We also had our driveway fixed. Great Northwest dumped two truckloads of RAP (recycled asphalt product) into a huge dip that had developed over the last five years. They watered it in, mashed it down in even layers and now our driveway is an easy climb. My tractor will appreciate it come winter. I got stuck quite a few times trying to climb that sharp rise after a big dip.
In between, I have a garden to start! The greenhouse is up and ready to receive its first little starter plants, which we buy. I don’t start them in the garage. No need. All kinds of folks show up at the first couple Farmer’s Markets with seedlings. Getting things going right now is important because our growing season is so short. 75-day tomatoes are right on the edge of not making it, like last year when they didn’t ripen before our first frost.
I also need to prepare the garden dirt with more manure and other plant goodies. I’ll dig down two feet for the tomato plants and put a bunch of stuff in the bottom of the hole – fish, aspiring, egg shells, and a couple other things. I found a website with the best information.
http://realfarmacy.com/correctly-plant-tomatoes-get-5-8ft-plants/
I have high hopes for my tomatoes this year. Really high hopes because it can’t be as bad as last year.
At least the rhubarb came back and stronger than ever. I planted the first one as a test last year and seeing it come back means that I got it right. We’ll plant two more this year and that’ll be it. Three years before they are ready to harvest after replanting, but we have time.
Phyllis, our nearly 10-year-old pit bull is doing well! A year ago she had ACL surgery and that was all documented on Animal Planet. Phyllis is a TV star! I got some air time, too, but this isn’t about me. It’s Phyllis’s turn. She is back up to nearly full speed, but has slowed down. She loves being outside this time of year, although at 60 degrees Fahrenheit, it is a little warm for her. She pants like she’s in a sauna.
She is acclimated to where we live. We’ll see a few days in the 80s, but generally, summer highs only reach into the 70s.
Two days ago, we started our annual run of 72 days straight with twenty-four hours of daylight. Yes, it’s light all the time. I get up way early so taking Phyllis for her walk at 3 am. I wore shorts and a sweatshirt this morning. It was 40 outside. Just like summer!
What the hell is next? How about Nomad Mortis! Terry goes to war against the Forsaken, those bastards. How did they think taking him prisoner was a good idea?
They called down the thunder.
I have a couple anthologies that I’m editing and publishing in June. One is an epic military/space opera/space adventure science fiction collection with twenty-three authors ranging from NY Times Bestselling, to USA Today bestsellers to multiple Amazon bestseller. This really is an epic collection and all stories are exclusive to The Expanding Universe, Volume 2 to be published on June 15th. It is available for pre-order now.
https://www.amazon.com/dp/B072LMWBWT
The second anthology is because I’m a role-playing gamer from back in the 70s. I’ve had the pleasure to reconnect with James M. Ward, who wrote Deities and Demigods for AD&D, along with a vast number of modules and books. He’s also the creator of the first science fiction role-playing game, Metamorphosis Alpha, followed by Gamma World. We have ten authors with ten short stories based on the starship Warden. That volume should go to our formatter in just a couple days so we can publish the paperback and the eBook at the same time. Look for Metamorphosis Alpha – Chronicles from the Warden, coming in June, 2017.
With that, I’m back to it, lots to do.
***
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Thank you for reading the Terry Henry Walton Chronicles!
Author Notes - Michael Anderle
05/30/2017
First, THANK YOU for not only reading this book, but making it to my author notes after Awesome Craig’s, as well!
Now, I have absolutely zero stories about growing tomatoes. My father could tell me his stories, and I could type them up, but I have no personal tomato stories to tell. My version of a good tomato is one that has been liquified and stuck in a bottle.
I suppose I could tell you about my massive issues deciding what kind of ketchup to purchase when an off-brand is selling for cheap in the store. Then I figure out if the off-brand company screwed with the basic ketchup recipe or not.
However, I doubt that is a riveting conversation.
When I wrote Death Becomes Her which is the book that started the whole Kurtherian Gambit Universe that we all write in now, it was in part because it was a bucket list item.
You know, “Write a Book!” kind of bucket list item?
The slightly bigger part of the kick in my pants to make it happen, however, was a little more primitive. It was a father’s need to help one of his children. Parenting, if you are a parent, but no kids are out of the house yet, doesn’t stop at eighteen. Dammit.
I have to admit that wasn’t what I believed as the first of three sons were growing up. I thought “Eighteen and they go off into the world” which (if my memory serves me mostly intact) was what I thought I had accomplished as a kid.
I believe my father might, just might, have a slightly different tale.
So, the second part of my starting to write was ‘I need to do this to be able to explain, with confidence, to my oldest son’ sort of thing (D’artagnan Anderle - Pen’ish name). His personality is a bit different than mine, and he is a whole lot younger than I am (25 years or so younger). I figured that I could write a few books, work out the kinks, and then let him know the parts he was missing and off he would go.
That really didn’t work. I was (perhaps) wanting his success for different reasons than he might want the success.
In fact, being brutally honest now, I know it.
When I first encouraged him to write a book, it was a no go.
It was “not something he wanted to do.”
That was a let down for me. I’ve shared this part of the story in previous author notes. I had to come to terms with the full circle of life not happening and that he just didn’t want to write, whether he had the talent or not.
Then, we spoke again a couple of months later on the subject.
During this conversation, we discussed it wasn’t that he didn’t want to write, but rather he didn’t know what to write about. A definitive story that was him. (For those who don’t know, neither D’artagnan nor Joey write like I write. Their personal voice isn’t the same and often my suggestions get either one of them to look at me like sons and daughters have looked at parents for millenia… “are you kidding me, Dad?”)
So, D’artagnan gave me two different story beginnings and I provided feedback. Fast forward four months as he worked, deleted, wrote, erased all to figure himself out as much as any early author has to in life. Meaning, who am I as a creator? What makes me tick, something I’m interested in writing about?
A couple of months ago, the Author’s Wife (AKA Mom) and I went down to see him in the Houston area. He and I hung out for an afternoon and discussed the story ideas which he had been working on.
We discussed how
he had started down the path of writing those other stories, how he had crashed and burned, and what it took for him to really bring out of himself the plot, the characters and the malefics that kept his imagination working in overdrive. Further, we discussed the specifics of how writing a book works, what it takes to get it edited, covers, and a whole lot more.
By then, I had learned that I couldn’t push authors. If he was going to do this, it had to be on his own.
This knowledge had not come from working with D’artagnan, but from the many other authors I had counseled over the last year which I put into practice mentoring my oldest son.
As a father, I wanted so desperately to see him succeed. As a publisher, I needed him to understand how it all works. The good, and the bad.
The “stuff that is fun, and the stuff that is dressed in coveralls and looks a lot like work.”
He got off to an amazing start. Knocked out 15,000 words pretty quickly.
Then stalled.
I had to gently ask what is going on, not ping him (easy to do in Slack, where all of my work gets done with other authors, editors and artists.) Then, we might not chat for a few days as he did stuff. What stuff? I’ve no clue - I didn’t ask.
I had to be patient. Let him get through the hard stuff, work it all out in his own internal way.
Basically, it kinda sucked to be honest. As a parent, I just wanted the amazing to happen and off to the next awesome milestone in his life he would go.
However, I grew as well. I grew a little as I allowed him to work it out. I grew to know that each time he would come back, that he hadn’t dropped the project (probably one of my biggest fears, honestly) and that what he came back with… was stronger.
D’artagnan worked with Jen McDonnell and then Lynne Stiegler on the editing side. He worked with Jeff Brown on the covers.
He, like Joey before him, has his own damned opinions and apparently, they aren’t so afraid of best selling author Michael Anderle to tell him ‘No, they didn’t like what he was suggesting!’
In fact, you could say they didn’t really CARE about whatever accolades and accomplishments their dad had built up, I was still just dad. Oh, they respected my accomplishments, but they aren’t overwhelmed by what I’ve accomplished to do what I say without questioning it. They, annoyingly enough…
Have their own opinion on their work.
Whether it is with Joey and “killing off some characters” or D’artagnan and his “the covers look better this way” they both will take stands on their work, and it doesn’t matter what my accomplishements and opinions are, this is how their art is going to be.
And I’m DAMNED proud of them standing on their own two feet as they build their own career.
Each one is different, each one is uniquely themselves.
Each one, I believe, has something to offer readers. Some of my readers will like their stuff, others won’t and that’s ok.
With D’artagnan, he enjoys a story where everything isn’t so black and white. Where, as the intro blurb to his book talks about, the Chosen might not want to save the world because it is the right thing to do.
He might want to do it because he wants revenge.
Not everything in life is black and white and the path to getting to the end might be a challenge.
That is D’Artagnan’s voice more than mine. The ability to weave a story where you might get to the same ending, but the path is …
Frankly, not the way I would write it.
So, if you would like to read a brand new author, an author that needed to know more about the Indie Publishing area before he was willing to stick his own toes into the water, I’d like to be the first to introduce you to…
D’artagnan Anderle - The Author of Sevanouir: Rebirth (The Strange Tales of the Malefic - Book 01) (Link is Below.)
What if the chosen want revenge over destiny?
Sylas Chevalier is the latest son of a lineage of Maleficus, users of powerful and mystical items known as Malefics, to inherit his family's blade, Sevanouir.
However, it came at a terrible cost.
Now a part of a reality that he once thought was a joke, Sylas gets a crash course in the world of his forebearers and must learn what it means to be the wielder of this blade, as mysterious forces approach with their own desires and intent, and they need Sylas and his blade for themselves.
Willingly or not.
Check out more on Amazon using the amazing ‘go to the right country’ link:
http://books2read.com/Sevanouir-Rebirth
The Terry Henry Walton Chronicles
A Kurtherian Gambit Series
Book 1 – Nomad Found
Book 2 – Nomad Redeemed
Book 3 - Nomad Unleashed
Book 4 - Nomad Supreme
Book 5 – Nomad’s Fury
Book 6 – Nomad’s Justice
Book 7 – Nomad Avenged
Book 8 – Nomad Mortis
Book 9 – Nomad’s Force
Book 10 – Nomad’s Galaxy
Free Trader Series
Book 1 – The Free Trader of Warren Deep
Book 2 – The Free Trader of Planet Vii
Book 3 – Adventures on RV Traveler
Book 4 – Battle for the Amazon
Book 5 – Free the North!
Book 6 – Free Trader on the High Seas
Book 7 – Southern Discontent (January 2017)
Book 8 – The Great ‘Cat Rebellion (2017)
Book 9 – Return to the Traveler (2017)
Cygnus Space Opera – Set in the Free Trader Universe
Book 1 – Cygnus Rising
Book 2 – Cygnus Expanding
Book 3 – Cygnus Arrives (2017)
End Times Alaska Series, a Winlock Press publication
Book 1: Endure
Book 2: Run
Book 3: Return
Book 4: Fury
Rick Banik Thrillers
People Raged and the Sky Was on Fire
The Heart Raged (2017)
Paranoid in Paradise (Short Story – 2017)
Short Story Contributions to Anthologies
Wisdom’s Journey (stand alone novella)
Earth Prime Anthology, Volume 1 (Stephen Lee & James M. Ward)
Apocalyptic Space Short Story Collection (Stephen Lee & James M. Ward)
Lunar Resorts Anthology, Volume 2 (Stephen Lee & James M. Ward)
Just One More Fight (stand alone novella)
The Expanding Universe, Volume 1 (edited by Craig Martelle)
The Expanding Universe, Volume 2 (edited by Craig Martelle – June 2017)
The Misadventures of Jacob Wild McKilljoy (with Michael-Scott Earle)
The Tide, a multi-author, single story extravaganza
Metamorphosis Alpha, Chronicles from the Warden (with James M. Ward – Summer 2017)
Michael Anderle
Kurtherian Gambit Series Titles Include:
First Arc
Death Becomes Her (01) - Queen Bitch (02) - Love Lost (03) - Bite This (04)
Never Forsaken (05) - Under My Heel (06) Kneel Or Die (07)
Second Arc
We Will Build (08) - It’s Hell To Choose (09) - Release The Dogs of War (10)
Sued For Peace (11) - We Have Contact (12) - My Ride is a Bitch (13)
Don’t Cross This Line (14)
Third Arc (Due 2017)
Never Submit (15) - Never Surrender (16) - Forever Defend (17)
Might Makes Right (18) - Ahead Full (19) - Capture Death (20)
Life Goes On (21)
**New Series**
The Second Dark Ages
The Dark Messiah (01)
The Dark Knight (02)
The Boris Chronicles
* With Paul C. Middleton *
Evacuation
Retaliation
Revelation
Restitution 2017
Reclaiming Honor
* With JUSTIN SLOAN *
Justice Is Calling (01)
Judgement Has Fallen (03)
Angel of Reckoning (04)
The Etheric Academy
* With TS PAUL *
ALPHA CLASS (01)
ALPHA CLASS (02)
ALPHA CLASS (03) Coming soon
Terry Henry “TH” Walton Chronicles
* With CRAIG MARTELLE *
Nomad Found (01)
Nomad Redeemed (02)
Nomad Unleashed (03)
Nomad Supreme (04)
Nomad’s Fury (05)
Nomad’s Justice (06)
Nomad Avenged (07)
Trials and Tribulations
* With Natalie Grey *
Risk Be Damned (01)
Damned to Hell (02)
Hell’s Worst Nightmare (03) coming soon
The Ascension Myth
* With Ell Leigh Clarke *
Awakened (01)
Activated (02)
The Rise of Magic
* With CM Raymond / LE Barbant *
Nomad Avenged Page 17