So I’m on the 3rd major revision of a short story. And that’s at least 2 more major revisions than I have historically done for short stories.
Minor revisions, absolutely. Editing for clarity or to hit word counts or whatever, yes, all my short stories have those. But major changes? This one is getting way more than usual.
But it feels… right. It feels like there is a really great story here, and I just have to nudge it a few more times to make it come out of its shell. But this revision is going to be it… if it doesn’t “work” after this, I am shelving it and working on the next project. Too many things to do, and still not enough time for all of them! Gotta get stuff done!
Hope everyone out there is staying safe and healthy!
Meeting Stakepole
Michael Stakepole is a sci-fi author that I discovered sometime in the mid-to-late 80s. He wrote some truly foundational work in the Battletech universe (specifically the “Warrior Trilogy” but also countless others), and honestly, he is one of the main reasons I got into writing sci-fi myself.
He’s a craftsman. His books are clever, clean, and approachable without feeling childish. His stories had many strong female characters, and despite the setting being equal parts cliche and silly, he still managed to make really compelling, interesting plots.
And last week at Adepticon I got to meet him! Only for a moment, and he caught me very flat-footed (I wish I had known he was going to be there!), but it was an honour to meet him and get him to sign a copy of one of his books I bought on the spot. I’m looking forward to tackling it before too long… I have a backlog of books to read (when has THAT not been true!?), but his has moved to the top after I finish the current book I am working on… which is a compilation of short stories, several of which were written by Stackpole!).
It was a truly nice moment, and honestly the highlight of the convention for me. I hope one day I can have a fraction of the impact on the industry that he has had. Great guy, 10/10, no edits.
Hope everyone out there is staying safe and healthy!
Back from the USA!
Phew! That was a heckuva trip, and I’m glad to be home.
Milwaukee, it turns out, is quite nice, but a 10-hour drive is just a touch too long. We were all a little frazzled getting there, and we were all equally wiped out when we got back. I’m going to take a couple days to just… mentally unpack, I suppose, would be the way to describe it. Just… let my brain go dapdfajsdphgadsa for a while.
It was a fun convention, although I did quite poorly in the one tournament I attended. It was still really nice to be utterly surrounded… nay, immersed… in “my people.”
That sounds dirtier than I meant it. I just mean it was nice to around so many nerds. We all nerded out. It was great!
Next year I might fly… I dunno, I need to think about it a lot. I’d also need to be in a much better financial situation, because stuff be expensive, yo.
But for now? Glad to be home, glad to be in front of my computer again.
Hope everyone out there is staying safe and healthy!
Off to the USA
So I’m heading to America for a few days… 6 days actually, arriving Wednesday and returning Monday. It’s for a big gaming convention that used to be held in Chicago and has since moved to Milwaukee called “Adepticon.” I went back in 2018 and 2019, it was fantastic, but this will be my first time back since then.
I’m not… crazy… about going to the USA right now since there’s a lot of tension between them and my fellow Canadians, but the tickets were expensive enough that I have fully committed to the Sunk Cost Fallacy at this point. But that’s fine, I’ll probably have a really good time, and more importantly… get a lot of work done! Honestly, one of my legit favourite things about being a writer is my ability to bring my work with me wherever I go. It makes it very hard to have actual, honest-to-goodness “time off” but that’s compensated by being able to write in beautiful places and whenever I want to. In the balance it still works out in my favour, I think.
I have a stack of models I need to have painted up for the convention tournaments, so I’m going to get back to that, but I’ll try to post at least once (maybe, gasp, twice!) while I’m over there. Nine and a half hours of driving to get to the convention… I am actually kinda looking forward to that too!
Hope everyone out there is staying safe and healthy!
Spring!
I suspect there are still a few snowy days in my future, but for now the weather is warm-ish, the sun is shining, and the temperatures have pulled out of the negatives, so we’re calling all of that a win.
Of course, I’m not a big outdoors guy. I was in my youth… days and weeks spent under the stars, being slowly eaten alive by mosquitos and black flies, drinking boiled lake water and generally having a miserable time.
It’s a wonder I don’t enjoy the great outdoors.
But the nicer weather still gives me more time and energy to do stuff. I generally turn into a potato after the sun sets, so a few more hours of sunlight generally means a few more hours of gettin’ things done!
Hope everyone out there is staying safe and healthy!
Time!
You know that thing where you look at the calendar and you’re look “Huh, I think I wrote a blog post a few days ago, but I’d better go check” and then it turns out it was over a week ago and you have no concept of time or space?
Just me? Probably just me.
Anyway, I was shocked to see that' it’s been 9 days since I wrote a post! I could’ve sworn I did one on, like, Wednesday (3 days ago), but no.
In those nine days I’ve finished the first draft of a short story and started working on the second draft. The thing about short stories is that you can’t do my usual trick of writing the novel and then deleting the first three chapters… because there just aren’t three chapters to delete! But I’m kind of doing that now with this story… I’m removing the opening scene completely because, just like the first few chapters of my novel, I wrote it more so I could learn who the characters are, rather than it being important for the story. And in a short story you just don’t have the real-estate or space to waste. It’s a neat challenge, for sure.
Hopefully I’ll get the second draft finished today, and the story submitted to it’s (hopefully!) forever home tomorrow!
Hope everyone out there is staying safe and healthy!
Everything is Political
I think I’ve mentioned here before the concept that you can’t escape politics. Wanting to escape politics is fundamentally a political act.
I don’t think I have ever hidden my particular biases when it comes to politics. It doesn’t take a very close read of any of my books to realize that the capitalists are usually the baddies… some variation, of course, because there are worse and better capitalists, but there is usually a pretty clean line between moral and immoral people in my works. I’m not aiming for nuance, just fun and light.
But on days like today, where the province I live in has decided the government for the foreseeable future, the issue of politics looms closer than ever. I don’t like that I have to live in fear of what these election results really mean, but the provincial government decides funding for almost all of the services I rely on: health, education, and the arts. All under the control of a man I wouldn’t trust with my car, much less one of the most powerful positions in the country.
Ah well. Soon this will fade into the background radiation of what my life has been for decades now… just one struggle on the heels of the next. Eventually maybe things will get better.
Hope everyone out there is staying safe and healthy!
The Cold
I’m not a big fan of the cold. I was born and raised in Canada, a notably cold environment, and yet I hate being cold.
I couldn’t specifically tell you why, or when the switch in my brain went from “Pretty snow and fun activities in the winter!” to “Blankets, sweaters, heater, and a roaring fire please,” but it did.
I used to love snowboarding. Skiing I was okay with, but I loved snowboarding. Now? You couldn’t get me on a slope without paying me. There’s just something about willingly going into the cold that sets my teeth on edge.
Maybe it’s because I didn’t have a choice when I was younger? Winter camping trips, family vacations on the slopes… all of it was mandatory, and I have a sneaking suspicion that I would’ve much preferred to just curl up with a book somewhere warm, but since I didn’t have that choice, I tolerated the cold better. Now I have the option (not always, of course, but more often than not!), it feels much worse than it used to?
Anyway. This isn’t really important in many senses, although my work has slowed down recently because my basement (where I work and write) is really cold, and it’s hard to motivate myself to spend the time I need to spend down here.
Ah well. Supposed to warm up soon. Finger’s crossed!
Hope everyone out there is staying safe and healthy!
The Threads that Connect Us
Last night I played a game called “Ito,” which means “thread” or “string.” The idea of the game is pretty simple: you have to play numbers face-down in ascending order, and you do that by using a subjective scale.
So, for example, the second round we played last night was “Popular Candy,” with 1 being very unpopular and 100 being the most popular candy ever. I played my card and said “Twix,” letting everyone know that I was playing a card I thought was a high number. The next player put down their card, higher in the line than mine, and said “Peanut butter cups,” which are a very, very popular choice, and then the next put their card below mine and said “Black liquorice,” implying a less popular choice.
And so on. The core of the game is trying to decide what other people feel about a topic, and how they would rate whatever they said. The threads that link which cards are played and where create a really interesting glimpse into how other people view very subjective things.
For example, one of the rounds was “Hard things to endure.” A one on that scale would be the easiest thing to do ever (“Sex with an attractive person” for example) and 100 would be the most difficult thing you could think of (“Dentistry with rusty tools, no anesthetic, and an untrained dentist”). Almost all the clues given that round were about work… long meetings, correcting your boss, having to work on a Friday, and so on. It turns out that everyone had pretty low numbers (the “Work on a Friday” was a 30), but there was a lot of uncertainty because some of my friends really hate their jobs, and some of us really love our work.
I mean my writing work, of course. My current day-job is fine. Good boss, great coworkers, but stressful a lot of the time and retail is draining at the best of times. But writing is a dream.
Anyway. I just found it interesting that we could all agree about so many things (like what candy is better, or who is the strongest person in movies), but when it came to work we were all over the board… the lineup wasn’t even close to correct.
The game was a lot of fun, and I highly recommend it to anyone familiar with “The Mind” or “Wavelength” since I think it’s as strong as those, and pretty dang cheap.
Hope everyone out there is staying safe and healthy!
Finally Healthy!
Well, it took a couple weeks, but I have finally shaken off the last remnants of the flu (or whatever) I had. I’m back at as close to 100% as I ever get these days!
Of course, this means I’m a week or so behind most of my projects, but that’s okay! Five more weeks at the job I’m at now, and then… time. Glorious, glorious time. To write and paint and create and film… it’s gonna be amazing.
Not that I’m waiting for that, of course. I sold a short story (pro rates, but very short) yesterday. Feels good, no matter the size of the project (I think it’ll be about 2-3 pages, max, when it’s done). And I’m almost finished the second story that I’m submitting to Shrapnel, a sci-fi short story magazine. Fingers crossed for that one, but no matter how it does I’m going to start writing another immediately. Only way to get better is practice, and man, I love practicing!
It’s good to be running on all cylinders again. So much to do, and never enough time!
Hope everyone out there is staying safe and healthy!
The Common Flu
I honestly have no idea what I caught, only that it put me on my butt for the last few days. Last night, for example, I slept from about 9pm until about 2pm today… a solid 17 hours, I think? It was a lot.
But I’m awake now, and still dealing with the brain-fog that comes from being sick. Nothing serious, just everything taking longer and not being able to think very clearly. Suboptimal conditions to write, certainly, but good opportunities to watch movies and shows that I’ve missed. I’m currently 4 episodes into “Star Wars: Skeleton Crew,” and it’s better than I expected. Not great, sure, but solid.
Anyway, tomorrow I hope to feel better (I can’t keep having 17 hours of sleep a night!), and then I can get back to finishing up the short story I’m working on!
Hope everyone out there is staying safe and healthy!
Read the Submission Guidelines!
So I finished a short story! I was going to submit it!
And then I read the submission guidelines again, because of course I check before I submit anything, and what I wrote almost fits, but doesn’t quite. It’s very close, but very close isn’t what I’m going for.
So I’m going to put that short story into the vault for now, and I’ve started a second one. And, to be honest… I really like the second one. I don’t know if I can say it’s better, but gosh it is good. I hope they like it!
I should be done by the end of the week, and then leave it alone for a day or two before I dive into the editing (you always need a small gap between finishing a work and editing it, or your brain will substitute in what it thinks you wrote, rather than reading what you actually wrote. Important distinction, that!). So with some luck I will submit my first short story for publication since… 2020? Maybe not quite that long, but it’s been a while.
Oh, no, I submitted a few over the ‘22 to ‘23. Well, this will be my first in at least a few years!
Hope everyone out there is staying safe and healthy!
Time to Play
I think we all need time to play.
I mean, sure, I work(ed!) at a game store for 7 years, so maybe I’m biased. But we all make time for work, for family, for obligations and chores… I think we should all try to make time to play.
And I know with the pace of life and the just crushing… everything… it can feel hard to do that. Who has the energy? Who has the time for play when there are bills and tariffs and environmental collapse? But I remember reading somewhere that joy is an act of resistance, and I think that’s really true.
We have to find time to be happy. To bring joy to our lives, and ideally, to the lives of others. And hey… play absolutely does that!
So today, after I finish editing the next draft of the short story I’ve written, I’m going to sit down with some friends and play a game. Maybe two! And that, after that… who knows? We’ll just see where the day takes us!
Hope everyone is staying safe and healthy!
A Big Change
For the last seven years or so, I have worked a retail job in order to fund my writing efforts. Writing, as it stands, is an expensive occupation to get into: editing costs are high, art is expensive, and as far as time goes… well, let’s just say you will never have enough time.
Then there are submission costs occasionally (I usually avoid those unless they also include feedback, which is something I tend to find very useful), and back when I started writing, postage. Less of that these days.
Anyway, so I worked a retail job at a small game store to pay for my writing and living expenses. I have a Patreon account, but as much as it means to me (SO MUCH!), the actual dollars I make is small. About $30/month at time of writing… and while I live a frugal, low-cost lifestyle, even I can’t live on that.
Today I gave my notice at my job. I will be working retail no more… and I have very mixed feelings about it. On the one hand, the company treated me pretty well. On the other hand, they paid me quite poorly for the amount of time and effort I pumped into the business. And if you haven’t worked retail at a small business, ye gods you work your ass off most of the time.
My direct manager said that he knows people who make three to four times as much as he does, and do a fraction as much work. Like, actual work-work. Which isn’t to say that they’re not working… but it is to say retail takes a lot out of you. It took a lot out of me for seven years.
But, as of late March, no more. I’m moving on to a small office job, just being a gopher and data-entry guy, and I am looking forward to it so much. It’s terrifying, because change is terrifying and I have no idea if the new place will be a good culture (say what you will about my current job and the insane amount of work, the company culture is really solid… good people, every one of ‘em), but hopefully a positive step.
And more writing! Woo! That’s the biggest plus out of all of this. For the last couple years, the amount of energy that my job took out of me meant way less time and energy for creative work. And now I have way more time for that! Fingers crossed I can convert that into sales and results!
Hope everyone out there is staying safe and healthy!
Consistency!
Once again I’m banging the drum of consistency… to me, it’s probably the most important element of the media I consume. I want to know how many episodes I can watch, or that there will be another book in the series and approximately when to expect it, or whatever.
The reason I gave up on reading “A Game of Thrones” was because nobody knew when the next book would be finished… except to say “not soon.”
And that’s fine. If your level of consistency is one book a decade, so be it! Just don’t pretend you’re going to suddenly start churning them out if that’s not your pace. Be true to yourself and all that.
It turns out that my pace is “as fast as I can possible finish a piece,” and most of the time that’s pretty dang fast. Last year was the first calendar year since 2016 that I didn’t finish a novel… and I almost finished a novel. It will be out this year, along with, I hope, many other new pieces.
But that includes this here ol’ blog. Just me, mumbling mostly to myself, about my writing… and trying to do it a couple times a week. Gotta get better at keeping my output more predictable.
Hope everyone out there is staying safe and healthy!
Deceptively High Numbers
I have been having a bumper month when it comes to book sales. I have sold more books in January than I did in November and December combined.
Now, granted, half of those book sales were to me. So, kinda cooking the numbers in an unintentional way. I bought the books so I can sell physical copies at a convention that a friend in publishing is going to be attending, so they will count as sales eventually, but for now it looks like January is just a very good month.
Of course, physical book sales have a much lower margin, and since I had to pay for these, even if I manage to sell all of them, they’re not going to make back all of what I spent… if I’m very lucky, I might break even… assuming that I sell most of them.
Ah well. The goal is just to get books in people’s hands, and hopefully they like them and buy more eventually… and that they buy those directly from me, which means I make money on the sales rather than lose. That’s the goal at least.
Hope everyone out there is staying safe and healthy!
The Slow Decline of Everything
Look, things are hard out there for many, many people. And I suspect heavily they are going to get much worse for almost everyone before it shows any signs whatsoever of it becoming better for anyone.
There are still bright points. Good books, good movies, great music… there is a lot that we, as a society and as a people, produce that we can be proud of. A lot of awful stuff, and AI is making sure that there is more and more awful stuff constantly, but a fair amount of really good stuff too.
I was speaking with an editor friend of mine, who was lamenting how the big publishing house she works for has this monumental decline in quality because everyone is overworked and underpaid (despite how massive the industry is). And I get it. There’s more and more crap out there, and everyone thinks they can write.
But it’s exhausting to try… to really try and make fun stories that people will enjoy, and to put the time and effort into polishing and refining them, and knowing that I’m getting a fraction of a fraction of what I need to live on.
Ah well. Whine whine whine. Stuff is hard, and all we can do is our best.
Hope everyone out there is staying safe and healthy!
Building LEGO for Fun and Profit
I love LEGO. I own a fair amount, and I spent a few weeks last year organizing most of it into bins and trays and various tackle boxes and such so that I have a pretty straightforward system in place to know what I have and where.
Partially because I legit just love LEGO. Many of my happiest memories as a child were spent playing with, assembling, disassembling, and rebuilding countless LEGO kits… the classic yellow castle, the galaxy explorer, the moon base… I would build stories and adventures around them for countless hours, mostly alone but occasionally with a friend.
But of course, partially it’s for work. I love making animated shorts with my LEGO… I’ve only done one so far, but golly gee do I have plans for a whole mess of others. I just need the time to sit down and do it, which is so frequently my problem. So many ideas, so little time.
Ah well. When I finish this latest kit (“Medieval Town”), I think I am actually going to put time and energy into building and shooting this next story. I’ve had it written for almost a year now, and I made a storyboard to make sure I can shoot everything in the right order. Shouldn’t take very long… just got to get the time to do it!
Hope everyone is staying safe and healthy!
Happy New Year!
Just a quick post to wish everyone a very happy 2025! Here’s hoping it will be better than I expect!
More information soon, but for now, just gratitude to y’all for reading my little corner of the internet, and best wishes!
Weird Technology
Today I had to reactivate an email account for the English degree I was working on.
It was working as of September: I haven’t had a chance to confirm that for a few weeks.
I doubt I lost anything of real importance (although… who know!?), but it was a pain in the butt to get around to reactivating. I’ve submitted the appropriate forms, and now… we have to wait.
The funny thing is that the email the IT people sent to me said that my account had been deactivated because it hadn’t been used in two years. That’s… impossible… but on top of that, they didn’t know who I was when they sent the form (the form requests my identification, so NOW they know who I am). Just silly.
Anyway, hopefully that will all be sorted out shortly. I don’t need the school email often, but it’s nice to have in case one of my profs wants to get a hold of me (and they have a few times in the past year or so).
Hope everyone out there is staying safe and healthy!