Week 32 of 2023

Greetings all

It’s the 2nd Thursday of Pennsic and that means one thing: It’s the day after Moonlight Madness, which means everything is slow in the merchant area.

Moonlight Madness is as much roaming around with friends in the merchant area as it is a shopping time. We had a great evening, with a lot of traffic interested in our vine-ripened, organic, dolphin-safe madness, so it was a lot of fun.

Overall, Pennsic has been incredibly busy. My writing output is nowhere near what I expected, but that’s because we’ve sold way more than ever. In fact, on Monday, we’d sold more than we had at any previous Pennsic. There were several irregular expenses for this Pennsic having to do with the new trailer and other such things so I hoped to break even. We did way better than that.

I got 20 copies of A Lake Most Deep and I sold them. In fact, I had people coming up asking for The Eyes of a Doll. And Where Now the Rider. So all that is exciting.

That being said, I did make some progress on Farewell, My Ugly. I got through an editing pass to catch up with where I’d lost track during the move, and I added a number of scenes to conclude various threads. I’d hoped to be in the 90s by the end of the week, but the 80s with a lot of sales will have to do.

I also had quite a bit of interest in Rob’s Riddles. Obviously, more subscribers there would be very nice.

I entitled this Madness Recovery Program, but the truth is there’s so much left to do before leaving, that program will have to start when we get home. We have the kingdom party tonight then the long process of packing out. I should be on the road Saturday morning and it’ll be good to get back to the kitties.

With that, I better take care of the customers coming into my store.

What I’m Listening To

Conversations around the merchant area, like last week. It’s a beautiful day here and people are strolling about enjoying the last couple of days of Pennsic. A pair of friends are warping the last two looms I have for sale, and they’re talking weaving stuff that is way too complicated for me.

Happy birthday to Ian Anderson of Jethro Tull! That’s one of my favorite bands ever, which is probably not a real surprise.

This quote is from Skating Away on the Thin Ice of a New Day, which is in my top 10 songs of all time.

“You were bred for humanity and sold to society.
One day you’ll wake up in the present day,
a million generations removed from the expectations
of being who you really want to be.”
– Jethro Tull, Skating Away on the Thin Ice of a New Day

Rob’s Riddles

I have a Patreon where I write Old English style riddles and provide snippets of my work. You can find it here: patreon.com/rhodri2112, along with a sample riddle.

First Line of Next Riddle:

Tracked Items

Today’s Weight: 352.0

Updated Word Count: 208,641

Firehall Sagas Archives: 743 entries

Let me know if you have any suggestions on the website, this email, or cool story ideas at rob@robhowell.org. Especially let me know of suggestions you have for the Spotlight section.

Have a great week, everyone.

Rob Howell

Creator of the Firehall Sagas Universe

• Amazon Author Page: amazon.com/-/e/B00X95LBB0
• Website: robhowell.org
• Blog: robhowell.org/blog
• The Firehall Sagas: firehallsagas.com/
• Facebook Author Page: facebook.com/robhowell.org/
• Twitter: twitter.com/Rhodri2112

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