What The Fuck?

So, those few of you that read me often have clearly been pining for more, as my email inbox is stuffed to overflowing with all the screaming and chest-beating missives begging me for  another of those posts that require mind-bleach to remove from consciousness.

Fuck you. This ain't one of those posts.

No, instead I think I will explain why I haven't been producing much of anything creatively. Quite simply: I have been down. Busy with day-jobbery, and down. I have not been writing with anywhere near the speed or frequency I maintain in better times.

Work is going well, for the most part. There are still a great number of people I feel should know better that make the same poor decisions on a daily basis, but that's just my foolish desire people be better. We have had some major adjustments in the court process, many of them requiring a lot of thought and energy to implement and monitor. I am glad of them, but there it is.

As many of you might know, I finished the re-write last year in October, it has gone nowhere, and been seen by no one. There are reasons justifying this, but they don't help me, they only show me how far I am from where I want to be, and lead me to feel somewhat hopeless.

I recently learned that the short story anthology I had a strong chance of being a part of is no more. Not that the work wasn't good enough, but that the house will not be doing the project at all. Disappointing, and not at all in the way I am accustomed to, making it harder to deal with.

So, the excuses have mounted in the last few months.Writing is not easy for me, and when any excuse rears its ugly head, it's sometimes far easier to bow to the excuse than carry on with a difficult passage.

I was finally able to overcome the excuses yesterday, and settle in to some more serious writing. I hope to continue. I need to continue. I also needed the break.

So, here's to getting some writing done.

Little To Say, More To Write

This, the last day I took off, will be filled with writing a great deal, and waiting on The Agent to call out and then get back to me.

I have been distracting myself with Sam Sykes' most excellent Tome of The Undergates, Peter V Brett's Brayan's Gold, and setting up an Eclipse Phase game on RPOL.

Jealousy remains my dark god, as the authors of both books have captured great things on the page, and the group behind the game have managed to gather a huge number of threads into a coherent and very cool package I find diverting and thought-provoking.

So, to the writing and the waiting, and capturing my own good stuff.

Staying Home

I am off for the next two days, unwilling to share either my good news or restrain my bad mood should the word I am hoping for prove negative. The wait is exhausting, and while I am writing slowly, it drags at me, not knowing, a funk I feel like a weight pulling me to earth.

So, off I go. More writing. More waiting.

Tomorrow, if I get no word, the Agent will call and find out why and I shall wait through that, as well.

Damn, Shit Can Change When You Ain't Looking

As my earlier post indicated, I had a rather foul ass-lick of a working day. I came home, plugged my phone in and forgot about checking email for a while, concentrating on enjoying time spent with my daughter.

Isabelle and I watched Mythbusters (Repeating arrow launchers are freakin' cool). When the second episode started I fired up the laptop and checked email. There were eight fresh ones.

One was from my agent, advising me of the phone number of one of the two readers he'd given my MS to, and that he'd had positive feedback for me as well as finding some issues that needed clearing up. I called my agent and we discovered that we are still having email issues (I send them, he doesn't get them).

I then hung up, called his reader and left a message. I then checked the rest of the emails.

One was from a well-respected author friend of mine, introducing me to an editor working on an anthology. Totally unexpected. Totally appreciated. I shouted with glee and emailed back a thank you, already working some ideas over.

As I was writing the first few lines I got a call back from the reader, who gave me quite a bit to think on. At the end of the conversation he said two things that made my head explode in a supernova of pride, "I will buy your book when it comes out, and when will the next one be done? I want to read it before anyone else gets to."

Not Much To Rant On, But A Bit To Talk About

Not much to rant on these last couple days, things have been relatively good.  Saturday started a bit rough, though.

93 Games Studio, the folks that first published my work, are closing their doors after a nine-year run of it.  The boss has had enough, and as another so clearly put it, "with the low margins and other headaches of today's RPG industry, if your heart ain't in it, it just isn't worth it." I am saddened by this news, as I hate for anyone to become fed up with things or face such difficulty that they cannot go on entertaining others with quality games.

Saturday was a loss for The Pink Pixies, the last game I will be able to coach for this year.  While it was a loss, the team played wonderfully, and Isabelle fired two goals in and had two assists.  They spread well and passed so very beautifully.   Where Isabelle truly shines is in her speed onto the ball.  She is incredibly fast, able to overtake offensive players even when starting from well behind.  Just awesome.

It has been very nice to spend lots of time with my girl, though now she is running a slight fever and feels a number of aches.  We spent Sunday watching Farscape and thoroughly enjoying it and one another.  She is starting to find the tropes and predict some of the plotting, which I find immensely cool.  I was never that into the mechanics of story when I was... Shit, I was never that into story until I sat down and started to try and really write my own stories.

I also, over the weekend, started writing another novel.  It is a sequel to The Last Captain, and the idea had been percolating in my head for some time.  So far it's flying out pretty fast, though I have no set title.  I even have some research to do for it, which is fun and different for me, who likes to annoy those of his friends with expertise in an area until they relent and give him their thoughts (Yes, David, I am talking about you, among others!)

Today was just me, Isabelle and Farscape, as Isabelle still isn't well.  I got a tiny bit of writing done.

I also, through the miracle of Twitter, attended Litchat.  I'm not normally able to devote my full attention to this chat, being at work.  Today's was not as interesting for me as others have been in the past, having read those I have read.  That being said, it was much better than some of the litchats I have attended, in that no one bashed a writer for gender-bias or failure to meet some tangential standard with little relation to their art.   Also, I was able to drop a few names in for some who were less familiar with the genre, which was nice (I do so love to corrupt the souls of the untainted:  Why, one didn't even know the definition of ichor!  So sad!)

Tonight, dinner with my agent, where I am sure some stratagems will be discussed for WFC (Read: Have a good time but keep your mouth shut about business, Griffin). He has also read and done an editing pass of The Last Captain, and I am hungry for his input.

Tomorrow I have to go into town for a brief while, but otherwise shall do as I did today; mellow, write, hang with my girls and prepare myself for the fun and intensity of the upcoming World Fantasy Convention.  I hope the flights will be uneventful or, if not uneventful, full of merely colorful characters to write about here.