This is MJ. I'm an author, I'm an artist, I'm an analyzer. You can find all my work
at MJMunoz.com. Welcome to... I was gonna do something else... Welcome to Story Over
Everything, episode 26. This is gonna be airing July 7, 2023. The subject is
Robugtales audiobook number three. I will warn you that the audiobook that
you're about to hear from me is subject to change and that's because I do not
necessarily have the story finalized. It's probably 90% close but you know if
I find any more errors in proofreading or anything like that I will correct
those and if anything changes in the process of me finishing my Robugtales
book, short book, novel, I don't know what to call it, chapter book. Chapter book is a good catch-all term.
Then I will make adjustments as needed. So this week has been kind of crazy for
me by the way. I'm feeling... I feel slightly guilty about making this episode
the way I'm making it but then again this is supposed to be the chronicles of an
author, artist, and analyzer and that's what I'm doing. I'm chronicling all these
things. So I've been for the most part for the last two weeks I believe drawing
six to seven days a week and writing six to seven days a week. There was one week
where I totally missed out on writing and drawing or one day where I totally
missed out on writing and drawing but I'm trying to build the habit for myself.
I've talked about this in previous episodes that I needed to cultivate this
discipline within myself so that I'm becoming well more of who I want to be.
I'm becoming the creative force that I want to be and this is the week of the
fourth July. I don't exactly know what happened or how I ran out of time but I
did run out of time to prep everything for story over everything over everything
like I wanted to. I did however take the time earlier this week to record Rex and
the Titanic tantrum and I published that on Ambiumunos.com and I thought you
know what I'm actually going to package that into an episode here on story over
everything. As part of my marketing and part of my plan for making myself as
widely known as possible and as I guess in whatever market I want to be for the
sub-genres of stuff that I'm writing I want to publish. I'm reading what I
want to write and I'm also publishing you know podcast review type stuff in
the fields that I want to be working in as well. So I'm talking about I want to
do a world of superheroes and that's kind of inspired by Tokusatsu
because that's a thing I'm into from Japan and I also have been inspired by a
lot of anime because I think anime has a lot of the anime that I've seen has
excellent writing in it which is based in the manga which is the comic books
right from Japan. So a lot of my influences are there so I'm reading that
stuff and that's informing my writing and I figure I may as well put myself in
those markets in those marketplaces offering commentary and discussion of
those things as well to stay relevant in that field. So I'm working in the genre
I'm reading the genre I'm writing the genre that's that's everything I'm doing
and Grow Bug Tales falls in a weird place with that it's kid lit I mean these
are children's picture books but the Grow Bug Tales chapter book tells a
bigger you know more mature story more encompassing even though it's also about
kids but they're you know Grow Bug kids which is strange but it's still it's
still you know it's you know it's Harry Potter it's I was gonna say young X-Men
but I don't think it's a thing I can't think of any other examples right now
but it's a group of young people learning to become the people that they'll go it's
the you know the Jedi Padawan books it's that kind of thing where it's you know
kids in school basically except they have to be grow bugs in this or the
new magical bugs in this instance who are learning lessons and facing crises
and learning things and growing into who they could be who they need to be so
it's you know that's what I'm writing but you know they're bugs they
transform in weird ways in the picture books with you know that feature them
teaming up with kids basically and in their own book they have these magical
powers with light that can do different things and anyway so yeah like I said
I'm putting myself in all these different areas and part of that scheme
is I need to make sure that the back end stuff for the podcast like I'm as wide
as possible and is widely distributed as possible I should say I also want to
publish wide but that's different as far as your books are concerned so as part
of my process I need to do all this back end work and it's kind of like I mean
it's there's a phrase buy once cry once and I think the said corollary or you
know finishing your third element that is and never cry again you know you
don't have to go through this again you buy once you cry once in the end then
you're done so I need to put in the effort I need to try once and cry once
as far as doing all the back end stuff on my podcast to get them as widely
distributed as possible so that being said all right so that is that being
said I also want to make sure that my grow bug tails children's fiction books
are available I do not possess the current art skill or rather I wouldn't
hire myself to do the art for this book that's true and her for these five books
actually into the six with the cover so I wouldn't hire myself to do the art for
these so I do need to hire somebody else but in order to hire somebody else I
need to get together capital get together funds for that I would like to
do a crowdfunding campaign however I'd like all six books to be done 100% as
far as the words are concerned I did storyboards for books one and two I
believe and books three four and five have no storyboards yet book six
doesn't need storyboards however I do believe that the way I describe the
scenes it'd be pretty you know it wouldn't it'd be minimal work to go
through and make storyboards from that or he just left the artist do it we'll
see how the first two books go but anyway because I need to have the books
completely done I've decided to read them aloud and record that and put them
out as audiobooks and when I've done this sort of thing in the past I found
that reading aloud your writing enables you to discover terrible mistakes that
you made in the writing and fix it so the Ava and the grow book book which
that's no longer what it's called was written and recorded months ago it was
written a long time ago but it was recorded and put up on the website
months ago Rex and the Titanic tantrum is going up or has gone up this week and
it will be included there included in this recording the next couple weeks of
story over everything I will see how much time I have I will try to over the
course of the next three weeks and hopefully by that last well I hope for
the next couple weeks to release one by one if I can if I have enough time the
other the remaining books which no I won't have enough time I'll have to
double up somewhere but anyway I will double up somewhere I'm gonna release
all four or sorry by the time July's over I will have published and released
to the website all of the girl book books in fact you know I'm gonna call
an audible right now I'm gonna put grow bug book one and grow a book two in this
recording grow book book three is the longest so it might be on a solo
episode next week and then two weeks from now which will be the third Friday
of July I will have published hopefully by then four and five and then the final
week of July I will go ahead and do my children's I will do my skimming
leaves casual book chat about George McDonald's the princess and Kirti which
is I believe it's called the first book in his duology there is called the
princess and the Goblin the second book is called the princess and Kirti and
it's well the first book is excellent my daughter has read them both she says
they're amazing and that the second one is so much better than the first so
here's hoping that you know I enjoy and you enjoyed as much as she did or more
and it's that much better than the princess and the Goblin but anyway so
yeah that's the plan and after that long preamble I'm letting you know that I you
know to recap I'm letting you that I've you know how much I've been working on
writing and I'm almost done with chapter 8 of grow bug tales which is the chapter
book telling a larger story of the grow bugs it includes cameos basically of the
five heroic grow bug guardians from the grow bug tales books that near the grow
bug picture books and then it has its own cast of characters as well who are
exclusive to this chapter book and who have a bigger story it the more I'm
doing the better I'm liking what's going on and the more I'm liking this pair of
antagonists or protagonists that I have sharing this grow bug tales chapter
book story and as soon as I'm done I'm almost done with chapter 8 but in in
this last in the last stages of chapter 8 I'm setting up kind of the rest of the
book and I'm really solidifying that this cricket and moth grow bug who are the
stars of it basically I'm really setting them up and like presenting them and and
putting them in a position of prominence and then the following chapters there's
going to be basically a war and invasion by these things that want to kill the
grow bugs and it's a fight for survival and it's gonna be really exciting stuff
so I don't know somewhere between a quarter and a third of the book I guess
there's only 12 chapters and there's five so okay almost half of the book is
kind of it's retelling the story of the grow bug picture books from the
perspective of the grow bugs that are featured in each one of those books and
then they're imparting wisdom and lessons learned to the grow bug cadets
like I said who are the focus of who are the actual focus of this book but it's
all kind of an ensemble type thing and I'm feeling really good about that so
anyway without further ado I'm gonna go ahead and present to you grow bug book
one which is Rex and the Titanic tantrum and grow bug book two which was formerly
called Ava and the grow bug but is now called Ava and the radiant rescue so I
hope you enjoy those and I hope you look forward to hearing the rest of the grow
bug tales books from me as soon as possible and if you enjoy them I hope
that you will come back and support the crowdfunding campaign so I can get an
awesome artist to do really cool drawings for the book I am calm I am
calm Rex squirmed and kicked and yelled as his mom struggled to set him in the
bedroom I love you and I'm going to make sure we all stay safe I need to go check
on your sister I'll be back soon Rex's mom released him from her hug with a
kiss on the top of his head I don't need love Rex grumbled and scratched the kiss
off his head I need everyone to go away he flopped on the bed and screamed into
a pillow yes you don't need them a voice whispered as threads of silk streamed
around Rex a fat worm wriggled out from the back of his shirt and inched toward
his head Rex brushed at the worm but it stayed stuck to him while he groaned and
squawked in frustration a sleek mantis zipped back and forth snapping the silk
and threads with its arms and knocking the worm loose be gone foul creature the
mantis chirped the worm wrapped around the mantis and bit it Rex turned toward
the sudden noises he squeezed his eyes tightly closed as a bright flash filled
the room the mantis is light pulsed and dimmed Rex screamed and threw a pillow
as hard as he could moments later the weird bugs were in the trash and Rex was
hiding under the covers creeped out by the strange happening not long after
teeth prayers and songs Rex was fast asleep buzz thump buzz thump thump buzz
Rex stirred as the sounds grew closer and louder the furious buzz stopped and
something thudded against his door I know where you are little one a voice
hissed now which Rex bonked his head when he scrambled to get out from his
hiding place under the bed Rex ducked and swiped at the glowing mantis
darting around and rushing at him he jumped to a pile of toys and threw
everything he could at his attacker with a toy sword he whacked the mantis
against the wall scared it would come back again he stomped on it until it
stopped glowing you won't come back this time Rex chuckled and closed the
bathroom door behind him Rex tiptoed to the kitchen and said I think I deserve a
little snack after all that Rex hummed himself as he busily worked on finishing
the last expansion of his dinosaur jungle the palm tree leaves he was
holding suddenly grows so big and heavy that he dropped them then he fell splash
into a sticky orange puddle he ran from the puddle of orange juice and climbed
over a giant chip how did this happen Rex talked at the life-sized shiny
plastic jungle that surrounded him the whole jungle shook and toy dinosaurs
jumped and jiggled as something big came tromping towards Rex he dove between
boulders and held the palm leaves in place over himself as the enormous
thing click clack clicked closer each moment a shadow fell over Rex the jungle
was still and quiet suddenly the palms pulled up and away he panicked and held
on as tightly as he could Rex dangled in front of the snapping mandibles of a
gigantic blazing mantis he let go and fell hard to the green plastic floor
silken threads wrapped around him and he bumped across the ground a spider sailed
overhead and landed in front of the mantis what happened to you ya the
spider called to the raging mantis the two giants tangled knocking almost every
block dinosaur and blockman in the jungle Rex watched in disbelief as ya
shot fire at the spider the spider circled ya faster and faster until the
mantis was trapped in the web kill it kill it
Rex shouted no the spider answered why not Rex pleaded something the spider
struggled with the writhing mantis is wrong ah in a flash the spider darted
in bit ya hey Rex cried out in shock thank you twang ya said to the spider
what's wrong with him Rex asked it must be the vexivore ya answered as the
spider reeled and stumbled I removed it now it is trying to control me twang the
spider fell be strong don't give in the mantis glowed shining a warm light on
the spider your light gives me strength twang answered what's happening Rex
wind now concerned for twang and no longer afraid of ya the mantis turned
to Rex and after a moment explained a vex tried to hurt you I came here to
stop it but the vex controlled me my friend twang knew we were both in danger
and came to save us what is a vex what did I do to it
Rex asked staring at the floor of X eats anger and hate they can use people like
farms to grow and harvest enough to feed many of their kind Rex looked over at
the spider look the vex cannot live because twang is so full of the light of
love love burns away the anger and hate twang vanished like a candle burning out
actually normal selves Rex and ya talked until the boy was falling asleep
remember what we talked about ya said I will I will be strong like twang Rex
yawned I know you will you're a good kid Rex and you're a good grow bug ya I'll
be praying for you and your friends Rex waved and closed his eyes ya flew off
looking for another little boy or girl to help face the night like the grow bugs
always had and always would the end much to learn I still have so in the process
of making this episode I realized that I do not have an audio only backup of Ava
and the grow bug I can access it through my podcast distributor but it doesn't
seem like I can download it from them so I'm gonna need to make sure I keep
backups for all of this for all these recordings that I'm making because I
can't always rely on them and I even looked on the YouTube channel apparently
I did not put even the grow bug on YouTube I only have it here on the audio
podcast format and that does not help me at all because now I cannot access it I
think I'll have to do a re-recording of Ava and the radiant rescue so lessons
learned and I guess that's a something to share with all of you make sure if
you're doing something like this you keep backups of all your data because now
I'm kind of lost and I can't I gotta go back on my word and I can't do what I
wanted to do if I want to release this in the timely manner so here we are
again I hope you enjoyed Rex and the Titanic tantrum and if you have any input
on it I'd love to hear it from you and please look forward to me progressing
and becoming a better content creator content producer and presenter as well
so anyway until next time folks take care this is MJ signing out I hope you
enjoyed that go to MJMunoz.com to leave any questions comments or other
feedback you might have there you can find all of my analysis art and fiction I
cover books tokusatsu comic books anime and more look around you're sure to find
something else that you'll enjoy as well this has been a story over everything
production