Life
It’s been a whirlwind of a month. In the first week, I had a handful of finals for the spring semester, accompanied by the usual bittersweet feelings of the ending of classes that I enjoyed. There wasn’t much time to ruminate on it, though. Since the professional program I have been working towards was to start at the end of the month (this week, at time of writing), I had a couple precious weeks between the semester’s end and the program’s beginning to complete any and all around-the-house projects that we could manage.
We had big dreams at first. We were going to add a butcher block shelf over our laundry machines to make the room more functional and organized. We were going to steam the peeling wallpaper in our bathroom (it was there when we bought the house) and get it repainted. We were even going to design and construct a wooden playset for the boys in the back yard!
Needless to say, we didn’t get to all of that. It wasn’t just because these were impractical and overly ambitious plans, though. Apparently when a school program is aggressive enough, it’s allowed to start before it starts. In my case, one of the classes for the program starting at the end of May had over 100 pages of textbook to read, 3 homework assignments, and a day-1 exam to prep for—all in the weeks just prior to the program actually starting. For what it’s worth, I took it in stride. Took the reading a bit at a time and divided up the homework into manageable chunks. But, in the end, this unexpected coursework cost us all but the laundry room project.
The program officially started this week. It definitely seems like it’s going to command a lot of my time and attention, but if I make sure and keep organized and disciplined, I should be able to manage some writing alongside it. If I play my cards right, I’ll be able to use writing as a break from school and vice versa.
Writing
Not the most exciting month in terms of writing, but far from a bad one. I finished my latest pass on The Damned Earth and have put the (still pretty rough) copy in the hands of a couple of alpha readers. To be honest, I was pretty down about the draft going through it this time around (a normal part of any writer’s cycle of loving-then-hating-then-loving their work), but after a bit of feedback from those readers, I am feeling a little more up-beat about it. I am, however, growing concerned that a 2023 release may not be plausible for it, since there is still a lot to do to make the book as good as I want it to be. It’s all going to come down to how much time I can find in between things with that professional program.
While I give The Damned Earth some time to simmer in the back of my mind and in the hands of those alpha readers, I have also been working on some more serious outlining for the book I want to draft next. I don’t really have a working title for it yet, so I’ll just call it Book 1 of Neon Arcana, which is the name I’ve decided on for the series as a whole. It’s going to be a cyberpunk fantasy (you read that right) trilogy about a group of people trying to escape a robotic extermination system in a planet-wide city controlled by god-like AIs. There’s a whole lot going on in it that I can’t tease just yet, but my current plan is to work on drafting that first book during the latter half of this year.
Can’t think of anything else to report. Hope you all are doing well and thank you so much for reading.
Cheers!
L.A. Morton-Yates
I enjoy the updates. I was sorry to hear we missed you when you came to town.