Hence. 80's music and wine. Charge your glasses boyos and girlos... it's the final countdown.
It's not really. You can relax.
I just had a really good day, so I've got Europe blasting down my speakers, a glass of red wine next to my laptop, I'm 3000 words down in Gallaetha and this new plot trick is working well. I have a page full of work, all the chapters, like I said yesterday. I still have that problem where I type the wrong, but perfectly spelled word, so it slips by my spell check. But that's okay. I have self published not one, but two parts of my life's work -- and people like it enough to give me money.
And I fear I've said too much. Here is distractions. Come. Enter my world.
Also, you might have noticed, but I've discovered the embed youtube video tool on this blog platform and I've been enjoying dumping videos into my stupid rantings. There are more of them up there, but so many of them look like they might be expensive. I worry that if I click one of them, then I might be charged money somehow. I don't have much of that, so I have to be furtive and sly.
There are just too many emotions attached to this book. If you're just tuning in and this is your first Matt Holland contact point, then this will be meaningless to you, but I spent over a decade working on the Gallaetha series. Yeah, not all that time was spent on just this one. This represents maybe a year or two of work. But it was my foot in the door.
Hey, I'm doing the paragraph picture function. How cool does this look? I feel like I want to get a picture of myself doing this.
I did, and I wanted to start this next paragraph with a picture of me looking awesome with the page you've just read. But it's hard to get a picture of me looking awesome, especially one handed. Even two handed I think you'd have trouble. But you can content yourself with knowing that these pictures exist, and may find their way into the hands of kidnappers some day. So that's some part of a victory.
I think I was talking about how happy I am to have books that are sort of, actually, published. Right? Or if nothing else, that's what I was building towards. Look ma! I'm preamble!
There's so much effort that has gone into these books though, people. Not that I regret it, of course. Not even slightly. If there was a stew-pot full of potential interests and I only had to pick one, I'd pick writing every time. I'd love to have better social skills, or musical talent, or magic (the prestidigitation kind, like Dynamo or even the Brent Campbell 'light up the world' kind) -- but given the choice I'd take this stupid, often disappointing, but always entertaining kind of interest every time.
That was a mammoth of a sentence right? I feel your pain, potential friend. I do. You wanna lie down? That was almost four lines of text uninterrupted. Take a sip from your water bottle. Cut the eye. Get yourself set up, because I haven't even begun to start telling you how happy I am. Because I am seriously happy. You probably couldn't tell by looking at my face while I type this, but I have the joy in my soul.
I have a book out. You can buy it. You can share in the characters that have populated my brain for ten years. You can hate them or love them at your discretion. It's out there.
Not only that, but people are liking it.
People that like my books I mean, not characters. No. Jesus, no. I throw up about a dozen different character ideas a day. I'm overflowing with characters. Often in a way that inhibits me socially.
What I mean is, there are people that enjoy my writing (probably not anymore, I guess, final countdown and all) and they are willing to pay to read more of it. Like money they work for and everything.
Well, there are maybe ten or twelve of you. But that's more than I ever could've imagined. I just want to take this opportunity to thank you for believing in me. I only hope I'm worthy of it.
You could make a conscious decision not to buy this book. Loads of people did. They got the first one for free and it kept them busy for the entire time it took for them to delete it. But not you guys. You guys stuck it out and you deserve all the applause.
Keep clapping. You don't look weird at all.
Anyway, I'm gonna get back to part three.