#anjels

[henry-and-the-seven-lords]

I had a very strange dream.

I dreamed that I was the mc in an Au soulmate and that I was Luci's soulmate, a soulmate universe where soulmates gain 1% of each other's power when they meet.

However, for being human, Luci hated me, or rather he was indifferent to my existence, events occur in a way -+ equal to the cannon and I can make pacts with the brothers.

Out of respect for his wish, threat, I never told you about him being my soulmate.

I believed that if I worked hard enough, if I proved myself, I could have your love...

However when I see mammon holding the dying body of my own, I passed lesson 16 I realize that while I was running after someone who never called me..... I was ignoring those who took a lot of risk for my well being....

When all was said, when the truth was revealed I asked my first one to sleep in his room, that's where I gave myself to him....

And when it dawned, I went back to my timeline... because I knew I didn't belong in that place, because I knew that if I stayed, I would lose my self....

The only thing that remained was my DDD and a letter apologizing for the abandonment, explaining that because of the laws of time I wouldn't live to see another day...

"........You gave me something I've always looked for, blinded by pain as I sought the favor of my soulmate that I neglected the one who cared the most for me, you always were and always will be the most precious person in my life , no matter how much time passes in my life after death I will always love you, my hidden treasure... the one I chose, I love you always and forever.

Signed your human MC"

Meg:

Very interesting! And a very detailed dream. I wish I had dreams about the brothers.... all I dream about are puzzles and random people...

[henry-and-the-seven-lords]

☆ Put this star in the inbox of your favorite blogs! It's time to spread positivity! 💜🤍I love and admire your posts they are so much fun to read! please keep up the good work.

Thank you! That really means a lot to me!! 🥺

[hellojaeseop]

24th Happy AJ's Birthday Mini Project

24th Happy AJ's Birthday Mini Project (English)  http://ukiss-aj.com/xe/notice/14945

 ジェソプ24才センイルミニプロジェクト♪ (日本語)  24th Happy AJ's Birthday  http://ukiss-aj.com/xe/notice/14942

Mini Proyecto Feliz 24 cumpleaños de AJ  http://ukiss-aj.com/xe/notice/14968

재섭이의 24번째 생일 축하 미니 프로젝트 (한국어)  24th Happy AJ's Birthday Mini Project http://ukiss-aj.com/xe/notice/14855 

Cr:  @ukissAJ_com

[author-rick-just]

What a deal, deux.

Recently I admitted my vast store of ignorance about a tiny area of book publishing, i.e., used and collector books available on Amazon. Today, I continue exploring that realm.

I “unpublished” my book Blood Anjels a couple of days ago, meaning that new copies of it are no longer available. Before you reach for your hankie, this was simply a marketing decision. I decided the title and original cover weren’t working, so, new title, new cover. The book is now called Anjel and is readily available on Amazon.

I only printed a handful of these with the original cover and title—maybe a couple. Some were sold through Amazon’s print-on-demand service. Maybe there are 100 of them in existence. I still have three. That means there might be 97 copies floating around out there. If you’re a collector and you have one, this is probably cause for minor celebration. Don’t buy the spendy bubbly, though.

Amazon likes to keep titles up on their site even when they don’t have any to sell. It gives used book dealers the opportunity to sell copies they may have, from which Amazon makes a commission. There are six copies of Blood Anjels being offered, all by the same dealer, ranging in price from $42.38 to $42.54.

The physical descriptions of the books vary a bit. Two mention light water damage. One mentions a bit of shelf wear. One says it is brand new and unread. Another claims it is in good condition, including the dust jacket.

I suspect that this company might have a single copy of the book. It probably doesn’t have any shelf wear, because how much shelf wear could it have after a month of existence? I doubt it has water damage, but who will complain if it shows up in better shape than advertised? Also, I’m pretty sure the description of the dust jacket being in good condition is bogus. This is a trade paperback and doesn’t have a dust jacket.

It’s tempting to purchase all six copies to see what happens. I’m guessing I would receive one copy, in good condition, along with five emails telling me they’re sorry but they’re temporarily out of stock. Tempting, but I think I’ll go another route. I’ll put my three copies up for $39.95 each, undercutting the dealer. Will their asking price go down? Will it go up? Will they suddenly discover another 200 non-existent copies and offer those for sale?

And, here’s the big question. If they suddenly had 200 orders for this book, would they be able to fill them? Remember, something less than 100 printed. However, it was a print-on-demand book. If additional copies began appearing, someone would have some explaining to do.

[author-rick-just]

Vehicles

Authors over the years have used many vehicles to take their characters--and their readers--into other worlds. Think rabbit holes, mirrors, tornados and wardrobes.

In my books, so far, the vehicles have been a lava tube, a backpack and dog urine. Yeah, you’ll have to stand by for that last one. It’s still only about half written.

I bring this up because I’m about to step into a shiny new vehicle of the literary type: A diary.

Blood of Anjels is out to readers in draft form (let me know if you’d like to be a reader), so I’m effectively setting that aside and starting some preliminary work on the next one.

The working title of this book is likely the one I’ll keep: The Crappy Used Diary. It will be a young adult novel with--there I go again--mostly female characters. I’ve written three coming of age novels, two of them about girls. I’m particularly drawn to stories about the friendships between girls. Maybe it is because passionate friendships between females is more socially accepted than passionate friendships between boys. And see, there your mind goes barking off in the wrong direction. When I said passionate your first thought was sexual. Just slap yourself. I mean deep and enduring. Also, poised on the dramatic.  

Tomorrow I’ll discuss the options on the vehicle I’ve chosen to take us back and forth between worlds. Yes, it has air conditioning, Internet and electric windows. Except for when it doesn’t have indoor plumbing. Stay tuned.

[author-rick-just]

66401

66401

That was the word count when I typed the last period of the first draft of Blood of Anjels, today. Over the next couple of weeks I’ll go back, add some scenes and read it through a couple of times before releasing the final draft to editors and readers. I’m guessing it will be about 75,000 words in finished form.

The word count, as I’ve said before, is only important in terms of classification. It will be a short novel, not a novella. The important thing is that I use just enough words to tell the story, no more and no less.

I am pleased and surprised with the ending. It came together faster than I had envisioned. Some readers will think it ends abruptly, because the pace of the final scene is rapid, right up to the last few paragraphs. It will frustrate some readers because not everything is spelled out. Others will find it opaque.

I can hardly wait for those conversations.

[author-rick-just]

The Crappy Used Diary and Other Stories of the Future

One of the persistent themes of this blog is, Where do story ideas come from? The answer in its most pedestrian form is, they come from the same place ideas for what to fix for dinner come from. They are a collision of memories and events of the day that when mangled and tangled together form something new and shiny. Or, they come from dreams.

I’ve written before about that half-asleep, half-awake territory I think we all wander. We set our minds free, mostly, though there might be a loose agenda involved.

This morning, sometime shy of five a.m., I came out of that dreamland with a book title in my head. It is not the title of the book I’m currently writing, rather the next book I will write or the one after that. Maybe not one at all, but one I will certainly add to the list of possibilities.

The book title is The Crappy Used Diary. I don’t know a lot about the book, other than the situation. A teen or preteen girl receives an antique diary from her father for her birthday. The first few pages have been filled in, one day at a time, by someone a century ago. It is a lovely diary with fine paper that beckons the fingertips. To her, though, it is a crappy used diary.

This book wants badly to be written. Maybe, to be written badly. I’ll try to avoid the latter.

I will finish Blood of Anjels (the title I have settled on), first. I may spend a little time buffing up Keeping Private Idaho for Kindle release, and I may go back to another book called Dog Run that stopped me dead about halfway through a few months back.

Or, I may dip into the idea well and work on other books I plan to write, and which I have spent anywhere from minutes to years thinking about. I don’t always start with a title. Even when I do, the title might change when I get further into the book. Here are some teaser titles:

Tell

The Autobiography of gGod

Ruined

Placebo

The Invisible Friend

Interstice

Cooper’s Laundry

Dead Air

Of those, the most likely to eventually become novels are Cooper’s Laundry and Dead Air. It’s not too late for requests.

[author-rick-just]

Resurrection

Today is the day the Christian faithful celebrate The Resurrection. I could spend a few lines talking about the alleged Pagan roots of the celebration, but that’s a controversy with little actual importance and even less chance of convincing either side of the veracity of the other.

But resurrection, there’s something I could write a book about. Oh, that’s right. I am. Technically the book deals more with a myth of reincarnation than with resurrection, but there are a couple of characters who seemingly leave this life and pop up again for another round.

Coming back from the dead is a popular theme across countless mythologies. And, why not? If we have to die--and all evidence seems to point there--we should at least be able to come back in a shiny new body. Or, how about living forever in a new place? That has a certain appeal, even if harps provide the Muzak.

So, I understand the appeal of this great centerpiece of Christianity. So do the characters in my book, though--spoiler alert--at least one of them will abandon her belief in the end.