Life
It's been another busy month, although not all with writing. We closed on the sale of our house and made further progress in making our new house feel like home. Part of that was some work on my office space, which was in dire need of some shelving to make room for my books. With those up, I feel like it is really starting to come together. My wife had the brilliant idea of making a little reading nook in one of the unused corners for the boys so that they can have a place to hang out nearby while I write without getting into stuff. It's been a very nice addition and they love it so far! Here’s a picture:
I've started to attend a local chess club this month, which has been a really engaging and humbling experience, depending on the day. Every time I come home from it I tell myself "I'm going to play more chess this week. Maybe I'll actually get good someday." And then real life reminds me the following morning that doing so would take time and that I already have quite a few things vying for my attention. But regardless of my ability to regularly get study time in on my favorite openings, I think that it's completely worth my time to keep going to the club. Who knows? Maybe someday I'll have more time to devote to it.
In other news, my wife and I have begun playing Sea of Thieves, a game that plays a lot like a pirate life simulator. It's a very different sort of game than I normally play, but the mixture of moments of calm (sailing across calm seas to a distant island), moments of tension (seeing another player's sails on the horizon when you're loaded down with treasure), and moments of excitement (sea battles, boarding actions, etc) really make for a unique experience that I haven't had anywhere else. Another thing I like about it is that every time you set sail you don't know what's going to happen—you can tell a new story about you and your crew each time.
Writing
Hmm? The writing? Oh. The writing.
Well.
Best way to put it is that it's been a month. Though I felt really ready to dive into draft 2 for The Damned Earth (the apocalyptic sci-fi novel that I am currently revising) at the end of last month, when I sat down to actually start writing I just… couldn't. I could figure out how to start. Couldn't find my character's voice. I outlined the first three episodes (chapters, but I'm calling them episodes because I am hoping to release it first on Kindle Vella, a platform for serials) at least twice, maybe more. I just couldn't get going.
As I usually do when writing isn't working, I started to struggle emotionally by the middle of the month, at which time my wife suggested that I work on a short story to get the juices flowing again. As usual, this was a great recommendation. In the past, I've often used short stories as a gateway to get back into the groove of putting words on a page, and somehow my wife figured this out about me. (I'm sure our eight years of marriage had nothing to do with it.)
So after about a week I pounded out a short story set in a new cyberpunk fantasy world (yes, it's a strange combination) that I was pretty happy with. In fact, I plan to eventually write a book or a few in that world now because it really resonated with me. (Might be a few years, though. Have a few other books in the planning stages that probably take precedence.)
And so there I was, back in the rhythm of writing. Sure, it took until the 20th or so to actually start on the thing that I had intended to be doing since day 1, but really who's counting? Right?
Right?
I've now gotten the first three episodes drafted, but I'm not entirely sure I'm out of the woods as far as the block is concerned. Having written these characters before, there is previous content that I'm supposed to be matching them to (or deliberately changing them from) and I'm not sure I've quite gotten the character voices ironed out yet. But as long as the words are flowing and my outline is generally being followed, I'm calling that a problem for draft 3. I'm sure Future Me will be able to figure it out. (Sorry, guy. It's just one of those things.)
On another front, I've begun serious research and planning for the marketing side of my December 17th release of Bittersouls. Since I'm going the indie publishing route, there are a lot of things to learn and a lot of aspects about the business side of writing that, until recently, I didn't know I didn't know. I keep telling myself that, as my first book release, I'm bound to make some mistakes and that this is exactly the time to make them. Future releases will inevitably go smoother and require less effort in the research simply because I will be going into them with a lot more experience. That's not to say I'm not doing the best that I can, though. With the amount of information out there about almost any subject, you can read yourself dizzy trying to learn every dimension and aspect of it. In this case, since I have both my pride and some amount of money on the line (or potential money, if I want to look at income that way), it would be easy for me to get overwhelmed and just go catatonic, deciding it isn't worth it anymore.
And to that, I say "nonsense!"
All that to say that progress, however slow, is occurring. So long as I keep moving forward and learning each step as I go, I think I should have everything in place before December rolls around.
If you've made it this far and happen to be interested in reading that new short story (tentatively called "Chasing Light"), drop me a comment or shoot me an email and I promise I'll get it to you sometime during the next month (just need to polish it a bit first).
As always, thanks for reading and I hope to see you again next month!
Sincerely,
L.A.
Cover Image from https://unsplash.com/photos/cxoR55-bels?utm_source=unsplash&utm_medium=referral&utm_content=creditShareLink
You know I want to read your short story!
Of course I want to read your new short story! :) Mom