Greetings and welcome to
Meanderings of a Middle Age Mind! I’m your host, Jeffrey M. Fortney, and I’m
going to describe many of the changes underway at this time in my life, work,
and future. I realize it’s been “a minute” (at Top Gun: Maverick reference)
since I last posted or v-logged, so I have some catching up to do.
To begin with, after 48
years involvement with the Fire Service and 21 years working as a technical
editor for a major Fire Service training materials company… I’ve retired! Yep,
it times to move on to the next chapter (sorry, a little author pun there) of
my life.
So, what will I do in
retirement, you may ask (Lord knows everyone else has!)? My usual answer has
been: “I don’t know what I want to be when I grow up.”
The real answer is a
little more informative:
1)
Write and publish more novels.
2)
Maybe write some articles on writing and self-publishing.
3)
Do some wood-working projects for fun and
profit. (I just completed and delivered a bookcase for one of my former
co-workers and have three other projects on the docket.)
4)
Read! (At this moment, my to-be-read pile consists
of 27 books I’ve never read before.)
5)
Work on the Honey Do list my wife has been
putting together.
6)
Exercise!!!
All of these are short-
to long-term goals. There are others further down the road, to include travel
and sight-seeing. The wife and I would like to see more of our country.
First, I’m working on my 9th
novel. Yeah, yeah… I know; I’ve been working on my 9th novel for the
past few years. Things happened to interfere with them. I say them because
I’ve gone through five or six variations of a 9th novel in that
time. Trying out new ideas, new genres; working on FIVE projects
simultaneously at the paying job, life changes on the home front to include
moving to a different house. Oh, and the Age of COVID!
The stress from the
paying job was the worst. After spending 8 hours a day editing words,
sentences, and paragraphs; the last thing I wanted to do when I got home was to
write MORE words, sentences and paragraphs. And, one version of
Novel #9 was a neo-zombie pandemic tale with a twist on the theme. Because of
frustrations growing out of COVID lock downs, that one got so dark I killed off
all of my main characters. Talk about writing one’s self into a corner. Even
turning it into the dream/nightmare trope didn’t work. As G. Harry Stine would
say, “I put that story back up on the shelf for another day.”
So new-new-new-new-new-new
Novel #9 is going to be a murder mystery mixed with the supernatural. Already
about 25 pages in and am enjoying writing once more! Will talk more about the
new novel in the days to come.
Other changes? Well…
1)
Amazon’s Kindle Direct Publishing just
informed us authors that, due to increases in publishing costs for their print-on-demand
books, they’re going to have to increase their printing costs. This, of course,
will affect each author’s royalties. So, sad to say, the prices on my p-o-d
books will go up slightly. (No price changes on my e-books!)
2)
I plan to expand my social media and
v-logging.
3)
I plan to do more advertising of my
current books.
So, you’ll be seeing/hearing
more from me online going forward.
Sadly, you missed out on
my “retirement beard”. Something men do upon separating from military service
is grow their hair long and grow beards and mustaches. (I did!) These aren’t
always permanent, usually disappearing within a few months.
I had a really nice beard
and mustache going and was going to use it with this post; but… it was getting really
itchy and the wife/Boss Lady suggested I shave it off. So, I did.
Well folks, I’ve prattled
on long enough. I need to save some energy for some novel writing this evening.
Thank you for taking the time to read. Please check out my current novels (if
you haven’t already) and be sure to recommend my novels to your family and
friends. They can be found at amazon.com/author/jeffreyfortney.
Until next time… be safe
out there!
Jeffrey
