That was a strange one

So last night, I dreamed I was lounging in my back yard when some shape-shifting creature came out of the woods.  At first, it looks like a black fox with ten pairs of legs.  Then it looked like some kind of eight-legged snake.  It was then it disappeared and I kept hearing news reports of an eight-legged creature killing all the dogs and livestock in the neighborhood.  Then I drove over to my grandparents' house with my dog and a ton of my relatives were there with deer rifles, ready to take the thing on.  However, they wanted to use my dog as bait for the creature.

I eventually agreed to leave Belle chained to a tree close to the house  but wasn't thrilled about it.  When the creature finally showed up, it was a humanoid tiger with two extra arms.  It escaped but not without being caught in a hail of gunfire.

As far as I know, it is still at large.

A Thong? Really?

I started a Cafe Press shop over the weekend for the new book blog, Shelf Inflicted.  It wasn't as easy as I hoped since their interface isn't the most intuitive.  I was looking at products with the Shelf Inflicted logo on them and found this.

Sure, I'd like to make back the month I spent to register the domain for five years but I'm not sure how I feel about people wearing a thong with the website's logo on it.  However, Mother's Day is coming up...

In other news, I have yet to do my taxes so I'll likely not have much time for writing tonight.  Camp NaNoWriMo has been pushed aside in favor of setting up the new blog.  Still, I did 50k in twenty days last June so surely I can manage 20k in what's left of the month.

Special Report: The Contingency Plan is Being Constructed

I'm forming a collaborative blog with some of the heavy hitters on Goodreads in the event we have to pile into an escape pod somewhere down the road.  We're calling it Shelf Inflicted.  I'm not abandoning Goodreads or my book blog at this time, though.

A Letter from Camp NaNoWriMo

Dear Mom and Dad,
Camp NaNoWriMo is great so far.  I'm glad I came back this year.  I'm halfway through my first pass of editing Between Hell and a Hard Place and I've already decided on a few changes.  The Mantis character was my least favorite part of the initial draft so I'm splitting him into two characters, one for the hacking and gunrunning and one to be Jack's Bad Ass Friend.  I think this will make things run more smoothly.  I'm going to mention Gregory Brissette being an Alderman with state senate aspirations since now he's just a generic businessman of some type.  Also, although I haven't gotten there yet, I'm going to rewrite big chunks of the ending.

In other news, the Councillors are so friendly this year.  Councillor Joey is always making sure my pants look right.  Yesterday afternoon, he had me rub sun tan lotion on his back and chest and asked me if I needed any rubbed on me, which was weird since it was really cloudy outside.  Tomorrow, he's going to show me his secret place and said I could take all the pictures I want.  Sure sounds like fun!

I'd better get back to my writing.  This book isn't going to edit itself!

your son,
Dangerous Dan

PS - Please send a package of nutter butters.  And a jar of honey for Councillor Joey.

Special Report: Amazon buys Goodreads?

Goodreads has been a pretty big part of my spare time in the last few years.  You don't get to be the #6 reviewer of all time in America by just dabbling here and there.  Anyway, it was a pretty big jolt when it was announced yesterday that Amazon was buying Goodreads.

I'm not sure what to think at this time.  It could be good for Goodreads but how often does a corporation buy something and then not make sweeping changes?  I'm not jumping ship yet but it never hurts to have several escape plans in place.  I might start using Bookish as a backup.  It's run by Simon & Shuster, Penguin, and Hatchette so it might be a good way to get free stuff.

I'm trying to be optimistic but Amazon buying Goodreads is a lot like that Spider-Man story where Doctor Octopus got engaged to Aunt May. You knew something bad was on the horizon but at least Aunt May got to be happy for a little while.

Going Camping?

The April session of Camp NaNoWriMo is coming up fast.  I'm taking full advantage of the new variable word count feature to set the bar pretty low at 20,000 words.  I have several reasons for doing this:

1. I have several fantasy short story ideas I can't seem to get out of my head, one of which I will attempt using Lester Dent's formula.
2. Ticket to the Grave isn't quite ready to start yet since I haven't made any changes Between Hell and a Hard Place yet.  I probably have 20k of changes to make, which I'll be doing once I write the short stories mentioned in #1.
3. The time factor.  I know of two concerts I want to go to plus spending time with my lovely girlfriend is a lot more pleasurable than wrestling out a novel in 30 days.

March already?

One of these days, I'll write another blog post that isn't bullet points:

1. My lovely girlfriend is out of town this weekend visiting relatives so I'll be giving Between Hell and a Hard Place a much needed round of editing.
2. Camp NaNoWriMo part 1 starts April 1st.  I still have no idea what I'm writing.
3. I read this article about Michael Moorcock writing a lot of his early books in 3-10 days using a specific formula.  His prep works sounds a lot like my NaNoWriMo preparations.  I'm toying with trying the method to write a pulp fantasy novel at some point.
4. I'm thinking I need to read a few westerns in order to read outside my comfort zone.  While I've read a number of weird westerns, I don't think I've read more than a couple straight westerns.
5. I'm reading my first Joe Abercrombie novel and enjoying it quite a bit.  People always mention how gritty they are and how the characters don't fall into the standard good or evil mold.  What people never mention is all the dry humor.