Unsweetened Darjeeling

Yesterday, I set about making a few little changes to the cover for Nightstare—for the second time. I’d wrestled with it before. I thought I should brighten up a few things, make a word-change on the BCC, and shrink the logline down a bit, along with another little change on a spine element.

I got up and went to the kitchen for a second in the middle of my work and when I came back the computer screen was black and unresponsive. I asked my brother, who’s more familiar with the pc than I am, what was going on. He said it does that sometimes. The moral of the story is: always hit save before going to look for a quick snack in the next room.

So, later, I returned to redo what I had done and resume my struggle with the stupid thing that had been going on right before the computer passed out. (That was why I suddenly had to get a snack. It happens when I’m frustrated.) I eventually figured out what my problem was. I’m not saying it made much sense, but I figured it out. So, finally I saved my PDF and took it to my laptop to upload.

I hotspotted my laptop via my phone and as I was powering up, my laptop informed me that it had encountered an “unexpected” issue, and would have to restart. It does that sometimes. When it was quite finished with that, I finally got on KDP and uploaded the new cover.

All of which is to say, I hit “publish your paperback book” on Nightstare last night.

As I was trying to plan this post, I realized I’m not even sure what I learned while writing Nightstare. That was a long time ago! So, it just became a rant about unreliable technology instead of the post I said was coming at the end of yesterday’s post. But at least I’ve got a post, right?

Some people think it takes a very organized on top of it type to be an indie author. I can see why. It’s a lot of responsibilities to keep in line. Maybe you do have to be a certain type—to be a good indie author. But I suppose, as long as I keep producing books, and having fun doing it, that checks my boxes.

So anyway, I hope you enjoyed today’s non-post. I’ll see you tomorrow for a Q+A, which should go better than this.

P.S. If you have any questions you would like to see me answer in tomorrow’s post, feel free to comment them here. I’ll also put up a question box on my Instagram story.

Welcome to episode seven hundred forty-three of A. L. Buehrer doing everything but what she said she was going to do.

Well, as you might have noticed, it is now April and you still don’t have Dronefall Four, Nightstare. Turns out, Things Are Taking Longer Than I Expected™ and April has become the official launch month for Nightstare. Which is actually lucky for me, because the poetry collection isn’t materializing fast enough to make an appearance this month. So, at least I have something coming out in the next thirty days to keep you interested. Turns out, writing poetry every day (especially when you haven’t really written poetry in years) kind of takes a lot out of you. Read: I became very frustrated, overextended my creativity, ran it all straight into the frozen, gravelly ground and burnt out. Don’t do that, people. Very bad for your health.

So, I spent the end of March holding my horses. Actually, first I had to go find my horses and confirm that they weren’t actually kelpies. In the non-metaphorical universe, this consisted of chilling out, getting some rest, rethinking my goals, and remaking my plans. Funny thing about me is I actually really enjoy changing my plans, if I get to do it on my own terms. So, that’s what I’ve been doing for the past two weeks, or so. Things are looking better now.

I’m now easing back into producing things again. I’ve been doing a lot of drawing, and getting my plot around for my next project. I’ll possibly start work on Dronefall Five today, which I’m looking forward to.

Here is the revised outlook for you:

·         Dronefall Four, Nightstare will be coming out this month in ebook and paperback. In the meantime, the first three books are still on sale for 99c for Kindle. Please help yourself.

·         The second poetry bookhas been postponed until I actually have what it takes to do it justice. I’m thinking you’ll get it sometime this summer. It’s still coming.

·         In honor of poetry month I will be releasing Songs from the Small Hours as an ebook for the first time. So keep an eye open for that, if you prefer it to paperback, which is available here.

·         The Top Secret project is still on schedule for May. I’m very excited about it, so please stay tuned!

So there. Not so bad, is it? It really doesn’t look like too much of a letdown, now that I see it written out. I’m starting to get excited to work again. Burnout passes, everybody. But sometimes you have to take really intentional breaks to recover. I’m not very good about taking breaks on purpose, but that’s an important skill to master.

 It can take a while, but eventually, you’ll start loving what you do and doing what you love again.

Well, man, have I got the next three months cut out for me.

Yesterday I finally finished my standalone WIP, The Boy Who Called the Foxes. That little fact is a lot bigger than it sounds. Guys, since I was thirteen, I’ve written about twelve serious novels. The Boy Who Called the Foxes is my thirteenth, and it was the first manuscript I seriously wondered if I would actually finish. There were a lot of reasons for this, I suppose. One of them was just the strangeness of devoting time to a completely unrelated story smack in the middle of working on the Dronefall series. But there were a lot of interesting psychological reasons The Boy Who Called the Foxes felt like it was hanging by a thread. I’ll devote a whole post to that around the release date this coming fall.

So, that book is now drafted, and I am moving on to focus on other projects. First and foremost is…

DRONEFALL FOUR, NIGHTSTARE

Now, hopefully the long-awaited book four will actually come out this month. That’s going to be pushing it a little, but that’s the plan. I’ve just sent the manuscript to my formatter, who has a schedule of her own to contend with, and then, of course, there’s all the uploading and proofing business that tends to throw multiple monkey wrenches into my timeline, but that’s all that stands between Nightstare and you guys right now.

So, that will be my main focus this month. I’ll be pushing the Dronefall series again for a while, and hoping I can make some new readers happy along the way, as well as giving my faithful friends who already love the series what they’ve been waiting for. And let me tell you, Nightstare was very exciting to write. We’re kind of hitting the big midpoint plot-twist of the series now, so a lot happens in this book.

While I’m powering through the chaotic fray of self-promotion, I’ve also got like…three other major projects I’ll be working feverishly on. One is starting Dronefall Five, of course. The other is set for release in April. That would be…

MY SECOND POETRY BOOK

I released my first poetry book, Songs from the Small Hours in 2018. That was forever ago, guys. I’ve been wanting to give you another collection of art and poetry for a long time, and this April, it’s happening. You would think over the course of three years I would have built up a good pile of poems, and all I’d have to do now was collect them in a file and do my art, right? Well, as it turns out, I’ve hardly written any poetry at all since Songs from the Small Hours. So what am I doing? I’m writing poetry every day until I’ve got enough for a book. I’ve literally never written this much poetry in such a short period of time, ever. In my life.

It’s actually really hard, but I haven’t written a dud yet, and I’m excited to see how this stretches me as a poet. Writing poetry, most of the time, is way slower than writing prose. And I’m discovering I’m way harder on myself about rhythm, and rhyme, and musicality, and subtext than I used to be. So, this is pretty interesting. Not to mention a little exhausting. But I want it ready by April. (Poetry month.)

I have yet another big release coming in May, if all goes well. I can’t tell you too much about it yet, since it is…

A TOP SECRET PROJECT

I have an ace up my sleeve I haven’t pulled out yet. I’m not going to tell you any specifics about it, but I’m very enthusiastic. It’s going to be pretty labor-intensive, of course, and I’ll be working with media that’s pretty new to me, but all the foundations are there. The project itself is very experimental, but if anything goes even remotely well, it’s a forerunner of things to come.

Was that mysterious enough? Should I have said “for nothing can stop these things” a couple of times in there? (If you understood that reference, you are an above-average die-hard A. L. Buehrer fan. Or stalker. Congratulations.)

…..

Anyway. So, I hope you now know enough to sympathize if I do anything truly delirious in the upcoming months. I’m going to be working ridiculously hard. And having a great time, I’m sure. Overall, I think I can promise you an exciting comeback here, shortly. I don’t often do this, maybe I should more often, but I’m going to say, if you want to keep on top of all this, you really should subscribe to Stardrift Nights. It will improve your life.

Thanks for reading to the end of this rather vague post. I hope it gave you a few things to look forward to in this soggy, sorry world. (Uh-oh, that was kind of weird. I’m already too tired.)

As a Christian dystopian author, I’m not as shocked by current events as a lot of people might be. I’ll admit, it’s all proceeding rather fast, but everything does that, these days. I know where this is going. I like to think I recognize where we are. And I like to think I have a place in it all—me and my art and writing.

Some of you might remember I did a giveaway on Instagram last year. I gave away a little paper booklet called “Strange Times” that included art on the subject of the coronavirus. Little booklets like “Strange Times”, which can be reproduced with a basic photocopy machine, are called “zines”, technically. They represent one of the purest forms of self-publishing in existence.

There’s a whole culture around the publication on distribution of zines. They are notoriously counter-cultural. That can be a good thing or a bad thing as far as what they promote, but in a world where truth is rapidly becoming counter-cultural…it gets me thinking. It gets me thinking about my art, my little flashes of insight…and my photocopier.

Guys, voices like mine are disappearing. Voices you might want to hear are being silenced, and they’re going to continues to be silenced as things progress. I’m cautious on the internet, but anybody who’s gotten as far as book 2 in the Dronefall series knows I’m not as apathetic as I pretend to be. These subversive home-printed zines would give me a channel the internet never will to communicate plainly and boldly. There’s a reason these things are utilized by the fringe—they’re kinda hard to censor.

Don’t think I have any intention of creating zines just as a vehicle for raging against mainstream culture. That would go against my creative philosophy. I want to create something fascinating and nuanced and beautiful. I want to create art that points art-lovers to God. I just want to do it in a way that makes me feel free. It’s getting harder and harder to do that.

I want to create zines with poems in them, little collections of intricate sketches, photos, collages, multimedia…I want to explore comical subjects, nonsense, inspirational stuff in the vein of my Instagram posts. The possibilities are endless. That’s what I like about this whole idea.

Okay, so why am I telling you this? Because I want to share my zines with you. How? That’s kind of up to you. The nature of the medium would make it easy to send them by email. The design I use is one single-sided sheet. You could easily print and fold them yourself. But you know it would be way more fun to get them—printed and packaged and possibly with extras—by mail.

If you’re reading this, there’s a good chance I know who you are. Let’s face it, I’m not that famous. A lot of you are probably coming over from Goodreads or Instagram. You probably have some method for contacting me, whether it’s through a PM or by email. I want to get in touch with you. I want to share my work with you.

Are you interested? I’m not selling these things. I just love creating them and think it would be amazing to send them out to my friends via mail or email. Please shoot me a message. If you don’t have any other way, just leave a comment on this post telling me you’re interested and we’ll work something out. This is all in beta right now. I’m very flexible. We need to see how it works and go from there.

Because something’s up, and we’re going to need each other.

At the beginning of 2020, I made a list of twelve goals for the year. Not extremely ambitious goals. Nothing crazy. I thought it looked pretty doable and even a bit modest considering where I was in my life at the time. A week ago, I looked at the list again. Do you know how many points I checked off?

None.

Zero.

Not kidding.

You know, 2020 could have gone a lot worse for me. I didn’t get sick, lose my job, or get mauled by anybody for my political views. I didn’t suffer much from the increased isolation and the absolute heat-death of my social universe beyond cyberspace. And with all the extra time from shutdowns and cancellations, you would think I would have been pretty productive last year.

But I wasn’t. I couldn’t focus. The chaos outside, which really didn’t bother me much, emotionally, must have taken a deeper toll on my mental state than I thought. Focus and discipline in my creative life has always been a bit of a scarcity, but never so much as in 2020.

Still, it wasn’t all bad. I think I learned a lot and discovered a lot in 2020. I tried some things I’ve never tried before (and some I’ll never try again.) But I’m glad for a new beginning.

My list of goals for 2021 is a bit different than last year’s. I’ve broken my year down into three-month sections with only a handful of things per section I want to achieve. This gives me a timeline—rather loose, but just real enough to keep me focused on a few things at a time. I’m being realistic about my reading schedule this year. Guys, I’m not a mega-reader like a lot of you are. I can’t knock out 127 books a year like the pros do. I’m giving myself a minimum: one book a month. It beats last year.

I’m also going to devote more time to art this year. And music. I want to overcome some mental blocks that went up around music during my rather rough college days. I hope to start playing the piano again—and I want to write some new songs. I’ve also challenged myself to completing one painting a month this year. People who know me in real life think I paint a lot more than I actually do. Sadly, I haven’t painted on my own time in years.

You notice I haven’t mentioned writing goals yet. That’s because I know how slow I am and don’t want to make promises to my readers. But let me just hint that this might be a record-setting year for my publishing career. I’m excited. I’ve got a ton of work to do, but it’s my favorite kind of work.

So, here’s to 2021. A new year: mysterious, likely to be momentous, difficult, painful at times—but still full of hope an opportunity. Here’s to another chance to refocus and be a light in the dark. It’s time to celebrate, because there’s at least one good thing about 2020—it shouldn’t be a hard act to follow.  

Well, look at that, my favorite season has arrived. Guys, 2020 can’t be a total flop as long as the air cools and fills with migrating birds and multicolored leaves around the end of September. We’re right on schedule. God doesn’t cancel. So, hey, it’s not all bad, is it?

  You know, I’ve done a lot of soul-searching and Buzzfeed quizzes. You’d think I’d know myself pretty well, but I guess there’s always more to learn. I had a breakthrough in August. Years of accumulated frustration over my career finally made me rethink my approach to my art, my promotion, and my online presence. I realized I’d been trying to do what people—strangers online and business-minded experts—insisted worked, rather than letting things grow naturally from who I am and how I have always succeeded.

  There’s a lot more to authenticity than not using beauty filters on your selfies, kids. Being true to yourself isn’t just striving to assure everyone that you’re imperfect and have a lot of issues by venting about your bad days on social media. In fact, that’s something I’ll probably always avoid doing. (But that’s for another post.) Authenticity, in its deepest sense, is about living your own life—not trying to build a life that looks the way ‘it’s supposed to.’ And for me, living and creating are the same thing. I have to focus my creative energy in the way I know works for me. Even if it doesn’t check all the boxes other people say are essential.

  Okay, so what does all that abstract rambling mean in the concrete world? It means a lot of things, for me. Here on Startdrift Nights, it means you’re going to see some exciting changes like you haven’t seen since I launched the blog. I’m done trying to be niche. “Stay focused,” they said. “Get into a community,” they said. And I tried that, all the while knowing I was a very distractible lone wolf who hated to be tied down in any way.

  I’m not just an author. I’m never happier than when I’m splicing and mashing media. I’m a visual artist and a musician as well. The term ‘creative’ as a noun has always seemed pretty vague to me, but it has its place. Why limit myself? Why not let Stardrift Nights reflect all facets of my creative life instead of fishing around for topics that haven’t been covered better by a thousand other niche writing blogs? Want to see my sketchbook? The insights I had writing songs this summer? Before and after pics of the little Japanese garden I’m working on? Or do you really want to hear another ramble on POV?

  So, I’m expanding. This blog is about to become a lot more fun. I’ll be honest, I haven’t been having much fun with it, lately. That’s why my posts have been so infrequent. I want to pour more into this blog and less into the social-media rat-race. I have a lot I could share with you. And I think you might find it more inspiring than most of what I’ve posted in the past.

  For me, Fall is always a time of fresh energy. I get kind of fired up. I think it helps me coast through the dark winter months—which take about half of the year, where I’m from—and keeps me from getting in too deep of a rut. All of this is to say, you’re about to see a comeback for Stardrift Nights. One of my New Year’s resolutions this year was to beat my record for number of posts published in a year. I’m going to smash that goal here in the final months.

  I hope you enjoy the renovations and renewed vision for Stardrift Nights. I know I will.

  Happy Autumn!