There are going to be some small changes around here (again), made with the goal of trying to brighten your day. Let’s jump into it.

Patch Notes for The Website and My Process

I have read 7 chapters of Tammi Labrecque’s Newsletter Ninja as of today, as well as highlighted key text, made notes for myself, and made plans on how to apply the principles within that book. Interestingly, while I am learning a lot about how to make my newsletter as effective as possible when it launches, I think the most important principles I’m uncovering are general enough to be applied to all areas of my internet presence, particularly how I present myself.

I want to create a positive relationship with you. Yes, I do want to sell books, but I don’t want to be an email-to-email salesman. My goal for this blog (and website in general), and for my communications with you, is to make you laugh and/or smile, and to provide updates about my work, and to discuss things I find interesting. I am doing my job if you look forward to getting a regular email from me. (This is separate from my book goals, which are to entertain you and leave you hungry for the next one.)

I think I’m largely on the right track to hit my blog goals, but I need to reorganize a little to do that more fully. So, starting today, I’m going to begin each blog post with my “Bloggyness” (although that title will only remain in post categories, not in the posts themselves), then end with writing updates. I’ll pay attention to comments and numbers, and if you all seem to like this light refocus then I’ll keep moving forward with it. If not, then it’s back to the drawing board.

I’m also going to experiment with being a little more myself, giving more insights into who I am, what I like, what I’m doing. Again, I don’t know if you have any interest in this; I’ll pay attention to comments and numbers to see if this is a good idea and move forward based on the response I receive. My goal with this light shift is to be more personable, I suppose.

There will still be limits to my efforts to be more myself. My wife has asked that I don’t post pictures of her or our children, or mention names (at this time), or reveal information that might otherwise lead to someone figuring out where we live. I respect all of that, I respect the privacy of her and our children, and I appreciate maintaining some privacy for myself as well. I also plan on entirely avoiding politics as a topic. While I have firm and thought-out beliefs and preferences, I don’t want to become a political commentator and my work is consciously not political in nature. My goal is 100% to entertain and uplift, not to preach. This decision was partially informed by me finding myself regularly disappointed with the political “discussion” started by many of the authors I follow. I follow authors for their books and stories, not to be told who to vote for or what to believe—and especially not to be harshly berated for not agreeing with that author on some subject. There’s a risk of becoming vitriolic and poisonous when talking to a faceless crowd on charged subjects, and I don’t want to risk ending up there with my discourse, and I don’t want to alienate anyone who might not share my views when the purpose of my books are just to entertain. Let’s make this a place where people can sit down, share bread, and talk about their favorite stories and characters without having to worry about politics.

On a lighter note than politics: do you like bunnies? I think I can safely share pictures of my rabbits. Most people are cat or dog people (I am not, at all), but I have rabbits.

So, I’m going to follow this up with a little more about me and my blogged thoughts for this week, but first I wanted to finish this section with a little more of Newsletter Ninja.

First off, I have no idea how to brand. It’s something the book points at a lot and that I know I need to work on—will probably be working on as long as I maintain this blog—but I’m always probably going to come off a little like I don’t know what I’m doing in that area, and hopefully that’s ok. It’s one thing on a long list of stuff I’m trying to learn.

Second, while I wish the website was prettier and better-organized, it’s probably always going to be a little clunky. Design and coding are not in my skillsets, nor very high on my list of things I’m trying to teach myself. Hopefully someday I can afford to hire someone to help me, but that won’t be in the nearby future. I’m focused on writing and getting you a good, quality book every year, and with everything else going on in my life I need to make cuts somewhere.

Third, after I finish reading Newsletter Ninja I’m going to build a newsletter and replace subscribing to this blog with subscribing to the newsletter. It will still update you about the blog every week, so not a whole lot will change there, but it will allow for some very meaningful updates on my end.

What do you think about this? You, who are with me early on in figuring out how to make a blog and self-publishing work, do you have any thoughts on the kind of things you’d hope to read, what might make you smile each week? Comment below, send me an email, find me on social media and send me a message or a tag, let me know however works for you.

About Me

I have an About Me page already, but I think providing some more information here is a good way to get started on being more personable, more friendly, more myself. I’ll try to keep it somewhat short, as there’s even more to come after…

My name is Boo Ludlow. No, that’s not my legal name, but I have been called Boo since I was born, and I view “Boo” as more me than what’s on my birth certificate. (That’s a large part of the reason why I chose “Boo” as my author name.) People in strictly professional settings (mostly at my job) call me by my legal name, but I encourage all of my friends to call me Boo.

“Boo” comes from the character “Boo Radley” in To Kill a Mockingbird—the book, not the movie, although to be completely honest I haven’t read the former nor watched the entirety of the latter. My mom gave me that nickname, and I’ve heard three origin stories for it.

First, my mom was reading To Kill a Mockingbird when she was pregnant with me, and she was impressed with Boo Radley as a character. Despite all the hardships he went through in life, despite how much people disliked him, he was willing to put himself on the line to help protect someone in danger. She found that admirable and hoped I would adopt some of those positive traits.

Second, I was born in Idaho, and my dad thought that meant his firstborn baby boy should be nicknamed “Spud.” My entire family hated the idea. Especially compared to Spud, my mom’s recommendation of Boo was a pretty easy win.

Third, and this story came from my grandma alone, when I was born I had fuzzy black hair on my head that always stuck out in all directions, like I was a cartoon character who had just been startled. Apparently that meant calling me “Boo” was just the logical thing to do.

A lot of people outgrow their nicknames as they age, but I think I grew into mine. I had a brief period in elementary school where I considered dropping the nickname, but then there were three other kids with the same name as my legal name in my third grade class. Realizing that I’d almost never run into another Boo in my life, I’ve happily clung to it ever since. (And to this day I haven’t met another human Boo, but I have met dogs named Boo, I have met a kid nicknamed “Booster,” and I’ve watched the silly antics of Boo in Monsters, Inc. I also sometimes tease my wife by telling her how I’m everyone’s Boo.)

About as early as I remember I’ve loved stories. The Sea of Trolls (Nancy Farmer) was a foundational book for my reading interests growing up, and the only books I’ve re-read more than that are The Hobbit (Tolkien) and maybe Ender’s Game (Orson Scott Card)—anyway, I preferred fantasy most of all from an early age, followed closely by science fiction. (I devoured my mom’s Michael Crichton collection, starting with Jurassic Park.) I’m convinced that The Princess Bride (the novel, William Goldman) would be on this foundational list if, when I was a kid, I were aware it was a book, but instead I grew up on the movie and only discovered the book in my late teens.

I also love film and theater. In high school I thought acting was going to be in my future and performed in plays like The Importance of being Earnest (I played Earnest), You Can’t Take it With You (Grandpa Vanderhof), and The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe (Aslan)—most of the productions I participated in were high school productions, and I averaged three plays a year from freshman year to senior, but I did do community theater once. I never managed to figure out how to do anything in film (not a lot of opportunity in Idaho), but my favorite show growing up was Community. (The first two seasons are the show firing on all cylinders, the third season is largely good, and it falls off after that.) I didn’t get the chance to watch Avatar: The Last Airbender until I was a teen, but I count it among the greats, along with the unhealthy amounts of VeggieTales and Rugrats I watched as a kid.

Never got into anime, but I did enjoy the first seasons of Death Note and Attack on Titan.

As far as movies are concerned, Mad Max: Fury Road is GOAT-tier, the single best movie I’ve ever watched in my life. Of course the Lord of the Rings trilogy is my jam, although I’ve felt no need to rewatch it after marathoning the extended editions—that was a mistake. Star Wars is good, with episodes 4, 5, and 6, being the best and most modern content being… well, exactly that, just content. The Princess Bride is my most rewatched movie of all time, followed closely by Nightmare Before Christmas.

That was long list—probably I spent too long waxing on about books, series, and films that mean a lot to me, and I didn’t even really go into detail on most of them. These were the ones that came to mind first, and stuck around after some thought, so I have to assume they have had the most impact on me, though there are many, many others in each category.

This isn’t even mentioning my other hobbies—tabletop role-playing games (Dungeons and Dragons 3.5 and 5th edition, Call of Cthulhu 7th edition, Pathfinder 1st edition, EZD6, and more), board games (Scythe, Evolution: Oceans, Settlers of Catan, Space Base, Cashflow, and more), card games (Ripple, among many others), music (rock, hard rock, argent metal, pop, classical—a little bit of everything, really), ultimate frisbee, etc, etc, etc.

Finally, last but absolutely not least, I’m a family man. I have an amazing wife, a beautiful baby girl who is growing way too fast, and I work full-time at a down payment assistance company.

Whew!

Other Quick Thoughts

Two other thoughts I had, which I will keep short, that I hope will make you smile:

1. I play a lot of Wordle, and this game teaches me that I struggle with flexibility sometimes. I will look at the letters I have, think I know how each one will be pronounced, then run through possible words in my head and completely miss the correct answer because I won’t be pronouncing an “O” in a compatible way.
2. Tears of the Kingdom (TotK) is one of the best video games I’ve played in my life, and its greatest strength is its unparalleled flexibility in gameplay. I’ve never played a game before that can successfully present hundreds of puzzles to a player and have no need for intended solutions to any of them, because you have so much freedom of gameplay that you can invent a near-limitless number of ways to get through nearly any problem. It’s just like real life, but in a good way—in the real world, when we’re presented with a problem there is rarely ever one “right” solution. Instead, we look at the tools we have and find the solution that works best for our unique situation. I love that, and in gameplay form it is so freeing. It also teaches me, on reflection, that I can be a bit of a brick—a lot of my solutions come down to me building up as much force as I can and breaking through the problem.

WHEW! That was a-lot-a-lot of me. If you want, share a little about yourself, or give me some hot takes on the stuff I’ve mentioned.

The Failed Technomancer

Hardcovers might be available for purchase next week. My artist is moving to another city, but she said she thinks she will get me the cover soon—IngramSpark wanted the cover tweaked before I could publish through them, which is where the delay comes from.

Inner Demon

As of today, I have 7 chapters edited (plus the prologue)! I’m keeping my goal of doing at least one a day, excluding weekends. With 34 chapters, we’re making good time.

Once this round of line edits is done, I will share this book with readers to help me with copy edits, then the final steps of publication will begin! About that point will be when I share a sample chapter, too.

Short Stories for the Newsletter

Regular 9–5 will have finished reviews from my writing group this week. This story has been revised heavily before, and it’s not looking like they have many comments on how to improve it, so this will likely be quick and easy to get ready to share!

As for Old Lace and Hairballs, I’ve edited my way through about 10 pages out of a little under 50. This one will start going to my writing group next week. It’s pretty good, pretty funny—ending needs work, though.

Both stories will be freely available to anyone who signs up for the newsletter. I will provide them in PDF form and, if I have the time, MOBI form (just in case you prefer ebooks). Regular 9–5 also might be short enough that I also post the text directly on this website. We’ll see. I also doubt that I will have covers for either of the stories because I have no budget to pay for art for free things—but hey, I think the text will speak for itself.

Sendoff

And that is it! If you stuck with me through this monster-sized post, thank you! I hope you enjoyed. Seriously, from the bottom of my heart, thanks just for being here. Have an excellent day!