WYMOP - The Podcast Edition!

Welcome to While You're Making Other Plans, the Podcast Edition! Just use the player below to listen to today's post, or you can skip down below the player and read it for yourself. 
Sorry about the large gap beneath the player -- I have no idea how to get rid of it.
Oh -- and FYI, all the links mentioned in the Podcast are included and live in the text below.
Enjoy!

Huzzah! Hip-hip-hooray! It’s my Cinco de Mayo Anniversary Blog!

You know, I really should have done something like this yesterday, since it was my 365th consecutive day writing While You’re Making Other Plans. Oh well, I actually drew a comment on my little dog lost story, and I always get a grin when I draw a comment. Thank you to everyone who posted a comment to me over the past year, to everyone who commented on my links to this blog on FaceBook, to everyone who let me know they were enjoying what I was doing here. That wound up being a big part of this whole year for me. Thank you to everyone who read me this year, from those who read a single page to those who came back day after day to check out the weird ramblings that grew out of the mulch-pile in my mind.

Tonight, I'm just going to tell you all what's going on now.

The Poll is in. The numbers were... staggering. Over the course of the past month I wrote 30 posts. In the time I spent writing those 30 posts, my blog showed just over 1,200 page views. 

That's a lot.

For three of those four weeks where I was accumulating those views, I had my poll up asking people's opinion about how often I should blog, since I won't be doing it every day any more. 

30 Days.

1,200 page views.

...8 votes. And I think one of them might be mine.

Not exactly an overwhelming response. More like pulling teeth. One of the high points of this whole month, however, was a wonderful comment I received from Kaye, out in Ohio, on my post It's Coming to the End... Sort Of? I won't re-post it here, but I will respond to it.

Now, I didn't respond to it at the time because I was a little surprised and very touched by it, and I wanted to give it some thought. The more time that went by, however, the more odd it seemed to go back and address it. When I was 'giving it some thought', though, what I was really doing was looking for a nice way to thank her for the wonderful things she said, and now, today, I think I finally have the right words.

Thank you, Kaye.

There. Simple. Thank you, and I appreciate everything you've said in every comment you've ever made here at While You're Making Other Plans. I appreciate every comment I've received over the past year, trust me, but hers was a good one.

Now to what I'll be doing here from now on. That too is simple. I'll be blogging. Not every day, but at least once a week. I'm thinking I'll be posting on Fridays from now on, unless something funny hits me during the week and I feel the intense need to share. I'm actually anticipating that happening  relatively often. If you are someone who, and I still can't believe I'm saying this, actually looks forward to reading what I write here, and you think you might want to know if I post something off-schedule and mid-week, you have an option. That little space in the sidebar on the right that says "Follow Me Automatically By Email". If you put your email address in that field you will receive an email of each posting I make, direct to your inbox the day after I make the post. Since something like half the time I'm making these posts in the middle of the night, most people are reading them the next day anyway. If you decide, at some later date, that you don't want my dreck filling up your inbox, each email contains a link to click to cancel the subscription.

How easy is that?

This cutting back of the blogging will hopefully have the effect of giving you only my more well thought-out blogs, and not the 'I'm only writing this because I need to fill the day' posts. I hate those. I'm pretty sure that if it's fun while I'm writing it, it'll be fun while you're all reading it.

The other effect this cutting back will have is to hopefully allow me some more time to work on writing aimed toward publication. I've recently written here about what I've gotten published in the past month,but here's what I have lined up for the immediate future:

I have two, and possibly three anthologies I want to submit short stories to that are due by the end of this month, and I haven't started them yet. I have one, maybe two anthologies I want to submit to that are due by the end of June, ditto on the 'started yet'. 

I have a short story collection, actually one novella and two not-so-short stories all in one book, called The Dead of Winter that's just about ready to be shopped about for a publisher, and the collection after it in the series, Dead Growth, is in the 'My God this needs a lot of editing' stage. 

I'm almost finished with the rough draft of my first novel, tentatively titled Home Grown, and I have an idea for another book to start once I finish that. And one after that one. And a werewolf series set in the fictional town of Spreewald Maine after that.

I'm about to offer my services as an occasional reader for the podcast Tales to Terrify, a weekly horror story show. I don't know if they'll accept me, but if they do I'll be sort of associated with some successful people in the writing business, and I see that as a good thing.

I have an idea for a podcast of my own, just for the month of October, but at the moment it's just an idea. It's an idea that I like, though.

...and I'll continue writing weekly horror short-shorts for Vamplit Publishing. 

All this, and I'll still be here at least once a week. If anybody out there can figure out how to get me a 28-30 hour day, I'd appreciate it!

All that writing stuff I just listed off, I'll still be keeping track of that on my website, www.robsmales.webs.com. Check there if you're interested in reading samples of my fiction, or keeping track of how my writing is going. All my Friday Flash for Vamplit is there too, just in case you're curious.

Alright, it's getting late, and Handsome is lying on the bed behind me snoring occasionally. Every once in a while he makes some noise from the other end, but I'm trying to ignore that at the moment. I still have some stuff to get done before I go to bed, and I need to get at least a little sleep before tomorrow comes so I can enjoy the little adventures he seems to bring my way. 

Good bye for now. Thank you all for a terrific year. It's been a lot of fun, and I hope this next year is even better despite WYMOP being weekly instead of daily. This being Saturday, none of you will be reading this until Sunday, so I'll be back at you here in about five days.

Or less.

Talk to you later!