Drunken Owls and Other Delights

Note to self: ordering the chilaquiles dish at Richmond Republic is a great idea...if I want to feel ridiculously full for the rest of the afternoon. What's essentially a small skillet piled with breakfast nachos is indeed hangover food. The brewpub itself was full of Bay to Breakers leftovers, including a group of Gilligan's Island cosplayers (Gilligan, Skipper and Mary Ann) having nothing but mimosas the entire time. The walk home did help wear down some of the spinny from the two ales I had (one oatmeal stout and one coffee vanilla lager, both from local breweries).

Taking a break from cleaning the two apartment bathrooms for the moment to catch my breath (I need to give the shower a good scrub-down next). And once that's done, then I can do what I wanted to do this weekend, and that's catch up with my writing!

I'm doing pretty good with having a backlog for my Walk in Silence posts but I'd like to create a few more so I'm at least a few entries ahead at all times, which would make that at least two weeks ahead. I'd also like to create more backlogged Welcome to Bridgetown posts as well. Using the scheduler on my WordPress blogs has decreased my stress levels considerably, as I don't have to worry about cramming all my writing into one evening and thus getting little editing done.

Speaking of editing...oof. The Balance of Light is coming along, but slowly. I'm nearly done with this chapter, and it's miles better than the original opening, though I've already proven to myself that this book's gonna get at least two, maybe three revisions before I release it by the end of the year. There's a LOT left to go, and I need to ensure that I dedicate the time to it; I can't let it fall by the wayside or get distracted by the blog entries or other things.

In short, I've been doing a lot of thinking about my writing over the last few weeks. Yes, I know...I tend to do that on a daily basis anyway, but this has to deal with multiple things: my output, time dedicated to it, and the level of dedication I give to it. I spent years working on the Trilogy, and donating a crapton of time to it at that. It's hard to describe, but writing the trilogy, while fun, did feel like I was trying to Create A Perfect Work of Art, if you get my meaning. There's a level of ultraseriousness to it that, while it worked for the creation and writing in this universe, I don't believe I need to reach quite so high for my other projects. In fact, I think that's why some of my other projects stalled in the past: I was trying way too hard to recreate that level of perfection. Us writers are our own worst enemies when it comes to that. So once the Trilogy is out and away, you're going to see a change of mindset and habit on my next projects. I'll still be professional, but I doubt I'm going to try to aim for Best Book in the Universe anymore.

I have more thoughts on this, of course, but I'll save it for another day.

Meanwhile, back to cleaning!

Like I've said elsewhere, I'm feeling twitchy. And when I feel twitchy, that means I'm wasting time somewhere that could be better utilized. Not to say I'm about to ban fun and goofing off of course. Just that my time management could use some tweaking. Must look into that.

In other news, I now have two avenues of finite self-promotion open to me that I need to follow up on within the next few weeks. One is a website ADoS is available at, and the other is my hometown newspaper. Which means I should probably get my ass in gear and write a decent press release for myself! :p

Long term: Thinking about what I should be working on in 2016. I mean, aside from releasing The Persistence of Memories and The Balance of Light. I've got a few non-Mendaihu Universe projects that I'm thinking of releasing, that I could start working on. Also thinking of what new stories I could begin as well. Am I going to be a Stephen King and release eight books in a year? Heh, probably not, but if I can do more than one, that's cool with me. We'll see.