I haven't changed either my desktop's or iPhone's wallpaper, so I'm not showing a new one this month. The Pusheen calendar for November is titled: 6 Reasons to be Thankful for Your Cat. The first one has a heart around Pusheen, with the caption: warms your heart. Next to it, she's in an office chair, with the caption: warms your seat. The first one in the 2nd row has her on a bed and her speech bubble has a heart in it. The caption: cuddle buddy. The one next to that has her looking somewhat angry on a bed with food in the bubble. The caption: alarm clock buddy. The first one on the last row has her laying down, hearts coming off of her, and hand petting her. The caption: beautiful friend. The one next to that has her laying down on some papers, coffee nearby, and a hand gripping a pencil. The caption: beautiful paperweight. It's cute.
The month-long holidays for November are: National Peanut Butter Lovers Month, Raisin Bread Month, National Memoir Writing Month, National Native-American Heritage Month, National Novel Writing Month (NaNoWriMo). Some are for important causes, some are to make you appreciate things you may take for granted, and some are just for fun. Interesting that it's both Memoir Writing Month and NaNoWriMo. Especially, because I finished writing both novels this month.
There's at least one reason why I haven't posted much on here lately. I was trying to finish writing both the memoir and sequel to Alliance. I managed to finish writing the sequel a couple of weeks ago, and finished the memoir 5 days later.
By the way, the sequel finally has a name. It's Alliance: Dawn. Dawn makes so much sense, on many levels, for the name...People who read it will understand. I have ideas for the memoir's title, but haven't decided yet. One of the biggest candidates is Hineini. Hineini means Here I Am in Hebrew. However, there are already memoirs with the same title out there. So, I don't know if I'll use it. I'm not feeling as into the other ideas for the title.
Taking out the month of being too sick and it being too hot and smoky to write, plus writing half as much at the beginning, it took me roughly 4 months to write both of them. That's really fast! My first book took a few years to write. 2nd one took close to a year. This is like lightning speed for me. First time doing 2 at once, too. So, technically, it was about 2 months each. Even though I wrote them at the same time, if I just did them one at a time with the same amount of writing each day, it would have been like that. I was writing 4 pages a day, 6 days a week. (Not writing on Shabbat.)
Now, I'm editing both of them. Trying to edit a chapter from both each day. I'm a little further into Dawn than the Memoir. It's shorter, too. The memoir seems to be the longest of the 4 books I've written. Dawn is slightly less than its prequel. Sometimes it feels like I'm editing so much, my brain hurts afterwards.
After editing, I'll format them both for their ebook and paperback versions. Then, I'll create their cover arts. I have a clear idea of how Dawn's art will be. I'm a little fuzzy with the memoir. After that, I'll figure out pricing. Then, I can go through the submission process through Amazon.
I'll have it so Dawn could be bought bundled with Alliance, and by itself. That way people can have the series so far, or get the sequel on its own. This also ups the likelihood that people will actually see it. Some people only look for series bundles. I'll have both of them as preorders first. Thinking they might go live in February or March. I can still be paid with however much I make from preorders during that time. Also, Amazon promotes books more during the preorder. (It'll be my first time using the preorder through them.) With making ebook and paperback versions of these new books, I'll be more visible in 4 more ways. Besides the 4 ways I have now with my other books. Add in the bundle part with Dawn, and it gives me even more visibility. It's not just being visible through 2 more 'entries' in this sense. I could also rotate Amazon's promos on all 4 books, so there could be a sale at any given time. This adds more to it. Although, as it is right now, I can only run promos with the ebook versions. Still, it's something. I'll also post links to them on the sides here, like I did with the other 2. Easy for people to access them this way.
I did get to the point of practicing my clarinet for an hour each day during the week. I only stopped when I started editing those books. It felt really nice, and I was noticing more of my mistakes. That meant I was getting good enough to tell again, I could fix them. I might get back to it after the editing.
Went to Thanksgiving dinner at a friends' place. The couple that hosts it is like family. This year it was just Dad, me, and that couple. Usually, there are a lot more guests. One of their dogs is having incontinence issues now, so we couldn't sit on the couch beforehand, like usual. The wife injured her knee, I think. So, almost everything was being done by the husband. He looked so exhausted. He smokes their turkey, and I've always found that kind of cool and interesting. It adds a unique flavor to it. Anyways, I could see why they wanted less people. They said they wanted at least a couple of friends over for Thanksgiving, and they asked us. I think we're the closest to them.
I also found out the person that was so rude to me last year when I came out as aro ace, isn't a friend of theirs anymore. They were appalled by her behavior. Plus, there were other questionable things. She was oddly into talking about Jesus sometimes. Not something Jews usually do, and why I at least have an inkling she's a 'Jew for Jesus'. In other words, Christian in disguise. Really scary. She's also a Trump supporter, that couple and my family are really against Trump. For obvious reasons...The hostess has strong political opinions, so that can be a conflict if you aren't on the same wavelength that way. That person was also very ageist, at least towards me. Also, most of the food she brought was awful or just really weird. She would tell us that she messed up horribly just as we're about to try it. Or, how about bringing little pork sausages to a Passover seder? Oh, wrapped in crescent rolls. It's a Jewish holiday, pork isn't kosher, and we don't eat anything leavened during the holiday. Way to mess up in multiple ways. She told me it wouldn't hurt me to try them, too...So weird. I'm glad I most likely won't see her again.
I was going to go to Leavenworth to celebrate my birthday. My birthday was on the 7th. Turns out that has been postponed until around March. At least, it seems like it's still on. Dad brought the idea up, and I thought it'd be great. I've only been there once, and it was a long time ago. It was fun, though. I did go to the Olive Garden for my birthday dinner. That was nice. So, we did do something for it. I hadn't been there in a long time, and it used to my fave restaurant.
