'Twas the month before Christmas, and all chaos decided to rear it's ugly, expensive head. I'm not sure if the title describes the impending facial tic that seems determined to join the worry party, the sound of the clock telling me I need to get my butt in gear, or the countdown to the kaboom. All I know is that it's an apt title for this week's post.
Now, don't get me wrong. Not everything that has kept me from a new blog post has been bad. Thanksgiving was wonderful! The family was in, the food was good, the leftovers were manageable. I've gotten some writing done - just not what I planned to write - the house is decorated for Christmas. In other words, good things have been going on! Then there are the three emergency visits to the vet for our cat, George. The first visit was a nightmare (different vet - everybody seemed to take vacation that week) but I'm still thankful they worked him in. Now he's at our vet for the second time and will be there until at least Monday. I'm not going to bore you with details. I do enough of that on my regular facebook page. But suffice it to say that I'm a human shaped bag of anxiety at the moment and it looks like I may remain that way until next year. Which brings us to - drum roll please - The New Plan. Before you get too overly excited, this plan is based solely on the desperate need for monetary influx in order to cover our little guy's growing vet bills. This plan also contains a number of if/than's and the first part relies on the friend of someone in a foreign country that I used to work with. Yep, this is where I'm at. Want an overview? Sure you do! So, here it is: Revision of the Revised Revision of The Plan 1. Eagerly await the details of the "part-time position with a global writing community" from "Elma" ("Tina's" friend) a) Ponder whether this is going to be another "editing" job for Chinese "romance" stories. b) If (a) is true, hope that they are at least paying the crappy $.01/word that the other place did while also hoping that they will let me run amok with the "editing" (read that as rewriting) like I did before. c) see if I can get two of my other writing friends in as well so we can have daily contests to see who got the best "translation gem" of the day. d) pray that I don't have to deal with worse theme, content, and writing than I did last time. I need to keep some freaking standards, after all! 2. Finish editing a romance of my own. The pen name is already chosen. A lot of the writing is done. The cover is designed. Post to all the serialized sites I can find once I'm solid with the 1st 1/3 and can then keep up the posting schedule while tackling the rest. (Note: I'm taking another piece I wrote that has no home, making it first person, cleaning it up a bit, and adding in the romance theme. It is more of a romcom, so I'm at least having fun with it even though I truly don't enjoy writing romance most days.) 3. Once #2 is out and about (hopefully drawing a crowd of readers), highly consider pulling the 1st horseman book (written under this name) from Tor Nightfire's submission list. It's been sitting at 180 in the queue for a few weeks, and the odds they'll pick it up are slim, so I might as well consider sending it out there on my own. If I leave it, I won't know until sometime in April if they are going to send a rejection letter or surprise me with interest. 4. Keep up with my December marketing campaign (read that as social media posts exploiting George's situation and begging people to buy books). 5. (and this is the most difficult) Admit that owning Mom's place is not a joyful experience that brings long term stable income to the table. Talk to my brother. Most likely put a for sale sign on the property while also trying to find a good renter once our current one officially moves to her new home. Hope it sells quickly. 6. Dig around in my various folders and find all of the stuff that can be wrestled into a new collection of short stories. Manhandle it into a new book. Release willy-nilly and then do my best to promote the hell out of it. 7. Rummage through my horde of artwork and craft closet. Figure out how to sell some of it. (Note: Hey, at least I'll have next year's Christmas gifts under way when nothing sells, right?) 8. If all that fails, consider content writing and signing up on the freelancing sites again. Attempt to keep my soul in tact and relatively unscathed while dealing with that particular abyss. 9. Plug ears when Scott tells me that plenty of people make decent money selling pictures of their feet on the sketchy side of the internet. Try not to ponder this idea too seriously. Maybe give myself a pedicure... So, there you have it folks. That is the general direction things are going in my creative life. I mean, in the scheme of things it's not terrible. Things have been worse. There is at least wiggle room for positive progress in the current iteration of The Plan. The spark of hope still glows in the lofty vault of my endeavors. I just need to make sure that I don't lose my composure, chuck all of my meager motivation onto that spark, and smother it. A lot of authors say that they were about to give up when their big break came along and tapped them on the shoulder. Here's hoping mine sees this as a good time to come to my doorstep.
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June 2022
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