Warning. Spoilers ahead. If you haven’t read The Neon Heart, yet (and why not? It’s great) you may want to hold off on this one. Though, maybe it will entice you to buy the book and give it a read, so what do I know?
As September approaches and my focus shifts to the next book in The Synthetic Albatross Novella Series, I’ve been thinking more and more about my previous novellas. Then, I realized that I hadn’t done a behind the writing for Neon Heart (or I did and I forgot). So, I figured, now would be a good time for one. A long time ago, I didn’t really like reading that much. I would enjoy certain books and when I found one that tickled my fancy, I would devour it, but getting me to read wasn’t easy. Then one day, when I was watching Blade Runner for probably the fifth or sixth time, I noticed at the end of the credits that it was based off of a book. (I’m getting somewhere, just stick with me). I had read some Star Wars books, but other than my love for sci-fi movies and television, I didn’t really know much about the genre. (The literary genre at least). The book at the end of the movie was called, Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep, and trying to get a copy of that thing when the only bookstore I knew of was the Coles at the mall was not easy. I had to endure countless bad jokes and confused faces. Continue reading “Behind the Writing: The Neon Heart (Part One of Three)”
Remember when everything even remotely related to the internet had to have a lowercase ‘e’ in front of it? Then Apple made the ‘i’ a thing and we’re still feeling the backlash from that. It’s all a moot point, though. I just wrote the title and it struck me that we’ll be stuck with eBook for the foreseeable future. 
It’s August, and you know what that means. Nothing in particular. Oh, it also means that I have a month left to keep working on the Invasion Novel before I 
As you know, I’ve been trying to suss out some of the reasons as to why my writing productivity plummets in the summer. I think I was on the right track with the chaos that the Day Job brings this time of year and with the usual uptick in events (that hasn’t happened this year). There’s also the serious issue that the people who I go write with become unavailable (kids and stuff) so it becomes much easier to just put off writing or even cut my sessions short (where I’m about finished but the other person is still going so I managed a little more). There’s this other thing, though, and I don’t think it has anything to do with the season. 
So, recently, I bought a minidisc recorder. It’s a Sony model from the early 2000s, used, with some cosmetic wear—but it works. It didn’t come with and discs, though, so I had to buy a pack from Japan. (Did you know Sony still makes new minidiscs, because I didn’t). Because it would take close to a month (three weeks at least) for that shipment to get here, I scoured the local used goods marked for anything minidisc related and found that someone in the city was selling a partially working model with a disc. I talked him down to $20, and then I had two recorders (they are players too) and a single, used disc. Mostly, I wanted the disc so that I could confirm that the first player I bought worked (it does) but having the backup player, even for parts, at such a low price was worth not getting lunch one day. (Also, if I can get it to work (which would be neat) I’d have two players with slightly different abilities and styles that I could go between depending on what I want or need). The problem is that it didn’t stop there. 
Over the years since I’ve been writing, I’ve had a regular summer slump. I’ve mentioned it on this blog (probably a hundred times) but I’ve also talked about it with other authors. Most of the time people explain it away with good weather and lots of activities, but I feel the need to point out that (since I am a basement dwelling hermit) the good weather does little to change my day-to-day routine. Part of the problem is that the day job gets busier (and the usual schedule gets tossed in the trash due to lots of special rentals and yearly occurrences. Another part is that, yes the weather is nice, so there are more events. Some are ones that I attend, and some are just fun to go to. Some are neither and I’m just there to support a friend, but I do that willingly. The thing that seems to really throw me off track is the dreaded other half of writing. Editing. 
