On fire

Blog Post No. 471

Being on fire is a weird metaphor. (Though not any weirder than all the other cliché metaphors). It can mean good, like in NBA Jam when your player literally catches on fire when you play well (or I guess in every day life when a normal person is doing well in consecutive tasks). On the other hand, fire is bad. Things on fire burn and turn to ash. Right now I’m kind of feeling both meanings of the phrase.

Bowling Ball and Pinhead

Blog Post No. 470

Most of the artists I know don’t have a ton of extra scratch to pay for things. Sometimes when you’re making, say, a book, you need things like good looking covers. How does an artist pay for a good looking cover when they don’t have enough money to get a kindergartner to finger paint for them? That’s right, they trade for it. I was lucky enough to find someone to trade with in Glen Hawkes. He did the covers for Broadcast Wasteland, Break/Interrupt, and is working on the cover for the upcoming Snow From a Distant Sky. He’s not only a talented painter, he’s a skilled graphic designer, so he knows how to make a cover.

Update: Snow From a Distant Sky

Blog Post No. 469

My main project at the moment is editing the fifth novella in the Synthetic Albatross Series, Snow From a Distant Sky. Like the last two books Broadcast Wasteland and Break/Interrupt, I wrote the first draft in a mad sprint. Broadcast was started in September but seeing as it went long, I bumped Break up to August. (It ran even longer, so it was good that I gave it the extra month). This time, I actually managed to get the first draft of Snow in before the end of August and I somehow kept it from ballooning out of control.

The Day Job

Blog Post No. 468

I have a love-hate relationship with my day job. Pre-pandemic days, I mostly worked at a single rental facility. It was mostly a great job. I liked my co-workers (or at least got along with them well enough). I had large chunks of time when I could get some writing or editing in (when I was good and forced myself to) and I made just enough money to afford working part time and have free time to write.

Ghosts of Halloween Past

Blog post No. 467

I have a terrible memory. Which is funny since a lot of my posts over the last few years have been about me looking back on my past. But really, outside of a general vague sense of my childhood, I have a handful of vivid memories that stand out. For some reason (or several reasons more likely) a number of those memories are about Halloween. Sure, Halloween is over, but I’m on a roll with these posts about my personal past and I hate how the minute November starts it’s somehow Christmas season already. So I’m dragging my feet and trying to keep October alive for one more week. The biggest reason is likely that I love the holiday. I’ve loved it ever since I was a child. It was like Christmas but without the obligations. Halloween is a real holiday for kids (and drunken adults, I suppose).

The 1990s

Blog Post No. 466

For some reason, the nostalgia that overwhelms me in Autumn seemed to hit later this year. Sure, the post about Saturday Mornings was nothing but a huge nostalgia trip (just like what this post is going to be). Usually I get the wistful feeling at the end of August or early September. It could be the changing of the leaves, or the chill in the air (or more likely the anime about arcades in the 90s that I’ve been watching) but today, I was completely swept away in the past. (By the way, when did reminiscing become nostalgia?).

Writing To Music

Blog Post No. 465

I’m no musician, but music has always played a big role in my life. I really struggle when I don’t have music playing when I sit down to write. I’m sure I’ve mentioned many times that some days I spend as much time choosing what to listen to while I write as I do actually writing. A few times when Adventure Worlds was getting started, I would forget to bring headphones with me when the group got together to write. It seems a little pathetic, but I would really struggle on those days. Eventually, I bought a cheap pare of earbuds to keep in my backpack so that I always have some when I go out writing. (Not that I’ve been able to do that for some time).

Saturday Mornings

Blog Post No. 464

I’ve always felt like there was something special about Saturdays. I mean, Sundays have their place and a weekday when everyone else is at work has its own kind of magic, but Saturdays hold  extra promise. It may have something to do with the hold over from Friday nights (when a person can feel most free depending on their work situation) or it could be tied in with my childhood era of Saturday mornings with cartoons, cereal, and cold hockey arenas. Even though every day job I’ve ever had includes some or most Saturday shifts, when I have a Saturday free, there is little like it.

No Events

Blog Post No.463

We had anther virtual writing retreat last weekend, which was good because it forced me to start on the second draft of Snow. I had planned on doing as much of it in one day as possible, but I didn’t get a lot of sleep the night before and started later than planned. I did manage to get a third of the second draft done in one sitting (and I finished off the rest over the next two days with two subsequent sittings). Not what I had intended, but I think it’s a step in the direction I wanted to take.

The Benefit of a Group

Blog Post No. 462

Anyone who knows me probably knows that I’ve never been much of a group person. Most of the time I’m fine to just go it alone. That’s a good thing when it comes to writing since, for the most part, writing is a solo effort. There is a definite need for outside help when it comes to editing, but no one can write a story for you. With that in mind, I’ve found that there is a benefit to being part of a group (especially when the group is composed of good folks). Sometimes people will get under my skin, no matter how great they are or how well intentioned, but that’s my problem and I’ve been dealing with it.