Good morning, Readers!

Yesterday I got next to no writing done.  I could not focus.  That's to be expected, though, all things considered.  I did manage to take a nap at lunch, though, and that helped enormously.  Especially since I managed to get my lower back to crack (napping on hard ground FTW?), which in turn resolved the growing headache I had.  That nap was the best thing ever.

Time for naps should become a regular thing.

While I didn't manage to get more than a few hundred words down in my current WIP, I did manage to stream.  I was home later than usual as I had to post things to people, and there was quite a line up at the post office.  I have to go back to the post office soon, as I've more things to post.  Lordy.

Anyway, I streamed.  As you know, I'm currently playing Far Cry Primal (and loving it).  I have thus far conquered the north, killing the leader of the Neanderthals and sealing their doom, basically.  Happily, though, I have three of them living in my village currently.  Dah, who has the illness that has been devastating the Neanderthal population since before I started my murderous conquests, and is feverish, but also has pledged himself to my service.  I also have Ull's children (Ull being the leader I killed); a young one and an infant.  I have a tonne of thoughts on Ull and the Neanderthal in this game, but I'll save that for my Sassy Review.

Now I'm headed south to the lands of the Izila, who are by all appearances proto-Celts.  I feel less conflicted about going after these folks, because they're all suffering from superiority complexes, and aren't struggling for survival and confused and frightened by their dwindling numbers.  They're enslaving folks, proclaiming it their right to do so on account of how they are the ultimate people.  Fuck those guys and the woman who leads them.

It was a successful stream.  I took over a substantial amount of land, discovering a fair few places, and captured two forts and a bonfire. I have one fort left before I own all the forts, and two more bonfires before I've claimed them all.

I'm super impressed with the level of research that went into this game, and how well they've managed to incorporate what the archaeology seems to be saying about life in the Palaeolithic into this fictional story, and my mind is whirling with all manner of theories about how it bridges into the mythos of the Assassin's Creed universe.  I'm sure I'm wrong about a lot of it, but I'm having fun coming up with the theories all the same.

While this game isn't in my list of top games (the story has to carry me away for that to be the case, so currently my top picks are Hellblade: Senua's Sacrifice, The Last of Us (Part 1) – which both left me in tears – and God of War (2018)), it's still one hell of a fun game, and is engaging my brain and imagination in all the right ways.

I feel like I go on about this game every Thursday, so sorry to my non-gamer folks and also to those of you who couldn't give a flying fuck about prehistoric anthropology.

Right, I'm off to do some French lessons before I start writing for the day.  I have a bit to make up.

​Ciao!

Good morning, Readers!

Yesterday was an interesting day.  I did not sleep well at the end of it, waking up several hours before my alarm, and utterly unable to get back to sleep.  I did not want to get out of bed this morning, but managed it all the same.

Good thing too, as the building decided to throw a tenant appreciation day and there is free coffee and pastries downstairs.  Not a bad way to start an otherwise crappy morning.  I'm still dead tired.  No amount of coffee will save me from today, I think.  Luckily, I haven't much on this evening except for some live streaming.

All I need to do today is to make my minimum of a thousand words, and I'll be happy with the day.  If I manage two thousand words, I'll be golden.  I likely will not be able to do that, though.  My brain is currently mush.

Speaking of mushy brains, yesterday was a catch-up day for querying.  I was supposed to do that on Monday, but got to writing, and completely forgot that I'm trying to sell the first book in the series.  My mushy brain got it all wrong, though, and I sent out a query intended for another agent to someone who wasn't that agent, and then I decided that I'd never get this this represented, and basically fave up for the week.  I'll try again next week, but for now I'm going to remain angry at my dumb brain.

Right, it's taken me more than an hour to write this little bit, so I'm going to leave off for here today and hope that my fiction writing is a little less like pulling teeth.

Ciao!

Good morning, Readers!

Yesterday was a great day for writing.  I managed two thousand words, and before quitting time, too.  I didn't have to stay late to finish writing, which was nice.  I headed off to martial arts training where I continued to learn the Crazy Devil Staff form, and started a new empty hand form.  It was a good night.  I went home feeling better about life than I had been in a while, though my back was not in a happy place (normal back pain stuff for me. I have it chronically).

However, I realised far too late that yesterday was supposed to be my querying agent day.  I queried a total of zero agents yesterday.  Today I must remedy that, which means that I might not get to writing today.  I'm a little annoyed at myself.  Oh well.  We all make mistakes.

If I'm very lucky, I'll manage to get the queries done with time enough to write a little.  I'm building up to a pivotal battle, and it's killing me that I'm not there yet.  There's a great part, where that guy does this crazy thing, and you're not really sure if he would do it, because he's a little ambiguous that way, not to mention cocky, and elsewhere victory is snatched away and it's all dark and gloomy and....

Anyway, I really need to get to that battle.

On that note, I'm off to go query some agents. Wish me luck, folks. Fingers crossed one of them likes my stuff enough to take me on.

Have yourselves a lovely Tuesday.
​
Ciao!

Good morning, Readers!

This weekend, which was the first in well over two months in which I had nothing due or on or scheduled (other than teaching martial arts, which is just normal at this point), I slept.  I slept a lot.  Like, got home from work Friday evening and slept, waking only to feed the cat, shower, and then headed back to bed for a proper sleep.  I did the same Saturday, returning home Saturday afternoon and falling asleep, waking only to feed the cats and shower before heading back to bed to sleep.

Sunday, I slept in as long as possible, before heading out for a quiet day with family that was a belated birthday celebration.  We stayed in and watched The Dead Don't Die, a very weird, awkward zombie comedy that had me charmed from the first, but had an ending that could have been so much better.  Still, I'm not sad I watched it.  My dad was less thrilled with it, so we went on to watch Hobbs and Shaw, which was as funny and fun as I remember it.  There's just something really inherently amusing about how Dwayne Johnson, who is basically an avatar of masculinity, pokes fun at all the toxic masculinity in action movies.

Then we had a lovely home-cooked dinner, I tried a new scotch that I ended up really liking, and then I went home, showered and collapsed into bed.

Honestly, if it wasn't for requiring a pay-cheque to live, I'd still be asleep in bed.

Now that I'm a little more rested, however, I really need to issue an apology to all my friends.  Exhaustion from all the things in the past two and half months has made me the worst friend ever.  I have emails that have gone unanswered, texts I desperately need to reply to, letters that need writing and sending, and a whole host of other things that I have neglected because I could barely function (and this isn't including things like cleaning the house, which I haven't had the energy for, either) beyond getting my arse to the places I had to be for the past few months and pretending to the outside world that everything was fine, and I was doing well.

Truth is, I don't really remember the past few months.  It's all a haze of activity blanketed by the fog of exhaustion.

With all the sleep I've had this weekend (also requiring neglecting texts and emails, but I needed this sleep), I'm feeling much better.  So, I'm going to spend this morning catching up on the texts and emails I haven't been able to answer before now before I head off to write some more.  I won't be able to catch up on all of them, but I'll be trying to continue to do so throughout the rest of the week.

Also, take it from me, schedule some time when you have no obligations.  Make it a day.  On this day, you don't need to do anything except read, or watch your favourite show, or take a long bath, or something.  Burnout is real, and it sucks giant hairy balls.

Right, i have to go and do things.  Hope you all had a great weekend.

​Ciao!

Good morning, Readers!

How can it be Thursday already?

Things are going relatively well, all told.  I'm very far behind in many things, but writing isn't one of them.  I manged to write two thousand words yesterday, and it didn't take all that much to get the ball rolling.  I will be finishing chapter 18 and possibly 19 today.  18 is a new chapter that I inserted between two others.  There are three such chapters that I placed to fill in some serious gaps that I noticed the last time I read through the manuscript.  It's added some nice depth to a few characters that were lacking.

I'm really looking forward to these later sections in the book.  There are some fights coming up that are going to be fun, not least of all because the first of them is going to bring one character into the know, as it were.  It's going to be quite a shock for the poor bugger.  Heh heh heh.

Something that makes me extremely happy about this write is that even though I'm not writing at the speed I'd like to be, I'm still having fun with the story.  Normally at this stage, I'd be really flagging.  It would be a slog to get through this part of the story.

Part of it is that I'm having fun with Celtic myth, which is an area of intense personal interest.  Letting my imagination run riot in that world has been the most fun my brain has had in a long, long time.

Still in the writing scene, my search for an agent continues.  I've queried a tonne and have received, thus far, three rejections.  Some agencies don't send rejections, I've noticed, and their silence is indication that I was rejected.  That's a rough take for me.  I've come to expect that of publishing houses, but not really an agency.  Still, everyone is trying to get published, it seems, and they must be insanely busy.

I'm really hoping that an agent likes my stuff, and they'll pick me up.  I've hoped that before now, though, so I'm not holding my breath.  Still, I've been dreaming about it an awful lot of late.  Knock on wood and wish me luck.

Now I'm off to go play a bit more in Celtic mythology.

​Ciao!

Good morning, Readers!

I'm over at Black Gate again, waxing lyrical about the price of publishing with a small press.

I’m sure many of you by now have heard of the sudden controversy that erupted around Canadian horror/speculative fiction publisher, ChiZine. The story has been picked up by Victoria Strauss of Writer Beware. You always know it’s bad when Writer Beware gets involved. For those of you who are blissfully unaware of the situation, good for you. Stay that way if you can. If you insist on knowing it all, I can recommend a great round-up by High Fever Books (here). Start at the bottom and work your way up through the updates.

It’s bad.

For the most part, there has been an outpouring of support for those affected; the authors who were not paid, and the former staff who were so atrociously abused. As with all controversies, however, there have been a number of bad takes. The worst has come from an editor by the name of Stephen Jones, who had this to say:

Good morning, Readers!

The only reason I'm at work today is because that is where the food is.

I'm very tired, and I have no right to be this tired.  I haven't done anything all that tiring of late.  Still, I'm exhausted.  I mean, I didn't sleep all that well last night, and was woken a couple of hours before my alarm.  Oh well, that is life, I suppose.

Anyway, I've made a decision about things that have been on my mind for a while.  It's already begun, really, but I thought I might share it all with you both to see what you think and to arrange my thoughts on the matter.  Before anyone panics, no, I am absolutely not quitting writing.  That's such an integral part of my being I don't think I could ever give it up.

What I am doing, however, is getting out of the publishing business.  Self-publishing specifically.  I can't do it any more.  I just can't.  I don't have the time to be able to hunt down the opportunities as you must when you self-publish.  I don't have time to chase after reviews, or to hit up all the local bookshops to ask if they'll take my books, or to hunt down other opportunities.  With everything else going on, and with all that I want to devote my time to, I simply don't have the time, or the energy.

When I first started writing and self-publishing, I thought I'd be able to throw my everything at it.  Turns out, I am not especially good at being a publicist and marketer for myself.  I don't have the funds to pay editors their worth, and the same goes for cover designers and interior formatters.  I do not have the capacity to act as my own publisher.

To that end, I'll be looking to find a home for my entire back list so I no longer have to worry about keeping stock and distributing them, having to find the time in my schedule to fulfill orders and so forth.  I won't have to fuss over format or covers or editing anymore.  I'll be free to write and pursue other interests without the stress of everything else about publishing that have to occupy my mind.

Renaissance Press has already acquired Sky Road Walker, and it's my hope that they'll accept the rest in due course.

I intend to spend the space and time I'll get back to work on the art side of my interests.  I have plans to work on a number of things in the art realm, and have already taken steps to get there.  Yesterday, for example, I ordered some white and black polymer oven-bake clay, some clay-shaping tools and some bake and bond.  I plan on a series of sculptures, and have ideas for paintings and drawings, as well as chainmaille items and a few pieces in leather that I intend to get to.  First on my plate, however, is the sculpture.

The clay will not arrive until near the middle of December, so it'll be a Christmas present to myself, and in the meantime, I will be planning a new website for the art side of my stuff.  That will be going live as soon as I can get my portfolio in order.  Perhaps it'll require an entirely new website.

One thing for certain, is that it will require learning a whole new skill set (selling art, creating prints or casts etc would all be relatively new to me, and I will have a little bit of research to do), and a few new display items for my works when I head out to conventions.

I'm quite excited by this new thing I want to try my hand at, and I'm eager to share with you.  2020 will be, I think, the year I settle it all in, build up my portfolio and stock, and then launch my art thing properly in 2021.  The problem will be reigning in my impatience and launching everything too soon.  Doing that before its ready will likely not help me much at all.

Right, I've waffled on enough.  I'm off to learn French a bit and then write.

Ciao!