Little Update

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I believe I told you that they’ve cut back my chiropractor appointments to two a week.  Anyway, I have two other interesting benchmarks.
1)  Every time they do a progress report, they ask me if my problems with gluten have lessened (I’ve never been diagnosed, but I seem to have trouble with wheat).  Everytime I scoff and say no.  Thursday I ate entire Lasagna.  Friday I ate three bagels in a poorly-planned binge.  :)  I realized Saturday that I’d had no effects from either.  So I had two hot dogs.  About that time I started having the most minor symptoms.  Yesterday I had a wheat-based sauce and pop tarts just to push matters further.  Today is a good day, but I can finally see the effects. I’m not the kind of guy to believe a chiropractor can cure a condition that’s almost certainly caused by an auto-immune disease, but it has occurred to me that symptoms might have been worse than they needed to be because of choked nerves between the spine and the organs.  Not conclusive, by any stretch, but I can certainly live happily with things as they’ve been this week.

2)  I wrote that entire last bit trying to avoid unpleasant biological talk.  This one is better.  Saturday night I was at my Dragonlance game with my Saturday group.  I leaned back a little hard in my 6-month-old office chair and the lock that holds it upright released.  Next thing I know all my weight and force are falling backward at full speed into the reclined position.  I’m a big guy.  I don’t let myself do that normally.  And this is why.  When I hit the extent of the recline, the force transfered into the aluminum socket for the base post (evidently FOAM aluminum).  The socket shattered and I flew backward, kicking the table and knocking water two feet into the air.  I landed flat on my back still in the chair.  I’m told it looked spectacular.

My friends were at my side immediately, but I waved them away, mainly because I wanted to orient.  I wasn’t hurting, but I knew that it would come in a moment.  I was actually REALLY comfortable.  After a minute I managed to roll out and stand on my own in my own crippled way.  :)  We moved the chair and slid a lazy-boy-style reclined over to the table.  I still didn’t hurt.  One of my friends suggested that I take a lortab.  I took a soma (I haven’t had to take one in a week) and said I’d be fine.  She pointed out that iboprofen and lortab were more effective if you take them before the pain hits, and my knee was just stiffening up from kicking the table, so I took her advice about a half hour later.  I never felt any real pain (above my normal level).  The next morning I was no stiffer than on any other Sunday.  I felt good.

Two months ago I wouldn’t have been able to think straight after an event like that.  I had days where my pain spiked for hours just because I came down hard on one leg when taking a step.

Anyway, I was so happy all that night that I didn’t even feel bad about breaking the chair (usually something like that would make a person feel fat, to say the least.)  :)

Bob

Update on the Back Situation

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So, since this affects my finances, and therefore projects I need to pay for, I thought you might want to know.
I went to the chiropractor for my progress check yesterday.  My range of motion is far better.  In fact, bending over, I could have touched my toes if I’d been able to bend over anytime in the last eight years.  :)  I almost giggled out loud when I realized I couldn’t bend farther because I was too muscle-bound in the legs, not because of blazing back pain.

Anyway, for the first time last night I was able to do the stretching exercises I’m ordered to do.  At the end the muscles in the small of my back had a vaguely broken feeling, but not really painful, more like I was working out some damaged tissue.

Today, I felt good.  My adjustment went well, although I had a different doctor and it hurt more.    He dropped me farther on the table and I felt great when I left.

Anyway, they’ve pulled me back to two adjustments a week, so if my insurance doesn’t start complaining about the length of time I’ve been in treatment, things are looking up.  :)

Anyway.  I just thought I should know.

Moving Forward

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First of all, apologies to “a_random_me” for not approving your post for over a month.  I missed the moderation request.
Dark Blue Eyes asked about the future plans.  They are now more or less set, although the start date depends on a medical situation.  Let me start by discussing the plans.

I don’t have time to do my own audio editing, since I already have two full time jobs.  :)  That said, Carolyn and I had a nice discussion at dinner the other week and we worked out a great deal for me paying her to continue doing what she did so well in Death by Cliche.  Essentially, she’ll do the work, she’ll get paid, but we’ve worked it out so that if she feels like getting fancy with something she can without feeling guilty.  Anyway, it’s a great deal all around.

So, when it’s fiscally possible, we will start recording and producing in earnest.  I’ll keep you apprised as we go, but my goal is to have about a month in the can before we post the first one, in case we have another vacation situation like last time.  :)

First thing you’ll see:  Probably an ad for The Echoes of Heaven to get people aware of the setting and to set you up a little for what is to come.

Second thing you’ll see:  The Series of Short Stories about a Witch-Hunter name Shorvan Leonedovich (in The Echoes of Heaven setting).  The first story is called Ulcer.  I intend to aim for 20-30 minute episodes, to keep the work flowing and the money manageable, so I’m GUESSING, that we’re looking at about two episodes per story.  I think they take 40-60 minutes each to read aloud.  That means that will be between 6 and 12 weeks of content.  I still need a title for the series as a whole.  Maybe something like The Fall of the Witch-Hunter.  I don’t know.  I’m drawing a blank on a good one.

My goal is not to have another pause.  That means right after this I’ll probably want to lighten the mood.  I’ll probably do this with the masterful, and deeply meaningful and insightful story, The Great Midwestern Squirrel Conspiracy of 2010. That’s 1-2 episodes.  It will bring world peace.  Apologies to everyone for not releasing it sooner.

After that, I’ll launch into a novel.  At this point I’m thinking the first novel will be Interference Patterns.
Interference Patterns is essentially a near future Hard SF murder mystery about Quantum Physics.  That’s 12 longish chapters, so I’m guessing 24 episodes.

This point is really a little up in the air.  I have a hard military sf novel, about the same length, called Xenos’ Paradigm.  About a diplomat trying to figure out why his actions in a friendly diplomatic meeting caused the only aliens Earth has ever met to start a bloody, brutal war.  I don’t know if that book will be available for this slot, however.  I’m hoping this book is at BAEN by then, and if that’s the case I wouldn’t want to do anything that would effect it’s rights.

Around this point we’re getting a little blurry, so I’ll just list some things you might see and
what issues I have releasing them (if any):

The War of Wars Part 1: Point of Contact: This is the book I want to do the most, but it’s currently at BAEN.  It’s been there for almost 5 years, so I don’t know if it’s freeing up anytime soon.  This is the first Spacemaster novel I’ve written (Spacemaster is a roleplaying game I revised for Iron Crown Enterprises).  It’s about a DSA (this is a future version of the NSA) analyst who finds herself in the middle of the opening days of a vast, interstellar war.  Though she’s safely behind lines, the machinations of the sides and the intelligence her troops need to survive all fall on her shoulders.  One of my critquers described it as “What Clancy would write if he wrote science fiction.“  I don’t think the real story can live up to that praise.  :)  I have the rights to produce this myself, via a license from Iron Crown.

Global Conditioning:  A short story about one man’s crusade to end global warning.  Available but too tied to the former administration to sell.

Echoes of the Big Bang: The story of a NSA cryptographer trying to figure out how the Chinese have cracked our “unbreakable” one time pad encryptions.

Smart Bombs, Dumb People: Like Catch 22, but more low-brow and with poorer execution. :)  My first comedy short story.

A Measure of Misery: In my opinion, the best novel I’ve ever written.  It’s been at Tor for about two and a half years.  I don’t know if it’s going to become free for me to do as an audiobook.  It’s about a burned-out healer in a world where all magic must be fueled directly by one’s personal pain.  The more personal the pain, the more powerful the magic.  This burned-out, possibly drug addicted man is pulled into a plot to save the world.

The Siege of Heaven: The first Echoes of Heaven novel.  This one will probably come fairly soon, I just need to finish writing it.  It’s the story of an autistic man who’s given the spark of a dying angel as well as the angel’s quest to foil and unstoppable force of evil before he can enslave the world.

That’s a taste of things to come, now the hitch:

I’ve been in a great deal of physical pain for more than seven years now.  Two almost identical accidents have reduced my back to twitching agony.  With my new job, I can now afford to do something about it, but weekly visits to the chiropractor have never done much good.  I’ve found a chiropractor whose helped alot through aggressive treatments, but aggressive means expensive.  I’ve been going three times a week and I can walk stairs again, which is a good sign, but I’m starting to suspect that two months treatment isn’t going to do it.  I might be more like 3 or 4, if my current progress is any indication.

So I plan to start recordings as soon as the visits stop (or slow to a more financially manageable rate.)  I just don’t know if that’s one month away or three.

I’ll try to keep you posted better going forward, but once I start this again, it will be a goal to release something every week for the foreseeable future, and I want to be sure I can sustain that.

Enjoy your week.

Bob.

Book Discussion Comment Thread

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I don’t know if you guys need this, but we don’t have a forum so you can’t start your own thread.  I know that when I’m done with a book or movie, I like to go out and talk about it with my friends.  So here’s a thread where you can talk about anything you liked or hated or just want to analyze and deconstruct.  Feel free to ask me questions, but know that I won’t give you any direct spoilers as answers.  If you ask why Jurkand kept dying for instance, I’d be happy to tell you that I set him up as the contagonist and Gorthander as the guardian and traditionally, in stories, they fight in some way and I wanted to make that into a running gag.  I won’t tell you it’s because Jurkand is secretly a vampire and Gorthander is really Van Helsing in disguise.  :)  Or whatever.
Anyway, just in case you need a starter for the discussion, what character archetypes (protagonist, antagonist, guardian, sidekick, etc.) do you think the various characters are?  Here’s a list of the Dramatica character archetypes:

Protagonist and Antagonist

Reason and Emotion

Guardian and Contagonist

Sidekick and Skeptic

Most people don’t know Contagonist.  It’s the character who is trying to steer the main character down the wrong path.  Darth Vader was a Contagonist because he wasn’t trying to kill Luke, he was trying to convert him.  I’ll also let you know that the characters I initially assigned to the archetypes were wrong.  A lot of them aren’t obvious.  :)

Anyway, you won’t hurt my feelings if you insult the book or even if you don’t feel like participating at all.  I just wanted you to have an option.

Bob

Give Me a Dollar

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So I’m going to do a little experiment here.  I’ve added a donate button to the right.  With that, you could, if you wished, give me a dollar.  I think I deserve a dollar.  Don’t you think I deserve a dollar?  It’s not like it’s a dollar your using.  You know you have an extra dollar.
Now, don’t give me a dollar for the fine podcast audiobook I just finished putting out.  That has things in it licensed for non-commercial use.  However, giving me a dollar to help fund future sound projects (read:  paying Carolyn to pay attention to me) is perfectly acceptable.  Giving me more than a dollar is also acceptable.

I tell you what.  If enough people give me a dollar (you have to wow me here), I’ll release the terrible, embarressing, should-be-buried-deep-where-no-one-can-see-it, first draft of the first chapter of Death by Cliche.  Complete with typos, for your reading pleasure.

Giving me a dollar is fine.  If you want me to GET a dollar, donate about $1.34 if you are in the US and $1.36 if you aren’t, becuase paypal will take a cut.

Now.  Give me a dollar!

What are you waiting for?

Death by Cliche--Episode 10

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At long last, here it is.
The previously on is the only note that slipped through the cracks.  It’s too long.  The show proper starts at 5:05.  However if you want to hear the entire ending of the last scene of Episode 9 again, it’s all in there.  :)

Carolyn gave you guys a little present as well.  See if you can spot it.  :)  She did it completely behind my back.

Without further delay.

Mirror 1

Mirror 2

Scalzi!

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Scalzi has Hugo nomination talk going on over at Scalzi.com.  I suggest everyone go over there and read his posts.  He has a thread on recommendations for nominations here.  Even if you aren’t voting, you can’t go wrong with a list of the best fiction of the year.
His current thread is asking for recommendations on best fan writer.  <cough>  You can find that here.

A Note and a Plug

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For those who are voting on the hugo’s, I’m likely eligible for best fan writer.  I’m just saying.  If you’ve paid your money and are allowed to vote, you can vote here.
On a less mercenary note, I use CC3 to do all my maps for the Echoes of Heaven Campaign Setting.  I’m posting each day’s work in progress with notes on what I did on my Echoes of Heaven dev journal.  If you want to see this from a publisher/cartographer’s pov, go take a look.

http://finalredoubt.com/wordpress/

Possible Site Change to Final Redoubt Press

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I think that I want to make FinalRedoubt.com a site that a gamer needs to visit on a daily or a weekly basis.  To do this, I’m thinking daily or weekly free content.  Possible content could include adventure ideas, pre-written encounters, npc hooks, GMing tips.  What would drive you to a site to read up on gaming?  What do you need?  What do you want?  Obviously the simpler the content, the more frequently I can produce it.
So this is a question for all gamers.  Tell me, what would help improve <em>your</em> game?

An Open Call to Gamers

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First of all, I’m uploading episode 7 right now.
But onto the purpose of THIS post.  I had bad news from Alliance yesterday.  Evidently, Critical Matters, our critical hit book for 4th edition, has become unporfitable for Alliance to floor for me.  Alliance is the biggest game distributor in the country.  Flooring is a type of distribution where they keep you book on stock but only pay you for the copies that they sell.

The problem is, almost no stores know about this book.  When you see threads about 3rd party books for 4th edition, the book is almost never mentioned.  It’s a great book.  It makes combat more exciting, more interesting, more vivid, more dangerous, and often funnier.

But because of a series of advertising problems, no one knows about it.

So, this book might not be available gamestores after March.

This might be your last chance to get it in stores.  It’s certainly one of the last chances for stores to find out about it.

If you want this book, and would like to support Final Redoubt Press.  Call or go to your Friendly Local Game Store right away.  Ask them to order you a copy.  In two months I’ll need to make the decision between paying to ship all the remaming stock to my house or having Alliance destroy it.  At the very least, we can save me shipping.

This is for sale in my store, but I’ll only link the PDF version.  If you play the world’s most popular roleplaying game and want a physical copy of this book, please have your local store order it.

http://www.finalredoubt.com/store/product39.html

Publisher:  Final Redoubt Press

Book:  Combat Essentials 1:  Critical Matters.

Thanks.  I’ll leave you with the marketing text from the product.

Critical Matters

Criticals are great. Criticals are fun. Everyone loves getting a crit. However, crits can also be boring. They’re just damage. Character can’t bleed to death or break a bone or lose a limb. They have no cinematic impact. They can never be spectacular.

No more.

Introducing Critical Matters, a complete Critical Effects system. We know you like to keep your game moving, but we also know you don’t mind leaning forward in anticipation as you wait to see what the critical is. Would you rather say, “That’s twenty damage,” or would you rather say:

“Blow to collarbone leaves foe with a bruise, a –2 penalty, and the need for strong drink.”

“Point slides into upper abdomen, nicking several important organs and arteries. That’s the whole shooting match. Foe has 8 rounds to wonder how bad it is before he dies. Stunned for 7 rounds. Use the last one wisely.”

“Neatly remove foe’s head. You have just enough time left in the attack to strike a pose.”

“Thunk. Wait for the pain. Wait for it. There it is.”

“Hack cuts foe’s neck. Doesn’t hit anything too major, but there’s a lot of blood. Foe is dazed for 1 round as he works out that he’s only bleeding every hour.”

“Point slices foe’s spine. He collapses, paralyzed from the waist down. He nudges his legs, as if to restart them. Stunned for 1 round, dazed for 3 more. Bleed every round.”

“Blow chips off a piece of the foe’s xiphoid process. The foe feels a slight discomfort under his sternum. Foe has 10 rounds of movement until death. Any round when he doesn’t move his chest doesn’t count. Every round where he moves causes increasing discomfort. –1 per round of movement.”

“Pound foe in the stomach. Foe seems uninjured but foe receives a –1 penalty next round from the pain. The penalty increases one every round until it hits –10, then it drops one a round every round after that.”

“Blow to foe’s spine causes a –2 penalty from the searing pain. If not magically healed, the foe will be able to predict rain.”

“Blow is so devastating that foe’s arms are only technically still attached to his body.”

Muscle Relaxants are Fun for the Writing in the Blogs.

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Apologies if my typos spike.
Yesterday Carolyn sent me another draft of 7.  There were still some major audio typos in it.  I sent her back notes.  I think she said she’s at her computer again tomorrow.

The sound quality is less than great.  It sounds a bit like there’s wind in the background when I’m talking.  Still, you can listen to it, and 8 had almost no troubles in comparison, so I think we’ll just push on.

I've Heard a Draft of Ep 8

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There were a couple times in it when I heard a bit of something in the background, but it was a solid recording, or at least solid after Carolyn was done with it.  I think it’s going to be solid.
I haven’t heard a second draft of 7 yet, but I believe Carolyn is scheduled to get home tomorrow.  I expect substantive communication will resume at that point.  :)