Yay! My book is published! Fire Race, the sequel to Firewatcher is available for sale on Amazon. (I suspect you can ask your library for a copy, too.) If the world was normal, this post would be about that and nothing else. The world isn’t normal. Here’s the “And More” part of the title, too. And, an insight into the value of time.
Fire Race Is Published

There’s always going to be a new reader who hasn’t met my bookshelf. Fire Race is my ninth book, my second science fiction novel, and the sequel to Firewatcher, a story about a bunch of humans that escape Earth to escape the AI threat before it threatens them more. In Firewatcher, they find the planet (Whew) and then find the aliens (uh oh) who aren’t aliens because they’re the locals and the humans are the aliens. They survive, and then find out about fire and seafood. That’s where the second book takes over. Can they race the fire? Thanks to all of the Firewatcher readers who asked for the sequel. And, there’s a sequel to the sequel. (And thanks to Joe Menth of Feather and Fox for making the cover happen.)

That took a couple of years.

This week was also the week when our podcast went live on Spotify. IntriguingCreativity.com is simply Steve Smolinsky and me talking about the weirdness of the world, unintended consequences, and how people somehow manage. Once a month, we play with our stream-of-consciousness, that usually starts out simple and somehow gets around to global issues. No script. Ten episodes so far. Stay tuned for more.

Getting onto Spotify took only ten minutes of talking to Sean Keeley (www.seankeeley.me/), and months of me trying to do it alone. Asking for help helps.

Then, earlier this week, I sat in on a County Commissioners’ meeting. I live in a mobile home park that accepts tiny houses, which is why I bought one and moved there five months ago. And, they’re selling the park. That story is too typical. I have no official job, but I happened to do something I evidently do well enough: I took notes and wrote them up. Now, they’re being referenced by some folks who couldn’t be there. Couple that with attending a presentation about affordable housing (expertly given by Jefferson County’s Housing Solutions Network), and the week held a lot of news that matters to me and my neighbors.
October Update – They Are Selling My Park

That story has been playing out since I got my first letter in the new house’s mailbox.

I needed a break. Friday afternoon, I decided to visit my storage unit and grab a paperback or two to read. A storm is blowing through, and if the power goes out, I want to have something entertaining that doesn’t require batteries. But first, swing past the mailbox. Hmm. Nothing much – except a ballot. Pick it up. Swing back home. Fill it out. Less than eleven minutes later I drove to a mailbox. Voted.

A friend noted that he can not recall any time when I haven’t been busy. 

It looks like I’m about to try. The book is done, but my copies haven’t arrived yet. The podcast is on Spotify, but there’s little to do about that until next month’s episode. My park may be for sale, but real estate transactions, especially ones involving affordable housing and a hundred households, can hit hurdles. And, I voted. I ignored a lot of the political commentary before. And I can go back to ignoring it now and later. 

Will I finally have some time off? Yes, and no.

A common bit of advice to writers is that writing a book is only half the job. Yes, and no. Take a look back at my first book, Just Keep Pedaling. It took 11 weeks to bicycle from an island north of Seattle to an island south of Miami, a year or two to write the book, and here I am still telling folks about the book decades later. That’s true of all of my books. Fire Race has a similar potential, partly because of the story partly because of insights about people and aliens experiencing dissension and resolution, and also for unintended consequences. At its core is the human reaction to deciding to escape an unconquerable threat, and dealing with the life that follows.

And then there’s the sequel.

But first, there’s the sequel to another of my books, the one about personal finance. Soon, I’ll start on From Middle Class To Millionaire To Mostly Muddling By – a rollercoaster ride through America’s wealth classes. Regular readers of this blog have been reading the years of notes that are its basis. Thanks for being there.

Time is precious. I definitely fill my time, but there are arguments, or at least discussions, about whether I fill it productively. So far, I have yet to fill it monetarily profitably. There’s a fine debate: is work worth doing if it doesn’t produce tangible worth? Ideally, yes. Realistically – well, the term starving artist is not new. 

OK. Time for me to close, edit, post, and then dine. Stop writing! At least for an evening, and maybe a weekend. Just let me write down some notes…