It's been a while, and for that I am truly sorry.
Having a baby in the house after a decade is busy work. After making sure everything in that department was taken care of, my next responsibility was to keep up on my writing. I've had so many deadlines in the last month and I felt it was more important to get my writing schedule back together than to come back here and to report to you all about it.
It made me think a lot about priorities, though, and it forced me to rely on my discipline. I don't think the material I wrote for the first couple of weeks after having the baby was the best work I've done. I was exhausted. Sometimes I wasn't feeling as creative as I wanted to. I was easily distracted by the fact that there was a baby around whose cheeks I could kiss.
But I got through it. I hit my deadlines, I got through the stories and chapters I needed to. And I think the only reason I was able to do so was because I had become so accustomed to the daily ritual of writing. Every morning, no matter what. It's become so ingrained in me that I feel uneasy when I miss a day now. It's part of my routine as much as brushing my teeth in the morning or putting on deodorant. How do you feel when you miss those things? It makes you a little anxious, right? You want to go back and fix it before you get too much further into your day because if you don't, everything is going to stink.
And so that compulsion kept me going.
Every morning.
I'm still stressed out because I have so much too many projects to work on, but at least I didn't lag too far behind thanks to that discipline.
Quick recap of the last month: I've been working hard preparing a manuscript and a proposal to send to an agent. I've submitted four stories to magazines. I've written my next column for Salt Lake City Weekly. I've conducted nine interviews for pieces (transcriptions are killing me.) I finished off a short story. Oh, and I added 10,000 words to my fantasy novel.
In the next week or two, you should be able to pre-order my next novel, The Aeronaut. And hopefully it won't be much longer after that you'll be able to pre-order a collection of my space opera short stories called Escape Vector. About half of the stories in it have been published elsewhere, but I went out of my way to create a ship-load of new content for it, so I think it'll be a big hit.
I had a piece hit StarWars.Com as well. This one connected the influence that 2001: A Space Odyssey had on Star Wars. It was a lot of fun and I learn so much dissecting stories for that column. You can–you will–read it here.
As a reminder, you can get tickets to Stuff You Missed in History Class's first live episode in New York in October (which, coincidentally, will feature me) right here.
And please, please, please don't forget to check out any of my books, drop reviews of them on Amazon or Goodreads, and follow me on twitter and Facebook!
Having a baby in the house after a decade is busy work. After making sure everything in that department was taken care of, my next responsibility was to keep up on my writing. I've had so many deadlines in the last month and I felt it was more important to get my writing schedule back together than to come back here and to report to you all about it.
It made me think a lot about priorities, though, and it forced me to rely on my discipline. I don't think the material I wrote for the first couple of weeks after having the baby was the best work I've done. I was exhausted. Sometimes I wasn't feeling as creative as I wanted to. I was easily distracted by the fact that there was a baby around whose cheeks I could kiss.
But I got through it. I hit my deadlines, I got through the stories and chapters I needed to. And I think the only reason I was able to do so was because I had become so accustomed to the daily ritual of writing. Every morning, no matter what. It's become so ingrained in me that I feel uneasy when I miss a day now. It's part of my routine as much as brushing my teeth in the morning or putting on deodorant. How do you feel when you miss those things? It makes you a little anxious, right? You want to go back and fix it before you get too much further into your day because if you don't, everything is going to stink.
And so that compulsion kept me going.
Every morning.
I'm still stressed out because I have so much too many projects to work on, but at least I didn't lag too far behind thanks to that discipline.
Quick recap of the last month: I've been working hard preparing a manuscript and a proposal to send to an agent. I've submitted four stories to magazines. I've written my next column for Salt Lake City Weekly. I've conducted nine interviews for pieces (transcriptions are killing me.) I finished off a short story. Oh, and I added 10,000 words to my fantasy novel.
In the next week or two, you should be able to pre-order my next novel, The Aeronaut. And hopefully it won't be much longer after that you'll be able to pre-order a collection of my space opera short stories called Escape Vector. About half of the stories in it have been published elsewhere, but I went out of my way to create a ship-load of new content for it, so I think it'll be a big hit.
I had a piece hit StarWars.Com as well. This one connected the influence that 2001: A Space Odyssey had on Star Wars. It was a lot of fun and I learn so much dissecting stories for that column. You can–you will–read it here.
That's about it for this week. As far as my work outside of these things: I remain busy for Big Shiny Robot! and Full of Sith.
As a reminder, you can get tickets to Stuff You Missed in History Class's first live episode in New York in October (which, coincidentally, will feature me) right here.
And please, please, please don't forget to check out any of my books, drop reviews of them on Amazon or Goodreads, and follow me on twitter and Facebook!
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