Today is my birthday! I have 29 years now. Most of my life I would’ve said that’s old as shit, but 29 feels good. The wide-ranging, volatile emotions of my youth seem to have dulled a bit, which is cool. Trying to focus on gratitude and positive thinking, but life is change.
I tend to be more reflective around my birthday than most other times in the year. Below are some updates on my writing, and maybe a little personal stuff as well. Read what you like!
Spirit Foul: Ultimate Frisbee Fictional Fantasy Book
I’ve gotten Draft 1 into the hands of some close friends, some of which have already provided me with some incredible feedback. Verdict: it’s worth continuing! (Discontinuing was never an option) But it does feel good to get some positive feedback and have brainstorming sessions with friends on how to improve. Shoutout to Chris, Ross and Grace for being invaluable resources throughout my process. I have a notes app going for my acknowledgements, so hopefully I don’t forget anyone that’s given me assistance along the way.
I took a month off from the book. I didn’t read it at all, and I didn’t write new prose. (There was one late night I looked up a section because I was itching to know if it was still as powerful to me as when I wrote it. Verdict: it slaps.) I really needed to step away from the book. I was in it too deep and couldn’t tell if I was heading in the right direction. I have been anxious to get back to it, but now find that I’m spending more time reading than writing the new material. We’ll get there. But yes, the book is due to get longer. Only by a bit; I also have a few sections in mind that are going to get the trimming shears. Draft 1 was roughly 91,000 words. I would like to stay under 100k to make it accessible. 95k seems like a likely goal. But who knows? Not me.
What needs fixing? Draft 1 is a little discontinuous. A few paragraphs here and there will go a long way to smooth out the story and make it feel… continuous. There are a few abrupt changes in scene. “Oh, we’re doing Spring Break now, that’s going to be the next few chapters. But what happened to XYZ?” That’s not horribly difficult to fix at all, and was already on my mind before getting reader feedback.
I need to up the ante! The stakes need to be higher. The brainstorming sessions have kicked up some great leads, and I have some ideas that I think will enhance the story. Hoping a few organic musings will add some spice along the way.
Draft 2 reader list is building- I expect Draft 2 to be quite polished. (#old takes exposed)
Here I go setting deadlines again. I am hopeful to get the ebook and audiobook (read by me) out this spring. I would like to find an avenue to print a handful of paperback copies to sell personally, there seem to be a number of options. I am also hoping to turn Wildwood into a business trip. Pending.
Resistance: A Covidia Story (Weekly Chapters)
Four POV characters is hard. The story starts too slow. Oh well. Onward we go.
Originally I intended to have 40 chapters; ten each for Frederick, Wild Bill, Gertrude & Yrsa. The way I’m doing it, this would translate to a roughly 40,000 word novella. I didn’t have it all planned out when I started, so I’ve spent a lot more time recently hashing out the story in more discrete chunks. I anticipate I will finish it sooner than 40 chapters. But let’s get through Ch10 first before I go making too many promises.
I am happy with the project though! It is what it is: practice. Mostly I’m writing each chapter the week it’s due, but I’ve gotten myself a little ahead at times, too, writing a few chapters in a week. It’s fun! I enjoy the story, and from what I’m told, that’s most important. I have no idea how far people have made it, but that’s cool. It’ll be online forever.
I am learning I should not have had four point-of-view characters, and that the beginning needs to be more interesting. That’s what I get for posting on the fly. I will not stop! We’ve just gotten to some more interesting chapters, and generally, I’ve been excited to write Resistance. I think this story is worth telling, so I will continue to pump out chapters until it is finished.
The Saga de Hotonoma: Continuation of my Epic story started in high school
I haven’t worked on this much. I’ve added a few thousand words in 2023. It’s only a few days’ work away from being available as an ebook, and I want to practice my audiobook reading skills to prep for Spirit Foul.
Why haven’t I been working on it much? I only recently figured out why I’ve dreaded it.
The quality isn’t great. I always knew what the story was, I was never under false impressions that it was any good. But working on Resistance and Spirit Foul has been much more exciting. Working on the Saga was supposed to capture my current writing, like a snapshot in time, juxtaposed against where I was at age 14. But for some reason it just feels bad. Maybe I haven’t finished it fast enough. Maybe the prospect has lost some luster now that I’ve got two other stories I’m very excited about. Maybe we just need some time apart.
I wanted this to be available by my birthday. It has not happened.
Trying to push myself further at faster and faster paces, while also respecting the process. It’s hard to do.
Life
I quit working 9-5 engineering in September. How have things been going?
In short: awesome. I am clearly much happier. I’ve made changes in my life and have spent more time doing things I enjoy.
This summer I have two different gigs serving at a restaurant and country club (free golf this summer what up?) I should not be so surprised, but while I was training the past few weeks, I figured out that I get along much better with people in the service industry than academia. Probably because they spend more time on Earth (pun SO intended- I was working on a NASA funded program. If you have to explain the pun it probably sucks). (Is that even a pun? The pun police might be after me).
I’ve only trained, I’m sure I am in for some service industry nightmares any moment. But so far I enjoy being on my feet, learning about different people, being sociable, and working outside the Mon-Fri, 9-5 grind.
Each passing year feels faster. While 28, I obviously quit my job to pursue a passion. So far: good move. Maybe that will change, but so far I endorse. I got married to the best wife ever. Our wedding was sick, and everything we wanted. It was so much work for the first six months of 28, that the next six months featured virtually no house projects. It comes and goes in waves I suppose. We went to France and Spain on a honeymoon that we’ll never forget. We went to Perú to celebrate my bro and sis in-laws wedding, which was a real treat. We love Perú and need to find more time to practice our Spanish! Mi esposa tiene treinta años, pero no hablamos de eso, veintinueve otra vez.
There was a lot more, but let’s leave it as a short: great year.
What will this one hold?
I am so lucky to have so many awesome friends. It’s been a blessing to be challenged with cutting out time and space for the various groups of people I love. So if you haven’t heard from me in a while, I’m working on it.
Gonna publish a book! I think about it every day.
GDog may spend some time travelling because she’s a crazy dope, brilliant engineer with important shit to do. I will likely spend countless hours with our velociraptor puppy. For the record, I will call her a puppy forever. She’s two now. It’s fun to watch videos of Zelda when she was only a few months old. She’s the same dog now, but in a bigger package. We’ve put in the hard work to condition her to nap more. There were times those first few months we had to leash her inside the house because we just couldn’t continue following her around. And her bladder has come so far- long gone are the days of peeing every five minutes. Good fucking riddance. We’re still praying she doesn’t get kicked out of daycare- she loves to play hard and she is a sharp thing, hence accurate velociraptor analogy. She’s destroyed so much of our shit. Our headphones budget has skyrocketed.
I’ve rambled a lot. If you’re still with me you rock. I can’t spend that much time on Zelda and not mention the cats. We love our cats. Willow is the sweetest, and Yoshi is essentially a guard dog trapped in a soft and fluffy body, cursed to spend his days napping in the sun. There’s a new cat café in town, shoutout Tipsy Tabby. I’m eager to support this awesome venture, but worry I will fall in love with another cat far too easily.
Won’t the robots make writers obsolete?
Sigh. I thought we’d make it so much longer without having to advocate for human writers. Bummer.
I worry much less about AI writing novels, and much more about the things it will do after. I think it’ll be a while before the next great author is a computer (I fucking hope), but sometimes it is hard to understand why people are so eager to feed the machine intelligence. Surely there are enough movies out there that warn of the consequences? I support using the technology as a tool, hell, I use Grammarly to save money on a real editor. It’s awesome. But maybe we should slow down with intelligent robots. Chill out, Boston Dynamics.
Hand up: I doom scroll way too much. Hoping to work on that. If you spend enough time on the internet it becomes far to easy to become negative about the future. I’d prefer to think we get a hold of things. Global politics, AI, distrust in authority/ government (shocking: they’re ALL lying to us), debt, domestic divisive narratives that eerily mirror movements around the world. Will we ever have another leader that can unite us?
I’ve thought about writing something dystopian, and I might, but it reeks of depression.
Maybe we’ll get a handle on some of these things. Not that anyone asked for, or needs, my two-cents.
Conclusion
Nearly laughed out loud at writing a conclusion heading. What’s there to conclude?
I’m doing well. My twenties have been awesome. I’m blessed with a great life. Great things to come. I have so much appreciation for anyone that reads my shit.
-THE REALEST