Today, August 30th, 2014 is a momentous day.
As always, only Marlowe, spacewoman Nina, and a sham wedding can stop a dangerous Beethoven cult bent on world domination.
The second Capaldi Doctor Who episode aired.
It had daleks.
I liked it. And Capaldi as the Doctor.
So a momentous day indeed.
On a completely unrelated and nowhere near as momentous note, Balloons of the Apocalypse is now available.
The third installment in the Marlowe and the Spacewoman series, it has it all:
Words.
Sentences.
Paragraphs.
Mystery.
Exotic locales.
Marriage.
Major character deaths.
Steam-powered pigs.
Zeppelins.
I won’t bore you with the details, even if this is the promotional blog post announcing the release. Click on the Balloons of the Apocalypse link to learn more.
(I really hate self-promotion.)
But I will reveal to you the Brazilian connection to this book’s release.
I admit, I’d been in a rut for the last year or so when it comes to this book.
The day job, my marriage, my young kids, they sucked the life out of me.
No offense to the Missus or the kiddos. Or the day job, in case my boss is reading this.
It’s just these things are big responsibilities that take a lot of time and effort to do right.
And let me tell you, facing the prospect of losing your day job, Missus, and/or kiddos, you find yourself wanting to do it right.
Needing to do it right.
And getting dirty looks from coworkers, spouses, friends, family, and kiddos who expect you to do it right.
Talk about pressure.
That plus my previous books never magically turned into best sellers, so I reached this point where I was all, “Screw it. No one cares. I’ll never be a rich and famous author. Why bother, especially when there is a diarrhea-soaked diaper for me to change?”
Wait, make that two.
Dammit.
So I stopped working on and thinking about Balloons of the Apocalypse.
I could claim I was letting that field lie fallow, but I’d be lying.
I’d given up.
The light had gone out from my authorial eyes.
I’d developed a major facial tic around books in general.
I was done with writing.
And reading, since it reminded me of writing.
Then the Brazilian showed up.
Well, not so much showed up as appeared.
OK, not even appeared. More like lurked.
Eh, maybe lurked isn’t the right word.
I’ll explain.
I started noticing blog hits from Brazil.
Now I’m not going to say I don’t get huge volumes of traffic on my blog that would make it impossible to link a referrer to a visiting country, but it was pretty clear to me that not only was this repeat visitor a repeat visitor, but the Brazilian always came to this blog via ianmdudley.com.
(Don’t click on that. You’ll end up here again. Really. I promise.)
Not because of a search term (hello ‘Blake Shelton naked’ people!). Not through twitter. Not via facebook.
The Brazilian was going directly to my website, which redirected him or her to this blog.
For the longest time, I thought, “I’ve got this huge fan out there, desperately visiting my web site every day to see when Balloons of the Apocalypse will finally come out.”
My initial response? “Schmuck. You’re in for a helluva wait.”
But after a few days I began to feel bad.
Then sad.
Then guilty.
I was ruining this person’s day, every day, by not having the book out for him or her to read.
I think the last straw was Brazil’s elimination from the 2014 World Cup.
Now the Brazilian had endured enough.
Now I had to offer the only salve that could possibly help heal this broken, crushed, disappointed fan.
Now I had to finish and release Balloons of the Apocalypse.
So here it is. Two more editing passes and some minor re-writes later, and it is out in the world. Ready to languish on virtual book shelves, untouched by anyone.
Because two days ago I learned the truth.
Don’t ask me how. My methods are proprietary and the amount of money I spent too vast to mention anywhere the Missus might get wind of it.
(Remember that whole ‘doing the marriage right’ expectation thing?)
In a seedy sports bar on the less reputable edge of São Paulo, there is a bathroom with an ignored OUT OF ORDER sign (in Portuguese, of course) on the door, with the words, “For a good time, go to ianmdudley.com” scrawled, also in Portuguese, by the way, above a cracked, leaking urinal.
Learning that really took the piss out of me. But I was too far along in the publication process to stop.
So now I raise an angry fist while facing southeastward, and I shake it angrily at you, Brazil.
You broke an innocent man. You crushed his spirit. You made him burst into tears every time he walks up to a urinal.
Which resulted in a visit from HR at work.
(Remember that whole ‘doing the day job right’ expectation thing?)
On the not-so-off chance I lose the day job and find myself saddled with alimony and child support payments in the near future, please, please, please consider buying a copy of my book.
And the next time the guy at the urinal next to you bursts into tears, remind yourself:
“There but for the grace of a Brazilian go I.”
Bloody Brazilians.
ian m dudley 