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.

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).

Not Surprisingly

Blog No. 382

This is not going to come as a shock to you now, but it was not quite as obvious last week. The Oshawa event was cancelled. I’m not going to go on an on about how the outbreak of COVID is affecting me. It’s affecting everyone and I’m not that special. Businesses are going to suffer, and people who work in the service industry are in for a hard few weeks. I’m still not sure what’s going on with the day job (as I work in a city run facility and news is coming fast and changing often). For now, I’m safe and as healthy as a person with a chronic illness can be.

I get that this whole experience can be scary for some people, and I also understand that measures have to be taken to keep the virus from spreading, but the extremes of people vilifying anyone who leaves their house and those pushing to keep everything going as normal is as ridiculous as any other extremes. Pop Culture Canada, the group that organized the Oshawa event (and many more in central Ontario) has offered to transfer the registration to an upcoming event. Christian and I decided to try out the Stratford ComiCon on May 17th. It’ll be the second time we’re in the city this year. Hopefully things will be a little more back to normal by then.