Who is the Yellow Man?…
Category: readers
I am sorry, I am cheating on me
You may have noticed, but I have been in a blogging slump lately. There are a couple reasons for that. My original intention for this blog was to attract and gain a following so that I can share my books wit the world. No one told me that after you self-publish, YOU have to market and market and market. Social media (not my first love) was the most realistic answer. However, it was suggested that I need an Author landing page where people interested can find my books. So, my blog was born.
I created an Instagram account to market the blog and the books, you know, to create an “online presence.” The sad thing is I have little time enough to write my books, let alone post blogs often enough to maintain a following. And there is Instagram; now I have to maintain that as well. For the last two years I have pushed hard to keep up the pace. I have seen some success. it was not all fruitless. And the bonus has been that I have met some very cool people here, ones that I would consider friends.
Then I discovered “Threads.” When it first came out, I ignored it and blew it off as just another waste of time. One day I gave in and decided to make an Author profile. Just like in real estate, the key to success is location, location, location. In 3 months, I had gained more followers there than ALL of my other socials combined, including the blog (Twitter(Twix?) my personal Instagram, and author profiles). Then I started to sell books. Really, People are actually reading my books and, by all accounts, are liking them! YAY!
So I have been spending all my time on Threads. (Feels like I am cheating on my blog) Threads is a great place that has a lot of super supportive author and artist communities and I get less spam and intrusions into the little world I built there. There are also a lot more engagement and interaction with fellow authors and artists, it just feels right to be there. Please give me a follow there @joseph.hallett.author
I am still going to post here from time to time so don’t go away. I am considering a reformat on the blog to make it more bookcentric, but I will still share stuff about my writing journey and post flash fiction and such.
Read an Ebook week
Happy Read an Ebook Week! To help you find a book to celebrate, you can find my entire collection at a promotional price at @Smashwords from March 3 – March 9. Find my books and many more at https://www.smashwords.com/ebookweek #ebookweek24 #Smashwords
The road to hell is paved with good intentions.
I have always liked that saying. I don’t know why. Maybe I enjoy duality. As I poke my head out of the cave of 2023 into the dawning of 2024 I am looking ahead for a great writing year. I have some great intentions, both long-term and short-term.
I will pause here and do my obligatory reflections of 2023. I’ll start with the fun stuff, I published another novel “Emergence Ascended.” I Wrote a novel for NaNoWriMo, which was a bucket list item. (Now I feel like I can legitimately say I am a Novelist.) I Did an interview on Youtube to promote my new novel (It didn’t help, but it was a fun experience). If you follow my social media accounts you may notice that I do not do the random selfie post as I prefer to stay in the background (Introvert stuff) but in the spirit of self-promotion I powered through.
There is probably more highlights of fun things in 2023 but sometimes I want to keep things for me. That being said there was some interesting things in 2023, just to keep it spicy. The big one is a series of events starting with a road rage incident, our vehicle got a nice bullet hole. Sent it to the bodyshop for repair, of which there was a break in and OUR vehicle was stolen to commit a crime. It was recovered a month later with a group of homeless occupying it in an alleyway. Toxicology report deemed it hazardous and it had to be ‘totaled’ by the insurance (we didn’t want to drive a Meth car anyway.) Replaced the vehicle with a new one from the insurance money. Whew. But that is not all. A month later a windstorm took out a tree, causing it to fall onto our home, and, Guess what?… The new Van. Yup. Lucky it was a glancing blow and our Insurance (again) fixed the repairs for that (No we did not take it to the same bodyshop) But wait there is more. Our upstairs bathtub cracked and flooded the garage. SO now we have a shiny new bath room remodel (that we are still paying for at the cost of 400$ a month)All in all, though it was a financially and mentally stressful year, we survived, and I still think the good outweighed the bad as far as 2023 goes.
Whats next? I have some very good intentions for the year coming up. First on my agenda is to finish “Yellow Man.” the novel I wrote for NaNoWriMo. There are some good bones in the story, and I am working on fleshing out some details and adding things I missed or neglected in the first rough draft. Who knows how long this process is going to take me, but I am optimistic I can get it finished soonish.
I have several more stories I want to get down. Most are just thumbnail thoughts, and don’t have names yet. The “Bigfoot” story is next after Yellow Man. I love Cryptids and am excited to get that one rolling. I have two possible endings rolling around, I guess I will decide when I get there. Another one is the Will-o-the-wisp story. I want to get that one done before the BIG project. The Big Project is a storyline that will turn into a series (more than likely) with some vignettes here and there. There is a great setting that I thing I can create a small little world around with different adventures to play with. But this one I am going to give a lot of thought while I finish the other three stories. I want to get those out of the way because I predict that the big project will consume a few years (at the least, unless I get bored or distracted, which is probable)
Of course I will keep on keeping on with the blog. I will jot down some more short stories for your enjoyment. I am still compiling short stories for my book “30-minute Shivers.” A collection of short horror stories.
The Audible project, I intend to start recording (for realz this time) on Sunday mornings. I can enjoy my new “recording studio” and give you my least cringy narration to Emergence Collective on Spotify.
Thank you for spending your time visiting my blog; I sincerely appreciate it. I love interacting and building friendships, so feel free to comment and like. You can follow my socials and other projects by clicking the linktree. https://linktr.ee/jshallett
Emergence Ascended review by T.A.Walker
Emergence Ascended is to be featured on a podcast December 8th
Free Writer reviews is a podcast by T.A. Walker. She reviewed Emergence Collective, and I am happy to announce that she will review Emergence Ascended! T.A Walker (a.k.a the Bookie) has over 25 published works. Her work can be found on Spotify T.A.Walker audiobooks. Check out her work, its great stuff!
If you haven’t already read Emergence Collective, buy it now! So you can follow her read-along before Dec 8th, where she will read and review Emergence Ascended on Free Writer Reviews.
buy it here. Get the whole story experience.
Sacrifices must be made…
It’s October. The veil between worlds is thin, and the old gods demand tribute. Blood will flow! Muahahahahahaa! Maybe I should have waited to post this until tomorrow, Friday the 13th (or lucky you to the Australian readers), To post my sacrifice piece. Okay, not a blood sacrifice, but I donated part of my soul to the cause.
It doesn’t happen a lot, and maybe it should more often. I don’t know. I had spent a fair amount of time writing chapter 42. One of the last chapters in “Emergence Ascended.” I am wrapping up the main conflict and setting up for the satisfying conclusion that will make or break my book. Nothing is worse than getting invested in a story only to have it fall flat in the end. (my new fear). I recently watched a movie that did just that, though I can’t remember the name because I try to forget disappointment.
The chapter flowed well and had all the elements I was hoping for. The tone was right, and I think it invoked the emotion I was trying to instill. Then, I deleted it. I even set up for it a couple times in earlier chapters (I had to go back and change those breadcrumbs, too)
It was painful. I do not get much time to write (this book could have been completed a year ago, to be honest), so the writing I do accomplish is precious. I deleted it because, even though I knew where I was going, it didn’t read like I wanted when I got there. My inner critic told me things like, “It’s pretentious, expository, and leaned too heavily on outside references.” DELETE.
Sometimes, sacrifices are needed, and some are even worth it. So, I have mixed feelings, but the strongest is eagerness. Excitement to take another approach. I am so close to the end, its worth my effort to make sure the reader gets the best out of me.
Thank you for taking the time to check out my post!
Garden Pavilion at the temple
It’s easy to imagine Mark and Trina walking the gardens or chill’n in that pavilion. “Emergence Collective”
Chapter snippet…
Chapter 33 of Emergence Ascended just a tease. Sadly the Audio gods are angry, and my plans of recording more chapters of Emergence ascended went the way of the Dodo (with fewer feathers.) Still in the plans I might try to squeeze it out after work, if I can fine a quiet space. I have been considering dropping chapters of Emergence Ascended right here. Any interest out there or should I wait for the book release?
Thanks for checking it out!
Audible Update: Moving along
Do you remember the Twilight Zone episode “Time enough at last”? Where the bookworm survives the end of the world and can finally read as much as he wants with no interruptions? Yeah I feel for him. but my case is for writing. If you can know me I am consistently inconsistent with my personal projects. So I missed a week or so blogging, (And writing in general). I did managed to get chapter 13 recorded, but not the re-record of 14 (because of the weird interference sound in the recording), I published it anyway. I got 15 through 17 finished yesterday so there is progress.
I have been thinking about Spotify and the role it is taking in my blog and writing. So far, I have not been very vocal, aside from the narrating and a quick intro. I have been wondering if I should lean farther into it more as a podcast and less of a platform to read my book.
I have also been speaking with a music artist that I like about using her music in the podcast (intro and outro music). I have received permission. Now I just have to learn how to do it. Of course everything I want to do falls into the category of ” Now I have to learn that thing.” Of course a will let you know the progress of that new project.
“Emergence Ascended” my WIP is going slow, I admit that I am stalling just a bit, I am still trying to decide the direction of a couple very important characters and of course that changes the end of the story a bit. I am a discovery writer,make this shit up as I go so even I do not really know how it is going to end. I have and idea where I want it to go, but as the story takes a life of its own it could go very different that what I had planned. Thats is fun for me too, as I am also and eager audience waiting to find out what happens next. (makes for good introversion, as I am constantly entertained by myself). Thanks for taking the time to check out my blog! If you like it, feel free to comment or like it!
Hand-prints of Darkness 