I read a post the other day where someone was talking about updating 30+ blogs. I have problems finding the time to update one blog. I can’t even begin to imagine what it would be like to try to keep up with over 30 of them. Sheesh.

Based on the last random question, I’ve decided to try podcasting a short story in the next couple of weeks. I’m not quite finished with it yet. I’m trying not to be a perfectionist about it or I’ll never be happy with it and I’ll never release it. The first one is going to be the hardest. I think it will be easier after that.

So, I’ll be launching this thing for real in a couple of weeks. No more Starting From Nothing. First will be the short story I’m working on now, then I’m going to launch into a series of short stories I’ve been working on over the years. This is all leading up to the launch of my first novel, which probably won’t happen until 2009. Unfortunately, November and December are entirely too busy for me to attempt the novel before then. I also won’t be participating in NaNoWriMo this year. I wish I could. I enjoyed myself in 2006, but I tried last year and failed miserably due to time restraints. This year is going to be worse.

Things are not all quiet on the podcasting front, but things are in flux as I switch gears. Just a couple of weeks and I’ll be doing this for real. Scary!

I was going to try to keep myself seperated from the business so as not to drag it down with all this “goth stuff” and horror and such, but I find it impossible to keep something that is such a large part of my life seperate from everything. So, hopefully no one will look down on my business if they happen to stumble in here and see all this.

Originally posted on Macabre Manor’s forum: http://forum.macabremanor.com/index.php?topic=153.0

In Jan of 2007, I started my own business called Crescent Moon Haberdashery. We started selling at local shows then and in March of 2007, we started selling on Amazon.com. The business has been growing and growing ever since. It’s been keeping me pretty busy of late.

I love photography and also in Jan of 2007, I started putting photos and art on cafepress.com. So far, it has been supporting itself, but needs a huge update. I have tons of photos sitting here begging to be added. You can find it at http://www.cafepress.com/crescentmoonhab if you’re interested in seeing what I’ve done so far. At some point, I’m going to be putting some of my poetry on mousepads and framed pictures as well. I’ll be crushed if they never sell, but I’m doing it anyway.

In June of 2008, we launched Crescent Moon Haberdashery’s own store at http://www.crescentmoonhab.com We haven’t been doing too bad considering we only launched a few months ago. We sell t-shirts, incense, greeting cards, knives (until they’re gone), and some magnets made from photos I took. I’d love to carry more of the magnets, but they aren’t selling enough to warrent bringing in more. Our biggest seller is the Life is Crap line of t-shirts.

At the moment, we’ve sent more Life is Crap shirts to New York than any other state… I wonder if that means something…

We have a few goth shirts too, which is our second best seller. I wanted to get in more goth shirts before Halloween, but it doesn’t look like that’s going to happen. We’re going to be adding long sleeve shirts, tank tops, and hats soon, too. Don’t know where we’re going to store it all, but that’s the plan.

While I’m not the only slave to CMH, I’m the primary slave and it takes more time than I ever anticipated. I really enjoy it though. It’s nice to be the boss and not the peon for once. It’s also nice because I feel like crap more often than I feel good anymore, so I can do as little or as much as I feel I can accomplish. Most of the time, I work way too many hours anyway, but when I really feel like death warmed over, I can take it a little easy. Still have to work, but not quite as hard.

So, check out Crescent Moon Haberdashery and laugh at the shirts! They’re a lot of fun.

I go through long periods of not playing any online games, or any games at all for that matter, because I’m simply too busy. Shroud is still playing WoW and recently I’ve played some myself since things have been slowing down a bit after the back to school rush… and I needed a break… needed to have some fun for a bit. However, we’re about to start gearing up for the Christmas selling season, so I doubt I will have time to play much very soon. That and I need to run an inventory. Wheeeee!

Since I had so many friends jumping from blog site to blog site and wanting me to follow, I decided to start my own permanent blog at http://www.kryson.info awhile back. None of those friends actually go to my blog, of course. It’s only stuff I can post to everyone though, so no ultra personal stuff there. I’ve found that most people don’t want to read about the drama with the insurance company on the damage claim for our house, problems with bank screw ups, and family drama anyway.

I started a podcast on http://www.kryson.info as well. I’m planning on podcasting my short stories for now and work my way up to podcasting the 3 novels I have in the works. I’m not sure how I’m expecting myself to free up the time, but it’s something I’ve wanted to do since 2005 when I found out what a podcast was. I just recently decided to stop planning it and just do it. The podcast sucks at the moment, but I’m hoping it will get better as I get more practice at it. If not… well, it’s something that takes me away from working for awhile. I’m only interested in having some fun, making some friends, and sharing two of my hobbies with others (writing and now… podcasting).

Shroud changed jobs and is working 3rd shift now. It’s an adjustment and difficult for him to find the balance between sleeping and getting things done that he needs to do, but I’m sure he’ll figure it out soon… probably about the time they move him to another shift. He’s enjoying the new job though, which is the important part. I’m hoping he’ll become a trainer there at some point. He’s so patient and so good at teaching, I think he’d really enjoy it. I tried to talk him into being a teacher at one point, but with the way our school system is now, I don’t blame him for not wanting to. I still think he’d make an awesome teacher though.

Speaking of the school system, Sara is still making incredible grades and is becoming more active in school. She’s going to be in a musical this fall. Fiddler on the Roof! She has a bit tougher classes this time around, so we’ll see if she maintains her excellent grades. Traditional Chinese is probably her hardest class. In December she turns 16. Pick your jaw up off the floor! Time flies.

My mother always told me that kids grow up before you can blink and I never believed her until now. When I was a kid, time seemed to pass so slowly and now… I blinked and 10 years just flew by. Makes me wonder if tomorrow I’ll be in a wheelchair watching my grandkids graduate from high school. Yeah Sara… I know… you’re not going to have kids! Remember, I said that, too.

Sara’s got a boyfriend I absolutely hate. Just kidding. Did ya have a heartattack there, Sara? He’s actually a pretty nice kid. Pretty typical “indestructible” male teenager. As a matter of fact, the song Indestructible by Disturbed is her ringtone for him. He asked me, through her, what I thought about him one day and I told her to tell him that I don’t really know him very well, but I thought he was a pretty nice guy… and the best guy she’s gone out with so far. It’s funny though… she asked him what he thought of me and I guess he’s never given her a straight answer. Understandable though. I mean, most of her friends like me, but only her boyfriend has to put up with how strict I am.

Sadly for Sara, Shroud and I are some of the strictest parents. I just can’t understand parents that let their kids run wild. So many kids Sara knows just flat scare me with all the things they do and are allowed to do… or rather the parents never know because they don’t take an interest in their kids. I just couldn’t do that. At least Sara seems to understand that I care and that’s why she can’t do all the thing these kids do. She’s a lot like I was as a teen… I understood why my parents didn’t let me do things, but that didn’t mean I had to like it.

I haven’t actually written much of anything in years, but I’m slowly changing that. I need to have something to actually podcast after all. I’m hoping that eventually, people will want to play in my world and write for the podcast as well, but every time I’ve tried to get community activity going, it hasn’t actually happened. I’m hoping this time will be different, but if it isn’t… well… people will just have to listen to my rusty butt try to put something out there worth listening to. I’ve already had one person say I suck and I haven’t even podcasted any fiction yet! LOL!

I’m thinking about taking a few of the pieces of story I wrote for the round robins we did years ago and turn it into something else as well. Like the whole scene with Mordin in the virtual garden… I’m thinking about turning that into a sci-fi stand alone story… pulling all of the fanfic out of it and doing something completely different with it. There are a couple of others as well. I toyed with posting the pieces I wrote on my blog, but I didn’t think anyone would really be interested in reading bits and pieces of stories. I haven’t posted any poetry there either. I’ve posted it so many places it feel like beating a dead horse, ya know?

Man I miss those round robins.

So… that’s what we’ve been up to. How about you? What have you been up to?

It’s been awhile. I finally stopped waiting on PodPress to be fixed and found a temporary fix, so Episode 2 is FINALLY up.

I had planned on podcasting anyway during this downtime, but I kept thinking it would be fixed soon. Soon became longer and longer until yesterday, I realized it had been forever since the last one was recorded.

So… now I’m going to get back to podcasting again. Next time, not only do I wait to install an update, but I do NOT wait for someone to fix the problem before finding a way around it. Lesson learned.

Congrats to everyone that won a Parsec this weekend. However, most of the nomines were names I’d seen many times up for many awards. It makes me wonder, who are the underdogs out there that people are really enjoying… shows that aren’t necessarily new, but are underrated.

By now everyone knows I’m a Jack Jaffee fan, but another I’d throw out there is Basil Sands. I really enjoyed 65 Below and am currently listening to Karl’s Last Flight. You can find them both at http://www.podiobooks.com

So, who are your underrated underdog picks? Post a comment or email me and let me know!

Well, the feed was broken, then I fixed it… then it was broken again… then I fixed it again… now it’s broken again.

I thought the error was a line break that the feed didn’t like; however, when I disabled a different plugin the feed validated again. It still didn’t work though.

I just checked it and now it’s working again? Geez… hopefully it’s permanently fixed this time.

I haven’t decided exactly how this is going to work. Originally, I wasn’t going to start podcasting from this site, but I’m not sure I want to go through all that again (trying to get the feed to work that is). I guess I’ll decide what I’m going to do later.

Welp, I’m gonna leave it alone for awhile and see if it breaks again. I’ll upload another test later today.

Cross your fingers for me!

This has been a strange couple of weeks. So many things…

We had a hail storm that damaged the roof causing water to literally pour in at the top of the windows, which in turn ran down the walls and into the basement. The carpet was wet in the basement, but it wasn’t too bad. I almost had a panic attack thinking about everything that could have been damaged. Thankfully, everything was fine.

So, I put off buying my podcasting gear again. I think I’m going to get started without it though. I need to figure out how to fit podcasting into my schedule and get used to actually doing it anyway. I know I’m gonna suck at this for quite awhile and I need practice. I might as well start now. I’m shooting for tomorrow night, if I ever get to sleep.

Orders have picked up considerably. It’s exciting to watch the business grow. Seeing and participating in every aspect in some capacity is amazing. When I have time to take a breather, it makes me feel so accomplished.

Lots of outside influences have been messing with my family recently. We’re used to two major outside influences causing turmoil, but this is just getting ridiculous. They’re like bees that keep stinging and quickly dart away before we can smash them against the wall. I have a feeling that analogy is going to make me cringe tomorrow after I’ve slept. Could someone pass the bug spray? Please?

I haven’t had a chance to do much writing recently, but I’m going to be posting meters soon to help push me to find the time. I’ve had so many ideas that I told myself I would write down later only to completely forget what they were by the time I have the chance. I need to start carrying paper around with me everywhere. I still have a character screaming at me to start on her story though… it’s the story I’d really like to podcast when it’s done. I don’t have the skill to pull a Mur Lafferty and podcast while writing it.

In my last actual blog entry I said next time I was going to tell the tale behind Tater Brain and Tater Tot, but it’s going to have to wait one more post. I need to get to sleep before I fall asleep right here. Goodnight and sweet dreams…

I’ve been sick for the past few days. I’m starting to feel a bit more human instead of a slobbering zombie, so I figured I’d do a little catching up on the tons of things piling up around here.

Sunday we went out the rents for Mother’s Day. My mom liked the mauve and purple african daisies I got for her. We also found out more about what happened to the kittens. After talking to the humane society, they found out that it wasn’t a kidney infection that the mother got, it was distemper. With the help of antibiotics, the mother was able to survive it. However, as soon as she started feeling better, she started feeding her kittens again and gave it to her kittens. The kittens didn’t survive.

The mother was dropped off at my parents farm not long before she got pregnant.  My parents had decided to keep her and were planning on getting her shots and getting her spayed, then she wound up pregnant.  The whole thing is just sad, but I’m glad they were able to save the mother.

We’re still working on the website for the business, which has brought everything else to a halt.  Hitting a few brick walls that we have to scale and it’s going to take a long time to get everything up and running, but we’re getting there.  It will be a huge load off both my shoulders and my time constraints once it’s all up and running. 

I haven’t ordered my podcasting gear yet.  Soon!  I know there are a couple of people out there anxious for me to get all this started and I’m working on it… I promise!    I have a lot of behind the stuff to do as well before I’m ready to podcast… lots of editting that I’ve had to put off until the business website is done. 

This has been a crazy week already and it’s only half over.  Tomorrow… the kiddo gets her braces off!  Woohoo!  She can’t wait to eat a bagel, chew gum, and eat peanuts again.  I even bought bagels for the occasion.

Next time… Tater Brain and Tater Tot!  The story behind the names.

Read the rest of this entry »

Tee Morris gave me some advice on podcasting gear today, so I should be ordering my mic and headphones in the next few days.  Thanks again, Tee for taking the time to talk to me. 

Plug:  Don’t forget to check out Tee Morris.  He’s an incredible podcaster and an all around great guy.  His two podcast audiobooks, MOREVI and Billibub Baddings, which can also be found at Podiobooks, are not only amazing works, but beautifully produced.  As I told him earlier today, “Tee Morris gives me ear-gasms!”

I’ve been working on cleaning up some short stories I haven’t seen in years.  I’m going to use them to figure out what I’m doing and how I want to do it.  I know things aren’t going to start off sounding wonderful, so I’m saving my first book.

My daughter really wants me to finish the YA fantasy I started years ago and podcast it first.  Although it isn’t my normal genre, I just might have to do that.  I think it would be a fun project to start with before getting to the darker stuff.

Have you ever been listening to or reading a conversation and decided to throw in your two cents only to have everyone immediately shut up?  I feel like a conversation killer.  I’m just sitting there listening or reading,  amused or interested in the topic at hand then, boom… I say something and the conversation completely stops.  And people wonder why I’m so quiet. 

Is it surprise that I finally spoke?  Did I say something completely stupid?  Did everyone just notice I have a huge pimple in the middle of my forehead I didn’t know I had?  I dunno…

It almost makes me wonder if podcasting is something I should be doing.  I mean… if people are just going to go, “Damn!  What an idiot!” and turn a deaf ear, should I really invest the time and effort?

Screw it.  If I’m the only one that listens to my babble… so be it.