Keeping in Touch

Blog Post No. 530

There’s value in keeping in touch with the people who matter in your life. (Value beyond relieving guilt, I mean, though alleviating guilt is a personal win for me every time). I wouldn’t say that I’m the worst at keeping in touch, but only because so many other people I know say that they are. That doesn’t mean I’m great at it , though. I just happen to be fine with being alone for so much of the time.

While I enjoy the company of my friends and family while in the moment, I’m also content when I’m just doing my own thing. (It also takes energy to engage, so sometimes there’s too much of a good thing with other people). It’s almost the same issue I have with starting any kind of work. Once I get going, I tend to do better than I had expected. I struggle with that first push.

2023

Blog Post No. 526

Welcome to the end of 2022. As is tradition, I’ll write a nice long post looking back on the year when I get to the year-end of the blog in mid January. This post is all about looking to the future. The distant future of 2023, to be exact. Will there finally be flying cars and food in pill form? I have no idea, but I kind of hope not. I’ll settle for better healthcare and cheaper groceries. I’d also really like to finally get out of the house more and specifically start attending events again. I’ve been writing these looking ahead posts since the early days of the website and so far my predictions have been unreliable at best. That doesn’t mean I’m not sincere when I state my goals (also, it’s mostly fun to look to the future and dream). Also, the lock-downs have reminded us that the world doesn’t care about what plans you’ve made.

Three Posts in One!

Blog post No. 520

I’m going to try something new this week. The end of the year is just around the corner and I’d like to get my views and visits up a bit. More importantly, I’m a little low on things to write about so I decided to take three ideas that may not be enough for a whole post and see if putting them together is something. I could have stretched each one out into a full post, giving me three weeks worth of material, but would those three weeks be any good? We’ll never know since I decided to try this instead!

Section One: Digital vs. Physical
I ordered a new CD and a new Record this week. I picked up a couple of extra hours at the day job on Mondays (losing half-an-hour to an automatically deducted break). Since most of my holiday shopping is done, I thought I could get away with the purchase. I’ve been trying to go back to getting physical items in general; books, movies, games, and music. Partly because it’s nice to have the physical object (especially when the object is cool like an album or special edition movie. The bigger reason is that, while I’m all in for the convenience of digital media, I like to own the things I pay for.

A Holistic Approach

Blog Post No. 518

A friend of mine shared a great concept with me regarding last week’s post about Everyone Being Tired. He put it in a succinct and catchy phrase, too. He said he likes to “Earn the Tired”. While he’s been going through the same fatigue that it seems everyone is, he finds when he’s tired from work (be it physical or otherwise) the next morning doesn’t hit so hard. Not only was it nice to have an conversation based on something I’ve written, his comment made me think about what I’m doing (or not) to earn the tired.

Thousands of kilometers, Baconators, and how to fix Star Wars – Guest Post by C.M. Forest

Blog Post No. 499

Continuing the run up to the 500th post, this week we have a guest post by C.M. Forest, better known on this blog as jerk Christian Laforet.

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Alright, picture this: It’s early, like, the sun isn’t up yet early. The day is promising to be a hot one, but the chill from the night before is still in the air. I’m standing in front of my house, a small suitcase and a bag of books on the ground beside me and a Monster energy drink in hand (with a few more tucked into my suitcase). I’m anxious. Toronto is a four-hour drive (through some of the most boring landscape ever spewed from the Earth) and the event, a reading at a bar for a genre publisher, will not pay near enough to cover the costs of the trip. I can’t even say I’m looking forward to the event itself. I’ve always been an introverted person and the idea of standing before a group of strangers and reading aloud is not an appealing one. So, yeah, I’m anxious. And then I see the red pick-up truck turn the corner of my street and that anxiety begins to dissipate like the nighttime chill. A moment later, Ben is parked in my driveway, my bags are loaded and I’m climbing into his truck. Some sort of joke has already been cracked, as has my Monster, and with a last glance at my house, we’re off. And now I’m no longer anxious, but exited (and not just because Ben is a good-looking guy either!). I’m excited for the hours I get to spend with my friend with nothing but conversation to fill the time.

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.

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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.

Missing the Sessions

Blog Post No. 493

Christian was at Shock Stock last weekend and I can’t tell you how disappointed I was that I didn’t go with him. (But let me try. I was very disappointed). I’ve mentioned a few times recently that I don’t feel comfortable at public gatherings yet. That means he had to make the difficult decision to go without me. I know he must have been torn, but he soldiered on alone—with his family. His daughter filled my roll admirably, selling stickers (and probably drawing in more people than I would have with my dumb books).

Snow from a Distant Sky is now Available

Blog post No. 491

I may be milking it a little by now, but this is a short post to announce the official release of Snow from a Distant Sky. In case you don’t already know, it’s the fifth book in The Synthetic Albatross Novella Series that started with The Thinking Machine in 2018. As I’ve mentioned a number of times, the series is now on hold for the foreseeable future. One of the main reasons I wrote the series was to have new books each year for the annual events I was attending. Now that I have Broadcast Wasteland, Break/Interrupt, and Snow in my pocket for when I do go back to events (you can read last week’s post to know why I’m not taking part, yet) I think my time is better spent working on some novels.

Reluctant

Blog Post No. 490

I was hoping to announce that Snow from a Distant Sky is available this week, but I haven’t gotten the sample copies from the printer (as of writing this) so the wait continues. I hope I get to release it soon. Not just because I’m excited for people to read this one, either. Since the province where I live is opening regardless of infection rates, I’m getting more and more requests to take part in events.

Switching Gears

Blog Post No. 488

With Snow at the printer and out of my hands, it’s time to dive back into the Invasion Novel.
When we last left off…
I had finished the second draft of the Invasion Novel in July of last year and was going to get two more drafts done before starting Snow from a Distant Sky in August. Then I was besieged by an army of earwigs. Before I put the editing on pause to write and release the novella (available to order any day now) I managed to get in a third draft of the still far too long novel. That leaves me to start the fourth draft which I’m planning on doing tomorrow.