Club High Castle Pre-Pandemic

I survived the retail madness of Thanksgiving and Black Friday for another year! Now that those days won't come around for another 300+ days, I can move on. I caught up on sleep and have my NaNoWriMo project on my mind. With the first draft completed, I sat down and wrote several back stories and renamed many characters. I don't think X, Lord XYZ, ABC Kingdom, and Dude would pass for final draft material. ;) When I am in the throes of writing, I don't always stop to name my characters, hence the lovely "names" listed above! I'll jump into the wild waters of revision after I get my post Black Friday madness rest. I need a few days to recuperate! Now that Thanksgiving is over, we can officially break out the holiday lights, ugly sweaters, and cheesy music! Speaking of holiday cheer,  The Year is Now is still on sale on Lulu! I have to work tomorrow morning, so I'm not ending the sale until Monday night. I can't think of anything profound ...

Yesterday was one of those days where nothing went right, the spirit of Grumpy Cat was in the air, and I seemed to screw everything up. Ah, yes. It was one of THOSE days, the dreaded sort that come once in a blue moon. ♣  Make yourself an awesome dinner. Leftover pizza and hot wings never fails to satisfy a foul mood. ♠  Go on a YouTube binge and put your favorite song on repeat. I went on a Let it Go cover craze. ♥  Pick a hobby and create something (I updated an old Elrond drawing I did last year). ♦  Last but not least, go crazy in a video game! I find this method to be the most therapeutic one out there (aside from taking a walk, but I don't take walks at night...no thanks on that!) Screenshot is from Star Trek Online While these ideas may not completely erase the pent up anger a bad day builds, they sure as hell help. Your mind is always going to dwell on every little aspect of things when Grumpy Cat lingers in the air. When it does, combat it wi...

It's Black Friday all week this week! Get your copy of The Year is Now for 30% off from my distributor, Lulu.com! In other words, get your copy for only $7.70! Visit www.lulu.com/spotlight/mlcrabb for the Black Friday sale! For those of you who like to catch up on my weekly roundups, I'll post a link to Friday's post:  Weekly Roundup - Free thinkers, action figures, and Voldemort

~ A quick recap of things around Empire Earth over the past week. THERE WILL BE NO WEEKLY ROUNDUP NEXT WEEK, 28 NOVEMBER, AS IT IS BLACK FRIDAY.  ~ As soon as I get home from work, I’m sleeping. NaNoWriMo I did it! I managed to write 50,000 words before Thanksgiving. I waded my way through Time’s defensive line and snagged myself a touchdown on Tuesday! It’s been a crazy ride, and I had a blast tweeting about it on Twitter. I haven’t finished the story yet, and I plan to do NaNoWriMo’s validation step later on this month. This week in… Geekdom I went ahead and bought myself a preemptive Christmas present. I can never pass up a good deal on action figures, especially on ones that I’ve been pining after for what feels like ages! The flash drowns out Thranduil, making him seem dull, but the details in him are nice. They did a fantastic job. Oh, and he *is* wearing pants underneath that. Next we have Elrond. I was blown away with the amount of detail in...

Eat, NaNo, Love I am still typing my way through NaNoWriMo. My goal is to hit 50,000 words before Thanksgiving. Can I do it? As long as I am obsessed and determined! The words are flowing, and my imagination is buzzing. This is my first attempt at fantasy (aside from my ancient Lord of the Rings fan fiction from 10 years ago...). Until I complete NaNo, my weekly roundups will be short! In Internet news, I tried to help #BreaktheInternet by giving Miss Kim a proper set of clothing, a Starfleet uniform: Do not go searching the Interwebz'z many tubes for this at work or in public. She was originally posing in the nude. Video of the week:

I was looking through some of my old stories and notes the other day. A very burple berry tale surfaced during my hunt. It was then that I remembered I never finished posting the rest of the story I was tweeting in bursts on my old Burple Berry account. While I'm busy NaNoWriMo ing, here is the finished tale. It is a silly, fun sort of read. I hope you enjoy it! Mr. Burple Berry’s Untimely Adventure: The Case of the Alien Caper By M.L. Crabb Burple Berry was minding his own business, tumbling, bumbling, and mumbling in grassy knoll. A flutter of green and purple striped butterflies jetted out from a funny looking rose bush with drooping limbs.  “Gold! Gold! Gold!” came a high pitched shrill. Burple rolled to a savvy stop and turned to examine the commotion.   The leaves hissed when the bush gave a sudden shake. Some fell away, cascading down into the grass below. Twigs parted, and a scrawny figure emerged from it. It wore a threadbare top hat which ...

Greetings! Normally I do my Friday weekly roundup today, but NaNoWriMo has taken over! I guess I wasn't vaccinated for it. ;) Image is from Wikipedia Commons In all seriousness, NaNo is tough after a long day at work. Writing at least 1,667 words a day is a lot harder than it sounds. I can't ask myself "what did I get myself into!?" because I knew full well!  I am in the process of warming my mind up for it, else I'd just sit here and stare blankly because I'm tired, and it's cold outside. I want nothing more than to curl in bed with a book. With that being said, I may change my weekly round up to one of my days off (just for November). At any rate, enjoy these random videos: The video of the week goes to:

That's right, ladies and gents, I'm doing NaNoWriMo this year! I have an idea, my mind is obsessed with it, and it just so happens to be November, so why not? Graphic is from NaNoWriMo's website, nanowrimo.org .   For those of you who don't know what NaNoWriMo is, it is one of those witty November traditions (like No-Shave-November) that is quickly becoming a Thing. The goal is to write 50,000 words during the month of November. You "win" NaNo by completing the task. Let me fill you in on a fun little secret: The Year is Now started out as a NaNoWriMo project. I "won" NaNo in 2012 with it and revised the living daylights out of it until it became the book that it is today. I remember being obsessed with the same fervor that I have today! I decided to have as much fun with this year's project as possible. The holiday insanity is just around the corner, so I might as well enjoy every single day before Black Thursday Black Friday. I ...

Trick! Major Pierson did not get his entries! He's okay though because he's just going to roll right on through. In other news, I tampered with the side bar and footer a little bit. I've added a contact form and moved the library to the bottom of this blog. Got an idea for a giveway that Pierson might enjoy? Feel free to use the form and send in your ideas!