Drunken Owls and Other Delights

Today at work I was thinking about writing cycles and how I feel I'm at the end of one. The plans I have on the rewrite of Theadia have bloomed from a one-novel story into something much larger, and this made me realize that perhaps this current wave of one-off novels I'd written post-trilogy are coming to a close. I'd chosen that route basically because I'd focused on the trilogy for so many years I needed a mental and creative break and wanted to work on lighter things for a while.

Theadia was originally going to be one of those, but recently I've been thinking otherwise. I love what I have so far of it...but I know I can do more with it. I WANT to do more with it. I've been spending down time at work doing a bit of world building with characters, subplots and settings, and it occurred to me that this was exactly what I'd done when I rewrote The Phoenix Effect as the trilogy, so I took it as a sign.

That said, I'm starting to see Queen Ophelia's War in its own way as the last in the cycle of one-off novels. I think I'm ready to get stuck in on the Big Universes again. I didn't expect it to be in a non-Mendaihu Universe story, but that's fine by me -- part of my love of world building is the expansion work!

...has been interesting so far. The Bay Area has been getting hit with multiple weird storm fronts these last few days so there's been hella rain (as they say in the local parlance) and hella wind to go along with it. We're fine here at home, safe on the top floor with a non-leaking roof above us and no sub-basement levels (our garage is on ground level), but we've seen some trees and branches down and a bit of flooding and washouts in the neighborhood. The first hit us late Tuesday night and apparently after I left work at 1:30 there was a mad rush of panic buying that lasted for about six hours, followed by a few days of rather quiet retail work. On a side note, the cats are fine but a tad confused by all the noise going on outside, especially all that pitterpat on the bathroom skylights.

I've been rereading A Division of Souls these last couple of days in preparation for writing MU4 as well as making a few mental notes for the Great Trilogy Remastering as well. I think it still holds up amazingly well, not to mention I'm still a bit blown away at the level of detail I put into it, and I think most of the Remastering will end up being a general fix-up of formatting errors, making a few better word choices and a bit of grammatical spot-cleaning. I'm also having fun revisiting a few of my favorite scenes! I'm really looking forward to both the Remaster and the new project!


Hope everyone's having a great new year so far!

It's MLK Day tomorrow so we have another three-day weekend coming to us (or as A says "another mini-vacation") so as with last time, we're spending the days outside and enjoying ourselves. Yesterday we went to the SF Zoo and had a fun time seeing all the critters! Although every single cat was zonked out, and the bears were most likely in winter torpor and snoozing away inside. Can't say I blame them, though. [Side note, the zoo was also full to the brim with kidlets and I was reminded just how exhausting they can be, especially the boys that have obviously never once been told 'can you just calm down and not bounce off strangers for fifteen seconds?' in their lives to date.]

Today's adventure was a walk up to the farmer's market at the other end of Clement, where we stocked up on veg before having a tasty lunch at the Richmond Republic. Noted, the Altamont Nutty Operator stout was super tasty and actually kind of potent for a 5% beer (we both had two). The rest of the day is the usual boring Sunday stuff like laundry, running the various PC cleaner programs and updating the blogs. And tomorrow as planned, we'll be heading to the botanical garden in GGP as the magnolias have started to bloom!

In other news, I've been reading some fun romantic comedy books on A's suggestion -- I'd decided last year that I want to try my hand at that genre this year -- and lo and behold, I came up with a nifty idea whilst lying in bed this morning! A and I talked about some of the plot points on our walk home today and it's sounding like it would be a really fun project, so perhaps this might be something I'll work on next. I suppose my elevator pitch would be "music nerd meet-cute" (slight bit of self-insertion there, I admit). Very curious to see where this leads.

Meanwhile, I supposedly have jury duty this week, although Tuesday's is already saying "nothing today, call back again". Ah well.


Hope everyone has a lovely week!

Another downside to going into the office is that I no longer have easy access to my blogs, here and on WP, so I have to carve out time elsewhere to be able to keep them updated to any degree. And busy weekends (of which I've had many this month) have kept me from posting on time. I've been kind of lazy the last few weeks, in which I could be using afterwork time to do them, but it's tricky when I suddenly have a commute with an unstable average time-spent-getting-home. (On good days it's just over an hour. On bad days it's been more like 1.5. Thankfully I've only had two or three REALLY bad days of two hours, and those were during the Christmas season. Here's to hoping those were exception and not the rule.)  I suppose I should get out of the habit of futzing around on my phone whilst watching whatever we're streaming at the moment, yeah?

Speaking of writing, I may have come up with a new project that's captured my interest. The two semi-backburner books I've been toying with don't seem to be going anywhere in particular, and this particular one grabbed me very similarly to how In My Blue World and especially Diwa & Kaffi did, and I'm taking that as a good sign. This came out of an exercise I did a few days ago on the 750, in which I just riffed on a handful of simple ideas inspired by some of the animes we've watched and manga I've read. I realized I wanted to keep going with the short-and-quick story ideas that have done me so well over the last few years, so I'd like to go further with it. I'm very curious to see where this leads...!

On a more personal note, I've been toying with the idea of selecting one day earlier in the week to head straight to the gym from work instead of heading straight home, because I really don't like this one-day-a-week (and maybe on weekends) thing. And I certainly do NOT want to pay for using the company gym when I already have a local YMCA membership. It'll be a bit of a trick but I think I can swing it.  I'll plan it out with A, so that way we can have a pre-cooked dinner that we can heat up quickly.

More things on my mind lately, but I'm holding them close for now. Soon enough.

It's been a busy couple of days here in Spare Oom, getting used to the new regimens I've given myself.  It's not difficult, to be truthful...it's just a matter of Doing instead of Planning for the most part.  Even when the unexpected comes around -- a weird browser error eating my first take of this entry, for example -- the important thing is to get it done regardless.  Thankfully the Day Job hasn't been all too worrisome the last few days, which is giving me a bit of extra time to get used to it all.

The biggest change is getting used to writing longhand.  It's coming along just fine so far, averaging around four pages a day, which is about normal.  The obstacle I have here is to get used to how I pace the story.  I'm a fast typist but a leisurely longhander (anything faster and it starts getting illegible), so I have to be a little more patient with my prose when I'm writing it out like that.  I've already reminded myself a few times that it's okay to write a few clunky sentences, as they'll be fixed in revision.  Still...I've done it before, so it's just a matter of keeping it up, and I'll get used to it all again.

Other than that, all is going well.  I'm actually a bit surprised as to how much I can get done in a single day, especially when I make it a point to not faff about online.  This morning I have only three tabs open: this one, my Walk in Silence blog (entry to be written later today) and the 750 Words site (daily words to be done soon).  The Apartment Complex notebook is right under my monitor, waiting to be pulled out for another session.  After a while, I get into a zone where I'll start in on one project, finish the day's work on that one, and go straight to the next one.  And hey, next thing I know, I'm done for the day, hitting all the beats I wanted to hit, and it's still early in the evening!

Now to make sure I keep it going!

I don't know what possessed me, but I took Friday off from writing.  I just sort of happened...I'd thought of working on my Daily words and new Lidwells words....and didn't even try to get to them.  It was like a conscious choice to take the day off.  And I took Saturday off as well.   After all these years, I'm still not used to doing that.  The funny thing is when I do take a day off, everyone around me will invariably say "Good for you!  You should take a day off now and again."  Never fails. 

It's not that I actually needed it this time out.  I'm not exhausted or overworked.  I'm not feeling creatively drained at all.  It was just an 'I don't want to work today' couple of days.  

Which of course means that, like being in school again, it's Sunday and I probably should stop procrastinating and get some work done.


In sort of related news, I'm quite proud of myself for coming up with a possible idea for Secret Next Project while falling asleep on Friday and remembering it the following morning.  I have a few secondary characters that need a lot of fleshing out, and as I've pretty much got the four or five major ones nailed down, I needed to work on these people as well.  The neat thing is that this is the second time around where my world building work on one project has been in tandem with the main draft writing of the main project.  I just sort of fell into this new way of working, and it's working quite nicely, so I'm very happy about that.  I'm really looking forward to sharing SNP with you soon, but alas, I need to finish Lidwells first! :)


Hope everyone is having a good weekend!  Happy Pride! :D

Wait, it's Saturday already?  When did that happen?  It was a fast week of Day Job stuff and catching up on writing, and not much else of import, so time seemed to fly by rather quickly this week.  Not that I'm complaining.  Midweek had some crappy weather as well, but currently there's no clouds in the sky so it looks like it's going to be a really nice weekend all around.

I'm still concerned that I might not make my autumn deadline for Meet the Lidwells but I think that's mainly because I'm having a bit of trouble at the moment.  The first act is done (creation of the band up to their initial success), and now I have to shift from that to act two (the highs and lows of success and creativity), and it's a bit harder than I expected.  If all else fails, I think I'll have to just make a hard shift there for now, and smooth it out in revision.  We shall see.

Secondary Project, aka The Apartment Complex story, is slowly evolving via the 750 Words site (much like I did with Lidwells a few years ago), and this one promises to be a lot of fun to write.  I'm coming up with some really fun characters and story ideas for it.  I don't think I'll be outlining this one as strictly as I did with Lidwells, but I should at least get the characters and places down. 

Related, I think this might end up being my writing process for a while.  I like the idea of working on new ideas in a playground atmosphere to let them grow and expand (thus letting me work on them during slow points of my day), while dedicating more serious writing time to the current project (which I'll have given a deadline for finishing).  This not only gives me a quicker turnaround, but also lets me work on and self-publish more projects.

Which of course brings up the question, do I want to keep self-publishing?  Well, funny thing about that:  yesterday I got a completely unexpected email response from an agent.  It was a rejection for a submission of A Division of Souls and I couldn't find the date of my original response...so I have no idea when I sent this.  This was before I ultimately decided to self-publish, so this must have been at least around 2015, possibly earlier.  I'll be honest, I'm amused and touched that they got back to me even after this long, even if it was a rejection!  But at the same time, it really put things into perspective: I simply don't want to spend all my time waiting for a yes/no from an agent or a publisher and not knowing either way until then.  I don't seek vindication...I just want to know if I'm Doing It Right or not, and I've come to the conclusion that I don't want to go that route.  Sure, self-publishing means a hell of a lot more work, but I've already proven to myself that I'm willing to do it all.

Anyhoo...going to have a relaxing weekend here, hope you have the same! :)

It's almost September! How the hell did that happen?

So...what do I have planned for next month, anyway? Good question. I've been making a little bit of noise that I want to return to a more packed whiteboard schedule again, as my only major project focus at the moment is finishing off this manual line edit of The Balance of Light. [Okay, there is a non-as-major-but-still-important project of working off the galley edit for The Persistence of Memories and getting the tpb for that available for purchase, but that shouldn't take me long to do. A couple free weekends should do it.]

I'd like to return to the daily 750 Words once more. I'd like to return to my artwork on a more consistent basis. There's also a longhand project or two that I'd like to toy with in my spare time. More importantly, however, I'd like to get myself back in the habit of prepping my blog entries a day or two beforehand and giving myself a buffer. As I've said before, I can finally see the light at the end of this long-ass Trilogy tunnel, so I'd like to prepare myself ahead of time for the new projects.

Am I going to announce what these new projects are? Well, not as of yet. I'd like to make sure they've got a good strong hold before I start obsessing over them online. You've heard me talk about them before, I'll say that. I'm trying to stick with the JK Rowling quote: "I find that discussing an idea out loud is often the way to kill it stone dead." I've had this happen before, so I'd rather not jinx them this time.

That said...right now I'm just looking forward to new projects. It's been far too long and there's nothing more fun than coming up with new ideas from a completely new universe! :)

Eesh. I'd planned on writing a follow-up post to my previous one, but I keep running out of time! I guess that's what happens when you're too busy juggling a day job as well as churning out my morning 750 words, doing some heavy duty revision, catching up on reading, and writing a 5000+-word post on one of the most defining rock albums of the sixties. Oh, and watching some extremely silly anime. ;)

Anyhoo! Lots of different writerly things milling around my head.

--Still hammering away on the revision of The Persistence of Memories. No major revision here, not like ADoS, but I have run into a few passages here and there that need a bit of work. Most of the work on this one is on redeveloping some of the characters--not that they're flat, but now that I've reread the entire trilogy in one go (and am re-rereading, and will probably do so again another time or so until all three are completely revised), I'm seeing a few bland spots here and there, and I'm also taking the opportunity to throw in a bit of development that ends up completely unveiling itself later on.

--I've also been thinking (again) about the possibility of self-pubbing the series instead of going through the majors (so to speak). I'm still really up in the air about this, to be honest. On the one hand I would really love to see it released by a professional publisher, and I'm still going to submit it out into the wild until I get a bite. But in this day and age when there's a lot of good self-publishing going on, and I can honestly see myself going that route if it comes to it. Sure, I won't get the super-shiny art cover or wide recognition...but at the same time, the books aren't going to be seen by anyone if they're going to remain sitting on my computer, either. And who's to say the book wouldn't just sit there gathering dust on the bookstore shelf until it gets remaindered? The publishing field isn't what it used to be, that's for sure (and yes, I've read Judith Tarr's recent posts about it...it's a sobering but quite interesting read). I've been doing a bit of homework on this end as well: possible cover pictures (and possible people to contact to take said pictures if it comes to it), possible editing services, and even which self-pubbing companies I can reach out to (I'm on the mailing list for a few of them already). If I'm gonna go that route, I'm gonna do it right.

--That said: A Division of Souls is currently in "please beta read me" phase, so if anyone is at all interested, let me know and I can float it your way. I have it in .doc and .mobi format and can probably change it to most other formats if need be. Thanks!

--In non-trilogy news, I was typing out my morning words yesterday (thanks to 750words.com), and at the same time I was listening to my latest music obsession, KSCU (Santa Clara University's radio station--you've heard me going on about it in the past, and its playlist is VERY similar to the college radio back in the late 80s heyday...check it out here if you're interested). And with college radio comes thoughts of autumn...and with thoughts of autumn come my old trunked novel Dream Weaver. Trust me--the old version is pretty bad and not worth revisiting. However, just for the fun of it, and to get my morning words out, I thought I'd do a bit of brainstorming to see if I can create something new out of the old setting. In the process I came up with a lighthearted and fun storyline of alternate realities bumping up against each other. Equal parts Adam Christopher's Empire State universe, Studio Ghibli's character studies, anthropomorphic comics, growing up in woodsy New England, and my college rock obsession, I came up with what might promise to be either a YA or at least an interesting fantasy story. I'm not going into too much detail at the moment, but I may expand on this idea in my spare time as a possible future project. We'll see where this goes!

--The Blogging the Beatles posts seem to be going over well! That last one was pretty long and detailed, but I'd wanted to do that on purpose. The Beatles of 1962-66 are definitely different from the Beatles of 1967-70, not just with the Red and Blue Album compilations, and I wanted to focus a little on why and how they changed at that time. The next half of the discography is going to be pretty interesting work--the releases get stretched out a bit more, but in the process I also have to work my way through the White Album, which is going to be quite interesting in and of itself. And yes, I will be commenting on "Revolution 9"--there's a lot of fascinating stuff on that track if you have the tolerance and patience!


Okay, more about writing later...back to work and the other twelve things I'm doing! :p