Tu B'Shevat is coming up Sunday night. That's our new year for the trees. One of my fave holidays. You get to eat a lot of fruit and nuts (not so much for me, since it's a trigger food), appreciate trees, and more.
The month-long holidays for February are: National Canned Food Month, National Cherry Month, National Potato Lovers Month, Barley Month. Some are for important causes, some are to make you appreciate things you may take for granted, and some are just for fun. Cherries and potatoes are a couple of my fave foods!
I created an author Instagram account: R C MacDonald I've been basically testing the waters this week. Wasn't sure exactly how I wanted it. It's a mix of topics from my books (fantasy, horror, LGBTQ+, Judaism, cooking, etc.), a little on my personal life, and my book stuff. I might just change the 2nd sentence of my bio to: A writer's world. Not as clunky...My book stuff will be things like a stack of my books, quotes from them, book trailers, author business card, etc.
The things I didn't create will be from Pinterest and facebook mainly. Of course, I'm crediting them. I'm finding a lot of interesting things on Pinterest for the 'fantasy' part. Beautiful art relating to 'demons' in Alliance. Of dragons, phoenixes, griffins, wraiths, cat demons, etc. Nice eye candy, but when I post them, I'll also give info on characters from the story. For instance, info on Gun with the dragon pics. Or, on Zero with the phoenix ones. That way people get to know the series more. I have plenty of stuff for my colitis, LGBTQ+ stuff, food, some for horror, lots of animals, music/clarinet, and some quotes from other people on boards on Pinterest. Quite a lot of material.
I've decided it might be easiest to set a theme every day. This is what I think might be best: Monday for fantasy or writing in general. Tuesday for LGBTQ+ things. Wednesday for horror or chronic illness. (They seem to go together pretty well, oddly...) Thursday for cooking. Friday for Judaism. Saturday for animals or more Judaism. Sunday for music. This will change during holidays or awareness weeks. During those, I could post about them. Like, with Tu B'Shevat, I'll post on that during it. Aro stuff during the week of Aromantic Spectrum Awareness week. It might switch up when I have something to share of my books or personal life, too. People will expect certain content most of the time, which should be a draw for some.
I was posting once a day this week, but I think I'll try posting twice a day next week. Probably one in the morning/early afternoon and one at night. Except, I'll only post once on Saturdays, after Shabbos ends. The 2nd post on Friday will be a little earlier than the rest of the week, too. I think I can have quite a lot of fun with this, and not have to do a lot for it. It'll be a view not only into my books, but my personality and identity.
I'm posting the same stuff to my author fb page. That might have added things occasionally. Today, I liked many pages as my page. (Fave pages that I already liked on my personal one.) Wanted to see what that would be like. It might be a way for people to get more info on things, as well. Things like Judaism, LGBTQ+ people, IBD, etc. My page could become a resource with that. I couldn't like pages as a page on my phone, which was weird.
I've been searching for quotes from Alliance, as well as settings/building descriptions. Found quite a lot for the descriptions, and more than I thought I would for quotes. Plan to fill out author interview questions on Smashwords at some point. Really want to start a vlog, too. That would help with more exposure.
Ordered author copies of all 5 paperback versions of my books from Amazon. I thought it would be much more expensive. With shipping and handling, taxes, and printing/manufacturing costs together it's $26. For 5 books, that's nothing. Just with the printing part, they ranged around $3 to $4 each. I thought that part would be more. Very interesting. I should get it Tuesday at the earliest. They make them as soon as you buy them, so it takes a little time to put them together. I'm ok with that. I'm excited about actually being able to touch and hold them. They're like my babies. I do have a print out of the very 1st rough draft of Alliance. I don't think it was all of it. Having that is very different than an edited (without marks all over it) and finished actual book.
My memoir, More Than Meets the Eye, is now on Smashwords. It won't be released until the 28th, but it is on preorder. It was approved for their Premium Catalog unusually quickly. I got the 1st approval in about the first few minutes. That's the auto vetter part, where they automatically check the formatting. The 2nd approval is manual and takes a few days for authors who've previously submitted works, and about 2 weeks for new ones. I submitted it yesterday afternoon, and was fully approved early this morning. Probably the fastest approval for one of my books. The only thing I didn't like was they only had a Gay & Lesbian category, not an LGBTQ+ one. Not even a trans one, if they were just split up. Since I'm neither gay nor lesbian, it feels really weird to put it under that. It ignores other people in the community, too. Yet, I did see some authors using it for books relating to other parts of the community. I at least tagged it as LGBTQ. Also, tagged it as agender, asexual, and aromantic. There were very few books under the agender tag, and they were fictional. Similar with aromantic. That might make it easier for people to find. I already have the most page views for its 1st day compared to my other books. There have been 4 sample downloads, too.
Got tired of playing Oblivion. It really got boring. I don't use that word lightly. The scenery was great, though. So, I've been trying various games on PS4 Now to find something to stick to. The most interesting one so far has been G-d of War 3: Remastered. It's based on a lot of Greek mythology, which is fun to me. Your character is Kratos, and he is seeking revenge against Zeus. The cinematography is really great. Feel like it's a movie even when it's not a cut scene. There are a lot of puzzles in it, which surprised me (especially with the type of game it is), but that adds another interesting layer. First game I played where you get trophies. That's fun. Got one for killing Poseidon. That was pretty epic. Made the seas rise. Also one for incinerating Apollo. I thought they wanted me to save him, but there wasn't a way to do so. He was imprisoned in part of Hades, near the River Styx. The bramble around him made it look like a prison cell. I managed to ride Cerberus and have him spit fire balls. I thought he would only set fire to the brambles, so I could free Apollo. No...The fire immediately engulfed him, and didn't hit the brambles much. It was pretty horrific to watch him. At least, I got his bow and arrows. I can set things on fire with that. I'm trying to defeat Hades at the moment. I don't think I've actually seen him yet. Just a statue, and his wife Persephone in a casket hanging in front of it. There are also notes written by people that were sent there, people praying to seemingly nothing, and a giant in the forge area. Apparently that giant is a friend of Kratos, but is stuck there. I don't remember his name. Interesting details. At some point, I might play Red Dead Redemption 2. It's the prequel to that franchise. My parent really likes that game, and it sounds detailed and fun.
I've decided to stop the Duolingo Scottish Gaelic course. I'm really tired of it, and there's not much content. Half of the units have been leveled out completely, the other half all have the 1st level cleared. Not bad. I'm thinking of starting either Polish or Welsh on Monday.
I've been having some bad pain days lately. The type of pain I know that's associated with colitis. It feels like part of my intestines blew up on my left side. It's somewhat hard there. Maybe it's from inflammation? My back and other areas of my abdomen feel really sore. Hopefully, it just needs to heal for now. Going to the bathroom a lot more often again, too. It's better than having a lot of that other stuff, on top of it, before I tapered off of Lialda. Still difficult, though.
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