The Struggle is Real

This book is going to kill me. Here’s a story about how it might happen.

Labor Day Updates!

Writing updates for this week with thanks to my Patrons. Much love and Happy Labor Day, ya’ll!

A Blistering Few Weeks

So the past few weeks have been crazy. The temperatures in my little corner of the Southwest have been in the 100s, and I spent most of my day teaching people how to weld. I often tell my students to pay special attention to their hydration, because welding in this heat is like standing over one furnace and under another. By the end of my day, I’ve lost only the gods know how much water weight.

Establishing my writing rhythm has been my top goal for the beginning of the school year, and on that front, we’re doing well. The Heart of the Wasteland stands at 92%, and I’ve worked my way through some hard scenes. There’s definitely still work to do, but it’s marching along. I’m crafting the start of the Big Fight (tm) right now, and I’m a little nervous about moving forward. This series has been on my workbench for so long that getting the ending right is a huge source of anxiety. I have confidence I’ll figure it out in the end, though—pressure is where I seem to thrive.

I’ve also given up smoking and vaping in the last few weeks, and I’m feeling healthier than ever. I’m swimming most days, even after grinding metal and welding all day at work, and it’s been great. I can feel my waistline starting to disappear, and that’s always a good feeling. It’s lighting a proverbial fire on the motivation front, and everything is benefitting from it, especially my writing.

The biggest change—for good or ill—that’s happened recently is that I’ve switched my main writing software to Atticus. This has made things both easier and more difficult. First, it has a cloud storage feature that makes it great for putting in words at work and at home, which is valuable to me. It also has some other features that persuaded me to pull the trigger, like fancy formatting and easily-updated master pages. I was hoping to be able to bring you all a more aesthetically pleasing product in the near future.

The downside, however, is that it’s still in development, so there are some bugs to be worked out. One of those bugs made me lose a writing day last week, which honestly had me pretty angry. It ate about 1200 words from the end of an important scene, and I had to contact their support to get them to restore the backup file. This, of course, took multiple days to accomplish. I was honestly pretty angry throughout the entire process, and I considered asking for my money back. In the end, though, the file was recovered, and I’ve written past that point since. All is well on The Seven Signs front, so don’t fret.

However, I did have quite the pucker. The universe ate half this book in a digital incident once already, so I was pessimistic about a second occurrence. Luckily, we prevailed.

According to Atticus’s fancy word counting feature, we’re still on track to finish The Heart of the Wasteland by about September 30th. Stay tuned for updates, but that’s the goal. I, for one, couldn’t be more anxious to get there. This is the effort of years, and I want to get it right.

I’m also going to commit to finishing the next episode of Courage and Conflict in the coming weeks, and I’ll update when it’s finished.

I wanted to say a quick thank you to my Patrons, Jasmine Joseph and Lorie Holmes. There will soon be two new scenes on Patreon for you, and it’s your support that keeps me going. Much love, everyone, and I’ll type at you soon.

Another Year Begins…

It may be strange, but since I’m a welding teacher, I have started to count my years when the school year begins and ends. The summers, at least for the last year, have been something of a respite in all the craziness I deal with on a day-to-day basis. And so, as the world completes another revolution, another school year begins.

My day job is a little strange. I teach welding to high school students at something of a “last chance” school, if the “last chance” school was pulled right out of one of those teen dramas where the school has way too much money, throws lavish parties, and has equipment not seen in most leading industry companies. That’s the school where I teach.

I mean, these kids went to Japan last year. Japan. In high school.

Most of our students have been kicked out of other schools for various reasons. Maybe disciplinary problems. Many have been kicked through the system, struggling with a disability the entire time, ignored by teachers all down the line until they get to us, where our experts identify them as everything from ADHD to needing glasses. Sometimes I’m astounded by the failures along the way and equally amazed at the abilities of the teachers and admin in my school who identify their problems. It’s really a great place to work.

The whole point of that was to let you know that school starts tomorrow. For the past two weeks, it’s been a whirlwind of professional development classes, cleanup, and organizing my shop. I haven’t been able to put consistent words down for the entire time, as I’ve been so busy. The good news, however, is that my writing schedule picks up once again today.

The other bit of good news is that I’ve changed my writing program to something new, and this new piece of software gives me a detailed readout of my word goals, deadline, and daily word counts. According to my new handy-dandy program, we’re on track to finish The Heart of the Wasteland by September 30th, given the story doesn’t grow and nothing goes wrong.

And let me tell you, I cannot wait.

This story has been with me so long that it’s like a pearl I’ve been steadily growing. It’s about as big as it’s going to get, and it’s time to push it out. I’m ready, you’re ready, the fantasy-reading world is ready.

Well, to be fair, most of the fantasy-reading world doesn’t know about me, so…

As of right now, the word count stands at 210k, or thereabouts, and we’re aiming for 230k. Almost there, folks. Almost… there.

Much love, ya’ll, and I’ll type at you soon.

Writing Updates: 7-10

We busted the 90% mark on The Heart of the Wasteland at 205,955 words! All that and more in this week’s update…

How I Knee-Capped Myself

This is a little story about how The Seven Signs came about, the mistakes I made along the way, and how the creative journey comes with many pitfalls and obstacles.

The Death of Epic Fantasy?

I’ve been seeing a lot of talk online about the “death” of Epic Fantasy. They’re saying it’s due to market trends, practices of unscrupulous indie authors, and cultural changes. Here are my thoughts on the matter:

Writing Updates: 4-26

It’s been a crazy week, but here’s where we are…

Writing Updates: 4-22

Here are some writing updates on The Heart of the Wasteland and more!