jon_chaisson: (Mooch writing)
Somehow I managed to finagle Friday off as a Personal Day, so Emm and I drove down the coast to Monterey/Pacific Grove and had a nice relaxing mini-vacation at the Gosby House Inn. Pacific Grove is literally next door to Monterey, a tiny bedroom community that has its own mini downtown of restaurants and shops, and has a lovely coastal drive. We hit the usual places: the yarn store, the used bookstore (BookBuyers in downtown Monterey has an excellent used SF/F section), the restaurants, and so on. We also took a quick drive over to Carmel to visit the beach for a short time as well. An insane amount of pictures were taken, of course!

I deliberately did not write anything, although I did reread what I had of the new Mendaihu Universe story so far, just to remind myself what I had and where it needs to go. That one's been on the back burner (one of the closer ones, currently on mid-heat) while I get the trilogy prepared for release and get some serious writing done for Walk in Silence, which is still aiming for an April 2016 release. The new MU story needs a LOT of work, so I think I'll be doing a lot of outlining and plotting before I get back to it. It's definitely salvageable, just very disjointed at this point.

Also, it being December, this is of course the time of year where I start thinking about my end-of-year compilation and best-of lists, so you will most likely see those within the next few weeks on the WiS blog.

The Day Job, I should add, has been rather quiet as of late (knock wood), which is expected. It usually dies out from about Thanksgiving to around the fifteenth or so, where clients are loath to start any new banking and have paid nearly all their outstanding invoices, leaving me with naught but reading the various system reports that kick out throughout the day. Can't complain. There will be a quick surge of busy time as we get closer to Christmas (the usual last minute OMG that goes on), and then it'll be dead again for the last week of the year. So in short, I've got it made for the next few weeks (I hope). Which gives me a bit of time to sneak in some writing and editing. Heh.

Hope all is well with everyone this season! :)

Meanwhile

Jan. 29th, 2015 10:34 am
jon_chaisson: (Mooch writing)
Oh hey, it's been a bit since I've posted here! Been keeping myself crazy busy with more projects than I really should take on at one time, actually. So what's going on in Joncworld?

Multiple weekend days of stuff going on! The 10th was A Prairie Home Companion at the Nourse, the 18th was the SF Symphony (with Elvis Costello and Malcolm McDowell narrating a piece, no less!), and the 24th was a Tom Stoppard play at the ACT. We're all cultured n' stuff! But our calendar is pretty clear from here on in, at least until early April, in which we head to Manhattan to see a play and an aunt we haven't visited in nigh on ten years! And I haven't been in NYC in ages, come to think of it. We do have some fun stuff lined up for this year, though. [Note: we're hoping to try to visit the New England area sometime in the autumn, so we'll let everyone know as soon as we get more info on that.]

In other news, life goes on as normal. Work is work, play is play, writing is writing...I actually kind of like having a busy schedule, because I know I can handle it. It's forcing me to prioritize better, which has always been a weak spot for me. Plus the output is much higher! It's a win-win.

So what's going on with you?
jon_chaisson: (Athol sign)
The J & A Good Time Comedy Revue and Biscuit Brunch Tour '14 was a rousing success! Our weeklong vacation to various New England points of interest was chock full of daily meetups with friends and family, not to mention stopping by favorite haunts. The first half of the vacation was spent in the Boston area, where we stayed at a lovely B & B in Cambridge a short distance from both Porter and Davis Squares. Much driving and sightseeing, including a very enjoyable leisurely drive around Boston and neighboring towns on Sunday. We headed westward to central MA on Tuesday and spent the rest of the week with family and more friends. We even managed to drive through three different states on Thursday, when we drove up to Brattleboro VT, then over to Keene NH, then back to Athol for a brief break before heading down to West Springfield to see my good buddy Bruce, who I haven't seen in quite a few years. We finished off the week with a brunch with my parents before heading back to Boston. That night we met up with two more people in Chelsea, and finished off the night with soft serve on Revere Beach--something one just has to do at least once. We flew back on Saturday morning, where we somehow managed to remain awake. This had to be the busiest vacation I've ever had, but it was a blast, and I'm incredibly happy I was able to see so many people during it.

And as an aside: I was not able to work on writing revision on a daily basis...but I did manage to more than make up for it by working on three chapters during the six-hour flight back to San Francisco! :)

Whew! So that's our spring vacation out of the way. We don't have another major vacation until August when we head to London for WorldCon, which I am of course eagerly looking forward to. In the meantime, we do have a number of fun events scheduled, including a number of SF Symphony shows Shakespeare at the Kabuki, and more. It's been a hectic 2014 so far, but in a good way!
jon_chaisson: (Default)
Hey all, long time no post. I've been busy with work-related things and writing-related thoughts and life-related errands, so it's been a quick and event-filled week all around. Added to the fact that I've been bravely fighting a cold since last weekend. All things considered, I'm happy my head is no longer as Comfortably Numb as it was on Monday and Tuesday, though the occasional stuffiness is annoying.

That said, various and sundry things over the past week or so...

--The work-related move went well, as I managed to avoid most of it by being on vacation. My instincts were correct and I was able to pack my entire belongings into three boxes in twenty minutes. My work area is spartan that way; always has been, or else I wouldn't be able to find a damn thing. I'm in a smaller cubicle in a smaller floor space, but on the plus side I'm about twenty feet from two different doors for ease of escape if need be. It's quieter and cleaner too, not including the ridiculous amount of moving boxes still sitting around.

--Lots of packages mailed over the last week to parents, family and in-laws for Christmas, so stuff that wasn't ordered straight from Amazon or elsewhere is now on its way or already at its intended destination. Most packages have reached us, but we're still waiting on a few.

--Later today we'll be heading into town to see a musical version of Neil Gaiman's Coraline, which Emm purchased tickets for. Interestingly enough, the music and lyrics were written by Stephin Merritt, he of The Magnetic Fields. Should be interesting! I'm just hoping that the weather will behave, as it's been rainy and windy over the past couple of days. Such is Bay Area winter, though...

--Forgot if I mentioned this, but we both decided that the best way for me to celebrate me becoming an old man turning 40 is to go to Disneyland. We plan on also going to California Adventure across the way as well--this is the section that has the Muppets--so this will further prove that though my body's getting old, my brain is still that of a kid. :)

--With the end of the year being about two weeks away, it's high time I started up on my Year End Music Review. I may post it this weekend or next weekend, depending on if I have the time. Looking over the past year, I've heard quite a lot of nifty songs that I think will make the top 20 or so on my personal list. More on this soon!

--Oh! Also, and I'll put this in bold so skimmers will see it: The Great Book Purge of 2010-11 is coming soon! Been awhile since we've done these, and we're starting to accumulate piles of books again that we've read and don't want to keep (or never read since buying years previous and gave up on). This will probably take place after the first of the year once the holidays are over, so I'll let you all know when it starts.


...and that's the State of JoncWorld at the moment. We should be achieving normality sometime soon. Have a happy and safe holiday season, kids! :)
jon_chaisson: (Default)
On the longer flight back home from Dulles (our stopover) on Sunday morning, I spent a good couple of hours with a pen, a steno pad, and my Zune set on random, and wrote a whole mess of notes and a very skeletal timeline for Walk in Silence. This included bands and albums to be referenced, media and history influences, and even the start of a theory as to how and why the 84-86 era of college rock came about.

I'm quite happy about all of this.

Profile

jon_chaisson: (Default)
jon_chaisson

December 2025

S M T W T F S
 123456
789 10111213
141516 17181920
212223 24252627
282930 31   

Syndicate

RSS Atom

Most Popular Tags

Style Credit

Expand Cut Tags

No cut tags
Page generated Jan. 4th, 2026 05:45 am
Powered by Dreamwidth Studios