Another Milestone

Blog No. 392

I’m nowhere near finished the first draft of the Invasion Novel and a lot of that has to do with my lack of effort over the last few days. My sleep is still all over the place and after a few bad nights I failed to reach my minimums. It’s not uncommon for me to have one or two completely sleepless nights in a month, but seeing as I haven’t had a particularly good sleep in a while, I felt like a zombie the last few days. That’s my excuse at least. With that in mind, I have reached a new personal best. The Invasion Novel is now the largest story I’ve written (and I’m not finished, yet).

Stories that Stay with Me – One

Blog No. 391

Since I don’t have much in the way of writing news and I doubt many people would be interested in a weekly word count update on the Invasion Novel (85 000 at the writing of this post) I’ve come up with something else to write about. Look up at the title (assuming you either ignored it or forgot what it sad like I always do). That’s right, I’m going to somehow (I haven’t worked out the details even thought I’m writing it right now) do posts about some of the stories that have stuck with me over the years. Some of them are from books, or television, or movies, and some may be from real life. That’s not to say they are all excellent, but there was something about them that took up residence in my subconscious and come back to me when something triggers the memory. I figured talking about how I first experienced those stories, guessing at what about them impacted me, and how the memories come back would be something interesting I could play around with while there isn’t much news to share.

Minimums

Blog No. 390

Here we are again, dear reader. It’s a new week and if I’ve been able to continue as well as I started, I’ll be feeling good about my progress (remember I write these on Tuesday even now that I’m at home and really I have all the time in the world to write posts on Thursday or even Wednesday night, but I don’t want to break my habit). Not just with the writing, either. After a less than productive weekend, I had a bit of a reset. It happens from time to time. I’ll do well, keeping on top of things, then I’ll hit a wall or get worn out and then things fall apart for a few days. Then I pick myself back up and try again. Sometimes it’s a matter of days and weeks, sometimes months. It’s the same kind of thing I’ve been struggling with over the years with the summer slump.

Update!

Blog No. 389

The majority of the work I’ve been doing over the last few weeks (basically since copies of Broadcast Wasteland were delivered to my house) has been working on the Invasion Novel. I’ve had good days and bad. I’ve had stretches of daily writing and days when I got caught up in other things or just watched youtube with the word document open, waiting for me to add to it. I had started the book either at the end of 2018 or the beginning of 2019. My recollection is fuzzy and my record keeping (this blog) is not very organized. I know I started it when the first draft of The Neon Heart was done and I was giving it some time before starting the edits. But that was a false start. I have a document with a couple of chapters that started in the wrong place and didn’t work out the way I wanted.

Scratching out a Day

Blog No. 388

The last thing I wanted to do on this blog was to write a post (or several posts) about the quarantine. I’ve mentioned it in a couple of my previous posts, but my attempt was to do so only in regards to other topics (ie a book release, writing a novel, and being laid off). Now I’m in what feels like simultaneously a weekend and ten a year of being at home. My book is still out (and I’ve done a few deliveries to people in the city) I’m still writing the Invasion novel, and I’m still laid off. I’m also still having trouble sleeping, but magically, getting into a habit of reading before bed has helped a little there. Two birds, one stone. The problem is, that’s it. I watch too much TV and play too many video games (same as always but more) I spend more time making food, and, I go to bed and wake up and do it again.

Home Delivery

Blog No. 387

I’ve now been home for more than a month and officially off of the day job for fifteen days. Since then, the third book in my Synthetic Albatross series, Broadcast Wasteland, came out. I’ve been doing other writing and layout since the release, but I wrote about that last week. You don’t need to read about it again, especially since there really is nothing new to say. What is new, is that copies of Broadcast came in, I let them sit for the requited number of days to quarantine them, and I’ve spent two days driving around the city, dropping them in people’s mailboxes. I should say, parts of days. Really, no more than three hours, but long enough that I could convince myself that I’ve done enough work for the day and I can slack off for the rest of it.

Invasion Novel

Blog No. 386

I mentioned last week that with Broadcast Wasteland finished and the shipment on its way (currently somewhere near Etobicoke according to the package tracking, but it has been historically, wildly inaccurate) I’ve dived back into the novel. It has always been my plan to eventually write a novel (eventually being the key word in that sentence). Initially, I was all in on short stories as that is what brought me into reading in the first place and the plan was to cut my teeth on the shorts and build the skills to write a novel. After a couple of years working on stories for AWP, I rolled up my sleeves and made my first attempt at writing a novel.

Laid Off

Blog No. 385

I feel like a real writer, and not because I’ve been managing to write every day since I sent Broadcast Wasteland to the printer. I’m now officially laid off from the day job for the foreseeable future. It’s, apparently, temporary. I have no reason to believe that it won’t be temporary, but this quarantine is going to last a lot longer than some people expect (especially when people won’t just stay home). I’m not sure how all the details with Employment Insurance and/or the federal aid will work out, but I’m sure I’m going to waste the rest of today working on it. I’m in a comfortable place right now, so I’m not terribly worried, but having some income coming in would make me feel better.

Update!

Blog No. 384

I have a few days left of my time off from the day job and I’m waiting to hear if I will continue to stay home (probably) and if they will keep paying me (probably not). In the mean time, Broadcast Wasteland is at the printers in the processing stage and I should be able to order copies within the next few days. I’ll probably order a few test copies before I jump in with a big order of 100 and start selling them. I may see if I can get them to Biblioasis since they have been doing deliveries, but I haven’t really thought about a distribution plan beyond that. I wanted to get all my accounts settled with Biblioasis before starting a new one, but these are strange times.

Five Days

Blog No. 383

I’m going to try to stay on topic for this one. I’m sure no one needs to hear about being stuck inside from yet another person. We’re all in that boat together. Though, I will say, staying focused has been a challenge. I’m a creature who craves structure, so a total lack of my usual structure is challenging. That being said, I’m trying really hard to get this novella (Broadcast Wasteland) finished in the next five days. There is still a handful of cleanup to do on the story (typos be damned) the layout to finish, and the cover to put together. (Glen Hawkes did an amazing job with the image, but the interior has to be done in order to get the template from the printer, then put all the pieces together).