2019: A Year in Review

Blog No. 372

Welcome to the long post where I look back on my previous year on this blog and as a writer and feel things. Those of you who have been with me for a while (hi mom and dad) know the story of this blog all too well. Some time back in 2010 I decided that I should have a blog. I was still in the “I want to be a writer but I don’t actually write,” phase, so it fizzled out rather quickly. Then, at the end of 2012 something clicked and I actually started to do this thing (for real). I started writing stories to go up on Adventure Worlds, and I restarted this blog, aiming for a weekly post. Now it’s 2020 and I’ve managed a post a week since January 10th 2013. Most of the time it’s been on Thursday, but there was that one hiccup that I will never live down where it came out on Saturday because I was bad at organization and planning and overwhelmed with three jobs at the time. Still, it was a learning moment. I think it taught me to think long term and realize how a simple slip-up or lazy moment can blemish an otherwise impressive (if otherwise meaningless) achievement. That said, 362 posts in a row, seven years, and over 270 000 words. That’s not nothing.

Changing Gears

Blog No. 366

The Fall Book Crawl is over, and I’m not sure what to do with myself. That’s a lie. I have a literally endless list of things to do, but no events scheduled anytime soon. It’s about this time (often sooner) that Christian and I sit down and put together a list of events for us to approach and/or plan in the new year. It hasn’t happened yet, however, and I suspect that the delay is down to simple priorities. I was laser focused on the novella, and he is knee deep in his next novel. I’m at a standstill with the novella, though, with the second draft finished and doubt. As Christian goes over Broadcast Wasteland for me (another distraction from his novel) and I finalized the title of the next novella (a little early, but I have to put it in the back of this one) I have the comic as my main focus. Scripts are a tricky thing to write. You’d think that with so much free space and mostly just dialogue to write, it would be way easier. In my experience it isn’t.

The Rest of the Year

Blog No. 364

I’ve got one more event this year. It’s the Fall Book Crawl, a local author signing event at the Tecumseh Library on November 23rd. It’s a Saturday and I have no idea what to expect except for a bunch of authors (some I haven’t met before). It’s being organized by Tim Gabrielle, an author I haven’t met, but whose books I’ve spotted at Biblioasis. He’s done a good job so far getting a number of authors organized, finding prizes for a draw, and advertising the thing. I’ve been in his shoes a few times, so I know how much work it can be (and how you can never know what thing you do will or won’t bring in the people. Either way, it should be a good afternoon with a bunch of different genres represented and some new people to meet.

First Draft Fury

Blog No. 356

I suppose this is going to be mostly an update. I’ve so far avoided reviewing the two events that happened early in the month (that were steamrolled by the Neon Heart behind the writing posts). I may get to them in the future, but it’s already been a while and if I let it go too far, I will probably skip it. The only thing that’s happening right now, though, is the first draft of Broadcast Wasteland. I did a little post over on Adventure Wolds Press about what Christian and I are working on, but I was a little vague as I was trying to encapsulate a few things on one short post. So, I’ll go into more detail about it here. Even though there isn’t that much to get into in the first place. Basically, I’m currently writing the first draft of the next novella and I’m trying to do it in a month.

Behind the Writing: The Neon Heart (Part Two of Three)

Bog No. 353

Continuation from Part One

Warning. Spoilers ahead. Even more than in Part One, but it’s mostly about Character stuff, so it shouldn’t be too bad.

As for the main characters, Reggie is me, Teal is that little (tiny, insignificant) outgoing aspect of myself that I developed from observing other extroverted people that I know (not least of which is my brother, but his personality is very different from Teal). To me, Reggie is uninteresting. He’s my proxy so, I see him as an idealized version of myself, though I tried to make sure he was flawed. I got some flack for his name. I was listening to a lot of Reggie and the Full Effect (a favourite musician/band of mine) and the name stuck. I struggle with names. Reggie was a tough choice, but I think it works. The name Teal came very easily. In fact, everything with Teal came easily. She was really fun to write (especially after the minimal characterization of Zed) and she let me say all the inappropriate (in terms of timing if not content) things that bring me secret joy. (If you ever see me laughing at nothing, it’s that Teal-like part of my brain saying something stupid that I find hilarious). I knew she would be divisive. She is an exaggerated version of several twenty-something women that I’ve known, so I figured those same people (older now) would either relate to her and love her, or find her insufferable and hate her. It’s been about a fifty-fifty split on the feedback so far.

Behind the Writing: The Neon Heart (Part One of Three)

Blog No. 352

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.

eBook Blues

Blog No. 351

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. No Light Tomorrow came out at the end of 2015 (so long ago now). I did the layout, making many mistakes along the way, but ultimately getting a good handle on the process. I assumed, especially since it is an advertised feature of most modern layout and design programs, I could just knock out the ebooks too. I could not. Eventually, Mirror World took up No Light, so I didn’t have to worry about that any more, but I have two books of a novella series (The Synthetic Albatross to be exact) and since I did those ones on my own, I wanted to make sure I had some good ebooks to go along with them.