Weight and Counterweight

Blog Post No. 537

I was going to title this week’s post A Room of One’s Own, then I looked up the title in Wikipedia. I knew it was the name of an essay by Virginia Wolf, and I knew it had something to do with needing a space (and money) in order to write, what I forgot was that she was taking about the specific issues women faced when writing fiction and I really didn’t want to co-opt that (even as a silly tittle for a dumb blog post). As I’m sure you’ve guessed by now, this post will deal with the basic idea of needing space, physically and mentally, in order to write. (There are plenty of great women writers that you should check out for more on their personal struggles like Brittni Brinn, Elly Blake, and Vanessa Shields, among many others).

Early in the Year Update

Blog Post No. 529

Before I sat down to write this week’s post, I wasn’t 100% sure what I was going to write about. I had a few half-thought-out ideas, but nothing that felt strong enough for a post. Then, I went through some old posts to determine exactly when I started the Invasion Novel (because I’m not done talking about that thing, yet and won’t be for some time). Turns out, the first post where I talk about actually starting the novel was in November of 2018. I remember having a false start on the book. I had written a couple of chapters with a strong narrator, but right away, I knew that wasn’t the story I wanted to tell. Even still, if I take November 2018 as the starting date, that’s nearly five years of working on this book.

The 2023 Release Schedule

Blog Post No. 528

I’m not going to lie. The title of this post is a bit of a bait-and-switch. To be completely upfront, there is only one book planned for this year and even it’s only in the planning stages. I’ve started writing my part of it, though, so I want to talk a little about it. I briefly mentioned a potential anthology in a couple of recent posts. At that point, it was just a rough idea, but now, the participants have had a meeting to discuss ideas and plot themes. After that meeting, my brain does what it does and I was buzzing with ideas. It’s hard to not start on a new project with that excitement brewing, so I wrapped up what I had on my plate and started with an opening chapter.

Ten Years of Posts – 2022 in Review

Blog Post No. 527

Since January of 2013, I’ve written a weekly blog post on this website. (It was the tenth post overall). Ten years is a nice round number and a recognized milestone, so I’m really happy that I made it this far. Not to say I have any plans to stop, but ten years and over 500 posts seems like a lot while I look back on it. It’s kind of like that game Lemmings. There was an option to assign one of the little sprites to build a set of stairs. It started off slowly, pulling planks from a sack and laying them down on top of one another. Eventually, they would run out of material and if you were on top of things (and not looking towards the next obstacle on the map) you could select the same worker to keep building before it just walked over the edge.

Low Expectations

Blog Post No. 509

Just before I started to get back into editing the Invasion Novel (see last week’s post for details) I finished off a short story that I was writing for the specific purpose of submitting to an open call. Christian has had so many good things to say about Eerie River Publishing (the publisher that released Infested) and he’s been doing so well with selling short stories, that I was inspired to submit to one of Eerie River’s Open Calls. The thing is, it’s a horror publisher and the open call is for a horror story. Which would be great if I wrote horror stories.

500th Post

Blog Post No. 500

This is it. What everything (ever in the universe from the big bang to the moon landing) has been building towards. It’s the long anticipated 500th post on this blog. Before I get too deep into what is likely going to be a long and esoteric post, I want to thank Justin Cantelo, Brittni Brinn, and Christian Laforet for indulging me in writing thought-provoking (and far too kind) posts over the last three weeks. With little to no hesitation, they all agreed to help me and that’s a really good indication of friendship. They may be sick of me by now, but if they are reading this, thanks for your great guest posts!

Especially Wild Ideas – Guest Post by Brittni Brinn

Blog Post No. 498

Keeping the party going this week is Brittni Brinn. Not only is Brittni one of the most supportive writers in the Wrecking Writing Crew, she helps me to be more in tune with modern social sensibilities since her writing is always cognizant of the subject.

---

I don’t quite remember how or when I started joining Ben and the rest of the Writing Wrecking Crew for regular sessions—maybe it was after a reading or a book fair we each participated in. In any case, I started meeting the Crew at Tim Hortons around the city. I was the odd one out in some ways. For one thing, I didn’t have a car, which made far away sessions tricky to get to, and I didn’t have the established friendships the rest of the group had. Plus, before I joined the Wrecking Crew, I didn’t know that you could order Tim Hortons coffee in a ceramic mug. I learned that from Ben.

500th Post Guest Bloggers Spectacular!

Blog Post No. 496

There are only four more weeks until I reach 500 posts on this site. I’m still working on what that will exactly look like (without it being way too long). In the mean time, I’ve been hard at work cajoling friends to write guest posts for me to fill in the gap from now until the big day (which is June 23rd if you want to mark it in your calendars). I asked the guest bloggers to write about working with me and/or this blog, but I tried to leave the subject open enough in case they came up with something a little different. I also pointed out that I’m open for them to be less than favourable, but I mostly said that to appear to be gracious.

Moving On

Blog Post No. 495

It’s been about a decade since I really started to get into writing. It’s something I knew I wanted to do when I was rather young, but it took a long time for me to get over the first big hump and actually learn how to write. I’ve had the occasion to talk to a lot of folks about writing over the years (usually, happily). Some of them mention wanting to write but are intimidated with the process. I always tell them that writing is actually not that hard. It takes getting used to criticism and some work to learn the proper structure, but I honestly believe that almost anyone can do it.

While in the Middle of an Edit

Blog Post No. 425

Editing continues for Break/Interrupt. I’m currently waiting on a couple of reviews. While I wait, I’ve been trying to keep busy with other things. I’ve said it many times, including a little bit in the last post (it’s a long one, so I wouldn’t be surprised if you didn’t get through all of it) but I don’t put a lot of stock into things like the new year and resolutions. With that said, it’s difficult to not get somewhat swept up in the feeling of renewed vigor that comes with a fresh start. I’m not so stubborn that I won’t take advantage of the pervasive sentiment (though I am rather stubborn).