interesting to be overwhelming, but sufficiently engaging to keep you amused. (Like some of us here...)
Robert
PS. Again, you can always email me about anything.
PPS. Again, do upgrade to the paid newsletter version. That helps me keep the lights on - so I can keep all this coming to you. As much or little as you want…
(Meanwhile, I’ve put my archived newsletters and articles all available as free on Substack, instead of behind a paywall.)
AND you can always buy me a coffee…
Here’s that new beta-reader advanced copy - still available
