So, after burning nearly an hour of my time on the phone with FloridaBlue, dealing with obstinate, ignorant reps who are itching for the chance to pass you off to someone else, I finally flung the phone at the wall, and at some point managed to get someone in their webchat who could actually resolve my issue.

And it’s not as if this was a difficult thing. I just wanted to know why I HADN’T RECEIVED A BILL IN MONTHS! I was only getting them paid on time because I was proactive enough to log into the website and find out my bill. I would have thought GETTING PAID would be high on the list of Important Things reps would be instructed to address, but apparently, it is not.

The worst thing, though, is they have the nerve to ask my opinion of their customer service after the fact, and if I was likely to recommend them to a friend. And I am thinking, “Well, this guy was ok, but he’s like the only one.”

So I wrote them this:

Your customer service is abysmal. We’re talking do-it-yourself dentistry levels of misery EVERY TIME I try to resolve anything by voice. After spending far too long on the phone, I finally dug around on how to get some help via chat and got the answers I needed.

Do-it-yourself dentistry, guys. Without novocaine. That’s what it’s like dealing with 99% of your agents. I FINALLY found someone knowledgeable, but it took entirely too much of my time. How am I supposed to earn money to pay your exorbitant rates, when you think nothing of wasting a half hour of my time just to figure out how to PAY YOU?

So, no, I would not recommend you to a friend, or even an enemy. I would not pay you at all if I had any alternative. You literally have me in a life-or-death hold.

I can’t even imagine what benefit you imagined this little survey would have. The IRS is more likely to get a positive review.

To the poor bastard who has to read these things: You’re welcome. It must be really dreary, slogging through this stuff. Yes, I had fun, too.

Ok, so in theory I have 4 months to get this done before I hit my personal deadline. I think I am on target. I have a day job and a family that demands much of my time, but even so, I SHOULD be able to get a chapter a week finalized, and many are already written, though perhaps not to the quality I feel they should be currently. Sixteen weeks, and (currently, subject to change) sixteen chapters.

I can do this.

Hurricane inbound. Baby inbound. Could get ugly….

Welp, looks like the second wild girl will be making an entrance Real Soon Now. I am just hoping she waits until after Friday. My mom will be here to help out as of then, but man, if the baby comes before then, it’s going to be…complicated.

Faith from Goodreads asked me about my intentions regarding the number of books in the series, and I realized I haven’t actually laid this out anywhere, so I’ll do that.

Given that this is a story that spans a thousand years or more, I have the notion that for any particular time period, there still needs to be decent closure. I know well the nuisance of waiting for something to resolve over decades, or of dealing with a story that simply has no end. I think one can tell a long, epic, interconnected tale and still have good resting points, and to that end I intend to write the series in “arcs of three”.

What I mean by that is that each arc will cover the events of a specific time period, and probably be three books of moderate size, say 100k-150k words or thereabouts. That’s how this first arc is planned and being delivered, and I think that’s the right length to be able to develop a quality product and release on a relatively timely schedule. The characters of one arc may or may not be prominent in another, but their story within their arc will resolve as best as possible within the larger conflict. The larger conflict will remain, as this is a saga spanning many generations. There will certainly still be questions readers will have, but those questions won’t be cliffhanger cheese that by the time you hear the resolution, you don’t actually care anymore. They will be more broad, like “What will happen to Nihlos in the future” versus “I wonder if Ahmed will somehow avoid being melted in the lava he was falling toward when the last arc ended.”

The next arc will be set roughly 20 years after the resolution of WGW, and I certainly intend to do a full arc for the Great War in the past, so that is at least 9 books. The future story line might expand into two arcs, depending on how I decide to go with things, and could bring it to 12, but that remains to be seen. No current plan for anything beyond that, though there is plenty of room for stories in the millennium between those two times, so plenty of space for more if I change my mind.

Let’s call it the Agile method of book series development: the project will grow over time, but I intend to try to make regular deliverables that will function well on their own.

So, time to get really cranking on “The War God’s Will”. It’s about 90% plotted out in very detailed synopsis form (which is basically all of the action and dialog with pretty much no scene description or inner voices, just vague notes for expansion in final form (because that’s how I roll, I writes the book before I writes the book, you see). The missing 10% is the finale, which used to exist but got chopped off because A) it didn’t really feel right, and B) a key player did not survive the final version “Mad God’s Muse” and thus it’s broken. Don’t get me wrong. I know how it ends, basically. It’s the little things, the connections, the symmetry of plot points, that’s the last bit I am working up, and those propagate backwards….

That being said, it’s pretty solid, and a number of chapters are at first draft status. I think I am well on target for making the first quarter 2017 schedule.

You know what really pisses me off? Ghouls. Not the D&D kind, but real life parasites that try to profit from the dead. My friend Paul Steed was buried four years ago. Love him or hate him, Paul contributed much to the games industry, and he personally convinced me to push on with my writing.

I never had the heart to take him off my Skype. I am furious that subhuman spammers have taken to sending me links on his account. It’s despicable.

Elgar take the people responsible. May their deaths be legendary, and recorded by a Knight of Fear.

So, as it turns out, I also have what I consider to be a pretty nifty short that just happens to be final (i.e. with cover and everything) today. And I have to admit, I am uncertain how I should handle it. Should I release the short too, or maybe hold back on it a bit and use as a leader later?

Open to suggestions. I am still very much a neophyte when it comes to marketing strategy.

I have a couple of days left before MGM launches, but it’s done, or at least as done as I can make it. That means I really need to be pushing forward on War God’s Will, the final book in this arc. (Yes, there are several arcs. The next is about 20 years from the current time, and at some point, I intend to go back and flesh out the Great War as well. There are lots of good tales to tell in that period.)

Oh, I also finalized a short about a bisexual gunslinging foulmouthed exorcist I started on a dare last year. Think Raylan Givens with a cross. I still have to put a cover on it, though, and I’ve been so focused on things lately that I haven’t had much time to work with Cory on one. I’ll get it out soon enough I guess.