Drunken Owls and Other Delights

So things will be sort of back to normal next week, as the head bookkeeper is back from his own vacation. I didn't mind filling in as it was all early shifts, but waking up at 4:15am several days in a row did kind of wear me out. This coming week I've been given a few earlyish shifts that hint that I'll be working the dairy upstock shifts again on Tuesday through Thursday, so I can't complain. This means I can wake up at a more normal 6am for the next few days and catch up on some much-needed sleep.

Meanwhile, I'm finally prepping for more of my end-of-year posts here and elsewhere. I'll be starting the year end music reviews for Walk in Silence on Tuesday which should finish off the day after Christmas, leaving the last entry of the year as a best-of list and looking-ahead sort of thing. As for Welcome to Bridgetown, I'm not entirely sure what I'll be posting there though the last few of the year will be very similar in its looking back/looking forward theme. 

What do I have planned for 2025? Good question. A few personal things and a few book releases for starters! We shall see...

I'm trying not to get TOO used to this new schedule of mine, because I still want to find a new position somewhere in the city.  That's taking a lot longer than hoped, but I kind of expected it. Still..I'm making the best of what I have right now. I can work at home one day a week so I of course decided on Fridays, for two reasons: one, that I get to listen to new music releases (yay!), and two, that I can treat this as a sort of three-day weekend. 

The Day Job is pretty tight on internet security (given my position, it makes total sense), which is a mixed blessing...I can't waste time on social media unless I take out my phone (which, I should add, gets about 2-3 bars because I'm in a dead spot in the middle of my building), but I can keep up on the news sites if I want. But on a VERY positive note, I can access 750Words! I'm not sure how long it'll last, but I'm going to use THAT access as much as I can, considering this whole Back To the Office Thing took away a lot of my writing time in the first place. So what am I working on with these entries? Right now I'm still experimenting with various things related to the Mendaihu Universe (Book 4 ideas, short stories, outtakes and whatnot). I can work on these during slow moments in the day so I'm not really goofing off and Not Working, am I? Heh. But yeah, this was an extremely positive thing that happened this week and I'm going to embrace it.

As for Year End stuff...yeah, I know I should be doing my musical round-up blog entries, but I just haven't had the time or the inclination. Not that 2019 hasn't inspired me musically, but right now I'm still basking in the moments where I don't have Far Too Many Deadlines hanging over my head. I still have the entirety of the month to work on them, though, so I'm not too worried. I'll be doing two, of course: the Best of 2019, and the Best of the '10s. I'm just as curious as you on what'll pop up on the latter!

Hope everyone has a lovely weekend!

On the one hand, I feel guilty that I've been quite lax with my writing over the last few weeks.  I've done a bit of work on the outline for the Apartment Complex story and reread Meet the Lidwells, and I've kept up with the blogs, but I haven't done any daily words in a while, nor have I started on the needed secondary MtL revision.  I feel super lazy over the last few days.

On the other hand, I've been using all this time to do all the 'I'll Do It Later' things that have piled up, such as cleaning up my email inboxes, working out my 2018 plans, doing a bit of a book purge, house errands, and so on.  So it's not as if I've truly been lazy.  I've just temporarily switched priorities and used the last few weeks as a respite.

I'm still feel like I'm at the Making Plans But Not Actually Doing Anything level, though, which I guess is my own fault, considering that I'm relying on the time-honored schedule of starting it all back up on January 1, like I always do.  But then I remind myself: I haven't had a true Christmas vacation (other than the days off from work if they're a weekday) in ages, so I can consider this year-end laziness as my own version of the winter break.  It gives me time to recharge and get ready for the next year.

I seem to be in a weird space right now, right at the almost-end of one writing project and the not-quite-beginning of another.  I'm getting those feelings of Not Getting Anything Done, of course.  I'm trying to ignore that, because obviously I am still getting a crapton of stuff done, it's just slow going at the moment.  I felt this way after being in Revision Mode for almost two years, so I know the feeling well.

I'm taking the week off from blogging at the two WordPress sites as well -- that's more of a well-deserved break than a mental one, considering I've been surprisingly very consistent about its schedule for nearly the entire year.  I should be back up and running on those come next weekend.

Also, now that we're just about to hit the last month of the year, as expected I'm drifting once more into Year End Review territory.  I am genuinely curious to see what goals I've hit, what feats I've pulled off, how many words I've written.  I know I've achieved some pretty big ones: finishing off the Trilogy project, finishing Meet the Lidwells, creating a few new future projects.  It's been a very busy 2017 for me.

And this is pretty much all while trying to balance out stuff going on IRL.  That's a frustration in and of itself, considering the current mood of the country, not to mention most of my online friends.  [I'm not faulting them for their indignation aimed at the Fuckwit or anyone else.  I won't ask them to be silent, especially if they've got a hell of a lot more riding in this game than I do.]  I'm not angry at them for being angry.  I'm angry at myself for consistently falling into the same damn emotional traps I fell in countless times before.  Once I'm there I just turn into a moody, grouchy morose bastard and stay that way for a good couple of years, and I really don't want to go down that road anymore.

ANYWAY -- you've heard me gripe about THAT enough already.  Time to be positive for a while.

So yeah, I'll be thinking about what I've done in 2017.  I'd like to think I've done a bang-up job this time out. :)

I think if I learned anything in 2013, it's not to dwell on things.

Or more to the point, to dwell on things only when necessary.

This year I gave up doing a lot of things that were either a waste of time or were distractions.

One was giving up reading the news. I did not do this to become an ignoramus, far from it; it was that I had become keenly aware of the quality (or lack thereof) of the most popular news sites (CNN, Yahoo, etc.). It frustrated me how it was no longer reportage--the profession I know quite well through my father--and had devolved into the quest for site hits. Go to any high-traffic news site, and you'll see it: the headline/link is no longer informative, it's a teaser to get you to click through. The article itself teases you, in its attempt to get a rise out of you. There are blatant and often false assumptions bandied about--the latest being the shock and horror of Obama's selfie during the Mandela memorial the other day being one. It seems these sites no longer aim to inform so as to get site hits and thus more revenue from the ads that pop up on those pages. And when you get the populace in a dither about some perceived peccadillo so that they spend all day yelling at and accusing each other of being stupid poopyheads in the comments section and Twitter, well...their job is done. It's pretty much made a mockery of actual writing and reporting.

That's not to say that I've put an embargo on all news ever--more that I now choose my sources carefully. Call me stuck-up if you want, but good captivating writing is a hell of a lot better than the blustery cheapshot. This is in addition to my resolution over the past few years: I don't need to be plugged in 24/7. I'm still informed...I'm just no longer stuck in the feedback loop.


I also forced myself to ignore that "but you haven't written anything new in years!" voice in my head. The thing is, I have written new things--especially this year, when I heavily revised the trilogy. There are completely new scenes in there, right alongside some of the oldest scenes written from years ago. I realized that it was more important for me to address writing priorities before I went off onto the storyline playground; I've been sitting on this trilogy for over a decade, and I felt it was high time I brought it to the next level.

Which brings me to the next thing: future plans.

As I've mentioned before, I'm frantically getting A Division of Souls and its synopsis ready for submission to Angry Robot Books. I have no idea whether or not it'll be accepted, but I'm super excited about this, as AR publishes some of my favorite books, and I've a feeling the trilogy would be a nice fit with them.

More to the point, 2013 was a year where I learned a hell of a lot about what makes a good manuscript. A few years ago I opined about being stuck in that "OK Plateau", where I had a decent story but lacked the "oomph" to make it to a professional level. In the comments I'd said that one of the problems was that I had too vague of a goal--I wanted to be a pro writer, and...yeah. So I spent the time between then and now working on a more concrete goal: not to just be a pro, but to consciously write on a pro level, to consciously revise the trilogy into something publishable, and most importantly, to keep my writing up at that level.

And thus the last year and a half focusing solely on the revision of the trilogy, the Welcome to Bridgetown website, and all the constant reading, rereading, learning, and relearning the craft.


So! What does 2014 have in store for me?

Well, regardless as to whether or not the trilogy gets accepted by Angry Robot or some other publisher or agency, next year is the year of Moving Forward. I'll be expanding on the Mendaihu Universe (my new name for the trilogy's setting) with new novels and perhaps short stories, maybe even applying some of what I've learned to newer projects as well. I'll be updating Welcome to Bridgetown with more insights and commentary over the year. And once I finally finish the 'Blogging the Beatles' series, I'll also be posting music insights and commentary over at Walk in Silence. And on a more personal level, I'll be working more on my morning words, poetry, art, and music. The finished, posted output for those last three may not be as high as the previous, but I do hope to keep more of a schedule.


Yes, there is a theme here: consistency.

That will be the main goal for 2014: to maintain this higher standard across the board.

Saturday:
--Shopping at Safeway
--Pick up Emm from work, after she picks up lunch at the Ferry Building
--Laundrydoing it as we speak done!
--Post some year-end lists/comments (working on it)
--Watch Pats/Giants game at 5pm PST (starts in 1/2 hr!)
--Watch Naruto episodes afterwards

Sunday:
--plug in scanner and check out how it works, possibly do some scanning
(note to head58: one of the things I plan on doing is scanning the Misfits books, that way I can email you a copy)
--more writing
--post more year-end lists/comments
--possible B&N stop

Monday:
--half-day at work
--watch "I can't believe you haven't seen this yet" movies with Emm
--possible writing time
--post last year-end lists/comments (music lists most likely listed at this point)

Tuesday
--sleep in
--Day One of New and Improved Writer Dude™