Hot dang, two more years and we’ll hit a quarter century. That’s pretty awesome.
I love the Marine Corps, even though it failed to give me deployments and a battle field commission, it changed my life immeasurably for the better. I went in as a 26 year old man child with no real discipline, direction, or drive.
And came out a Marine.
With all the ego and confidence that entails after being degraded and beaten like a rented mule for three months in Boot and then another three months in School of Infantry and SURVIVING IT ALL.
And if you want to know how ingrained it becomes in your life, after being out for EIGHT YEARS, I still have dreams of re-enlisting (usually naked) and nightmares about losing a piece of gear. (usually a rifle)
I remember in Boot Camp, standing Fire Watch in the back of the squad bay, and hearing some poor kid screaming, “AYE SIR!” in his SLEEP and snickering. That’s how much of a mind screw they do to you in their conversion of the weak modern American male into warriors.
Anyways, I don’t drink anymore. But if I did, I’d have been plastered by 8am. Instead, I’m just going to drink a Monster and eat some crayons.
And wish the most magnificent cult of warrior degenerates the world has ever seen a Happy Birthday.
But I just kept -thinking- about it and all cool things I wanted to add in and the direction I wanted it to finish in… and I couldn’t.
There is too much awesomeness in it to stop.
Current publishing goal – March 2024.
Which is later than I wanted.
But my daughter is sick. Very sick. After four years of knowing something was wrong, and going everywhere from Genetics to Psychiatrists to Rheumatologists to getting brain MRI’s… we finally found out last Thursday that she has PANDAS. (Simply put, she has a leaky gut full of bad bacteria and a leaky blood/brain barrier that lets antibodies through to cause havoc in her head…. leading to pretty much every symptom below.)
CLICKY LINK HERE for more information, it’s not exactly rare… but it’s not really known about either.
So, as you can tell by the symptoms, it sucks.
I won’t go in depth into the struggle, but let’s just say, it’s been an exhausting roller-coaster of a ride and a lot of times by the end of the day, I’m too tired to write. Or my mental state is such that I just don’t friggin’ feel like it.
Which has put me WAY behind this year.
Good news is all that suckyness that my daughter is experiencing is curable with a LOT of hardcore antibiotics. Yay.
We start the regimen Monday.
Please pray for us, it’s going to be difficult to get her to take all of this stuff. But we are finally seeing a light at the end of the tunnel. 🙂
In other news, we got a new puppy.
I don’t even know what to say about that… except this Hispanic preacher in an American flag cowboy hat with a gold tooth showed up to the city park one day with a MalChi (Maltese Chihuahua mix) in a basket while my daughter was playing, and it came home with us.
We named her Peaches.
And holy cow, how could you not love her? (Well, she pooped in her crate in the truck yesterday morning and rolled in it… that wasn’t lovely…)
She’s been a help with my daughter’s anxiety, and she’s pretty cute to boot.
And did I mention how tiny her pees and poops are? SUPER TINY. I could step in one barefooted and not even notice.
Compared to our two Mastiffs…. those are like softball sized cow patties.
That previous picture is her at 6 weeks old (so we were told). Below is her at 7.5 weeks playing with Bear, our English Mastiff, the monster dog who is in my not-so-professional author photos.
Not sure what else is worth mentioning.
It’s been a good few days with my daughter’s diagnosis, a new puppy, and a little bit of writing on Book FIVE today.
I can’t wait to get it to you.
It’s gonna be awesome.
Oh yeah, the world is pretty much aflame with war. I gotta get back in shape before the shooting starts. (Smaller mass equals smaller target and I’ve been working on my ‘author body’ for far too long.)
My best guess? China is going to pounce on Taiwan as Israel and Ukraine sucks up all of America’s money and equipment. And there won’t be squat we can do about it. I hope I’m wrong, but it seems like the perfect moment under pathetic American leadership, a recession, and woke military….
I leave you with this meme.
Stay strapped friends. Get right with the Lord. And watch your six.
Good news is that it’s fall. Beautiful leaves, cool weather, deer season… and you can dang near hide a FAL under a proper jacket or hoodie. So there ain’t no excuse to not be armed.
Not much. Just writing. Trying frantically to get this WWII book written.
For the last four years, I’ve written a book a year. (Which is pretty awesome for a part time writer!) And with the temporary shelving of half-completed Conquering Prehistoric, I don’t yet have anything to release late winter/early Spring 2024.
Which stinks.
I’m trying really hard to not stress it. I’ve a full time job, full time family, and full time life… writing is just a hobby that pays… But I can’t help but feel like I’m letting readers down by not publishing anything in a timely manner.
Thus, this WWII book is going to get a lot of ‘butt in seat, hands on keyboard’ time.
Although… I did write a few thousands words in the Artifacts of Christ series (working title) just to get it going, and about a thousand words in Conquering Prehistoric. (Shh, don’t tell anyone. I’m having a hard time leaving that book behind. It may be shelved for now, but it will certainly see the light of day…. one day….)
I think that’s kind of how it’s going to go. I’m going to focus mainly on Operation Crimson Sun (working title) like a madman, but still write a bit here and there in the other series as I get the urge.
I’ve no idea how authors work on multiple series at the same time. I can’t. I can focus on one and think a little about the others, but I can’t keep it all straight in my head to actually write in two worlds full on.
Not yet anyways.
Maybe once I leave the larva stage of being an author. 🙂
And now, because this is a pretty boring update… I’ll leave you with this video of my parents new mini-dachshund puppy, ‘Zeb’.
Conquering Prehistoric has been shelved for the time being. The publisher wanted me to wrap the series up with Book 5 and diversify my writing portfolio by doing some other books/series. But, unfortunately, I can’t wrap it up on Conquering Prehistoric… because this book sets up a lot of possibilities for future books. And I’m not going to write/publish the book and then leave readers hanging indefinitely as I work on some other stuff.
Which sucks. I know. I’ve spent 8 months working on it and it was turning out really cool.
And I’ve nothing else on the horizon with my current publisher. No contracts or anything as we were going one book at a time.
Good news now.
Last night I signed a five book, two series deal with a new publisher.
The first series/two books will be the WWII/Pacific Island/US Marines/Sea Monsters that I’ve been wanting to write about since forever. The first book outline is done and I’ve about 10,000 words already on it. This was picked up on the condition that it not be a stand alone book, so it’s being extended into a minimum of two books. I’ve already got some good notes on what I want to do with the second book in that series.
The second series, I’m keeping the more intimate details under my hat for now. But basically, imagine the Indiana Jones and the Expendables movies having a baby. A violent, archeological, adventurous baby seeking out holy relics of Christ. This is a minimum three book series, with a LOT of possibility.
TL;DR..
I’m temporarily hanging up my spurs and picking up my flame thrower.
Yes, follow me on Amazon and/or Facebook/Instagram for new updates….
Just search for Author Erik Testerman.
In the meantime, check out Conundrum Publishing’s website. It’s pretty neato and has a lot of great reads on it!
Not bad for a book that’s only about 265 pages long.
-puts feather in cap-
The work continues on the still unnamed book 5, which is about Cato in the aftermath of the events from Raiding Prehistoric.
It’s going well, I’ve hit a nice groove (finally) with the book and it’s coming along nicely. It’s certainly been a struggle at times to keep this one afloat with the premise of a new main character, new secondary characters, new villains, and even a new part of Prehistoria… It’s been more difficult than continuing a well established character’s story.
But it’s good practice for the series and more of what’s to come from my brain to the page.
Thank you all for holding onto this series and staying with me as I work on book five.
I promise one day I’ll get better than one book a year.
It may be once I retire though… which is in 25 years or when I get a big movie deal.
And just for kicks, here’s the opening chapter to Book Five.
***
“Take it,” the man squatted down to look me in the eye and held out his pistol.
I stared at the revolver. It looked like the gun that Father had taken with him when he left for the war so long ago.
“You know that I will not repeat myself,” the man said with some measure of annoyance in his voice.
He wouldn’t repeat himself. That was a fact. A painful one I’d learned with a little help from the back of his hand over the past two days since he’d taken me along with them.
Reaching forward, I took the gun. It was nickel plated, with ivory grips. I bet it was expensive.
It felt good in my small hand though.
“Shoot him,” he ordered, pointing a thick finger at the gaunt gray uniformed man kneeling before us.
The man sobbed; his rope bound hands raised in front of him as though in prayer.
I didn’t know who he was. I didn’t know what he’d done. As far as I could tell, nothing. But he was here now. We’d chased him down on the horses until his legs gave out and he lay gasping in a ditch alongside a field of unpicked cotton.
I blinked.
“We don’t have all day,” the officer warned as his horse stamped its hooves. The men and horses behind the Captain were growing restless and impatient. I knew that I had to do what I was told or face their wrath. And I’d seen their wrath. It scared me.
Raising the gun, I pointed it at the top of the stranger’s head. He was starting to go bald. There was a patch in his thin scalp that was already missing hair. I aligned the front sight of the pistol there.
The man looked up, tears streaking down his gaunt and unshaven cheeks.
The front sight was now between his eyes.
He trembled, sucking in a deep breath and letting it out in an attempt to calm himself.
“Child… please don’t-”
The pistol bucked in my hand as I squeezed the trigger.
A large hand landed firmly on my small shoulder as the red-bearded Captain smiled down at me, flashing bright white teeth. “We’ll make a man of you yet, Cato.”
***
And remember folks,
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Gunpowder and Ink! 