Picking up on the Blog Again

Since my summer has begun, I'm hoping to pick up a bit on this blog, which I've neglected for quite a while. As per my usual, it'll mostly have to do with writing and reading, with occasional asides into whatever strikes my fancy.

On the writing front, I have a western novella about 3/4s done called "The Scarred One." Had to put it on hold during the school year, but now I'll try to get untracked on it. I've got quite a few completed stories that I need to submit, including two about the sword & sorcery character of Krieg. And I'm still considering self publishing a set of horror stories based on my dreams. I have about a dozen of those finished.

I'm working on a vampire story right now that I'm enjoying, and have opening scenes on several other tales that I don't know what to do with. Lately I've been working on a lot of poetry, partially because it takes less time and I can squeeze out a few moments from work here and there to commit poem-icide. Several of my poems appear in the latest issue of The Horror Zine. Thanks to Jeani Rector.

So, it is with good intentions that I post this blog. Let's see if that holds up through the next few weeks!

Just When I Think I'm Out

I never watched much of the Sopranos but I do remember one character who was always saying, "Just when I think I'm out, they drag me back in." School often seems like that for faculty members. Classes were over on April 25th. I turned in my grades on Saturday, April 30th. I had a nice leisurely day on Sunday, May 1st. And it seemed to me that I should be able to start my summer writing on May 2nd. That didn't happen.

I'm the outside member on the Business Division's job search this spring and we had a candidate in on Monday to interview. Then I had a lingering research proposal to deal with. Tuesday was a writing day and I got a lot of stuff done, including requested revisions to a story, which was accepted that evening.

Wednesday, though, was another job candidate interview, this time for a position in psychology. We also had registration for new freshmen for next year. And another last minute research proposal came in. I was up by 6:00 and by the time I got home and helped Lana get groceries, it was time to go to bed for work the next day.

Today is Thursday, and I was up at 5:30 to make the trek into work. We've got another job candidate interview today. That will be most of the day. In the evening, though, I have a writing group meeting, which should be fun. And Friday I'm off so more writing will be done.

Saturday is actual graduation and that will take most of the day. Sunday begins my summer writing in earnest! And if anyone tries to "drag me back in" after that they'll get what's coming to them.

Grades are in.

I turned in all my grades late yesterday evening. There are still a bunch of meetings scheduled for next week. I’m on two late job search committees. There’s graduation and a few lingering research proposals to evaluate. But after May 10 I should be largely free for a couple of months to do my own thing.

I have a lot of writing plans and even though I’ll be officially out of school, I’ll still have to zealously protect my writing time.  Very few respect it. Everyone seems to think that since you’re off of your day job that you won’t mind giving up a morning for this, or an afternoon for that. I do mind. I have a second job. That’s how I treat it. A summer job that I take just as seriously as my other one, even though it doesn’t pay nearly as well.

Although I write a little bit most days all year around, summers and Christmas break are where 75% of my most productive writing gets done. These are the times when books are finished, collections put together, and materials are finalized into what I hope are publishable forms.

Those days are finally coming for me, and it’s time to seize them. 

Frustration

Most of Friday afternoon, May 8,  and Saturday morning, May 9, were spent in graduation ceremonies at my university. As faculty, we get to sit and listen to a lot of speeches and a lot of cheers. One thing we get time to do is think, though. Since graduation marks the true beginning of summer writing for me, I generally do a considerable amount of planning on how to proceed.

These days, of course, writing is only a part of what we do. We also have to promote. I seldom get a chance to do promotion during the school year other than an occasional post on facebook and blog. During the summer, though, I always try to do more. I believe my stories are good but just haven’t seemed to generate either steady sales or buzz.

Anyway, here’s where the frustration of the title comes in. I came up with a promotional plan during the graduation ceremony. I got home and did a couple of quick posts in that vein and made announcements or sent emails requesting information. Then I had to nap because I’d only gotten 4 hours sleep the night before. I get up to see if there have been any responses to the stuff I sent out before the nap. But before I can make the needed replies, the internet goes down.

Turns out, it’s not the net per se but our phone line that is down, and that’s how we get our internet, through AT & T. I call them. They say there’s a problem on the line but they are working on it and should have it resolved by Monday sometime. That means two days at least without internet access at home. Of course, I quickly realized that they are likely lying to me. I remembered in 2014 we had a similar problem, and checked my journal. On May 11, 2014, the day after graduation ceremonies that year, our phone, and net, went out for a week. Those kinds of coincidences don’t just happen so this is some kind of planned outage by them.

Certainly, there are plenty of writing related things I can do, not least of which is actual writing, but—in many ways—the net has become a big part of actually stringing together a story. I’m constantly looking up things, maybe something about sailing ships, or the economy of Roman cities, or what a particular sword hilt looked like. Some I can find in my collection of pre-internet reference books, but much of it I don’t have in hard copy. I found myself on Saturday night leaving lots of phrases and words printed in red with question marks around them that I’ll have to look up when we do get the net back.

If I lived in the city, I could take my laptop next door to the coffee shop or library to connect. Abita Springs doesn’t have a coffee shop with Wi-Fi. Their library branch is so small that there’s no place to sit inside with a laptop to work. The closest place to get access to Wi-Fi and a seat is the Covington library, which is about a 25 minute drive one way.

I should be used to it by now in life. The frustration. It’s an ongoing and constant thing. But to have to wait for time to put a plan into action, to get to the point where you have the time and start to implement things, and then that chance is snatched away…. It makes me want to scream.

Here’s what it’s like. Imagine you’re a kid and every day on your way from school you walk past a candy shop. One Monday you see, in the window display,  the most delicious looking chocolate chip cookie ever. It’s as big as both your hands together and looks warm and gooey and like it was baked in heaven. The price is a dollar and you don’t have that much, but you will as soon as you get your allowance on the weekend. You get a huge grin on your face thinking about next Monday, about how on your way home from school you’re going to get that cookie and sit down in the sun under a tree somewhere and devour it to the very last crumb.  

Monday comes. You wait all day in anticipation. As soon as school is over you rush to the candy store, hurry inside with your allowance money in your hot little hand. Maybe you’ll buy two cookies. You’ve got the cash. You run up to the counter and tell the lady that you want one of the big chocolate chip cookies in the window. You point to the display. You beam with delight as you lay your money on the counter. She says: “Sorry, we’re sold out of those. Not sure when we’ll get another batch in. But try back next week.”

Maybe, for a minute, you think about just stealing that cookie from the display window and running off with it. But you know, that cookie isn’t real. It’s just a clever facsimile meant to make you want what you can’t have.

NOTE: To give credit where credit is due, our phone and net were actually out for only about twenty-four hours. They got it up faster than I expected and I was happy for that. I’d already written this post, however, and still wanted to share that cookie metaphor. Twenty-four hours is still long enough to generate some frustration.

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Summer Writing

May 3^rd: This was the first day in almost two weeks that I had a chance to think about writing. It certainly was pleasant. I got one story revised and submitted, and then submitted five poems to a market. Today, Monday, I plan to spend much of my time thinking about how exactly I want to proceed.

My main long-term goal is to finish (or get close anyway) to completing Gods of Talera, the fifth (and last for now) of the Talera series of books. This will be #5.

My first short-term goal is to see Wraith of Talera, the 4^th book published. I sort of thought it was going to be published last week so if I don’t hear anything by the end of this week I’ll need to contact the publisher again.

My second short-term goal is to get the rights back to Cold in the Light, my first published novel. The publisher has apparently gone bye-bye and is not responding to my attempts to contact them, but the book is still for sale. I can only assume that I’m not going to get any royalties from any sales that happen now. So, I want the rights back and will then try to sell it elsewhere.

Other goals include, 1) finishing a new Krieg story, which is about 3/4ths done, 2) finishing a horror short story involving Halloween, which is at about the same level of completeness, and 3) finishing a western novella called “The Scarred One,” which is only about 1/5^th done. I’ve got two other western stories at various stages of completion that I’d like to get to but don’t know if I’ll have the time.

I’d hoped to be completely out from under being chair of the IRB this summer but it looks like I’ll be stuck with that the first six weeks or so. Unfortunately, that will take a big bite out of my writing time. It’s gonna be a busy summer!

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Summer Writing, Summer Books

These days, I find sitting in one place for long periods of time really gets to my legs and back so I like to switch between the desktop and laptop across the course of the day as I’m working. The laptop has not necessarily been a godsend, however. Until now. The Lovely Lana bought me a lap desk to use with the laptop and it’s been very nice. It provides a more stable purchase for the machine and, best of all, keeps the heat the machine generates off my legs. I’ve been able to work much more comfortably with the laptop for this past week and it’s paid off in greater productivity.

Unfortunately, not a lot of that work has been done on the deck. Just as I got set to work on the deck on Monday it began to rain hard, and with a wind that blew the rain in under the roof. I don’t mind a little dampness myself but figured it wouldn’t do the electronics any good so I went in. Tuesday, I managed about half an hour on the deck, but though my legs didn’t get hot from the laptop, the temperature was in the high 80s with the humidity much higher and I started to get uncomfortable eventually. I did get in a nice hour in the late evening as the temperature began to cool.

The other nice thing about summer is that I finally get my fix of reading. I finished V for Vendetta, the graphic novel upon which the movie was based. I liked both movie and book and thought each had strengths and weaknesses. In a very unusual situation for me, I actually liked the movie slightly better. I read a The Louis L’Amour Companion a book of essays and checklists about the western author, which was put together by Robert Weinberg. I found it very enjoyable.

I’ve read a couple of books by folks I know in the blogosphere, Arkansas Smith, a western by Jack Martin, and Pallid Light, a zombie novel by William Jones. Both were excellent books. I’ve reviewed all these more extensively over on Goodreads by the way.

I’m currently enjoying an SF book called The Return, by William Shatner, with Judith and Garfield Reeves-Stevens. This tells the story of Kirk being resurrected after death by Romulans to be used as a weapon against the Federation and Jean-Luc Picard. I’m about a quarter of the way into it and really enjoying it so far.

I just loving having time to read. How about you?

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