A Little Competition

I play a lot of games. Tabletop games, that is, although I have played a fair number of digital games in the past. But today I went and played a tournament game (Star Wars Legion, in case anyone is curious), and did mediocre.

Thoroughly middle-of-the-pack. Decidedly average. It was nice to be at a tournament again (12 players total), but I had forgotten how exhausting it is to be out in public socially.

But I had fun! It’s a silly game, hard to take super serious, and it was a small, friendly event that nobody was taking super serious, so it was quite nice. A little change of pace, as it were, and definitely a nice change from having to work at the game store on a Saturday… although, ironically, I was at a different game store on my day off. C’est dommage.

That’s it for now! Back to the novel!
Hope everyone out there is staying safe and healthy!

Slowing the Pace?

I have managed to finish my English course for the summer, and now have a glorious two weeks before I return to classes.

Granted, I’m still working full-time and writing every moment I can, but at least I don’t have school on top of those!

However, some of the feedback I’ve received recently suggests that maybe I should slow the frantic pace of my book releases a bit. They’ve made some rather compelling arguments. I’m going to think on it while I continue to plug away at the current novel (the cyberpunk heist story I’m working on)… it’s about 10K words done, which is significantly less than I wanted but, as we all know, 2021 hasn’t been a great year for anything and especially rough for creative projects.

But, not to fear, there will still be at least one more novel before the end of the year, and maybe I’ll push this one through at my current pace and then spend more time and energy on the next one… we’ll see! We’ll see.

Either way, a big thank you to everyone for your continued support, and I’m still going to be producing as much quality content as I can… but maybe a little less of it at a higher quality? I dunno! We’ll see! Exciting times!

Hope everyone out there is staying safe and healthy!

Good Feedback

About a week back, a very thoughtful reader sent me an email with some incredibly insightful feedback. They had just finished Caitlyn Morcos, Interplanetary Marshal Service, and wanted to know if I was open to hearing about their experience with the book.

Yes. A thousand times yes.

So they sent along a list of stuff they liked, and stuff they thought needed work for my future projects. It was extremely kind, and I really appreciate them taking the time to give me their thoughts. A lot of writing is just kinda throwing stories out into the world and hoping that people enjoy them, so getting thoughtful, intelligent feedback is worth more than gold.

One of the big things they mentioned that I want to touch on briefly is that they’re not exactly sure who my intended audience is. A lot of Morcos is almost YA in tone: jokes, blushing deputies, kidding around. But then a fair amount of it is very dark, tackling serious issues and there is a significant amount of death and pain.

The short answer is ‘I don’t really know’. I write the kind of stories that I love to read and watch… witty banter, fast action, but not super serious or with “a message” baked in. Not that there is nothing wrong with super serious sci-fi! Some of it is great! But it’s not the kind of sci-fi that I love. So who is Morcos for? People who are like me, I guess, who find real-life stressful and depressing and are looking for an escape full of heroes that get to be heroic and villains that may be evil, but still have a moral compass they think is good.

Anyway, I really appreciated the feedback, and a lot of it is going to change some of what I do. One of the harder ones to work with was his suggestion to slow down my writing process… to focus on fewer books a year and pour more time and energy into them. It’s good advice, but it directly contradicts other advice I’ve received which basically boils down to “write as many books as you can at good quality so people know you produce consistent work.” I guess there’s a balance point in there somewhere, and I just have to find it.

Hope everyone out there is staying safe and healthy!

Compare and Contrast

Over the last few years (I’ve now been a part-time English student for three years, more-or-less), I have had to “Compare and contrast” an awful lot. Compare these two books. Contrast these two authors. Compare and contrast these two poems.

So much comparing! So much contrasting!

My final exam for this course is, unsurprisingly, an essay about comparing and contrasting. And that’s fine, I don’t mind doing that one more time (this semester). My least favourite part of essays are always the Works Cited requirements. Having to find a particular passage or quotation from a book I read once is a slog… especially if I need multiple relevant quotations. And I don’t think there’s a good way to work around that… if you find the quotations first, you have to adjust the content of the essay to the quotes, but if you write the essay first it can be impossible to find appropriate quotations (especially if you, like me, don’t precisely remember what you’ve read, just approximations!). Oh well. My essays tend to be graded very favourably, so I can’t complain!

I should get to it. It’s a slog, but it’s an important one, and it needs time to be edited and adjusted as I write.
Hope everyone out there is staying safe and healthy!

Home Alone!

Well, here’s something that hasn’t happened in a VERY long time. I have the whole house to myself!

My partner works as a book keeper (accounting), and took about a month off to handle some stressful home/work/life changes that have been going on. Today is their first day going back to their office (in as safe a manner as possible, and with the blessings of the boss to figure out a good “Work from Home” vs “Work from the Office” division that works for her). But that means I have all day to myself! Glee!

I mean, I love my partner, and I love spending time with her. But it is way, way easier to get writing done when I’m not being gently pulled in different directions for various tasks. And I am going to get so much writing done today!

Hope everyone out there is staying safe and healthy!

Missed Wednesday!

Hey, none of us are perfect… I missed my update on Wednesday! In my defence, I had a huge assignment due for my course (the last thing due aside from the final essay, due in 10 days… I will probably start that tomorrow).

Thankfully, not much happened this week, so you haven’t really missed anything. And I did well on that assignment (technically, I did perfect, but I don’t think I quite deserve that grade… but I’m not going to complain).

Oh, and I sold 10 paperbacks in one day this week (may have been Wednesday, actually). Which is a record! It doesn’t quite double the number of paperbacks I’ve ever sold, but it comes awfully close…

I look forward to the day that a day where I sold 10 copies of a book isn’t even worth noting. But I am not there yet, and it is really nice to see. If only I could get those kind of numbers consistently… ah well! One of these days!

Alright, I’m going to get back to making dinner, and I’ll be back in a few days with an update on Sunday or Monday!
I hope everyone out there is staying safe and healthy!

Just a Final Exam Away...

I have to remind myself sometimes that I have willingly chosen to study for an English degree. That all the cost, time, effort, and energy is something I went out of my way to pursue in the hopes of…

Something. In the hopes of something. Maybe a better future? At the very least better books. But it’s hard to remember that sometimes, since it absorbs all of my “free time” like a giant, expensive, joyless blackhole.

Now, I will say that the “joyless” part is mostly because of the pandemic. I am very, very bad at online learning, and losing the ability to interact with classmates and professors has been hard. Hopefully things will be better in September (spoiler: probably not), but yeah, switching to an online mode of education has not been great.

But I finished my last test and assignment for my summer course today (yay!), which means I just have the exam to write (boo), and then I’m done for the rest of the month (or, the three weeks between now and when classes start up again). I intend to get much personal writing done in that time, fingers crossed.

Right! I should get back to just that writing… July was not a good month for my word count (and neither was June, as memory serves), so I have to make the most of the time I have available to me.

Hope everyone is staying safe and healthy!

Advertising Budgets

I had to cut my ad budget again. One of my ads is very successful, basically popping up every time it has the opportunity to. And it is landing me sales, but it costs me more-or-less $5 for every $1 I sell. In the grand scheme of things it’s not a tonne of money, but it adds up, and over a month it can be a bit shocking.

It’s too bad, though. Because, if anything, it has given me a very realistic “ads = sales” model that, had I more money, would result in more people reading my books… and, hopefully, if they read one, they may go on to read another one (or two!).

Now, granted, they would have to read my entire catalog at this point to recoup the losses from advertising, and even then it would barely break even, but at least the sting would be less.

But, t’is not to be. The ad will continue to run at a much more humble rate because I can’t afford otherwise. But hopefully people will still see my books, still be interested enough to pick up one or two of them. That’s the dream, after all.

Anyway! I get to finish up the last assignment for my English summer course today, and then start prepping for the last test and the final exam. Not exactly “fun”, but I am doing well overall and it will be nice to put another mandatory course in the rear view mirror on my way to my degree.

Hope everyone out there is staying safe and healthy!

Where Did July Go?

Holy crap, where did the month go!?
I mean, I get that I was busy, but yikes, that entire month just vapourized and I’m not exactly sure how.

Upside, the novel is coming along really nicely, and I’ve almost finished another summer course for my degree. Exam is in two weeks, and I’m not worried about it (I don’t think I’ll do particularly great, but I think I’ll be okay). So at least I’ve spent some of the time productively.

Downside, the novel isn’t done by a long shot. And I really want it done before the end of summer if I can at all manage it.

Oh well. Time stops for nobody. And, hey, I get to see my parents for the first time since February 2020, so that’s something! Vaccines are wonderful, and absolutely everyone who can get one should get one.

Right! A few hours of work, and then off for an early dinner.
Hope everyone out there is staying safe and healthy!

Space Clown Show

Well, several billionaires have now been to space. Woo. Hurray. Yippee.

I know, I know, a lot of people are happy about the potential privatization of space, since it will theoretically make space travel accessible to more people. And those people aren’t wrong… it will come at enormous cost in human life and waste, but yes, it will be available faster than if our current governments continue to treat space as an expensive novelty.

Of course, if the governments did bother to fund space travel to the extent that they should (or could, with minimal impact on bloated military budgets), we could do it all safer, faster, and with far broader application. But that won’t happen because people are scared of government waste and don’t care about the abject cruelty of private companies that can afford to fund this stuff.

I write about futures where humanity has reached the stars, either locally (like Tintian, in which all humanity is still restricted to the solar system), or galactically to various degrees. But in all cases it’s always governments that initially launched people towards the stars, either as explorers, colonists, or soldiers. The idea of a private company doing that… frankly… is a little terrifying.

But, hey, this is the dystopian hellscape we live in right now, and all things considered it could theoretically be worse. So I guess there is that.

As a final thought, my favourite comment about the space travel by the insultingly-rich was “The Bezos space journey started flawlessly, but tragedy struck two hours later when he returned to Earth safely.”

Stay safe and healthy out there, everyone.

Blargh. Essays.

I don’t really like writing essays. I don’t think I’m a “great thinker” who, generations from now, anyone will feel obliged to revisit all the things I wrote to glean additional meanings from. I write them, I usually struggle at the start and end up with something half-decent by the end, but that’s about it.

I get the impression that the essay format was once far more important, and perhaps it still is in the literary academic world that I have almost no connection to (despite my current English studies). I don’t want to make waves: I just want to make a humble living by my writing. I don’t need to have revolutionary thoughts or opinions or a perspective on the work of others… I just want to tell a good story that people can enjoy and, hopefully, that gives them a little happiness and maybe a touch of hope. I really try to focus on optimistic writing, which can be a struggle because I am not always much of an optimist myself, but I try.

I think it’s less about writing what you know, and more about writing the kind of work that I want to read. And I do want to read lots of optimistic, fun, playful works… and, thankfully, the modern sci-fi market seems to have lots of options for that.

Anyway. I gotta get this essay finished so I can get back to the important work of writing my novel!
Hope everyone out there is staying safe and healthy!

A Dozen Little Cuts

I’m having one of those days where I have a million things to do, and they’re all really quick little things, but there are so many of them that it’s hard to find a place to start.

It’s weird. Most of the time I have to deal with several overwhelming issues to deal with: money, housing, food, that sorta stuff. But sometimes the big things are dealt with temporarily, and all the little things that hover at the periphery dart in to fill up the space. And the more big things are temporarily dealt with, the exponentially more little things rise.

For example, today I took my bike for a tune-up for the first time this year. Normally something I get done in the spring, but this year… mid-summer. Because why not? And then that led to the realization that for dinner I’m BBQing a massive hunk of meat, which means I have to get it prepped early so that it will cook by the time for dinner. And that led the the thought that I don’t have sides for dinner which means I have to prep veggies, which led me to think about my characters in my most recent novel currently being in a coffee shop, and so on, and so forth.

Just lots and lots of little things are trying to crowd their way into my head.

But that’s okay! I’m going to write the first draft for my next major assignment due next week, and then spend some time writing the novel, and then switch gears to making dinner, and then… we’ll see how much time I have left after that and go from there!

Hope everyone other there is staying safe and healthy!

Free Book!

Periodically (although it has been a while) I will put one of my books up for free through the Kindle Store. This is a promotion that Amazon lets us self-pub authors do, and I’m happy to do it! I think getting my books into people’s hands is kinda a big deal, and if people enjoy them, maybe they’ll give it a good review and/or recommend it to friends and/or buy my other work!

Which is a long way to say that for the next three days or so, if you want a copy of the most recent Tintian novel… go get ‘er! She’s still free!

I kinda wish I could do it more often with more of my books (yes, I’m aware there are complicated work-arounds to fix the price on the Amazon store, but honestly, too techical and way too much work for a humble Luddite such as myself), since there is a limited number of times you’re allowed to offer work for free every year, but it’s a nice thing to be able to do.

So! With that, I’m going to get back to writing the next novel so that when people finish my free one, they can consider buying a brand new one!

Hope everyone out there is staying safe and healthy!

Post-Degree Thoughts

As I mentioned on Monday, I’m still months away from actually graduating. It might actually be up to a year, depending on which courses are available at certain times, but regardless, I am approaching the end of the next chapter of my education with shocking velocity.

And that’s fine. I had hoped to make more connections with professors, TAs, and fellow classmates by this point, but the pandemic has scuttled everyone’s plans for 2020 and 2021 to some extent. And there’s still time. I’m hopeful that I can leverage one of those connections to help me land a better job going forward… and again, I can’t really complain about my 9-5 that pays for my editing costs. The bosses are okay, the customers tend to be quite nice, and my quirky sense of humour hasn’t gotten me in (much) trouble yet, so really I can’t complain too much. But it is really draining, and 2 months of the year are basically torched as a result of the holiday season when I work insane hours.

Basically, I need to find something that helps me write novels, rather than drains my ability to do so. I’m not exactly sure what that is, but I look forward to finding it.

Of course, in this economy, and in the economy of the next few years, all bets are basically off. Who knows what work in Canada will look like going forward? I keep hoping for a UBI, because that would be basically perfect. The ability to do the work I want without worrying about starvation is basically all I’m asking for at this point in my life. But, again, who knows?

Anyways, I should get back to writing the novel. Made a little progress already today, but more is needed. Still planning on finishing at least the first draft by the end of the month.

Hope everyone out there is staying safe and healthy!

Over Halfway There

Not on the newest novel, sadly. That’s still closer to a quarter done, which is frustrating but not unusual. But I am over halfway done by second university degree, and that’s kinda nice.

It’s a weird feeling. I don’t feel like I’ve gotten as much out of my education as I wanted to, but I have certainly gotten something out of it. Reading critically and having my writing critiqued by professors has been really useful, and I’d be lying if I said I didn’t enjoy it. I have enjoyed it a great deal! But there are only a few courses remaining before I officially have my Honours English degree, and I figured… I dunno, that I would feel more of something as a result.

Oh well. I’m really looking forward to a course they’re offering in January 2022, and the rest I have to take at this point aren’t as bad as some of the course material I’ve had to take up to this point. And then, with degree in hand… I don’t know. Definitely keep writing, because that’s the entire point to this endeavour, but maybe find a different way to finance my writing? That’s potentially interesting.

Hope everyone out there is staying safe and healthy!

A Boring Apocalypse

One of the most creative people I know in the local area, a gentleman who goes by the name “Spud”, recently posted on his (far more popular, and deservedly so) blog that he laments that we got “such a boring apocalypse.”

What a lovely phrase, and how elegant a way to put it. I don’t agree with the sadness to a large degree (a less boring apocalypse would be terrifying), but I get what he means. It’s so hard to push yourself to do creative work in this environment. It’s hard to push yourself to do anything, really, but creative projects seem to be particularly bad.

I’m sure I’m not the only one noting this. But I have struggled this last month with Novel 8. And it’s not a question of enjoying it: I’m having enormous fun writing the book every moment I have the energy to do so. But those moments are hard to come by, and everything seems just… harder, really.

But, again, I suppose I shouldn’t complain. I have a roof over my head, food on my plate, three lovely cats, and a partner who supports me and my insane dream. Things could absolutely be much, much worse.

Anyway. I’m going back to writing my novel in the hopes that I can make other people’s apocalypses a little brighter and more fun.

Hope everyone out there is staying safe and healthy!

Allergies

I have a few allergies. Most of them developed later in my life… the only really dangerous one is penicillin, which is a very common antibiotic and could theoretically be administered to me if I were unconscious or something.

I really need to get one of those bracelet things. Anyway.

But i also have other, more minor but still super annoying allergies. Pollen seems to be one that comes and goes, and today, by golly, it has come. My eyes feel like they’re swimming in pools of sandpaper and lemon. So much fun (/sarcasm).

As a result, I’m going to stay in the basement where the air is a little cooler, the lights are a little dimmer… and write!

Big thank you to everyone who has picked up my newest book over the last month! The number of units sold is really encouraging! I’m going to have to throttle down on the ads in a few weeks, though, because although it is super nice to see the book in more hands, each sale is costing me about $4 in ads (and since each sale only makes me about $1… you can see the problem!). I’m hoping that if I can get the book out to enough people, the residual sales (people who bought The Hunt for the Wind’s Howling Rage go on to buy Caitlyn Morcos and The Queen of the A.I.s, for example) will eventually compensate for most of those losses, but I can’t count on it. But, for now, I will enjoy my improved visibility for another month, and then throttle things down until I release my next novel and then hopefully throttle everything back up!

Ah, the “joys” of writing-as-a-business. Oh well.

Hope everyone out there is staying safe and healthy!

Silas Marner by "George Eliot"

So part of my Brit Lit course involved reading the classic (1890s) English novel Silas Marner. It was… fine. I would describe it as “highly crushable”, in the sense that it’s relatively short and easy read. Not a lot happens… you might argue nothing happens, really… but it was okay.

I wouldn’t compare it favourably to the other novels of that time (Dumas and his Three Muskateers and The Count of Monte Cristo), but those were much harder reads but with more plot propelling them forwards, whereas everything in Marner just kind of happens.

Still, glad I read it. An interesting break from my usual laser-swords-and-explosions style reading and writing. Not one I would recommend unless you want a glimpse into historic English writing or you like a slower pace, meandering story.

Oh, I should mention that the “George Eliot” quotation marks are because the author was actually Mary Anne Evans, who wrote under a pseudonym because women weren’t allowed to write, of course. Pity, too. Mary Shelley, founder of science fiction, was writing around the same time, and I have very fond memories of Frankenstein, but it has been a long time since I read it. Maybe it wouldn’t hold up either? Who knows.

Hope everyone out there is staying safe and healthy!

Truth

The focus of my current English course, British Literature II, is the concept of “Truth”, and how various English writers and poets framed that through history. Romance-era poets were seemingly obsessed with the concept, seeing Truth as something that required a human mind, and specifically imagination, to be able to piece together from what was available.

Of course, most Romance-era writers were independently wealthy and were writing more as a hobby and as an investigation than out of any sense of appealing to the masses. If others found their work worthy was something of an unintended side-effect, it would seem.

That stated, it has made me think a little about Truth, and what it means to me and my writing. I’m not particularly concerned with “deep meaning” with my writing, since I’m aiming for light, fun, adventure-style books. I don’t want or need to win any Giller prizes for my science fiction, I just want to tell neat stories that make people smile and maybe forget about all the crappy stuff that’s going on in the world for a while.

But I still try to weave a bit of optimism in my works. There is still violence, and sexism, and fear, and lots of other negative aspects to my worlds, but I can do a lot to frame the negatives as less ambiguous, and to show that there is a lot of potential for good in the world. Quiet moments of peace, tenderness, love… all the things that make life worth living.

Plus laser swords and exploding starships, because, d’uh. What’s the point of writing science fiction if you can’t work in laser swords and awesome starship battles? Might as well write fantasy!

Anyway, this is one of the reasons I love studying English. It’s neat to think about, even if I think the considerations are a bit ivory-tower for my tastes.

Hope everyone out there is staying safe and healthy!

Weird Metrics

I’ve mentioned before that I have a weird fascination with metrics. Tracking the numbers of my writing career has been interesting in many ways I wouldn’t have predicted when I first started this journey back in 2016.

For example, I have sold more books in the last 4 week period than I have at any time before. There is still a blip of my first novel having more free copies given away than I have sold at any point (technically, only the first 20% of the novel, since I broke that one up into 5 parts in a kind of serialization… boy, was THAT ever a bad decision… one novel, five times the work! I won’t be repeating that mistake without justification at any point ever again). But I think the release of The Hunt for the Wind’s Howling Rage has seen more copies move than ever before, which is nice! If I can keep up this as a more-or-less consistent number, and then the next one releases with about the same numbers… that might be enough to push me into full-time writing.

It’ll be close. It might take a 3rd novel at-these-numbers, which, again, I don’t know if that’s reasonable. But gosh it would be nice.

Anyway! Yes. Numbers. Speaking of which, I have an essay I have to write (500 word essays!? Who does that!?) for Monday, and class notes I have to record for today, and another novel to finish a few chapters on (I’m sticking with numbered chapters titles this time, just to make my life a little easier, but then I’m doing that Dune thing of putting a little quote or news report at the start of every chapter, just to make my life even harder…). So I’m going to get on that!

Hope everyone out there is staying safe and healthy!