Tag: Mrs. Vasicek

2019-10-03 Newsletter Author’s Note

This author’s note originally appeared in the October 3rd edition of my author newsletter. To subscribe to my newsletter, click here.

When Mrs. Vasicek and I got married, we decided that there would be no smart devices or screens in our house beyond the master bedroom. Our reasoning had mostly to do with personal health and avoiding bad habits, though there was also some concern about data collection and privacy.

One of the things I really like about this rule is that it keeps me from becoming too attached to my smart phone. Most of us are never be more than an arm’s reach away from our phones, and over time we come to feel almost like they’re a physical part of us. But every night, Mrs. Vasicek and I leave our phones to get ready for bed, and we don’t pick them up again until after we’re fully awake.

I have to admit that I had withdrawals at first, but now I feel much better. My phone is just another tool now; it no longer feels like an extension of myself.

Another thing I really like about this rule is how it sets apart a large section of the house that is free from digital distractions. The bedroom is now a really great place to read. Our one exception to the no screens rule is my Kindle Paperwhite, which uses e-ink anyway so it’s not as bad as an LED screen. It’s also seven-and-a-half years old, so web browsing isn’t really practical.

The other thing I really like is how it sets my mind at ease to know that there’s at least one part of the house where there aren’t any digital recording devices surveilling and collecting data on us. (Please don’t tell me that the Paperwhite is recording me too!)

In the last few years, it seems that Big Tech has been increasingly intrusive in our lives. Over the summer, it seemed like every week there’d be a new story about a Silicon Valley whistleblower, or an undercover investigation, or even a senior Google executive coming out on the record about censorship, bias, and control.

A couple of weeks ago, Glenn Beck did a fascinating interview with Robert Epstein, a researcher who found compelling evidence that Google has both the capability and the motivation to sway major national elections. (Epstein voted for Clinton in 2016, so the interview wasn’t partisan.) It reminded me of a presentation that Chamath Palihapitiya (senior executive at Facebook from 2007 to 2011) gave at Stanford in 2017, where he talked about social media addiction and explained why he doesn’t use social media nor allow his children to do so.

It’s becoming increasingly difficult to navigate our modern, complex world in a way that doesn’t surrender most of our agency to Big Tech and Silicon Valley. It’s also becoming increasingly ambiguous how much of that agency is an illusion, with companies like Facebook and Google influencing us in ways we aren’t consciously aware of.

As an indie author who depends on Amazon for a large part of my income, I’m very much aware of these issues. It’s part of the reason why I’m working so hard to build and maintain this newsletter, so that I don’t have to depend on Big Tech for my book marketing. It’s impossible to be a career author these days without a plan for navigating this world.

Where are we headed? Science fiction gives us a chilling answer. Right now, it appears that China and the East are going the way of 1984, while the United States and the West are going the way of Brave New World.

But those books were written almost a hundred years ago, and technologies have been developed that Orwell and Huxley couldn’t have even dreamed of. It’s time for a new generation of writers to pick up the torch that they handed off to us.

That’s a big reason why I’m writing “Sex, Life, and Love under the Algorithms.” As for where to go next, I honestly don’t know. So much happening in the world today screams out for new science fiction just to make sense of it all, so when I’m not writing fantasy I’ll probably delve more into that.

Whatever else happens, we’re all in this rabbit hole together.

2019-09-05 Newsletter Author’s Note

This author’s note originally appeared in the September 5th edition of my author newsletter. To subscribe to my newsletter, click here.

Five years ago, I wrote a blog post titled “Reasons why September is my favorite month of the year.” Ever since then, whenever September rolls around, it becomes the most popular post on my blog. Since this is the first newsletter I’ve sent this September, I thought it would be fun to revisit all the reasons why September is the best month of the year.

First of all, fall is obviously the best season for a number of reasons. Summer is too hot and winter is too cold, but spring and fall are transitional seasons where, for at least a couple of weeks, the weather is exactly perfect. Spring is a close second to fall (and if you happen to live down under, September is a spring month, not an autumn month), but it’s ultimately not the best because the year hasn’t come full circle yet. Spring flowers are pretty, but fall vegetables are better.

Of all the fall months (September, October, November), September is the best because:

  • Chilly mornings — I love waking up to a nice, brisk chill! Must be my Viking blood.
  • Campfire smoke — Few scents are more invigorating than the good, clean wood smoke of a bonfire, especially in the brisk, chilly September air.
  • Farmer’s markets — If you haven’t experienced a proper farmer’s market with fresh, local produce and delicious free samples, you should. It’s a real treat!
  • Crisp Gala apples — Gala is my favorite, though Mrs. Vasicek and I have a running debate about which is the best kind of apple (she prefers Pink Lady). However, all apples are delicious when you pick them right off the tree.
  • Home-cooked chili — A classic staple of American cuisine. It’s too warm for summer and too heavy for spring, but for the colder months of fall and winter, it’s amazing.
  • Autumn leaves — Growing up in New England, this was a special treat. The American northeast has some of the most spectacular fall foliage I’ve ever seen.
  • Labor Day weekend — A very relaxing holiday, and the best way to bring the summer to a close.
  • My birthday — It only comes around once a year!
  • Start of the school calendar — New beginnings, and another reason why fall is superior to spring. In the fall, school is new and exciting, but when spring rolls around you can’t hardly wait for it to end.
  • Old friends coming and going — Related to the reasons listed above.
  • Last chance to go mountain climbing — And it’s much better to go hiking in the fall, because there isn’t any snow yet and it’s not as hot as summer.
  • First chance to take out winter clothes — You can always put on more clothes, but you can’t always take more off.
  • End of the summer slump — It’s always good when book sales are increasing.
  • Beginning of harvest season — So much delicious and healthy food!
  • Orion and the Pleiades — My favorite stars!
  • Clear blue skies — Chill air is great, but so are Indian summers.
  • Indian summers — What did I just say??
  • Long, chilly walks by moonlight — It’s good to get the blood pumping, but not so cold that it freezes your nose and beard.
  • The peace and quiet between summer vacation and the holidays — This is a big one. September is the last month before the stress of the holiday season, which seems to be creeping back earlier and earlier. But that’s a subject for another author’s note, which I’ll probably write as soon as they start to play Christmas music (hopefully not before Thanksgiving).
  • Getting back into writing after a long and eventful summer

Funny how that last one is just as true for me now as it was five years ago. It has been an extremely eventful summer, between getting married, spending time with Mrs. Vasicek’s family, and figuring out our new lives together. But now it’s September, the best month of the year, and things are coming together. Life is very, very good.

2019-08-08 Newsletter Author’s Note

This author’s note originally appeared in the August 8th edition of my email newsletter. To subscribe to my newsletter, click here.

A couple of days ago, Mrs. Vasicek and I had an old friend of hers over for dinner. This friend was visiting from out of state, and Mrs. Vasicek made it clear that politics was a subject which we would have to avoid, or at least tread very lightly. Among other things, I’d have to drop my tailgate to make sure it didn’t make a bad first impression.

(One of these days, I’ll have to share a photo of my tailgate. I despise political correctness in all of its forms, so my tailgate has become something of a monument to the first amendment. Frequently at stop lights, people will take out their phones to snap a picture.)

The dinner went really well, and we had good conversations well into the evening. Surprisingly enough, this wasn’t because we outright avoided politics, but because when the issues came up, we were able to find common ground in spite of our obvious differences. In this way, we were able to connect in a much more genuine way than if we had avoided those difficult subjects entirely.

One of the things we talked about was the destructive influence of social media outrage. Our friend told us how the relationship between her father and her sister has been destroyed, because Facebook is the only way that they can connect with each other. Those interactions have become so politically toxic that they’ve lost all of the love that they once had for each other.

That’s sad, but it’s becoming an all-too-common occurance here in the United States. Some people believe that we’re on the verge of a second civil war. I don’t know what the future holds, but if it’s anything like the first civil war, I know that there will be honorable people on both sides. That’s the tragedy. I have ancestors who fought on both sides of the American civil war, and when people ask which side I think was right, I answer “the American side.”

I’m fascinated by Robert E. Lee and his decision to fight for the Confederacy, when Lincoln himself offered him command of the Army of the Potomac. He opposed both slavery and secession, yet his conscience couldn’t allow him to stand at the head of an invading army. Neither could it allow him to stand by idly while his friends and family were slaughtered—not when he was in a position to make a difference.

Did he make the right choice? I don’t know. However, I do believe that he tried his best to do so. I try to keep that in mind when I talk with people across the political divide. No matter how much we may disagree, it’s refreshing to meet people who are sincerely striving to do what’s right as best as they know how.

In these troubled times, when the public discourse is rapidly deteriorating and outrage is the social currency of the day, it’s important to recognize the good in people, no matter which side they line up on.

2019-08-01 Newsletter Author’s Note

This author’s note originally appeared in the August 1st edition of my author newsletter. To subscribe to my newsletter, click here.

So Mrs. Vasicek is currently in Florence, Italy for a work conference that’s been going on all week. Am I jealous? Yeah, a little. Do I miss her? Yes, of course. Does she miss me? That’s what she tells me, though she’s also having a really good time touring the city and eating delicious Italian pizza and gelato. Am I jealous? Am I?

In any case, it’s been really quiet here in the Vasicek household with her gone. I’ve been taking advantage of that to get some household chores done. After we came back from the honeymoon, we went systematically through each room of the house to organize our stuff, and everything we didn’t have an immediate place for we dumped in the spare room until we could find a place for it to live. Just before she left, we finished going through all of it, so now I’ve turned the spare bedroom into my workplace:

2019-08-01 Joe's writing space

Here’s what it looks like right now. It’s not as messy as it seems. All of those cardboard boxes contain our books, which will have to remain in storage until we figure out where to shelve them. When two bookish people marry each other… you understand.

So yeah, it’s been quiet around here with Mrs. Vasicek gone. Quiet, and a little bit lonely. It reminds me of the time a few years ago when I was living alone without any roommates and got sick. I didn’t have any meaningful human contact for weeks on end, which was almost unbearable.

Writers tend to be introverts, but I’m actually an extrovert. Not the super bubbly kind who always greets everyone with a wide-eyed smile—I actually find it draining to meet new people, and prefer to keep to a small circle of close friends. But spending time with friends energizes me, while spending time alone drains me even more than being around people I don’t know.

Mrs. Vasicek is the opposite of me in that regard. She finds it draining to spend a lot of time with a close circle of friends, but gets energized when she’s in front of a large group, teaching or presenting or otherwise performing for them. She’s definitely an introvert, though, and tries to avoid unnecessary social interactions, especially when they might be awkward.

On our first date—which, incidentally, was at a bookstore (go figure)—I struck up a casual conversation with another person browsing the shelves. It’s the sort of thing that comes to me naturally, being an extrovert, but it really impressed her, enough to make her interested in a second date.

You don’t have to be alone to be lonely. That’s probably why I don’t do as well in large crowds of strangers. You also don’t have to be an extrovert: introverts can get lonely, too.

For extroverts, though, it’s either a virtuous or a vicious cycle. Spending time with people energizes you, which makes it easier to spend time with people, which energizes you, etc. On the flipside, spending time alone drains you, which makes it harder to have meaningful interactions with people, which drains you even more, etc.

All of this rambling probably makes me sound like I’m quietly losing my mind, but don’t worry: I’m actually just fine. My family was in town earlier this week, and I ran into an old college roommate just today and learned that he’s got a movie coming out in theaters next month. Awesome stuff!

So yeah, everything’s fine, but I do miss my wife a lot. She comes back in a couple of days, and I’m definitely looking forward to that.

2019-07-25 Newsletter Author’s Note

This author’s note originally appeared in the July 25th edition of my author newsletter. To sign up for my newsletter, click here.

So Mrs. Vasicek has been sick with the flu for the past two weeks. She’s getting better, but we’ve both been less than productive, and any semblance of a daily routine has basically been shot. Turns out that having your wife around all day is a very distracting thing. Who would have thought?

All of this has got me thinking about habits and routines: how important they are, how to make them work, and how not to get discouraged. I’ve been self-employed basically since graduating from college nine years ago. I’ve worked a lot of side jobs, but nothing that I’d call a “day job,” at first because there weren’t any (graduating in a major recession is tough), and later on because I wanted to focus on my writing career—which so far, has been working out.

When you’re self-employed, you basically have to make your own daily routine, because there isn’t anyone else to make it for you. A lot of people struggle with this, especially after quitting their day jobs. If you aren’t careful, you’ll find yourself sitting on the floor in your underwear eating peanut butter straight from the jar (not that I have any experience with this, of course). But if you buckle down and push through that phase, you learn a few things.

First, you learn that even the best routines always fall apart at some point. It’s just the nature of the beast. The circumstances of life are always changing, which means that you’ve got to be constantly adapting to them. Hanging on doggedly to a favorite routine just for the routine’s sake is setting yourself up for failure. Goals are a mean to an end, not an end in themselves.

Second, guilt is not a very good positive motivator. It’s helpful to keep you from doing the things you shouldn’t be doing, but it’s a horrible way to get yourself to do the things you should. I’ve known a lot of writers who constantly beat themselves up for not meeting their writing goals, to the point where it’s practically a full-time job. For a while, I’ve been there myself. Not good.

The best way to make yourself more productive is to find ways to make it more enjoyable. Personally, I find that writing is most enjoyable when I’m immersed in the story that I’m trying to tell. Sometimes, the best way to get immersed is to take a break, and sometimes, the best way is just to sit down and write. It takes a while to figure out what works. I’m still trying to figure it out better.

Third, when making a new routine, make sure to keep your eye on the end goal. What good is eating an elephant one bite at a time if you’re eating the wrong elephant? That’s why, when your routine starts to fall apart, it may be better to rethink what you’re trying to accomplish and rebuild it from the ground up, even though it’s easier just to tweak it.

That’s where I’m at right now. I could just push my deadlines back a couple weeks and try to go back to how things were going, but there’s a lot of other business related stuff on my plate that I’ve been neglecting, and I get the impression that the best way to move forward with writing is to prioritize that other stuff and get it out of the way.

I’m married now!

So last week Future Mrs. Vasicek and I got married! It’s been really amazing so far. Amazing, and surreal. This is the first I’ve been on a computer since the 11th. We honeymooned in a cabin up in the Tetons, about a dozen miles from the edge of civilization, and it feels odd to be back, not the least because I’ve moved into her house now, which is now our house… an actual house. Like, with a yard and stuff. It’s pretty rad.

The reception was amazing, too. I should probably post pictures, seeing as we had a dunk tank in the end. Yes, Mrs. Vasicek got dunked in her actual wedding dress. She didn’t want the guests to get bored during the reception, so we had a dunk tank, and a bounce house, and an ice cream bar, and a live band that was really amazing. I’ve never seen so many people dancing at a wedding reception. The floor was packed.

So we’re married now, which means going through all of our stuff, figuring what to keep and where it should go. That process will probably continue for the next couple of months. I’m also learning a bunch of interesting new things about her, like the fact that she has a pen collection of probably more than 100 pens! Good thing she married a writer.

In any case, it’s going to take a couple of weeks to ease back into writing again. My plan as of now is to spend the rest of June outlining my next WIP, The Stars of Redemption, which will complete the Genesis Earth trilogy. Lots and lots of publishing stuff to do, too, including new print editions of all of my books. Expect to see those in the very near future.

To get back into the swing of things, I will do my best to regularly update this blog. I also plan to send out a newsletter before the end of the week, with a sweet deal for my subscribers.

So much stuff happening. It’s surreal. I’m married to a woman who is perfect for me in every sort of weird, quirky way imaginable. If you’d told me a year ago that this was where I’d be, I wouldn’t have dared believe it. It’s amazing. It’s beautiful. Everything is beautiful. When people cut me off on the road, I don’t even care. My wife gets off work in an hour and ten minutes, and I can hardly wait to see her again. Being a newlywed is the most amazing drug ever.

A quick update

If life had a crazy-meter, the needle on mine would be somewhere in the yellow green right now and trending toward the red.

Next week, Future Mrs. Vasicek and I will be traveling to Iowa for my nephew’s baptism. It’s going to be a big family affair. Future Mrs. Vasicek has met everyone already, minus some of the nieces and nephews, but this will be the first time that we’re all in the same place together. Should be fun, but also very busy.

Next month, we’re getting married, and that’s a whole other source of craziness right there. Good craziness, but craziness all the same. Things are coming together one thing at a time, but there’s still a bunch of stuff to figure out, and a bunch of unknown unknowns as well. It will probably take at least a couple of months after we’re married before everything fully shakes out.

As far as writing goes, I’m making slow but steady progress on Edenfall, and should still finish it before the wedding. I’ll share more details on that in the email newsletter that I plan to send out this week, but the short version is that I seem to be over the hump and making good progress. That’s where I’m putting most of my energy, so if the blog falls off for a while, don’t worry—I’m still here.

As for the publishing side of things, I’m figuring out how to get all my books out in print, which was something I thought I’d figured out back in January until I learned just how crappy KDP Paperback really is. That said, it’s the best option for the present time, so I’m trying to figure out how to work within those limitations and design covers that their POD printers won’t mangle too badly. Still, it’s going to be a while.

An area where I’ve really dropped the ball is short stories. It’s been months since I wrote the last one, and I need to put a bunch out on submission again too. Also, marketing is an area that I need to do better in. I’m experimenting a bit with AMS ads, but it is so freakishly complicated that I hardly know where to begin.

But reading is an area that I really need to do better. I try to spend an hour or two each night reading, but the last couple of weeks that hasn’t happened at all. My TBR list is about three shelves long right now, and that’s just the print books. That’s definitely an oversight that needs to be rectified.

At the same time, I’m well on my way toward collecting all of the works of David Gemmell, mostly through Paperback Swap. If everyone has a superpower, mine is the ability to acquire books, so Paperback Swap is a really fantastic way to leverage that. The Neverending Story is my favorite book, but David Gemmell is my favorite author, so I definitely want to have all of his books in my personal library.

That’s pretty much it. Still need to figure out cover work for Edenfall. Still need to assemble my first readers and get stuff figured out for that. All of these are good problems, though. Hopefully, I’ll be trading up for better problems in the very near future.

Plans for My Personal Home Library

If everyone has a weird or quirky super power, mine is the ability to acquire books. Even when I was living out of a suitcase in a remote Caucasian village, or traipsing across the Middle East, I was constantly acquiring books.

With my marriage to Future Mrs. Vasicek coming up, I’ve decided to put this super power to use. Instead of acquiring books randomly, I’m approaching the task of building a personal library with goals and a plan. Part of that plan is to inventory all of the books that I own, with lists of books / ebooks / audiobooks that I want to acquire. Part of it is to find a place in my home where I can shelve them all, instead of keeping them in boxes or the closet. And another part is categorizing all of the books, with goals for each category.

Requirements

After putting some thought into it, here are my basic requirements:

  • The entire library must fit in a single room / device / server.
  • The only books that I’ll keep are ones that:
    • I want to read again,
    • I want to talk about with others, or
    • I want to share with my family.
  • Ebooks and audiobooks must be DRM-free and device agnostic.

A while ago, I did a blog post on the pros and cons between print books, ebooks, and audiobooks. That seems to be a pretty good set of criteria for determining which formats to collect my books in, or whether to collect a particular book in multiple formats.

Ideally, I want to set up my personal library in a shared space in my home, where I can host guests. Future Mrs. Vasicek and I are going to get a set of scriptures, kind of like the tradition of a family bible, and I want this to be the centerpiece of my personal library. Eventually, I also want to get a dedicated ereader (or set of ereaders) that lives in the library, as well as a portable hard drive for all of the audiobooks. I don’t want any of it to depend on the cloud.

Categories

So far, I’ve got eight categories, though I’m sure this will expand. They are:

  1. Science fiction & fantasy
  2. Other fiction
  3. LDS non-fiction
  4. Self-improvement
  5. Writing & publishing
  6. Arabic language
  7. History & current events
  8. Other non-fiction

I have a lot more fiction books than non-fiction (go figure). For now, I’m using Goodreads as a library inventory system, though I may want to find something better in the future. If you check out my Goodreads profile, you can probably see all of them.

I’m working to come up with goals and plans for each category. Here’s what I have so far:

Science Fiction & Fantasy

My main goal here is to collect the complete works of David Gemmell. He is my favorite fantasy writer of all time, and I’ve read all of the Drenai series and most of the Stones of Power and the Rigante series as well. I’m holding off on the Troy books, mostly because I want to savor them. He’s also got a few standalones and duologies, most of which I’ve read.

Other series that I want to collect in print are:

  • Louis McMaster Bujold’s Vorkosigan series
  • All of Heinlein’s juveniles
  • The Barsoom series by Edgar Rice Burroughs (Princess of Mars, etc)
  • Ursula K. Le Guin’s Hainish cycle
  • All of the books by my writer friends

There are also a bazillion trilogies that I either own or want to collect, but it’s not worth listing them all here. I’m sure this is going to be a very dynamic part of my personal library.

Other Fiction

My main goal for this section right now is to collect all of the Sackett books by Louis L’Amour. There are only two left, both of which I’ve requested on Paperback Swap. Now I get to read them all, without any interruption!

I also plan to focus on collecting Jeff Shaara, especially the Civil War books. I currently have The Killer Angels by his father, as well as Gods and Generals and The Last Full Measure. But before that, I need to read Rise to Rebellion and The Glorious Cause, which I also own (those ones cover the Revolutionary War). Depending on how much I enjoy those, I’ll decide whether to collect Shaara’s complete works.

LDS Non-fiction

There are a tone of authors that I want to collect in this section: Nibley, Givens, Gileadi, Groberg, and more. There are also a few key books that I need to acquire and read, mostly biographies and church histories.

One series that I’m really looking forward to is the four book SAINTS series published by the church. The first book was fantastic; I listened to the whole thing on the train, and it was really cool to pick out the people from my own family history and learn how they contributed to the rise of the church. The next book is going to cover the westward migration, and I have a bunch of ancestors who participated in that, including a few in the Willie handcart company. Really looking forward to it!

Here in Utah, it isn’t difficult to collect LDS non-fiction books. You can find most of the older titles in thrift stores, and there are lots of LDS bookstores to choose from. That said, I don’t have any concrete goals for this section yet. The biggest challenge will probably be in refining this section so that I only keep the best books (ha), since it would be very easy to let this section get cluttered with good but mediocre books. That seems to be the general trend.

Self-Improvement

The biggest thing I need to do in this section is reread How to Win Friends and Influence People, preferably once a year. Fantastic book.

I should also probably focus on marriage and relationship books, since y’know, I’m getting married. Personal finance is also huge: I’ve got Rich Dad, Poor Dad, and should probably collect all of Kiyosaki’s books. Stephen Covey is another huge one.

Beyond that, my cowriter Scott Bascom is really into self-improvement, so my plan for now is to build out this section based on his recommendations.

Writing & Publishing

There are a few classics that I need to re-acquire, such as Character and Viewpoint and On Writing. One classic that I will probably skip is Strunk & White’s Elements of Style (can’t stand that pretentious book). Other than that, the biggest thing is to stay current and focus on indie publishing. For that reason, I suspect that I’ll collect mostly ebooks in this section.

Arabic Language

My main goal here is to read The Book of Mormon (كتاب مورمون) in Arabic. I also have plans to study the Qur’an, though that’s not a priority at the moment.

Most of these books are ones that I acquired while studying Arabic in Jordan. I don’t think I’ll acquire many more anytime soon, though if an opportunity arises, I probably won’t turn it down. The big question in my mind is whether to expand this section to Arabic language & culture, since I do have a bunch of English books on the Middle East.

History & Current Events

My biggest goal for this section is to build a collection of monetary & financial books that together make a complete history of the United States. This subject is my current pet interest, much to Future Mrs. Vasicek’s chagrin. I also have plans for a coin collection / history that I’m currently writing, though that’s on the back burner for now.

Other than that, I plan to focus on book recommendations by Ben Shapiro and Glenn Beck.

Other non-fiction

No real goals yet for this section. At some point, I will probably spin off family histories as a separate category, since there are a lot of them in my family.

General Goals

The biggest thing I need to do is read every book that I own. I may be really good at acquiring books, but I’m not as good at actually reading them. Currently, I’ve read only about 20% of them.

When will I have them all read by? Ideally, the end of the year, but I doubt that’s going to happen. Then again, if I can keep my goal to read for an hour or two each night, a year might just be enough.

Since the library is constantly growing, though, I suspect this will be more of an aspirational goal, or a moving target. Even when I manage to hit it, it probably won’t take long before I acquire more books and have more reading to do again.

The next big goal is to find a place for all these books, which probably won’t happen until after Future Mrs. Vasicek and I are married. At which point, all of these plans may change, since she has a bunch of books too—but probably not too much. We’ve talked about it, and it shouldn’t be too hard to merge our books into one family library, if that is what we decide to do.

Aside from that, I’d like to get as many books signed and personalized as I can. Shouldn’t be too hard: just look up the guest list of any convention I’m attending, and bring the books along.

That’s basically the plan as it stands right now. With my quirky super power for acquiring books, it shouldn’t take long to build an epic personal/family library.

Back to Blogging

So my life is in well enough order now that I think I can get back to my goal of daily blogging. If I fall behind on writing again, I may duck out for a while, but for now it looks like we’re good.

The last couple of weeks have been a little crazy. Engagement photos, wedding invitations, and then there was FanX this weekend. Future Mrs. Vasicek is finishing up with school, with all exams last week and a group paper due today. But once that’s done, she’ll be working full-time over the summer, so it’s not like her work load is going to lighten all that much. Plus, we have the wedding in June.

In any case, the next couple of months are going to be a bit rocky, but there’s enough of a lull right now that I think I can get into the swing of daily blogging again. Hopefully I can keep it up for quite a while.

Quick update

So I missed a couple of blog posts last week, and I don’t currently have any more lined up in the queue. I know I said I’d try to blog daily from now on, and I intend to work up to that, but I’ve got to get other things in order first. Here’s what I’ve got going on:

  • Wedding stuff
  • Tax stuff
  • Writing Edenfall
  • Revisions for Edenfall
  • Copy edits for Gunslinger to Earth
  • Metadata, formatting, and publishing Gunslinger to Earth
  • Writing a short story for March
  • Catching up on emails (there’s a lot of them)

It’s not that the workload is overwhelming, it’s just that there’s a lot of moving parts. Also, the daily routine has fallen apart and I need to build it back up again. This tends to happen periodically, so I’m not too worried, but it is frustrating and it does mean that balls are going to get dropped.

First things first: finish the copy edits for Gunslinger to Earth and get that up for preorder, preferably by the end of the week. Taxes also need to be done ASAP. The wedding stuff is mostly being handled by other people, but I need to be available, so that’s an ongoing thing. But if I can tackle those big ones, then the rest should fall into place hopefully.

Also, sleep. Can’t function without it. Caffeine is not a long-term substitute.

I’m not gonna lie, there’s a part of me that wants to shut out everything else and just do family history all day. Then there’s making family history, AKA spending time with Future Mrs. Vasicek. But she’s got school and work, so there’s a hard limit to that.

Then there’s reading. So much reading to do. Books are piling up everywhere.

Anyways, that’s enough for now. I’ll post as often as I can, but it’s going to be touch and go for a while, at least until everything else is in some semblance of order.