The year 2020 was horrible in many respects for many people. I had a few tribulations, but no tragedies, and for that I count myself lucky. My good fortune didn’t stop there. 2020 was the year in which I finally had a book published. I worked with a co-author, so didn’t do all the work myself, but it still counts.
My novel, The Longest Survivor, isn’t exactly a time travel novel. But my debut work had to touch on the subject of time in some respect, so you’ll be happy to know that because I wanted it, there’s a time element in the novel, to be expounded upon in future volumes. I’m excited to see it work out over the course of the series. We’re working on book two now, and the time element isn’t it’s focus, so I’m trying to be patient.
Our story is in the GameLit / LitRPG genre. It ranked as high as #36 in the category LGBT Science Fiction (Kindle Store) on Amazon. Not the greatest debut, but I’ll take it. I’m particularly happy to have ranked in the LGBT category. I don’t like to publicly discuss my sexual orientation, but I’ll admit there’s a lot of who I am to be found in the main character of my story, more of me certainly than my co-author.
Following is the book description from the Amazon page.
What if everyone was trying to kill the person you love most?
It’s a gaming competition with millions of dollars as prizes. The objective: Reach character level thirty. The hitch: The avatars have free will.
Mithabel enters the action as an Elf Tank avatar, joining party MAD. In the first two game days, the companions battle hundreds of relentless mooks, dozens of horrific mind-altering monsters, several respawning Bosses, and a couple crafty competing parties, for starters. Thank the Goddess for the Priestess Dylan and her healing spells. Mithabel can’t help but have a crush. Or is she in love?
Infrequent loot drops make upgrading equipment and spells nearly impossible. Skills only advance with class level. When the system places a huge target on Priestess Dylan, party MAD must expand their abilities in unconventional ways to protect Mithabel’s best friend against the horde.
It was a lot of fun writing The Longest Survivor, and I hope you or someone you know has as much fun reading it.
As if publishing my debut novel wasn’t enough, I also had an electronic music album released on Christmas Eve, as a member of the group Max Gumdrop. The name of our album has a double meaning. We called it Antiviral, because we don’t expect it to go viral. And because of our hope for an end to the pandemic soon.
The album came about after Mike, my co-author for our novel, acquired some music creation software from Humble Bundle for really cheap. My significant other, whose real name will go unmentioned, has been interested in making music for as long as I’ve known her, and knew how to make synthesized instrument sounds with some software she had. She also had Max Gumdrop picked out for a stage name, hoping at some point, apparently, to get into the music business. She’s asked that I refer to her as Max when I write about her, and I’m going to respect her wishes.
Since both Max and Mike were talking about music, I had the thought it would be fun to create an album together, the three of us, provided I could do something to help. I was a bit surprised that neither of them balked at my idea, but acted excited about it. So I learned, with input from both my friends, how to create synthesized instrument sounds. I can’t claim to be a master at it. But I think I did a decent job.
Max and I both created original sounds for the album, while Mike put them to use in his software to compose the tracks. So he’s basically the songwriter. We decided Max would be the face of the band, since I don’t like putting my face out there that much and Mike doesn’t think he looks good enough. Max and I didn’t disagree with him. Hehe. Max was more than willing for us to use her long-desired stage name as the name for our group, and so Max Gumdrop was born. I now find it a bit confusing that Max sometimes refers to herself as Max Gumdrop while the band name is also Max Gumdrop, but I guess it’s not that big a deal.
Anyway, Mike worked his magic to release the album through CD Baby, and it’s now available on numerous streaming sites. Mike set up a web site for the band, with a blog that Max writes the content for. If you sign up for our email list, you can download our album for free. You can also hear all the tracks on various streaming services.
We’re working on a music video for one of the tracks, and as soon as we’re finished with it, we’ll post it on YouTube. We might do some simpler videos for the other tracks, because it turns out these videos take more time to create than making the music tracks did, or at least it seems that way. But you can find the tracks on YouTube now if you search for them. Apparently pushing the tracks to YouTube is part of the CD Baby service.
Those are my two big accomplishments for 2020. I’m proud of myself, whether anyone else is or not. It would be nice if lots of people read my book and listened to my album, but regardless of how popular either of these works become, it still feels good to have created them. Feeling good about anything is gold, right now.
Here’s wishing you a happy 2021. Thank you for your visit today. Please comment and tell me about your 2020 accomplishments. Or any other accomplishments, if you want, especially if your now is my distant future, and this is no longer 2021. Kisses and hugs!
Play Time With Emila H Thicke 