Gauthic Times #75 News & Other Stuff from Bill Gauthier, or Attempting a Re-Launch

Hello, friends.

The first full week of vacation has come and gone and I’ve been busy. G finished school on Monday and had two basketball games this week (she won the second one, her third game this year!). I did a bunch of things though for the writing gig. A good week.

So, let’s do this.

Welcome to the 75th installment of Gauthic Times, the newsletter about my writing, my life, and using why too much technology is bad.

Becoming a paid Patron on my Patreon would help me write even more. On Patreon, I write about things in more detail than I do in the newsletter or on my website and include the actual names of my works-in-progress and not just codenames. The lowest tier for Patreon is $1 but at $5/month, we’re looking at some serious help.

I mean, if every subscriber or reader of this newsletter, or every social media follower I have became a Patron at even just the $1 tier, I could write more and pay my bills better. The same would happen if they bought copies of my books.

You can also buy me a coffee through Ko-Fi. 

Echoes on the Pond is out now! Grab a copy, if you haven’t already. If you have bought it already, books make great gifts! And if you’ve read Echoes on the Pond, I’d also really love (and appreciate) it if you’d leave a nice review on Amazon or Goodreads.

You can also get my collection Catalysts or my novellas Alice on the Shelf and Shadowed.

Anyway, let’s do this!

***

Work on the edits for Project: Monster continued. One night I had some technology issues that scared me. As the PDF was saving with my annotations (read: edits), a page of them disappeared. This happened on a smaller scale the following night. Several times. Fucking scared me!

Apparently, PDFs on iPad’s don’t always keep annotations! Who knew? I’m not sure how well continuing this way will go. I’m just over 200 pages into the 433-page novel and if it’s a size thing, that could prove bad. I don’t like how Adobe Acrobat does the handwritten annotations. The eraser will take the whole thing I wrote away, not only the small thing I may want to erase. I suppose I could try using Word’s handwritten notes feature. We’ll see. Anyway, I’m backing up the file to Dropbox so I’ll have two going.

The reason this was getting so frustrating was that I was doing some significant edits in a section. Bad things have happened in the story and we’re barreling toward the halfway point of the book.

***

Over on Patreon, I showed some art I’m working on! Become a Patron to find out more.

***

Other than working on Project: Monster this week, I did other things, too. For starters, I straightened and re-arranged my desk a little. I still wish I had a different/better workspace but it works for me.

I thought it might be fun to have a small tour? So….

1. My MacBook Air. I should’ve gotten a Pro back when I got this but I still love this computer! My favorite computer ever.
2. My Acer SA270 Bbmipux 27″ Full HD monitor. I didn’t do a great job in this purchase because the resolution is actually a little less than what my MacBook should have. I suck at these kinds of things sometimes.
3. A Huion Kamvas 16 Pro I received as a birthday present. You can see the HDMI perched on the docking station on the side of the MacBook, which only allows for one external display at a time (the Pro would allow more). When I want to draw with this, I have to disconnect the Acer and connect the Huion. Still, it does a good job and I like it a lot.
4. The Super Power figures that McFarlane Toys have been putting out. I have some OG ones in a box in a closet. The Superman was especially important since I lost the Superman figure when I was a kid (personally, I think someone stole it).
5. A glow-in-the-dark skeleton figure from something when I was a kid.
6. Kermit the Frog as a Lego Minifigure.
7. A really cool Hot Wheels Millennium Falcon. I need the Ghost that’s like it.
8. The Incredible Hulk from a line of figures that’s out now.
9. Two Luke Skywalkers. A Hasbro Jedi Knight Luke based on his appearance in The Mandalorian and a S.H. FigurArts Luke based on The Last Jedi. The only 6-inch version of this Luke, which is a crime.
10. Toony Terrors Freddy Krueger.
11. Indiana Jones from The Temple of Doom.
12. Indiana Jones from Raiders of the Lost Ark.
13. Emperor Palpatine in his throne.
14. Darth Vader and Luke Skywalker fighting. Both are Hasbro Black Series figures. I believe the Vader one is from The Empire Strikes Back while the Luke one is a recent re-issue from Return of the Jedi, specifically the end without the tunic and wearing the belt.
15. My bills calendar. Without this, nothing gets paid. Even with this, I fuck up sometimes.
16. My books. If you see a photo of them, those are the ones in the photo.
17. My printer.
18. Going across the desk, my lamp, which looks really cool.
19. The Incredible Hulk. Again. A different one. This one is a beast. Pun not intended. Well, not totally.
20. Bruce Banner with the Mark Ruffalo likeness. My wife and G say I resemble Mark Ruffalo, so this is my way of getting an action figure of myself. Maybe if I lost weight I’d look more like him.
21. Roland Deschain, the last gunslinger from the film adaptation of Stephen King’s The Dark Tower. Those books were instrumental in my development as a storyteller and writer.
22. George Lucas. If I had the space or a shelf over my desk, George would share space with my Funko Pop bobble heads of Stephen King, Jim Henson, and Mister Rogers as inspirations. I need a Bruce Springsteen and Harlan Ellison action figure.
23. A TARDIS a student gave me as a gift one year. It lights up.
24. I have several rocks G painted for me.
25. The stylus for the Huion tablet along with a drawing glove.
26. Mini He-Man and Skeletor Masters of the Universe figures.
27. A Zorro action figure.
28. A small C-3PO charm.
29. A photo of Mom and Dad from 1989.
30. My dad’s work ID from a long time ago. It reminds me that writing/creating is a job of work and needs to be approached with that same work ethic.
31. My Harlan Ellison Smoking E coaster, which goes with the matching coffee mug (which I’m drinking from right now).

And that’s it. I hope the tour wasn’t too boring. I like seeing writers’ (and other creatives’) workspaces.

***

I also compiled a list of short stories that I have. There are around 10 stories in various stages of completion. Three or four of them might be ready to send out, five need to be revised, and one needs to be written. I started it years ago but never finished it. Maybe next week I’ll talk about them in more detail.

***

Another thing I did this week was begin the process of looking at bookstores I could possibly do signings at in order to get Echoes on the Pond in them. I’m not going to lie; doing signings ramp up my anxiety. However, the only way I think I can get my books into stores is by doing a signing, so that’s what I’ll do. Also, it might be cool to meet potential readers (or pre-existing readers should any come out).

I compromised a list of nearly 20 stores so far in Massachusetts and Rhode Island. I’ve reached out to a few so far. As I was doing so, I did some research and saw that something called a sell sheet could be useful. Funny enough, when I looked into what a sell sheet was I found that I knew what they were, though I’d never known the name.

Where many writers have to go someplace to have them designed, since I can handle that myself, I did. Here is the result:

I think it came out all right. I began using it in an email to a bookstore yesterday.

I’m considering this whole thing a re-launch of Echoes on the Pond. The thing with books is they’re built to last, right? They’re not meant to be blockbusters that you rush out and read opening weekend. That’s a modern sensibility that modern publishers have adopted, encouraged by the big stores.

But books are meant to last. So I’m going to put myself out there.

You can help!

If there’s a bookstore near that you frequent, you can contact them and ask them to stock Echoes on the Pond, or you can reach out to me. I have a bunch of bookstores in Southeastern Massachusetts and in Rhode Island on my list but am willing to drive a bit if needed.

Also, if there’s a library you know of that would like to have an event of some sort, let me know.

Funds are limited right now so I won’t be trying any conventions or the like (unless someone wants to go in together, then I might consider it).

***

This one got really long. Thanks for staying with me and for reading. Please don’t hesitate to chime in with thoughts or ideas.

If you’d like to see what I could do if I wrote full-time, share this newsletter with others and consider a paid subscription.

You can also tip/donate on Ko-Fi.

Of course, you could also become a Patron on my Patreon, which has a lot more information about my works-in-progress and the books I’ll be querying, including titles and some simple, non-spoiler details.

Get my collection Catalysts, my novellas Alice on the Shelf and Shadowed, and definitely order Echoes on the Pond, out now!

If you haven’t left a review on Amazon, Goodreads, or anyplace else for Echoes on the Pond, please consider doing so. This greatly helps sell copies.

And maybe call your local brick-and-mortar bookstore and demand they carry it! I’ll even sign copies! Well, if they’re local to me. That means Massachusetts, Rhode Island, and maybe some of the other New England states.

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