The Social Me

Blog Post No. 481

Welcome to February of 2022. Right now I’m trying to figure out what this blog will look like for the year after having one of the best (in terms of views and visitors) years in the last decade. It’s hard to not take stock of the first month’s numbers, compare them to last year’s, and make predictions. If those numbers are any indication (and they probably aren’t) I won’t be breaking any records. But that’s okay. Not going out for readings or other events is strange and I’m sure it’s limiting my audience growth, but so is having as limited an internet presence as I currently have. I’m not a big fan of social media (though I check it enough). I hate making posts that feel empty. I believe in the concept of paying for a person’s attention with either information or entertainment.

Nine Years of Posts – 2021 in Review

Blog Post No. 476

I’m not alone in thinking that 2020 was a strange year (it totally was) but 2021 was something else entirely. I’ve tried to limit the amount that I write about the pandemic (especially as a main topic of a blog post) but it’s crept into my posts more and more. The reality is that we’re still in the middle of a deadly disease sweeping the globe and in August, I had to go back to the Day Job. As you can imagine, I wasn’t super stoked about going back (most due to the risks). I did have half the year to keep acting like a full time author, though.

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.

Surprise, Surprise

Blog Post No. 438

Surprisingly, the sample copies of my new novella, Break/Interrupt, came in earlier than expected. Not surprisingly, there was a mistake and I had to pay to upload a new file in order to fix it. The books came in last week, but I spent the weekend searching for coupon codes online in hopes of avoiding the steep cost of making the fix. It was just a little thing. The text on the back cover was off centre. Some of the issue is from the wildly varying printing and cutting tolerances that comes from print-on-demand books. Also, I was relying on the previous book’s cover as reference and since this book is significantly larger, the spacing was off.

Go with What you Feel

Blog Post No. 426

I’m still waiting on edits to come back and while I took a couple of days to chill out over the weekend, I’m getting the itch to write something new again. As I said last week, when I get deep in an edit and it all starts feeling like a drag, my mind wanders to new projects. Since the next major project is a lot more editing for the Invasion Novel and I won’t see new writing until August when I start the next novella, I thought I would take a crack at a short story early.

Eight Years of Posts – 2020 in Review

Blog post No. 424

I totally get the end of a year being a meaningful starting or ending point for people. We perceive the passage of time naturally in days and seasons, but we created weeks, months, and years to make it easier. It’s not like because we started a new year that everything is reset, though. The same issues we had a week ago are still here (unless it’s something you’ve already taken care of, in which case, good job!).
Still, I mark the passage of a year on this blog. I’m up to eight years of weekly posts. It may not be special for everyone, but I’m pretty proud of it. I had some rough starts where ten or so posts came whenever I could force myself to do them, but when I decided to give writing a go, I made a commitment to weekly posts and here I am.
Now, it’s about this time in each of my yearly review posts where I point out that I have one gleaming error in my otherwise pristine blogging record. One week (when I was working three jobs at the time) I missed putting a post out on Thursday and got it out on Saturday instead. I’m usually hard on myself for that failure, but thinking back on it this year, I was able to convince myself that I did manage to get a post out that week, so it’s not all that bad.

2021

Blog Post No. 423

Welcome to the last post of 2020. This is when I traditionally write about my plans for next year. Before I got started, I went back and read over my last post of 2019. Wow, I was way off with my predictions there. (Don’t go back and read it because I make a joke that hits way too close to home with how 2020 turned out). But, this is a post about the future, not the past. I save that for the true end of the year for this page, the closest Thursday to January 10th. Though the world and our interpersonal relations have been strange, I hope that most people had a little bit of joy in whatever celebrations they take part in this time of year. Personally, I missed the usual mix of hectic visits and lazy family time. Usually my brother and I spend the afternoon at my parent’s house exchanging gifts, playing billiards, and just enjoying each other’s company. It’s challenging enough that my other brother and his family are far away and we can’t see each other for Christmas, but only being able to see my parents digitally was tough. And I’m not a very personable person. I imagine it was much more difficult for others.

Gaming with Friends

Blog Post No. 417

Last week I finished off the third draft of Break/Interrupt and (like passing off a mewling baby) handed it over to Christian for review. There is still a lot of editing left to do, but other than more potential cuts, the story is pretty well set. With the novella out of my hands, I am trying to be productive in other ways without diving into another project that will have to be put on hold when I get the edit back. At the top of the list is coming up with some good ideas for the cover so that Glen Hawkes can turn my scribbles into something cool.

Called Off

Blog Post No. 403

As you probably know, I’ve been home from the Day Job since early March. There are a lot of people in similar situations, and to be honest, it hasn’t been too bad for me. With Employment Insurance and the Emergency Benefits, I’m not really losing much money. (Some months may have even been better than what I sometimes get since the Day Job fluctuates so much). With the various stages of opening (for better or worse) across the province where I live, some folks have been going back to work, and many more are scheduled to when my area hits the third stage and schools open. As for me, I’ve been officially informed that my Day Job won’t be reopening until 2021.

Murderbot

Blog No. 393

I’ve recently finished reading the first four books of the Murderbot Diaries by Martha Wells. There are two more books in the series, one out now and the other announced, but they are both novels. The ones I’ve finished are novellas, and seeing as the new ones are novels, they seemed to be the end of an arc. I was quite taken with the first book when I read it. I got it as an ebook since it was on sale (and may still be). I read it quickly and generally had a good time with it. I was eager to get to the next book (it was already out, and I think the other two were either forthcoming or just newly released at the time). I didn’t, though, because it was so expensive. I have an issue with the current price of ebooks ever since the publishers managed to take control of the pricing. I only buy ebooks on sale now, since the prices can be way too high. (When I can get a paperback for ten dollars, I’m not spending the same or more for a digital copy).