Fall Drought Grazing - Books Aborning
Busy with fence fixing this week. A just moved the cows to a "bottom" pasture. It took three days for fence fixing, all just in time. All the while publishing more books, which itself seems timely.
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 - Whole herd grazing results apparent now. Moved them yesterday to their next lot. The managed grazing continues.
Writing News - 3 books published now, out of 9. One elevated itself to wide distribution. And I find learning from poorly written books is just as valuable as dissecting classics.
Fiction News - 4th in series, That anthology is now published!
Expectancy Factor - About patience, persistence, and vision…
Farming News
The cows and calves are in the “Bottom” today.
Here’s how lush it’s gotten since the last time I had them in there in Spring.
You may be able to recognise how much these calves have grown since then. “Splotchy” (born May 23) is over in the right bottom corner. These two black white-face heifers looking at you from the middle (Y29 and Y27) were born May 10, and May 6, respectively. All still a bit shy, but they’re coming along.
And those calves haven’t been here before on their own. (Carried around during their gestation doesn’t count.)
At least now I have picture of the herd’s same day arrival. More pix as we go on their grazing here.
How they got here was for me to open gates the day before, which they didn’t notice. I led Or08 out of her “hospital barn” with her calf down to a pasture we call the “Silt Pond” and closed that south gate behind them, while opening the wire gate on the opposite side - north.
That evening, I sought out the herd and made myself visible to them, calling and leading them down through another pasture and through that north Silt Pond gate.
I went ahead to open a wire gate on the west side of that Silt Pond, so the whole herd could find their way out when they were ready. At that point, they were liking the shade and the tallish grass there. And it was getting late, so I took a photo of the marvelous evening on my return to the house.
Today, I checked on them and got the photo with the calves above. I still have several different gates to close now that they are moved. That’s the firm policy, which my parents taught me and I’ve learned is valid. Always leave gates closed once you’re done using them. So you don’t assume they are shut when they aren’t. Few things are worse than geting your herd back in when you left the gate open months before and thought “for sure” you’d closed it.
It took three days of spending a couple hours each time to fix all the holes fallen trees left in those perimeter fences. But meanwhile, the cows have grazed those pasture down to golf-course smooth, mostly.
The general idea is to graze whole farm twice each year. And every year I test new ideas on how to keep things grazed.
We are in a drought right now, but you wouldn’t know it, other than our lawns by the house (which are kept short and have no shade, really. They have large brown areas, waiting for our fall rains to come again. The tall grasses in the woods are now ready for grazing, and pools of water nearby for thirsty cows and cooling themselves. Shade conserves both water and grass.
The last rotation - to our yards and north pastures - started 24 October, and went to 18 Sept - a little over three weeks. I expect that ground in the “Bottom” to last about that long. Then we’ll be back to the Miscanthus to trim that down until it turns brown from the killing frost.
Tiny Home News
Found some more green beans in the Amish store. 7 jars worth. So my wife is canning again. Ran some water on what’s still growing in the garden this morning - mostly sauce tomatoes. Potatoes should be ready soon.
The title is with the lawyer, and we’ll have that this next week.
I’m planning to get the mower out to lay out our driveway and a plot for out first shed-to-home installation. That will be enough for the local electric coop to install the power line.
Still enjoying the cooler nights. Still keeping a balance between our little exhaust fan and our little A/C. Hot days in the fall are often called “Indian Summer” for who-knows-why reason.
Writing News
Here’s what’s 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 techinques that have come through the ages, ever since the first copywriter was hired (since about 1905).
Death by Advertising Anthology - a nice cosy series of short stories that follow the interesting lives and mysteries of a writer, his loves, and his offspring - though five generations.
Coming soon:
The Basic Formulas of Fiction by Foster-Harris, which contains a bonus short work, Building and Writing Your Novel, by Dwight V. Swain. This will be published wide as probably a 250-page text. Followed by its paperback.
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..
That Basic Formulas of Fiction will be published wide this week, with the rest posted to my site for purchage.
I’d like to get those paperbacks all in hand so I know I can deliver the Kickstarter exclusive versions. So that will follow directly. Once I have them all up through Print On Demand by Draft2Digital, then I’ll take their PDF and use that to produce the Lulu exclusive hardbacks by getting physical proofs from them.
At that point, I’ll nearly be Kickstarter-ready and start the countdown for that launch. It’s about three weeks for the proofs to arrive if everything goes well, so figure we’ll be into mid/late October for that Kickstarter launch.
Other Writing News
Professional Writer Research
With that volume by Harris and Foster, I’ve made a great leap forward. Now I can take the four Campbell books and start revamping them down to three books on basics, non-fiction, and short stories. That will give us four books in total to wind up this series. And next year, sometime, we’ll have a Kickstarter Launch for them.
Between them, we’ll have a similar release on fiction and a separate release on copywriting itself. There might be yet another, bt squeezed in on Managed Grazing and Permaculture, if every thing goes well.
Set your calendars - something like March/April, May/June, July/Aug, Sept/Oct.
Keep opening these newsletters to stay updated…
WriterpreneurOS Posts
This is a free-write, which also pulls from the last of the WriterpreneurOS book. Lessons learned from a cruddy ebook I recieved last week - and how it aligns to focusing on quality in both writing and marketing.
Fiction Posts
Fourth book in the “Death by Advertising” Anthology posted this week.
This is the middle book fo the Death By Anthology Trilogy. And fits in this series nicely - a cozy mystery set as an homage to the movie Casablanca, but in Austin, Texas.
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. I think there are a few. Then we’ll start up with John Earl Stark, mystery writer and pick it up as we go. That will be a couple of years worth of weekly stories for you. And somewhere in there, we’ll need to branch off to the original Hooman Saga - which is an alternative universe post-apocalyptic series.
Oh, there’s a four-parter of witches, and some political satires in their own collections.
I may be able to assemble a collection of standalone romances (non-Ghost-Hunter universe.) Hmm…
Expectancy Tips
We too often have to learn patience all over again, it seems. While we can wish and pray to manifest our vision, we still have to accept a time line that is more of God’s making than our own. But persistence actually means faith. So you have the always-on option of putting more faith behind your vision.
That can take some soul-searching, as things don’t always work out how you’d like them. Or you haven’t been as specific as possible in nailing down your exact vision.
Future Works
Once I’ve nailed down the Professional Writer set, I’ll probably be doing the Expectancy Factor series next. Look for that in the coming Spring. Because I already have all these books sitting here from my two decades of writing, and two decades before that of middle-aged living.
Meanwhile, the small farm book based on updating Five Acres and Independence will take some research. That will be a series - that I’ll discuss more as I get closer to it.
Figure that between two and four years, I’ll have all this stuff nailed down and published. Then I might just go back to fiction. And perhaps illustrated books and maybe graphic novels.
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 need 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.
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I hope your life is not too interesting to be overwhelming, but sufficiently engaging to keep you amused. (Like some of us here...)
Robert
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