Drunken Owls and Other Delights

Midweek stuff and bother

Wed, 29 Oct 2025 15:56:10 GMT

The schedule for the Day Job continues to be all kinds of wonky with cut hours at the worst possible time of the year, so perhaps I'll need to speak with the boss again about getting more of them somehow, or alternately being a bit more active about helping me get a store transfer. I'm really not sure what level of management has made this decision or if it's due to the tariffs of The Fuckwit (yes, I still refer to him as that), but I can tell you that it's going to bite us in the ass if we hit peak Christmas volume with the slimmest of teams. [This is exactly what happened two years in a row back when I worked at Yankee, so yeah, I speak from experience.]

I'm not entirely thrilled either that I'm doing a weird shift today (another 12:30 - 9pm) but am a bit more thankful that it's all mornings next week. Still... going from 40 hours a week to 24-28 a week within the span of a few months is not a good sign. And it's not just me, I know other coworkers who are getting their hours cut...but I'm also seeing newer hires getting more hours as well, so I'm also inclined to think that the secondary problem is closer to home and not being given the proper attention. And to be honest, I'm really getting tired of being the only one to bring it up with the boss all the time.

ANYWAY. November is coming up fast and I'm trying to do my best at raising the bar with my creative endeavors. It's been a few months since our Big Move, and I'm itching to get back to my blogging, journaling and writing schedule, not to mention actively looking (no really, I mean it this time) into other outlets I'm interested in and could possibly expand on. Instead of deciding this deep into the final weeks of December, I figure this time out I'll prep myself a few months ahead of time, that way when the new year kicks in, I'll be up and ready to go.

Time will tell...

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ends and beginnings

Sun, 31 Dec 2023 23:05:50 GMT

So for the first time in a number of years, I've chosen not to do a year-end mixtape or best-of list. I went into this a bit over at Walk in Silence, but the tl;dr is that it had nothing to do with the music and all to do with my own lack of connection with the new releases. Don't get me wrong, there were a LOT of really great albums and singles that dropped...but I'd just been too distracted to let any of it stick with me for any length of time. I'm a bit bothered by that to tell the truth, because that's not my normal state of musical obsession. The distraction was that in itself: I was too obsessed with the acquisition and not enough with the enjoyment, and I want that to change.

The interesting thing is that I came to that realization when I was making the mixtape soundtrack for Queen Ophelia's War. My aim for that mix was to recreate the moods I'd find myself in when I'd listen to bands like Cocteau Twins back in the day; something that would take me on an aural journey and spark my imagination and creativity. And in the process, I'd realized that I'd been so focused on picking up new things that I'd lost that drive to find music like that. Quite some time ago, actually.

So that's one resolution for the new year: to appreciate what interests, inspires and influences me for more than a few dopamine-fueled moments. I want to go back to that, not just because it's pleasurable but because it's what drives me as a creative person.

Speaking of dopamine-fueled moments, tonight is when I'm finally putting my Twitter into cold storage. Short of deleting it all and someone possibly yoinking my handle, I'm just putting it on complete lockdown and posting maybe once in a while to remind others where I can be found. I'll skip on describing how much interest I've lost in it over the last couple of years and just say that I have no real use for the site anymore. Most of my writer and IRL friends can be found elsewhere these days, anyway. One less thing to distract me, really.

So. Any other resolutions?

I'd like to walk to/from work more often. I stopped only because we'd had a long stretch of crappy weather followed by the exhaustion of Christmas Retail. And maybe head to the gym again? It's been far too long. I'm in pretty good shape these days considering how much walking I do at work (I can log 3-4 miles just in one eight hour shift some days), but there's always room for improvement. I still want to be more flexible, however. I know I'm getting older and my joints are getting a bit creaky, but that's no reason not to try to work on keeping in shape, yeah?

I'd like to continue working on having a healthier emotional outlook. I've been doing pretty good lately but I do still slide into bouts of complaining about stupid things (work, annoying people, Republicans, etc.) and when I'm sick of my own complaining, that's a good sign that others are probably sick of it as well. Not that I'm aiming to be insufferably chipper or being the peacemaker all the time, far from it. Just working on knowing the difference between when it's warranted and when to Let It Go and Move On.

I'd like to work on rekindling my love for other creative outlets, namely music and art. I've been focusing so much on my writing for so long that the other two have fallen by the wayside. I have art supplies gathering dust here in Spare Oom. I have guitars here that are dusty and out of tune. I have a keyboard here that's currently used as a storage shelf. I was thinking it's time to relearn how to play piano -- I know the basics thanks to lessons when I was a kid, but I'd like to be able to walk up to a keyboard (or a piano in the park when they have them) and play something impressive instead of just a passing line or two. Will I find the time? Well, I have to make time for it, won't I? Otherwise they'll never get started!

There's more I'd like to do, but I'll get into them at a later date here.

In the meantime, wishing all of you a hopeful, creative and peaceful 2024!

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Weekend updatery

Sun, 29 Aug 2021 23:38:10 GMT

Oh THANK GOODNESS my back is no longer hurting. It still gets sore if I lie in bed the wrong way (oddly enough, not on the side which hurts, but the opposite side, and it hurts because my arm rests because where the hell else is it gonna go...the excitement of being An Old...sigh). This does mean that I'll be able to return to my stretches without worrying that I'll twitch the wrong way and be writhing in pain on the floor.

And yeah, it's the end of the month which of course means Hey Let's Try to Start Next Month Off on A Positive Productive Note again. I say this pretty much in light humor, because I always have the best of intentions when the month starts. I don't always make it all the way to the end for one reason or another, but I've finally grown out of feeling guilty about that. At this point I'm just happy that I'm making the effort and that I'm moving in the right direction with the things I'm working on. The less I let myself sink into that particular mire the better, right?

So, *do* I have any plans for next month? I do! Some may end up being Best Laid Plans, but a lot of them are long-term plans and it's high time I set them in motion. The theme here is pretty much What Am I Waiting For?

So. Let's get things started, shall we?

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Weekend Update, In Which I Make More Best Laid Plans

Sun, 13 Jun 2021 22:42:09 GMT

...and as you know, by "Best Laid Plans" I mean "I have a fantastic idea that I'm going to implement immediately *crash* *implode*" plans, especially when I jinx them by talking about them online before I've even put them into action.

ANYWAY! I had a nice talk with a creative friend the other day that had me thinking: The Daily Schedule has been working wonderfully since I implemented it a month or so ago. I don't follow it to the letter, but nor do I completely ignore it unless I have a good reason (such as being on vacation or on an outside errand or New Music Release Friday) (heh). In fact, I've noticed I've been starting a few of the items earlier than scheduled lately because I've wanted to do them right away. For example, writing in my personal journal has been at 9:30 am for ages but I've been hitting it closer to 8:30 am because I just want to get the creative day started. Conversely, I find that if I start my morning writing session at the scheduled 10:30am, it feels too l late and I've wasted enough time already.

Point being, it's been going so well that a) I should update the Daily Schedule, and b) I think I can ramp it up a little more.

This means reimplementing the whiteboard calendar schedule. That for the most part has been kind of quiet on purpose as I had myself get used to focusing mostly on the Daily Assignments (so to speak). In other words, I'd focused one day at a time to get used to the micro part of my productivity, and now that I've got that down, I can return to adding focus to the macro part of it as well.

The whole reason for all this isn't necessarily to Do All the Things, even though it seems that way. The primary reason is to Get Better At It. I've gotten so much better at my writing over the last ten years and I'm quite proud of that, but I still want to get better at the music and the art, especially in certain facets of it where I can use it for Career Purposes. Better short stories so I can submit them to magazines and anthologies. Better photography so I can upload pictures to Shutterstock. Better artwork so I can create a portfolio for storyboarding work. Better music so I can write better songs to share.

What's so different this time out, though? Didn't I go through this multiple times in the past? Well, I think this time out it's because I think I've managed to purge the admittedly toxic mindset ingrained in the past me that I Must Be The Best At It. Somewhere along the line I picked up a bad habit that I had to go further, go bolder and louder in order to be bankable. You can kind of see it in the Bridgetown Trilogy, in which it's such a BIG STORY that keeps expanding and getting bigger as the story goes on. (The released versions have been tamed back considerably from the rough drafts, but you can still see it in places.)

Right now I'm thinking, you know, maybe I don't have to crunch everything I do? All I really need to do is write a good story, a publishable one, I don't have to break my back and brain and pour 1000% into it every single day thinking I have to win a marathon every single time. I can have fun with it too! And more importantly, focusing on the same task for six or seven hours at a stretch is actually quite exhausting, especially a creative task. So working on multiple projects -- the photography, the music, one scene each on multiple works in progress, a for-fun 750Words entry purely for working out ideas or playing out new ones, an occasional poem, and keeping up with submissions and freelance work -- doing all that over the course of eight or so hours isn't so bad. Some of it's fun, some of it's deep-focus, but doing that over the course of one day is something I can do (and have done before).

Also, let's lay this out now: I need to be busy so I'm not fucking around online wasting time. Not that I'm spending my entire day ragetweeting or watching cat videos or whatever, just that I'm still feeling the occasional level of distraction that I can do away with. I don't need to disconnect the internet, nor do I want to; I just need something else to occupy my brain when things slow down, otherwise I get physically and mentally lazy. I'm pretty sure part of that is an undiagnosed-ADD thing, and assigning myself things in this manner is the perfect workaround. It's worked in the past, so I know it'll work now.

So are you going to see more DW posts than just on Sundays? Maybe? Perhaps not right away as I get used to a heavier load, but who knows. You may even see a return of the twice-a-week blog posts over at Welcome to Bridgetown and Walk in Silence!

And now that I've posted all this, I'm waiting for it all to implode on schedule. Heh.

In the meantime, hope everyone has a great week! :)

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Weekend Chill

Mon, 21 Dec 2020 01:13:29 GMT

Well, I did manage to get some work done last week, so I don't feel too bad about that. I've been using the 750 Words to play around with some outtakes for Theadia, and that's helping me get a bit closer to the story. This one's turning out to be quite unlike anything I've written before, so it's taking me some time to figure it all out. And this is why I'm working on multiple projects at once. I've a feeling Theadia is going to take a lot of time, so in the meantime I'll be trying my hand at the fourth Mendaihu Universe book (aka MU4). That one is still a little twitchy, but I'm gaining more ground on that one.

Meanwhile, it's now Christmas week and this is the first time since my school days where I've had the end of the year off. I'm just going to roll with it and enjoy it, because come January I've got some major things I want to embark on. We've got all our gift packages out and it seems the only two that haven't gotten to their destination is my family and one of our friends, but we're okay with that...as long as they get there in one piece! And yes, we have now embarked on the holiday movies, documentaries and whatnot. Yay!

Hope everyone has a lovely holiday!

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Weekend Updatery

Mon, 28 Sep 2020 01:26:40 GMT

Well! Here I am, posting on another Sunday evening, pleasantly surprised that I've kept to my new whiteboard schedule for the most part! Welcome to Bridgetown and Walk in Silence are both getting updated, I've been getting some practice on my guitars, and I've even been getting some drawing done! (I missed one day on the art, but that's okay, it was Friday and I was distracted by all the New Music Releases. Heh.)

The best part is that I've successfully kicked off the prep work for the New Project, which I've codenamed Theadia. It's the waystation story that I've mentioned in the past, and I've been spending the week writing out some world building ideas and rules using my daily words over at 750. I'm of course a little nervous because I don't want to mess it up, especially considering how successful the process of writing Diwa & Kaffi was once I figured it all out. I just want to make sure this one is just as successful, because I really love the idea. Especially considering I'd unexpectedly come up with a fantastic plot idea to run with!

My long term plan is to heighten the focus on my creativity. I don't know where it will lead me, but I've got the time and the drive to do it, and I have absolutely no reason not to follow through now. I know I've been my own worst enemy in the past -- y'know, Best Laid Plans versus Follow-Through and all that -- but this time I want to prove to myself that I can make this happen. I did it before to some degree when I prepped and self-pubbed the trilogy, doing everything on my own, so it's really a matter of self-belief and self-confidence. And now that I've let myself have more of that lately, there's no reason I can't do it again.

Here's to hoping...!

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Post-Job Plans

Sun, 29 Mar 2020 22:30:07 GMT

Two more days, that's all. I'm not really feeling irritated, or worried, or much of anything, to be honest, and I think that jives with how I truly feel about the Day Job, how I've felt about it for a long while. I never subscribed to the whole 'we're one big family' thing in the first place, to be honest. I can usually suss out that sort of connection early on in a job, and I never felt it there. Sure, I got along just fine with nearly everyone I directly worked with for the most part (there are a few related-but-not-on-my-team associates who irritated me, I'll be honest), but I kept a certain distance on purpose. I didn't know how long I was going to last there, or when I was going to get off my ass and move on. It had nothing to do with them, I just didn't want to get too close. One of my coworkers opined on Friday that they weren't able to give me a send-off party, but I said I didn't want one anyway.

[To be honest, the only job I can think of where I truly connected with my coworkers was Yankee Candle, and I had some pretty cool friends there, a few of whom I'm sort of still in touch with, even though it's been fifteen years since I left.]

So what am I doing come Wednesday? A good question indeed. I've been sleeping pretty well over the last few weeks (knock on wood) so it's not as if I'm going to immediately start sleeping in. Nor do I want to end up screwing around on the internets and wasting all my time. If anything, I'll be waking up roughly about the same time I always do, and putting in a full day of various projects, exercise, job searching, and writing. I'll take it easy and relish the time I have off, but I'm going to try not to waste all that time being lazy and doing nothing.

--Exercise. I've always complained about how sedentary I've been over the years, so if I can start some kind of habit where I move around every now and again, that will be good. Doing some stretches, going for a walk around the neighborhood.

--Not getting lost in my own head. This is a big thing, because when I'm not keeping my mind active and/or busy, It tends to go off on emotional tangents. I'll lock onto some anxiety or concern and start playing it out in full 3-D action, even if logic and reality would have it go otherwise. I've been quite good with this over the last five or so years, but it helps not to let myself slide back into that sort of habit without me noticing.

--Being creative about my job searches. Sure, I can go through the usual front desk job listings and the AP/AR positions and office management and all that, but let's remember: I'm starting with a tabula rasa here. Why not get creative? Look for companies and non-profits related to the arts. Look for openings at colleges.

--And this is a BIG one: remember all those moments of This is something I'd like to do if I only had time? WELL. Now's the time. I've got a handful of creative outlets that have been on the "when I have time" list for far too long. Let's try some of them out. One never knows if I might actually have some bankable talent with them! (More on this in a future post...)

--Writing! Of COURSE I will be spending a lot of time writing, but I need to be judicious about it. I can spend an hour or two writing some blog posts and journals and whatnot, but mostly it'll be the Long Game planing I'll be working on. Working on the Diwa & Kaffi submission, planning my next projects, looking for possible freelance on the side for pocket money, that sort of thing.

...and maybe somewhere in there, I can relax and just...be. If just for a while, anyway.

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Weekend Update is Cold

Sat, 22 Dec 2018 18:14:06 GMT

Happy Winter Solstice! Yay for longer days ahead! It's surprisingly clear out in the Richmond this morning, and a bit chilly. It was in the mid-40s when I woke up this morning and it's getting ever so slightly warmer, but I've got the heat going. All the Christmas shopping is done, the packages from friends and family have arrived, and we don't have anything else planned other than going to see Into the Spiderverse in Japantown later this morning. Other than that, we'll just be doing a lot of relaxing.

It does feel weird to be coming into the last-week-and-change of the year. December flew by so quickly! I'm not exactly complaining, mind you. I did get a lot done, prepped myself with future plans, and so on. There's only a few things left for me to do: coast through the last few days of year for the Day Job (which I'm hoping will be deadski) and make my end of year mixtape and best-of lists. I may even do what I've been threatening to do the last few weeks: do a bit of a book purge! I need to clean up our bookshelves in Spare Oom as they're full to overflowing with books I haven't read in years. (And speaking of cleaning up, I think I need to tidy up Spare Oom closet as well. There's a lot of my crap in there I could get rid of as well.)

But yeah...lots of long term plans being put in place for 2019. Looking forward to them.

Hope everyone has a relaxing weekend!

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Midweek Update Is Thinking of the Future

Wed, 12 Dec 2018 23:48:45 GMT

And quite a bit lately, it seems. And being quite evasive about the details as well. Yeah, I know. It sounds like I'm pulling the "HEY I'VE GOT A SECRET but I'm not going to tell you what it is" and I apologize if it's annoying the hell out of you. My evasiveness is partly due to not wanting to share Best Laid Plans Which Will Soon After Go Kerflooey, but it's also due to that a lot of things are indeed up in the air and not solid yet.

I've said on my writing blog recently that I've been tempted to take a year off from writing, social media, and other things. Not as an escape or as a detox (not at this point, anyway), but just to take stock in where I am in my life. I've been tempted to reinvent myself over the last few months. Well, maybe not *reinvent* per se...more like get myself more attuned to who I truly am rather than the person I'm trying to portray here. If that makes sense? There's so much mental and emotional baggage I still have that I don't need anymore, and I've been doing a hell of a lot of purging of it lately, and it feels GREAT. I'm going in the right direction. And the reason I've been thinking of Taking a Year Off is because this is something I don't want to live-tweet or live-blog. I want as little outside influence for this, because that's always been one of my worst enemies. [There's a reason "doing the right thing despite outside influence" has been a common theme in all my novels! Heh.]

Anyway. I don't plan on becoming a hermit. I just don't plan on filling up my dance card with a ridiculous amount of things for 2019. Just a few Very Important things (such as New Day Job acquisition) and not much else. I want to see where this all goes.

Hope everyone's having a lovely week!

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Weekend Update Returns to the Fold

Sun, 25 Nov 2018 23:37:57 GMT

I'm glad I decided to take a few weeks off from blogging and other things, as I definitely needed it. I let myself mentally calm down a bit and focus on the important personal things. I hated that I also had to do it due to Day Job stress, but I'm (hopefully) past that avalanche of work and I don't have to worry about it for now. Everything is relatively back to normal, so I'm going to return to our Regularly Scheduled Blog Posts.

[Speaking of Day Job: I haven't heard a peep yet out of the official move-back-to-office date, which is also relieving stress, but I'm too nervous to say anything about it for fear that I'll jinx it. *knocks on wood*]

The job search has been interesting. Due to being so busy the last few weeks I haven't submitted my resume nearly as much as I'd like to, but I've at least sent it once or twice a week when I find a posting that intrigues me. Right now I'm getting email notifications from a few websites (including Google itself -- and I've had some good hits with it!) and now and again I'll pop onto a corporate website and check their Careers links. I haven't had any responses as of yet, but I'm giving everyone a bit of a buffer time here, considering it's holiday season. I'm sure I'll hear from someone eventually. [I'm still seeing a number of those particular jobs posted, so I'm going to assume this is the case.]

Once I finally switch jobs, at that point I'll finally start implementing more changes to my life and writing that I've had in mind. Once I'm settled, then I can figure out a new writing regimen; I can figure out when I can hit the gym, when the insurance kicks in, and all that. I'm planning on 2019 being a year of personal change.

Anyhoo! Hope everyone had a peaceful Thanksgiving weekend, and has a good upcoming week!

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Weekend Update Returns Home in a Smiths Mood

Sun, 14 Oct 2018 01:20:35 GMT

Coming back from visiting my hometown, I'm reminded of why I used to listen to The Smiths so much in my teens and twenties. It wasn't so much about the people or the places, but I was struck -- quite heavily, actually -- by how much I've changed over the decades. Listening to the Smiths while I lived there as a kid and later as an adult (specifically songs like 'Reel Around the Fountain' and 'Back to the Old House', and of course 'How Soon Is Now'), they were a means of escape, much like most of the other alternative rock I listened to at the time. Years later, I'm nowhere near the person I used to be back then, on a lot of different levels. Part of it was getting married and A jostling me in the right direction, sure, but a lot of it was deeply embedded wishes, plans and thoughts that I desperately wanted to follow up on and could finally do so. I remember posting on my old LJ some years ago about finally cutting ties with that part of my life. And VERY recently I've been making some serious personal changes in my life that has taken me further away from who I once was.

On the one hand, it was good to see friends and family, but on the other hand, I realized that I really don't have that much of a connection to that humdrum town or much of Massachusetts for that matter. Even Boston has changed considerably, to the point where I still love the city dearly but it's not the city as I remember it. (I don't want that city back, mind you -- I'm happy whenever a town or city evolves for the better.) It's really hard to maintain that connection at this point, because I can't play that old role anymore. I'm not saddened by this, mind you. Well, I am to some extent, especially when there is a certain level of stagnancy involved. But I feel that I've disconnected enough that whatever steps I take next, my past won't influence it.

It's a weird feeling, perhaps even depressing in its own way, but it's also a relief. I can look forward without looking back.

Glad to be back home here in SF. Hope everyone's having a nice weekend!

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Midweek Update Is Counting Down the Hours

Wed, 01 Aug 2018 19:54:17 GMT

Just a few more days until vacation, woohoo! Can't wait!

Had my midyear conversation with my boss at the Day Job and it got me thinking again about future plans. More to the point, thinking about the Day Job finally, after far too many years, being the writing career. It got me thinking about multiple things, really: the reason I've had a purposely mindless Day Job over the years in the first place (stable income, paying off bills, etc), why I hadn't yet made the jump to self-employed (stable income, paying off bills, etc...but also learning the craft to a much higher degree), and so on. I think the most obvious reason is that I just couldn't afford it. That reason always aggravates me on a deep level (which I won't go into at the moment)...but recently I've come to the conclusion that maybe, just maybe, if I make a solid plan, start networking, and stick at it, I can finally do it.

It's not that I hate the Day Job...I think it's just that I now feel that while it's steady income, it takes away from time that could be better used on what I really should be doing: writing, offering writing services (including basic editing and formatting), offering book cover services, and the occasional short-term assignments out there. It's something I very nearly did when we first moved out here to CA, but fell by the wayside once the national economy tanked. It's been too long in between.

Anyway. Time to look into this a little further.

Other news: I finally got around to collecting what I have so far of the Apartment Complex story, and much to my surprise and glee, I'm already at 54k words!! This is from three months' worth of writing five times a week. Not bad at all! I think it's probably going to be around 80k from my guess, and will be firmly placed in the YA Fantasy genre. I'm actually becoming quite proud of this particular project, for multiple reasons. One being that I was stubborn enough to keep at it despite multiple failed attempts! I'm looking forward to releasing this one in early 2019!

Hope everyone's having a good week! :)

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Midweek Update's Allergies Have Kicked In

Thu, 01 Mar 2018 18:55:16 GMT

So we've been having some weird weather of our own here in the Bay Area, and currently it's rainy and windy with signs that it'll probably stay that way for most of the day. Which means that anything currently blooming out there is blowing my way and getting me all stuffed up. Bleh!

Anyway...it's a new month, which means I get to take a quick look at my writing processes and see where I'm lacking and where I can do a bit of tweaking. I've been doing this sort of thing over the last few months, not so much as a business-minded 'how can I maximize productivity' but more along the lines of a personal 'how can I stop wasting my time doing pointless things' project. I like to streamline things so I can get it done quickly and easily, and I've always done this both in creative projects as well as the Day Job. [In fact, I've been doing a bit of that with the Day Job as well...I've come to the realization that I'm busting my ass as much as my coworkers are, and I think I've actually been pushing myself harder than I really need to, so I've been lightening my load where I can. I'm still getting the work done, I'm just no longer killing myself in the process.]

March plans to be quite busy on multiple fronts:

--FOGCon is the 9th - 11th, and I have two panels set up... one is a reading (I'm hoping to road-test some Apartment Complex Story passages) and another is a talk on self-publishing. I had a lot of fun doing this last year and hope to do it again in the future. Side note: it amuses me that I'm on the same reading panel as two big names: Katharine Kerr and Ellen Klages. Woo,go me! :p ]

--Two visits to the East Bay campus for the Day Job on the 8th and the 22nd. One's a group get-together and the other is the quarterly 'celebration of success' meeting (I always eyeroll when I have to refer to it as such).

--SF will have a 'March for Our Lives' on the 24th, for the Parkland school kids. A. and I definitely plan to be there to show our support.

Other than that...hopefully I can get some work in there!

Hope everyone's having a good week!

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Weekend Update Is Kind of Cold

Sat, 09 Dec 2017 23:34:00 GMT

The weather's been kind of odd here in the Bay Area as of late, kind of warm but not? It's pretty much clear skies out there right now, and it was cool but pleasant when we walked up to the bank earlier today. But given that Spare Oom faces north and thus doesn't get any sun at any point in the day, it's one of the coolest rooms in the apartment. I had the window open briefly to get some fresh air in, but had to close it as my fingers had started feeling numb from the cold!

Anyhoo...I've been keeping myself busy for most of the week while A was away on her mini-vacation. I've been continuing on my run of dealing with small errands and Stuff I've Been Putting Off in lieu of spending all that time writing and whatnot. I'm okay with that, considering that I'm not exactly wasting time doing frivolous things. Just getting things cleaned up, put in order, and so on. I'll most likely keep up with that for the rest of the month, just so I have a shorter to-do list come January.

So yes...as a matter of fact I do have a few ideas of what I want to do with 2018. I suppose the phrase du jour for me is 'upping my game'. Not so much with the writing process -- I think I'm FINALLY at a level I'm happy with and can consider professional -- but with the business end of things. It's something that kind of fell by the wayside in '17 due to writing and editing priorities, so that will take a much higher priority come the new year. Still not entirely sure how I'm going to approach it, but I'll definitely be more proactive about it. As A once said, the "I've tried nothing and it doesn't work" is not being proactive. So yeah...that's another reason I'll be kind of low-key about writing projects until the new year, so I can get a head start on this stuff.

Looking forward to a busy, productive, and proactive 2018. :)

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Weekend Update Has Plans

Sun, 16 Jul 2017 02:32:26 GMT

After a frustrating week on the Day Job -- no stressful situations, just a ridiculous volume to slog through -- my best laid plans for having a writing session on Friday evening fell by the wayside. Instead we watched the insanity that is Nichijou (a good example of the inherent absurdity of this anime can be seen here). Ten out of the thirty some-odd episodes. It's quite ridiculous and fun. And the opening and ending themes are very catchy!

That said...having a nice relaxing weekend so far, recharging and planning ahead. We'll be heading to London for a few weeks at the end of the month so we're both going through our projects to see what to bring along and what to put behind. I will most likely be working on Secret Next Project during this time, as I won't be bringing my laptop but will be bringing along my tablet and/or Nook. Sure, I'm a little nervous about being away from the Lidwells project for a couple of weeks, but I'll at least have access to it via Dropbox so I can give it a read-through and make notes on things I need to fix/revise

In other news, recently I did a bit of cleaning up and rearranging in Spare Oom, straightened up a few book shelves (and pulled off some titles I can donate), broke down a lot of boxes, and put away things that needed putting away. The access to the closet is a bit wider now, and the guitar stands have been angled to take up less room. Now I just need to get myself back into the habit of playing that keyboard more often instead of using it as a temporary table to put things on! [Come to think of it, I should probably change the batteries in it as well, as I'm sure they're old and on the verge of getting sketchy. Also: do we have a power cord for that thing? I should see if I can find it, or order one from somewhere...]

This ties in with my plan to get back into my other two creative loves: art and music. I still fiddle around a lot on my guitars, but I haven't written many new songs in years. I'd like to try my hand at laying down some new tracks with some cheap mixing software, just for the fun ot it. And for the art, I'm hoping to get back into that as well. It's been far too long since I've done any art of substance other than maybe a few maps and whatnot. I have the supplies and the art pads...I just need to do something with them.

That's in store for the latter half of 2017: time to come back to my love of writing, art, and music, and dedicate more time to them.

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