Author J. R. DuBois

 One of the ironic things about trying to build a platform online for potential readers is the fact that, in order to do so, I must encourage them to spend more time looking at a screen when I think most of the world's problems come from not looking up. The deeper irony is that, without such things as social media, blogs, etc, our ability to get ourselves out there and known is slim to none. Can it be done? It has, it can, and it will again. But those who know how to do such things -- now that social media has swept the world by storm some 20 years ago -- the way business and marketing is done has changed, likely forever -- or for as long as we have this thing called the internet available to us. So why do I dislike the screen? I dislike it for many reasons. I love it, because it gives me a method of writing my book much faster than I could if I free-wrote it, edits and rewrites and moving parts around in the story are a breeze, and you can connect with people all across the countr...

 One of the themes of A Conduit of Fire is truth vs widely-accepted lies. At the original time of writing -- ten years ago -- I didn't realize this would be a theme of the book, but it is. The book is already written and I am well on my way to completing the second rough draft for Book Two, but I would be lying if recent events didn't impact the development of COF as well as Book Two. This world, as much as I love it, my country, and people (I truly, truly do; many claim to love people but they only like the idea of them, or those who are identical to them in thought, behavior, appearance, beliefs, or otherwise), is going crazy. It is only fueling some of the ideas for the end of Book Two and development of Book Three, which has yet to have had an initial draft (I wrote draft one of Book Two before I even edited COF, and now I've definitely had my work cut out for me). That said, this notion of truth is very important to all of our lives and how we are to live them. One of...

Cuddles with Tybalt. Heavens, how I love this boy. (He purrs with short, rapid purrs, instead of the long breathy ones like most cats; I absolutely adore it.) Happy Weekend, Conduits. How's the channeling going? (Channeling? Still trying to decide if I should call the manipulation of the magic system "channeling." The magic is called Enchantment or, much later, vaguely referenced as "the element." AND, it's a slow, evolving situation with the magic in my world, so most of its use comes at the end of Book Two and all over Book Three. So... Don't know.) I am either about 60-70% of the way through Book Two, or RIGHT UP ON the set-up for the climax. I think it's going to be a lot more challenging to finish Book Two than it was COF (Conduit of Fire; Book One). So many answers are being laid out in Book Two that what might be a simple answer could take pages and chapters of actual prose. Additionally, I'm hoping to not have to cut so many words during ...

"Cat Sunbathes by Excessively Overgrown Pond" One of my writing views this morning. Kota insists on drinking and sun-bathing by our overgrown pond, but it's been a beautiful morning, and she's so cute. Hubs keeps expecting her to fall-in (she's blind), but she's cautious and nimble, and I'm quite sure my heart is Kota-shaped. That's just conjecture, though... Hey Conduits! This week, I didn't write as many hours as I intended (life got in the way), but I spent the same amount of time thinking through issues/plot structures, and still made some very important strides. Since I'm writing Book Two, all those pesky questions I created in Book One need to be answered. Two of the biggest ones are now effectively answered, with another to be answered soon, and I'm proud to say it's not answered via an info-dump (which is hard to do!). As it stands, I am either smack-dab in the middle of Book Two, or much closer to the climax than I realize (isn...

Sometimes life doesn't go as planned and you're forced to choose what gets done. I am a STRONG believer in getting the IMPORTANT done over the urgent. That said, as two of my friends like to say, you only have so many "spoons" you can hold in a day. This is my usual schedule: Write 2 hours (or more, Muse-depending) on Monday, Wednesday, Friday, Saturday, and Sunday. By aiming to write 2 hours on these 4-5 days, I ensure that I usually write for that amount of time AT LEAST three of those days, if not four. And when life is being kind, all five. Tuesday and Thursdays are my long days at the gym, so I usually edit/beta read for others/ignore writing completely on those days to focus on my career as a personal trainer (I also do this on almost every day of the week as well, even weekends, because... that's an entrepreneur for you, but I'm talking super-specific stuff). This week, given that my second elderly cat was diagnosed with a fatal disease after an emergen...