Tag Archives: family

X-Mas (and a new Improbable Author post) Comes But Once A Year

Posted on by

2d531a6bda05cd52215ddc6e11378911

Merry Christmas, all!  As well as Happy Hanukkah, Joyous Kwanzaa, and an excellent Ramadan, Boxing Day, Yule, Saturnalia, Festivus, Officially Sanctioned Non-Religious Winter-esque Holiday, or whatever else brings you indoors this season and causes you to get nostalgic with family and friends, drink, eat, and exchange gifts and good will.

I don’t wanna judge.  Me, I’m celebrating Christmas with me and mine.  As such, posts may well be infrequent (much drinking and writing to do), but as posts have already been infrequent, I thought it prudent to say something about why I haven’t written in three months.

I’m well.  Nobody is dying.  Family is good.  Work is looking up.  I’m in a generally up-beat mood most of the time.  But not everything is coming up roses.

Change has come to my life.  My wife and I have split up (sort of, it’s complicated).  This has somewhat adversely affected my progress upon the new novel, the sequel, my scripts, short stories, and marketing for the stuff I’ve already put out.  It’s not the only reason I haven’t written.  There is a lot of my own laziness, procrastination, writer’s block, and lack of a truly professional writer’s work ethic in there as well, but our separation and eventual divorce (as well as the associated issues with selling a house and moving) does color most of that.  I am not blaming her.  My lack of progress is upon me, but as many of you have been faithful fans, and as I have not held up my end of that bargain, I apologize.

As for the whys and what happeneds, that is a private matter between she and I.  The whole story (or a version of it) requires the purchase and pouring of multiple drinks in person.  My ex, my professional life, and most especially my kids deserve the grace of discretion.  What’s important is that we are both dedicated to our children, we get along, and we hope to one day be past this enough to be friends and take joy in each other’s futures, loves, and accomplishments.

What does this mean for you?  Pretty much nothing.  It’s just an apology and explanation.  But here is what I will give you:  an update and a gift!

Update first.  I am on the last chapter of Book One in Lancers Into The Light, the sequel to A Sword Into Darkness.  I anticipate Book Two going faster (I hope, anyway) and its a bit shorter.  I originally wanted to be done and launch around year’s end, but that’s not gonna happen.  I still would like to launch in the next quarter, and possibly do a launch party at RavenCon.  To facilitate that, I will be looking to getting feedback from Beta Readers of the first half while I’m finishing the second.  If’n you’d like to participate and give me some constructive feedback, drop me a line and some contact info here, by e-mail, Twitter, Google +, or Facebook.

I’m also working on a short for the Jim Baen Memorial Writing contest, but mum’s the word on that for now.

As for a present, last year I won the Liberty Island Holiday Writing contest with a little story about war, robots, Christmas, and French Meat Pies.  I’ll share that with all of you here later today or tomorrow, and I hope you all enjoy it.

Happy Holidays!

On The Job Writing

Posted on by

My apologies, as I have been a poor new blog host.

Here I am, with a content-filled outpouring of my unfiltered id, and what do I do? After addicting vast numbers to the sweet honey that is every word I write, I abandon you for an unspecified number of days to do something as tawdry and mundane as work The Job. How could I be so cruel?

Ah, well. Though the particulars of The Job matter little, the hours it fills are not insignificant. I work about a 12 hour shift (easy, he’s only working half a day!), tack on an hour for work spillage, then an hour-to-45-minutes each way for my commute from the Outer Banks to the communist enclave, I mean commonwealth of Virginia and you have a lot of time spent Not Writing. Then, of course, you gotta help the kids with homework, watch an hour of “Justified”, and then patiently explain to your wife why it’s not your turn to do the dishes, when any damn fool knows it is. I go to sleep earlyish or latish, depending on which particular 12 hour shift I’m working, then rise to begin the process all over again.

I’m still getting used to the flow of things and working out The Job vs. home-life, but I trust that it will settle out soon. The good thing is that I only have about a four to five day work week, so I will have a chance to catch up.

Until then, I write on my breaks and at lunch, whenever I can. And I HAVE been writing. I’m currently working a new draft of a new short story “ILYAMY”, thinking about how to progress “Echomancer”, and working on some new side projects for stories already written, notably new life for “Strategic Deployment” and “The Falling Sky”. Good things are coming, and I hope to have the chance to have more fresh content in the next post.

Until then, make sure you’re caught up on the stories and chapters included here. Happy Reading! (and back to The Job!)