What I Liked

The World: I’ll admit that during the first 50 pages or so, I found the exposition a touch tedious. At some point, though, the world almost began to feel like a character I was desperate to learn more about. History, politics, and theology – all things that normally feel slow – were suddenly the reason I'd stay up late to read just one more chapter.

The magic system: I tend to enjoy magic systems, but I found the one in The Emperor’s Blades especially interesting and thought-provoking.

The Twists: There was a thing I hated. Hated. Seriously hated. And I would have sworn it was irredeemable. And then—wham—the author threw a twist at us, and I was gobsmacked. The thing I hated was more than redeemed. It was brilliant! (Click to reveal spoiler)

Mean Mentors: Kaden, the heir to the throne, is a monk out in the hinterlands. His mentor, Tam, whips him bloody for minor mistakes and consistently insults him. He starts out utterly unlikable. And even though Tam doesn’t really change as a character (he never softens in his approach to Kaden), by the end of the book I liked him a lot. I’m not entirely sure how Stavely did it. I almost want to re-read to see where things start to change.

What I Didn’t Like

Plot holes: Kaden is sent to this monastery to learn something imperative to successfully running the country when he ascends to the throne. Valyn, the next in line, instead becomes a soldier.

This is the sort of world where a bad flu could easily kill someone. Why wouldn’t Kaden and Valyn both study for whatever it is that’s necessary to be a successful ruler? As I pondered this question, the answer that came to me was that having both of them there would probably have negatively impacted Kaden’s study. I’d have liked this concept to be more explicitly state, though. For example, the abbot could have said, “One only truly learns to let go when one is free of all that is familiar. Valyn’s presence here would have made your training impossible.”

I’d still raise my brow at the second-in-line to the throne regularly being bound and chucked into the ocean to see if he has the wits to untie himself and survive, but at the least there’d be a good reason why he wasn’t training to be Kaden’s backup.

Stupid Characters: Valyn is training among some of the baddest soldiers in the world. They’re supposed to be more than brutal, though. They’re supposed to be cunning. And as a wing-commander-in-training, Vayln is supposed to be able to lead. His decision-making will mean life or death for the people under him.

And yet he’s relentlessly bad at critical thinking. For a civilian character, it would be annoying, but acceptable. Characters in books tend to be stupid. It’s how an author can impart information to the reader that the character themselves haven’t picked up on yet. It’s also an engagement tactic: did you guess right? May as well read the next chapter and find out.

It doesn't work with Valyn, though. The intrigue swirling around Valyn is the same sort of trouble he’ll have to face as the leader of a military troupe. His inability to read what’s going on is in direct contradiction to his supposed success as a soldier. It’s hard to believe in him.

The POV balance: Kaden and Valyn have roughly an equal amount of screen time. Then there’s Adare, their sister, who maybe gets three or four short chapters. When she came on screen, I struggled to remember what was up with her. I was invested in Kaden and Valyn, and I mostly just wanted to get back to them.

Body descriptions: All the women’s bodies were described in great detail. This isn’t inherently bothersome to me. Young men are going to think sexually about women. Most of the book is told from the POV of young men. Ergo, I’m neither surprised nor bothered by descriptions of boobs.

The problem was that, even in moments of terror and violence, we still get these sexualized descriptions. At one point a young woman is curled into a ball sobbing uncontrollably, and the POV character is staring at her backside and thinking about how the pulled fabric or her silken dress accentuates certain ... aspects of her.

Is this POV character significantly more heartless than I thought? Or is the scene unrealistic? Either way, it distanced me from the book and took my sympathy for the POV character down a few notches.

Also, since there is a female POV, I feel like it’s only fair to have her mentally think about men in as much detail as her brothers think about women. She does crush on a guy’s looks, but her thoughts are strictly about how the cut of his shirt accentuates his muscles. Why not take her gaze a little lower?

The brutality: I feel like the book would be stronger without some of the on-screen deaths. After a certain point the deaths felt like they lacked purpose. I prefer happy stories, though, so this might be user preference.

Final Thoughts

The Emperor’s Blades had a definite grip to it. I wanted to learn more about the world, the insidious plots happening just out of sight, and how various pieces of information fit together. Somehow, even though most of the characters are far too gruff and practically unlovable, I wanted them to succeed and find happiness. Along the way I was delighted by Stavely’s brilliant twists and the ease with which he paints a picture.

This is the sort of book you need to be patient with, though. I feel like most books that skirt the edges of the grim-dark sub-genre tend to move quickly. The Emperor’s Blades does not follow that speed. Most of the book is gathering information, getting to know the characters, and learning more about the world.

My only real complaint is that now I’m in the middle of two series of tremendously long books. Do I read The Wise Man’s Fear or The Providence of Fire next?

Which was an asset. I suspect those who rated it poorly got sucked into the hype and were disappointed when they didn’t feel like the book lived up to those expectations.

Either way, I’m glad I read it. There was a lot to like, but it’s exactly because I liked it that I feel a certain amount of disappointment that it didn’t quite live up to the promises it made.

The first promise broken was the point of view. For the first seven chapters, the POV wandered between a sort of omniscient narrator and a closer third-person. This flexibility with the POV, the sort of thing I’m normally a stickler for, worked. It allowed the author to hint at things going on behind the scenes without revealing his hand. The story itself had a slow steadiness to it; it wasn’t in a hurry. As the opening to a 700 page epic fantasy, everything felt like it fit, and like I had some idea of where the book was headed.

I was wrong.

The shifting third-person POV was replaced with the main character, Kvothe, retelling the story of his life.

Instantly, albeit unintentionally, I took a three-month break from the book. It’s not that I hated the change so much as that it wasn’t the book I had planned to read. It’s like being excited for Mexican and then being served Thai. I love Thai, but I was looking forward to guacamole.

When I re-opened the book, I was met by a bombastic and braggadocios account of all the cool things Kvothe has done. It was the sort of monologue that would make me hate a person in real life, but promised interesting adventures of stealing from gods and courting princesses and other fantastical things. To properly set up those accomplishments, though, Kvothe decided he needed to start at the beginning: his childhood.

At this point, I felt like I’d taken two steps back. Initially, I was expecting a steady build up of awesomeness. Then I was expecting to jump right into the insanity. Instead, I was following a boy through his life as a travelling performer. He was altogether too clever, and beyond precocious, but somehow it still worked for me. Kvothe knew he was clever, but aside from wanting to impress the occasional adult, never put on airs or viewed himself as greater-than. It worked. I was invested in his relationships and personal goals, even knowing his world would certainly fall apart, and soon. The narrative made that much clear.

When it did, I thought for sure it had turned into a revenge story. I waited for Kvothe to gather first his emotions, then his wits, then everything he’d need to exact his revenge, and then set out to undo the wrongs of the past.

Again, I was wrong. Hundreds of pages passed, and that coal of revenge felt like it was cooling. I was okay with this. I had grown invested in his goals, his relationships, his personal struggles. A few secondary (and slightly insane) characters were especially delightful, and though Kvothe remained far too clever, his poverty helped keep him grounded in such a way that when he did puff up over his own intelligence, it felt like a defense mechanism, not big-headedness. You could almost forgive him for it; his intelligence was one of the few things he had. It made sense he would wield it occasionally like a weapon.

It helped that most of this pompousness was against Ambrose, an utterly contemptible character. That Ambrose existed at all, though, felt like it did the book a disservice. One could easily edit him out completely, and the story would stay the same. What’s more, I found that this character lurking nearby almost ruined good moments in the book. For example, at some point, Kvothe comes into a good deal of money. As he’s spent most of his life destitute, this is a huge opportunity for him. I was instantly nervous about what the obnoxiously villainous Ambrose would do to somehow ruin this for Kvothe. He never did, but what was a happy moment in the book was overshadowed by an unpleasant sort of tension that I’m not sure the author even intended.

By this point, revenge had become very much back-burner. I was comfortable and interested in watching him live his normal life—even if it looked nothing like his initial promise of stealing from gods and courting princesses—and I was excited to see him succeed.

But then revenge came back on the table, and everything Kvothe worked for came second.

About once a day since I say to myself “Leslie, why didn’t you finish reading The Name of the Wind? It was good! I want to know how it ends!”

And then I remember that I did, in fact, finish it—it just didn’t feel like an ending. The first-person retelling of Kvothe’s life ends rather abruptly. Back in the third-person cum omniscient point of view, things get weird in a seemingly plot-heavy way, but that weirdness doesn’t appear to have any direct link to the story Kvothe was telling. There was no discernible arc, and no feeling of closure. It could have ended a few chapters earlier or later, and I’d have felt the same.

This is all the more frustrating to me because of the large passages in the book that feel superfluous. Removing Ambrose would free up valuable pages. The section dedicated to Kvothe’s trials and tribulations lingered far longer than necessary to make you understand his plight—while not actively advancing or impacting the plot. In short, I feel like there was room to give the story an arc, or at least a satisfying enough ending that I’d remember that I had finished reading the book.

While it sounds like I’m tearing The Name of the Wind apart, that’s not my intent. I’m well past the days of finishing a book for completionist sake. I only finish a book if I enjoy it. And I did!

It’s hard to put into words what specifically I liked about The Name of the Wind, though. I could mention that I really liked the magic system, and the effortless way secondary characters wove through the story, and that I can still conjure vivid images of scenes from the book, but I think what I most enjoyed was that the book was simply interesting and pleasant to read. That might not sound like a ringing endorsement, but I’d argue that it’s much easier to come up with a compelling plot than it is to write long stretches that are pleasant and interesting even when the plot feels like an after-thought.

I’ll be curious to see how he handles book two—both because I think Rothfuss has talent and potential to write a jaw-dropping book, and because I want to stop my brain from constantly asking me why I never finished reading The Name of the Wind.

As a poor recent grad in need of most things in life, I kept a close watch on the free listings on Craigslist. One day, a solid wood door was listed. I loaded it into my tiny Chevy Cavalier and hauled it home.

Using a stack of old encyclopedias I got for free from a used bookstore, I decoupaged the door with the best illustrations and charts.

At Home Depot cut me two 4x4 boards to the perfect height. I spray painted them, then used corner brackets to attach them as legs.

I had a huge, beautiful desk for less than $50.

Right now it’s my writing table, and one of my favorite things about it is all the random information at my fingertips. Any time I need a new name, I scour the table until something sounds good. Cabot and George are just two current Echo Chamber Heist characters that were named from perusing my table.

Anytime I’m stuck, I take a look at my elbows for references to ancient mummies or information about elephant seals. Most of all, it’s just fun. I could afford to replace this ad hoc table with something nicer, but I love it just the way it is.

To be honest, I barely remember the first day. There were bagels, to be sure, and I nervously ate three of them before I decided I shouldn’t go back for a fourth. Yet even from the beginning, I remember the classroom as warm and inviting.

Which is to say, all of my concerns couldn’t have been more wrong.

The caliber of the program is beyond reproach. I learned so much. Even more than that, I enjoyed learning it. I’d come home from class, intending to take a break by my favorite means—video games—and instead I’d get sucked into trying to solve a problem in my program. And even though I knew it meant there’d be no time for games, I didn’t mind. Programming was more fun.

My buckshot history with programming didn’t matter. About half the class never touched a line of code before, and the first six weeks (where we focused on the fundamental logic of programming more than anything else) moved quick, but not so quick as to leave people in the dust. The instructor was careful to balance the wants of people who moved fast with the needs of those who didn’t.

My classmates were (and continue to be) amazing. I was incredibly lucky to get to spend three months among such friendly, funny, and driven people. I made lasting friendships, and seeing photos from my Academy Pittsburgh session makes me surprisingly sentimental. We all changed our lives together and that fosters a camaraderie that’s hard to beat.

And my job prospects? Tomorrow, I start at my dream company as a junior software engineer. My classmates are also falling into work, and even outside of our day jobs, we’re talking life-goals and side projects and all the things we want to build now that we have an idea of how to build them.

The heart and soul of Academy Pittsburgh rests in the hands of John Lange and Josh Lucas, the amazing co-founders of the program. Their careful planning and guidance ensured that everything came together perfectly.

John, the instructor, is as brilliant as he is patient. He’s also kind, in the most humble, sincere way imaginable. On top of that, he’s funny and witty and just fun to be around. If I tried to custom-build the perfect instructor, I suspect I’d end up with a pale imitation of John Lange. Whether he was carrying a sleepy baby so her mother could work or answering the same question for the hundredth time, John was always happy to do whatever he could to help us make the most of our time with Academy Pittsburgh.

Josh, the administrator, is fun, funny and inspiringly enthusiastic. From day one I felt like he genuinely believed that we could take the tech world by storm, and when you have the full force of Josh’s enthusiasm behind you, it’s hard not to want to live up to that. He wasn’t a constant in the classroom—he was more likely to be doing the things that kept the lights on and the fridge stocked with energy drinks—but every time he showed up, it was like a positivity tornado blowing through, and I’d find myself with renewed energy and determination.

Though the program itself is designed for people brand-new to programming, it’ll certainly resonate with some more than others. In my class, I found three different things that made people light up, and I think having one (or more) of the qualities will make the class more satisfying.

#1. Finding joy in solving logic problems.

If you grew up spending your hard-earned allowance money on logic puzzle books from the discount racks at Barnes and Noble, you’re going to love most of the course. Logic drives development, it’s as simple as that.

#2. Finding joy in building beautiful things.

One of our in-class assignments was to build an app style calculator. I jumped right into the logic of it. By the time I was done, it worked rather well, but it looked straight out of 1995—no one would have wanted to use it.

I looked at my neighbor’s calculator, and it looked like it had been lifted from a Mac product. It was sleek and beautiful and eye-catching—but it didn’t work at all.

Development is both sides of that coin, and often times, the people who make the product beautiful are different from the people who make the product work. Both are equally important. My classmate didn’t love the logic portion of the class, but found a ton of value there anyway, because she was passionate about design.

#3. Finding joy in bringing things to life.

If I’m the sort of person who would get absorbed in the joy of making the logic flawless, and my classmate in the previous example is the sort of person who would get absorbed in the joy of making the design breathtaking, then who would ever push for finishing a product? Everything about software development could be better. The code could be cleaner, the design more polished. Part of being a successful developer is wanting to see all the elements of a program come together and become a product.

Another classmate neither loved the logic nor the design, but when she was introduced to frameworks that could take you from nothing to a decent template of a website in less than a day, her enthusiasm was palpable. She just loved creating.

Part of the program is fostering the love (or at least begrudging respect) of all three elements, but walking in the door, if one of these three things thrills you to the bone, you’ll find yourself at an advantage.

Another part of this class is that you get out of it what you put into it. There was almost no homework. John never grades your programs. Your passion drives your own success, and John is both mentor and cheerleader on your journey, but at no point is he going to push you—specifically you—to be as good as you can be. You have to want that for yourself. If you do, you’ll learn more than you think possible.

It goes without saying, but I adored the program. 10/10, would attend again. Beyond that, I’m honored to have been among the 17 of us who made up the first class of Academy Pittsburgh, and hope that with my growing experience that I can help give back to the program that gave so much to me. Attending Academy Pittsburgh has done more for my professional life than anything else I’ve done—graduating from a good university included.

If you’re serious about getting into development, reach out to John Lange or Josh Lucas, ask to sit in on a class, talk to previous graduates (including me!), and just keep learning. You can find them on Twitter (@academypgh), Facebook, or academypgh.com.

The future is bright.

Last Sprint

We had planned to work on our second book in the Bitlather Chronicles series in July, but changed our minds the first week after we received an agent rejection. It made us rethink a few of our choices.

This caused a sprint blowup. Instead of leaving our original tasks on the board, we took them down and re-planned. We knew we weren’t going to get to book two, so there was no sense in leaving tasks that would never get finished.

Leslie balanced revising Echo Chamber Heist with finishing her intensive twelve-week developer boot camp. After the program ended, the job hunt began while she continued to revise for Pitch Wars.

I focused on Steampunk Fairy Tales 2, setting up retirement investments (which was long overdue), and reviewing Leslie’s revisions.

I began following a pixel art tutorial on Udemy. I still want to seriously tackle a game dev sprint, and after talking to other developers, I’m starting to think I should use pixel art instead of 3d models. Stardew Valley also reminded me how much I love the pixel aesthetic.

We deprioritized the milestone PSG Done, which was for finishing a rough draft of the second book in our series. If we’re selected for Pitch Wars, the rest of 2016 will be devoted to Echo Chamber Heist. If we’re not selected, we’d like to put Echo Chamber Heist in the drawer for a few months so we can come back with fresh eyes. Since we’ll be waiting to hear back for Pitch Wars, Leslie began drafting a new idea we tossed around early this year. I sometimes revisit a draft I started in 2015.

We also might deprioritize querying 50 agents. We’ve learned a lot from agent rejections, so we like to have only a few out at a time. Once criticisms are less consistent, we’ll query more.

The Numbers

Because we blew up and re-planned the sprint, we ended up doing pretty well. Leslie didn’t use scope creep tasks this time. She knew she had to finish making the most important changes to the manuscript by the end of the month, so toward the end, she just pinned as she finished things.

• 80 planned tasks (Leslie: 37, Dave: 43)
• 71 finished tasks (Leslie: 35, Dave: 36)
  • 58 finished planned tasks (Leslie: 35, Dave: 23)
  • 13 finished scope creep tasks (Leslie: 0, Dave: 13)

• 9 unfinished planned tasks (Leslie: 2, Dave: 7)

• 1 finished scope creep milestone: Finish Academy Pittsburgh

Takeaways

• Milestones are great, but they are merely guidelines. You should try to adhere to them unless recent evidence suggests change. For instance, we want to be published, and realized the rest of this year will either be spent on our current manuscript. If not, we should consider writing other stories before writing book two.

• Enter writing competitions. Even though we weren’t selected for Pitch Wars last year, we tried (and did well) in other competitions. Having agents request full manuscripts was a confidence booster. We also improved our querying and synopsis skills.

• Value your time. Don’t sell yourself short. A friend of mine recently started a consulting company and they closed their first deal, but not before agonizing over what their price tag was. In these situations, talk to other people in the same business. This should boost your confidence so you don’t sell yourself short, or set the price too high.

• Walk away from ridiculous contracts. Don’t trust organizations that waste your time and severely erode your rights when you sign a piece of paper. (There are some exceptions to long contracts, like when you buy a house. What I’m talking about is contracts that are inconsistent with other, similar organizations.)

  Twice now, I’ve been burned by companies with long contracts that try to cover every scenario under the sun. Both times I thought about walking away, but I didn’t. Both times I regretted it. An unusually lengthy contract implies you’re dealing with bullies.

• Cut time-wasters out of your life. If you have a big project in mind, like writing a book, or building a video game, or starting a business, you need to minimize time-intensive distractions. A salary job that expects 60-hour weeks (and weekends) is stealing time that you could invest in your dreams.

  Merely driving to work five times a week, at twenty minutes per drive, is 200 minutes in a car per week. Assuming 4 weeks of vacation, that’s 6.6 days a year. Assuming you sleep 8 hours a day, that’s 10 days of awake time. Just in a car, with a “reasonable” twenty minute commute.

  What would you do with 10 more days a year? If you have a 30 minute commute, what would you do with 15 more days a year?

  Can you take public transportation instead of driving? That gives you an opportunity to read or write. Every day adds up.

Next Sprint

Our next sprint will start with submitting to Pitch Wars and work on Steampunk Fairy Tales 2. Leslie will keep interviewing and focus on her next manuscript, while I hope to continue learning game dev, catch up on blogging, and maybe revisit my own manuscript.

Reflecting on July

July was the month of big, vegetarian breakfasts.

The first class of Academy Pittsburgh was coming to a close, and Leslie wanted to do something special for John and Josh, the two guys that put the program together. She thought they could use a break, so instead of throwing another party, she thought it would be nice to re-invest in the class by having everyone donate programming books. She made this bookshelf to keep them all together.

The graduation party was at the PAPA (Professional and Amateur Pinball Association) headquarters. All of the pinball machines were free play. My favorites were The Walking Dead and The Wizard of Oz.

But the most important thing was getting everyone together one last time.

Leslie will write a separate article about Academy Pittsburgh.

After the class was over, Leslie and I implemented changes from a recent agent rejection, in preparation for Pitch Wars.

Some of our oldest friends, Garett and Lauren, came to visit.

The garden produced well.

One day, Leslie and I were a bit short with each other, which is atypical. We realized later that we were just too hot. We retreated to a spare bedroom with an air conditioner.

Since I started this section with breakfast, I’ll end with a shot of night in Pittsburgh.

We breakfasted on the warabimochi purchased the prior day at Nishiki Market.

The matcha powder was a welcome pick-me-up. After watching me lick it off my finger, Leslie said, “Rub it on your gums like cocaine!”

We were wired. I wanted to pour hot water on it and drink what was left.

Most pictures were taken on Sunday, November 15, 2015.

Handcraft Market at Chion-ji

Our hostel, Backpacker K’s House Kyoto, maintained a list of events in the area. The only one we could attend was the Hand Craft Market at Chion-ji. This was an exciting opportunity, as Chion-ji was already on our to-see list.

It smelled of mud, incense, coffee, and sweets. The rain from the prior day made it messy, so cardboard was laid over the paths.

Leslie spotted a bag with rhino and elephant fabric. When she opened it, there were colorful, cute animals inside. She squealed, similar to how she did for Uji-chan. The merchant liked Leslie’s enthusiasm, so she threw in a wallet made from the same material.

Our favorite encounter was with this cat lady.

We loved these animals by zoo t-imai, and picked a memento to remind us of the capybara we saw at the Osaka aquarium.

We’ve noticed a fair amount of rhinos and capybaras in Japan. America needs to catch up with the trend.

Another vendor, Hashi-ya, sold beautiful paper animals.

This image gave us inspiration for writing our next Steampunk Fairy Tale, which is set in Japan. I don’t know if the concept will remain in the final draft, but it helped generate ideas.

We entered the large, incense-filled temple, which served as a respite for tired shoppers. I loved hanging out in a centuries-old shrine as a backdrop for a community event.

It sounds like Chion-ji hosts other events, like the autumn Kyoto used book fair.

Arashiyama

The area around Chion-ji was near our final hostel, so we decided to explore it later. Instead, we headed to the bamboo grove of Arashiyama.

The path was packed, but the noise of people didn’t cover the bird calls and the bamboo clicking in the breeze.

Nonomiya Shrine

Nestled in Arashiyama was the Nonomiya Shrine. Historically, it moved when a new imperial priestess underwent purification. She stayed there for a year, then traveled to Ise Shrine.

This quaint shrine was well worth the stop.

We came back at night, when it was less crowded, and it felt dreamlike. Leslie noted the paper lanterns were advertisements from companies—specifically for Japan Railways and a restaurant.

She said things are easier to romanticize when you don’t understand the language. This practice shouldn’t be too much of a surprise, since many of the torii gates at Fushimi Inari are also advertisements.

Tenryuji Temple

Tenryuji Temple was founded in 1339 and is a UNESCO World Heritage Site. It’s been ravaged by fires on many occasions, so I think the current building is from the 1800s. (Fun fact: you can still see slashes in the main hall’s pillars from when samurais practiced their swordsmanship.)

Before we left for Japan, I showed Leslie pictures of moss incorporated in temples. She’d been waiting all week for it, so … go wild, Leslie!

How does that make you feel?

Good enough to make you want to jump?

Well, okay, I’ll jump too!

Tenryu-ji employs Borrowed Scenery, which incorporates surrounding nature in the garden, such as the mountains.

An iconic image from Tenryu-ji is the image of Daruma, who is credited as the founder of Zen Buddhism.

My one regret is we didn’t know about the Shigetsu restaurant inside of Tenryu-ji. It serves Shojin Ryori, or vegan Buddhist cuisine. This is something I’ve wanted to try, but we didn’t spend much time inside since it was so crowded.

Meandering in Kameyama Park

Happy to escape the crowds, we entered Kameyama Park and discovered a viewpoint of the Hozu-gawa River with paths winding through the forest.

Along the river was boat rentals and meals on boats (a concept that was also popular in Uji).

We stopped at a restaurant on the river named Kameyama-ya, which had a great view of the river and meals for ¥620- ¥980. I ordered the Oden set, even though I wasn't too hungry, because it was the first vegetarian-ish set meal I found (ignoring the fish cake, which I wasn’t aware of at the time).

Iwatayama Monkey Park

We crossed a bridge crowded with people, bicycles, cars, and rickshaws, to find a sign heralding the monkey park.

As we walked up the long path to the top of the hill, we encountered a Japanese man who was laughing at his girlfriend, who walked slowly because she wore impractically high heels.

At the top, monkeys walked around everywhere and clung to the feeding house.

As with many destinations, there was a view that inspired an existential crisis within Leslie.

But, the primary focus was the monkeys!

We entered the monkey house and bought some bananas. Leslie was smitten by one of the babies.

A larger monkey dropped the banana Leslie offered him, so Leslie picked it up and the monkey got angry. Leslie called it a “pissy little thing.”

They associate food with the house, not the people, so they generally don’t get aggressive when you leave. However, one very red monkey was harassing an employee. The employee fed him, and said it’s best to just give those ones food so they go away.

One monkey collapsed face-first while walking and passed out.

In the spirit of Japanese condensing two foreign words to make it shorter, like pasu-kon for personal computer, I created the term groofing, which is when they groom on a roof.

We took a different path when exiting, and happened upon a small playground. Leslie went down a slide that was intended for very small children.

Three Japanese women with kids laughed, and one said something like oshiri ni haittanai which I’m pretty sure literally translates to her butt didn’t enter. At the bottom, another woman clapped encouragingly for Leslie.

For more information about the monkeys, see this sign.

Heading Home

Everything shut down at 6:00, and the streets emptied. As twilight descended, we strolled through a wooded path along the Hozu-gawa River.

We re-entered the bamboo forest, hoping for night illuminations, but there wasn’t a single light.

We returned via Kyoto Station.

Japan has stamps everywhere—in shrines and other well-visited places. We thought it was sweet that Kyoto Station encourages you to ask station attendants for paper.

Collecting these stamps is a nice memento. Shrine stamps usually cost a few hundred yen a piece, but are more extravagant and often have calligraphy handwritten over them. These rubber stamps are always free.

As we exited the station, we were greeted by Aqua Fantasy: rainbow-illuminated streams of water choreographed to Christmas music. Although it’s not Christmas-y by American standards, and it was only mid-November, Leslie admitted that it somehow put her in the Christmas spirit.

Here’s some city shots of Kyoto:

We grabbed a few snacks to round out the night. I love Japanese junk food, because they use flavors that would probably never work in America.

The fries were regular white potatoes with a sweet glaze. The cheese-filled things had a real-er cheese than I’m accustomed to in American snacks, but it was wrapped with a rice cracker. Leslie’s favorite is the pizza flavored chips.

I spilled the Mini One Cup on the bed while opening it. It was the Korean students’ go-to during study abroad, but I never had one before. I expected it to taste like rubbing alcohol, but it really wasn’t bad. The 6% Kirin Winter Ale was the best canned beer I had this trip.

Closing Comments

In one day, we browsed excellent hand crafted goods in a temple, wandered through bamboo, ate alongside a river, and hand-fed monkeys. It was quite the hike—30,000 steps, or 14 miles.

The Arashiyama Bamboo Grove is a great destination, because there’s a lot to see just from wandering around. You don’t need much of a plan to have a great time.

My next article will cover Kurama, which is famous for Tengu, and Kibune, which is a small town in a forest valley. We also dipped into a true onsen.

What is #PitMad?

PitMad is a Twitter competition where agents, editors, and publishers can favorite pitches that strikes their fancy. A favorite equates to a request for submission, which usually entails a query, synopsis, and first so many pages of your (completed) manuscript. They typically happen four times a year.

It’s a great way to find agents who are looking for books to represent and who are interested in your genre. Even if you’re not ready to participate, it’s nice to read through the feed and discover what catches your eye. Keep those pitches in mind when you need to begin pitching your own work.

For more information, see Brenda Drake’s article. You may want to follow @HeatherCashman and @brendadrake to keep up with various Twitter pitch contests.

(More of) My Favorite #PitMad Tweets

Almost two weeks ago, I watched the #PitMad-YA feed and noted anything that caught my attention.

These are more of my favorite YA pitches. They’re not necessarily the tweets that received the most favorites, but the ones that grabbed my attention. They’re not organized by relative favorites, as that would be difficult for me to do.

Newspaper Advert

#Pitmad #YA #SF Seeking 17yo girl to become the mother of an evolved all-female human race. Must be willing to let men (&BFF) go extinct.

(Original tweet by @kimberlyzook)

Not only did this wanted ad buck the trend of the other pitches, it made the target demographic clear and states the source of tension (losing her BFF).

The style makes me think it’ll be campy, sort of like My Teacher is an Alien, so I’m expecting a light, fun tone.

Hidden Truth

Pastor's Daughter's Survival Guide: keep your head down, be quiet, smile. Most important: never let them see you sin. #pitmad #YA #CON #LGBT

(Original tweet by @ZachJPayne)

The first four words reveal the character and her source of tension: her father, whose occupation, in this context, is at ends with her lifestyle (made even more apparent with #LGBT).

The shortening length after the first colon makes me read slowly: keep your head down, be quiet, smile. This tactic drew me in, but only because the words were so perfectly chosen.

Never let them see you sin implies a wild side. I’m guessing the focus is on evading being caught over tension-filled fights between father and daughter, but I’d have to read more to find out.

Women Warriors

In this alt-history, Norway never lost its gods--or its shieldmaidens. A reawakened blood feud calls a reluctant heir home #PitMad #YA #HF

(Original tweet by @allisonfriebs)

Leslie got excited when I showed her this one. It’s got Vikings, gods, and women warriors. The first five words reveal the time and setting. The word shieldmaden really pops, too.

String of Statements

Punk shows in fields. Parties in barns. Being branded Jezebel in a spiritual war. MN is nothing like new girl Thora expected. #PitMad #YA

(Original tweet by @CiteSomething)

Amanda MacGregor was able to fit four short sentences into 126 characters, which gave an excellent glimpse at her story.

I’m not sure what the spiritual war will end up being (zealots? angels and demons?), but the punk shows and barn parties remind me of high school. It finishes smoothly with the location, protagonist’s name, and her perspective.

Off The Wall

#Pitmad #YA #R Grab thy surfboards and hit the waves! Love and laughs in Shakespeare's Much Ado on the beach. Danger lurks in the dunes.

(Original tweet by @ISpoonbill)

This screams fun. We know it’s Shakespeare’s Much Ado About Nothing but with surfboards in a modern setting.

That’s All For This Time

Watching the PitMad Twitter feed was a lot of fun. If you’d like to see more examples outside of YA, there’s currently eight age categories and thirty-four genres. Give them a peak, and get ready for the next PitMad event!

My Submissions

Our previous #PitMad entries were a result of hours of work. Distilling the start of a 5-book series in less than 140 characters is a challenge. Do I drop this hashtag, which might help an agent filtering on tags find me, at the expense of ruining sentence flow?

Anyway, I had to get to work, so I pounded out three tweets in twenty minutes, sent them to Leslie for approval, then scheduled them in Hootsuite. I’m including them here, not because I’m proud of them (I’m not), but as an example of something that was done quickly and still got two nibbles.

It’s about how an 18yo girl, a tarot reader, a mogul, and his dog prevent mining tycoons from creating WMDs. #PitMad #YA #LGBT #Steampunk

(Original tweet by @bitlather)

Unaware she has her father’s WMD blueprints, Raquel just wants to settle down with a good job and a comely young lady. #PitMad #YA #SF #LGBT

(Original tweet by @bitlather)

18yo engineering grad Raquel Vapeur evades a hot-air balloon salesman but finds herself in greater danger. #PitMad #YA #AD #LGBT

(Original tweet by @bitlather)

I included my tweets, first, because they pale in comparison to the others in this article. My only goal was to be informative. What’s important is I tried—even though time was scarce.

As a result, we queried one new agent yesterday and compiled a list of agents that could be interested in our work. I’m excited to get back into querying, which is usually one of our least favorite tasks.

Additionally, we had no expectations since we didn’t invest much time. It’s easy to get disgruntled when there’s no payoff after spending hours crafting the perfect text. By throwing something together at the last minute, there was no pressure to do well. I’m not arguing for dumping text in PitMad, but rather advocating trying things even when time is short.

My Favorite #PitMad Tweets

I watched the #PitMad-YA feed throughout the day, from 9:30am to 6:00pm, and noted anything that jumped out at me. In short, reading the #PitMad feed gave me an idea of what it must be like to be an agent who regularly reads hundreds of pitches. I think this understanding could be key in grabbing an agent’s attention.

Not all of these received likes from agents. I don’t know why, but I do know that they caught my eye.

I didn’t organize them by favorite, as that would be very difficult for me to do.

X Meets Y: Action Ensues!

Romeo & Juliet meets Mad Max: Fury Road in a Midwestern dust bowl tale of love, racing, blood, & motor oil. #PitMad #ya

(Original tweet by @brenda_lussier)

One pitch technique is to liken your work to something the reader knows. Relying on pop culture—especially a movie—gave these 107 characters vivid imagery.

X Meets Y: Steampunk Intrigue!

ANNA DRESSED IN BLOOD meets INFERNAL DEVICES. Adele wakes in 1882 with no memory & is hunted by the undead she was born to erase #PitMad #YA

(Original tweet by @MelArmstrong84)

I haven’t read either of the works mentioned yet, but I recognize their titles. I tend to pause and read more carefully when the late 1800s are mentioned, because I’m fascinated with that period.

It also makes me ask questions:

• Why was she born to kill the undead? Is this a Buffy the Vampire sort of thing? Who appointed her?
• Where did her memory go?

Now, I want answers. The only way to find out is to read more. Melissa Armstrong really made her 128 characters count, and, at the time of writing, had attracted the interest of three agents.

Deadpan Ghosts

Stumbling upon a grave with your name on it is weird. Seeing your dead boyfriend leaving flowers on it is weirder. #PitMad #YA

(Original tweet by @ChelseaMCarney)

These 115 characters are delivered in a manner reminiscent of Dead Like Me, which was one of our favorite shows in college. It also makes me ask questions, because that’s a strange scenario.

Did You Read The Contract?

Princess signs a marriage contract without reading it. Big mistake. Her betrothed isn’t the Prince - but his sister. #PitMad #YA #F #LGBT

(Original tweet by @AnnaKoppAuthor)

Not reading a contract might be cliché, but the twist in this pitch immediately piqued my interest. I wouldn’t know how to make this into a full-length book, but I’m imagining a fun romp with light romance, and I’m curious to read more. Three agents, a few editors, and a publisher also showed interest.

What If …

Imagine if Xavier's from Xmen had the rejection rate of Harvard. And there's no safety superhero school: THE UNCANNY REJECTS #Pitmad #YA #sf

(Original tweet by @DRToohey)

This tweet combines a pop culture reference with a hypothetical situation. What if … is a technique that’s often used in startup pitches, as well.

More To Come

These were just five entries that caught my eye. I’ll showcase a few more, soon, that employ even more pitch techniques.

Even though people are getting something for free, they’re still spending time reading it. If people aren’t entertained, then a free price tag won’t make them love it.

Most downloads won’t even result in a read. Free stuff can lend itself to hoarder mentality, where people download everything they can so that it’s available if they want to use it later. I do it myself, sometimes, since I’m just cluttering a few folders on my computer.

Discounting to free does not improve your rankings. When you discount a paid book to free on Amazon, downloads affects your free ranking. After the promotion end, it returns to its pay ranking. However, those downloads create links to other books in the customers who looked at this item were also interested in … section. This might be different in other stores.

Suggestions

• Try a Goodreads giveaway to get reviews and exposure for your book.

• Be sure to market your pay books inside of your free book.

• Market your newsletter inside of a free book, so you can let readers know when you publish something new.

• In other words, make sure the free book gives you value. You spent time writing, formatting, publishing, promoting, etc. You deserve to be compensated. Make that free book help you sell other books.

Last Sprint

I’m leading the Steampunk Fairy Tales group this time, and we just finished two deadlines: inviting more authors, and getting everyone to confirm commitment. I’m please to say four new authors have joined us, and we expect the next collection to contain eleven stories!

In terms of writing, we figured out our next story for Steampunk Fairy Tales 2.

I’ve been working on a first draft of our second full-length book in the mornings. I’m looking forward to taking a break from work and dedicating 100% of our time to this in the future.

In other news, another agent requested the full manuscript for Echo Chamber Heist. I’ve started to leisurely browse querytracker.net and Twitter’s #MSWL in search of potential agents, since it’s a slow process.

I’m still watching Unity tutorials on Udemy, because I’d love to make a game with Leslie when she finishes Academy Pittsburgh. She’s been focused on class and gardening, and has written an introduction for our next Steampunk Fairy Tale.

The Numbers

There was a lot of scope creep last sprint, mostly because we didn’t really plan. We knew there wouldn’t be much time, with Leslie in class and studying, me working extra hours, and both of us gardening.

• 23 planned tasks (Leslie: 5, Dave: 18)
• 33 finished tasks (Leslie: 6, Dave: 27)
  • 20 finished planned tasks (Leslie: 3, Dave: 17)
  • 13 finished scope creep tasks (Leslie: 3, Dave: 10)

Although it’s not a competition, I think this might be the first time I’ve accomplished more tasks than Leslie. (I’m concerned Leslie will make it into a competition when she reads this.)

Takeaways

• Write a collection with other authors. When it comes to self publishing, there’s a lot of bad resources, money-holes, and time-wasters. Working with other authors opens discussion with people you trust, and helps readers discover your other books. It’s also a load of fun, and forces you to try new things.

  For more information, see my blog post on self-publishing a collection with other authors.

• If you quit your job, be sure to have many months’ worth of living expenses in the bank. I recently quit my full-time job to try freelance work, and I haven’t seen a paycheck since February.

  There’s a few reasons:

  1. I took some time off to finish Echo Chamber Heist.

  2. I didn’t find any work until April.

  3. Clients have 30 days to pay, and are billed monthly.

  Leslie and I have been living off of our savings account for the past three-and-a-half months, which hasn’t been a problem since I saved for this. I wanted to have the freedom to one day not work a salaried, full-time job.

  Still, I’m looking forward to refilling my savings account.

• Know your breaking point. Whether it’s writing, schooling, or a new job, figure out how much is too much, then back off. Working all the time doesn’t mean you’re being productive. That’s why Leslie and I began using a cork board to track our work, and why I discuss life outside of writing in these sprint articles.

• Get out and meet people. Specifically, people that do things. I’ve mentioned this before, but it’s so important. I’ve been back in Pittsburgh for almost four years now, and most of my connections were just co-workers. It wasn’t until I quit my job and started meeting people in the area that I learned about local opportunities. This is how Leslie got into a developer boot camp for free.

• Don’t go to work sick. Don’t do it. I don’t want to get sick. If you go to work sick and make me sick, I’m going to be mighty disappointed with you. In fact, I’ll probably just go home.

  Work consumes enough time as-is. It’s unfair when it takes your evenings and weekends, too, whether it’s due to fevers or crushing deadlines.

• Get exercise. I usually run on the track in nice weather, but Leslie and I have been gardening, instead. Just this past week, we moved 2 tons of dirt and 1 ton of rocks. Gardening takes time, but it forces you to get fresh air, exercise, and eat healthier. Our neighbors stop by to chat, too, so it’s one more way for me to see people when I mostly work from home.

Next Sprint

Leslie is going to focus on writing Steampunk Fairy Tales 2 and finding agents.

I’m going to focus on critiquing currently posted Steampunk Fairy Tales stories, the second Bitlather Chronicles book, and writing a few articles.

Reflecting on May

I’ve been getting to know the dogs pretty well.

We borrowed Leslie’s brother’s truck for gardening, so Leslie drew a scene from the Rick and Morty pilot as one of our thank-yous.

We attended Banjo Night with an old college friend, Olya, and some of Leslie’s Academy Pittsburgh classmates.

I had a mighty hankerin’ for some ice cream.

We pushed around some dirt and gravel to build our gardens.

Leslie attended an event where our friend, Lana, contributed to a tarot deck.

We attended Rave and Morty, a Rick and Morty themed rave for all ages. It was our first rave. Leslie built our Meeseeks costumes two hours before we left.

Niko used his talents to acquire yogurt.

Leslie got some fresh air with her classmates at Academy Pittsburgh.

She was also featured in another Academy Pittsburgh video.

It was time for Leslie to give Niko his Annual Bad Haircut.

We visited Pinball Perfection. I played terribly, so I focused on new techniques and trying machines I don’t normally play. I fell in love with the Kiss game. The music, lighting, and sound effects all pack a wallop of energy. I gravitate toward machines that nail excitement (Black Knight 2000) or have a humor to them (Elvira).

After Leslie woke up, we headed to Kyoto Station to catch a train to Nijo Castle.

The pictures were taken on Saturday, November 14, 2015.

Nijo Castle

Nijo Castle, or Nijojo, was built in 1603 and is a UNESCO world heritage site.

We walked through Ninomaru Palace, which is a series of rooms filled with tatami mats and gold-painted sliding doors. The paintings were mostly of animals. The beasts not native to Japan took a little imagination, but they were drawn using the artists’ best guesses from written descriptions and pelts. Photographs were not permitted inside, but you can see what I’m talking about if you search the internet for Nijo Castle Tiger.

The corridors were equipped with Nightingale floors, which is a poetic word for a security system. They make a chirping sound when you walk, which alerted the guards of intruders.

We ended with a stroll through the Ninomaru Gardens.

Nishiki Market

The rain got worse, so we headed to the Nishiki Market, which is an open-air but enclosed shopping space. The market’s first shop opened in the early 1300s, and many of the stores have been run by the same family for generations.

In the midst of it all was Nishiki Tenmangu, a shrine.

We peaked into an arcade, where girls in yukattas (basically a lighter kimono) played a drumming game.

There was also a claw crane, with a strange character I hadn’t seen before. Which makes sense, since Gudetama was created in 2013.

Some of my strongest childhood memories were playing Dragon Warrior with my brother on his old, 14” television. Dragon Quest is still alive, and strong, in Japan.

It was lunch time, and the mustard lotus root chips we bought in Nishiki Market were wearing off. The purple sweet potato dessert pizza in this poster for Shakey’s Pizza called to us.

It wasn’t until twenty minutes ago that I learned Shakey’s Pizza is an American chain. I’ve never seen one on the east coast.

I told the cashier we did not eat meat or fish, so she went back and made sure we would be able to eat there. When we first sat down, many of the pizzas had meat, but they were quickly replaced with vegetarian dishes. I’m pretty sure they changed up to accommodate us.

They also served curry, salad (which was mostly cabbage, sea greens, and corn), pasta, and potato wedges. I thought the the pizza was okay, but honestly, tabehoudai was very welcome at that time.

Nishiki Market was crowded, which sort of sent Leslie’s eye twitching a little. We walked very slowly. Still, there’s a lot of unique food, and it made for a perfect stop on a rainy day.

Kit Kat Chocalatory

Like many Westerners, I was infatuated with Japanese Kit Kats when I first visited Japan five years prior. The candy that I normally find boring in the states has dozens of unique flavors in Japan. When I first saw a photo of the Kit Kat Chocolatory in the basement of the Daimaru Department Store, Leslie and I added it to our list of must visit locations.

There weren’t as many flavors as we’d hoped for. According to kit-kat-flavors.com there have been 208 varieties since 1973, but 189 of them have been created since the year 2000. That’s also when the flavors got interesting.

Still, we picked up many varieties. Our favorite from this store was Butter, and it’s our second favorite overall.

Bakery

Hunger strikes again! Not far from the Kit Kat Chocolatory was an incredible bakery. We ate here a few times, due to its incredible variety.

I keep saying how much I love Japanese bakeries, and wish we had them in America, and Leslie just laughs and says they’re French bakeries. That may be, but there’s still plenty of Japanese flair.

Back to K’s House Kyoto

We returned to our hostel, which has a very helpful staff. I recommend hostels that have a front desk so you can ask questions and get deals on various sights. The Guesthouse we stayed in later was nice, but there was no easy way to get information.

Closing

It was a rainy day, so our destinations weren’t as impressive as earlier in the week. Covered places, like Nishiki Market, are great to reserve for when the weather isn’t good.

The next article will cover the flea market at Chionji Temple, the bamboo forest and surrounding area of Arayashima, a river-view lunch at Kameyama-Ya, and feeding monkeys at the Monkey Park Iwatayama.

Last Sprint

We had three objectives planned for April:

1. Take a break from writing.
2. Focus on learning how to build video games.
3. Find freelance work.

We failed the first two.

• By the second week, I was already itching to get back to Raquel and Verne’s adventure, so I started writing.

• We tried to do video game dev, but I didn’t get as far as I wanted and Leslie had to give up early to pursue a developer boot camp.

We may have failed two objectives, but I wouldn’t call the month a failure. When opportunities arise, you have to take them.

Leslie’s Approach

I was starting to get anxiety over finding work. Originally, I wanted to take a break to help finish Echo Chamber Heist for agent submissions, but it still felt weird to be home all day and to watch our savings account take a beating. One night, Leslie and I talked about what we’d have to ensure we maintain at least financial equilibrium.

We came up with the idea of sending Leslie to a developer boot camp, now that the book is done. The problem was expense. These programs usually cost over $10,000. There are a few that give women free scholarships, but they take a percentage of their first year’s salary. The one I’m talking about is also in a city that’s more expensive than Manhattan, so living and travel expenses were going to be through the roof—not to mention the challenge of finding temporary housing and being apart for three months.

One recruiter that I met with told me about Academy Pittsburgh, which is a brand new program that teaches the fundamentals of software development. This first round is sponsored by local companies, so tuition was free. It also gives preference to minorities in technology, including women and mothers.

The next morning, Leslie started the application. She spent ten hours perfecting everything, including a youtube video that introduced herself. About a week later, we got the message that she was accepted!

Up until then, Leslie had been doing well with our video game sprint. She was learning Blender, which is a free 3d modeling program, on Udemy. She diverted all of her focus to the boot camp and gardening (since that’s time sensitive).

I believe our characters, Verne and Raquel, would be proud of her decision. Now, Leslie will be better prepared to help with finances. If both of us work, we can save money and take a few months off every year to focus solely on writing. Also, she’ll be more able to help me build some apps I have in mind (…as if we needed more projects to work on together).

Dave’s Approach

I tried to keep up with our original goal of learning game development. I watched lectures on Udemy, but not as many as I had hoped. Later in the month, I didn’t have time in the evenings due to work, and my weekends were spent outside. The weather was just too nice to pass up, and I never felt like I had enough time to do yard work at my last job. I was always protective of what little time there was, and had to split it between family and writing.

We were supposed to be on a break, so I didn’t make writing a priority. However, after two weeks, I needed to get back to the Bitlather Chronicles. I spent my weekend mornings working on book two in those golden productive hours before the dogs wake up.

The Numbers

Everything changed a lot this month, so I don’t think the numbers mean much. However, it’s good to stay consistent.

• 42 planned tasks (Leslie: 7, Dave: 29, together: 6)
• 58 finished tasks (Leslie: 21, Dave: 31, together: 6)
  • 38 finished planned tasks (Leslie: 7, Dave: 25, together: 6)
  • 18 finished scope creep tasks (Leslie: 12, Dave: 6)
  • 2 finished winging it tasks (Leslie: 2)
• 1 finished milestone: Echo Chamber Heist Done-Done
• 1 new milestone: Leslie’s dev boot camp

Takeaways

• Get out and meet people. While I was making connections in search of contract work, I met someone who told us about Academy Pittsburgh, which is a brand new developer boot camp. Leslie has been wanting to learn development, but we have so many hobbies and goals that it hasn’t seemed feasible. This 12-week course was free, as well. Given that we just finished our latest round of revisions for Echo Chamber Heist, it couldn’t have come at a better time.

  Leslie’s also met a bunch of people in class who share an interest in projects.

• Try new things, even careers. I’ve moved to contract work, so I can have more freedom to focus on my own projects. It’s been a little bumpy, so far, and I’m still getting the hang of it. But I think it will work out.

  Now that I spend most days at home, I’m more interested in going out on occasion. I hope this will help me find more passionate people with similar interests.

• Have an escape plan. It’s good to decide in advance when you should give up. Leslie and I agreed that, if my last job didn’t get better by the end of 2015, I had to quit. Things did improve, but then they got worse, so I had to keep my promise.

  Finding work was tough, at first, and the bills didn’t stop coming. We had to set a date of when I needed to look for other work in case freelance didn’t pan out. I expect contract work is going to be seasons of feast-or-famine. I need to store money during the feast months so I can afford to take a break when work is scarce, or when I want to focus on writing.

  I don’t know why quitting has such a negative connotation. There’s only so much you can accomplish in a week, and there’s a plethora of interesting things to do. Quitting can let you pursue more fulfilling projects.

• Not my circus, not my monkeys. This is one of the hardest things for me. I’m very passionate. I care a lot about my work, and I’m used to being a leader. It’s a cliché that someone might respond to the interview question, “What’s your biggest flaw?” with “I’m too passionate.” It sounds lame, but really, too passionate is a serious flaw.

  Passion is what wore me down at my last job. Passion is what prevents me from accepting most job offers.

  I need to learn how to disengage and let nothing bother me.

Next Sprint

The theme is going to be keep on keepin’ on. I’m going to focus on work so I can stow away money in preparation for taking off a few months in the future to help write book two. I’d also like to get out more and spend time at places like Looking For Group.

This is another strange month, so the sprint board is a little weird.

The gang’s interested in writing a second Steampunk Fairy Tales, and I’m the leader. That’s going to take some time, between management and writing a new story, but I’m excited for both.

I also want to get retirement investments in order. My 401k has performed abysmally, so I’ve mostly set money aside for our house and the ability to survive while I try a new career. I’m going to speak with financial advisers and CPAs.

If there’s time, I’d like to start making a list of agents that might be interested in Echo Chamber Heist, just in case no one bites from the last round of submissions.

If there’s even more time—and I doubt there will be—I’d like to continue watching Unity lectures.

Leslie is going to continue focusing on developer boot camp (which is a full time job) and help write our next Steampunk Fairy Tale. There’s still plenty to do with our gardens, too.

Reflecting on April

Our month began with a trip to the Clearview Mall. The mall of our childhood.

Death of a Mall

I thought that the Butler Mall was invincible, unlike the other malls that have a short burst of life followed by dormancy. The Clearview Mall really hung on. But last year, I noticed something had changed.

I hadn’t been back in a while, because (a) it’s sad, and (b) it’s really far away from where we live.

However, my parents told me a new store had moved in. The mall’s atmosphere had changed, but there was a new hope.

It’s exactly what you think it is.

Erm… maybe it’s not exactly what you think it is.

It’s not the same place it used to be, but if you count the trucks parked outside of Rural King, you can tell there’s hope for the Clearview Mall yet. Actually, I don’t know if I’ve ever seen it that busy before.

Pinball World Championship

The Pinball World Championship was held near Pittsburgh, at the Professional Amateur Pinball Association’s (PAPA) world headquarters.

This split flipper trophy is prominently displayed when you enter. (Split flipper is when two people play, and each person controls one flipper).

This collection is only open the public one weekend a year, when they host the world championship. It used to be the largest private pinball collection, but the owner made it into an organization that repairs old machines to keep the game alive. They also put games in children’s hospitals.

Leslie and I love pinball backglass displays. Someday, I’d like to publish a book that uses a similar fantasy art style.

This place had a ton of machines, sometimes duplicates of the same game. We finally got to play The Wizard of Oz. Unfortunately, neither of us played well that day, and you had to feed the machine quarters. Leslie and I like all-you-can-play over the course of a few hours, since it’s fun even when you’re not in the zone.

I like to keep track of the different mechanics each machine uses. Almost every game has one feature that makes it stand out.

This time, it was Safe Cracker caught my attention. It’s a small machine with a timer. When you hit certain points, time is added. You don’t have a specific number of balls; instead, as long as there’s time left, you keep shooting.

When you hit the objectives, (I have no idea what they are), the machine actually spits tokens at you from a slot under the rotating red beacon. The coin hit me, and I was temporarily stunned while I tried to figure out what had happened.

It wasn’t the best game, but it surprised me.

Waffles & VR

My friend Gabe likes to make waffles for people. He also likes VR. So, he hosted a Waffles & VR party where we got to play with his newly acquired HTC Vive.

I was impressed with how immersive it was. While playing the chef game in Job Simulator, I nearly took off the controllers and placed them on a virtual reality counter (that didn’t exist in our world). Leslie spent time in the ocean and watched a giant whale swim above her.

I expected to get motion sickness or have some weird sensation, but I was fine throughout the entire experience.

Leslie’s First Day of School

Leslie got accepted into the inaugural class at Academy Pittsburgh!

Here’s her first day pictures.

I came into Leslie’s class on two Fridays as a volunteer teaching assistant. I’m really impressed with what I’ve seen at Academy Pittsburgh, and I’m thankful she has the opportunity.

The Tables Have Turned

Leslie used to stay home all day while I was at work. Now, everything is different.

While Leslie is at class, I’m usually in my study with the hounds.

This little guy, Niko, (who inspired our character Montgomery), has been the most trouble.

I let them out during lunch and eat outside with them. Schooner is a sun worshipper; one time, I caught her relaxing in that hole Niko’s been digging.

Gardening

Leslie started seeds in the basement.

She’d been talking about this watering can on a nearby road for a few weeks now, so I indulged her and we stopped to get it.

I told her it was broken and we wouldn’t be able to screw a spout on it, to which she responded, “It still pours water, doesn’t it?”

We also picked up two old olive barrels to convert them into rain barrels.

Birthday Vengeance Cookie

We met my parents for dinner at Jimmy Wan’s in Cranberry. I was thinking about writing middle grade someday, so I asked mom to bring my old books.

After dinner, we ate our semi aggressive fortune cookies.

For my actual birthday, Leslie brought me a matcha cupcake.

Last year, Leslie and I played Pokémon Heart Gold and Soul Silver. I’ve been meaning to finish that, but I wanted to enjoy a different classic from my childhood: Harvest Moon.

A few days later, I really wanted some Lego. Specifically, the Trash Chomper from The Lego Movie series that just retired. We went to Toys R Us, since the online prices were high, and looked everywhere to no avail. Then, while I was checking out Ninjago, I turned around and saw it out on a shelf!

I couldn’t believe my luck. It’s almost as if someone planted it there, just for me.

The pictures were taken on Friday, November 13, 2015.

Morning

Leslie caught the bug I caught just before we left America, so we decided to take it easy and just walk to temples around the hostel.

The amazake we had near Fushimi Inaria Taisha was nice on the throat, so I asked the reception desk where we could find some. The receptionist was surprised, because no one had ever asked before. She recommended checking convenience stores, but we couldn’t find any there.

Otani Honbyo

We visited Otani Honbyo, which didn’t have much English, nor did it seem like a tourist attraction (there are no English reviews on TripAdvisor), so I had to look it up while writing this article to get its name.

I saw an elderly man about to take a picture of his wife near a bridge, so I offered to take one of them together. He was surprised to hear a foreigner speak Japanese, but they were pleased and insisted on taking one for Leslie and I too.

This encounter was the beginning of a wonderful day filled with kind people.

I also snapped a photo of this plant, which looks like it has tiny persimmons on it and I’ve wanted a persimmon for some time now.

Chanting permeated Otani Honbyo. The gate man watched us wash our hands with ladles in a chozuya purification stand and smiled with his eyes. He told us to go through, it was free.

Generally speaking, we prefer Shinto shrines. Golden Buddhist shrines just don’t strike our interest. However, the sparse items inside this plain hall were fetching.

Here’s a few more, to get a feel for the area:

Flowers were everywhere. The only other visitors were a handful of somber Japanese adults. Leslie and I sensed this was not a tourist destination or, at least, something special was happening.

When the praying stopped, a few people exited the back of the shrine. We tossed some coins in the offertory saisen box, then shook the rope and clapped.

As we left, the gate man asked us to come over. The only thing he said in English was we were a nice couple. I responded in Japanese, so he asked us a few questions about where we’re from, etc. He was the only smiling face inside the grounds.

I asked him if today was a special day, because of the flowers and praying and the stoic people … I had never had a shrine experience like that before. He said no, then showed us a bouquet of flowers and asked Leslie to pick the one she liked. He then gave it to me to give to her. Once again on this trip, I saw Leslie smile with deep happiness.

It wasn’t until I wrote this article that I discovered Otani Honbyo is the Mausoleum for the founder of Shin Buddhism, Shinran (1173-1262AD).

Toribeyama

We accidentally passed the road we were looking for and ended up in Toribeyama cemetery in east Kyoto. I didn’t know what it was called until I did some research at home, as there was no English near it. It’s hard to find information, but I think it was started around or before the 1600s.

For whatever reason, people used to ask me what Japanese cemeteries looked like all the time. I don’t know why. So, there it is.

Asahi-zaka

I’m like 17% sure this was just off Kiyomizu-zaka Street, based off of this photo:

The road was crowded with people, so we went up the slope entrance (坂入口, or “Saka iriguchi”). Tanuki statues were scattered around the stairs. (Tanuki are “raccoon dogs,” sometimes known as that power-up from Super Mario Bros. 3)

At the top, we encountered this mischievous guy:

The area was beautiful. You know, the type of place with teacups that cost hundreds of dollars, and ceramic plates over a thousand.

Kiyomizu-dera

We arrived at the big destination for the day: Kiyomizu-dera. Or, the place where Leslie took a selfie with a giant rabbit statue.

Although construction obscured Okunoin Hall, there was still plenty to see. The first glimpse of the Niomon gate is breathtaking, and hints at spectacular sights within.

A gaggle of 10-12 year old boys kept pointing at us and shouting kyuri, which means pickle. I waved back at them, and told Leslie what all the hubbub was about. Leslie laughed then gave them a better look at her hoodie, to which they yelled kakko-ii, or cool.

There’s many kimono rental stores on the streets leading to Kiyomizu-dera. To my immense enjoyment, people taking kimono-selfies was commonplace.

The temple was built in 778 AD—before Kyoto existed. According to legend, a Nara priest had a vision that led him to the Otowa Spring (Kiyomizu means “pure water”). Most of the buildings were rebuilt in the 1600s due to a fire. In 2007, Kiyomizu-dera was a finalist for the New Seven Wonders of the World.

Hondo Hall

We headed to the Kiyomizu Stage, which is connected to Hondo Hall. It was originally used for dance performances, kyogen (a form of comedy), kabuki, and sumo. The Japanese have an expression, similar to our leap of faith: “To jump off the stage of Kiyomizu-dera.” In the edo period, some people believed that their wish would come true if they survived jumping off the forty-three-foot-tall platform. According to wikipedia, 234 jumps were recorded, and about 200 of them survived.

While exploring Hondo Hall, we encountered a statue that stuck out in my memories of my last two trips to Kiyomizu-dera. His name is Shusse Daikokuten, and he represents career success and progress.

There’s one last bit of knowledge that makes the stage even more amazing: no nails were used in its construction.

Jishu Jinja, the Love Shrine

As we rounded a corner out of Hondo Hall, a familiar stairway came into view.

I told Leslie, “If that’s what I think it is, you are about to be very, very happy.” Sure enough, it was the love shrine, Jishu Jinja.

This area is devoted to love …

… but what Leslie loved most was the prominent rabbit theme!

Leslie “ee”-ed for a while, then ran to the rabbit and hugged it for a few minutes. After she was done taking selfies, she knucked it, and walked away with a look of pure bliss.

Another notable attraction is the love stones:

Two love stones are placed about sixty feet apart, and anyone that can walk from one to the other with their eyes closed will find love soon. Despite how crowded it was, everyone tried to make room for the elementary and high-school girls.

The ema wish plaques were especially fun to read, since many students often write things in English. To see the hopes of so many people, especially young students, was moving. One wish—I could not read the name, but I think it was an American—was for her friend in New York who had trouble finding someone. We spent minutes reading through them.

Others were a bit creepy, perhaps due to the language barrier. One said I will love you until the end of life.

Being such a popular tourist destination, Jishu Jinja had a number of English explanations.

But not everything was about love.

The description of Ushinotoki-mairi discussed how young women used to curse their enemies by nailing straw dolls to the back of cedar trees at 2am. It claimed you can still find nail marks in trees to this day.

One of my favorite features at Jishu Jinja is easy to miss. It’s a mirror in a small Shinto shrine. As I mentioned in my article about Fushimi Inari Taisha, the mirrors usually point in such a way that you can’t see yourself. However, during weddings, the mirrors are moved so newlyweds can see their reflection. It’s an adorable touch to the love shrine.

The Rest of Kiyomizu-dera

I was surprised by how different Jishu Jinja felt, as we re-emerged into the rest of Kiyomizu-dera. Okunoin Hall was under construction, so we couldn’t enter, but we still got a great view of the Kiyomizu Stage.

We looped around Koyasu tower, which was tiny when viewed from Kiyomizu Stage.

We also leafed pretty hard.

I began to feel a little dizzy, so we stopped to eat at a restaurant near the Otowa waterfall.

We ordered Tsukimi-udon and some strange clear noodles, called Tokoroten. The menu described it as cold jelly made from the agar with vinegar sauce and mustard.

Prices were a little higher than usual, but the amazake was good and the udon met expectations. Honestly, I wouldn’t order the clear noodles again; it wasn’t enough food for ¥500 and it mostly tasted like vinegar.

We had a great view of Otowa falls, which is composed of three streams that represent health, longevity, and success. I got a big filling of longevity five years ago, and Leslie wasn’t interested in waiting in line, so we continued onward.

An older man stared at Leslie as we walked past. He finally smiled, probably after figuring out her hoodie was covered with pickles.

Two high school boys wanted a picture with us, probably also because of the kyuri hoodie. As soon as they got the picture, they turned to leave, but I told them we wanted a picture with them, too. They seemed confused by this, as if they were thinking, “But we’re not the weird ones.”

Another older woman walked past us on the street and smiled, then got her friend’s attention to point out the pickles.

I’ve decided two things, based on these experiences:

1. If I ever do a program like JET, I should pick up a lot of fun shirts so the kids will find me awesome on day one.

2. Leslie’s new nickname is pickles.

I think the only thing we didn’t do was the Tainai-meguri, which is a dark room near the pagoda. No reason, I just completely forgot it existed and didn’t notice it.

Higashiyama District (Kiyomizu-zaka Street)

The Higashiyama District is a well-preserved historic area leading to Kiyomizu-dera.

This road has been a tourist destination for centuries. The stores are brimming with ceramics, souvenirs, and delicacies, especially pickles (not to be confused with Leslie).

Remember the tanuki from earlier? We found a tall one, with more pronounced … features.

Sanjusangendo

On way to Sanjusangendo, Leslie was moved by how cute the elementary school kids are in their uniforms, playing while waiting for the bus (which is regular public transport) without any adult supervision. It really is a surprising sight.

Sanjusangendo was built in 1164 AD and has 1001 statues. You can’t take pictures inside, so we just have a few shots of the outdoors.

Honestly … this is one of those places that gets high reviews, but it wasn’t for us.

Leslie asked if we should go to the next temple, but I felt like seeing something more modern, so we decided to go to Kyoto station.

Back at the Hostel

Remember that tree in Otani Honbyo with the little fruits that looked like persimmons? Well, I finally got one!

Unfortunately, I don’t actually know how to pick out a good persimmon, so it wasn’t very ripe. Still, it scratched the persimmon itch.

I asked reception if there were any onsens for couples, mostly so Leslie and I could talk instead of splitting up into different rooms. I was told no right away, then I explained some ryokans (expensive Japanese inns) let you use a private bath without staying. She kindly called a few places but had no luck, and told me they probably didn’t have such ryokans in Kyoto. I’m not sure if that’s true, but I didn’t have an easy way to search at the time. This would’ve been something good to research in the US.

I then asked for a grocery store, and was directed to konbinis and the first floor of the department store. So far, I haven’t come across any real grocery stores in the area.

When we finally stepped back outside, it was raining. I asked the staff if they had umbrellas, and one girl went to fetch them from the smoking area. I saw her struggling to bring the stand over, so I offered to help. That finally got the woman in the reception desk to smile.

Dinner

We went to a cheap standing restaurant that was full of people the night before. It was empty now, and they had two tables in the back so we were able to sit.

We ordered fried lotus root, sweet potato, zaru soba, and “potato soba,” which was a hot soup with french fries in it. Leslie loves potatos, so I pointed that out for her. I’m honestly not a fan of lotus root, but there aren’t many opportunities to eat it so I take it when I can get it.

My zaru soba was surprisingly not very good, or filling, but Leslie’s potato soba was awesome.

I also ordered Uji Gyokuro Umeshu, which I had seen in Uji but didn’t want to buy since the other green tea liqueurs were more appealing. It was sold out, so I ordered a shochu drink that was advertised as popular in Kyoto. The man laughed at me; Leslie thinks I might have ordered a girly drink.

It was weak, and about the same quality of drinks you get at a nomihoudai (all-you-can-drink).

Still, the potato soba and fried vegetables made the meal.

An Evening in Kyoto Station

I’d been talking about walking around Kyoto station for a few days now, and Leslie didn’t know why. She kept saying, “it’s just a station.” I thought she was pulling my leg, since we arrived via Kyoto station and she had already seen it.

I jokingly told her I was 40% sure it was huge and had a ton of shops, but she didn’t believe me. As we got closer, I kept lowering my certainty, to 17%.

When we arrived, she was amazed. Despite the three times we had been through the station, she hadn’t ever thought to look up at the 11 stories with escalators and a giant Christmas tree.

There was also a sky walk, similar to what we did in Osaka, but free and not as tall. (The same architect did both Kyoto Station and Umeda Sky Building.)

I was still hungry, so we ate at Mr. Donut. The donuts were more bready and less cake-like, but tasty and filling nonetheless.

Leslie laughed nervously as we went up the escalators. I thought my discomfort of heights had been conquered, but even I felt nervous going up.

We went down the stairs, which was somehow less frightening than the escalators. (Mind you, people of all ages walk up and down those things like they’re nothing.)

I asked Leslie if she wanted to go up the other side, and with a pained expression, she said yes. There was one huge escalator that went from the third story to the top, where the sky walk crossed over to the other side of Kyoto station, eleven floors from the ground. I asked Leslie if she wanted to cross the sky walk. She looked panicked and said that if I hadn't suggested it, that she could have felt okay skipping the sky walk, but because I said something, she had to do it.

I wondered how everyone else was so okay with the heights-on the down escalator, a Japanese woman was using her cell phone without holding onto the rail. I suppose anyone that felt uncomfortable just wouldn’t go up in the first place.

We found the 10th floor, which was designated the Ramen floor. For many of the restaurants, you ordered from a machine then waited to be seated. The place was packed, perhaps because it was a Friday night. The spicy ramen with red broth was especially exciting, but Leslie wasn't hungry so I said we could come back when it was more appealing to her.

One Last Konbini for the Night

The konbini clerk was a younger kid, who asked Leslie to put her hand in a box and pick a sheet of paper. It looked like she lost, so he asked her to go again. She won a free energy drink.

The kid was the final super nice person that day.

While on the topic of convenience stores… before we left, our friend, who is also named David, put on a Tokyo episode of Anthony Bourdain. Bourdain said he inexplicably loved Lawsons’ egg salad sandwiches.

Although I had lived there for a year, I never purchased an egg salad sandwich. I always ate onigiri. With this newfound knowledge, Leslie and I kept an eye out for konbini sandwiches.

Our results so far:

• Lawson’s is definitely the best. It’s flavor has an interesting twist.
• 7-Eleven is behind a good ways, but still very good.
• Mini-stop is in last place, with a very plain sandwich. Leslie’s edit: They have a bomb Inari zushi, though. The secret ingredient is wasabi. Dave’s edit: I don’t know how much of a secret that is._

I still prefer onigiri, but Leslie noted that the vegetarian food always sells out the fastest. Egg salad sandwiches seem to go first, followed by vegetarian onigiri.

Conclusion

Leslie was sick that morning, so we took it easy but still walked about ten miles. Nearly everyone was extra friendly, making that day even more special.

When traveling, keep an eye out for Kyoto’s UNESCO World Heritage Sites. Kyoto has a whopping seventeen of them. Not all of them are at the top of my list, but it’s a great place to start.

Kyoto—most all of Japan, really—has a great combination of historic and modern sites. There’s so much variety. Early in the day, we visited Kiyomizu-dera, which started in the 700s. At night, we wandered around Kyoto Station, which was opened in 1997.

The next article will cover Nijo Castle, the Nishiki Market, all-you-can-eat pizza buffet, and the Kit-Kat Chocolatery.

Last Sprint

Nine beta readers provided feedback on the changes Leslie made in January. Our major focus was to implement their input and finish Echo Chamber Heist. We ended up writing two new scenes and removing large sections that no longer felt like they belonged.

New Release: Steampunk Fairy Tales

Our short story, The Mech Oni and the Three-Inch Tinkerer, was published in the Steampunk Fairy Tales collection.

The story is a steampunk retelling of a Japanese fairy tale and is free on Amazon, Kobo, and Smashwords.

Leslie’s Approach

Leslie led the charge in implementing beta reader feedback. She organized everything, writing down main points on one sheet of paper per chapter, then edited multiple chapters a day.

She also re-read the entire thing one last time to check for typos.

Leslie put each chapter on the corkboard so she could visualize how much work was left.

Dave’s Approach

I reviewed Leslie’s edits every morning and made changes of my own. At the end of each week, I read the latest ten chapters in a row to get a feeling for pacing. I also did the taxes, dropped the price on Dream Eater’s Carnival, wrote the first chapter for an urban fantasy book I’ve been brainstorming, started drafting a short story about pinball, made connections to help find freelance work, and re-read the entire manuscript in one sitting.

Honestly, I didn’t use the board much, except to post stuff after I finished. Our goals this month were clear in terms of scope and deadlines. Basically, whenever Leslie finished something, I dropped what I was doing and reviewed it.

The Numbers

We met our goal of implementing all beta reader feedback.

The numbers:

• 101 finished planned tasks (Leslie: 43, Dave: 58)

• 2 finished scope creep tasks (Leslie)

Takeaways

• Bring typewriters on vacations. Travel is a great time to explore new ideas.

  I suppose pencil and paper would work, too, but my handwriting is atrocious so I prefer typing. I also have shoeboxes and half-finished notebooks filled with ideas strewn about the house, so keeping actual writing digital makes it harder to lose.

• Seek new beta readers for each phase. Earlier readers may be happy that you made revisions and won’t see new issues. Still, hearing whether you fixed problems they had earlier is useful. It’s also nice to get a first impression on your latest revisions. Seek input from a mixture of new and old readers, other authors, and avid readers.

• Read books that have been wildly successful in your genre, especially during the final stages of editing. It helps to have something to compare to. I was concerned about a few things in our manuscript, but they abated when I found content in a successful book that targeted a similar demographic.

  One morning, I had a hard time with our story. I had read everything so many times that it all felt cliché and dull. My mind gets stuck in cycles where the negativity feeds on itself, and it felt terrible that I wasn’t enjoying our story.

  To compare, I read samples from successful books on Amazon and found I didn’t like those, either. That made it clear I was just in a bad mood, and it stopped the cycles of negativity. I took a short break then was able to enjoy our story again.

• Work through the slog. Final edits become tedious. You’ll never get through it if you put it off. Even though it was hard for us to re-read the entire manuscript in a single day, it felt like a huge weight was lifted off our shoulders afterwards.

• It seems like Friday is the most active day when hunting for contract work. The beginning of the weeks have been quiet, but I get a number of calls on Friday. There’s been plenty of nibbles, I’m just waiting for something to bite.

Next Sprint

We’re taking a short break from Bitlather Chronicles to work on video game development. Leslie will be learning Blender from an online course on Udemy, and I will continue to learn Unity. Originally, I wanted to see how much of a prototype we could finish in one month, but I think it’s better for us to treat this time as a learning period.

I’ll also be adding more stuff to the board related to finding freelance work. Moving those slips of paper will make me feel better about spending the time. I really want freelance work to pan out, so that I can have more freedom to pursue personal goals.

Reflecting on March

The last time Leslie and I did a relaxing vacation was about eight years ago, when my parents invited us to go with them. So, back in December, we had planned a relaxing vacation to Mexico.

We woke up early and headed to the Pittsburgh airport, where we encountered a Robot Repair Shop, which is an art exhibit between gates A10 and A12.

My friend Mike Springer had told me about it, and it was pure coincidence it was near our flight.

Mexico was wonderful. We returned to the Grand Bahia Principe Tulum resort. Like Kyoto, it was familiar but strange to go somewhere you haven’t been to in years.

The dogs seemed happy when we came back.

One day, Leslie picked up Niko and mentioned that he feels heavier. Embarrassed, I mentioned that, just maybe once or twice, I might’ve fed him a little extra. Leslie said, “It sounds like a common theme: husband stays home, dog gets fat.” After a light reprimand, I vowed to not overfeed Niko.

Our dear friend Lauren Brush watched the dogs while we were away. She’s Linus’s favorite babysitter. Shortly after we got back, we all went to pinball together.

We attended a Futuristic Queer Dance Party Benefit where another dear friend, Lana Hayes, donated artwork for auction. It was a piece that she had started years ago, and involved Leslie’s face. Leslie won it!

I took a break from working to help finish the manuscript, so this is the first month since I graduated where I didn’t make any money. Well, that’s not completely true; I sat in for a day of jury duty but I wasn’t selected.

I read about Henry Hobson Richardson, who designed Allegheny County Courthouse and Jail in 1884. I enjoyed his quote:

“If they honor me for the pigmy things I have already done, what will they say when they see Pittsburgh finished.”

We visited my sister for Easter.

We finally tried Pinball PA, a new pinball arcade near Pittsburgh. It included some of our favorites and machines we’ve never played before.

An electronic palm reader printed our fortunes for us. Leslie’s alluded to upcoming success; we hope it’s with regards to manuscript submissions (^o^).

We also had our highest scores to date on Black Knight 2000. I think the machine we normally play is on a slanted floor, because the ball moved a lot better here.

I love Black Knight 2000 because of its lights, music, voice, and difficulty level. Give it a listen:

Isn’t that the most epic 1980s futuristic medieval fantasy pinball music you've ever heard? It has more caffeine than coffee.

Leslie’s vegetable garden is coming along.

Finally, Leslie immortalized herself as a Power Puff Girl, in celebration of the upcoming reboot.

Before you start

First, contact authors you know to gauge their interest in your project. Don’t invest too much time until you have a few bites from enthusiastic people with a history of getting things done.

Next, write a single page description that will be posted in a prominent place:

• One paragraph explaining the project and why you think it’s worthwhile.

• Deadline for when authors need to commit to the project.

• Deadline for posting a first draft.

• Target release date.

• Expected story word count.

• Content restrictions, such as PG-13. Consider your comfort with profanity, violence, and sexual content. It helps to make comparisons to existing works that everyone is familiar with, like Violence can be Lord of the Rings style (just dial back on excessive gore.) Explicitly state requirements, e.g. Must be a steampunk fairy tale. Can rework an old story or write an original.

• Member costs. You should pay a designer to make the cover, but you should also decide if you need a back, too, for printed copies. Also include itemized promotion costs and which marketing services you intend to use. Example: Cover will cost each member between $10-20, and is the only required cost of this project.

• Expectations, such as everyone should provide at least one round of feedback on each story and you are responsible for your own editing, although someone will do a final round of copy edits.

• List what the collection will sell for and how the money will be used. You might want to make it free with the intention of getting everyone’s name out there, or you might want to charge a few bucks so costs can go toward future book covers and promotions.

• List what formats the final product will be in and what platforms it will sell on.

Additionally, you should start a private forum, preferably one that emails everyone when there’s a new post. We used a Scribophile group, which is nice because it has critiquing tools and allows authors to post their stories in the group.

Distribute responsibility

One person can take on many hats, but taking too much responsibility can be exhausting. Here’s some roles to consider:

• Who will write the preface?

• Who will communicate with the cover designer?

• Who will write the back-cover copy and description for ebook stores?

• Who will do the final copy edits?

• Who will handle collecting member fees? You can use a service like PayPal to email money to each other, but choose the treasurer wisely. If most authors are in the US but the treasurer is in the UK, then someone will have to pay the penalty for each foreign transaction. There’s yet another penalty if the UK treasurer pays a US cover designer. This adds up quickly and is easily avoidable.

• Who will do ebook and print formatting? This person should have experience.

• Who will post the book to Amazon, Smashwords, Kobo, Goodreads, etc? You can associate the book with multiple authors, but most platforms only let the original poster see download statistics.

• Who will setup the launch party?

• Who will make promotional images for social media?

• Who will submit the book to promotional newsletters?

Setting deadlines

The following is a high-level list of every milestone.

1. Commitment - when everyone needs to say, “I’m in!”

2. Rough draft - when a rough draft must be posted. Suggested timeframe: 1 month from commitment.

3. Cover input - when the cover discussion is over. Contributors would ideally post ideas and images of covers they like that fit the genre. Suggested timeframe: 2 weeks after rough drafts are posted, so everyone has had a chance to read the stories.

4. Cover submission - when all ideas are sent to the designer. Make this early since they have a schedule of their own.

5. Cover expenses collected - when everyone should submit their portion of the cover payment. Suggested timeframe: 1 week after cover input deadline.

6. First round of critiques - when everyone should finish critiquing all rough drafts. Suggested timeframe: 3 weeks after rough drafts are posted.

7. First draft of other content - when the first draft of preface, back cover, and Amazon descriptions should be posted. Suggested timeframe: At least a few weeks after first drafts have been posted so it can accurately describe the contents.

8. Second draft - when all critiques have been implemented and the polished work is re-posted.

9. Second round of critiques - when everyone is done providing their second round of feedback.

10. Story order decided - when everyone agrees to what order the stories will be published in.

11. Author submission - when everyone should submit their finished story, bios, acknowledgements, links to their newsletters, and excerpts from one of their other books to the formatter.

12. Formatting first pass complete - when the formatter should finish formatting the ebook or print version by. Only do one, since the copy editor still needs to look at it.

13. Formatting feedback submitted - when everyone has finished reviewing the format and submit feedback by.

14. Editing complete - when the editor should finish making updates to the formatted copy.

15. Formatting complete - when the formatter has finished implementing everyone’s feedback on the edited copy. If a print version was formatted earlier, the ebook version should also be formatted.

16. Launch party created - a Facebook event or similar exists so everyone can invite their friends to it and help get the word out.

17. Release date - when the book is available on all intended platforms (Amazon, Kobo, Smashwords, Goodreads, etc). Allow time for proofing print copies if you want print to be available with ebooks. Allow time for Amazon to price match to free if your collection is free. Selling paid copies is nice, but it won’t impact your free rankings.

In the early phases, such a daunting list might scare authors away, so consider exposing just the commitment deadline, the first draft deadline, and the release date.

In fact, I had no idea that we hit seventeen deadlines until I wrote this article. I imagine it’s because Angela Castillo handled most of these.

This image shows the approximate dates we completed each deadline:

Launch party

Figure out how you want to announce your new release. We used a Facebook event.

• Be sure to include your cover in a prominent place as well as a date.
• Make sure all of the authors have administrator status.
• Invite everyone that you think would be interested.
• Don’t forget to include your back cover content in a prominent place.
• Don’t forget to include links to all stores in a prominent place.
• I also like to include download links in every post.

You can see our Facebook event here.

Promotions

Check out Angela Castillo’s blog post on promotional newsletters. The article only lists her top ten newsletters, but the spreadsheet she links to contains over 60 promotional sites.

Many promotions will only accept books that have reviews, so you might have to wait. Promotions are an ongoing thing, anyway.

Making the Kindle version free

If your collection is free, you might want to release it earlier than your release party and other promotions.

Amazon currently does not let you set prices below 99¢. You must make the book available on other platforms for free, then notify Amazon it’s free. You can notify Amazon in two ways:

Method 1: Send them a message through the KDP contact page. Include the link to your book’s Kindle page and a link to other stores that have it for free.

Method 2: Click the tell us about a lower price link on your Kindle page.

Steampunk Fairy Tales was published on Amazon, Smashwords, and Kobo on March 26, and we notified KDP on the same day. It was free on Amazon on April 1.

Conclusion

Angela Castillo did a fantastic job of leading the project. I can’t imagine anyone more suited to keep the group driven. Looking through our forum, there were over 900 posts in 60 threads, plus a number of emails that were sent out. That doesn’t even count the critiques and discussion on each story.

I hope this article will help you plan a collection of your own. This was an incredibly fun experience, and now that I’ve seen someone experienced like Angela manage a group, I think I’m ready to lead a collection some day.

If you are interested in reading Steampunk Fairy Tales, you can find it:

• Free on Kindle

• Free on Smashwords

• Free on Kobo

We plan on writing more of these. If you’d like to contribute, let me know.

March brings us the bounty that is RuPaul’s Drag Race and, frankly, I’m addicted. Being addicted, however, does nothing to combat my inability to sit still and watch TV. Thus, every Tuesday and Wednesday, I clean while catching up with both the main show and Untucked. Suddenly the kitchen is clean, the laundry is washed and put away, and the floors are vacuumed. It’s like magic.

Thanks, Ru!

We stopped by the phoenix temple, Byodo-in, which is featured on the back of the ¥10 coin, and ate at Nakamura Tokichi Honten, which is TripAdvisor’s #1 restaurant in Uji. Leslie found a mascot that left her squealing with joy. On our way back to the room, we encountered a cheer against domestic violence outside of Kyoto Station.

Leslie said Uji was one of the most magical places she’s ever been, perhaps tied with Sanssouci in Potsdam, Germany.

Good morning, Uji!

Leslie said she was advancing through the stages of my cold faster than I was, and I told her it wasn’t a competition. Still, we both were sick, so we weren’t sure about Uji that morning. However, it seemed easier than walking around Kyoto, so we went for it.

We downed some hot canned corn soup from a vending machine on our way to Kyoto Station, which soothed our throat. A local train took us to Uji in thirty minutes for only ¥240 a person. (Local trains make every stop, unlike the rapid trains.)

When we arrived and got our first whiff of green tea, Leslie smiled. I knew we had made the right decision, and we were in for a good day when I saw that beautiful smile.

It’s easy to smell green tea in Uji, because it’s everywhere.

Seriously.

Look at this matcha cream pan we got for breakfast from the bakery:

I said, look at it.

That’s not just one bakery playing up the local charm; it’s like that everywhere in Uji. Don’t believe me?

We dropped in one of the umpteen tea shops for a peek. Although Leslie was smiling the whole time, she still wasn’t feeling well, so I ordered her a bowl of matcha and a snack. They had a nice private area for drinking your tea.

Everywhere we entered offered us tea and, sometimes, a snack. Do you have any idea how hopped up we were on caffeine?

Even the information center smelled like tea, and had free self-service tea.

We also spotted our first Japanese Kit Kats. I intended to buy one of every type I encountered, starting with these two tea-flavored boxes.

Byodo-in

Byodo-in, or, “The Phoenix Temple,” was originally built in 998 AD as a villa, then converted into a Buddhist temple in 1052 AD. You can find it on the back of a ¥10 coin, and the phoenixes are on the back of ¥10,000 notes.

I enjoyed watching the koi and called them graceful. Leslie laughed at me, and said they were “lazy and slow.”

Wandering around Uji

Our only plans were to see a few temples and eat and drink green tea all day, so most of our time was spent just walking around Uji and soaking it all in.

We dropped by Uji shrine, which was a quiet, uneventful place. Perfect.

Behind Uji Shrine is Ujigami Shrine, which was built around 1060 AD and is considered the oldest standing shrine in Japan.

Leslie noted all the trees and how much happier everyone seemed to be in Uji, compared to everywhere else we’d been. She mentioned if we end up doing JET, we should be in or near Uji because it’s so peaceful.

We wanted to see more temples in Uji, but we got lost. Once you’re away from the main road, it quickly becomes a populated place without many signs. Also, we were getting peckish, so we headed back for lunch, to a restaurant I was very excited for.

Lunch

This was my third time eating at Nakamura Tokichi Byodointen, and I couldn’t have been happier to finally share the experience with Leslie. This restaurant has been in business since 1864, and it’s hopping. In fact, it was one of the very few lines we encountered at a restaurant.

I was worried about the wait, so I asked Leslie if she wanted to go elsewhere. She insisted on staying, since I had talked about it so much. She also noted it was big enough to have a waiting room area, which is uncommon in Japan. Additionally, many of the items in the menu were sold out, so it had to be good.

There was a sign that said irashyaimase (welcome to our store) since the staff was so busy that they couldn’t greet people when they entered. You even had to write your own name on the waiting list, which I hadn’t noticed until after a few other people came in.

The staff was less friendly than the other restaurants we’d eaten in, but they weren’t rude. They were just busy. The prices were surprisingly fantastic.

While we were waiting, the waitress called names to be seated. Three couples in a row had given up on waiting, so an older Japanese couple was called. The woman was visibly excited, so I yelled, “Yokatta desu ne!” (I’m glad for you). She laughed. They finished their meal just as we started, so later, when they left the restaurant, they waved at us through the window with a big smile.

We ordered two matcha noodle dishes:

… a medley of desserts made with tea:

… and hojicha cappuccino, which tasted sort of like coffee because it’s roasted green tea.

I thought the cappuccino was good, but Leslie loved it. For the dessert, I enjoyed the matcha cheescake with chunks of (what I assume is) sweet potato the most.

We ate ...

… then paid our bill, which I thought was reasonable, given the quality and popularity of this restaurant.

I remembered one dish from a previous trip, I think it was called Thick Matcha, which is just a really thick matcha coating the bottom of a bowl. You scrape off the matcha and eat it, then they pour hot water in so you can drink the rest. I’d love to try that, next time, before we have too much other green tea.

If you would like to try Nakamura’s brand of tea, visit their English web site.

The Prince of Green Tea

Okay, just one last picture to show just how much green tea flavored foods are in Uji:

While heading back to the station, we encountered this souvenir shop.

Leslie wanted a memento of Uji, because it was such a wonderful town and she had a fantastic time.

Upon entering, the clerk offered us tea and two matcha cookies. At this point, we really didn’t want any more tea because of how much we had consumed all day. I almost turned down her offer, but I thought better of it because I didn’t want to be rude.

Leslie picked out a coin purse featuring who we call Uji chan, the toddler prince of Uji, and a matcha bowl.

Arguably the best part of this store was the gift wrapping. Leslie was overcome with excitement when her coinpurse was wrapped with Uji chan paper, and grinned even wider when that was placed in a plastic Uji chan bag. She squealed when the clerk pulled out a sheet of Uji chan stickers to seal the bag.

The clerk was taken off guard, but loved the enthusiasm, so she offered Leslie a full sheet of Uji chan stickers. Later, Leslie said, “I wonder at what age me geeking out over Uji chan won’t get me a free sheet of stickers.”

I think that was the height of Leslie’s excitement during this trip. (She claims it was also the most hopped up on caffeine she’s ever been in her life).

Here’s the rest of our haul, more or less, from the day trip:

The liqueurs were duty free. We haven’t tried them yet, but I’ll name them here if you are interested:

• Yowa no Midori: Uji Matcha Green Tea Liqueur
• Yowa no Midori: Uji Matcha Chocolate Liqueur

The liqueurs and Kit Kats were purchased at Itohkyuemon Co., Ltd., but they currently do not sell outside of Japan.

Cheerleaders at Kyoto Station

In our return trip, we spotted a number of gardens that interspersed the city. They were just small gardens, where a building or two would normally stand in the city outskirts (but the area was still densely populated). I’m pretty sure some of them were tea plants. It was a neat aesthetic, but I couldn’t capture a non blurry photo from the train.

We arrived at Kyoto station and were greeted with this:

It ended up being a heartfelt cheer about domestic violence awareness. I’d never seen Japanese cheerleaders before, but holy cow, their energy is through the roof.

Leslie might have Uji chan, but I was infatuated with Mayumaro, who’s a Kyoto mascot styled after a silkworm cocoon.

Leslie and I clapped like fools throughout the entire performance.

Konbini dinner

I have no idea how much tea we ate and drank, but we wanted a simple, tea-free dinner after all of that. (Leslie didn’t even know there was such a thing as too much tea.) Konbini food is incredibly satisfying, restocked often, and there are many options to choose from. This meal was provided by a Mini Stop.

We’re staying at K’s House Hostel for a little while, and they were celebrating an anniversary so we dropped into the bar to play bingo.

We met a Bavarian traveler who told us about the Shikoku Pilgrimage, which runs the perimeter of the Shikoku island. He walked it to quit smoking and work some other things out of his system, and it took 90 days. He warned that temples sell out-of-date guides, with roads that are no longer accurate. One notable place was the Dogo Onsen, which is over 1,000 years old, and was an inspiration for Miyazaki’s film Spirited Away.

I can’t say I understand going somewhere to “find yourself.” I’ve always been the type to know what I want to do, and then I go do it. Still, walking temple-to-temple through ghost towns and abandoned streets for three months sounds appealing.

Conclusion

Uji remains one of my favorite destinations, perhaps just after Miyajima. We thought this would be a break after the previous day’s trip to Fushimi Inari, but we spent over six hours walking around Uji and still racked up 18,000 steps (about 8.5 miles) by the end of the day.

I wish we had been able to see a few more things, though, most notably Obakusan Manpukuji and Mimurotoji Temple. We had a hard time finding our way, and couldn’t remember what these places were, so we gave up and spent most of our time in the main stretch.

Mimurotoji seems particularly beautiful when in bloom; perhaps we’ll make it back for the cherry blossom season sometime. It seems that April until August is wonderful for blooms.

You can find more information by following these links to Mimurotoji and Manpukuji.

My next article will include pictures of young adults wearing kimonos taking selfies of themselves when we accidentally happened upon Kiyomizu-dera. Actually, Leslie will take an interesting selfie, herself. We also explore Kyoto Station.

Stay tuned!

This article was written using notes and pictures from our day trip on November 12, 2015.

Stuck with the sniffles and the I’ve-read-our-manuscript-too-many-times blues, I went to Amazon to read samples from books that I know were commercially successful. Sure enough, I found fault with every sentence.

Realizing my frustrations were due to a weird mood and not something inherently wrong with every word we’d written, I was able to read our manuscript with a kinder eye (and enjoy it!)

Note: Dave has a job, it just hasn’t started yet (^-^).

Last Sprint

My major focus was to finish edits to Echo Chamber Heist based on my beta read and to critique every story from a soon-to-be published Steampunk Fairy Tales collection. My first two weeks were spent copying notes from my Nook into our manuscript. Book progress was slow because it was also my last two weeks at work, and I had a lot to wrap up. My last two weeks were spent applying larger edits to the chapters I thought needed them most.

Leslie traded our manuscript with two other writers in order to get fresh feedback on her January edits. She had to read and critique two full books by end of month. Since she finished early, she also beta read a novella by our friend, Angela Castillo. Additionally, she applied edits to our Steampunk Fairy Tale, The Mech Oni and the Three Inch Tinkerer.

New Career, New Healthcare

Since I’ve changed my career to contract work, where I’m paid hourly, we had to procure our own health insurance. It was challenging, at first, since we didn’t fully understand the nuances between plans on healthcare.gov. We took a day to visit an insurance agency to answer our questions. The owner is my childhood best friend’s mom, so I knew she would do a great job. She explained everything in great detail, so I’m confident about our choices now and feel like I saved hundreds of dollars.

I assume this is standard, but you don’t pay insurance agents—they are paid by receiving a portion of your regular insurance payment. If you need to pick out your own insurance, I recommend talking to an agent.

Chiropractor

I had a standing desk, and used to joke that I stood until my knees hurt, then sat until my back hurt. Before leaving my job, a Neuromuscular Balance Chiropractor visited us every few weeks to make adjustments. After one appointment with him, I could stand at my desk all day without pain. I plan on writing a more in-depth article about this later but, to be brief, I came to trust him.

Leslie has had headaches for ages now, and has visited many doctors and chiropractors. I convinced her to visit Lucid Chiropractic Clinic in Lawrenceville, since I had seen results and was impressed with their approach to treatment. She’s never tried a Neuromuscular Balance chiropractor before, so she agreed to go.

Unfortunately, her headaches haven’t gone away yet, but a different problem was resolved. Previously, she always felt exhausted and couldn’t get good sleep. Her grogginess has been lifted. Given no one told us this could be fixed with adjustments, we’re attributing it to the adjustments and not to a placebo effect.

While this was health-related, we considered it a writing task since headaches and grogginess were the biggest negative impact to her productivity.

Dave’s Approach

I filled my first two weeks with tasks, taking into consideration how little time I would have.

When the third week came around, I only planned that week, because I wanted to edit and didn’t want other tasks to distract me. I have a tendency to sometimes avoid what’s most important in favor of what I want to do. Only having editing tasks on the board was a constant reminder to edit, and edit only.

Since I was new to staying home, I used toggl to track my hours and analyze whether I was spending my time appropriately.

The fourth week, I finished any remaining critiques for Steampunk Fairy Tales and handled a few other tasks.

Leslie’s Approach

Leslie didn’t plan any tasks in week one because she was exchanging beta reads, and the exchanges hadn’t been posted yet. She researched agents, did other tasks related to beta reads, and edited The Mech Oni and the Three Inch Tinkerer.

Once the beta read schedule came in, she planned how many chapters she would read each week to finish on time. She finished early, so she outlined changes suggested by our beta readers and delivered a few more critiques.

The Numbers

We had an amazing month, partially due to me not having a job for the last two weeks. As you can see, we broke week 3, and had to put finished tasks in the to-do column because there wasn’t enough room under DONE.

Four colors are represented on the board:

• White is a planned task, which we posted before the week started.
• Orange means winging it, and is used when there’s no upfront plan.
• Pink represents scope creep, or surprise tasks that are important we favor them over planned tasks.
• Green is for crushing it, and is only used if all planned tasks are complete and we’re over achieving.

The numbers are:

• 85 planned tasks (Leslie: 43, Dave: 42)
• 127 finished tasks (Leslie: 82, Dave: 45)
  • 82 finished planned tasks (Leslie: 42, Dave: 40)
  • 8 finished winging it tasks (Leslie: 8, Dave: 0)
  • 8 finished scope creep tasks (Leslie: 4, Dave: 4)
  • 29 finished crushing it tasks (Leslie: 28, Dave: 1)
• 137% - 149% completion by task count (depending on how you count “winging it”)

I’m not sure how much completion percentage really matters, since one task could take thirty minutes or five hours, and we don’t track time at a task level. What I care about is: did we meet our original expectations?

I feel like this month’s success was related to these factors:

• Dave quit his job halfway through the month, so he didn’t have to work surprise late week nights or weekends.
• We had fewer goals, so we didn’t have to split our focus as much as in previous sprints.
• Our goals were clear, so we planned our work appropriately.
• One of the manuscripts Leslie beta read was fairly polished, making it easier to complete than originally expected.

Takeaways

• Alter planning as necessary. Sticking to two-week planning sessions is nice when there’s a clear picture of what you need to do. Leslie signed up for a beta swap at the end of January and hadn’t been assigned her books until week 2 of February. How much work she had depended on how long and polished the manuscripts she had to read were, so she waited to plan instead of just putting things on the board.

• Give yourself credit for tasks that aren’t just reading, writing, editing, critiquing, etc. When you start a new job, a portion of your first week is spent on paperwork. If you treat writing like a full-time job, then stuff like get health insurance counts. Since Leslie’s headaches affect her productivity, visiting a chiropractor was also considered a writing task, since maybe it would help.

• Try tracking your hours. I used toggl to keep track of my daily activities, from editing, blogging, critiquing, to walking the dogs and cooking. Tracking your hours can help you stay focused or, if you don’t feel like you accomplished much, offers proof that you had been working diligently and some objectives just take longer than you expect.

• You can accomplish more when there’s fewer variables in your life. Sometimes, I had to work on Saturdays and wake up very early.

  If things didn’t go well, I could be there all day. It also usually meant late nights on Friday and, sometimes, the entire week prior. This led to not sleeping enough, being stressed, and general unhappiness. Sometimes, I would go 72 hours without sleep, just because my body was hopped up on adrenaline. In a good week, I find it difficult to fall asleep before 1am. This is unhealthy, both physically and emotionally, and relationships suffered.

  Not only did working weekends shoot my plans for writing, but a portion of the next week was also ruined, while I tried to return to a normal life. That’s a lot of down time, and it was hard to account for in our monthly writing goals. Other times, if I had a writing groove going on, I would stay up until 4am. That’s incompatible with waking up a few hours later to go to work.

  I often said I worked at two startups: one during the day, and one during the night and weekends. Unfortunately, my projects stagnated when my regular job needed more of my time. By removing those hurdles, I believe we’ll be able to produce faster.

Next Sprint

We’re leaving for Mexico in 6 hours so we haven’t prepared the board yet, but our primary focus will be implementing changes from our beta readers’ feedback.

Reflecting on February

Leslie and I worked together in my study on the first Sunday and savored how soon, I would be working from home every day. Notice there’s no snow.

Two days later, and the yard was covered with snow. Personally, I love it, and am happy when the weather is doing what matches the season.

That night, we went to Independent Brewing in Squirrel Hill to celebrate Megan and Dave moving to Idaho. We got an Allegheny Rum Barrel, partially because it looked good, and partially because the name Boyd & Blair Stonewall Rum appealed to us. Echo Chamber Heist features a gentleman’s club by a similar name.

The twelfth was my last day at work.

We celebrated Valentine’s Day with a heart-shaped pizza.

We went bowling as a last hurrah for Megan and Dave with a group of our friends.

It didn’t take me being home long before I could relate to J.K. Rowling’s tweet.

Right after Megan and Dave packed, we took some family photos. We had thought about doing it at a department store, but there just wasn’t enough time.

Dave actually called us to say he found Linus’s fur in the dipstick of their car. That dog sheds everywhere; that’s why I call him lint trap.

While trying to get into good habits, Leslie and I (erm … mostly Leslie …) prepared a large batch of food on a Sunday. Big batches make it easier to prepare healthy dinners throughout the week, so we end up saving a lot of time.

While taking a walk, I found this guy in someone’s yard. Notice there’s no snow again.

Our friend Lauren came to have a New Year’s party on the twenty-fifth. Normally, we celebrate New Year’s with her and Garett, but we did something a little different this year. Still, we wanted to keep up the tradition, even though Garett was on tour.

We watched Roseanne and Buffy The Vampire Slayer, since Lauren hadn’t seen either. She also brought an awesome green tea pie.

We’ve really enjoyed our new lifestyle. Here’s a picture of our favorite Pittsburgh stairway, which leads to donuts.

That’s it! Thanks for sticking around!

In some ways, it’s perfect. Its campiness tends to pull the punch on any excessive drama, and the tension is balanced with a very playful approach to story-telling. Despite all of these pluses, though, I occasionally found myself wanting to walk away.

This wasn’t surprising to me as I have a love-hate relationship with most forms of media. This is no fault of the media itself; my tastes are merely strange and unpredictable, but when I love something, I love it too much: I’ll rewatch episodes or movies at a rate that would nauseate the average person.

My Preferences

My taste runs in the comedy vein: Roseanne, Bob’s Burgers, Rick and Morty, and It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia are my most re-watched shows, but there’s also a few non-comedies in the mix. BoJack Horseman is a perennial favorite despite frequently dipping into dark waters. I adore Babylon 5, a space-drama to end all space-dramas. Dead Like Me, a frequently sobering show about both death and life-after-death, was an obsession for a few years.

I’ve never quite understood where my lines are drawn. I love Parks and Rec, yet have never made it past season three. Arrested Development is great, except that last time I watched it, I struggled to finish season two. Despite devouring the first three-fifths of Babylon 5 about a hundred times, I’ve only finished watching the series once.

I think that, thanks to The Legend of Korra, I finally get it.

Analysis

I wanted to stop watching Korra the second a love triangle threatened the stability of the main characters in a predictable way. I could see the domino effect already starting, and cringed with each new piece it knocked down. And then it hit me:

• I stop watching Parks and Rec when Ben and Leslie’s relationship comes under scrutiny.
• I stop watching Arrested Development when the Bluths begin to accidentally-on-purpose alienate Lucille Two.
• I stop watching Babylon 5 when a primary character shows signs of defecting to the dark-side.

Apparently, what I really don’t like is when bad things happen in predictable ways, especially if it’s a slow burn. Leslie and Ben’s relationship arc lasts forever, and I’m forced to watch episode after episode of the slow, eventual decline. Even if there’s a happy ending, those moments of watching everything fall apart are like agony to me.

Resolution

Luckily, I was watching The Legend of Korra with Dave, and he was clearly not squirming. In fact, he seemed rather annoyed at all of my squirming. (Dave’s edit: I was.) In an attempt to not further ruin the show for him, I tried to knock it off. (Dave’s edit: Thanks!)

I’m glad that I did. The card house so deliberately stacked by the show did come crashing down in a terribly predictable way. The failed relationships undermined their previous successes, damaged their friendships, and hurt everyone’s feelings. Yet they still managed to largely pull their punches.

When the third-person-out from this love triangle gets their heart broken, they erupt into wailing, complete with snot-bubbles and a tantrum so intense, they have to be carried off. What would normally be a gut-wrenching moment was, instead, funny. And even within the course of a 30-minute episode, they undid the professional damage caused by the skewed relationships and more-or-less balanced things out between the characters. What I expected to be episodes of agony was more like ten minutes. Even I can handle that.

The Legend of Korra won’t be my next Bob’s Burgers, but it does look like it’ll be a fine show, so long as I can remind myself to give it the chance it deserves.

Following our bath was a light meal and sake at an Izakaya, or Japanese gastropub. On our way to bed, we stopped in a department store and took pictures of the most ridiculous capsule toys we could find.

Hostel

The previous night, we left Osaka for Kyoto and arrived at our hostel. This hostel was much larger, and everyone placed their wet footwear in lockers when they enter. The concentrated damp shoe scent coalesced with wet tobacco from outside to yield a most pungent memory.

Speaking of hostels, I don’t think I’ve shared any pictures of a Japanese toilet’s “control panel.”

I woke early, went to the nearest convenience store, and surprised Leslie with a breakfast of cream pan, wasabi cheese, and a lemon drink. We took a walk along the Kamo River to watch the sun rise and enjoy our meal.

We encountered a middle-aged woman carrying a portable radio. She seemed well known, and greeted everyone that walked or bicycled by. She cranked on her radio, did some morning exercises, and was on her way.

I couldn’t have asked for a friendlier start to our first morning in Kyoto.

Fushimi Inari Taisha (The Fox Shrine)

This was the third time I’ve been to Fushimi Inari Taisha, but it’s such a unique location that I wanted Leslie to see it. The earliest known structure built there was in 711 AD.

We decided to walk there to get a feel for the area. Groups of unsupervised children headed through the narrow roads to school. We saw the occasional adult, but the morning rush in these suburbs was much less crowded than our experience in Osaka. It probably took us an hour to arrive at the fox shrine, but it was a wonderful morning walk.

Food booths were being set up right outside the entrance, which was exciting. It’s been a long time since I’ve had Japanese festival food.

Just inside, you’ll find sake barrels, wish plaques (Ema), cranes, and all kinds of neat details.

The biggest draw to Fushimi Inari Taisha is the Senbon Torii, or “thousands of torii gates.”

The torii gates are actually donations. A company or individual can pay ¥400,000-¥1,000,000 (approximately $4,000-$10,000) to purchase a small or large torii gate. Their name and date of purchase is engraved on one side, which probably acts as a sort of advertisement.

Here you can see a new torii gate being erected:

There are beautiful cemeteries inside the trails:

People can purchase miniature torii to write their wishes on them and leave them somewhere in the trail. Just like with big torii gates, you can purchase them at various sizes.

I think, if they’re placed in the cemetery, they’re related to a person that’s recently passed away. I remember someone telling me that once, but I haven’t been able to find evidence to support that.

Here’s a smattering of things we saw while hiking:

Somewhere in the middle of the trail, there’s a single restaurant with a beautiful view that serves dishes like Kitsune Udon (Fox Udon), which is a noodle soup with fried tofu, and Inari Zushi (Fox Sushi), which is rice wrapped inside of fried tofu. Many people usually sit outside to rest and drink tea.

For some reason, I’ve really wanted to eat here for years. This was the first time I wasn’t with a group of people, so Leslie indulged me—which was good, since we were hiking up a hill for the past hour and hadn’t had much to eat.

I thought the convenience would make it more expensive. Surprisingly, the prices were reasonable, matching what you’d expect at a standard Japanese restaurant. I enjoyed my soup with a can of Asahi beer while watching a monkey drop from the mountain and try to steal from the plastic food display cabinet. Just up the hill, we got a soybean-flour-and-vanilla-twist soft serve cone.

We found a larger Shinto shrine, so I stopped to show Leslie the Kagami, or mirrors. They’re usually angled so you can’t see yourself. Someone once explained this is a reminder that your prayers shouldn’t be focused on yourself. There are occasions, most notably weddings, where the angle is changed so that newlyweds can see themselves.

Here’s yet another breathtaking view:

You’ll often see red bibs on statues, which may seem peculiar. These are usually placed by parents who are grieving for a child’s death.

According to Japanese mythology, children that die before their parents do are unable to cross into the afterlife since they aren’t old enough to accumulate good deeds, and their passing made their parents suffer. These children pile stones for an eternity as penance.

Jizo protects these children, so normally, these bibs and other children’s clothes are placed on Jizo statues, in hopes that the Jizo will protect their lost child. People also may pile rocks nearby, hoping this will shorten how long their child must pay penance.

Parents may also place bibs and toys as gratitude for a sick child that survives.

It’s an incredibly sad story, but I mention it here just in case you encounter it on your travels. Although the above photos do not feature Jizo statues, I assume the red bibs are for a similar purpose.

Here’s a few more cemetery photos:

This was Leslie’s first time seeing a bamboo forest, and she was adorably gleeful. There’s just something about how the stalks sway, and how a falling branch makes a satisfying sound as it knocks into the hollow bamboo.

While wandering, we stumbled upon a wreath of wishes. I believe these are burned so the words can reach the gods.

I think this photo was taken near the top of the trails. Notice this features the back of the torii gates, due to the writing.

This photo was probably taken at the Yotsutsuji intersection, which is roughly halfway up the mountain, and offers a beautiful view of Kyoto.

I think this shrine picture was taken at the top of the mountain trail, which was surrounded by another cemetery.

After a few hours of walking, we headed back down to the entrance. This is one of my favorite photos, but I can’t name where exactly it was taken.

Yet another photo that I can’t tell you where it was taken. My confusion is from a mix of us being tired after hiking, and us being new to traveling, so I didn’t take very good notes.

At this point, we were calorie deficient, and this sign for amazake really caught our eye. I don’t think I’d ever had it before, and it seemed like one of those things you just have to do.

Amazake is one of the flavors I hope to always remember. Even now, I took a break from writing this article to see how it’s made, or where I can find it.

I leafed through our journal and found what Leslie wrote:

We spent 6 hours in the fox shrine, and Dave’s first recommendation for writing this entry is: “Write down the name of that drink, amazake.”

It is really good. A sweet, malted rice drink with ginger. It was warmed and so tasty. I’m going to learn how to make it.

So, I have proof that Leslie will make amazake someday.

The following are a few more random photos taken in or around Fushimi Inari Taisha.

To finish our hike, we finally got food from the booths outside. Leslie summarized it better than I could:

We walked back to the hostel, ditched our st…

Oh, snap! There was a bunch of festival food outside of the Inari shrine, and we got our eat on: okonomiyaki, custard taiyaki, green dango, and a “potato dog,” which was essentially mashed potatoes coated in funnel cake batter and then fried. We ate it with mayo, ketchup, and butter. So nom.

Hours were spent at Fushimi Inari Taisha, and it remains one of my favorite destinations in Japan.

Tofukuji

On our way back to the hostel, we stopped by a series of nearby sights, one of which was Tofukuji, a temple built in 1236 AD. It also has the famous Sanmon Gate, which is about seventy feet tall and dates back to the 1400s.

We took in the surrounding Zen gardens, which featured rocks, raked gravel, and moss with a checkered pattern.

Bathhouse

According to Leslie’s fitbit, we’d walked 32,000 steps, over 17 miles, but only 100 flights of stairs. (As a point of comparison, a two hour walk in Pittsburgh is nearly 100 flights of stairs.)

Our feet were sore, and we were worn out. I asked the front desk if there was an onsen close by, and they said there was only a public bathhouse. I’d never been to just a bathhouse before, so we took a map and headed out. Given the nature bathhouses, I don’t have any pictures for this section.

The elderly Japanese woman running the entrance must’ve been surprised to see two young white people walk in, but was happy when I asked for instructions in Japanese.

The bathhouse was tiny, and mostly empty. Everyone else was elderly, and, as expected, very Japanese. The men didn’t talk much, but the elderly women tried to talk to Leslie. Realizing they couldn’t communicate, they pulled over a stool for her when she was kneeling in front of the faucet. You see, in an onsen or a public bath, you shower before entering the water. Leslie brought a book with her, which helped the time pass and keep things less awkward.

Meanwhile, on the men’s side …

I encountered an old nemesis: a denki buro.

I had not expected this. When I lived in Sapporo, I had went to at least five different onsens, and I only encountered a denki buro when I went far north to meet my host father’s father. After he retired, he spent most days picking wild mountain vegetables, drinking beer, and dipping in the onsen. To this day, I still want to take a few weeks in northern Hokkaido and have this lifestyle.

Anyway, I noticed a new type of bath, and could read the characters. “Electric bath,” I thought. “Is it just heated with electricity? What could this mean?” So, I hopped in, submerged to my chest, and sat on the bench. My first reaction was, “Something’s not right,” immediately followed by, “What the Ⅎ∆©ҝ?!” I don’t know what I expected, but it wasn’t an electric current running through the water.

It was a shocking experience, to say the least.

I tried to get out, but my legs didn’t work so well, given electric current was running through the water.

I resorted to pulling myself to the stairs with my hands. The further I got away, the more control I had of my legs. I must’ve sat down right in front of where the current was being generated.

I did not leave that onsen relaxed.

History lesson over.

So, in this small Kyoto public bathhouse, I see the kanji for electric bath. Curious about how it compared to my last experience of five years prior, I took turns alternating between the hot bath, the sauna, and the cold bath, soaking it all in before I took a trip to shock city.

It wasn’t as bad of an experience as I had remembered. Getting out of a denki buro feels amazing, like your body is happy it isn’t being electrocuted anymore.

In fact, we returned to this bathhouse a few more times, and I became addicted to the current zapping my exhausted legs. Had it not been for the surprise in northern Hokkaido, I might have had a different first impression.

By the way, there’s a Japanese word for the pins-and-needles sensation of a denki buro: piri-piri.

After forty minutes passed, I hopped out to meet Leslie. There’s no discussion between genders in bathhouses, so we set a time before we started. However, I opening my locker to be difficult, so I asked the elderly woman that worked the front to help me get my clothes. We hung out and talked a while. Some of us … some of us hung out more than others.

Some minor embarrassment aside, we felt rejuvenated. From Leslie’s notes:

31,000+ steps today, and we’re still going to go out drinking.

This is awesome.

If you want to read more about denki buro, try this article from the Japan Times: Shocking baths of Japan. An excerpt:

So far, I’ve been surprised by how no one has yet told me, “nihongo ga jouzu desu ne” (your Japanese is good). It’s always felt weird to hear, especially since my Japanese isn’t very good. Interestingly enough, one of the Japanese women that do podcasts for japanesepod101.com said she hates saying it, but has to because it’s encouraging for new learners. It was the first time I heard a Japanese person also doesn’t like that phrase.

By the way, I highly recommend Japanese Pod 101. These audio files helped me relearn conversation for when my friend from Tokyo visited me, and it also prepared me for this trip to Kyoto.

Post Bath Wandering

Feeling lightly peckish, we went to an Izakaya. We ordered sake, “vegetable croquettes,” and Yudofu. I was excited to try Yudofu, since it’s a Kyoto region delicacy and we make it all the time at home. Leslie confirmed they were all noms.

On our way back, we stopped in a department store and found gashapon (ガシャポン), or capsule toy vending machines, which took up a large portion of an entire floor. There’s so many interesting things to find in gashapon machines; here are a few of our favorites.

We picked up a few as gifts for our friends.

Closing

Wow, this was an incredible first day in Kyoto. We had a mixture of history, nature hikes, culture, meals, and some light shopping in department stores. That’s why I love Japan, specifically Kyoto, so much: it’s easy to see so much history and modern sights in just one day.

Our next entry will highlight our trip to Uji, which is a city famous for green tea, in a country that’s famous for green tea.

My only regret is that we didn’t buy every flavor that we encountered.

Acquiring Kit Kats

Our first purchase happened during our visit to Uji.

Uji is one of my favorite places, and I’ve been there a few times. Uji is the tea capital of Japan, and the aroma of freshly ground matcha wafts over you as you walk down the main street. They also carried two tea-flavored Kit Kats. One was Uji Matcha flavor, and the other was Hojicha. That’s right, the city has its own brand of green tea Kit Kats, but I only found it in one store.

For those that aren’t familiar, matcha is a finely ground green tea, and hojicha is roasted green tea.

Our second batch of purchases came from the basement of the Daimaru Department Store in downtown Kyoto. They have a Kit Kat Chocolatory, which contains many unique varieties.

We picked up five flavors:

• Butter
• Chili & Passion Fruit
• Orange Cocktail Noir
• Sublime (dark chocolate)
• Sakura Green Tea (cherry blossom + green tea)

On our last day, when we checked out of the Tanaka-ya Guesthouse, the owner gave us a gift of Matcha Green Tea Kit Kats. I’ve had these on numerous occasions, and they are a favorite. I don’t know if she gives this gift to all of her guests, or if she liked me because I spoke a little Japanese. Regardless, it was an incredibly thoughtful, appreciated, and unexpected gift.

Finally, I purchased one last flavor at the Narita International Airport: Wasabi. There were many more options, but our bags were checked, our carry-ons were full, and I only had enough yen for one.

What’s incredible is, at this point in our journey, my reaction to Strawberry Cheesecake Kit Kats was, “that’s not exotic enough.”

You read correctly: Strawberry. Cheesecake. Kit Kats. Weren’t exotic enough.

I can’t believe that that was my reaction. But, the competition is steep when your siblings are Rum Raisin, Wasabi, Hojicha, and Butter.

The Tastening

(Cue wrestling music) The competitors hail from Uji, the Daimaru Depachika in Kyoto, the nice woman that owns the Tanaka-ya Guesthouse, and the Narita International Airport!

The Process

We tried to follow a rigid system:

• Each pair of Kit Kat bars was broken in half with a knife.
• Leslie and I picked up our respective bars, pinky up, smelled it, then clinked the bars like a glass of fine wine.
• If the aroma was significant, we noted it.
• We nibbled, paying attention to how the flavor changed over time.
• Between bars, we swished water in our mouths to clear the palette.
• We tried them in different orders then ranked them in order of our favorites.

I’ll consider it a great success if the bullet points above made us sound pretentious (^_^).

Round 1: Green Tea Flavors

Our first round is green tea flavored Kit Kats because they are so prominent.

Our contestants are:

• Matcha Green Tea
• Uji Matcha
• Sakura Green Tea (cherry blossom green tea)

Even though hojicha is roasted green tea, we did not enter it in this competition because hojicha has a significantly different taste.

Matcha Green Tea Kit Kat:

• Initial flavor is strong, but after taste is weak.
• (Leslie) Can easily and happily eat both bars; it’s sweet but not too sweet.
• (Dave) Perfect balance. I expect green tea flavored things to be more tea than sweet. I’d love to try a less sweet version.

Uji Matcha Kit Kat:

• Even sweeter than the regular green tea version, but has a fuller green tea after taste.
• (Leslie) A single bar is good enough; eating both bars would be too much sugar.
• (Dave) I was really looking forward to this one, but it’s sweeter than regular Matcha Green Tea Kit Kats and not different enough.

Sakura Green Tea Kit Kat:

• This is the sweetest yet, but not much sweeter than the Uji Matcha Kit Kat.
• The flavor is complex. Not as floral as expected.
• (Dave) For some reason, the flavor is reminiscent of cinnamon. I don’t think it has cinnamon, it’s just hitting the taste buds the same way cinnamon does.

We tallied our votes, and, to our surprise, the Matcha Green Tea Kit Kats we’ve tasted many times before won!

Round 2: Chocolate Flavors

The next round was devoted to chocolate flavored Kit Kats.

Competing this round are:

• Sublime
• Orange Cocktail Noir
• Chili & Passion Fruit

Sublime Kit Kat:

• (Dave) That’s as not-sweet as I would like any of the green tea flavors to be.
• (Leslie) The wafers are crispier, drier, and more prominent than in other flavors. But, I’d prefer just a hunk of dark chocolate.

Orange Cocktail Noir Kit Kat:

• (Dave) I like the smell, but I didn’t care for the blend. Eventually, it “got there.” It reminds me of an orange flavored chocolate I had in France. I wonder if this blend is a European thing.
• (Leslie) It might work if it was white chocolate. Regular chocolate and citrus doesn’t seem to go together.
• We wouldn’t buy this one again.

Chili & Passion Fruit Kit Kat:

• (Dave) I tasted the passion fruit immediately, but it quickly slides into a chili/chocolate flavor. Barely a tingle registers on the tongue from the chili.
• (Leslie) I don’t taste the passion fruit at all, though I do taste a faint tartness and acidity. I agree that there’s no spiciness to it, but it’s a pleasing balance.

Chili & Passion Fruit won by a land slide, and Orange Cocktail Noir at the far bottom of our list. However, none of the contestants came close to any of the Green Tea flavors.

Round 3: Exotic Flavors

Our final round was the most exciting, and composed of:

• Butter
• Hojicha (roasted green tea)
• Wasabi

The picture doesn’t do it justice, but the arrangement was gorgeous. Leslie commented that she would paint a room in these colors.

Butter Kit Kat:

• (Leslie) It has a pleasant aroma, and smells like sweet cream.
• (Dave) It has the sweetness of Uji Matcha and Sakura Green Tea, but it goes better with the flavor.
• We were both highly impressed, but Leslie enjoyed it more than Dave did.

Hojicha Kit Kat:

• (Leslie) It surprisingly tastes of actual hojicha. I almost forgot what hojicha tasted like, but after one nibble, I remembered. It’s not super sweet, which makes it easier to enjoy. The flavor and complexity is prominent, and not a result of too much sugar.
• (Dave) This tastes more like actual hojicha than the green tea flavors tasted like green tea. I think this is better than the butter, though that might be from the novelty.
• It starts strong and ends strong.
• Incredibly complex flavor.
• Amazing aroma.

Wasabi Kit Kat

• Not a strong aroma.
• (Leslie) The initial taste was “Eh? What’s this?” Then, the wasabi flavor came through the white chocolate.
• (Dave) Once you’ve finished eating it, the flavor is over. Like the Chili & Passion Fruit flavor, there wasn’t much, but it hit the right taste buds on the back of the tongue. There’s no lingering after taste, though. In many ways, the experience is similar to eating wasabi: it surprised you, then vanishes.

We got creative and mixed some of the flavors. Leslie tried combining Hojicha and Butter, but the Hojicha overwhelmed the Butter. However, Butter and Wasabi made an interesting blend.

This round really was the clash of the titans. All were excellent.

Before we tasted any of them, I thought Wasabi was going to win, but we put it in third place because the smell, first taste, and aftertaste were mild. Just like actual wasabi, the flavor strikes you and disappears.

Side note: Wasabi ice cream is an amazing experience, and if you ever get the chance, definitely try some.

I really enjoyed Butter, but once I tried Hojicha, it became first place for me.

After much deliberation, Leslie eventually sided with Hojicha because it wasn’t as sweet and had a much more complex flavor.

So, this round goes to our number one choice, Hojicha!

What now?

We only sampled nine Kit Kats, but according to kit-kat-flavors.com, over 200 flavors have been produced in Japan. Some are regional, some are seasonal, and some were released for only a short time.

Sometimes, I find the Matcha Green Tea in a chocolate store in Pittsburgh’s Strip District but, for the most part, I think you have to buy online if you don’t have a trip to Japan scheduled. Even if you’re in Japan, finding a specific flavor can be difficult.

Here are some of the flavors I found on Amazon:

Have you ever had a Japanese Kit Kat, or a unique flavor from another country? What would you like to try?

Last Sprint

At the beginning of January, Leslie knew the pace she needed to finish editing by early February. She filled her side of the board. I followed her lead, forgetting that we normally just plan two weeks at a time. Two week plans let you adjust your goals halfway through the month in case something unexpected happens.

Unfortunately, something unexpected happened.

Keeping a Promise

The startup I work for laid off a number of people, including eight engineers. I spent the next few weeks helping anyone that asked for it: finding job opportunities, giving interview advice, networking at a career happy hour, and writing recommendations.

About six months ago, I had made a promise to Leslie: if work didn’t calm down by January, I would begin looking for a new job. I love working here, but I often come home exhausted, which leaves little energy to work on our personal goals. It’s taken us a long time to write Echo Chamber Heist, and I want the opportunity for us to finish faster, fail faster, and iterate faster. I want to invest in our ideas, and I want to be more involved.

I had very few usable hours in the evenings, when I got home, and if friends or family wanted to do something, or if I had to work over the weekend, I might go a whole week without making any progress. It was like working at a startup during the day, then working at a different startup at night. One job suffered when the other needed extra work, and usually, it was our own projects that were compromised.

Friends stopped inviting us out, since we turned them down so often. There’s software developer events I’ve wanted to attend and network at but I never could find the energy for them. Exercise and relaxation have been a rarity; it’s hard to give up time I could be working on our projects.

Sleep is another problem. I’m often tired because I can’t get on any sort of sleeping schedule. If work needed me after hours, or if I had a groove with writing, then I’d stay up late. It would take days for me to recover, since work requires being present at a certain time every morning. The time was generously late, but falling asleep at 4am and waking up a few hours later is brutal.

I wanted to try to make it work, but one of the original issues was not having enough time to write, and I barely wrote all of January. So, I kept my promise to Leslie, and found a new job that should be more flexible. I hold no ill will, and I wish everyone there the best of luck. Leaving is not going to be easy for me.

Leslie, my Knight in Shining Armor

After returning from Japan, I reread our manuscript and noted a few changes that would have a big impact. They weren’t small, but Leslie attacked them with gusto. Originally, she intended to finish editing by February 15, but she got aggressive and completed everything in January. Part of her motivation was keeping me happy, since my tasks languished.

This was no small feat. She rewrote a large portion, including every single chapter with one of our POV characters, and made intense edits from the middle to the end.

I Also Did a Thing

We are contributing a short story to a collection of Steampunk Fairy Tales. I chose to do a retelling of Issun Boshi, which is a Japanese fairy tale about a one-inch-tall boy that becomes a samurai. Leslie had drafted an introduction and was going to write it, but she preferred to focus fully on Echo Chamber Heist so I took over the short.

It took all month, but I finished the (currently) 2,500 word short story, just in time for the January 31st deadline. I look forward to writing more short stories in the future, when situations are less stressful.

The Numbers

We’re trying a new color scheme:

• White is an originally planned task.
• Pink is scope creep, or something we hadn’t originally planned on doing.
• Green is booyah, or tasks finished after all original tasks are done.

Tasks:

• 56 original tasks (Leslie: 24, Dave: 32)
• 58 finished tasks (Leslie: 38, Dave: 20)
  • 36 finished original tasks
  • 7 finished scope creep
  • 15 finished booyah
  • 21 unfinished original tasks (Leslie: 0, Dave: 21) Twelve of these should have been deprioritized
• 103% completion by task count
• 1 deprioritized milestone

The counts would have been better if I had stuck to a two week planning cadence. It would also look better if I had deprioritized the twelve tasks related to outlining our process over the last year, since we deprioritized the entire milestone. Originally, I wanted to start analysis for a project management book I’d like to write. I realized I need more time for the process to evolve, so, in early January, we decided to not write that book yet. But I was stubborn and wanted to see some progress, so I added it as an “easy” milestone. Once my job made January hectic, this was the first set of goals to go.

I also cheated a bit and had a few weird tasks, like writing recommendations. Recommendations took a long time, even longer than expected because LinkedIn had a bug in their app and I had a hard time convincing their support team of the issue. Still, I wanted to move something to the done column.

I stand by the tasks concerning getting a new job, because we need an income to support our writing.

Takeaways

• Stick to two-week plans unless you have a deadline and a well-defined set of work.

• Disregard potential milestones that aren’t a primary focus and can’t be finished in one year. Taking notes on last year’s progress didn’t make sense because I had no intention of writing a book about project management this year. I was very excited to work on this project, and that impaired my judgment.

• If you don’t have time to write, figure out how to make time. Over two years ago, we made a decision that Leslie should quit her job to focus on writing full-time (sometimes she took part-time work). It was only after this decision that we saw real momentum. Now, we’ve decided that I should change jobs so I can contribute more. I don’t know if it will work out for me, since I’m still working a (mostly) full-time job, but I expect lower stress and less hours will do wonders.

  Barbara Hambly, author of The Silicon Mage and numerous other works, took jobs that allowed her to write. According to her Wikipedia page, these included high school teacher, model, waitress, technical editor, all-night liquor store clerk, and Shotokan karate instructor. (I forgot Shotokan was a word until just right now; that’s bad ass.) I hope that us taking a similar approach will be fruitful.

• Perhaps consider a new colored slip for explanations. I used scope creep for writing recommendations, but really, that has nothing to do with our book—I just wanted to pin something on the board to show I was busy. I don’t think I’ll implement this, since I want to keep the board simple, and explanations shouldn’t come up often … but, since we plan on writing quickly and in bursts, we plan on doing a lot of non-book stuff this year. We’ll have to revisit this one.

Next Sprint

Here’s what we have in mind for February:

This time, I remembered to only plan for the first two weeks. Since I’m starting a new job soon, I really don’t know how to gauge the full month anyway. I will finish reading and taking high level notes on our manuscript (including copying notes out of my nook) and maybe write a few blog articles. The last two weeks will be devoted to line edits. I also intend to go to the chiropractor with Leslie, since it’s helped with some minor pain I’ve been having and it might help Leslie’s headaches.

Leslie didn’t have any specific plans for the first week because she finished editing Echo Chamber Heist early. She’s waiting for a beta read swap to begin in week 2, in which she’ll spend most of her time giving chapter-by-chapter feedback on two other manuscripts. She’ll also finish editing our steampunk fairy tale for an upcoming ebook release.

Reflecting on January

Pittsburgh in January couldn’t decide if it wanted to be warm or cold. Some people were excited to have autumn days in winter, but I prefer the seasons to just do what they’re supposed to do.

Leslie devised a strategy to calm our basenji-chihuahua-corgi-mix dog when she’s crazy.

This fortune cookie had flippin’ pinpoint timing:

Here’s a few pictures near my old job; while I’m excited for upcoming opportunities, I really will miss working there.

We went to Games N’ At for Gabe’s birthday. Before we got there, though, our basenji-chihuahua-corgi-mix dog woke up, crying and holding her paw funny.

This had happened once before, a year ago, at 2am. Right as we were about to leave for the emergency vet, she heard the treat jar and came running. We deduced her paw had just fallen asleep.

This time, she wasn’t interested in treats, even when we held them to her mouth, so I held her in the car while Leslie drove to the emergency vet. As soon as we were about to enter, Schooner began walking on her paw. She even started tugging when she saw another dog. Her paw must’ve been asleep, again.

Another case of flippin’ pinpoint timing: I was hungry, and our friend, Lauren, had brought us Spak Brothers’ hoagies!

Keep in mind that the latest design is just another iteration.

Comparing New and Old

Let’s start with the landing page, which makes better use of space now by including excerpts from book reviews:

The following is a redesign of the blog page, which was probably the biggest change:

• Larger links are easier to touch on mobile devices.
• Bigger thumbnails are more appealing.
• Taller titles make the article stand out more.
• Increased padding feels less cluttered.
• Removing dates increases room for content.
• Fewer colors for non-tag links makes it easier to focus.
• Titles are still clickable, even though they’re just black text, but the read on link has a typical style to make the actionable item pop.

Still, I have some padding issues here I need to fix.

The thumbnails also alternate, right to left, and every other article has a low contrast damask wallpaper behind it:

Not much was changed with articles. I’d like to revisit font, line-spacing, paragraph padding, and other styling some day. I’m still not satisfied with how the right side bar looks, either.

The books page also was barely changed:

Iterations on Blog’s Front Page

The original design was released around October 2014. It was incredibly primitive, but fairly clean:

I didn’t care that it looked bad because we didn’t have enough content to get visitors, anyway. All I wanted was something that could evolve.

It only took four months for me to get bored. In February 2015, I added some color and put images on the blog page:

It was an improvement, but the design didn’t match the aesthetic of our books.

One night, I sketched a new design that still used the same basic layout but added colors and images. I wanted a Victorian vibe, but without the baroque details that were beyond my design abilities and would complicate mobile development. I aimed for a modern-Victorian feel, with a focus on white space.

The banner now uses a textured image, instead of a solid color, and the images next to blog articles are even more prominent:

History of my Decisions

I decided to do everything the hard way and build my own blog from scratch. Normally, I don’t recommend this, even for developers, since it can be a waste of time, but I did some research and found that normal blog resources just didn’t meet my expectations.

I started this blog in October, 2014, with only a few requirements:

1. Works on mobile devices
2. Has a simple blog, with tags and links to related articles
3. Has a list of books
4. No database backups required
5. Easy to change

I had some experience with WordPress but didn’t like how difficult it was to build my own plugins and layouts. Using WordPress would also mean I’d have to do my own database backups. (However, I think the WordPress commenting system is top notch.)

Warning: it’s about to get a little technical

I’m not a designer, not even close, so I built a minimal design focused on content. I used Bootstrap with a mobile-first mind set, where every page’s layout was designed for a cell phone first, then expanded to work with tablets and desktops.

I was learning (and loving) Laravel at the time, so I decided to give it a shot. All of our articles are stored as database migrations, which means the content is safely stored in a file with the rest of the site.

Essentially, I don’t have to backup the database—if my server fails, I spin up a new one, deploy my code, and run a script to load all of my articles. On the downside, it means Leslie can’t just log in and post articles any time she wants. On another plus side, we use Parsedown, which means neither of us has to touch a WYSIWYG editor.

I’m sure a designer could do a much better job, but I’m not disappointed with how things look … at least, not yet.

Note: The sum (42) is greater than current actual chapter count (35) because we closed and reposted some chapters.

Earlier chapters had been drafted four years ago. In some ways, this made it easier to get started, but our writing has come a long way since then. They had to be thoroughly edited, which wasn’t easy, but at least we had something to work with.

January was an aggressive month. We had the excitement of coming back to Echo Chamber Heist after a year-long break to write Dream Eater’s Carnival. Winter kept us indoors, which made it an ideal time to focus.

February dipped, because we got involved with a lot of critique trades. I believe we edited the early chapters a lot, as well.

June and July are difficult months. We don’t have central AC and summer’s heat slows our productivity. It’s also a time for gardening, swimming, and enjoying the outdoors.

We wanted to enter the Pitch Wars competition in August. The deadline gave us motivation.

What We Learned

We were plotters, not pantsers. In many ways, plotting is great—knowing the middle and end gives each chapter direction. However, there were some large, fundamental issues with our outline. It wasn’t until the deadline for Pitch Wars that we realized how fast we can write. Leslie had spent weeks trying to figure out how to write some chapters from the outline. With a deadline, we no longer had time to figure it out, so we scrapped the plan. In a few days, we wrote something far better than what was outlined.

It’s already been mentioned a few times, but we’re going to work in spurts and take breaks so we can come back with fresh eyes. The goal is to finish a first draft quickly, let it rest, then iterate on it. Once we’re comfortable but haven’t spent too much time polishing, we’ll ask a few trusted critique swap buddies to read for big picture issues.

Due to summer being busy with outdoor activity, and our approach of writing quickly then walking away, we’re going to try to time our break for June or July.

Twenty-two people read only one chapter; generally, this was chapter one. Here’s why people quit so early:

• Many people quit a few weeks after they join. We actively sought new members for a while, then discovered they were unreliable long-term partners.

• Some people bounce around and critique what’s recommended by the app. They might just critique a middle chapter, which we generally find unhelpful since they ask questions that were answered in previously chapters.

• We added bonus points to the first few chapters for a while, hoping it would hook long-term readers. Generally, this attracted people seeking points instead of long-term swaps. Their feedback wasn’t useful, so we stopped this.

• We didn’t critique back. We tried to return critiques for anyone that gave good advice, but there are just too many people and not enough time. We now focus on fewer people.

• We asked two people to stop because they were unhelpful and degrading. They hated things that over sixty other people loved, marking them as non target readers. Their feedback was worded such that it deflated us instead of pumping us up for edits. Sometimes, it’s best to sever ties.

Some people stopped in the middle. Here’s what I think happened:

• We were a member of a few weekly crit groups. All of the groups’ styles favored getting many critiques on just a few chapters at a time. This meant you had to wait months for feedback on later chapters, which is what we were most interested in. It also meant people weren’t reading it like normal readers; too much time passed between chapters. Furthermore, everyone often had similar advice, so the effort was greater than the payoff.

  We think blitzing full manuscripts, one critiquer/beta reader at a time, may be better since the swap exposes big picture issues right away. You have an opportunity to fix any problems you agree with, then the next critiquer gives feedback on the changes. If multiple readers complain about something you originally disagreed with, you probably should take their advice and make the change.

  Full manuscript trades also seem better because these critiquers are reading your manuscript quickly, which is closer to an actual reader.

  Both of these groups disbanded somewhere in the middle of our manuscript.

• Some partners wandered off and formed other connections. Perhaps we reciprocated too slowly, or they found someone they were more compatible with, or they just wanted feedback on early chapters we had already read. They may have also lost interest in our story; if that’s the case, it’s unfortunate, since that’s who we want to hear from the most.

• Some people are reading our story just because they like it, and we don’t have an agreement to trade critiques. Once again, we’d love to return one-for-one critiques but there’s only so much time. Because they don’t benefit, we’re less of a priority (and rightly so).

• Some are passive critiquers, who just drop by the community every once in a while.

• A few people had a hard year, and had to leave the community to focus on family or career problems.

• The last thirteen chapters weren’t posted until September. We posted as we wrote and sometimes focused on editing earlier chapters instead of writing new ones, since new people kept critiquing early chapters.

  This meant the first ten chapters were well polished, but it took a while to complete a first draft.

  Some people had read up until the last chapter we had posted in June, then had nothing new to read for over a month. They either left the community or started critiquing something else.

Six people read the full manuscript.

• Some were full swaps, where we each agreed to finish the others’ manuscript within 2-4 weeks.

• Some were long time critique buddies.

Plans for 2016

This year, we won’t join groups that take over a month to get full manuscript feedback. Slowly getting feedback from multiple viewpoints was helpful, to a point, since this was our first full-length book. We’re aware of many of our weaknesses now, so it’s time to try something different.

We’ll try to finish a first draft of book two in a few months, iterate on it alone, then maybe post the full story for feedback. We’re unsure if we’ll continue using this community for full-length novels. I’d love to experiment with local, in-person writing groups.

After the manuscript is complete, we’re going to take a month-long break. Working fast should allow us to walk away from it a few times, and fresh eyes are better at finding big-picture mistakes. Hopefully, we’ll finish faster, and eventually complete more than one book a year.

We won’t critique all year long. Doing something every week (aside from writing and editing) is a drag. We thrive on variety.

We spent a lot of time on foot, walking 29,800 steps, or roughly thirteen miles. This article is written from my notes on November 10, 2015.

Osaka Aquarium Kaiyukan

I was hesitant to visit the aquarium, due to my unnatural fear of fish; knowledge of my phobia has encouraged my niece to mail me octopus postcards in the past. We visited the Pittsburgh Zoo and PPG Aquarium before our trip, which bolstered my confidence.

The morning commute was fascinating, borderline overwhelming—I’ve never seen so many people walking and biking at one time, and at such a quick, orderly pace. We did our best to eat a konbini (convenience store) breakfast without getting in their way.

We got lost trying to find the aquarium ourselves, so we returned to the Guesthouse U-En Osaka hostel to ask for directions. They also had aquarium tickets and, for ¥200 extra, it came with an all-day subway pass.

• Take Chuo subway line Osakako (C11)

En route to the aquarium was a display for the nearby Legoland:

The aquarium is beautiful.

First, we went through some smaller exhibits.

We stepped through what became, to our surprise, a spiraling walkway through exhibits that were upwards of 30 feet tall. Land animals were represented at the top.

The stars of the aquarium were the whale sharks, which were in the center tank. There were plenty of opportunities to see them, as we spiraled to the bottom of the aquarium. I expected such large sea creatures to make me uneasy, given my phobia, but their beauty won me over. I greeted each meeting with a smile, and stared at them, in wonder.

The whale shark had some strange house mates.

We stopped to get some green tea soft cream. As expected, Japan makes adorable treats.

The art work was a nice touch.

At the end of the exhibit, I pet some sting rays and sharks. I’ve made huge strides. I gotta say, though, being the only adult (aside from Leslie, of course, who would never pass up a chance to pet a shark) doing it didn’t boost my self-esteem. Still, I wish I had a photo to send to my family as proof.

After the aquarium, we headed to the Legoland out of curiosity, since the giraffe impressed us so much. We only stopped by the store, and didn’t pay to enter, because we wanted to see more of Osaka. If we had more time, we may have checked it out, since there were some amazing Lego models of Osaka Castle.

Osaka Castle

We took the Chuo subway line from Osakako (C11) to Morinomiya (C19).

I’d been to Osaka Castle once before, and honestly, if you only have time for one Japanese castle, I’d recommend going elsewhere, such as Himeji (even though it’s more crowded). I don’t want to sound negative, there’s just so many options in Japan.

The inside is modern, which detracted from the feel. However, the outside is excellent, brimming with gates, walls, and moats. The top of the interior features a good view, and there’s a lot of fascinating antiques (though the relics in Bishamondo near Kyoto were more enthralling).

I later read on Trip Advisor that the audio guide enhances the Osaka Castle experience. I’ve never listened to it before, but that’s something to consider if you’re set on this castle.

These photos were taken in the area near Osaka castle:

Umeda Sky Building

The Umeda Sky Building in Osaka was high on my list. I’m normally not a city buff, but mixing modern and historical sites in Japan optimizes enjoyment. If you just visit historical locations, you might become “shrined out.” Leslie experienced a similar phenomenon in Europe, where there’s so many incredible churches that your enthusiasm dulls after a while.

I had seen it called a “Floating Garden Observatory,” so I assumed there would be plants on top of the building. Photos of greenery overtaking a boxy structure outside of Umeda Sky Building furthered my delusions.

Unfortunately, it was just the top of a building—no plants. The view showed how far Osaka sprawled, and, coupled with the throng of people going to work that morning, gave Leslie an existential crisis. In a way, that was worth the ¥1,600 joint entrance fee, but there are many opportunities to see Japanese cities from a tall building.

When finished, Leslie took the escalator down, not realizing that the walls were transparent and you could see far below you. “Why’d I do that!?!” she yelped. In one day of Osaka, I experienced my fish phobia, and Leslie went head-to-head with her fear of heights.

Beneath the Umeda Sky Building is the Takimi-koji gourmet street, which is a replica of a road from the Showa period that houses 1920s photos of Osaka. We didn’t go down, because we didn’t know it existed. The Umeda Sky Building is mostly offices; we only encountered four other people during the time we were walking around.

Onto Kyoto!

At some point, I spotted this pizzeria, which reminded me to pick up some pizza chips.

We picked up our luggage from the Guesthouse U-En hostel, snapped a quick photo on our way out, and headed to Kyoto station.

Closing Remarks on Osaka

The aquarium is one of the best things we did in Japan. Many of our fondest, most distinct memories, are from meandering through the spiraling walkway and gazing into the four-story tall tanks.

I wish we had the two days we originally intended to spend in Osaka. There was a lot more I wanted to see:

• Namba Park
• Spa World Onsen
• Kitashinichi District at night
• Bunraku theater
• Dotonbori at night, including the iconic Glico Man

I’m sure Osaka has much more to offer, but planning this vacation took hours, and we wanted to dedicate most of this trip to Kyoto.

Marking destinations on a map is a fantastic way to travel. Leslie put one together for Kyoto, which made it much easier to visualize what’s near your current position. We didn’t feel as prepared in Osaka, where our destinations were just listed in the little black Moleskine notebook that I carried with me everywhere.

The Guesthouse U-En Osaka was exceptionally friendly and accommodating, even though we screwed up our arrival date. It was the most comfortable and beautiful of the three hostels we stayed in, and the employees were happy to speak Japanese with me. I’m nowhere near fluent, but they adjusted their speech to use words and grammar I could understand and spoke with respect. I’d love to return someday. They occasionally have opportunities to work in exchange for free stay, if you can do a month or more; I think this would be a wonderful opportunity to escape normal life, meet new people, and have plenty of free time to write.

This first article is a bit uneventful, since it only covers our flight and landing in Osaka on November 9, 2015. Pittsburgh to Osaka is a long trip, after all.

How We Decided On Japan

My co-worker and friend, Cory Trimm, recently found a round-trip flight from Philadelphia to Tokyo for only $900.

From my study abroad trip in 2008:

• Round-trip flight to Sapporo #1: $2,400
• Round-trip flight to Sapporo #2: $1,800
• ¥100 = $1.20 (and I had to spend less than $200 a month)

Compare to 2015:

• Round-trip flight to Osaka: $1,361
• ¥100 = 85 cents

I didn’t want to drive to Philadelphia, since travel was already over 20 hours, nor did I want to visit Tokyo this time. What I really wanted was to show Leslie the Japan I had fallen in love with. This meant returning to Kyoto, the old capital of Japan and home to many treasured historical locations. I also heard we had the best chance of remaining vegetarian in Kyoto, since many restaurants supposedly serve Shojin Ryouri, or Buddhist cuisine.

We actually watched what few flights were available dwindle as we shopped around, so we didn’t discuss much and just booked the tickets immediately, leaving the challenge of booking rooms. Unbeknownst to me, we were travelling near peak leaf viewing season, and the Japanese love autumn’s leaves almost as much as they love spring’s cherry blossoms. It was difficult to find private hostel rooms for two people, but Leslie managed to book our stay in three different hostels.

The Twenty Hour Journey

We tried to pack light—one regular suitcase, a small rolly suitcase, and two backpacks. I still feel like we overpacked, but autumn travel requires a gambit of cold and warm clothes, and I’m still fighting the flu.

I worked from home last week, quarantining myself from my co-workers. At the beginning, I couldn’t even sit for half an hour without feeling dizzy. Leslie purchased a $100 medley of medication, and I experimented to find a combination that worked. In the end, Nyquil Severe Cold and Flu reigned supreme, as it let me sleep through the night, and sleep is what ultimately improved my condition.

Our 5-hour flight from Pittsburgh to California streamed movies to Android and Apple devices. We were out of luck, since we used Windows phones, but such a short flight was no problem, as our carry-ons were brimming full of things to entertain us. I hadn’t played video games much recently, since I’d been so focused on work and writing, so I looked forward to enjoying the nostalgia. My media of choice was Pokemon Heartgold.

While waiting for our Osaka flight in California, the neighboring Tokyo bound plane also only streamed to Android and Apple devices. We were slightly concerned our plane would be the same. I hope this isn’t a new thing, as it requires everyone in a family to have their own device, but perhaps this is just United Airlines retro fitting older planes as a convenience.

We were lucky enough to have a new plane. The windows did not have sliding covers; instead you had two buttons to adjust the tint. It seemed like overkill technology to me, but I suppose it saves time during landings since there’s probably a master switch to set all windows to the same tint. The future is now.

The media contained a wide variety of movies, TV shows, and, surprisingly, podcasts. Again, Leslie and I spend almost all of our time writing, so we were looking forward to catching up on movies.

The navigation menu on my screen was broken, preventing me from pressing back, so I was stuck in Movies in Japanese which had surprisingly few Japanese movies, but dubbed American films like Mall Cop 2. I can’t say I was thrilled by the selection. In front of me, a man also had a broken screen and was stuck on the Grammar Girl podcast. I considered myself lucky.

Eventually, the flight attendants reset the media software, and my touch screen worked! I watched Harry Potter 1 for the first time in years. I saw two Japanese films, Initiation Love and April Fools.

Initiation Love was a bit gimmicky, but entertaining nonetheless.

April Fools was especially strange. The movie was equal parts over-the-top ridiculous, funny, sad, and beautiful. Based on the first thirty minutes, I hadn’t expected to tear up by the end.

From the corner of my eye, I caught glimpses of Wedlock, a web series that had Leslie cracking up. It starred Mark Duplass, the actor from Safety Not Guaranteed, which is one of our favorite movies. (After all, a genre called mumblecore is automatically appealing to us.)

To my side was an older Spanish couple. Leslie woke up and found them holding hands, and called them cute. I corrected her, saying just an hour ago they were aggressively making out, and the woman had opened her eyes while kissing and stared me in the eye. It was among the weirdest experiences I’ve ever had.

The plane food wasn’t bad. Our friends, Megan and Dave, said they always get vegetarian meals on flights because the meat is usually gross. Unfortunately, there was no vegetarian breakfast option, which shocked me since breakfast should be the easiest vegetarian meal for an omnivore to prepare.

Arriving In Osaka

We touched down in the Kansai airport, withdrew money from the ATM, and caught a bus to Osaka. En route, I realized we had booked our rooms for the day before. I hadn’t accounted for an entire day being gone for travel, and we had misread our tickets. We hoped our hardest that we still had a place to stay, since private hostel rooms were booked solid before we left.

It was drizzling, but we were able to follow the directions provided by Guesthouse U­En’s confirmation email. The difficult part was finding the station from whence the directions started. I asked a woman on the street for directions to the station and it got easier from there.

Tip: If you plan on going to Japan, pick up a few phrases beforehand. Asking directions is much easier than trying to read the signs. Finding your way when it’s raining is even more difficult.

Tip: If you’re traveling as a couple, want to keep it cheap, but don’t want dorm rooms, find hostels with private rooms. A private room at Guesthouse U-En in Osaka was only ¥6,600 a night (about $56).

The hostel was beautiful, and they did have a room for us—but it was a bit more expensive since it was for a group of four or more. We weren’t about to shop around, so I took it, and paid for the room we didn’t get the day before.

I was ecstatic to have a tatami room. Many of my best nights of sleep had been in tatami rooms, and I’d love to put a tatami room in my house some day. Leslie was concerned the hay smell would affect my allergies, but I rested easily.

The following day, we saw a little of Osaka, the biggest attraction being the whale sharks at Osaka Aquarium.

Click here to check out Guesthouse U-En in Osaka. They have free longer stays (3+ months) in exchange for willing to work. I may consider this, some day.

We’ve been gathering our finished tasks in a jar all year.

Like I said back in February, Leslie wanted to roll around in them on January 1. Here we go:

The jar is now empty, for 2016, and all tasks have been moved to an even bigger jar … because that’s the kind of people we are.

Last Sprint

I came short on tasks but completed my primary goal, which was to re-read the entire manuscript and note big picture issues. One of my suggestions made Leslie equal parts angry at how much work it would take, and excited for how much it improves pacing, tension, and makes it easier to close plot holes. This change will drive much of what we do in the next few months.

Leslie merged all of my minor revisions into the manuscript and outlined every chapter’s revisions based on the major change I suggested.

Louis Rakovich at Indigo Forest Designs finished our new cover for Dream Eater’s Carnival, which we plan on posting to Amazon soon.

The Numbers

Tasks:

• 40 original tasks

• 44 finished tasks

  • 22 finished original tasks

  • 21 finished scope creep

  • 1 house task

  • 18 unfinished original tasks (Leslie: 2, Dave: 16)

Leslie met her expectations, but I was far behind. Still, I accomplished my primary task, which was to finish making suggestions on the full manuscript.

I’ve been crunching some year-long numbers and discovered that, since December 2014, Echo Chamber Heist has received 585 chapter critiques from 65 people in our writing community.

Takeaways

• Set realistic expectations, even if they’re very, very, low. There’s less time during the holidays, so expect to accomplish less. Don’t let reduced productivity get you down; enjoy the holidays.

• Take a break from your manuscript. Put it away for a little while and re-read it. I reread everything after our trip to Japan and quickly discovered some solutions to problems that had been nagging us all year.

• Let agents you’ve queried know if you’re revising your manuscript. After years of tinkering, we were certain our manuscript was ready to submit to agents, but then something clicked and we figured out how to improve tension and better unify the chapters. Five agents were happy that we contacted them, one agent’s intern was not.

• Reduce critique swap obligations. We’ve been swapping critiques with a lot of people, but the obligations have been hanging over Leslie’s head. Instead of writing X critiques every week, we’re going to try to swap with people only at critical moments of writing.

• Take time off when sick. Leslie was ill, so she took two days off and just played video games, then felt like she did five days of work over the next two days. That time in front of the PS4 also helped her mind wander to figure out how to conquer the revisions. Like at work, take time off when you need it.

• If you want to organize the pantry, do it. In other words, don’t let your environment distract you. Take care of it.

Next Sprint

Leslie and I forgot to make resolutions ahead of time, so we headed out to get pancakes on New Year’s Day to discuss. There were a number of projects I’ve been wanting to do, but I needed her to help me whittle them down. I prefer to focus on only a few well defined goals, since spreading myself thin just means more won’t get done.

She started by determining our top priorities:

• Revise Echo Chamber Heist

• Query 50 agents (“get an agent” is a bad goal because you can’t control it)

• Finish a first draft of the second book

The next step was to estimate how long our most important goals will take.

At the end of last year, we learned that we work best in bursts of activity. When we’re aggressive then take a break, we have fresh eyes and new enthusiasm for another burst of work.

Leslie determined it would take her until mid February to finish revisions, then a month to get and implement feedback. We should be finished by April.

I wanted to avoid her finishing revisions then handing them to me for feedback, since time is lost in hand-offs. Everything would freeze if I get the manuscript back just as I hit a crunch time at work. However, I want Leslie to have ownership of chapters for a while so she can jump around as she sees fit. (I’ll still read over finished chapters from time to time to give a first impression).

I decided to start my revisions at the beginning of February, giving her four weeks to shoot ahead. This gives me one month away from the manuscript, so we decided I’d focus on the blog and outline our process. I wanted to write a productivity book this year, but realized I’m still learning, and want to try some different techniques. Still, organizing my thoughts should help me analyze our process.

After revisions, we’re going to take a break from writing while our beta readers prepare feedback. This is where I got excited: Leslie suggested we spend a month on video game development. This is something I’ve wanted to do for years now, but keep putting off because it’s a huge time investment. If I have one project I want to finish right now, it’s Bitlather Chronicles. But the burst technique makes time for other projects.

I’ll focus on programming (with Unity) and she’ll focus on art (with Blender). I hope to finish a light prototype by the end of the month, mostly to learn how to put the pieces together and see if this is something I’d like to pursue more seriously.

The March/April “deadline” is mostly a guideline, to get a feeling for what other projects are possible. Certain things can disrupt us, and maybe our focus will change, but it’s good to have some idea of what we intend to do. We don’t want to plan month-by-month after April, because it’s too far in the future, though I expect we’ll likely be aggressive on book 2 for a few months then take another break.

Oh, and during any break period, we’ll query a few agents a week. It takes time to research agents, which can be exhausting while focused on writing.

After we determined our five milestones, finished our pancakes, and went home, we plotted out this month’s board. Normally we only do two weeks at a time, but this was straightforward a month, and we want to hit our burst deadline.

Leslie has a roughly chapter-a-day revision schedule, with time set aside to write a steampunk fairy tale for a group project.

I will focus on blogging, researching writing competitions, updating our Dream Eater’s Carnival page on Amazon, and reviewing our process from last year.

Reflecting on December

Here’s some of the non-book stuff that happened last month as a reminder that our process isn’t just about getting more work done, but also about making time for family, friends, and fun.

Leslie celebrated her birthday at a roller skating rink with her mother and our friends. She’s sporting a bunny hat from Japan that reminded us a bit of Louise from Bob’s Burgers.

It took all month, but we finished putting together the Lego Parisian Café I got her for her birthday.

We attended Santarchy and Bananarchy with our friend, Gabe, and they overtook a Pittsburgh bridge to celebrate a wedding between two reindeer.

I discovered Mr. Meeseeks from Rick & Morty, which instantly became my favorite episode.

There were holiday parties out the wazoo. I spent a low-key Christmas morning with my parents and taught my mother how to use a selfie stick.

While at Leslie’s brother’s Christmas party, I learned about Alphonse Mucha, who was famous for his Art Nouveau style in the late 1800s. I bought a copy of the book and intend to read it soon.

While recharging between parties, I began to catch up on the stack of Game Informer’s that have been collecting all year.

Niko struggled with a blanket.

Leslie and I exchanged Christmas gifts—she got me a buff magikarp T-shirt, and I got her an Ukiyo-e Heroes print of Origin Story from Katamari Damacy.

Normally, we have a small gathering at our house for New Year’s Eve, but this year, we went to Abby’s house, which had some interesting design choices, like this picture of the guest bedroom ceiling that she titled “cherubs eating churros.”

Linus did this.

Schooner appreciated the new living room arrangement.

And, finally, my friend Tomohiro Suenaga sent us and the dogs some Japanese treats for Christmas.

Summary

I think 2016 is going to be even more productive, and happier, than 2015. We’re starting this year with more experience and a better process. It already feels like there are less unknowns.

Shovel Knight is a well polished NES style game. Playing it makes me want to have a well polished manuscript. Simple as that. So I made a little rule: after I hit a checkpoint or died twice, I would edit one page.

I continued to read from my Nook, since it makes me treat the manuscript as a more finished product. But when I wanted to note something, I made the change directly on my computer, because putting notes in an e-reader is a time consuming process.

I was able to edit three chapters today, but I don’t feel like I spent my Sunday just working or goofing off. My schedule should get back to normal after the New Year.

I would normally write a review about how engaging the plot was, or how much I loved the characters, but Star’s Reach isn’t that sort of book. You know what to expect from page twenty, in terms of plot; there aren’t any twists and turns, just unanswered questions. And while two of the characters on this journey with Trey are “special” in that they’re very different from what you or I would expect, what they are matters far more than who they are deep down.

That makes this a milieu book. I normally don’t like milieu books. What’s more, I rarely enjoy a book with a narrator, and this story is told in journal articles written by Trey after they reach their destination. Despite two writing styles that I don’t normally dig, I breezed right through this book. But why? I’ve been mulling this over for a few weeks at this point, and I think I now know.

Trey, while a likeable, believable, and realistic fellow, is rather bland. I actually think this works perfectly with him being a narrator. Part of the reason why narration so often rubs me the wrong way is that the narrator is trying too hard to be funny, or creepy, or cool, and I can’t submerge myself in the story for how self-aware the narration is. Trey just tells his story. He sometimes loops back and forth or gets off topic, but you never get the feeling that he’s worried about what his readers will think of him. It gives the story an incredibly realistic vibe, which plays into the book’s other strength:

The world is so detailed, so well thought out, so interesting and so realistic that, despite a lack of personable characters or a really deep and thought-provoking plot, I was endlessly curious about the next town, or how one story will connect to the main story. It doesn’t hurt that it has a vaguely Fallout feel to it.

This journal-like reflection has its downsides, though. There was almost no tension in the book because you know that he’ll reach his objective from, essentially, page one. That also means that there’s no reason to worry about him getting killed or maimed. He will get where he’s going, it’s just a matter of how.

Idle curiosity being the reason I kept reading did affect how I read. For example, there was an unholy compulsion that prevented me from putting down The Library at Mount Char. I’d read Star’s Reach for an hour, put it down and do something else, pick it back up a few hours later and read another ten pages, then call it quits for the day. Other times I’d be in the middle of reading a paragraph only to find my mind wandering, so I’d call it quits. I always knew that I’d pick the book back up, though, and sure enough, upon the next read, the paragraph that I couldn’t focus on would be interesting again.

I was happy enough with this approach, until the end. I won’t spoil anything, but Trey spends some time reminiscing about what happened to him throughout the story. In any other book, it’d be a sweet, nostalgic moment for the readers. The problem was, though, that the entire book is a summary, a long trail of reminiscing. We never feel like we’re walking beside him on his journey, because to span the course of 5+ years in one book he pretty much has to tell you, as opposed to showing you, what happened.

So it was only at the end, when he reminisces about specific events that we never really got to experience ourselves, that I realized the book felt like it was missing something.

I wonder how Star’s Reach would be if, instead of a single book spanning many years, the author slowed down and allowed us to be in those moments with Trey. He overcomes so much in this book that it would be easy to turn it into two—or three—books. And if he got switched to third-person limited, then we could feel every moment of terror, or those moments where it seemed like all was lost, making the reward of Trey reaching his objective all the more satisfying and engaging for us as readers.

But at the same time, perhaps that version of this same story would be trash. There’s no way to know.

Star’s Reach is a very solid 4-star for me, which is rare. My feelings about most books, plotted out against time on a graph, would look a bit like an EKG reading. Star’s Reach, on the other hand, is a constant, and there was something comforting in that consistent, steady style.

The first step was to put Echo Chamber Heist on my Nook. I do most of my reading on an e-reader, so this makes the manuscript feel complete, which means my expectations are higher than when I read on my computer. I’m more apt to enjoy the parts that are enjoyable and dislike the parts that don’t work. In short, I treat it like a book that I just purchased.

Another advantage to reading on my Nook is it’s difficult to take and find notes. This forces me to ignore small errors and only mark what’s important. My line-editing instincts kick in when I read on paper or the computer, which puts distance between the story and I. Those line edits are a waste of time if major portions need to be reworked.

The best way to read on the Nook is as an EPUB file. PDFs get formatted weird and block me from taking notes. So I opened the manuscript in Microsoft Word, went to Save As, and saved it as Web Page, Filtered (.htm;.html).

I then imported it into Sigil, saved it as an EPUB, and stored it on my Nook.

When doing a full read, it helps to look for specific things. This read was focused on:

• What’s boring
• Where are the plot holes
• What dialog is weird, stilted, or unrealistic
• How can we put Raquel into more amusing, compromising situations
• Where can we add more steampunk elements

In our next read through, we’ll focus on how to add more of our fantasy world’s religious elements to the story.

As usual, I prefer project management techniques that are in real-space over software, since you can answer important questions at a glance without memorizing URLs and login credentials or dealing with faulty internet and app outages. A physical board is constantly available, which helps motivate me to work when I might otherwise be wasting time.

There’s six columns:

1. Column one is for each chapter’s number.
2. L for Leslie owns it.
3. ↔ for it’s in transition.
4. D for Dave owns it.
5. Merged for the chapter’s latest changes have been merged into the master manuscript.
6. Column six isn’t actually a column, but I left space here in case we want to pin any special notes about that chapter. Most all notes should just be in the chapter’s document, though, so I’m not sure how it will be used yet.

Here’s an example of how it works, as pictured above:

1. Row 1 points up at L, which means Leslie acknowledges ownership of Chapter 1. I cannot work on Chapter 1, because Leslie has “locked” it.
2. Row 2 points left, which means I edited Chapter 2 and sent it to Leslie. I could still make changes, if I like, but I need to talk to Leslie first because doing so would get confusing. If we agree I can make changes, I would move the arrow back to my column. Generally, it’s best to just not make changes once they’ve been sent to someone else.
3. Row 3 points right, which means Leslie edited Chapter 3 and sent it to me.
4. Row 4 points up, which means I’m working on Chapter 4.
5. Row 5 points down, which means Chapter 5 has been merged into the master manuscript document.

The arrows cannot point in any other direction than what is mentioned in the above examples. We built the board in this way because columns can easily get out of line toward the bottom (there’s a high degree of error when humans just pin things to a board).

At this point, if we insert a chapter in the middle somewhere, we have to be careful to update all documents and the board.

It took about three hours to conceive the idea and make the board. I was careful to line up the yellow boxes, since those should never be moved. I expect the white boxes to get messy, but having some underlying structure should keep the board organized.

I’ve already passed my edits up to Chapter 20 to Leslie. I’ve isolated Chapter 15 and 26 as needing the most work, so it’s likely that by the time Leslie merges Chapter 30, we’ll still be working around those areas. This has already clarified who’s working on what, and should continue to instill sanity in the co-author novel editing process.

My friend, co-worker, and standing-desk partner Gabe went to a costume bike ride for Halloween. He was handed a flyer for the Eleventh Annual Santarchy, then, not much later, was handed a flyer for the First Annual Bananarchy, which listed the same location as Santarchy. Gabe found this amusing.

Santarchy is an event run by the Pittsburgh Social Club in which a bunch of people bar crawl dressed as Santa. This snippet from their event summarizes it pretty well:

• SANTA DOES NOT SPEAK TO THE PRESS! “HO-HO-HO” IS GOOD. “PUBLICITY HO” IS NOT!
• DO NOT MAKE LIL KIDS CRY! Santarchy is for US and the LIL KIDS in all of us!
• IT IS YOUR CIVIC DUTY TO MAKE PEOPLE WONDER WHAT THE HELL IS GOING ON!
• And add to that, don’t get yourself into any trouble that you can’t get yourself out of. Santa has a way of disappearing when the red and blue lights start flashing or the fists start flying.

Bananarchy is an event in which people dress like bananas, follow the Santas around, and hassle them. These were the arguments posted for going Banana:

• Bananas are never lonely because they hang around in bunches.
• Bananas Don’t Care if You’ve been Naughty or Nice!
• You’ll never have to tell your kids that Bananas aren’t real!

Naturally, Gabe and I sided with the bananas, and Leslie went rogue in a flamingo hat.

We met the banana bunch at the Beer Market, where a few Santas had recently gathered. We were handed yellow badges and large banana stickers with sayings printed on them.

We were obviously on the less popular side, as the bar became inundated with dozens, if not a hundred, people dressed as Santas, reindeer, abominable snowmen, Christmas trees, Elf, and my favorite, Krampus. We later read upwards of 400 people participated in Santarchy.

Our side was a small, but passionate, group of bananas and monkeys. One banana didn’t have an exposed face, so he demonstrated how a hose ran from his sleeve to his mouth. I glanced over moments later see their hand hovering over their drink, and got a case of the giggles at the sight of beer flowing through the hose exposed in their sleeve.

Leslie, Gabe, and I followed the Santas out to a bridge, where two reindeer got married.

The Santas then gathered near the stadium and began singing and chanting. At this point, Leslie and I left, but Gabe joined them, as the sole banana. I received a text from Gabe as we were driving away, to say they were all chanting the banana SKU code, #4011.

Here comes the welcome rats,

the welcome rats,

the good morning rats.

Here comes the welcome rats

to-day~

(like a big bass drum:)

bum, bum, buh-bum bum bum bum

×∞ until Leslie is awake

This usually brought a smile to her face, though looking back, it was a bit gross since some of our darlings had a tendency to pee while they walked. All the more reason to rise, I suppose.

The reason for the minimalist goal was twofold:

1. A two week trip to Japan

2. Thanksgiving

We were to have fun, and, for once in our lives, not obsess about writing.

Aside from time spent in airports (and hauling our luggage to our hostels), we had nothing but fun in Japan, and though we used our experiences to help inspire parts of our upcoming novel, we definitely did not obsess.

Dave did take a lot of notes, though.

And though I spent hours in the kitchen to make a feast for just the two of us, Thanksgiving was nothing but fun. It’s rare that I’m excited enough to spend a small fortune and half of my day making a multiple-course meal, so I really enjoy those two times a year that I do.

So with November successfully finished, we look to the future: December. December is always, always, stressful. It doesn’t matter how well I try to plan ahead or how many limitations I try to place on family gatherings, I always end the month so tired I can’t wait for the cold, inhospitable domination of true winter to halt all social gatherings and force us to really think about whether we want to leave the house today.

With that in mind, Dave and I have kept it simple: Dave wants to finish reading Echo Chamber Heist, making small tweaks as he goes, and keeping a list of any big-picture issues he comes across. He also intends to do some work on the cover for Dream Eater’s Carnival, and get back into the swing of internet-related book things.

I mostly want to read all of Dave’s changes and implement at least a first pass of the big changes he wants made. A first draft of the next book’s chapter one would be a huge bonus.

This is Uji-chan. He’s the toddler-prince of Uji, which is the green tea capital of Japan. In this town of expensive and elegant tea shops, this little prince is everywhere. And I love it. Depictions of him range from the normal (drinking tea, eating green-tea treats) to the somewhat unexpected (dressing as a samurai, sleeping in a tea-bowl).

Something about him made me unreasonably happy, so I couldn’t leave Uji with an Uji-chan souvenir. I settled on a coinpurse. When the clerk bagged the coinpurse in an equally adorably bag, I couldn’t help but squee and babble about how cute he was. Happy with my excitement, the clerk grabbed a full sheet of stickers of the little prince and tossed them in for free.

This is not the only time I got something for free because I was so genuinely-to-my-toes excited about something I was getting. Enthusiasm in Japan seems to be met in turn.

Part of the reason I love Uji-chan so much is because he’s cute, but I think the reason I am still squeeing about him weeks later is because his very existence tells a story and my brain is happy to fill in the details in the form of a mental comic strip: Uji-chan tries out for soccer, Uji-chan needs a nap, Uji-chan’s perhaps had too much caffeine for one day. Since Dave and I enjoyed Uji so much, having a mascot that personifies that place is nice to have around as a memory. When I pull out my coinpurse, it reminds of browsing stores and eating or drinking endless samples and the restaurant where we slurped down green-tea noodles and watched the sun on the river.

Clearly, I really like Uji and Uji-chan.

Another mascot amused me endlessly, though for a much simpler reason, is Himeji castle’s mascot.

It’s adorable and silly and a bit funny from a Western perspective. I don’t know what her name is, probably just Himeji-chan, but I love that a centuries old castle has essentially been reduced to a hat.

Much like the toddler-prince, Himeji-chan was everywhere: on signs, in stores, and, if you’re lucky, in person. Again, I couldn’t leave without a Himeji-chan of my own in the form of a tie-on. She hangs out with my Uji-chan coinpurse. Mascots unite!

While I find Himeji-chan hilarious, I don’t connect with her so deeply because she’s just a personified castle, and thus my mind doesn’t come up with stories about her. I assume when no one’s around, she’s just a castle. I assume when no one’s around Uji-chan, he gets into all sorts of mischief.

Between Dave and I, I was clearly the most amused by Japanese mascots, but we were lucky enough to stumble upon one that made even Dave go all happy and stupid. We had just arrived at Kyoto station after a day trip, and were heading to our hostel. Just outside the station a crowd had gathered around three mascots, and a cheerleading squad besides. We slid to a stop and waited for whatever was going to happen, sure that it would be awesome.

The cheerleaders did an amazing job: flips, pyramids, and all sorts of things I can’t imagine doing were accomplished with ease, right there on the concrete. The mascots abstained from the hard parts of the performance—they mostly walked on and off stage and waved—but something about the one tan-blob wearing sumo attire really demanded attention. I have no idea what he was a mascot of, but darn it all if I didn’t want to give him a big hug. Dave felt it too, because throughout most of the performance he made little squeaking sounds, and he stared at that silly, adorable mascot with wide, happy eyes.

Dave’s other favorite mascot was nearly everywhere: The ICOCA platypus who sold train passes. Come to think of it, doesn’t he look like Perry the Platypus?

It’s such a funny, simple difference: The United States has logos, Japan has mascots. It feels so much bigger than that in person, though. I think John Oliver sums up the feeling of all these mascots rather well. Even if some of them are a bit … odd, I’d vote for mascots over logos any day.

Pitch Slam

We entered the #PitchSlam competition on Twitter, which was Harry Potter themed. We were accepted into Hufflepuff house and had 11 agents request our manuscript for Echo Chamber Heist!

Naturally, this changed our focus. We couldn’t plan ahead on our sprint board, since our tasks relied on whether we were accepted and if agents made any requests.

I intend to write in-depth articles about pitch slam later.

The Numbers

• 61 original tasks
• 72 finished tasks
  • 47 finished original tasks
  • 25 finished scope creep tasks
  • 14 unfinished tasks
• 72/61 = 118% completion of original plan

We did more than we set out to do, but some of our scope creep tasks may have been easier than our original tasks. As usual, percentage should be taken with a grain of salt.

Takeaways

• Enter competitions. I said this last month, and I’ll say it again, because this time, we were selected! September’s Pitch Wars competition forced us to write a query letter and synopsis, which came in handy. We wouldn’t have been prepared for Pitch Slam without them. This leads me to…

• Iterate fast. I was stunned by many of the agents that requested our manuscript. Our query letter no longer felt good enough, so I looked up queries that got agents, picked one, then used it as a template to rewrite our own query letter. We then rapidly iterated on it using feedback from seven friends.

• Move fast, but don’t rush. We wanted to submit our manuscript to every agent by end of week, so we made it a priority. We cranked through submissions, even though I was sick, some friends had just temporarily moved into our house (who were incredibly awesome and helped keep an otherwise potentially stressful situation fun!), and we had a small party at our house.

  Before we sent anything, Leslie researched the agents. We then tailored each query letter to tie our work into what they wanted. This took three days; one day, we worked on submissions from 11am to 9pm.

• Make checklists. While sending our query letter and manuscript to agents, we had a checklist we physically marked off before putting the agent’s email address in the TO field and pressing send. This reduces the chance of embarrassing errors.

• Don’t break the chain. For small things you want to get in the habit of doing every day, make a calendar and put an X through each day you finished that task. For Leslie, it was using Twitter more. It could be sitting down to write, cleaning the kitchen for 15 minutes, or playing with your dogs. The idea is, you don’t want to break the chain of success you’ve formed.

Reflecting on October

Leslie and I reread our entire manuscript, looking for big-picture problems and revising accordingly.

The big change was two of our close friends moved in with us. A lot happened in October that could have potentially been stressful, but they kept it laid back. They even cooked meals and cleaned the kitchen while we polished submission emails!

Even though we didn’t get dressed up or decorate the house much, this was the best Halloween we’ve had in years. The weather was beautiful, and handing out candy with Megan and Dave while watching Halloween movies was bliss.

My mom even texted me with a picture of her first trick-or-treater, which was a miniature donkey.

Next Sprint

We’re traveling in Japan from November 8th – 22nd, and the first week is dedicated to preparing for the trip. The last week is resting, Thanksgiving, and Fallout 4.

November is about fun and experiences, so we’re leaving the board empty.

Long before I was born, my grandmother was in the grocery store trying to wrangle her three sons. As always, they were a handful. Some random woman, seeing my grandmother struggle to keep her kids in line and get out of the grocery store before the next ice-age, approached her with a recipe, claiming that any hardworking mother could use such a simple, easy, and inexpensive cake recipe. I would have thought the lady daft, but luckily my grandmother was a more trusting sort, because this cake became the birthday cake in the Anderson family.

It’s a moist, spongy, chocolate cake that has this beautiful … one might say ‘tang,’ to it. As a kid, I looked forward to every birthday as if it were my own and ate Wacky Cake until I either felt sick or got in trouble. Being such a moist cake, remnants were always left on the pan, and I’d break out a butter knife to scrape off as much as I could to secretly get more. I might have had a bit of a sweet tooth.

I’ve outgrown my sweet tooth, but not my love of Wacky Cake. It’s rich, but not overwhelmingly sweet, and that subtle tangy flavor gives it depth.

If you’re unfamiliar with wacky cake, you’re probably wondering about the name. As a kid, I never second guessed it; what’s in a name? As an adult, I’ve come to understand that it’s wacky because it doesn’t use dairy. That’s right, folks, it’s a vegan cake. A delicious vegan cake that no one would know was vegan because it was created by omnivores for omnivores during the Great Depression, when eggs and milk were prohibitively expensive. Thing is, even when the economy stabilized, people kept this recipe alive because it’s that darn good.

The Andersons didn’t (and continue not to) have many traditions, but Wacky Cake is one I hold dear. Even in my own house, eating it takes me back to my grandmother’s kitchen. It’s one of my absolute favorite recipes, and definitely the nearest to my heart. (I can’t believe I just used that expression.)

And that’s just the cake. Now let’s talk icing.

I don’t know what to call the sort of icing my grandmother topped Wacky Cake with, other than blissful. I find most icing overly sweet and lacking complexity. It’s not that I need ‘sophisticated’ icing, so much as I cannot handle a tidal wave of sweetness unless there’s something else going on, too. This icing is sweet but light, tasty without being overwhelming, and perfect when paired with the more full-bodied flavor of Wacky Cake.

Blissful Icing (as I have now dubbed it) makes use of Crisco, which is a 1950s housewife ingredient if ever there was one, and I know that Crisco isn’t the most natural thing in the world, but leave those concerns for another day. I’ve yet to find another recipe for icing this complementary to Wacky Cake.

Blissful Icing specifically requires regular, non-powdered sugar. I think powdered sugar tastes ... weird, so I like using normal sugar, but it does make it longer to prepare the icing.

The other day I baked some Wacky Cake without realizing I didn’t have any Crisco. In an attempt to find a recipe suitable to top my beautiful cake, I tried several different styles, and none of them were right. I ended up eating the cake plain. It was still freaking delicious.

And now for the recipes!

Wacky Cake Recipe

• 1.5 cups flour
• 1 cup sugar
• 0.25 cups cocoa
• 1 teaspoon baking soda
• 0.5 teaspoon salt
• 1 tablespoon vinegar
• 1 teaspoon vanilla
• 0.33 cups salad oil
• 1 cup water

There are two ways to do this.

The first, the way I always did it, is: combine everything in a mixing bowl. Turn on mixer, beat until smooth.

Some people specifically love this recipe because you don’t need to use a mixer, though. Another way to handle this is to combine and mix all the dry ingredients in the 8x8 ungreased dish you intend to bake in. Then, make three depressions in this mixture. Pour oil into one divot, vinegar into second, and vanilla into the third. Then pour water over all, and stir well with fork.

Bake at 350 degrees for 30 to 40 minutes. Let it cool before icing.

Blissful Icing

• 1 cup sugar
• 0.33 cups Crisco
• 0.5 cups butter
• 0.5 cups milk
• 4 tablespoons flour
• 1 teaspoon vanilla

In a mixing bowl, combine the butter and Crisco. Turn the mixer on to blend until it’s a paste. Then (slowly) add the sugar and flour, followed by the wet ingredients. Turn the mixer up high. Really high.

Let it mix for at least 15 minutes, but be careful. Once I wasn’t paying attention, and the icing inched its way up the side of the bowl and ended up spraying my dorm room. Another time, it was mixing so heartily that it wobbled right off the counter and again sprayed icing everywhere. So, take it from me, check on the icing every few minutes and scrape down the sides.

You’ll know when it’s ready, because it’ll be light and fluffy and the grittiness of the sugar will have been beaten away.

Pitch Wars

There was interest in our manuscript, but unfortunately, we were not selected. I do not regret entering the competition, though, because we heavily reworked sections that sounded good in theory, but didn’t work on paper, and ended up dropping over 10,000 words.

One mentor offered to help us with querying. Leslie and I are interested in traditional publishing, and we intend to begin seeking representation at the end of this year.

The Numbers

Milestones:

• 3 finished milestones

  • Go to Another Con
  • Book 2 Outline
  • Improved Website
• 2 deprioritized milestones
  • Book Cover for Echo Chamber Heist: we’re interested in traditional publishing, so this is less important.
  • Dream Eater’s Carnival Audio Book: we’d rather write more at this time.

Tasks:

• 61 original tasks
• 64 finished tasks
  • 16 finished scope creep tasks
  • 13 unfinished original tasks

The tasks, specifically original versus scope creep, are inaccurate. Since we took a Kanban-esque approach, we didn’t always write new tasks on pink paper. I will try to correct this in October.

In terms of numbers, the goals and tasks weren’t completed as aggressively as in August, partly because we finished the manuscript early and talked for days about strategy and iterating on book two’s outline.

Unfortunately, I accidentally cleared the board before I took a picture.

Takeaways

• Enter competitions. An external deadline forced us to refocus. Even though we weren’t selected, our manuscript had improved. Thinking of our manuscript as more of a finished product and less of a work-in-progress also cleared our minds so we could quickly make better decisions.

  For instance, we could’ve spent weeks making our outlines for the Brunswick Academy and the Farm chapters work. An approaching deadline made us realize we were forcing it, so we scrapped those outlines and started over.

• Maybe steady progress is bad. I believe it’s important to make progress every day. Small wins keep morale high, and not checking in every day makes it easier to abandon a project, especially when it gets difficult.

  But planning the same type of tasks every two weeks can be monotonous. Monotony yields less productive work.

  We hadn’t planned on entering pitch wars—we didn’t even know what it was until shortly before the submission date. Since Leslie and I are plotters, not pantsers, we might’ve wasted time preparing for the competition on ineffective things.

  Forcing ourselves to be pantsers made us try new things.

• Breaks are good. Things don’t get done when I relax, and that bugs me. I don’t think I could’ve taken a break if we just had steady progress. But August was so productive that taking a break wasn’t a problem. I’m avoiding the manuscript until Leslie finishes her revisions, just so everything is fresh the next time I read it.

• People that like your genre can boost your confidence and help gauge if you’re writing to your target audience. But, their affinity for your genre may conceal problems in your book. This is why beta readers that dislike your genre are helpful.

  Strategically making changes based on their input can improve the work for all readers. Don’t let their feedback discourage you, though—they aren’t your target audience.

• Focus on the minimum viable product (MVP). There’s so much noise out there! There’s an abundance of articles with bad advice or no new information. Some articles are downright discouraging.

  Disengage from demotivating, time wasting tasks, and focus on your minimum viable product.

• Drop unfinished tasks from the first half of the month into the second half. Previously we left unfinished tasks from weeks one and two in their rows, but pinned more in weeks three and four. We gauge how much can be done by how full a week’s to-do column is, so not bringing tasks down set us up for failure.

Advantages of Kanban

Kanban is a visual way to organize work, and can be as simple as post-it notes on a wall. You arrange tasks as to-do, in progress, and blocked. For now, Leslie and I just have to-do and done.

Kanban is used in a variety of companies. It started when Toyota in Japan researched supermarkets to improve their engineering process. Toyota used physical cards to improve team communication and understand, at a glance, what needed to be done and when.

With Kanban, you limit how many tasks are on the board so you can focus on the most important items. Too many tasks yield time sinks like reprioritization.

When Leslie and I began “sprints” in January, we tried to plan the entire month. Eventually we shifted to two-week planning sessions. In September, we reduced how much we pinned to the board to focus only on what we wanted to finish. Higher priority tasks will always appear unexpectedly, so it’s nice to leave space for them.

If we were more scientific, we could set hard limits on how many items could be to-do or in-progress at one time, then analyze how tasks flow across the board. I think this is more helpful when managing a large team, as it takes time to record and analyzing these values. If Leslie and I were both full-time authors, or if single tasks spanned multiple days, then I would consider keeping better records.

The last step is to analyze your results and look for process improvements. The goal is continuous improvement.

I recently became a Scrum Master at work, so I look forward to learning more about productivity and how I can apply it to writing.

Reflecting on September

The month started with us going to the Big River Steampunk Festival.

We investigated getting a new cover for Dream Eater’s Carnival. This was a hard decision—I always thought the existing one wasn’t right for ebooks, but we attracted a lot of beta readers with it. We also had a lot of downloads when we first released it. But, the downloads have stagnated, and I think a new cover may help.

Since our manuscript for Echo Chamber Heist was finished last month, we iterated on an outline for the next book.

Also, there was that blood moon thing, which I couldn’t see through the cloudy Pittsburgh sky. And it got chilly!

Next Sprint

October’s big goal is wrapping up Echo Chamber Heist to prepare for querying. We’re both quickly re-reading the entire book with an eye out for inconsistencies, tone, and overall enjoyment. It’s nice to read with fresh eyes, so I’m staying away from the manuscript until Leslie is done making her edits.

In the meantime, I’m going to learn more about game development with Unity. I’ve been working on a spec for a game for a few years now, but I’ve avoided development because I have a habit of starting more projects than I can handle. What can I say, I’m interested in just about everything.

Now that our writing velocity has improved, I’m considering taking a few weeks next year to build a rapid prototype.

We have a clear path: edit the manuscript as fast as possible. So, we went back to listing tasks ahead of time.

In Greenfield, they throw a party.

The most interesting part was you could enter a raffle for $10/ticket to “push the button” that brings the bridge down this December.

Here’s looking at you, bridge.

A missing God.

A library with the secrets to the universe.

A woman too busy to notice her heart slipping away.

I adore how this book gets right down to business. Other authors might be tempted to explain the bizarre world that Carolyn inhabits, but Hawkins resists this trap.

A perfect, non-spoilery example: at one point, Carolyn is worried that there might be pneumovores in the woods. I have no idea what a pneumovore is, but I don’t need to know: it’s obvious that Carolyn fears them. And if she fears them, that means it’s some sort of unimaginably terrifying beastie.

Almost all of the things she thinks/talks about in the book that aren’t explained work like this. I always understood the intent of the information, even if the specifics eluded me. And that’s perfect. By including all this information we don’t know, it makes Carolyn seem bigger, smarter, and less human. It makes her world seem utterly bizarre and never ending. Even if it didn’t help shape our image of Carolyn, taking the time to explain everything would distract from the momentum of the book. And The Library at Mount Char has some of the best momentum I’ve ever read.

Frankly, I didn’t want to waste time on the “how” and the “why” of Carolyn’s world because I was focused on juicer answers. From the first chapter, we’re given hints that Carolyn is planning something, or maybe has already started putting events in motion. It’s amazing just how tantalizing Hawkins makes this, while hardly giving you anything to go by. Even more amazing for me is that he can do all this from Carolyn’s point of view without the feeling like her withholding concrete thoughts about her plans is false. Her refusal to think about what was going on felt utterly genuine, and having now finished the book, I completely understand why.

Carolyn wasn’t the only POV character. There were actually quite a few, and Hawkins handles the various POVs masterfully. In one chapter he might keep to strictly an omniscient view point, whereas in another it’s exclusively limited third person. I normally get real persnickety about POV inconsistencies, but this book reminds me that it’s okay to break the rules, so long as you know what you’re doing.

Though I think I’m in the minority on this thought, Carolyn is my favorite. Despite her supremely weird upbringing, she’s so real. Honed to a sharp edge by all of her training, perhaps, but underneath all that she’s strong, broken, loving, calloused, genuine, and utterly false. She’s complicated beyond her years, and even though she’s not necessarily a “good” person, her reasons for not being a good person make me sympathetic, and I couldn’t help but root for her, even when things get a little dodgy.

I won’t discuss the other characters much because, by default, talking about them at all is a little bit spoiler-y, but I do want to mention them.

One brings a dose of real humanity, and that person makes so many scenes read like a punch in the gut. But at the same time, their goodness also softens some of the bigger blows. They care so much, and it made me warm inside watching them prove it.

The other character, honestly, is my least favorite. I don’t dislike them or anything; they’re fine, just a touch boring compared to Carolyn’s larger-than-lifeness and the other characters’ genuineness. Whereas I couldn’t stop reading other sections, when there were a stretch of chapters from this character’s POV, I’d normally take the opportunity to finally go to bed. I actually saw this as a bit of a blessing, and didn’t mind it because otherwise, my quest to understand the plot would have kept me up all night.

And my word, the plot. Every chapter would open up a dozen questions and answer the tiniest sliver, but in such a way that I’d have to take a break from reading for a few seconds to process what this new sliver of information could mean. Sometimes this would lead to wild speculation or hopeful guesses, other times, that beautiful feeling of “Ooooh, no way! That’s PERFECT.”

This balance of answering questions while bringing up a dozen more, combined with my sympathy for Carolyn and my desire to see wrongs righted, propelled me through the book in three sittings.

In my opinion, Hawkins had the perfect place to end the book: lots of questions, but not all, were answered. Most of the goals had been achieved, but not quite all of them. It was a moment where everything came together beautifully and everything felt right. If he had ended there, this would be a 5+ star book. It’d be the kind of book people get sick of hearing me talk about.

But it kept going. And not just for a few pages, but for a hundred. A new plot kicks into place in these last pages. This secondary plot relates to the plot of the first two-hundred pages, but in a way that makes me feel like it guts the emotion behind the initial plot. And while, logically, I can (mostly) see how this secondary plot makes sense, it doesn’t feel right.

Non-specific spoilers ahead (IE, you might be able to see how this would affect the story once you start reading, but I won’t use any names or give anything away directly)

The secondary plot, in part, puts two characters who previously seemed to hate each other, at peace. I really, really didn’t like that, for two reasons: it tries to make a character who should be loathed into a “good-guy,” or, at least, a loving and affable person who did what they did for a good reason, even if it was hard. Were I the wronged party in this scenario, the explanations used would have done nothing to quell my rage. In fact, it would have been like throwing gasoline on a fire. I would have exploded with an even deeper fury. So the surprisingly congenial ending between these two characters felt wrong on the highest level.

The rest of the ending, and the subplot surrounding it, didn’t bother me as much, but it felt cheap compared to the first two-hundred pages. It went too fast, it didn’t go as deep, and since this part of the book covered a more human element, that speed hindered me from connecting on a level that made the character’s growth feel genuine.

I like the fact that the main characters couldn’t all get what they wanted, but the ending still felt a touch too ... happy and optimistic, like “oh boy, here we go on another wacky adventure!”

I love stories with a happy ending, I actually prefer pointedly happy endings, but only if it feels genuine. Something about this didn’t, probably because at no point did the book promise happiness, and the adventure that was had was in no way “fun” to the people involved. It was brutal, dark, twisted; lives and even souls were at stake, and lost. Characters purposefully pushed the boundaries of their humanity because the stakes seemed worth it, to them.

Based on that, my perfect ending would have been one of nervous or tentative optimism paired with both a sense of wonder and a feeling of regret.

This is still one of the best books I’ve read in ages. I’d rate the first 200 pages higher than most anything I’ve ever read, but unfortunately loving the first part of the book that much really made everything I didn’t like about the end of the book stand out in a way that I can’t ignore.

Still, this is a stunning novel, and I can’t wait to see what Hawkins has in store for us next.

Joining the circus is the objective of this game, which I thought fit nicely with Leisl in Dream Eater’s Carnival.

When I got home, I found the manual on the Internet Pinball Database and spotted the story on page 16. I spent a little time digging around on the machine’s web page, which was from 1997 (and referenced Netscape and Real Player).

The dotmatrix animations are charming. Here’s a few from their original site:

The rest of this article comes from the Cirqus Voltaire pinball manual:

The mesmerizing cirqus performances of today have evolved from the early Romans and their acts of bravery and challenge.

The arena held the greatest daily performances as gladiators riding chariots could be seen alongside jugglers, tightrope walkers and fire eating cows.

The word “Cirqus” literally means “Ring,” and traditional rings were established as boundaries for horses to gallop within.

All cirqus performers disbanded and scattered after the fall of Rome in 476 A.D.

1771 was a rebellious time for the famous M. Voltaire, an enlightened philosopher and general scholarly rascal.

He was famous for his writings and his spirit for living.

His passion grasped the arts and the cirqus, and in 1772 founded a show in Paris with the “Father of the Cirqus,” Phillip Astley. Voltaire then brought together a group of the most talented street performers and poets of modern day France, and founded the “Troupe le Voltaire” or “Voltaire’s Group.”

The name, “Cirqus Voltaire” was first spoken by Voltaire himself, during a tense game of bagatelle at the Café Procope.

Along with their works of the pen, the cirqus talent included tiger tamers, high wire fellows, the lightning-ball jugglers, and powerful cow throwers.

The Cirqus Voltaire had the most marvelous acts of bravery and passion, the same that willed France toward revolution in 1789.

The rest of the story and passion is… … well … To be played by you!

So come join the “Cirqus Voltaire!”

I’ll admit that the first hundred pages didn’t quite enthrall me. It was mostly about Garion, a boy, living a normal life on a farm. His companions were average, but his aunt, Polgara, and a wizened old visitor, Belgarath, were witty and engaging.

When they start to pull their party together, though, the book becomes a delight: spies, wizards, barbarians, and a trusty, simple blacksmith band together to chase a plot that is, honestly, secondary to watching how everyone interacts with each other, and the world at large.

Over the span of several books, they encounter countless bizarre places, unique and standalone characters, and peculiar side-quests, all the while bantering, teasing, becoming friends, and falling in love. There are side-characters who I’d love to see given whole books. There are locations, both creepy and surreal, where I longed to linger far longer than Eddings saw fit. He was probably correct, though. It’s always best to leave you wanting more.

And I definitely want more of the snake people, the weeping god, the animal-loving witch in the wilderness, the haunted hellscapes, and the other countless delights bursting the seams of these books.

In the initial series, some five books long, I’d argue that the first four books wander in their approach. This is normal for the epic-adventure, where characters often chase the plot across countless realms; the plot begins to feel distant, and the side-quests and one-off characters take the foreground until the end, when they can begin to tackle solving the plot.

Honestly, those first four books are my favorite. When they reach the point where they can complete their quest, my interest did not hold nearly so strong because the characters didn’t get to shine so much.

The only way this series could be better for me is if the plot and the troupe of loveable characters could be more entwined. Considering how large the troupe is, I can’t imagine how Eddings would pull this off, but regardless, this is a series I pull out ever 3-5 years and re-read, and every time it’s comforting and delightful, like a gathering of old friends I’ve been away from for far too long.

These are also the books that inspired me to write. If I can create characters that are half as funny as David Edding’s Silk, charmingly eccentric as Barbara Hambly’s Antryg, or as genuine as Andrew Smith’s Austin, I’ll consider myself lucky.

Unfortunately, I feel like some of my favorite books don’t quite have the recognition they deserve. For any of you lovers of character-driven fantasy books, I’m compiling a list of my favorites. To make this list, it has to be the sort of book, where, already knowing how the plot, relationships, and quests will end, I read and re-read just for the joy of watching the characters.

As I write articles, I’ll add them here, to my ongoing list of favorite character-driven books, video games, and series.

After countless hours spent planning, sewing, gluing, papier-mâchéing, and painting, our outfits were ready and so were we for the eleven hour drive from Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, to the hometown of Mark Twain and Margaret Brown.

We were specifically drawn to this steampunk festival for the atmosphere. No hotel or convention center fits the feeling of a steampunk festival quite like a town frozen in time to the turn of the 19th century.

When we needed to cool down, we stopped in an ice cream shop set in a Victorian building. As we strolled the streets, a Mississippi riverboat serenaded us with the calliope. There were beautiful gardens, quaint antique shops, and lots of friendly, if confused, locals. The setting couldn’t have been more perfect, and the acts lived up to this endearing first impression.

Saturday Morning: A Smattering of Events

It began with a parade heralded by The Steampunk Stompers, riding in style atop an antique fire truck, featuring a mad scientist playing a sousaphone with a rotating gear affixed to its bell. The procession was followed by an enthusiastic penny-farthing cyclist and a Mark Twain reenactor, who shouted, “Mark Twain for president! Vote in a real scoundrel!”

Needless to say, Leslie and I had to explain a thing or two for the non-festival tourists that had gathered to watch.

We then stopped by the main stage, where Beard and Bean accompanied The Scallywags for a comical retelling of Peter Pan. They chose three people from the audience and retold the story, where Hook is the protagonist and Peter Pan is cast in a shady light. To round out the performance, the band Clearly Guilty played a song about the 1808 duel between Monsieur de Grandpre and Monsieur de Pique … that took place on hot air balloons.

Our next event was a 19th century baseball game in Clemens Field. The kilted referee summed it up better than I ever could: “Notice the bare hands. Gloves are for the cold, people.”

One of the largest gatherings we saw was for the costume contest. Leslie and I weren’t feeling brave, so we watched from the sidelines as dapper gents and ladies vied for the approval of Queen Victoria.

The heat took its toll on our constitution, so we headed to the Mark Twain Brewery. We returned there every day for the beer, food, and atmosphere. It’s usually difficult for us to find vegetarian fare, but the house-made black bean burger was fantastic, and the portobello mushroom appetizer was deep fried to perfection. Even the staff participated by dressing to the weekend’s theme.

On our way to Remembering the Titanic with the “Unsinkable” Molly Brown, we stopped to listen to Ned Behrensmeyer play exceptional ragtime piano on the streets. Beside him was a falconer, whose bird stole Leslie’s heart.

The engrossing story of Molly Brown was told, in character, by historian Lisa Marks, detailing her rise to high-society, and her unfortunately timed return trip from Europe aboard the Titanic.

Saturday Evening: Vaudeville Review

Leslie and I are huge fans of small, live shows that showcase diverse entertainment. We feature performances in Dream Eater’s Carnival and our upcoming novel, Echo Chamber Heist. It’s no surprise that our second favorite event was the Vaudeville Review, which was only outshined by the Burley-Que Late Night Cabaret, where the same performers were allotted more time to astound us.

The Vaudeville Review featured a variety of five-minute acts. Doc Phineas kicked off the entertainment with a snake oil sales pitch, where drinking his own medicine inspired him to tap dance to the accompaniment of The Steampunk Stompers.

Sammy the Tramp, a Chicago woman dressed as a man in a style reminiscent of Tipping the Velvet, did a silent performance that spanned comedy, dancing, and the art of balancing things on her head. I was thrilled to see a Masher in the tradition of 1800s European Music Halls, and must admit to some sort of playful man crush that developed over the weekend.

Sideshow Dobbs from Dead Man’s Carnival stepped on next, juggling at one point in a mechanical manner like a human Rube Goldberg machine.

Beard and Bean broke up the silent performances with comedy. I won’t include the punch line of their jokes here, out of respect for their material, but they left an impression, because Bean had some rowdy … admirers … during the Burley Que Burlesque Show.

The contortionist Mary Pat Letourneau gracefully slinked up a silk rope, then let gravity unwind her as she plummeted to the ground. I especially appreciated this act because silk rope dancers are rare, and we feature one in the Bitlather Chronicles cabaret, The Iron Peacock.

Clearly Guilty changed the tone, where Horatio reminisced about his favorite 80s cartoons with the lamenting chorus, “Michael Bay, please stop killing off my childhood.”

Sanjula Vamana, who had performed on America’s Got Talent, was rolled in, straight-jacketed and chained to a wheelchair. He only said one thing about his TV appearance: “They told me I was the grossest act they’d ever seen, and that was the real prize—not being on TV.” He did manage to escape, tumbling with another performer, Vorteque, and using him as dead weight to loosen the arm straps.

Yet again came a tone shift, where Cat Connolly, who up until now was dressed as Selia the Steampunk Selkie, sang a beautiful, throaty lounge song about love.

Violet Vendetta stumbled from behind the audience, stealing sips from people’s glasses. In another act like we’ve never seen before, she performed balancing acts on a chair, using tremendous strength and balance to support her entire body with just one hand.

The Steampunk Stompers played a song from the 1840s, “When Pigs Begin To Fly.” Here we learned the drummer was a Broadway performer, and had played everything from the xylophone to the typewriter in a national tour of The Producers. Every member has a staggering repertoire of performances, and you can read more on their about page.

Vorteque rounded out the show with tightrope walking, where he feigned a struggle. Upon success, he was offered a giant wooden mallet as an additional challenge. Through determination coupled with fictitious trial and error, he crossed the rope with aplomb.

All of this was just a tame preview for what would happen on Sunday night, at the Burley Que Burlesque Show.

Saturday Night

After a brief respite, we attended the Electro Swing Dance Soiree DJ’d by Vorteque. It was interspersed with small performances when the crowd took a break from dancing. We finally heard Sammy the Tramp speak, using her fast-paced wit and anxious charm. It was at this moment I became enamored with her stage presence.

Leslie and I went wild when Sammy introduced Sideshow Dobbs from The Dead Man’s Carnival, as we were familiar with the troupe from our days living in Wisconsin. Dobbs called a woman up to the stage and asked her to pick a card. He looked at it, with everyone else, then asked her to write her name on the card. He proceeded to pull her card from his pocket three times, the fly of his pants once, then coughed it up from his mouth.

Vorteque restarted the electro swing, to which the audience, now sufficiently rested, rose to the dance floor. These dance breaks filled with top notch acts kept the atmosphere energetic. If we still lived in Wisconsin, I would head to Chicago just for Vorteque’s monthly electro swing events.

Among the many enjoyable facets of the Big River Steampunk Festival is its community, which didn’t seem to truly understand what had happened to their town. A few events were hosted in a backroom stage at Finn’s Irish Pub. As we left the dance soiree, two local gentlemen peeked into the dance party and the befuddled look on their faces was a priceless end to the night.

This was just our first day; the best was yet to come. My next article will cover Sunday, which encompassed tea dueling, a steamboat party on the Mississippi River, and the Burley-Que Late-Night Cabaret.

I discovered this author in a critique group. From the moment I read his introduction, I knew this guy had a story worth following.

Durham, a city guard with low aspirations, has little to show for his life. He sees a golden opportunity when the king’s messengers asks him to escort the Dwarven Dungeoneers on an expedition. As they get to know each other, the superstitious dwarves come to view him as a bad luck charm, the opposite of a chosen one—but Durham still entertains delusions of being the hero.

The prose is written in that effortless style that makes fantasy such a joy to read. Even though this is a comedy, it also comes with a fresh dose of unique lore that I assume is a Jeffery Russell original.

It doesn’t skimp on fantasy elements, either. Jeffery builds and deconstructs skeletal monstrosities like a child with a bottomless bin of Legos. The tension around the climax absorbed me to the point where I forgot I was reading a comedy.

Anyone familiar with the fantasy genre should give The Dungeoneers a read.

1. outlining
2. writing
3. editing
4. critiquing
5. reading
6. proofreading
7. formatting
8. making cover art
9. publishing
10. marketing
11. promoting
12. blogging
13. building a website
14. listening to podcasts
15. networking

…and probably a few others I can’t recall right now.

You can pay people to do these, but the cost adds up. We did everything ourselves the first time around to figure out when we should hire someone else.

We love the print cover for Dream Eater’s Carnival, but I think it’s lacking for ebooks. We’re going to try something different for the next cover, only because learning those skills will help us with other projects in the future. But, if this doesn’t work out, we will hire an artist in the future.

The final rounds of editing Dream Eater’s Carnival was excruciating. We will continue writing and editing future books in parallel, but once that’s done, we’ll definitely hire an editor.

Formatting ebooks and print books takes time, but it’s not so bad. The hardest part was figuring it out for Dream Eater’s Carnival. Now that I know, it should go faster in the future.

Marketing and promoting is difficult. We haven’t tried too hard yet, since I’ve heard that it’s not worth the effort until you have a few published books. We’ve done a few promotions to get a feel for what services work and what doesn’t. This should get easier as we learn more, but I will consider paying for training in the future.

As I said in the end of our July 2015 sprint article, I originally needed a website—not a great website—and I’m working on a real design now. I already know how to build a website, so I wasn’t about to pay for someone else to do it. But, I wanted to learn what features I needed before I spent too much time on the UI.

The main reasons we finished writing Dream Eater’s Carnival and will finish Echo Chamber Heist is Leslie quit her full time job and we use a sprint approach for project management. We had to make time and find a way to manage that time properly.

Protect your free time. Focus on what you want to finish, not what you want to do.

A New Milestone

I began sketching a new web site layout in the past month. I don’t sketch much, and for good reason—I once drew a stick figure of a flame-breathing goose that our friend Lana told me looked like it was spewing after a night of heavy drinking.

It’s the first design I’ve liked. Everything I’ve done up until now was about having a clean layout that was mobile friendly and easy to use. When I first built the site, I needed something, not something great.

Now that we have a sketch, I’ve added “Good Website” as an end-of-year milestone.

July at a Glance

Leslie focused on paying back critiques to some authors that have given us more than they’ve received. She continued editing and posting chapters, as well as reaching out to book bloggers. Big River Steampunk Festival is coming up, so she devoted more time to making her corset. At some point she found time to scrawl a first draft for the Echo Chamber Heist blurb.

She also built an improved standing desk, since both of our wrists hurt when we sit for too long at a computer:

I continued cleaning (which is necessary for us to stay focused), editing, and critiquing. I resubmitted the print and kindle edition of Dream Eater’s Carnival after doing another full round of editing. I also ran another promotion.

We met with Lana to discuss a book cover for Echo Chamber Heist and decided to try something new, so we started learning Blender (3d modeling software).

On the fun side, we visited our friend Lauren Brush, who’s working on a farm in Michigan.

Our neighbor got a corgie puppy.

It finally started to rain less, so we were able to go swimming. The rain may have stopped, but now it’s so humid we could swim through the air. We also got our dogs a kiddie pool.

Leslie cut her hair. I used it as a toupee on the pups.

My good friend “Kneup” moved back home from China, so we put together some Legos while watching Buffy the Vampire Slayer. Later on, we watched Harold and Maude.

I scored over 2,000,000 on Black Knight 2000.

Our friends, Abby Evitt and Dave Cobern, got married.

We also celebrated my parents’ 40th wedding anniversary at the end of June, we just didn’t get a chance to go through our pictures:

The Numbers

Milestones:

• 1 new milestone
• 0 finished milestones

Tasks:

• 82 finished tasks -- 14 finished scope creep tasks
• 5 unfinished tasks from Leslie (all last week)
• 13 unfinished tasks from me
• 82/(82-14+5+13) = 82/86 = 95% completion of original plan

Takeaways

• Some tasks just need to be done, not done well. Certain things, like websites, can always be improved later. Sometimes completing a “minimum viable product” is the best use of time. (However, this can get expensive if you hire someone else to build your site and want to redesign it later.)

• Don’t rely on weekends to get things done. Surprises happen, which led to so many unfinished tasks in the fourth week. We’re fine with it because we finished so much, but that’s because Leslie shoots for attainable goals and Dave tries to include enough small tasks that can be finished in a single evening after work.

• Consider aiming for 100% completion. Leslie and I have similar mindsets, but we work very differently. If Leslie has only one task left at the end of the week, she goes into overdrive to finish it. She is highly motivated by completion. I care about finishing milestones, but I have little control over my free time. I prefer to make lots of tasks, then just focus on completing the smaller ones if I come home late from work. See which approach works for you.

• Focus on only one project. I’ve known this for some time now—it became apparent when I began working at a startup—but I don’t think I’ve said it yet. Having multiple projects is demotivating. You can’t make progress on that boat you’re building in your garage when you’re trying to write a book, too. Multiple projects compete with each other.

• Future consideration: attributing difficulty to size of slip. I try to make all tasks a uniform size, based on how legibly I can write with a marker. Up until now, task size has had no significance. What if more important tasks, or more difficult tasks, or tasks we just really don’t want to do were represented by larger slips of paper?

Next Sprint

We’ve come to realize that book takes precedence above all other tasks. However, we’ve lived in this house for nearly three years and have barely made any changes. We try to make time, but our heart is in the book, not in painting rooms. And some of the previous owners’ design choices are driving us crazy.

For the next two weeks, we’ll do the bare minimum for the book—mostly just keep up with critiquing our friends. I’ll probably schedule a few promotions since we’re running out of days in this quarter. Other than that, it’s all about the house. We will still track our tasks using the cork board.

The last few weeks in August should go back to normal.

I had tendonitis when I was younger, so I am familiar with that type of pain, and how to control it:

• Take B6 and B12 daily
• Use wrist splints, especially while sleeping
• Reduce usage

This pain was different, though. I felt it mostly in my pinky, and in the knuckles nearest the pinky. There was also numbness, and my wrists hurt. I noticed my left hand was bad, so I put a splint on it at work and only used my right hand. The result was my left hand got better, but my right got much worse. Last Thursday, I couldn’t even pick up a pen; my mind said “grip and lift” but the pen fell through my fingers.

Swelling indicates arthritis. The doctor ruled this out immediately.

Carpal tunnel is normally felt in the wrists, below the palm. It’s usually accompanied with redness and warmth. Normally all fingers but your pinky are affected. This was also ruled out.

The doctor said numbness implies nerve problems, and the issue was my Ulner nerves. He asked if I put pressure on my elbows while I work. I said no, then looked down to find I was leaning on my elbow. Touché, doctor.

He prescribed Piroxicam. I should avoid exercises that put any stress on my hands. I’m also going to go back to a standing desk, so I can’t rest on my elbows, and reduce my hours at work and writing until the pain subsides. Video games have been replaced with watching Japanese TV.

I might try the Windows 8 Voice Recognition software again, so I don’t get too far behind on Echo Chamber Heist.

Despite all that, though, I rocked my sprint. With one scope creep ticket completed, and one unfinished ticket, I’m counting this month 100% successful.

Planning two weeks at a time was a huge boon. It made it easy to know how much time I had, and I actually planned out my tasks day-by-day to ensure I didn’t overload myself. I couldn’t plan for a three-day migraine or unexpected drama, of course, but having attainable goals kept me motivated even when I was in pain.

On migraine days, I would rest when the pain was the worst, and rouse, medicated and wearing sunglasses, to edit. When the headache rallied again, I rested. It took all day, but I managed to go over Dave’s edits for an entire chapter and posted it for critique.

Being able to reach my goals also kept me working when the pain wasn’t physical. I let the drama swirling around me bum me out for a morning before the desire to “beat” this sprint got under my skin and convinced me to do some editing. Once I got into the groove, I felt so much better and the drama melted away. By the end of the day, I had gone for a run, played with the dogs, ticked off a few slips from the board, and spent time talking with Dave.

If my goals hadn’t been so close to being accomplished, both migraines and drama would have probably knocked my productivity. I’d have spent about five days of playing video games, not because I wanted to, but because I wouldn’t have thought myself capable of doing anything else.

Instead, I achieved all of my goals. Feeling satisfied with all that I’d accomplished, I played video games for a few hours Saturday morning and reveled in every moment of it.

Two week sprints are here to stay.

Dave also tackled this month with gusto. Despite spending more-than-average time at work and dealing with a lot of wrist pain, he accomplished all but seven slips. He completed four tasks that counted as scope-creep, though, which leaves him just three shy of also beating this month (ignoring deprioritized tasks, of course). Deprioritizing things helped keep him focus on what was possible, given the overtime.

June at a Glance

• Accomplished tasks: 57
• Scope-creep tasks: 5
• Deprioritized tasks: 6
• Unfinished tasks: 8

Not shabby, eh?

Takeaways

• Plan your tasks by the day. Don’t just fill the board with work, think about what’s reasonable given how much time you have each day of the sprint.

• Realistic goals keep us focused, even when life gets us down. If the board is filled with unattainable goals and things aren’t going well, the board is just another negative thing. Having something you can conquer can shift to a positive mindset.

Next Sprint

My next two weeks will focus on “spreading the love.” With as crazy as this summer has been, critiquing my friends has fallen by the wayside. That’s bad. I’ll also be picking away at sewing my costume and trying to inch forward on new material for Echo Chamber Heist, but letting my friends know that I appreciate them in the form of a bunch of critiques is my #1 priority.

Dave has come up with a great design for the website and is working on implementing that, as well as trying to keep up with editing, critiquing, and the other normal obligations he juggles.

“I love deadlines. I love the whooshing noise they make as they go by.” - Douglas Adams

Retrospective

Benefits of Planning 2 Weeks

Leslie liked the change, and thinks setting two-week goals helps create more accurate plans. She said:

More accurately estimating how much I can get done is better for productivity. If I still have 6 things on my list on a Saturday, I’m more likely to think, “Eh, there’s no way I’ll polish all this off,” and be less dedicate to getting stuff done.

If I’m very close to completing all of my goals, though, I’m more likely to push to complete them all, even if it’s a lot of effort.

I saw similar benefits. I wanted to derail my sprint to improve the web site. But, knowing we’d create a new sprint plan on Sunday kept me focus on the original tasks, because it wouldn’t be long before I could officially put “web site” on the board.

We’re most excited to accomplish our first week’s goals because they’re fresh. There hasn’t been enough time for our priorities to change drastically. Also, the “done” column is empty, which is a huge motivation. Pushing tickets over gets the sprint off to a good start.

We also want to end the sprint well, which gives us an extra push the last week.

I also think we won’t feel buried in work this next two weeks. The new tasks can be less aggressive since we’re taking into consideration all the things we haven’t accomplished yet. Removing tasks from the board when we were on a four week cadence felt less honest.

Finally, some of our tasks require both of us to finish them. For instance, when Leslie finishes writing a chapter, I need to give one strong pass on edits before we share it with our writing community. In the past, I was too focused on other immediate things. This led to one of two results:

• The tasks didn’t move to done, even though Leslie finished her part. That doesn’t feel awesome, and can add unnecessary stress.

• Tasks at the end of the month that relied on my work (eg “post chapter to writing community”) couldn’t be started. Tasks that rely on other tasks become difficult to manage.

Now that I’m taking a break from actively promoting Dream Eater’s Carnival, I can get back to editing one chapter a week. Knowing that I’ve already edited three chapters, Leslie can make posting those chapters for feedback a realistic goal.

How Did We Do?

Leslie finished all but one goal, which was an incredible feat.

I had some scope creep my first week, but that’s because I knew I wasn’t going to finish planning our trip to Japan but I still wanted to finish the same amount of tasks.

I missed a lot in week two, but that’s because submitting a print edition of Dream Eater’s Carnival took longer than expected. I was able to finish it at the last minute and, since a print edition is one of our 2015 milestones, I can still feel great about how much I accomplished.

We also took most of a Saturday to put brick down in our front yard. Doing so means we have to mow less, which also means we’ll save time in the future.

Mindset

I still would like to try keeping the cork board about what we accomplish in a month instead of what we accomplish in a sprint. We’re going to leave the past sprint’s tasks, finished and unfinished, on the board. I’m treating this more as a check-in point, but we might start clearing the board every two weeks to take advantage of the motivation from an empty done column.

Since I didn’t finish all of my tasks, I want to give special priority to the unfinished tasks. If I move them into the current week, then I have no visual indication of how overdue they are.

If we find leaving our finished tasks on the board makes us complacent, we’ll change to clearing the board after every sprint. After all, moving things into an empty “done” column feels really good.

Takeaways

• Avoid writing tasks that rely on other tasks. They adds confusion and are harder to finish. If it takes two people to finish, then make two tasks.

• Reassess your goals and process often. Getting on a two week cadence gives us more opportunities to reflect on what’s working and what isn’t. We can also make changes faster and see the results.

• Consider your definition of done. When is a task truly finished? What level of quality are you aiming for? How much effort will it take? If it’s really hard, try to break it into smaller tasks. If you’re goal is to make something that’s polished, consider creating intermediary steps.

• Create goals that can be finished on a weeknight. This is especially important for me, since I work a fairly demanding job at a startup. Having five tasks moved to “done” before Saturday changes the breathing-in-a-paper-bag I need to get things done stress into let’s see if we can clear the board motivation.

New Goals

The next two weeks are going to be tough. We have a big launch at work, which will likely take an entire Saturday and a few of my weeknights. There’s also Father’s Day and my parents’ 40th anniversary. All of these are great things, but it means our success is limited to what we can accomplish on weekdays.

I tried to break my tasks down to what can be finished after work. Hopefully I can finish some stragglers from the beginning of June:

I’ve been trying to update our “encyclopedia” ever since we published Dream Eater’s Carnival. The encyclopedia is a binder of characters, settings, mechanics, etc. We use it to catalog what we want to do and what has already been done. Any time we mention a character, we consult the encyclopedia to ensure specific details are consistent with previous chapters. The problem is, I’ve had one task that just said update encyclopedia for many weeks now. So, I broke it down into four smaller pieces to get it started.

I want to finish working on a print edition of Dream Eater’s Carnival. I recently submitted a formatted copy and am waiting for a proof. Once I’ve verified the final product looks good, we can add it to the market.

I still have a lot to do for our Japan trip, which I consider a book goal since travel will inspire our second full-length novel. I also kept cleaning as a goal, since having a clean space helps us focus. It also forces me to go through old slips of paper that have random ideas scrawled on them.

Leslie will try to post three new chapters to our writing community. She’ll continue to edit one first-draft chapter a week.

Her week 4 is a little strange, since there’s an if-else scenario. She wants to continue working on her costume for the upcoming Big River Steampunk Festival in Missouri, but the parts she ordered are coming from far away and have unreliable shipping dates. So, her fourth week will be defined by whether she gets the parts in time or not.

Metal Beard’s Sea Cow

We started the pirate ship from The Lego Movie. Here’s as far as we got; we’ve been too busy to finish.

I borrowed these hooks from IMDb and Amazon. For many of these series, at least with Amazon, the hook begins to rely on the success of the prior movies instead of the stand-alone film. I included them all, so you can see for yourself what works.

Back to the Future

Back to the Future. 1985. Adventure, Comedy, Romance.

A young man is accidentally sent 30 years into the past in a time-traveling DeLorean invented by his friend, Dr. Emmett Brown, and must make sure his high-school-age parents unite in order to save his own existence. —IMDb. 37 words.

Back to the Future Part II. 1989. Adventure, Comedy, Sci-Fi.

After visiting 2015, Marty McFly must repeat his visit to 1955 to prevent disastrous changes to 1985... without interfering with his first trip. —IMDb. 23 words.

Back to the Future Part III. 1990. Action, Comedy, Romance.

Enjoying a peaceable existence in 1885, Doctor Emmet Brown is about to be killed by Buford “Mad Dog” Tannen. Marty McFly travels back in time to save his friend. —IMDb. 29 words.    

Harry Potter

Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone. 2001. Adventure, Family, Fantasy.

Rescued from the outrageous neglect of his aunt and uncle, a young boy with a great destiny proves his worth while attending Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry. —IMDb. 28 words.

Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets. 2002. Adventure, Family, Fantasy.

Harry ignores warnings not to return to Hogwarts, only to find the school plagued by a series of mysterious attacks and a strange voice haunting him. —IMDb. 26 words.

Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban. 2004. Adventure, Family, Fantasy.

It’s Harry’s third year at Hogwarts; not only does he have a new “Defense Against the Dark Arts” teacher, but there is also trouble brewing. Convicted murderer Sirius Black has escaped the Wizards’ Prison and is coming after Harry. —IMDb. 39 words.

Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire. 2005. Adventure, Family, Fantasy.

Harry finds himself mysteriously selected as an under-aged competitor in a dangerous tournament between three schools of magic. —IMDb. 18 words.

Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix. 2007. Adventure, Family, Fantasy.

With their warning about Lord Voldemort's return scoffed at, Harry and Dumbledore are targeted by the Wizard authorities as an authoritarian bureaucrat slowly seizes power at Hogwarts. —IMDb. 27 words.

Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince. 2009. Adventure, Family, Fantasy.

As Harry Potter begins his sixth year at Hogwarts, he discovers an old book marked as “the property of the Half-Blood Prince” and begins to learn more about Lord Voldemort’s dark past. —IMDb. 32 words.

Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: Part 1. 2010. Adventure, Family, Fantasy.

As Harry races against time and evil to destroy the Horcruxes, he uncovers the existence of three most powerful objects in the wizarding world: the Deathly Hallows. —IMDb. 27 words.

Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: Part 2. 2011. Adventure, Family, Fantasy.

Harry, Ron and Hermione search for Voldemort’s remaining Horcruxes in their effort to destroy the Dark Lord as the final battle rages on at Hogwarts. —IMDb. 25 words.

Indiana Jones

Raiders of the Lost Ark. 1981. Adventure, Action.

Archaeologist and adventurer Indiana Jones is hired by the US government to find the Ark of the Covenant before the Nazis. —IMDb. 21 words.

Accompanied by his feisty, independent ex-flame Marion Ravenwood (Karen Allen), the two-fisted archaeologist embarks on a thrilling quest to locate the mystical Ark of the Covenant. Indy must discover the Ark before the Nazis do, and he has to survive poison, traps, snakes and treachery to do so. —Amazon. 39 words.

Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom. 1984. Action, Adventure.

After arriving in India, Indiana Jones is asked by a desperate village to find a mystical stone. He agrees, and stumbles upon a secret cult plotting a terrible plan in the catacombs of an ancient palace. —IMDb. 36 words.

Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade. 1989. Action, Adventure.

When Dr. Henry Jones Sr. suddenly goes missing while pursuing the Holy Grail, eminent archaeologist Indiana Jones must follow in his father's footsteps and stop the Nazis. —IMDb. 27 words.    

Jurassic Park

Jurassic Park. 1993. Science Fiction, Thriller, Adventure.

During a preview tour, a theme park suffers a major power breakdown that allows its cloned dinosaur exhibits to run amok. —IMDb. 21 words.

Genetically engineered dinosaurs run amok at a tycoon's island amusement park. Based on Michael Crichton's novel. —Amazon. 16 words.

The Lost World. 1997. Science Fiction, Adventure, Action.

A research team is sent to the Jurassic Park Site B island to study the dinosaurs there while another team approaches with another agenda. —IMDb. 24 words.

Director Steven Spielberg takes us back to the scene of Jurassic Park in The Lost World, the blockbuster sequel with even more dinosaurs, more action and more breathtaking visual effects than its record-breaking predecessor. —Amazon. 34 words.

Jurassic Park III. 2001. Science Fiction, Thriller, Adventure, Action.

A decidedly odd couple with ulterior motives convince Dr. Alan Grant to go to Isla Sorna (the second InGen dinosaur lab.), resulting in an unexpected landing...and unexpected new inhabitants on the island. —IMDb. 32 words.

Adventure runs wild when renowned paleontologist Dr. Alan Grant (Sam Neill) agrees to accompany a wealthy adventurer (William H. Macy) and his wife (Téa Leoni) on an aerial tour of Isla Sorna, InGen's former breeding ground for prehistoric creatures. —Amazon. 39 words.

Lord of the Rings

The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring. 2001. Adventure, Fantasy.

A meek hobbit of the Shire and eight companions set out on a journey to Mount Doom to destroy the One Ring and the dark lord Sauron. —IMDb. 27 words.

The Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers. 2002. Adventure, Fantasy.

While Frodo and Sam edge closer to Mordor with the help of the shifty Gollum, the divided fellowship makes a stand against Sauron’s new ally, Saruman, and his hordes of Isengard. —IMDb. 31 words.

The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King. 2003. Adventure, Fantasy.

Gandalf and Aragorn lead the World of Men against Sauron’s army to draw his gaze from Frodo and Sam as they approach Mount Doom with the One Ring. —IMDb. 28 words.

The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey. 2012. Adventure, Fantasy.

A reluctant hobbit, Bilbo Baggins, sets out to the Lonely Mountain with a spirited group of dwarves to reclaim their mountain home - and the gold within it - from the dragon Smaug. —IMDb. 33 words.

The Hobbit: The Desolation of Smaug. 2013. Adventure, Fantasy.

The dwarves, along with Bilbo Baggins and Gandalf the Grey, continue their quest to reclaim Erebor, their homeland, from Smaug. Bilbo Baggins is in possession of a mysterious and magical ring. —IMDb. 31 words.

The Hobbit: The Battle of the Five Armies. 2014. Adventure, Fantasy.

Bilbo and Company are forced to engage in a war against an array of combatants and keep the Lonely Mountain from falling into the hands of a rising darkness. —IMDb. 29 words.

The Mummy Series (with Brendan Frasier)

The Mummy. 1999. Fantasy, Adventure, Action.

An American serving in the French Foreign Legion on an archaeological dig at the ancient city of Hamunaptra accidentally awakens a Mummy. —IMDb. 24 words.

Deep in the Egyptian desert, a handful of people searching for a long-lost treasure have just unearthed a 3,000 year old legacy of terror. —Amazon. 24 words.

The Mummy Returns. 2001. Fantasy, Adventure, Action.

The mummified body of Imhotep is shipped to a museum in London, where he once again wakes and begins his campaign of rage and terror. —IMDb. 25 words.

An ancient legacy of terror is unleashed when the accursed mummy, Imhotep (Arnold Vosloo), is resurrected along with a force even more powerful: The Scorpion King (The Rock). —Amazon. 28 words.

The Scorpion King. 2002. Fantasy, Thriller, Adventure, Action.

A desert warrior rises up against the evil army that is destroying his homeland. He captures the enemy's key sorcerer, takes her deep into the desert and prepares for a final showdown. —IMDB. 32 words.

Adventure rules! As the spectacular Mummy series explodes into a new realm of breathtaking, non-stop action in The Scorpion King! Unleashing WWE superstar The Rock as the most feared warrior of the ancient world, The Scorpion King plunges you into a sweeping tale filled with stunning fight sequences, awe-inspiring battles and pulse-pounding thrills. It’s the ultimate special effects-powered epic and the must-see-and-see again adventure of the year! —Amazon. 67 words.    

Pirates of the Caribbean

Pirates of the Caribbean: The Curse of the Black Pearl. 2003. Adventure, Fantasy.

Blacksmith Will Turner teams up with eccentric pirate “Captain” Jack Sparrow to save his love, the governor’s daughter, from Jack's former pirate allies, who are now undead. —IMDB. 27 words.

Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man's Chest. 2006. Action, Adventure, Fantasy.

Jack Sparrow races to recover the heart of Davy Jones to avoid enslaving his soul to Jones’ service, as other friends and foes seek the heart for their own agenda as well. —IMDB. 32 words.

Pirates of the Caribbean: At World's End. 2007. Action, Adventure, Fantasy.

Captain Barbossa, Will Turner and Elizabeth Swann must sail off the edge of the map, navigate treachery and betrayal, and make their final alliances for one last decisive battle. —IMDB. 29 words.

Pirates of the Caribbean: On Stranger Tides. 2011. Action, Adventure, Fantasy.

Jack Sparrow and Barbossa embark on a quest to find the elusive fountain of youth, only to discover that Blackbeard and his daughter are after it too. —IMDB. 27 words.

Sherlock Holmes (with Robert Downey Jr.)

Sherlock Holmes. 2009. Action, Adventure, Crime, Mystery, Thriller.

Detective Sherlock Holmes and his stalwart partner Watson engage in a battle of wits and brawn with a nemesis whose plot is a threat to all of England. —IMDb. 28 words.

Sherlock Holmes: A Game of Shadows. 2011. Action, Adventure, Crime.

Sherlock Holmes and his sidekick Dr. Watson join forces to outwit and bring down their fiercest adversary, Professor Moriarty. —IMDb. 19 words.    

Star Wars

Star Wars: Episode IV - A New Hope. 1977. Action, Adventure, Fantasy, Sci-Fi.

Luke Skywalker joins forces with a Jedi Knight, a cocky pilot, a wookiee and two droids to save the universe from the Empire's world-destroying battle-station, while also attempting to rescue Princess Leia from the evil Darth Vader. —IMDb. 37 words.

Star Wars: Episode V - The Empire Strikes Back. 1980. Action, Adventure, Fantasy, Sci-Fi.

After the rebels have been brutally overpowered by the Empire on their newly established base, Luke Skywalker takes advanced Jedi training with Master Yoda, while his friends are pursued by Darth Vader as part of his plan to capture Luke. —IMDb. 40 words.

Star Wars: Episode VI - Return of the Jedi. 1983. Action, Adventure, Fantasy, Sci-Fi.

After rescuing Han Solo from the palace of Jabba the Hutt, the rebels attempt to destroy the second Death Star, while Luke struggles to make Vader return from the dark side of the Force. —IMDb. 34 words.

Star Wars: Episode I - The Phantom Menace. 1999. Action, Adventure, Fantasy, Sci-Fi.

Two Jedi Knights escape a hostile blockade to find allies and come across a young boy who may bring balance to the Force, but the long dormant Sith resurface to reclaim their old glory. —IMDb. 34 words.

Star Wars: Episode II - Attack of the Clones. 2002. Action, Adventure, Fantasy, Sci-Fi.

Ten years after initially meeting, Anakin Skywalker shares a forbidden romance with Padmé, while Obi-Wan investigates an assassination attempt on the Senator and discovers a secret clone army crafted for the Jedi. —IMDb. 32 words.

Star Wars: Episode III - Revenge of the Sith. 2005. Action, Adventure, Fantasy, Sci-Fi.

As the Clone Wars near an end, the Sith Lord Darth Sidious steps out of the shadows, at which time Anakin succumbs to his emotions, becoming Darth Vader and putting his relationships with Obi-Wan and Padme at risk. —IMDb. 38 words.

What Was Fun?

I like to include what fun things we did every sprint article to show how we still have time to enjoy ourselves, even though I work a somewhat demanding job at a startup. We didn’t have much fun the first few years we were writing because we weren’t tracking our progress, so it always felt like we were behind. Ever since we began using “sprints” to plan and track our writing goals, we have been happier.

Something good happened at work, so Leslie surprised me with a celebration! Chipotle and some sparkling wine. It just so happened that our friends Amanda and Andrew happened to come over the same day because their block was on fire. At first, they gave us a strange look and thought the bubbly was for celebrating the fire.

Our friends, Megan and Dave, returned from New Zealand! Megan came back to Pittsburgh early, so I took a day off work so the three of us could go to Kennywood and avoid the lines. Leslie and I have been meaning to go since we moved back to Pittsburgh, but we never made the time for it before.

Once Dave got back to Pittsburgh, we decided to watch Mad Max at the Pioneer Drive-In Theatre in Butler. I had never been to a drive-in before, so we made it a goal for this summer.

Mad Max seemed an appropriate movie to watch from the car. We also invited our friends Travis and Jeff, so we needed a vehicle big enough for us all to fit in and still get a good view. Leslie borrowed her brother’s truck, and we fitted the back with our couch cusions.

A group of people were playing frisbee. We overheard one guy yell, “Hey guys, I found a TV in the woods!” He dragged it around by the cable. We heard a loud shattering a few minutes later (they threw it in a recycle bin). Unfortunately, you can’t make out the TV in the photo below... it’s kind of like the Big Foot of Butler.

Megan had a camping party. We showed up with Niko, because he hadn’t gone on a trip with us for a long time. Unfortunately, Niko didn’t have the good time we had hoped for him—he was too busy protecting the campsite from the dark.

Leslie and I got a little carried away and ordered about eight Lego sets. We hadn’t played with Legos in a long time, but we have some ideas for these.

In August 2014, I had funded a Kickstarter campaign for a guy in Pittsburgh who wanted to eat French toast.

My dad never like syrup/butter, so I only knew egg bread. Bread dipped in egg, fried and salted. I want to experience French toast.

He only wanted $10, so I gave him $9 when he had only forty-eight hours left. A co-worker pitched in the other buck, so I upped my bid to $10. By the end, the two of us gave him $15.

A surprise came on May 25. Nathan, my coworker and fellow sponsor, texted me:

I rushed to my computer and it was true: the guy was delivering! A little late, but I think that’s the true spirit of Kickstarter. Anyway, he wrote my name in syrup:

This had to be the best $10 I’ve ever spent. Tom finally got to have French toast (his “white whale”), and Nathan and I had a lot of fun since August, wondering if he would do it.

Sprint 5 Retrospective

We ran two KDP free promotions last month. This was our first marketing experiment; we don’t want to spend too much time on marketing since only Dream Eater’s Carnival has been published, but I do want to play around to see what works. Our first promotion on May 5-7 netted 627 downloads, with most of them happening on the first two days. Our second promotion on May 19-20 only had 53 downloads. I’m going to keep trying these but with different marketing strategies and I’ll keep track of what works and what doesn’t.

Now, on to last month’s sprint board:

In our last sprint article, I mentioned all of our tasks were on white paper. We did this so we could use colored paper to track tasks we added after our planning day. Pink represents scope creep. Yellow represents subtasks, which signifies I failed to break one large task into smaller pieces.

My one task, submit print edition of Dream Eater’s Carnival, was too big. I realized this when I started formatting the document. I spent days on it, and still didn’t finish by the end of the month. So, I created a handful of subtasks, since I knew tracking those would help keep me motivated.

Spotting scope creep (pink and yellow) helps determine how focused we were. There may be four tickets in the to-do column, but if three of the finished tasks were scope creep, then it sort of balances out.

Let’s break it down:

• 48 original tasks were finished

• 13 scope creep tasks finished - 6 creep subtasks finished - 67 tasks complete in total - (13+6)/67 = 28% of completed tasks were not originally on the board

We did great on the first week; everything was finished as planned. Scope creep started heavy in week 2, probably because I pivoted to focus on a KDP promotion I had planned at the last minute. Being able to separate scope creep from regular tasks confirmed my suspicions that a month may be too much to plan in one day.

Let’s look at the work we didn’t do.

Deprioritized task:

Right now, we distinguish between deprioritized tasks and incomplete tasks. We generally deprioritize tasks when we think our original goals were too lofty. By removing tasks we don’t think we’ll complete, we clear the board a little bit, which helps with motivation. The board’s primary goal is to motivate us, so if removing a few tasks in the middle of the month helps us work harder, than it’s worth it.

I don’t count this as cheating because we legitimately got a lot of work done, and we keep track of which tasks were deprioritized so we can reflect on them at the end of the sprint.

• 15 tasks were deprioritized.

• 19 tasks were incomplete but not deprioritized. That equals the number of scope creep tasks.

Last month, we deprioritized blog articles, a few critiques, some Dream Eater’s Carnival work, and some time spent on costumes. These were all seen as just too much work without enough value. Our KDP promotion and refocusing on the next book, Echo Chamber Heist, took priority.

Starting a presence on Pinterest seemed like too much work, for now. Besides, we got a cool idea for content on Pinterest that we may try this month, if we get the chance. I don’t want to just jump into a social media platform without having a plan.

Finally, I still have a few short stories I’m writing on the side. I was hoping to put some work into them and maybe publish a few next year, but I can’t justify taking time away from Bitlather Chronicles when we still have so much work ahead of us.

Accomplishments

• We made significant gains on the print format for Dream Eater’s Carnival.

• We started discussing the cover of Echo Chamber Heist with Lana Hayes (she did the Torch Goose Press logo).

• We inched toward posting all previously drafted chapters to our writing community. We posted 6,000 words, which had many iterations of rewrites and edits, but are still considered early drafts. I consider this a big win, because I can start to focus on Echo Chamber Heist again.

• House is much cleaner, which means it’s easier to focus.

• Leslie nearly finished a mock-up for her corset, which she’ll wear at an upcoming steampunk convention.

Takeaways

• Implementing scope creep detection increased happiness. When we add a pink scope creep ticket to “done,” we treat it as displacing a white ticket in “todo.”

• Creep subtasks are good because they show planning was bad. I had one task for completing a print edition of Dream Eater’s Carnival but that took a long time, so I ended up splitting it into about eight tasks. If I had broken it down on sprint planning day, I would have less room on the board to add other tasks, so my expectations would have been more realistic.

• A month is too long. We’re going to try a two week cadence. This should reduce scope creep and keep us focused on original goals. Since we will iterate more, we may discover more project management optimizations.

• Do what you gotta do. We added some seemingly non-book tasks to the board, such as cleaning. Cleaning helps us get organized; usually things are messy because I leave ideas lying around everywhere. Seriously, I write about a dozen ideas a day on whatever sheet of paper I can find, then I leave them lying around. I’m kind of like a squirrel, but with ideas. Setting time aside to organize the ideas help us with our outlines.

• Do what you gotta do, but be careful. We had a few time-sensitive life-related tasks that we wanted to complete. We added them to the board so that, when they were done, we could see that’s why we didn’t get as much book stuff done. Looking back, I shouldn’t have counted these as book tasks when the month was over, and perhaps even given them a different color of paper. You have to be careful that you don’t pollute the board with too many non-book tasks, so I will try to stop this behavior.
  There’s a few things I realized I’ve been doing all along, but have never mentioned before:

• Whenever I get ideas for next month’s tasks, I pin them as a post-it note to the bottom of the board. Sprint planning day takes a lot of time, so having goals already posted makes it easier. Also, once I’ve written something down, I can free space in my mind for other things. Otherwise, that task will nag at me.

• Keep thinking about next year’s milestones. Leslie and I have been talking about what we’ll do in 2016 since January. Should we just focus on Bitlather Chronicles, or do we take on a second project unrelated to writing? What other books should we write? We don’t want to make these up in January; we want well thought out goals.

Sprint 6

Our first two weeks are going to be difficult because of how much is going on with family and friends, so we tried to keep it slim and focused.

My major themes:

• Continue editing one chapter a week for Echo Chamber Heist.

• Try to finish the print edition of Dream Eater’s Carnival. I’d like to review the first copy and, if everything is in order, make it available in stores at the end of June.

• Continue trading critiques with other authors.

• Continue planning the Japan trip. It’s book related because we plan on doing research there.

Leslie’s major themes:

• Continue working on costumes.

• Continue posting chapters for Echo Chamber Heist.

A Random Smattering of Last Month

Niko tries to keep warm, and we’re still scratching our heads over this Pittsburgh road sign.

Episode 7.17: Guns and Fiction

Episode | Audio | Transcript

Books and other media often portray guns incorrectly. These inaccuracies may only stand out to gun enthusiasts, but knowing the constraints of how guns work will add realism, and potentially drama, to your story. Consider these details:

• Where does the shell go? For instance, it could have a 20 foot arc and be incredibly hot.

• Guns have recoil.

• Guns are loud. It would be difficult to have a normal conversation during a gunfight.

• Shooting often without ear protection can make you deaf.

• Certain guns, especially older ones, will basically smoke in your face. You have to aim while being unable to see.

• Not all guns have safeties. If your character has a specific gun and they use a safety, make sure that gun actually has one.

If you have guns in your book, consider getting a gun enthusiast to read over it.

The guest speaker, Larry Correia, said:

“It actually makes for good drama. Once you understand the limitations of firearms and how to write them in your sequences, you can make your sequences a lot more interesting and believable by putting in those little tidbits. It's not just for the gun nuts, it's not just for the guys like me in the audience, but everybody will appreciate that attention to detail.”

Episode 7.40: Writing the Other

Episode | Audio | Transcript

Not only was this the most entertaining episode I’ve heard yet, Maurice Broaddus also does a fantastic job of explaining common pitfalls of “writing the other.”

From the transcript:

Key points: Writing the other means writing people who are not like yourself. Beware the magical Negro, noble savage, and other tropes and stereotypes. Watch out for characters who are just plot devices. The best way to write the other is from personal experience and knowing people. And do your research! Do not assume that everyone is like you, and everyone has the same cultural background. When you write the other, otherness should be part of them, but not their focus. Try having two or more characters from the same culture, but very different. Go shopping with an open mind, and see what shakes loose.

Maurice also explains how he does research.

Part of how I research gangs is on YouTube. You would think it wouldn’t be helpful with gangs, but you’d be surprised how many gangs put like their initiations online, for Lord knows what reason. I get to draw from primary sources that way.

But then when I turn around and write a story set in ancient Africa, it’s like, “Well, where do I start?” Well, I’m going to go to museums. I’m going to find any local clubs or charters or associations from that group that I can. I’m going to go to their meetings, I’m going to talk to people as much as I can, because I want to draw… I want to get into relationship with as many different people as possible.

Brandon Sanderson had two big takeaways:

• When you write the other, make the otherness part of them but not the focal point.

• To avoid stereotypes, include at least two people from the same culture. One person often represents an entire culture in epic fantasy, and they may parody themselves. For instance, all dwarves are like Gimli. This is bad, boring writing. Have two different characters from the same culture. Then you focus on them as a character, not them as a race.

Episode 7.42: Contemporary YA Fiction

Episode | Audio | Transcript

Janci Patterson starts writing a book by writing the pitch first. Her example:

Ricki’s mom abandons her. She goes to live with her dad, who’s a bounty hunter. They’re on the road in his travel trailer and Ricki develops a crush on the guy that they’re chasing.

Janci discovered it was difficult to come up with a pitch after writing her first draft because there were inherent structural flaws in the story. A pitch-first approach keeps her focused on the story. Pitches contain conflict, which leads to good questions.

Another attribute of a good pitch is that it evokes lots of questions. Specific questions, like with Ricki, are how is she going to go after this guy, and how’s that going to affect her relationship with her father? So for my outline, I take all those questions and try to answer them. I try to bring them out in the beginning of the outline, and then answer them by the end, so that the issues I’ve brought up in the pitch are actually answered in the book, and it’s a satisfying experience for the reader.

If something in her outline is incompatible with the pitch then she weeds it out. Pitch-first approach makes it easier to find what actually belongs in the story.

The pitch is so distilled that other ideas she gets while outlining and writing haven’t caused her to modify her pitch, yet. If it’s a good idea that’s incompatible, she sets it aside for a later story.

I think this could work for certain types of stories, but I think many of my favorite books wouldn’t have been written if they had followed this approach. I’d like to try it with a future book and see how it goes.

Episode 7.10: Importance of Criticism

Episode | Audio | Transcript

Ever read something you really liked, but had no idea why you liked it? If you aren’t able to tease it apart by rereading it, retype it. This helps you approach it in a different way, and might demystify your attraction to that story.

Mary Kowal made an excellent point. She once did a production of the Wizard of Oz, acting as Toto. The group did a showing of the film on the big screen and some of the other cast members didn’t want to watch it, because they thought it would stifle their creativity. Mary realized studying Toto would actually help her portray the dog.

We are influenced every day by our experiences. Why not give the things you admire a better chance to influence you?

I remember watching Pixar’s Ratatouille and I was impressed by how well they captured rats’ movement. They studied rats, and did their best to mimic it.

Another thing I like to do is take a strong passage from a book you’ve read. Replace the words with content from your story, but try to keep the punctuation and rhythm of the original passage. I especially like to do this for key scenes that are similar to another book, when the other author nailed the right feelings. You can edit the passage later to make it more of your own.

I hate typing up what I write, though. At least, I hate having to look from the flat surface of my desk to the screen while typing stuff up. The repetitive motion is cumbersome, annoying, and when I have a dozen or more pages to type up, my neck starts to hate me.

Buying a desktop document holder was the obvious solution, but it seemed like a waste of money. Considering I’d probably end up breaking it or losing it between uses, and the fact that I’d have to store the thing, I discarded the idea for a while.

Then one glorious day, I realized I could probably improvise one out of cardboard. To my great surprise, it worked perfectly. This cardboard document holder isn’t sturdy enough to write on while it’s standing, but it’s great for propping up papers, which is all I need it for.

What you’ll need

• Corrugated cardboard, the sturdier, the better

• An exacto knife, or the skill to wield a pair of scissors well

• A clothes pin, or chip clip, or binder clip, or …

It’s a simple thing to make, really, with only one weird looking piece. I made mine big enough to handle standard 8” by 11” paper. You could easily go bigger or smaller, and it’s pretty easy to improvise, but since I know some people prefer direct instructions, I’ll walk you through how I made mine.

Step 1

Cut out three rectangles from your cardboard:

• Piece 1: 14” by 9.5” This is for the big, flat section that the pages lean against

• Piece 2: 5” by 7.75” This is the main support piece and will hold the pages’ weight.

• Piece 3: 5” by 5” This is a cross-piece that gives the easel stability.

Step 2

On the short side of Piece 1, the 9.5” side, find the center and cut a notch about the width of the cardboard. I accomplished this with relative ease by standing a piece of cardboard where the notch will be cut, and tracing the depth of the cardboard to ensure a good fit. The notch should be about 3.25” long.

Step 3

On Piece 3, cut a notch about 3” long into one of the sides.

Step 4

Piece 2 is slightly more tricky. It should start off 5” tall and 7.75” long. On the long side, cut a 2” long notch about 1.25” from one of the sides. Then, on the top of the same piece, on the opposite side from the first notch, I cut a second notch. It started about 2” from the side, and sloped to be about 4” from the side. That’s a comfortable angle for me to read from while sitting at my computer. Your mileage may vary, so you may want to play around a little bit to find the best angle for you.

Now, on piece 3, having such a deep notch on the top make it hard to fit paper in there, and obscures some of the writing. So I cut off most of the cardboard between the angled notch and the outside edges, leaving about a 0.5” strip of cardboard there for the paper to tuck into.

Step 5

So you should have these three pieces:

Then, all you do is assemble them like so:

Now just add your pages, and clip them at the top to make sure they don’t fold forward while you’re working, and you’ve got a perfectly viable, almost (or completely) free stand for transcribing your stuff to the computer. The best part is that it stores flat, fits in my desk, and can easily be replaced. And that it kind of looks like an elephant.

Sprint 4 Retrospective

We accomplished nearly all of our goals in week 1.

Week 2 started with someone in our reading community power reading the first nineteen chapters of Echo Chamber Heist in two days. They treated it as a beta read and outlined any overall complaints. This was a great feeling, especially with later chapters that haven’t had as much feedback.

I focused on developing a new home page and the newsletter, since we had a free promotion for Dream Eater’s Carnival coming up. We also went to our first convention.

I also started working on a print edition cover for Dream Eater’s Carnival. It’s not done yet, but here’s my progress:

A few tasks slid into week 3. The newsletter advertisements took more time than I thought—10+ hours in research and design. Work also picked up; around this time I was working 70+ hours.

I asked Leslie to pivot into editing the first two chapters of Echo Chamber Heist so I could include them in Dream Eater’s Carnival before our promotion. I also finally got to read Leslie’s first draft for Torgos and the Familiar. I loved it. I asked her to also finish this so we could offer it with our newsletter.

I also hurt my ankle while running, so I got a copy of Zelda: A Link Between Worlds. I haven’t played video games in a long time, even though I’ve wanted to. This game was the perfect blend of new and nostalgia. Since I couldn’t exercise and was exhausted from work, I played Zelda on the porch and enjoyed the weather.

Week 4 continued to be a busy work week. Leslie also had some gnarly headaches. We really needed time to relax. My birthday was coming up, so we bought Pokemon Heart Gold and Soul Silver. We asked our writing community to critique Torgos and the Familiar, which originally wasn’t going to be a strong focus in April.

We went to see Leslie’s favorite band, the Mountain Goats, at Mr. Smalls.

For my birthday, Leslie’s brother and his fiancé took us to Independent Brewing in Squirrel Hill. I got a Game Of Thrones style drink.

I realized it had been five years since I lived in Japan. We’ve wanted a long vacation for a while, and the airfare was great, so I booked flights to Osaka.

We want some Japanese influence for writing the next book (after Echo Chamber Heist). I first started outlining Bitlather Chronicles in Japan, so I hope inspiration will hit us again.

Week 5 was devoted to finishing everything we needed for our first KDP free days promotion.

Analysis

Last time, I said:

I predict we’ll come up short, but still accomplish a lot. It’s good to be ambitious.

I think we came up even shorter than I anticipated, but the results were better than I imagined. I am proud of what we accomplished:

The board looks great, in terms of unfinished tasks, but it’s a bit of a lie. Previously, we left unfinished tasks on the board even if we had no intention of finishing them. But I think that’s a demotivator, and the purpose of the board is to motivate. So, if we were running low on time and saw a task that we didn’t think could be done, we removed it from the board.

What We Lost

These were the general trends for tickets that were either left as unfinished on the sprint board or were deprioritized:

• Edit Echo Chamber Heist chapters.
• Write new chapters and submit them to our writing community.
• Outline future chapters.
• Publish print edition of Dream Eater’s Carnival.
• Send Echo Chamber Heist cover art ideas to an artist.
• Get blog reviews for Dream Eater’s Carnival.
• Purchase everything we need to make costumes for conventions.
• Update our “encyclopedia” with all the content published in Dream Eater’s Carnival.
• Blog.
• Create Pinterest account.
• Publish our press kit.
• Post Dave’s short stories for critique.
• Learn more about Google Analytics.

Wow... that’s a lot! It might look like we failed, but...

What We Gained

We realized early that focusing on KDP free days was the most important thing, since it was our first promotion. The general advice I’ve heard is it’s not worth marketing until you have a few published books. However, Amazon gives our book five free days every quarter. If we don’t use them, we won’t learn from them. We get a chance to use free VS paid marketing to see how they compare. If we’re lucky, we’ll get some honest reviews and people subscribing to our newsletter.

Setting up the promotion took longer than anticipated. I spent a few days on research, which really opened my eyes. It was early in the month when I told Leslie we had to change priorities.

I spent days on writing promotional text, researching Amazon keywords, setting up a better newsletter subscribe page, and building images.

Leslie finished Torgos and the Familiar and editing the first two chapters of Echo Chamber Heist using the latest feedback, which we used for the promotion.

Additionally, I spent time building a presence on Twitter.

New Terminology: Scope Creep

Notice What We Lost focused on deprioritizing issues, while What We Gained focused on things we didn’t know on sprint planning day. We removed and added tasks. The latter is an example of scope creep—tasks that you didn’t originally plan for.

In software, scope creep is often treated as a bad thing. Usually it means someone else has changed the spec for a project. This creates hard feelings.

But, we’re authors! We make the decisions and we run the show. Leslie and I only have to convince each other that the new tasks are important enough to change our original plan.

If you’re doing sprints for your own writing project, you may want to look at two-week sprints instead, since they are easier to plan. I’m going to continue with month long sprints since Leslie and I have no problems meeting the important deadlines.

Milestones

In April, we targeted finishing three year-long milestones:

• Attend a convention
• Finish print edition of Dream Eater’s Carnival
• Post up to the last chapter we had drafted years ago

We only finished two milestones, and one of them was not an original target:

• Attend a convention
• Finish Torgos and the Familiar

We’ve completed three milestones, and have seven to go.

Takeaways

• Aim high, and don’t punish yourself for missing your goals. The purpose of the board is to offer direction and motivation. Punishing yourself will lead to you hating the project or being less ambitious.

• Deprioritize and remove tasks from the board. Keep an eye on scope creep, but let it happen when necessary. Set removed and unfinished tasks aside and review them at the end of your sprint. Did you make the right decision?

• Focus on completing a few tasks, not starting a bunch of tasks. Before we had the board, I would jump between projects so frequently that it felt like nothing was getting done.

• Know when to strive for perfection and when good is good enough. I wasted a few hours on images for our KDP promotion because I wanted to make something outside of my abilities. I had set an unrealistic goal for myself. When I noticed how little time I had and how relatively unimportant it was to make the perfect promotional images, I finished the job and moved on.

Sprint 5

Leslie’s themes are writing/editing one chapter a week and working on costumes for conventions. She did not add No Book tasks because this month’s goals are relatively light. Sewing isn’t the same as writing, so this month should be the break she’s needed.

My major themes:

• Use remaining KDP free promotion days
• Plan trip to Japan
• Edit Echo Chamber Heist chapters
• Give two critiques per week
• Clean and organize ideas
• One blog article a week
• Get bloggers to review Dream Eater’s Carnival

New Feature: Scope Creep

We will continue to deprioritize and remove tasks from the board. Notice in this sprint, all tasks are on white strips of paper.

Any tasks added throughout May will be written on pink construction paper. This will help us determine how good we were at planning.

Q: What’s Tubular?

A: This paper towel dispenser!

My birthday is in April, so to celebrate, I bought Pokemon Heart Gold and Soul Silver. I never got to trade pokemon when I was a kid, so it was amazing to trade with Leslie. It was also her first real pokemon experience, and she’s clocked more hours than I have.

Here it is... the greatest shirt ever made:

Our friend, Lauren, sent us a wonderful antique Easter card. My sister asked us to help hide Easter eggs; Leslie accepted the challenge, exclaiming, “They’ll be looking for these eggs until they’re thirty!”

We also went to our first convention: Steel City Con. I asked Elvira about how much input she had into the making of her pinball machine. She said she was very involved with the details, and has never opened hers.

My parents came out to visit, because I’ve been wanting to take them to Wigle’s Whiskey in the Strip District.

And finally, the moment you’ve all been waiting for... one day I was walking Schooner, and I heard some oinking. Leslie and I always joke that Schooner’s a little piggy, so I found the sounds peculiar. Ends up, one of our neighbors has a pig! I texted this to Leslie:

We went back to check on him a few times. I worked from home one day, so we brought him carrots.

And, at some point, these things happened:

The blue borders around thumbnails were an indicator that you can click the image to go to the article, but it feels heavy. It also clashes against images with certain palettes.

Additionally, thumbnails in our blog articles had the default bootstrap border around them, which felt inconsistent with the rest of the site.

Here’s a few more before-and-afters:

I wrote a script that uses a few basic imagemagick commands to resize, tilt, and add a frame:

convert $BigFileName -resize x200 $FileName

convert $FileName -background $Color -gravity SouthEast -extent {$Width}x{$Height} $FileName

convert $FileName -bordercolor $Color -border $BorderSize $FileName $FileName

convert $FileName -rotate $Degrees $FileName

The script automatically generates the thumbnails for new articles, so it’s hands-off. Remember, image thumbnails should be a smaller image – if you just scale down the picture using HTML or CSS then your page will load slowly.

Eventually, I’d like to move toward a more steampunk aesthetic, but that will come in time.

Here’s a seven minute video that describes Charles Babbage’s Analytical Engine:

What the Difference Engine looked and sounded like:

The engine wasn’t built. According to this article on Wikipedia about the Difference Engine, the project failed because Babbage had a mindset that still causes software engineering projects to fail today:

In 1823, the British government gave Babbage £1,700 to start work on the project. Although Babbage's design was technically feasible, no one had built a mechanical device to such exacting standards before, so the engine proved to be much more expensive than anticipated. By the time the government killed the project in 1842, they had given Babbage over £17,000, without receiving a working engine. What Babbage did not, or was unwilling to, recognize was that the government was interested in economically produced tables, not the engine itself. The other issue that undermined the government’s confidence in the difference engine was Babbage had moved on to an analytical engine. By developing something better, Babbage had rendered the difference engine useless in the eyes of the government.

“It is going to be a doozy here in Dining Room Arena,” his voice rang out, rich and deep. “While this illustrious hall has held countless ruthless battles, surely today’s match will go down in the annuls of history as the most shocking, the most brutal, the most,” he paused for dramatic effect, “deadly. That’s right folks, today is the match we’ve all been waiting for: Rusty versus Grudge.”

The announcer’s voice carried even beyond the boundaries of the arena, warning spectators in the Kitchen or Living Room to return to their seats. The fight of the century was about to start.

“That’s right, Frank,” William said. “Today we will finally see Rusty Old Timer Anderson and Grudge Bloodrage Allen come head to head in robotic battle. What’s your take on the opponents?”

Frank sat up a little taller, glad that William deferred to his knowledge. “At 5’5” and only 310 pounds, Rusty is certainly the underdog.”

As if on cue, the old robot rolled onto the platform. His bent exhaust valve and non-functioning eye didn’t completely undermine the grandeur of the antiquated fighter, though. His mustache, finely constructed out of thin wire to resemble hair, gleamed, and his top hat sat on his metal head at a jaunty angle.

He represented the best of the old times, and every old-timer in the audience was surely rooting for him.

“And that Grudge is something else,” Frank continued. “While he may match his opponent in height, he outweighs Rusty by 440 pounds. And his fists are bigger than Rusty’s head. There’s no telling the outcome of this battle, but one thing is certain: one of these robots isn’t going to leave this arena alive. Uh, intact.”

William cocked an eyebrow in amusement at Frank’s word-choice.

Dangit, Frank, get your head in the game. That was a rookie mistake.

“So what do you think is going to tip the scales in somebot’s favor?” Thankfully William’s amusement couldn’t be heard in his voice.

“Well, their handlers will definitely impact how they fight. Both Dave and Leslie carefully prepared the bots, but when it comes to technique, they couldn’t be more different.”

“Care to elaborate?”

“Leslie has a scrappier approach. She gets her bots in and out fast, landing as many punches as possible in that time. But she’s not afraid to hold back outside of her opponent’s reach. Dave takes a more direct approach. Grudge is meant for one thing: beating things into the ground. This puts the advantage in Grudge’s court. One good hit, and Rusty goes down.”

William nodded, sagely intent on Franks words, as if the audience could see him.

“That said, Grudge’s single-minded rage can be a crippling weakness, and he’s not the brightest LED on the circuit board. That means that Rusty’s steam-powered smoke screen just might be enough to confuse him into making a fatal error that not even Dave’s smarts can make up for.”

Grudge entered the arena opposite Rusty. His flame-red eyes glowed with malice, and his crooked, boxy jaw pinched up in a cruel smile. He raised his massive fists into the air, then slammed them into the ground with enough force that even the announcer’s booth shook.

“Grudge seems to be in quite the mood today, folks. This can’t bode well for Rusty.”

Frank signaled for silence from William. The best announcers knew when to be silent. And as the massive Grudge circled the scrappier Rusty, the audience cared only about one thing: the bots.

“You think you have me, don’t you, you lumbering codswallower? Never underestimate a bot of steam. Pip pip cheerio, one swift punch and down you go!”

Frank’s moratorium on talking came to a quick end and he grabbed the mic. “It seems like Rusty is engaging in a rare bit of trash-talking, ladies and gentleman. He hasn’t spoken in the arena in at least twenty years. How will Grudge respond to such a historic event?”

Grudge stepped closer to Rusty. “I WILL CRUSH YOU.”

“It seems like Grudge is sticking to his old catchphrase,” William said.

A referee stepped onto the floor and ordered the two bots to their corners of the arena. As per BattleBot protocol, the referee started counting. “One!”

The atmosphere in the audience was tense. No one spoke as they all awaited an event so brutal, it would surely haunt them for the rest of their evening.

“Two!”

Flames sputtered from Grudge’s exhaust valves. Rusty righted his monocle.

“Three!”

Sprint 3 Retrospective

The week dividers we implemented last month created mini goals that kept us motivated and focused. Our perspective changed from “I have twenty things left this month” to “I only have two things left this week.”

Having Fun

We went to a burlesque show at Cavo Nightclub in Pittsburgh’s Strip District for week two’s entertainment. We haven’t gotten dressed up in a long time, so naturally, we were adults about it.

The show was nice. Cavo did a wonderful job with atmosphere.

For week three, we went to Banjo Night at Elk Lodge with Lana. It reminded us a bit of the Lodge from Roseanne.

Week four’s fun entailed pinball and a new sport Dave invented using a bottle cap and two shoes (game rules are included at end of this article). We’re so happy pinball is open again.

Leslie

Leslie had given herself one No Book goal per week, in which she wasn’t allowed to do any writing, editing, or critiquing. This day of rest helped her accomplish more on the other six days. On top of that, the house is cleaner and we actually have groceries. She even had time to make kimchi.

Our new critique group (seven people) is doing well, so Leslie focused on editing old chapters. Writing new chapters and editing old chapters in parallel reduces how much editing we’ll have to do when we’re done writing, which is great because editing every day makes Dave a dull boy.

Pittsburgh was graced with a few days of nice weather, which meant time spent working on the yard.

Dave

I had to pivot last sprint. Originally I planned on focusing on blog articles and learning about marketing, but I didn’t feel right about one of the chapters we were going to post to our writing community in week two. Leslie had spent days preparing it and wasn’t sure what else to do with it, but I had some ideas.

However, I write slow. My most productive time for writing is right when I wake up, and I lose that time on weekdays because I go to work.

While editing, I ended up creating two new chapters to fill in some gaps I was uncomfortable with. This became my top priority, so I moved some of my blog tasks off the board.

I discovered a marketing challenge: it seems like most people aren’t familiar with steampunk. We need to figure out how to target audiences that may not be looking for steampunk, but would enjoy our story anyway. On the positive side, many writers in our community have read our stuff and say they’re going to look more into the genre now.

Takeaways

• Breaking the month into weekly goals was a success. We had to prioritize or remove tasks from the board at times, but the weekly divider made it clear how well the week was going. This helped us predict how well the month will go.

• The board’s objective is to motivate and focus. Removing or re-pinning tasks is okay if priorities shift. A month is a long time to plan. Perhaps two week sprints instead of month long sprints would be better, but we don’t want to try that yet.

• We should focus on writing. Now that Dream Eater’s Carnival is published and we don’t have enough books written to warrant time spent on marketing, product should be the main focus. We should also review outlines together before Leslie works on them so we can talk about pitfalls before she spends days on a chapter.

• Taking a day off every week improved happiness and quality of work. Leslie now had time to enjoy herself and do other chores. We are very motivated by moving tasks on the cork board, so creating a “No Work” task ensures Leslie won’t actually work on the book.

• Doing fun things improves our writing. Echo Chamber Heist takes place, in part, in a burlesque house. By going to a burlesque show we generated ideas for improving those chapters. Dave also came up with some short story ideas while at Banjo Night and Pinball.

• We need to figure out how to raise awareness. Most of our beta readers never heard of steampunk before. What keywords can we use to make our stories discoverable?

Metrics

Before we talk about April’s sprint, I want to review some numbers.

• 18 chapters (41,483 words) from Echo Chamber Heist were submitted to our writing community

• 299 critiques received between December 26, 2014 and March 30, 2015

• 28 tasks assigned to Leslie this month

• 48 tasks assigned to Dave this month

• Pacing to finish 3 year-long milestones

• Attempting to post an estimate of 17,000 words this month

  • Given past evidence, we will likely come short – but 4,000 words is almost done from last sprint so we’re starting strong.

April’s Board

Leslie is focused on posting two chapters and editing one chapter a week. She’s also starting to gather materials to make costumes for conventions.

Dave has a lot of small tasks that fit under seven themes:

• KDP free days
• Print edition of Dream Eater’s Carnival
• Cover of Echo Chamber Heist
• Visiting a convention
• Blog posts
• Web site tweaks
• Short stories

If we succeed, we will finish three of our milestones this year:

• Print edition of Dream Eater’s Carnival
• Post up to Aboard the Drake, which is the last (chronological) chapter we had written years ago
• Visit a convention

Whew... it seemed less aggressive when we had planned it. I predict we’ll come up short, but still accomplish a lot. It’s good to be ambitious.

Flip Cap League Rules

As promised, the rules for Flip Cap, a game I invented on a strange day in week four of the last sprint.

• Flip the cap with your thumb.
• The cap must completely leave the table and not touch you after your thumb hits it.
• The winner is whoever can flip the cap so that it lands closest to the starting point.
• If the cap touches either shoe, you subtract five inches from where it lands.
• If the cap lands inside the shoe... you are the champion.

I always shave outside because I hate cleaning whiskers from out of the sink. Normally it’s on a Saturday, so I often exchange awkward conversations with my neighbors while they walk their dog.

Cleaning up after a haircut sounded much worse, so we headed outdoors.

Eventually we got bored and did something else. Next day I realized we never finished, so we went back outside (it got much colder). Here’s the final product:

I thought to ask Lana because she had posted some of her recent work online and it caught my eye.

You can find Lana’s other work on instagram @meltbot.

I started by sending her an email explaining what we were looking for. I took pictures of existing logos for comparison and to show how small it could be. The size matters, because finer details will be lost when you scale a large image down.

It’s important to provide an idea of what you’re looking for when working with an artist, web designer, etc. Try to make it as easy as possible for them to get started. After all, they can’t read your mind.

I also made a few sketches to demonstrate an idea of what we were going for. Please don’t laugh :-)

Lana responded:

I love your drawings! The one made me laugh because it kind of looks like a goose who had a long night at the bar and walked to the back alley to puke real quick before heading back in to continue his night. I'm not mocking, I just liked the image it planted in my mind. Change your name to vomiting goose.

We went through a few iterations, and this is what Lana sent us over the next week:

She converted it to a vector so we can easily scale it:

And we couldn’t be happier.

I’ll end the article with some of Lana’s other works:

The day started like many Sundays: getting brunch with our friends. But first, we had to let out Leslie’s brother’s dogs.

Garett and Lauren will be leaving for their second farming internship, so it was important to send them off with omelets and mimosas. It was a pleasure to dine with Travis and Jeff – we haven’t seen them much since winter started.

Let’s look at what happened in February.

Sprint 2 Retrospective

We decided against publishing Dream Eater’s Carnival in sprint 1 since all beta readers pointed out similar issues. The plan for sprint 2 was for Leslie to continue submitting Echo Chamber Heist chapters to our critiquing group while Dave focused on publishing Dream Eater’s Carnival.

In short, it worked! Dream Eater’s Carnival was published February 21, 2015 on Kindle.

It was a hard month because we were essentially managing three projects: the website, publishing Dream Eater’s Carnival, and progressing with Echo Chamber Heist.

Leslie

Leslie was a bit too ambitious on February 1. She did incredibly well, but there were a few obstacles.

First, she joined an intense critique group that required her to critique about 18,000 words and to post 6,000 words a week. We discovered that hard deadlines actually demotivated her. The group was a six week commitment and is over soon.

Additionally, the chapters she worked on were much rougher than the ones she edited in January. All of the Echo Chamber Heist chapters were set aside over a year ago when we took a break from them to write Dream Eater’s Carnival, so she hadn’t realized how much harder they would be to fix.

Finally, she helped me finish beta reader and proofreading edits, which we hadn’t originally planned for.

Dave

With the help of Leslie, I was able to publish Dream Eater’s Carnival to Kindle at the end of February. I would have liked to finish more but we faced a lot of issues with ebook formatting. Work also took a lot of time, and I injured my wrists. I began using Windows 8’s speech recognition software to type. I desperately need a better microphone.

We decided to not focus on publishing on other stores, such as Kobo, iBooks, and Barnes and Noble. From what I read, Kindle is the friendliest to new indie authors, and many of their best features aren’t available to authors who publish on other platforms.

I also updated the styling of our website, which was unplanned.

Takeaways

• Do not enter entangling alliances. Leslie and I are incompatible with rigid schedules. Twice now we’ve entered strict critique groups and both times we were less productive.

• Leslie and I are a little too focused on the cork board. We need to schedule time for cleaning the house, cooking, and having fun. Once we realized this, Leslie bought groupons for a burlesque show and paragliding.

• Kindle publishing tools have inconsistent formatting. I’ll write articles about the difficulties we faced later, and maybe I’ll published a sample ebook to compare how it renders across their apps.

• Finishing things feels good. Real good. Publishing Dream Eater’s Carnival has lifted a huge weight off of our shoulders.

March’s Board

This month, Leslie will focus on polishing the chapters we’ve written over the past five years.

I will research marketing. From what I’ve read, marketing isn’t that helpful when you only have one book, but I want to experiment, and that takes time.

I should have enough flexibility to edit a few chapters for Echo Chamber Heist and outline the later chapters. As a stretch goal, I’d like to release a book of short stories in the next year or two. I brainstormed a short story over coffee with Leslie and will try to finish a draft of it this month.

Let’s look at March’s board:

We pinned thread to divide our goals into weeks. This should help us focus on the most important goals instead of just the things we want to do, and also give us feedback on our progress at the end of each week.

Leslie also scheduled four “No Book” days. It may seem counterintuitive but we think this will increase happiness and productivity. Also, it should force us to do new things.

We added our finished tasks to the work complete jar. Zug-zug.

Bloopers

I started outlining the Bitlather Chronicles series five years ago while living in Japan. Leslie joined me a year later. After nine combined years of effort, we finally have something to show for it.

A lot of people helped make this possible. We collected over a hundred critiques from dozens of people before we felt confident publishing. I can’t show my thanks enough, because really, it was their input that helped shape the Bitlather Chronicles into what it is today.

Acknowledgments

Special thanks to Tom Banwell Designs. His Ichabod mask inspired the cover art.

We’ve been incredibly lucky to have enthusiastic friends and family to share our story with.

Leslie’s brother, Jacob Anderson, helped us from beginning to end. He read anything we put before him, often several times, and wasn’t afraid to tell us where we missed the mark. Even if it was something we really didn’t want to hear, the day before we intended to push the publish button. Twice.

Karen Rubin and Joseph Hagerty were among the first willing to read anything we had written, and their early feedback helped shape the rest of the story. Though Dave still kind of misses the name Faust and struggled with toward vs towards until the bitter end.

Amanda Connery, Rebekah Rodriguez, Kyle Liebert, and Zadi Green provided us with early beta-reads and their comments and critiques helped bolster our nerve and whittle away at our shortcomings.

Kelli Seaman’s resolute hatred of the monkey gave us the energy to keep working even when we just wanted to be done with it.

Our dear friend Lauren Brush for showing continued interest and for reading a late revision. Fresh eyes are always appreciated.

Lana Hayes designed our adorable Torch Goose Press logo, and we couldn’t be happier with it.

Dave’s father, Richard Allen, for showing continued interest in beta reading.

Linda Weidemann, Lyric Bowser, Patrick Neville, Kyle Washkau, Chris Klamut, Dave Foran, Jeff Drengler, and Jonathan Applebury provided critiques of the cover art that were invaluable. Thanks, Linda, for verifying that there was only one Dream Eater in the story, since apostrophes can spell disaster.

And finally, Clark Magnan, Kristen Kooistra, Angela Castillo, Chloe Rivers, Melanie Brooke, Cayenne Michaels, D.D. Merette, Kayleen Eggert, L.E. Deedy, Eric A. Schweitz, Sierra Kummings, Feath Pym, Sofia St. John, and Helena Eveningfall are all simply the best. They each spent countless hours providing in-depth feedback on everything from word choice to story arc.

I added a touch of color. Picking colors is very difficult. Basically, I found a color I liked then slid the hue around to find a primary and secondary color. The primary color was hard to read on regular sized links, so I had to choose a darker secondary color.

I also moved the title, Bitlather Chronicles, to the navigation bar. This saved some vertical space and looks less empty when viewed on a cell phone.

Also notice I inverted serifs. Header tags now use serifs, and just about everything else uses sans-serif. I like keeping both because it helps headers stand out.

I changed the styling on tags at the bottom of the article.

While falling asleep one night, I realized we could show pictures from the articles in list of blog articles. I thought this would make articles more appealing, and it was the major reason I updated the design again in such a short time.

I also like having an article summary with the blog title, so I updated related articles and random articles.