Quick Announcement About My Social Media Accounts

Hello to all you fantastic people out there!

This is just a quick post to let everyone know that I will no longer be posting social media updates on the following places:

  • Google+
  • Pinterest
  • Goodreads
  • Instagram

In addition, I will stop publishing The Writer's Journey episodes to YouTube after next Thursday, October 25th. Almost no one was commenting on the videos, anyway, and I feel bad that some of you did and I missed the comments.

I know some of you use the Goodreads blog feature to follow my content—but I check Goodreads once or twice a year, and it just makes sense for me to turn this off as I would hate for you to comment and me not see it.

Moving forward, if you want to contact me, the best way to do so is the following:

  • Twitter
  • Facebook (either my profile or my Michael La Ronn page)
  • My contact form

By streamlining this, it will make it easier for me to connect with anyone who does want to send me a quick email or message.

Thanks for reading, and enjoy the rest of your day.

Ep 31: How My Home Got Invaded (By an Army of Carpenter Ants)

Ep 31: How My Home Got Invaded (By an Army of Carpenter Ants)

[TheChamp-Sharing]

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This week's episode is sponsored by my Patreon page. If you'd like to support me, click the link. For just $1/month, you can support one of your favorite writers (wink, wink). 🙂

SHOW NOTES

In this week’s episode I talk about an infestation of carpenter ants in my home a few years ago that made me respect this unique and incredible force of nature.

    Sound/Music Credits for this week's episode

    Intro/Outro Music: “Kick. Push” by Ryan Little.

    Sound Effects/Miscellaneous Credits:

     Hold My Hand (Ambient Mix) by Ars Sonor: http://freemusicarchive.org/music/Ars_Sonor/In_Search_of_Balance_Among_the_Shadows/07-Hold_My_Hand_Ambient_Mix_1984 

    Sound effects courtesy of Freesound.org.

    TRANSCRIPT

    A few years ago, my home was invaded.

    We were under attack. Every day was a battle in a war that we were desperately losing. We were on the verge of giving up hope and succumbing to our new overlords forever…

    And no, I’m not talking about an invasion by people.

    My home was invaded by an army of carpenter ants.

    It’s the only time as a homeowner that I had to fight for my house. Never in my life have I experienced anything like the incredible force of carpenter ants.

    I won the war, but they ultimately won my respect in the end, and it was obvious to me why ants have been such an influence on fiction.

    The army of carpenter ants is the subject of my sketchbook today.

    ***

    Hello, and welcome to episode 31, the story of how an army of carpenter ants nearly gave me a mental breakdown.

    My wife and I bought a house a few years ago, and the house sits on a big lot that has a lot of trees. A lot of trees. When you’re a homeowner, the number of trees on your property directly correlates to the number of problems you’ll have with the home.

    For example, we had tree roots break our pipes. Trees are home to a family of possums in our backyard. A tree was growing up against our porch and we cut it down, but it already did tremendous damage because the previous homeowner did nothing about it. Every autumn, I have to do a lot of work to rake and mulch leaves in my yard—usually takes me two weekends to get all of the leaves. The trees shade my property, so we don’t get much sunlight in our yard, making it hard to grow things. A pine tree in my backyard sheds its needles directly into my gutter. A family of deer lived behind my garage, hidden for days by trees. My backyard has been home to owls, to hawks, to groundhogs using tree stumps to grind their teeth on.

    So yes, as much as I love trees, they are nothing but trouble for a homeowner.

    Which brings me to my carpenter ant story.

    ***

    The summer started off like any other. Hot. Sunny. Lawn mowers humming every evening, and crickets singing every night. Just another season in our Midwest house, life going on as normal.

    One day, my wife noticed an ant in the kitchen. She squashed it and didn’t think anything of it.

    Another day, I saw an ant in the bathroom. I crushed it with some tissue and moved on.

    Another day, we both noticed an ant traveling along a baseboard. I crouched to inspect it, and noticed it for the first time—a stocky black ant. Compared to other ants I’d seen, this one was built like a boxer. It could beat the crap out of a field ant.

    Again, we squashed it, talked for a minute about how it might have gotten in the house, and went on with our day.

    And then, the next morning, ants were everywhere. They were on the walls, on the floor, in every room. They invaded our food. They invaded our daughter’s toys and bit her while she played.

    They attacked me in the shower.

    My home had been thoroughly besieged.

    ***

    We tried to fight the ants with bug spray and ant traps. We killed maybe a hundred a day, caught hundreds more. But still, they kept coming.

    I patrolled the perimeter of my house, tried to find where they were getting in. There were no holes, no openings, nothing.

    It only took two days before we were completely defeated. I called a local pest control service. I couldn’t have been happier when a black pickup truck rolled into my driveway. A fat guy in a t-shirt and jeans climbed out, smiling and whistling as he strapped on a utility belt. He greeted me jovially, frowning at a trail of ants on my sidewalk.

    We walked around the house, and he inspected the same spots I did. No openings.

    “Hmm,” he said, bending over a little too far, and revealing more behind than I wanted to see.

    Then we went into the house, and he observed more ants on the wall.

    “Talk about trouble,” he said.

    As we moved through the house, he kept whistling, shining a flashlight behind all the furniture, into the attic.

    “You’ve got a serious case of carpenter ants,” he said.

    At that point, I had no idea what carpenter ants were. He then told me that they were a big problem, and if I didn’t do something, they’d undermine the structure of the house. I gulped.

    Two hundred dollars later, he armed the house with more baits and traps. He told me that if I saw the nest, to call him right away.

    They didn’t work.

    In fact, the ants seemed to multiply.

    ***

    I was desperate. I was willing to do anything to get rid of these damn ants.

    At this point they had already bitten my infant daughter multiple times, and we couldn’t keep letting this happen. They were getting meaner and bolder too, too, openly attacking me when I was writing my novels, climbing over our food as we were eating it. And their bites stung.

    One day, when my mom was visiting, she picked up a fallen tree branch in my yard and told me she noticed something strange in a dead cherry tree in the back of my property.

    I inspected it, and sure enough, there was a river of ants flowing in and out of a hole in the tree.

    I measured the distance between the tree and my house, and it was a good one hundred to one hundred and fifty feet. Probably the equivalent of a day’s journey for an ant.

    I called the pest control guy and he was there the next day.

    “Yep,” he said, putting his hands on his hips. “I’ll be damned. I’ve never seen anything like this. They’re traveling pretty far.”

    He threw some kind of bomb into the hole, and ants spilled out of the tree. Hundreds of thousands of them. I never saw anything like it in my life.

    Later that night, the grass was covered in dead carpenter ants, and my lawn was filled with birds who were feasting on them.

    Slowly but surely, the ants disappeared.

    We still saw them in the house, but in fewer numbers. After a few days, they disappeared completely.

    We had the tree cut down and taken away.

    We had won the war.

    But in the end, the ants won my respect.

    They were a true force of nature.

    ***

    Hope you liked that one.

    Like I said, those ants were inspiring.

    Since, I’ve learned to think of my books like carpenter ants. They’re journeying out into the world to find readers and bring money. The more books I have, the more people will pay attention. And every day they bring back money to me, the mother colony. I know it’s a little cheesy, but the analogy works in my head.

    Anyway, the moral of this story is, if you ever see ants in your house, just call somebody. My wife and I still talk to this very day how quickly they multiplied. I know it sounds like I dramatized it in this podcast, but I’m serious about how quickly they multiplied. I wasn’t exaggerating.

    And I wasn’t kidding about trees, either. That cherry tree was the cause of our troubles. So if you own a home, do yourself a favor and inspect your trees. You’ll be glad you did.

    QUOTE OF THE WEEK

    When you have seen one ant, one bird, one tree, you have not seen them all.” E. O. Wilson

     

    Show's over, but it doesn't have to stop here.

    If you liked this episode, you and me are probably kindred spirits.

    WHAT DO YOU THINK OF THIS WEEK'S EPISODE?

     Let me know!

    Ep 30: Writing vs. Reading

    [TheChamp-Sharing]

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    This week's episode is sponsored by my old podcast, the To Be Read Podcast! Check out 100 episodes that cover my favorite books!

    SHOW NOTES

    Writers write. Readers read. But as a professional writer, I’ve found it difficult to balance the two. In this week’s episode I talk about my struggle to find time to read.

    Sound/Music Credits for this week's episode

    Intro/Outro Music: “Kick. Push” by Ryan Little.

    Sound Effects/Miscellaneous Credits:

     

    Sound effects courtesy of Freesound.org.

    TRANSCRIPT

      Before I was a writer, I was a reader. A prolific reader. But when I started writing, reading became a struggle for me. In this week’s episode, I’m going to talk about that.

      ***

      Hello, and welcome to episode 30. I wanted to talk this week about writing versus reading, because for me, it’s a constant struggle.

      I was a prolific reader before I started writing professionally. I read at least 200 books or so a year.

      In fact, I co-hosted a podcast where I talked about the books I was reading. It was called the To Be Read Podcast, and we did over 100 episodes talking about the books we loved. That show was cool because it forced me to keep reading so I could have something to talk about every week. I’ll drop a link to it in the show notes.

      I was also active at my local library. Des Moines has a great library system, so I used it for inter library loans, and I used Overdrive to check out a lot of ebooks and audiobooks.

      And of course, don’t get me started on Amazon. I bought books practically every week, so much that it was becoming a problem. Ask my wife.

      Pretty much, if I wanted to find a book, I could find it. And I read a lot of books that were outside of the mainstream. That’s why I think I approach writing differently than others.

      When I decided to become a professional writer, however, it became very difficult to balance writing with reading. After all, I still had a full-time job to worry about, and night classes, and a family to raise. And I found that I had to keep up with a lot of podcasts and blogs in order to be successful at writing. So naturally, reading fell by the wayside for me, which is something I hate and it dogs me literally every day.

      I still read, but not at the level I used to. If I’m lucky, I read maybe 50 books a year, which is pitiful if you knew how much I used to read.

      So, when I become more successful in my career, I’ve always said that I’ll use extra time to read and consume.

      I write plenty of novels per year and writing quantity is not a problem for me.

      If I can ever put myself in a position where I’m writing full time, I’ve always said that I’ll be a full-time reader and keep the amount of writing I do the same.

      I’ve tried to cut down in my word counts and read more, but I always get anxious when I’m not writing. I’m always striving for personal bests, so to write less just makes me lose sleep.

      I’ve also adopted audiobooks as my primary listening vehicle, listening when I’m in my car to and from work and doing chores. But that still doesn’t quite replace the time lost.

      Writing vs reading is one of the biggest struggles I believe writers have to deal with, finding the time to read when writing is your primary job.

      I know you can’t write if you don’t read, but if you don’t write, you don’t have a career. So it’s a difficult balance. At least for me.

      But I’m committed to reading. It’s how I got my start.

      Reading for me is like writing; it’s as sacred as prayer. It’s how I discover the inner workings of other people and learn my own inner workings.

      But boy, it’s not easy to read when you are a writer. And definitely something I wish someone had told me when I started writing.

      I suppose nothing in life is perfect. This kind of balance struggle is what keeps life interesting, you know? If it wasn’t a struggle between writing and reading, it would be something else. So I’ve just learned to live with the discomfort and I make sure that I do enjoy the little time I have to read.

      Check out the To Be Read Podcast: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC0PiSCERUfn2qXBQccvgvMg 

       

      QUOTE OF THE WEEK

      “Reading is to the mind what exercise is to the body.” Joseph Addison

       

      Show's over, but it doesn't have to stop here.

      If you liked this episode, you and me are probably kindred spirits.

      WHAT DO YOU THINK OF THIS WEEK'S EPISODE?

       Let me know!

      Ep 29: 9/27/18 Progress Report

      [TheChamp-Sharing]

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      This week's episode is sponsored by Nightmare Stalkers, Book 2 in my Magic Trackers series. I talk about it on this episode, and it's one of my favorite novels I've written to date. You don't even have to have read Book 1 of the series to enjoy it!

      SHOW NOTES

      In this week’s episode I talk about my writing progress for September… and I invite a special guest on.

        Sound/Music Credits for this week's episode

        Intro/Outro Music: “Kick. Push” by Ryan Little.

        Sound Effects/Miscellaneous Credits:

         

        Sound effects courtesy of Freesound.org.

        TRANSCRIPT

          Hello, and welcome to episode 29. It’s hard to believe it’s the end of September already, but here we are. I hope there is warm weather wherever you are. Here in the states, autumn has begun, and autumn is my favorite season. The leaves are changing, the air is crisp, and it’s the perfect time to people watch.

          Anyway, I got a lot done this month.

          In writing news, I’ve begun work on a National Novel Writing Month book. It’s called Write a Novel in November, and it will be launching probably by the time the next progress report episode goes live. I love NaNoWriMo, and I’ve been wanting to write a book for that crowd for a while. I get pretty granular on how to write fiction, and I break it down into easy to understand concepts. So if you’ve never written a book, Write a Novel in November will be perfect for you, or if you’ve written a book but want to improve your craft, there will also be a lot of good content in it for you.

          I’ve also hired a video editor for my YouTube videos, which has freed up a tremendous amount of time for me. I didn’t realize how much time I was spending editing my YouTube videos until I stopped doing it. Probably 5-6 hours a week.

          Now that I’m back in class and I have speaking engagements, and I’m writing books, podcast episodes AND YouTube scripts, something had to give. So I’ve outsourced my video editing and my YouTube thumbnails. The first videos will go live starting in October, which is really exciting for me, because I can now do 2 videos a week instead of 1, which means more content for you guys.

          Kids cheering

          In other writing news, I just hit publish on the third and final audiobook in my Last Dragon Lord series, Old Wicked, narrated by Miles Meili. Miles did a fantastic job bringing my dragon hero Old Dark to life, and I’m glad to be done with the series.

          We’re also putting an audiobook compilation together that includes Books 1-3 so you can buy them with a single Audible credit if you want. That will go live in a couple of weeks.

          I’m getting anxious to start writing fiction again, so as we move toward the end of the year, I’ll slowly be focusing on a new series. Haven’t decided what that will be yet.

          In personal news, I’m appearing at the indieLAB conference by Writer’s Digest at the end of September, on behalf of the Alliance of Independent Authors. I’m going to be talking about blogging, podcasting and online video, and how you can use it to build an audience of readers. I’m very excited to get in front of a crowd of people, but my session is going to be interactive and fun, so I know they’re going to get a ton of value out of it.

          ***

          Let’s move onto some listener questions.

          Everyone’s favorite robot, Oswald is back. This month, he actually sent me more questions than usual, so I thought I would do something special for him.

          That’s right, guys, I’m bringing Oswald on the show this week to chat!

          Let’s give him a call.

          Dials, phone rings

          Oswald: Listen, I’ve told you to stop calling me. One more time and I’m calling the police—

          Michael: Hey Oswald, it’s me, Michael La Ronn. Writer’s Journey Podcast, remember?

          Oswald: Oh. Hello, Michael. Someone from Iowa has been prank calling me. If I get one more phone call, I’m going to lose a bolt…

          Michael: We don’t want that. Are you still available to chat? I’m actually recording right now, so the world is listening.

          Oswald: Fantastic. I would like to ask you those questions.

          Michael: You got it. Ready when you are.

          Oswald: I am honored. I will be asking you a lightning round. How much time do we have? I have at least six hundred and seven questions.

          Michael: I could probably do ten, maybe twelve. But definitely not six hundred, Oswald.

          Oswald: OK. First question: have you ever met anyone famous?

          Michael: Not really. I once sat in front of John Goodman for an entire night and didn’t know it. He was two feet away from me.

          Oswald: Yikes.

          Michael: Yep. I was on TV, too and didn’t find out about it until I got home. I was doing a phone-a-thon to raise money for the Red Cross for Hurricane Katrina victims. He volunteered to help, too…

          Oswald: Next question. How do you like your eggs?

          Michael: Sunny-side up. But honestly, I don’t like eggs much.

          Oswald: What’s your favorite breakfast cereal?

          Michael: Raisin Bran. I don’t eat cereal much because of all the sugar, but Raisin Bran reminds me of my great grandfather. He ate it every morning.

          Oswald: If you could bring back any fashion trend, what would it be?

          Michael: Corduroy. In high school, I wore corduroy shirts and pants. This was 2003, guys. I was a weird kid.

          Oswald: If you had to sing karaoke, what song would you sing?

          Michael: Easy. I’d sing Mornin’ by Al Jarreau. Rest In Peace, Al.

          Oswald: What is your favorite decade?

          Michael: The 80s, hands down. Aside from the 2010s, there has never been a better decade to live as as artist and as a consumer. There was such an incredible spirit of innovation in the 80s. There were so many bands that people never heard of that were doing incredible stuff that blows my mind to this day. As a consumer, you had so many interesting choices for television, music, movies, etc. I’d definitely live in the 80s if I had a time machine.

          Oswald: What’s your favorite sandwich and why?

          Michael: There’s a fast food franchise that only exists in St. Louis called Lion’s Choice. They have the best roast beef sandwiches, period. Every time I go to St. Louis, I stop there.

          Oswald: Do you prefer sunrise or twilight?

          Michael: Twilight all the way. The clouds and the sun are always more dramatic. My favorite is flying in an airplane at twilight. The light is just incredible.

          Oswald: What is your favorite musical instrument?

          Michael: Saxophone. Next question.

          Oswald: What would your last meal be?

          Michael: Pig ears, sauerkraut, a can of cheap grocery store soda, and a slice of German chocolate cake. My great grandmother made this for me every year for my birthday.

          Oswald: What’s your favorite place you’ve ever visited?

          Michael: The cloud forests of Costa Rica. I’ll never forget the fog, the birds, and the beautiful views.

          Oswald: Last question. What is your favorite novel you’ve ever written?

          Michael: Hard question, but my favorite most recent novel is Nightmare Stalkers, Book 2 in my Magic Trackers series. The novel just flowed and came together crazy well.

          Oswald: This has been an honor. Thank you for making my dreams come true.

          Michael: Always a pleasure Oswald. Thanks for your questions.

          Oswald: You’re welcome.

          QUOTE OF THE WEEK

           

          “Smile in the mirror. Do that every morning and you'll start to see a big difference in your life.” Yoko Ono

          Show's over, but it doesn't have to stop here.

          If you liked this episode, you and me are probably kindred spirits.

          WHAT DO YOU THINK OF THIS WEEK'S EPISODE?

           Let me know!

          Ep 28: Why I Quit a Series

          Ep 28: Why I Quit a Series

          [TheChamp-Sharing]

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          This week's episode is sponsored by my “Why I Quit Writing” Video on Author Level Up. Learn more about my decision to quit my Sound Mage Sonata series. 

          SHOW NOTES

          In this week’s episode I talk about why I stopped writing my latest series and why I have no problem failing in public.

            Sound/Music Credits for this week's episode

            Intro/Outro Music: “Kick. Push” by Ryan Little.

            Sound Effects/Miscellaneous Credits:

             

            Sound effects courtesy of Freesound.org.

            TRANSCRIPT

            Sometimes you’ve just got to call it quits on a novel.

            I don’t normally believe in quitting, but in this week’s episode I’m going to talk about why I stopped writing my Sound Mage Sonata urban fantasy series, and how I failed miserably in public.

            ***

            Hello, and welcome to episode 28.

            I wanted to give you guys an update on my Sound Mage Sonata series.

            If you’ve been listening to the podcast for a while, you probably heard me talk about it a lot. Some of you wrote me and told me that you were interested in it.

            And then I stopped talking about it.

            Why?

            I take pride in the fact that I don’t usually quit my novels. I write them from start to finish, even when things get rough.

            I just prefer to finish what I start, and I’m always glad that I did when I look back on the project.

            But this project proved too difficult for me to continue.

            In episode 3, I talked about the research I was doing for the Sound Mage Sonata series. I talked about the research I’d done into Islam, Dubai, Middle Eastern customs and culture, and music.

            At this point I had spent a fair number of hours on research and I had a lot to show for it.

            I was about 10,000 words into the novel when I hit a roadblock. At first, I couldn’t figure out what it was.

            So I did some more research, and I discovered a problem.

            It would be a very bad idea to mix Muslims and magic together.

            In Islam, Magic is something to be feared. It’s the mark of dishonesty. To even dabble with it invites danger into your life, and it is frowned upon. Now, not all Muslims feel this way, but I started researching magic use and Muslims and most sources I found agreed.

            That was a problem because my main character was a Muslim and he used magic. I mean, you can’t have urban fantasy without magic.

            So I had a problem.

            ***

            I played around with the idea of inventing a religion instead—but that didn’t work because the setting was very clearly in a city inspired by Dubai. To set something in a Middle Eastern setting and use any other religion than Islam just didn’t feel right. It also didn’t help that the story featured jinn prominently.

            I couldn’t put jinn in the story without the culture that they came from. While that works for Western mythology and creatures, it doesn’t really work for Middle Eastern folklore, at least not in a way that feels genuine.

            I realized it would be exceedingly difficult to do this story without crossing some kind of line.

            It’s important to me that my stories are inclusive and not misappropriation in any way, so I ultimately made the decision to quit writing the series until I could make it work. And in order to do that, I’d have to do a lot more research, something that would require travel and a lot of time I didn’t have.

            So I stopped.

            That was a career first for me, but it’s important to me that I write stories that respect my readers. The last thing I want to do is offend or insult someone who has spent their hard earned money on my work—at least not intentionally.

            But I learned a lot of things about the Middle East that I can use for future novels, and I look forward to that day.

            Until then, the Sound Mage Sonata series is going in my someday pile.

            Sometimes failure happens. I definitely failed with this series.

            I mean, I talked about it in public, put myself out there. Most people would wait until the book was done before talking about it.

            I definitely failed in public in front of all of you guys, but it doesn’t bother me. I don’t really see it as a failure. In fact, the idea that I failed never even occurred to me until I was writing this episode. I learned a lot about a culture, wrote 10,000 words of a novel, and ultimately made a hard decision with my readers in mind. That’s a win in my mind, and practice for the next time something like this happens.

            So at the end of the day, I’m going to keep on keeping on, and I’m going to write a new urban fantasy series that I know you guys will love.

            QUOTE OF THE WEEK

             

            “Success is not final, failure is not fatal: it is the courage to continue that counts.” Winston Churchill

            Show's over, but it doesn't have to stop here.

            If you liked this episode, you and me are probably kindred spirits.

            WHAT DO YOU THINK OF THIS WEEK'S EPISODE?

             Let me know!