Where have all the posts gone? A brief interlude.

It seems to me that there is plenty enough for us to read about in the world these last few months. I don’t want to make this political, and I don’t know about you, but following the US election this past November, I’ve had a lot to think about.

It’s been pretty distracting to be frank.

In addition to all of that, there has been real life. Nothing sad, nothing overly dramatic, but real life will always win when pitted against less critical activities (which, in the scope of things, writing is at the moment). But more on at least one of those real life interruptions a little further down. First, let’s talk about writing some more.

I see there are still people out there reading what I write, which is a crazy concept to me. Somehow, I’m still getting nibbles on A Scent of Roses. I don’t check in on the book as obsessively as I did when I first put it out there, so imagine my surprise when I found a decent review of the book on Amazon. (By the by, if you’ve read the book, even if you didn’t like it, please consider leaving a review. Even bad reviews are better than no reviews. Thanks!). Every month, I get a small sales report – not quite Happy Meal buying sales, but a few bucks never hurts. And I’m still pushing out short stories, even though I haven’t done more than draft out a few new ones in a while.

So, what am I working on? Well, I still have a couple of almost completed manuscripts sitting here, waiting for their final words to make their first drafts complete. I’ve pulled A Mountain Fell From Heaven out and am trying to give it a proper ending before I go through and rewrite part of it (there’s a scene at the beginning that was all about me trying to be grim and edgy and adult and it just grates on my nerves every time I think about it, so I’m tossing it). I have a sequel to Chrysalis going through the early stages of the first draft (about 30k written, with a rough flow chart of where it’s going), and if I ever find the time I’d like to get back to my YA novel, A Fool’s Gold.

All of that is TBD, though. While this is all actively on my writing road map for the year, and I even get a chance to work on some of it a few times a week, it’s still a long ways off from being submission worthy. I’m still trying to get eyes on Chrysalis, though my hopes of finding a publisher for it are dwindling. I think if I make it to May without even a hint of a bite, I’m going to publish it myself, using what I learned with ASR to do it better.

Later this spring, I’d also like to re-release ASR. The decision to publish on Amazon, and the actual publication, all happened in the span of a weekend last summer. While I still can’t afford to get the book properly copyedited, and I’ve already lost sales for the people who have tried it and dismissed it because of typos, I feel like it would be a good move to re-release it, this time with some better spell checking and common/easy typographical mistakes corrected. I don’t want to change the content – that feels like it would be a cheat, even if I’m aware of at least one continuity flaw now that I missed when hitting publish. But I would like to take an opportunity to clean up the prose a little bit (drop that’s, etc., fix obviously mistaken spelling mistakes, etc.). I’d also like to add some front material (namely to explain what this revision changed), and some end material to encourage people to leave reviews and how to find me online. I think one of the newbie mistakes I made when I published was in not including a way of keeping in touch and giving feedback.

With my writing roadmap for the year pretty much determined (revise ASR, release Chrysalis myself if I can’t find a publisher, and at least finish two other novels), why am I waiting so long to do something about it? Why am I waiting until May, over two months, when I have everything at hand now?

When we moved out to California just under two years ago, we knew this wasn’t to be a permanent home. We didn’t know how long we would stay, but we were pretty sure we weren’t going to stay in the Bay area forever. While on a family vacation this past fall, we took some time to visit Portland, Oregon, and fell in love. While still on the West Coast, there are seasons, which (shocking everyone) we missed. Plus, there is an atmosphere in Portland that just fits our groove. After a lot of talk, and then a lot more talk at the office, I got permission to be a remote employee again. I have my lessons learned from the last time I was remote, so I’m not doing this blindly.

In January, we flew up to Portland again, but this time we were on a mission. We scoped out and started paperwork on a house. Occupying my time this spring, then, will be our move from the Bay area up to Portland. We’re excited (more than the kids, I admit, who see it as just another disruption after only a few years since the last one), with a four bedroom house and an actual yard to look forward to.

Which brings me back to my writing. While I am still working hard (sometimes), I am making no plans to finish or publish anything new before the move is over. But maybe I can get away with a few more blog posts. I’d forgotten how cathartic they could be.