J.A. Hernandez

Tae and I were walking a few nights ago and stumbled upon a little snake.

I'm a big fan of philosophical razors. Recently, Tae stumbled across a new one to add to my Big Bad Toolbox of Very Sharp Things™.

So, I left the house...

I've been in a book club for years, and I often like to ask how people would change the endings of books. It's fascinating to find out how a book's end can change one's opinion of the entire work.

Kids leave traces everywhere!

Tae and I are watching the old seasons of Dexter. Nearly everything on the show feels current, like it could be unfolding right now.

Obviously, these things are related. A quick update on nature and tools.

Those two things are unrelated, I think.

With everything going on in your life, it can sometimes be tough to remember to take a break. Luckily, Mother Nature is out there constantly setting up signposts for us.

Is it just me, or does it constantly seem like the world is falling apart? Wars, natural disasters, disease, famine, murder, poverty—the list goes on and on.

On novel drafting, I made it past revisions on a pivotal scene that had been stuck in my head for a while. It needed...something. I couldn't quite put my finger on it, and I had to let it sort of percolate within the broader story.

Apparently, brown widow spiders are everywhere in Tucson now. They set up webs and actively hunt down other spiders, including black widows.

The horrors of Daylight Saving Time, an eight-legged friend, and writing updates.

I took this photo of the winter moon over the Tucson desert with my phone and was surprised at how well it turned out.

I rescued a jumping spider on the wall a few days ago before Cap'n Hammy Pants found it. Her name is known far and wide as the scourge of the insect and arachnid worlds. Eight-legged parents tell their children stories of the massive paw-stomping furry monster to keep them from wandering too far into the wilds.

Over the last week, two pigeons have come and sat by the window every morning.

A British/Chilean artist living in the UK reached out to me a while back about my article El Peuchen of Mapuche Mythology.

Due to a sudden injury, I've learned how to use crutches over the past few days. No one tells you how much skill is required to properly use them.

Some of you reading this may not have been alive, but I distinctly remember it.

Tae and I were talking about the word telekinesis. I don't think there is an existing verb form for it, at least not one that I could easily find.

There has been a lot of talk about ChatGPT and "generative AI" lately. I've noticed a lot of posts on various social media sites, posts from users who are brand new to the platform and who all have the same five talking points and use the same phrases and linguistic style.

A few weeks ago, I had RAM failing in my computer, which resulted in all sorts of weird, intermittent issues.

Weird how fast time goes, isn't it?

I've successfully defunkified a few books now with my Not Patent Pending Demonically Divine Defunkifier 3000™ (not trademarked).

It's been a bit since I played with video, so I thought I'd make a little book trailer.

Quite literally.

I don't usually write this much in a weekly update, but it's been a year since I started writing newsletters, and I thought I'd reflect a bit.

Arizona isn't a place people typically think of when the word "witch" is mentioned, but you might be surprised to hear that the desert is not only full of life but also rich with...the witches!

A friend of mine sent me an old book for my birthday. It's an original from 1931—nearly one hundred years old. The book is in fantastic shape for being almost a century old. I'm running it through my old book process right now, and I expect it to be finished next weekend. Just look at the first few pages to get an idea of what's inside.

While snow is blanketing many parts of the United States right now, Arizona feels like autumn.

I took a photo of the full moon with my phone on November 8th, 2022. The cameras sure have come a long way since the potato quality of yesteryear.

Remember the strange story of the Fauna of Mirrors I mentioned in Mirrors: Superstition, Mythology, Psychology, & Sanity?

I took this photo last night, around sunset, of the moon on Devil's Night here in Tucson.

There's a bit more to do with the move into a new place in Tucson, and it's a good thing I have a couple of dollies to help.

I move around a lot. It's a thing. I've accepted it as part of my personality, and it's good that Tae is the same way. It's not that we necessarily like moving. In fact, the act of moving is kind of a pain in the ass. But we have had enough practice that it's pretty straightforward for us.

I'm moving into a new place in Arizona, changing day jobs, starting up a few new adventures, and still getting a lot of writing done. There are times in life that are relatively calm and routine, and then others, like now, are hectic and sometimes chaotic.

Some time ago, I wrote about a true crime murder case in Keillers Park, Gothenburg, in western Sweden. I've just published an update on the case.

Why is it that at least every couple of years, it looks like nuclear war is imminent?

Did you know that true crime means real people? It seems obvious, but it's easy to lose sight of...

It's always a great day when some weird package comes in the mail.

About two months ago, I tracked down and ordered an old book that supposedly had an entry El Peuchen, a strange flying snake creature from Mapuche mythology in the southern area of South America. The book finally came!

Whenever I'm writing and get stuck on something, I go for a walk. I'm not sure it's the actual act of walking, but taking breaks every once in a while is necessary.

Arizona really is full of life. I'm not sure why, but people think the state is a desert wasteland of sand and rattlesnakes. I see something new every day, like this praying mantis outside my door.

Actually, all cats are the best cats, but desk cats add a fun extra challenge to writing. Cap'n Hammy Pants loves to hang out with me while I'm writing. She sometimes takes naps on the desk, and, like most cats, she loves to lie on the keyboard.

We're in the middle of monsoon season in Arizona, and most of the wildlife is taking shelter anywhere it can.

I bought a super loud whistle, 120 decibels. It's part of my kit that I take with me for nighttime walks around the neighborhood here in the desert.

You know when you move, and you get unpacked, then realize there are little things here and there that you haven't found a home for, and while you're putting those up, you find a few moving boxes you still haven't opened?

New installation of Absolution: Behind the Scenes, a haunted theatre coming up next week, and a desert tarantula.

Covid has cleared out of my system, and I'm doing a bit of writing catch-up.

A few months ago, I was interviewed for a magazine.

Two and a half years, and it finally happened. Covid found me.

You know what I like? Art.

It's an odd thing to move to a different landscape. Moving within a local area, you get pretty much the same, just slightly different views. Moving from Colorado to the Arizona desert, though, everything is different.

Moving 900 miles (1,400 km) sounds pretty straightforward, right? You just box up your stuff, hop in a vehicle, and make the drive.

I'm probably driving or last-minute packing when this goes out.

One week to go, and I'll officially be a desert dweller. I can't wait to get to the new place, get settled in, and get back to editing the novel.

Really, I can't wait.

I like to move quickly. Not just with actual, physical moves, but with many things in life.

Selling a house takes time, energy, and hard work. My spouse and I have been at it for three weeks straight. It's like having another full-time and part-time job on top of regular work.

Still working on the whole move across the country thing. This is the second time in my life I've done it.

Moving across the country is a lot of work.

I publish my newsletter via email. I post archives on my website, and I select a few from the archives to post on Reddit, Medium, and Vocal. No matter how often I look at an article, check the links, re-read it, etc. I always find something that needs a slight adjustment.

What kind of crazy world are we living in? Tae and I were trying to remember the name of the psychic phone networks advertised on TV back in the '90s, and as we were Googling, my browser autocompleted to "Dionne Warwick vs. Oreo."

I was typing up part of Absolution: Behind the Scenes and ranted a little bit, and thought I'd place it here in a blog, as it was a bit of a tangent away from the main topic. So, here's some context for you: You know those TV shows, films, and even books that tell you a writer banged out a new great novel over a weekend of booze and sex with strangers?

I keep seeing news about the shelling in Ukraine by Russia and can't help but think of how much life and legacy are being destroyed. Everything that people worked so hard to create, accomplish, and put into the world—gone in an instant.

An expert has comprehensive and authoritative knowledge on a subject or skill, but how do you know a person is an expert? I don't have a good answer for this. Often, it seems that there's a college degree plus years of experience, but what about things where such schooling doesn't exist?

The invasion of a sovereign nation should never happen, and my heart goes out to Ukraine and all of the people around the world affected and everyone trying their best to do what they can to help. I've been doing what I can with donations, spreading awareness, and contacting my representatives so they know my opinion. I don't know where all of this will go or where it will end up, but I know that I would like to live in a peaceful world.

While working on the second draft of my novel WIP, I noticed something that I didn't when I wrote the first draft.

Retelling a treasure hunt for the last part of Absolution was a big task. I was initially making a video but decided I'd want ample time to inspect and take in everything if I were viewing it. I played around with several ideas and eventually landed on a mix of lots of photos and narration from Zarina. I think it turned out well. I'm excited to start writing the Behind the Scenes, as there's a lot to show, and I've had years to reflect on the entire thing.

I love audiobooks but never imagined I'd make one. Honestly, I never really thought about it.

I think about this on and off whenever I come across a best-selling novel, popular TV show, or movie that I don't like—or when I stumble upon a fantastic gem of a story in any of those. There are plenty of theories about what makes a great story, popular ideas such as conflict, tension, surprise, well-developed themes, engaging plot, memorable characters, and so on. I don't think it's any of those, and I don't think there's a magic combination either.

I wrote and published a retro creature feature called Night of the Living Cake Monsters a while back. Despite the challenges of marketing a self-published work, the novella has gained a few die-hard fans.

I offered to read through someone else's first draft, and I'm about 1/3rd of the way through the story now. It's a unique concept, one I haven't seen before.

"A writer only begins a book. A reader finishes it." —Samuel Johnson

Have you ever heard the following? "Ideas are worthless. Execution is everything." – Scott Adams It's a quote used frequently in business startup land.

I'm a big fan of setting up machines and then just feeding them, so they work. I look at writing with that same eye. What's my goal, and how can I set things up to focus on the fun part? 

I made a few gifts for friends and mailed them out in early December. I didn't know how they would go over but suspected they might be well received. Turns out everyone who received one absolutely loved it. All of the stories I write begin with a feeling that I want to convey. Back in the summer, I had a strong urge to write something to trigger a feeling called anemoia.

You know, I kind of expected a learning curve with eBook formatting. I set my mind to it and figured it out. No problem; just a bit of time. Setting up indie author accounts on Amazon and Google has been an enormous problem.

A lot is going on, well, all the time. I changed the website: a new highlights section on the home page, Absolution finally unveiled, and I reorganized some pages. Things are coming together nicely, as I'd hoped.

I've been working hard on the audiobook for this Christmas-themed short story. Everything has come together nicely, and I'm now trying to figure out how and where I want to publish it. I just finished making the cover for it last night, and I'm pleased with how it turned out. One glance at it, and everyone will know it's a retro creature feature.

I've carved out some time from my editing to wrap up a few gifts for Christmas. Once they are sent out and opened by the few recipients, I'll post some pictures up. I've created a set of unique gifts, and only a handful of them exist. As far as the people receiving them, they have no idea what they're getting. So, it'll be interesting to see what they think. 

I've compared my first draft to my second (for chapters where I completed my second draft checklist) and concluded that planning my second draft was a great idea. Everything reads better and is much more engaging. I've given the first chapter or two to test readers, and they've had extremely positive things to say.

I've been working through revisions to create the official second draft of the novel. As I read through and compare the first and second drafts, it's apparent that the second one has so much more punch. This is precisely what I wanted. You can see so much in the first draft, but it's the revisions where the work truly begins to shine.

I don't know—there's just something spammy feeling about both of those words to me. After extensive research, I've discovered sites out there allow people to join a list and receive regular emails, like zen habits, but don't use the typical terminology. Newsletter certainly sounds less spammy, though. So, I've decided to join the movement and do that. I've officially launched my not-yet-named email thing and put up the short story audiobook of Inching Along After the Apocalypse.

Depending on who you talk to or where you research, the terms mean something very different. For example, a newsletter seems to be a regular, expected email. A mailing list, though, maybe more sporadic. What do I want? I think a newsletter, probably monthly. But, I want to provide real value to readers, so I'm going to put some thought into how I might accomplish that.

After careful evaluation, I've paired my twelve-step to-do down to eleven steps. I have a new and shiny editing checklist, and I'm going through each chapter with it. Some chapters need more work than others. It's fascinating to see how far my writing has progressed since I started. The first chapter reads as if someone entirely different wrote it. In a sense, that's true. I've put in well over 1,000 hours, so the difference between zero and 1000+ hours on a story is stunning.

I finally finished my edits of the remaining chapters using my shortlist. I've also completely read through Intuitive Editing: A Creative and Practical Guide to Revising Your Writing and found it helpful. Interestingly, the first two-thirds of Intuitive Editing seems to be a different take on Randy Ingermanson's The Snowflake Method. Still, I went through everything in great detail, just to be sure.

As I've been going through my editing shortlist, I've been able to easily tell which chapters I wrote when tired. My choice of wording on those came across as more passive, less descriptive, and a bit clunky. Paragraphs are broken in odd places as well. They're simple fixes to make, though, so I'm glad I wrote every single day instead of just when I "felt" like it.

As I wrote, I noticed patterns in my own writing and corrected them as I went. Fortunately, it means that a considerable portion of my story doesn't need as much attention on certain things as earlier parts.

A few of the chapters near the end needed some structural attention, so I'm tackling those before moving on with my complete second draft plan.

I took time this past week to create a plan of action for editing. It's about one full page of bullet points. Some of them are much bigger than others, but they have captured my second draft ideas.

I had a writing frenzy last week and pushed my first draft to completion. It's a strange feeling, having it complete after so many months of working on it every single day. It's hard to say precisely how much time I've put into it so far.

I've been writing a novel for about four months now. If you take into account the planning time, then it's been about five months. I'm almost done with the first draft. That's a lot of words I've written this year. It's a lot of time I've spent working on it. Now that I'm nearing the end of the first draft, it feels surreal. Everything has come together in a magical sort of way—it hasn't been easy.

So I've been writing this novel. It's strange to look back and see how far I've come from just a loose idea. The story has layers upon layers, meanings that were either planned or somehow ended up in there. The characters are deep enough to psychologically analyze and speculate about their history and things that are never said or even hinted at in the book. Deep enough to feel so real that my Alpha Readers think of them as actual people and draw parallels to people they've known in their own lives.

I hit 100,000 words yesterday—kind of a Big Deal™. I believe I have around 40,000 left to go to complete my first draft.

So, what does it take to write a novel? You might think I'm talking about an outline, character sheets, backgrounds, a timeline of events, etc. That's not it, though. While those things can certainly be helpful, there's a piece that seems often overlooked when reading about the craft of writing.

I don't remember precisely when I started to write this novel, but I think it's been about 100 days. I just set a reminder to work on it at night, and so I have. I've only missed a handful of days, so few that I can count them on the fingers of one hand. It certainly feels surreal.

I've heard of many ways in which book titles become a thing. Some authors begin with only a title and then develop a story from there. Others hit a magic moment during writing that reveals a title, perhaps a clever turn of phrase, or an unexpected snippet of dialog from a character. There are many methods, all of which are equally valid and interesting.

Plans are useful. Before I began writing, you know, actual words for my novel, I made a plan. I've done a significant amount of reading about writing, particularly novels, and found a model that's been helpful to me on a few different occasions for storytelling. But plans aren't perfect.