Like a Circle

Blog No. 360

Because this is the 360th post. Like a circle. Get it? (I know you probably do. Ignore me. I think I’m funny). Now that Broadcast Wasteland is written (and all the editing and other work is ahead of me) I’m really not sure what this post is going to be about. We’re going on another journey together! Last weekend was Advanced Polls in Canada and my Day Job was a polling location. I usually dread it because the poll clerks aren’t always with it, the people who come in are often angry, and I get caught in circular arguments where voters scream political opinions and racist comments at me (all the while I do my best to keep my cool and remind them that you aren’t really allowed to talk about politics at a polling site, also racism is bad). It was four days of early mornings and monotonous hours, but it turned out the clerks were good and I only had one racist comment throw in my direction. Either way, I hadn’t done anything productive since I finished the first draft last Wednesday.

Well, I did get a decent chunk of someone else’s story read. (A local author and friend asked me and some other author friends to give her story a once over). I managed a decent chunk over the polling weekend. Thankfully, I’ve been really enjoying it, so it’s easy to keep reading. I’m going to keep working on that, but I decided, for the rest of the week, I’m going to try to knock out a short story. I know, I know. I have a metric ton of editing to do and a novel to get back to as soon as I can, and ebooks to finally sort out, but I need some space between the first draft and the edits for the novella and I don’t think diving head first back into the middle of the novel just to stop in a week to start edits is a good idea. There’s going to be a lot of scheduling for the rest of the year to sort out all the projects that I’ve started or promised to do.

Speaking about the year, it’s half way through October? When did that happen? I suppose when you spend a month and a bit (39 days) in a frenzy, focused on one thing, the time slips away. Though, it seems to happen whether I’m writing or just sitting on my butt, so. Oh, no! I just remembered that I have a reading on October 30th! I have to find a passage to read and get practicing. It’s at Biblioasis, and if I want to keep getting invited back, I better do a good job (and try to bring some people out). (That segue wasn’t done on purpose, but I’ll take it!). I was going to read from No Light, which would have been a breeze, but Christian suggested that one of the later scenes in Neon would fit the dark genre fiction theme. I’m going to dig around in the last third of the book and see if there’s something appropriate and give it a test run (or a dozen).

Not too long after that, we have the last ChiSeries reading of the year. It wasn’t going to happen, then it was going to be on a Tuesday, but now it’s back on as just a regular ChiSeries Windsor event. It’s happening on November 13th with Justine Alley Dowsett, Tim Gabrielle, and Kim Love. Then, I’ll be at the Tecumseh Library on November 23rd for a local author signing. There isn’t a lot of info about that one yet, but I’ll update the event page when there is. It almost feels like I’m slipping back into the usual routine (but maybe with more writing getting done). I hope so. It’ll be nice to end the year with some momentum and keep things rolling for 2020 with one book on the way, one in progress, some events planned, and a handful of other projects in production!