Warm, Dry, Wet, Cold - All Good Times for Writing
Warm enough to get some painting done on an older trailer - then days of rain where it's better to stay inside and finish up books. Such is life out here.
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Farming News - Roof repairs were good looking - but a tricky area leaked.
Writing News - The five-book series now has courses…
Fiction News - The Hooman Saga serial continues. Sue finds out more about the Probe’s danger, while the wolves’ Chief faces his final days.
Expectancy Factor - A quiet week, working on how to build this book. Meanwhile, another Nightingale essay for you.
And - a book bonus down below….
Farming News
Sure - nearly t-shirt weather one day, then this moves in. 30mph winds and blowing snow. And that after 2 1/2 inches of rain.
I had to get the roofers back out to fix a trouble spot. Fortunately, they were able to work in between the rainy spells.
We’ve got a few bales left. I had to feed two more yesterday, they last about a day each, on average. Of course, in cold weather, they eat more. The ideal is to feed between Feb 15 to Mar 15. But the severe cold this winter had me feeding much earlier.
In a week, it will be in the 70’s again.
Next for the cows is to reintroduce them to miscanthus and let the rest of everything grow up again. The solution is simply to let the cows graze widely so they can get enough of what was leftover last fall. But that also means getting out on those permanent, perimeter fences to get them into shape.
So, while the weather is weird, but warm enough to get outside, I’ll be working on my next tiny home - that trailer-office.
Tiny Homesteading News
Here’s where we’re starting. My future writing cabin. (That one in the background is a later project.)
It used to be a retrofitted hunting cabin, and was left in the woods for several years, until it’s last own/refitter decided to sell it via a used-car dealer - I snapped it up and it’s been waiting for a couple years (behind my other tiny home adventures.)
With the first warm weather we got before this last storm, I did get some scraping and painting done. The roof seems were re-coated with a white “elastomeric” paint, which will seal any seam problems.
Since the picture above, I got the front rock-guard painted green as a highlight. The rest will be a rust-brown. That combination makes it disappear against the trees. Except for all that chrome, which will now start showing up. There’s some ugly painting of a sort of camouflage at the top on each side. That will go green and tie the whole scene together.
I also found some cans of green spray paint, bought earlier, which will work over the tire rims. Just a lot of edge-taping to keep that paint off the tires. At least I won’t have to dismount the tires this way. Not ideal, I know, but we’re working on a time crunch.
After that, I move inside. the cabinet doors were also painted with that camouflage look, so I’ll take those off and paint them without hardware, hen replace. Otherwise, I have a three spots where I found rot. These have to be torn out and replaced. Somehow, all that aluminum outside is holding up well - all those curves.
So this will keep me more than busy until we can start in our gardening and getting the new ground set up for it’s pole-barn start.
Meanwhile, every day, I keep writing.
Writing News
Even though the writing is done, I’m still wanting to get paperback copies of each of these five books. Then proof these as needed, but they are probably fine. So I’ll order these this week, and it will be a few weeks before they arrive.
Now the earnest marketing begins.
My writing style and approach changed with these.
First off, I’m limited to a writing slot that runs between 5am and 7:30am. Because the rest of the day has to be devoted to farming and family.
I built this last one as three courses of 8 lessons each, the text of each lesson is about 2000-2500 words. I convert these to audio with a text-to-speech program (which will also make video’s, but the amount of time needed for those isn’t available for that right now.)
This last week, I got all those audio’s completed and readied.
What do you do with three courses? Well, maybe a kickstarter, but regardless, this forces an evolution of my marketing.
These lessons have already been coming out through my Writerpreneur newsletters, so those will continue through the end of the book - about 20 or so more weeks.
I then went back to set up the rest of the books with at least one mini-course each, also with audio lessons. That gave me 7 courses total. If you look that over, you’ll see that comes to 56 or so newsletters about writing. Meaning, I can at least give you these lessons on a weekly basis for some 9 months into the future from now.
That gets me thinking about revamping my other materials on my other research areas. One is Expectancy Factor. That’s revamping and reorganising all my self-help stuff into a series of mini-courses that break out and teach the key skill-sets that make life easier, more peaceful, more rewarding.
I have some work to do on Tiny Homesteading - which I’ll start as an additional weekly newsletter, somehow. But this will build into a series of mini-courses, based on the classic “Five Acres and Independence” by Maurice Kains, and woefully in need of updating for our age.
You’ll see some differences in my marketing now. I’m working out how to get all this incredible knowledge out, and the above is my latest organization of these. Putting out lessons as newsletters, which have their audio embedded, then offering the complete course at each newsletter’s end. First as beta to get feedback and reviews, then come back around to a Kickstarter as I have all the material basically ready.
Still in the saw-and-sawdust mode at this point. Lots of work to do in the background. Which is the reason for this particular newsletter - to keep you up to date with my more-than-full journey.
Again, see way below for your advance beta-edition of this current book and its courses. These were updated this week, but will be split off soon. It’s pay-what-you-want while its in beta.
Also published this week (ICYMI):
Writerpreneur Lessons
FOR ANY FICTION OR NON-FICTION WORK, there is any needed research and organization. This is, perhaps, seem the struggle between “plotters” and “pantsers”. Regardless of how much organization the plotter does, he doesn’t always wind up with fresh copy flowing like a warm Spring wind over the wintry fields. And the untrained writer who relies on sheer inspired word-smithing may see all his freshest work wash up on some publisher’s shore, unpublished and useless…
Fiction Posts
The Hooman Saga - XIX - Serial Fiction
WHEN SOO-SHE RETURNED to the Teacher's den, her hair shown bright in the twilight, enhancing the light tan of her doeskin dress. The swim had been refreshing. After Tig-she left her for the Hunting Council, Soo-she trotted on alone.
Expectancy Tips
I got some more inspiration for this project - repurposing a book I’d written years ago, but lost faith in it. Found it today (and its audiobook) and so consider this to be a good central part of this new tome. It’s taking shape.
Meanwhile, thought you might like this essay from Earl Nightingale:
Thanks for being there, opening this.
Sharing is caring. You’re who I do this all for. I value your input.
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. And you can always buy me a coffee…
Bonus:
Here’s the beta version of the book-in-progress above.
Three mini-courses with audio. I could use your feedback. (And I have to charge a buck minimum in order to host all that audio on Gumroad.)
