work – Page 2 – One Thousand And One Parsecs

STARS OF BLOOD AND GLORY 1.1 is finished!

That’s right! After what felt like six hours of un-anesthetized brain surgery, Stars of Blood and Glory 1.0 is finally complete! Here are the stats:

words: 76,326
chapters: 18, prologue & epilogue
ms pages: 360
start date: 20 Dec 2011
end date: 2 Feb 2011

Some extended stats, just for fun:

days spent writing: 36
miles traveled: ~5,500
viewpoint characters: 5
characters from other novels: 9
major characters who die: 3
space battles: 5
planets slagged: 1

The wordsplash:

And the most influential song while writing:

It’s good to finish another novel, but this one definitely needs a lot of work before I feel that it’s of publishable quality. I think I know how to fix it, but my mind needs a break in order to give it a fresh approach. I’ll probably let it settle for a few months, then come back either this spring or summer.

I’m pleasantly surprised with how quickly I was able to finish this book. Thirty-six writing days is something of a personal record. Still, it feels like it needs a little more fleshing out. 76k is definitely too short for a novel of this type; hopefully in the second draft, I’ll be able to bring it up to 80k or 90k.

In other news, I heard back from the TLG program, and I’m happy to say I’ve been accepted! I’ll fly out to Georgia in a little less than two weeks, have a seven day orientation period at Kutaisi, then ship off to wherever the Ministry of Education decides to send me. I’ll be there until at least June, then either renew for a second semester or go somewhere else, maybe Eastern Europe or the Middle East.

Needless to say, I’m pretty excited! Hopefully, this new career will be a good fit, and I’ll have many awesome adventures in the next few years. Even if my writing starts to take off and my books start selling hand over fist, I’ll probably keep teaching for a while just for the experience. Writing is fun, but when you have nothing else to keep you busy it can also get quite boring.

The next few weeks are going to be pretty freaking busy, so I’m probably going to ease off on the writing, at least until I get settled into the new routine. Before I leave, I need to:

Find affordable expat insurance.
Pick up a 220 to 120 volt converter and plug adapter.
Publish Journey to Jordan on Amazon and B&N.
Get some new clothes.
Clean my parents’ guest room.
File state taxes for Utah (federal taxes are already filed).
Write up the last couple of Trope Tuesday posts for the backlog.
Finish the covers for Star Wanderers (while I still have access to my desktop computer).
Read up on Georgian customs and mentally prepare myself for the inevitable culture shock.

Shouldn’t be too hard, but it’s only going to get crazier once I’m over there. I’ll be sure to keep you updated as much as I can, though; this is going to be fun!

So yeah, another novel down; this one makes my sixth. Just another 94 to go before I reach my lifetime goal of one hundred!

What I’ve been up to recently

I thought it would be a good idea to do a quick post explaining what I’ve been up to the past month or so, since a lot of things have changed and I’m sure they will be changing a lot more in the future. So, here’s what’s up:

As you may or may not know, I decided about four or five months ago to leave the USA to teach English abroad. For the past few little while, I’ve been applying for a program to teach English to elementary school kids in Georgia. I had the interview over Skype just yesterday, and I think it went pretty well! I should hear back in the next couple of days, so fingers crossed on that.

If they decide to hire me, I’ll leave in three weeks and stay until at least mid-June. At that point, I’ll either sign up for another semester or go somewhere else, either the Middle East or Eastern Europe. The pay isn’t great, but it seems like a good cultural experience, and I’m a lot more interested in the Caucasus than I am in East Asia (no offense to Asians).

Ever since I graduated in 2010, I’ve been looking for a fulfilling career that I can balance with my writing aspirations. I learned pretty quick that that simply doesn’t exist in Washington DC; either you sacrifice everything for your career, including your family, or you end up trapped in an office pushing papers all day. In Utah, I bounced around a lot of temporary jobs while struggling to make ends meet, but I never found anything more permanent that seemed to strike a balance.

I hope that teaching English will help me to find that balance, and from what I’ve heard from some of my former expat friends, I’m optimistic that it will. Perhaps more importantly, it will probably enrich my writing by exposing me to new peoples and cultures. Desert Stars was certainly enriched by the time I spent in Jordan; without having lived in that culture, I don’t think I would have been able to write it. Besides, English is something I’m good at, and so is teaching–so why not capitalize on the skills I already have? It certainly sounds better than wasting my 20s in a warehouse.

So that’s the plan: launch a TEFL career and spend at least the next three to five years abroad. At least. I might not get married until my 30s–or who knows, I might find someone out there and go native–but this is something I want to do as a career, not just as temporary filler before I figure out what I want to do with my life. I’m through with filler. Whether it takes one year or ten for my writing career to take off, I’m going to get out and do something useful and worthwhile.

That’s the plan, anyway. And of course, I’ll always keep writing.

Right now, I’m finishing up Stars of Blood and Glory; I’m on chapter 15, with only three more and an epilogue after that, so I should finish that well before I leave. After that, the next big project is Star Wanderers, which is already about halfway finished. I’ll probably take some time off and work on polishing part II, then release parts I and II sometime in the spring–unless by some weird fluke it wins Writers of the Future. I’ll know in February.

And after that? Well, I’m thinking it’s almost time to pick up Edenfall again, but I can’t say for sure. Probably, though–I definitely want to finish that one before the end of the year, and preferably get it published. After Stars of Blood and Glory, I’ll probably take a break from the McCoy continuity in the Gaia Nova universe, though I may pick up something from Jeremiah’s timeline in Star Wanderers. I really want to do a parallel novel from Noemi’s point of view–maybe that’s the one I’ll do in seven days, just to hit that resolution. Everything has to be ready fist, though, and right now it isn’t.

So much is changing–I have no idea where I’ll be in the next six months, creatively or physically. But right now, I’m just enjoying a relaxing time with my parents and getting ready for the next big transition. Life is good.

Random late night thoughts

I’ve been going on a lot of late night walks lately, just wandering restlessly around Provo. Tonight I had some interesting thoughts about how much I’ve changed in the last year. Surprisingly, I’ve grown a lot.

Last year at this time, I was all geared up for World Fantasy Convention. I had just finished Bringing Stella Home, and I my thoughts went something like this: “if I’m lucky, maybe I’ll find an agent, and they’ll like my pitch enough to see it, and after they read it they’ll want to represent me, and then they’ll sell my book somewhere, so that maybe, just maybe, I can make a living as a writer in ten years.”

Now, I don’t want to get into the whole indie vs. traditional debate, because I think it’s ultimately a false dichotomy. However, now that I’ve gone ahead and published my own work independently, I feel like I’ve taken charge of my career in a way that I hadn’t before. I’m no longer waiting on someone else to make my hopes and dreams come true, I’m going out and pursuing them myself.

That’s the big thing that I think has changed in the past year: I’ve gained a lot more confidence. A year ago today, I was working a temp job in a costume company warehouse, fretting and worrying over how to make ends meet and where to find a stable job. I had considered freelancing as a translator and teaching English in another country, but hadn’t actively pursued those options because frankly they terrified me. And as for writing, that was the impossible dream that might come true someday, but not today.

Now, writing is still the impossible dream, but at least I’m on a path that doesn’t involve lottery thinking like the old one. None of my books have really taken off yet, but at least I have them published and available for readers to discover, so when I do start to get some traction I’ll be in a much better position to succeed. And either way, I’ve taken charge of my own career.

So yeah, I can say I’ve grown a lot in the past year–which is surprising, considering all I did was stay in my old college town and work odd jobs. At least I didn’t move back in with my parents–which makes me part of an elite 15%. But now, I think I’ve just about reached the limit of how much I can grow here in Provo. If something doesn’t change, I worry that I’m going to start stagnating.

So in a year, where will I be? Who knows, but if I’ve grown as much as I have since October 2010, I’ll count that as a success.

Decisions suck, writing is awesome

Whew! I just finished revising through almost 9k words in Desert Stars. I’ve only got three more chapters and an epilogue to go, and man, I am so excited about this story! I have no doubt it’s my best work yet.

Of course, I might be biased. 😉

Star Wanderers is also coming along very well. I’ve only got a few more scenes to write/revise before it’s ready to send off to the next round of first readers. Part of me wants to send it off to Writers of the Future right now (and according to Dean’s sage advice, that’s probably what I should do), but I want to get some feedback first just to make sure there isn’t something I’ve missed that would make it better. If all goes well, I’ll probably send it off by the end of the month.

This is the best part of writing process: finishing up a project that you know is good. This is one reason why I love rewriting so much. If I could do this all day, every day, and get paid enough for my work to make ends meet, I’d be living the dream.

Until then, however, I’ve got to figure out another way to make ends meet. One option I’m considering very seriously is selling my contract and driving across the country this Thanksgiving to spend a month or two with my parents before going overseas. My mom was the one who suggested it, and I have to admit it makes a lot of sense; if I’m going to go abroad to teach English anyways, why not spend some time back home?

If this is something I need to do, I’m going to have to make the decision very soon, possibly before the end of next week–and if you know me, you know that I’m terrible at making decisions. However, I have been thinking about it enough to make a couple of lists, and this is what I’ve come up with so far:

Reasons to go to abroad:

To start a new career.
To have adventures.
To experience another culture.
To gain TEFL experience.
To support myself as I write.
To have a change.
To see the world.
To have something to write about.

Reasons to stay in Utah:

To get married.
To focus on writing.
To pursue a graduate degree.
To stay in a predominantly Mormon community.

I decided to list only the positive reasons for making either decision, and not to consider any of the creeping doubts or fears (and there are many!). So let’s break it down:

To start a new career: This seems prudent, especially if it takes a while for my books to really take off. Specifically, a TEFL career seems like something I could juggle with my writing career, and it would certainly offer a lot more satisfaction than a grunt day job.

To have adventures: Perhaps not the most responsible reason, but hey, you’ve got to remember to have fun.

To experience another culture: One of the perks of traveling, for sure. It would probably improve my writing considerably as well, though culture shock and distance from family would certainly pose a challenge.

To gain TEFL experience: In other words, to find out if teaching English as a foreign language is something I want to build a career around, or whether I’m just not suited for it. This is why I’d want to do the TLG program first, before heading off somewhere like Cairo or Amman. And if it doesn’t work out…well, at least I’d know. Right now, I don’t.

To support myself as I write: This is huge. I hear that most TEFL jobs only take up about 20 hours per week, and that if you’re living in a local apartment, it’s not hard to make time to write. In the past two years, I haven’t had any success balancing writing with full-time work, and working part time probably wouldn’t earn me enough to support myself here in the states.

To have a change: Not quite as tangible a reason, but important nonetheless. I can’t quite explain it, but if I stay where I am now, in my current life situation…it’s just not going to work out.

To see the world: I could probably lump this under “to have adventures.”

To have something to write about: Also huge. My experiences in Jordan and the Middle East were a huge inspiration for Desert Stars, and if I’d never gone over there, the novel wouldn’t be nearly as rich. Who knows what else my imagination would produce if I spent some time traveling the world?

Now, for the other side:

To get married: Honestly, this is more of a negative reason than a positive reason. I’ve already decided that I’m only going to marry someone who’s a practicing Mormon, and since Utah is predominantly Mormon, I’m worried that if I leave Utah, I won’t be able to find someone.

Trouble is…I’ve been here for almost six years, and still haven’t found anyone. I could probably put more effort into dating, but the truth is probably that finding a marriage partner is more about your mindset than where you physically live.

Besides, I could always spend a year or two abroad and come back. I’d be pushing thirty and well beyond “menace to society” status, but at least I wouldn’t be a loser who spent all his twenties in Utah.

To focus on writing: This was why I decided last year not to go teach English in Korea. The ebook revolution was just getting started, and I felt that I needed to stay in the states to learn how the market was changing and focus on building my indie writing career.

Now, however, I feel like I’m high enough on the learning curve that I can afford to work on other things. Besides, with the current state of the economy, I don’t think I’m going to find balance if I stay in the states.

To pursue a graduate degree: I’ve largely ruled this one out. I don’t see how an English degree would help me at this point, and I don’t currently have any career aspirations that would justify pursuing an advanced degree. The only reason I’d go back to school is to postpone facing the real world, and that’s probably the worst reason I could possibly have.

To stay in a predominantly Mormon community: Kind of the opposite of “see the world” and “experience another culture,” and it gets at the very heart of the matter. Would it be better to establish myself among people who are more like me and share my values, or should I venture out of the “bubble” and see what else is out there? I have a much stronger support group here in Utah than I’d probably have as a global nomad, but do I really need it? Am I independent enough to strike out and bloom wherever I’m planted?

I don’t know. My thinking is so muddled with doubts and second thoughts that this whole exercise has probably been futile. If I had to make a decision RIGHT THIS SECOND, however, I’d probably choose to go.

If nothing else, it would give me a good two months of writing time. 🙂

Let the job hunt begin!

Job-Hunting-on-Social-Network-Sites — Pull!

All right, I just updated my resume to account for the last year or so, and I’m ready to start looking aggressively for work. Given the state of the economy, I’m not optimistic that it will lead anywhere, but hey might as well give it a shot.

The ideal job would be something part time that allows me to write on the side while teaching me useful skills like book selling or copywriting. Oh, and it wouldn’t hurt to have interesting coworkers (especially female coworkers) and a fun work environment, too.

I’ve got to be honest, though; there aren’t very many jobs here in Utah Valley that are awesome enough to keep me here. In September, I finally got my TEFL certification, which means that I could probably land a decent job teaching English abroad if I were to look for one. In fact, if I showed up in Cairo or Amman with $500 USD in my pocket, I’ll bet I could establish myself.

So while there are a few jobs here in Utah that would make me decide to stay, if I can’t find anything satisfactory in the next few weeks, I’m probably going to go with teaching English abroad. My friends who have done it say that it gives you tons of free time to write, though generally more if you have a private apartment than if you’re living in a homestay. Even so, I think I’ll try out the Teach and Learn with Georgia program first for a few months, just to test the waters and see if this is something I actually want to do for a career.

That’s the tentative plan anyways. Things that could derail it include:

Finding an awesome job here in Utah.
Getting signed with my band.
Selling a bazillion ebooks.
Falling in love.

But either way, something’s gotta change.

Q3 Report, 2011

Before I move on to other, more interesting subjects, I want to take a little bit of time to review how my writing went in the past three months. For those of you who may be new, this is something I like to do at the start of each new quarter. Keeps me honest, I guess.

Anyhow, here goes:

This is a graph of my word count totals for the past quarter. The red line shows how many words I wrote each day, while the blue line shows a running seven day total. I include substantive revisions in the totals, but if all I’m doing is proofreading or running through copy edits, I don’t count it.

For the first half of July, I was finishing up the third draft of Desert Stars while working 40 hours per week. I wasn’t writing as much as I’d have liked, but still managed to keep some good momentum.

The HUGE peak at the end of the month represents my first draft of Sholpan, which I finished in only a week. I spent the next week in a weird writerly limbo, not sure what else to work on, then picked it up again and made some substantial changes before sending it to my editor in in mid-August. Then Worldcon happened, and I didn’t get any writing done while I was out at that. Should have, but oh well.

After Worldcon, I had maybe three or four different projects I wanted to do, but since I wanted to do the final draft of Desert Stars in October, I wasn’t sure which project to pick up. After several false starts, I ended up writing the first part of Star Wanderers, which is that hump you see at the beginning of September. The second hump is the second draft; my writing took a dip in between because I didn’t know what else to do with only a couple weeks before October.

Overall, though, my personal word counts were a lot lower than I’d like. Part of that was due to the effort I put into publishing Sholpan (it takes a lot of time and energy to publish something, which can eat into your writing if you aren’t careful); part of it was because the project I was most excited about was Desert Stars, and I had to wait until October to hear back from my first readers; but another major part was that I was trying to balance a 40 hour job on top of everything.

This is the dilemma: I want to build up my writing career to the point where I can support myself on it, but to do that I have to work a day job to make ends meet, which makes it very difficult to work on the writing career. When I was in school, I used to think a 9-5 job would make things easy, since I wouldn’t have any homework or papers to bring home. Now, though, I think school was easier, because I was only in the classroom 15 to 20 hours per week, and could allocate the rest of my time as I saw fit. Working full time is a lot harder, because half of your waking time doesn’t belong to you.

What I’d really like to find is a part time job, maybe 30 hours per week, where I earn just enough to get by but don’t feel drained when the workday is over. A lot of TEFL jobs are only about 20 hours or so per week, so I’m thinking very seriously about doing that. Then again, all the attendant difficulties of adjusting to a new culture might be even more draining than grunt labor.

I guess there’s only one way to find out…

In any case, now that October is here, I’m back to work on Desert Stars, hopefully the final draft before publication. I know I said I’d finish Star Wanderers, but since I’m going to come back to it anyway after I get the feedback from my first readers, I figure it will be better to finish Desert Stars and move on. Also, I can revise a lot faster than I can write new material, so it makes a lot more sense to get the revisions out of the way instead of pushing a rough draft harder than it wants to come.

And after that? Who knows! I’ve so many half-finished novels and projects I want to start, all I can really say is I’d better throw this up on the blog and get back to writing. So on that note

Difficult choices and keeping perspective

So I have some news, and it’s probably going to freak my parents out a little bit…I decided to turn down the full-time job offer that I mentioned a few weeks ago.

The company is great, they treat their employees well, I got along well with everyone there–so why not take the job? Because it wasn’t helping me make progress toward my long-term goals, it wasn’t teaching me any new or useful skills, and it wasn’t in a field where I’d like to make a career. After weighing the benefits vs. the costs, especially the opportunity costs, it just didn’t make sense to stay.

I know what a lot of you might be thinking: “Dude, a job’s a job. In this economy, you should take it and count yourself lucky!” I reject that, though. Last year, I managed to cut my expenses to less than $950 per month. I’ve been saving up my paychecks, and I’ve got enough to float me for a couple of months until I find a job that fits better, hopefully part-time.

The big thing I’m worried about is whether I’m digging myself into a hole. Since graduating in April 2010, here are the jobs I’ve held:

Conducting unsolicited phone interviews at a call center.
Picking, packing, and shipping at a costume company warehouse.
Delivering phone books from my car.
Miscellaneous unskilled labor at a candy factory.
Miscellaneous unskilled labor at an alarm company warehouse.
Processing inventory and shipments at an alarm company warehouse.

So yeah, nothing all that great. I’ve been doing some volunteer stuff in the interim, though, especially with Leading Edge and the “class that wouldn’t die” article from last year. But in general, it feels like I’m getting stuck in a rut, and that the longer I stay stuck, the harder it’s going to be to break out.

What I really want is something that will expand my mind and/or give me another major cultural experience. That’s why I’m thinking seriously again about teaching English abroad. But grad school is definitely another attractive option, especially if it gives me a chance to work on my Arabic.

With that in mind, here are the options I’m considering right now:

Travel to the Caucasus in January and volunteer teach English with the TLG program. It’s not particularly lucrative, but if I can balance my writing career on the side while having an awesome cultural experience in a region of the world that interests me, it might be perfect.
Study Arabic and/or Middle Eastern Studies at a university in the Middle East, ideally AUB or AUC. I don’t really want to be a security analyst, but I would love to make a career as an Arabist of some sort–provided, of course, that I could balance it with my writing.
Pursue a graduate degree in History, Anthropology, or Sociology in the United States. I’m less sure of this option, mainly because I don’t know if I’m passionate enough about any of those subjects to really succeed at them.
Take a chance and travel to the Middle East to teach English. I’d probably go to Jordan or Oman, where I actually know people, but Egypt, Libya, or Tunisia might be good too, especially with the Arab Spring opening them up. It might also be dangerous…but hey, at least it’s an adventure.
Finding a graveyard desk job, like night auditor at a hotel, and use that to support myself until the writing career start to take off. Even though this is the most boring option, it’s probably the most likely one I’ll follow…which probably isn’t a good thing.

The main goal, of course, is still to go full time with the writing career. That’s like the holy grail. I’m still optimistic about that; it’s just a matter of finding something useful to do in the interim. The last thing I want is to settle, or to get stuck in a comfort zone, or lose sight of my long term goals…

…I don’t know. I’m still figuring all this stuff out. But regardless, I just don’t think working full-time at an unskilled labor job is going to get me anywhere–and that’s an opportunity cost I can’t afford to take.

Writer’s angst & post-convention ennui

In spite of the title of this post, I’ll try not to get too emo. Not sure how well I’ll succeed, but at least I’ll try.

Worldcon was great, but it put me into something of a writing slump and I’m not sure where to go next. I was planning on writing the as-yet untitled New Rigel novel, but I want to get Desert Stars published before Christmas, and that would involve doing another major draft before sending it off for edits.

The trouble is, it typically takes me at least two months to do a rough draft. I can probably finish Desert Stars in about a month, but I’d still want to start that project somewhere around the end of September. Since I don’t expect for my first readers to get back to me until then, that leaves me with a single month to fill.

To further complicate matters, the place I’ve been temping at for the last two months wants to hire me full time. In some ways, that’s awesome; work is work, after all, and even though I won’t exactly be saving the world, it’s not a bad job either. On the other hand, 40 hours of warehouse labor per week is going to make it very difficult to do everything I want with my writing career.

Now, don’t get me wrong–I’m not complaining. This seems to be the dilemma that every aspiring writer faces at one point or another, and most of my friends have understandably chosen the stable paycheck over the ever-elusive lucky break. But with where I’m at–young and single, without any debt or obligations to pay off–and my long term career goals, I worry that I’ll end up settling if I take that path. Besides, I’ve gotten used to “starving” over the last year and a half, and it’s actually not that bad.

What would REALLY be awesome is if they would hire me part time, and I think I might be able to negotiate that. In the meantime, I’ve got to figure out what I’m going to write in September. Here are my options:

Untitled (New Rigel)

This is the project I was most excited about before Worldcon, but now…well, I’m still excited, but post-convention ennui is not a pretty thing. Basically, it’s a full-length novel set within the Gaia Nova universe, and an indirect sequel to Bringing Stella Home.

I’ve already written the prologue and I like where it’s going, but I’d have to really bust my butt to get it done before October. Then again, I usually drop the first draft somewhere in the middle, so allowing for that, it might still be good to go ahead. However, it’s generally a bad idea to plan on screwing things up.

Edenfall

This is the sequel to Genesis Earth, and the second book in a planned trilogy. Since it’s YA, I could probably pull it off in a month–YA is generally shorter than adult fiction, and Genesis Earth took me about a month to pound out once I knew what I was doing. I’ve already got the story outlined and ready to go, so no problems there.

The big reason to do this project is that the first book is starting to have some success, and that’s naturally going to drive reader interest in the sequel. I’ve already gotten some scattered emails and comments about it, asking when it’s going to come out. Also, since there’s less pressure on me right now, bumping it up the queue might be a good idea. There’s a reason some people are afraid of success.

Desert Stars Companion Novella

Now here’s an interesting idea: I could spend the next month working on a companion novel to Desert Stars, much like I spent the last month working on Sholpan. The advantages to this plan are obvious: not only would I have another full-length novel ready before Christmas, but a $.99 novella to go with it–that is, if all goes well.

This is a project I haven’t given much thought to, but it wouldn’t be too hard to come up with something. It would also get me excited for the revision of Desert Stars in October. The main disadvantage is that I don’t know how well this “companion novella” concept will work out in the market–if Sholpan tanks, I might have to scrap it altogether. But as Dean told me at Worldcon, you can’t let thoughts of the commerciality of a project get in the way of the creative process.

That’s what’s on my plate right now. Preferably, I want to choose something I can finish within a month, while juggling work and the publication process for Sholpan. Oh, and I also want to throw in a blog tour for Bringing Stella Home–more on that later.

So, to open it up to my super-awesome hardcore fans (all three or four of you), what do you think? Of these projects, what do you most want to see?

News, a correction, and an awesome AvB remix

Today I was supposed to finish the second draft of Sholpan, but I moved apartments this weekend, so everything got thrown completely out of whack. I’m all moved into my new place now (with some awesome Quarkie roommates), but Sholpan is going to have to wait until Monday.

Fortunately, I’ve only got a couple of new scenes to write, then touch up the rest to make sure it fits the novella storyline. I got in touch with my copy editor, and he should be able to have them for me by mid-September. If all goes well, I’ll send it out to a couple of my first readers to give it a pass, make the fixes, and then send it out to Josh and have it up about a month from now.

I’ve gotten some amazing responses for “Memoirs of a Snowflake” in the past week, and it’s gotten almost 2,000 downloads on Amazon so far. Not bad! However, while rereading it, I noticed an error: in the author’s note, I said that I wrote the story in December of 2008, when really it was 2007. I must have been thinking “winter of 2008” when I wrote it the first time. In any case, I’ve made the corrections, so it should be up on Amazon in 24 hours, and all the other sites before the end of the month (since I distribute to them through Smashwords).

Also, another piece of encouraging news: the boss at the temp job I’ve been working the past few months wants to hire me! If that works out, I should have steady work at least through into 2012. I’m hoping they’ll let me work part time, since that would help me juggle the writing career a lot better, but this is their busy season so I might have to work 40+ hour weeks for a while. Still, it’s better than starving.

Which reminds me: my first royalty check from Amazon comes in next month, and to celebrate, I’m going to crack open that bottle of Martinelli’s from Charlie and throw a small party. More on that later.

Finally, I found this the other day while trawling youtube for good trance tunes. It’s a remix of “Are We Human?” by the Killers, done by Armin Van Buuren. Everything Armin touches seems to turn to gold, and this is no exception. Check it out!

Quick update

Just an update before I go to bed (and hopefully don’t sleep in like this morning).

My writing’s tapered off a bit this past month, partially because I’ve got a lot on my plate (Worldcon, online TEFL course, moving apartments, working full time, etc), but also because I’m between projects and not totally absorbed in any one.

I’m hoping to finish Sholpan by the end of the week, but that isn’t going to require more than 8k words total. At the same time, I’m finding it hard to keep myself engaged with that project. Today, for example, I rebelled a bit and worked on the next Gaia Nova book instead, which doesn’t yet have a title. Had a blast, but only managed about 800 words.

My writing productivity took a huge dip in the end of July as I got Bringing Stella Home ready to publish, dropping down to between 500 and 1,000 words per day. I probably won’t be able to raise that significantly until after Worldcon, and even then, I’ll have to juggle a full-time job for probably another month or two (but hey, a job’s a job; I’m not complaining).

Thing is, I really, really, REALLY want to work on this untitled project–so much that I’m treating it as procrastination when I have other stuff to write. I’m also worried that if I leave off on that project for too long, I’ll lose sight of it. That’s why I’m juggling it with Sholpan right now, but I think I can handle it, especially since Sholpan should be finished in just a week or two.

I also got an email from a fan (a fan!) asking about Edenfall. Right now, I don’t have any concrete plans, but I’m hoping to finish the first draft sometime in October/November (after polishing Desert Stars), and have it ready for publication sometime in 2012. If enough people ask about it, though, I may bump it up in the queue; it all depends.

Other than that, I had a great idea yesterday for a blog series. It came while I was thinking about my dreams for the future, and the thought came that I should blog about them But I don’t want it to be just about me; I want to share my thinking about the future and how I’ve come to develop my goals and plans, so that my many friends who are in similar circumstances can glean something useful.

I’ll probably start that in a day or two. But now…sleep.