It’s Entirely Too Hot For This Now

You saw the title and know what that means…another yard update!

Before we get to that though, if you’re new here feel free to catch up on our improvement debacle, er, journey (in order of completion):

Our 127 Hours were a Little Different

Go Back to the Bah!

Backyard Landscaping like a Boss

Adventures in Home Improvement Day 9,452,761

With that out of the way…

The yard.

The pictures.

The fucking Arizona sun and our extreme lack of ability to finish this project before summer.

Now, I know a lot of you reside in places where summer doesn’t come until August, but in the central valley of Phoenix we’ve been flirting with summer since March this year. Seriously, it was 88 degrees on March 22. Better known as spring in these parts.

We lucked out for many of those linked posts above (because the weather seemed to not want to kill us for a minute) and we managed to get some not too hot weather to rake, till, power wash, move thousands of pounds of stone, and everything else we’ve done so far.

That was, until the end of May.

As we neared the end of the redesign. And the end of my effort for this project. However, the gravel and pavers just arrived last weekend.

As usual, pictures will tell the story better than I can. Especially considering I’m still trying to figure out a way to establish a permanent residence in my freezer.

So, yeah.
We started both days getting up at 6, and wrapped work by noon.

Matt started and completed the edging and weedblock
over the past few weekends.

It might look small but the patio will come in around 10' x 10'.

A short fifteen minutes up the road to our gravel yard.

The beachiest gravel we can get our hands on in the desert.
We placed the order date.
They charge day of delivery.
Just that easy.

As promised, they backed in at 7:30AM.
And, that doesn't look like too much, we got this!

Oh, wait a second. Wasn't I the one saying last night:
"No way the pile will take up the WHOLE driveway."
Technically I was right but that only counts if we drive a two wheeled vehicle.

First scoop! (of about 350 wheelbarrows full)

I told Matt nobody will believe this is him
since he isn't wearing his "work outfit" teeheehee

At least I know how to dress for the part.
The long sleeves lasted about 10 minutes, quickly replaced by
short sleeves and 50spf.

Piling begins!
And then we got to work,
neglecting photos in favor of finishing without dying.

Many, many, MANY raked out piles later and we stopped at noon.
Side note, basically everything is covered but...

How does it look like we haven't touched this pile yet?
Looks like we might need to be creative during Sunday placement.

Starting with this.
Gravel was compressed over here by about two inches.
Not anymore!

Also, here.
We haven't known what this concrete thing is since the day we moved in.
So, let's cover it up!

When the Lowes delivery guy showed up with a pallet full
of bags of base sand, patio pavers, and polymeric sand we
asked if he could get it in the garage. His response?
"Sure, Saturday is for off-roading right?"
My new BFF.

See ya red gravel mixed with ten years of decomposing leaf goo!

Like that weird concrete circle never even happened.

We filled in all of this too,
all the way up the mound in the far distance and to the front door.
Buh-bye cracked and destroyed flagstone!
I forgot to get after pics and it's dark as I type this so you'll
just have to trust it looks killer now.

The last remnants of gravel were swept up and dumped in the front yard.
Work completed by 12:00 Sunday afternoon.
We promptly came inside and watched a Naked and Afraid
marathon for the next 9 hours while we cooled off and recharged.
AKA: napped.
Yup. Even me.

Can someone please pass the sunscreen? And a refreshing, fruity drink? It’s time to finally get in the pool and enjoy all this hard work.

Just as soon as we lay the pavers next weekend…

• • • • • • • • • • •
In addition to this drivel I also write books, both fiction and non-fiction.
Learn more on my author page.

Top 11 Memoir Titles

Lately I’ve been restructuring my entire life as a writer, publisher. And I’ve tried to restructure my brain so I accept that some things are meant to be let go of when they don’t produce desired results.

Regardless of how tight I tried to hold onto them.

First and foremost on that list, books that aren’t flowing.

If you’ve been reading me over here for a while you know I’m a big believer in the whiteboard wall in my office. I schedule within an inch of my time and until a couple months ago that schedule kept me fully on track. Fully in line and enjoying the whole publishing life.

Then I started writing a new book, then another new book, then a re-write, all due to drop this year.

Luckily, I’m not with a traditional publisher because they would have dropped me from a punt off the rooftop of some forty-story Manhattan skyscraper weeks ago.

Because, a few weeks ago I took my eraser and wiped out every single thing on my whiteboard. You can read about why I was told to stop writing (and subsequently took that advice) here.

And since the day I took the eraser to the overwhelming list of shit I had to do to keep moving my stalled career in no real direction, I’ve never felt so clear about what I should be writing.

The funny thing about that? I’m not writing anything much different now. But more on that in an upcoming post because I’m not trying to be click-baity around here. Suffice to say, I’m working on three books at once and have zero plans to release them until they’re done.

My whiteboard remains mostly empty and it’s kinda liberating to be honest.

All this reworking of my work-life to get that ever elusive balance back on track had me considering just what I was after all along.

I figured, what better way to work out all of this shit than to write about it, right?

Ah, the life of a writer. When you have nothing to write about, write about it!

We all operate from this place of hypocrisy or irony or whatever the hell you feel like labeling it. Because none of us know how to do this any other way.

I decided to wipe out everything I’d worked on since November of last year. Line up my darlings against the wall and put the proverbial bullet in the backs of their heads. Because none of them deserved to live.

None of them were worthy of the time and energy I tried to devote to make them into something worth my time and energy.

I told you, hypocrisy.

But you know I have a snarky side and all that shooting made me thirsty to share my true inner thoughts on my flailing career. Possible memoir titles to define this ridiculous point in my life, if you will. Personally, I think they’re all pretty great.

1. Striving for Mediocrity

2. Writing a Book is a Giant Waste of Time

3. Indie Author Making a Living: Yeah, good luck with that

4. But Doing Laundry is Working (and other lies writers spew)

5. Let’s find out if Money Changes Me

6. How to Make a Living with Hard Work and 30 Years of Dedication: A Satire

7. Stretching out Your Arms and Swiping off the Desk (this is not a metaphor)

8. Giving Up: A guide to a better life by abandoning talent for cash

9. English Degrees are Useless: And other motivations from my high school guidance counselor

10. Only Rich People Say Money Isn’t Everything

11. You Got This, Maybe

Great titles, huh? Sadly, I have zero desire to write any of these stories for real. None of them could actually support a full-length memoir. So, you know what that means, right?

Hello possible new blog topics!

Kidding.

Maybe.

• • • • • • • • • • •
In addition to this drivel I also write books, both fiction and non-fiction.
Learn more on my author page.

Book Reviews and what to do with a Famous Author who Sucks

I have a serious question to ask:

What should I do when I read a book, written by a somewhat popular/famous indie author, but I hate it because the pacing is sporadic, the word count is obviously padded, and the characters are so flat they all read like the same people?

I’m not being snarky here, by the way. This is an honest question I’ve been grappling with lately.

Here’s why.

A few weeks ago I came across a permafree book by a somewhat well-known indie author (based on number of overall reviews, social following, shares of the book’s free status – all stuff I looked up for research but not something I normally consider when downloading a new book, more on that later). I wanted to read it because I enjoy the genre.

Side note – I didn’t read a single review, just saw there were many and mostly favorable star ratings.

So, I read the book. And I hated it.

I actually had to force myself to finish it. I really wanted to tell this author she needed a serious class in dialogue (free tip: not just words on a page, dialogue should always move the story/characters forward) and the book should have been about 150 less pages.

But, and here’s the real crux of my issue, who the hell am I to tell her how to write when she’s a best-selling indie author?

How can I say those things to someone so obviously doing all the career parts “right”? Someone who has a healthy following of rabid super fans?

Could her other books be better? I mean, she’s got a huge following. Then why make the first in her series free if it isn’t giving her very best work to the reading community?

Too many questions. My head is spinning.

Experts who make 100% of their income from book sales tend to suggest:

- Series is the way to sell

- First book permafree

- Another (unique title) free with sign up to newsletter

- All others $4.99 and under

- Have about 20-50 titles and drop them at the right time for max engagement

Many indie authors aren’t living on their book sales. Probably most. But I’d wager a guess that most of them would love to be.

So how do they do that?

Get more Amazon visibility of course.

So how do they do that?

Nobody seems to know how that works on Amazon other than garnering attraction to a page.

- Following their author page

- Rating their books

- Reviewing their books

- Liking reviews/marking as helpful

- Pre-ordering a book

- Reading all the pages of their Kindle Unlimited book

- Encouraging others to check them out

And probably a bunch of other stuff I haven’t even considered. But here’s the rub where that list is concerned…

Where does an author find that segment of the people? The super fans, people who will do all of that stuff and more? Generally, that’s on social media these days. Or from advertising. But where do we even go to run an ad? Why, social media or Amazon, of course.

And the circle goes round.

Because, with the onslaught of indie publications hitting the market every day, it seems to me that the authors who excel at marketing and promotion are the ones who seem to sell more books. Attract more fans.

These marketing skills are unfortunately independent of good writing the vast majority of the time.

So, knowing all of that, I’ll repeat my question (ish).

As an indie author who wants a larger segment of readers to find and support my work, I desire reviews and all the other stuff in that list up there. Obviously. And I feel that whole reap what you sow mentality.

If I want reviews I need to give reviews. Right?

But if I read a terrible book (flat, lifeless characters, tell and no show, repetition from narrative to dialogue just to pad word count etc.) written by a bigger named indie, the last thing I want to do is review it.

Again, who am I to tell them how to write when their numbers are so obviously better than mine.

Because reviews (AKA: opinions) are subjective. Maybe I didn’t feel anything but someone else did (I’m trying to be open minded here because I don’t imagine everyone reading my work feels like the stories are amazing either).

And then I feel awful for even considering giving a 2 star review because I know how much work went into producing a book. Even a crappy one took time and effort.

But then I feel like it’s my duty to the rest of the reading community to share my honest opinion.

But why?

Because I want people to do the same for my work? Maybe.

Which of course begs the question, does anyone other than an Amazon algorithm care about reviews?

Is it really just about getting them and letting them sit there as another passive (ish) selling tool, or do people honestly read all 247 reviews of a book before deciding to buy?

My money’s on the former.

When I’m going to read a new author or book series, I generally base my desire to read the book on a few factors: the blurb, genre, and the cover.

Sorry for the ‘don’t judge a book’ people but that’s a romantic notion. Everyone bases a book on a cover – be it the front cover art or the back cover copy – that’s how we first learn what might be inside the pages of said book. And, with so many books to choose from, who wants to read something they don’t want to read?

I get drawn in by the awesome marketing and end up in this conundrum when the writing sucks.

So what’s an indie author /reader to do?

Support a fellow indie by rating/reviewing higher than I should, hit a fellow indie by rating/reviewing to what I feel is fair, or simply click away without doing anything?

Do you care about reviews or star ratings when picking up a new book? How do you hear about new books? Would a one or two star rating turn you off to the book, or would you give it a try because the cover and jacket copy drew you in?

So many questions…

• • • • • • • • • • •
In addition to this drivel I also write books, both fiction and non-fiction.
Learn more on my author page.