That time of year again

It’s been a bit over three months since we moved into our New Digs, and things are finally settling and falling back into place. I might still have to remind myself that those month-end payments aren’t for rent anymore but mortgage, but other than that I’m happy that we’re here. We might be slightly further away from the shopping corridors but we’re two blocks from our community garden plot, a block away from a major bus route as well as a very large public park, and the neighborhood is thankfully much more peaceful. (Yes, even during recess for the kidlets at the school across the way.)

This is good timing, as it’s that time of year where I feel the need to change things up. And you know how I am in autumn: excited about the new music releases and contemplative about where I am and where I want to be. I’ve already made a lot of positive changes over the last few months — with room for improvement, of course — so it’s really just a matter of doing it at this point. Or not doing, depending on the situation. Some habits I find I just do not need nor want anymore. Some habits I’d like to revisit once more.

And what about writing? Well, the remaster of A Division of Souls is out and away, and I’m thinking of starting in on the remaster of The Persistence of Memories pretty soon. I’m also focusing on Theadia and it’s still looking good and on schedule for release sometime next year. But I can’t help but think: I’ve got a journal and a notebook gathering dust in my satchel right now, and my 750Words sign-in remains woefully ignored. I mean, I’ve worked on multiple stories at that same time before, so this is nothing new. I can certainly play around with writing extremely rough drafts of new ideas while spending most of my creative energies on the two main projects. And in the process, probably disconnect from a few IRL things that I don’t need to hyperfocus on.

And what better time to do it than during the season that works best for me?

Ready?

Image courtesy of Suzume

Am I ready for 2025? I’m as ready as I’m ever going to be, I think. Despite whatever nonsense might come my way, despite whatever drama or world event might unfold, I’m ready for it. I’m not expecting everything to be sunshine and roses, but I certainly don’t want to enter the new year afraid. That’s not who I am anymore.

This past year has been a lot about achieving clarity, but it’s also been about allowances. Allowing myself to do the things I want and need to do, both creatively and personally, with no strings attached. I shouldn’t have to feel the guilt, or the fear, or the dread of the outcome, whether actual or imagined. So I feel that the next year should be about taking those steps of my own free will.

I’ve probably overthought any writing plans I have for the new year, and over the last week or so I’ve been unraveling myself from much of it. Overplanning has been my method of procrastination in the past, and I’ve been unlearning that particular habit recently. What plans I do have: I have Theadia to finish and publish, MU4 to start, and the tenth anniversary edition of A Division of Souls to clean up and prep for release. And that’s pretty much it. Whether I’ll try new projects, or focus on other creative outlets, who knows. If it happens, it happens.

It’s time to be a little fearless.

Coming to an end…

…and perhaps starting anew, to paraphrase a favorite anime series of mine.

Looking back on 2024, I think I did pretty good considering what life sent my way. It was a bit of a rollercoaster but for the most part I think I handled it a hell of a lot better than I would have in the past. I might still hyperfocus on things now and again, but I no longer do it to such a degree that I might have in the past. Process the emotions and the thoughts and move on. Sometimes force myself to do so out of self-preservation. Find solutions when I need them instead of staring boggle-eyed at the problem or avoiding the conflict it might bring up.

It’s weird feeling this way, because I’ve always wanted to achieve this level of personal Zen but spent far too many years trying too hard to get there. It’s a clarity I’ve long needed and now finally have.

So where to go from here?

Perhaps that’s something to talk about in my final post on Monday…

Just another reminder…!

It’s that time of the year again! ALL SEVEN of my books are here for free from now until the end of the year! You know you want ’em!

You can find my books right here at this link!

Yes, this includes:
A Division of Souls (The Bridgetown Trilogy, Book 1) [2015]
The Persistence of Memories (The Bridgetown Trilogy, Book 2) [2016]
The Balance of Light (The Bridgetown Trilogy, Book 3) [2017]
Meet the Lidwells! A Rock ‘n’ Roll Family Memoir [2018]
In My Blue World [2019]
Diwa & Kaffi [2023]
Queen Ophelia’s War [2024]

Do you love an epic metaphysical sci-fi adventure? Try the Bridgetown Trilogy!
A big fan of music memoirs? Meet the Lidwells is a fictional nod to one of my favorite genres!
Enjoy magical girls and time travel fantasy? Try out In My Blue World!
In the mood for a nice Ghibli-esque hopepunk story about best friends? You’ll love Diwa & Kaffi!
Looking for a fantasy story about self-discovery? Queen Ophelia’s War is for you!

And who knows, maybe I’ll finally get Theadia on this list next year, once I finally finish the dang thing! Heh.

Thank you for reading!!

‘Tis the Season

I’m rather glad that this year’s Q4 hasn’t been all that stressful. Exhausting, sure, but very low stress despite the fact I work in retail. And yet I’m trying to squeeze blog posting, daily words and work on Theadia these days, but that’s only because I actually have a lot going on! We’ve been busy for the past couple of weekends, and even though I’ve been working mostly days, there’s still some hour variance that leaves me with ample time some days and not enough elsewhere.

And yet I still soldier on somehow. Enjoying the sounds and the moods of the season, chatting with our regular customers, sharing jokes with coworkers, and generally clocking out in a good mood. That’s just fine for me.

Hope everyone has a lovely holiday!

Future plans…?

First off: Just another quick reminder that it’s that time of the year again! ALL SEVEN of my books are here FOR FREE from now until the end of the year! You know you want ’em!

You can find my books right here at this link!

**

So it’s usually about this time that I start blogging philosophical, thinking about what I’ve done this year and what I plan to do during the next. Anything different this time out, then…?

On a personal level, I spent a lot of time giving myself a bit of long-awaited mental and emotional stability, especially after a few personal events early in the year. I put a lot of things to rest and allowed other things to come to the surface. Writingwise I spent a lot of 2024 finishing and releasing Queen Ophelia’s War and focusing on Theadia…and mainly reminding myself that it’s just fine to focus on one or two projects and let any others come when I’m good and ready. The end result is that I felt even more grounded than I’d ever been in years, and that’s all I really asked for.

As for 2025…? Again, writingwise I have three somewhat concrete plans: to release Theadia, to start MU4, and release a “remaster/remix” of A Division of Souls for its tenth anniversary. The former I’m working on as we speak, and I’ll be starting the latter two in earnest come the new year. [I mean, it makes sense for me to work on two projects from the same created universe at the same time, right?]

As for personal…? That’s a very good question. I’m in a good place right now. Sure, I have some ideas I’d like to try out, some personal choices and decisions and whatnot. But I think what’s different this time out is a feeling of trust and confidence. I mean, that’s a big part of what I’d been working on over the last couple of years, and I’m finally at the payoff end of things. So if anything, I think I’m ready for something new. Something I’ve been wanting to do and haven’t given myself time or permission for.

Do I even have a plan? Who knows? We shall see…

Oh hey, it’s free book time again!

It’s that time of the year again! ALL SEVEN of my books are here for free from now until the end of the year! You know you want ’em!

You can find my books right here at this link!

Yes, this includes:
A Division of Souls (The Bridgetown Trilogy, Book 1) [2015]
The Persistence of Memories (The Bridgetown Trilogy, Book 2) [2016]
The Balance of Light (The Bridgetown Trilogy, Book 3) [2017]
Meet the Lidwells! A Rock ‘n’ Roll Family Memoir [2018]
In My Blue World [2019]
Diwa & Kaffi [2023]
Queen Ophelia’s War [2024]

Do you love an epic metaphysical sci-fi adventure? Try the Bridgetown Trilogy!
A big fan of music memoirs? Meet the Lidwells is a fictional nod to one of my favorite genres!
Enjoy magical girls and time travel fantasy? Try out In My Blue World!
In the mood for a nice Ghibli-esque hopepunk story about best friends? You’ll love Diwa & Kaffi!
Looking for a fantasy story about self-discovery? Queen Ophelia’s War is for you!

And who knows, maybe I’ll finally get Theadia on this list next year, once I finally finish the dang thing! Heh.

Thank you for reading!!

Embracing the hourglass

I’ve been thinking a lot about change these days. I mean, sure…this always happens at this time of year. Changes you’ve made in the past year, changes you want to make in the future. Sometimes it’s scary to think about, especially when you’re heading in a direction you’re not used to. Or if you’ve made a choice to follow a new path that you’re not familiar with.

And I do talk about the past a lot here, obviously. I talk about my personal history, the histories of my novel projects, my writing processes, and so on. I just find the process of personal evolution fascinating! It’s partly why I love reading music biographies, learning how my favorite artists evolve over the course of their career, what influences their choices and what happens next. Sometimes those histories are interesting stories themselves.

I’ve chosen to embrace each year I get older. While I’m not entirely happy with my body occasionally feeling sore more often, each year brings me something new to learn and experience. Sometimes it’s wondrous, and sometimes it’s traumatic. But I choose to power through each time, because I’m just that damned stubborn about it. [Mind you, I’m well aware that I’m also well versed in delaying things until the absolute last minute or avoiding conflict, things like that. That’s something I’m still working on.]

What will 2025 show me? That’s a good question. I’m really not sure. But I’m curious, and I think that’s what really matters most.

Post-Thanksgiving Wind-Down

Winding down, you ask? When the Christmas season is kicking into high gear? Well, yes. It might be crazy busy at the Day Job, but on a personal level, it’s time for me to wrap things up, take stock in the year to date, and think about what I’m going to do the following year. And it’s certainly been a bit of a strange year for me for varying reasons. Not necessarily in a bad way, but it’s definitely made me rethink a lot of things.

In working on this hopefully successful draft of Theadia, lately I’ve been comparing it to the days when I’d first started the project, way back in early 2020. Comparing the toxic-level stress I’d felt at the Former Day Job with the temporary exhaustion but shockingly minimal stress I feel at the current one. The managers I had then and the customers I worked with at the time versus the ones I have now. Two completely different lives. And those two years spent unemployed and working on a long overdue rewiring of my brain. All of that has definitely influenced my writing in certain ways.

I no longer worry about running out of ideas like I did then. Sometimes the stories come to me with unexpected inspiration — like Queen Ophelia’s War — and sometimes they’re something I have to actively work out from a much smaller piece of an idea. I very rarely try to force myself to write something new. I still need to relearn how to use my writing as something fun that I could work on at the 750Words site, but that’s something I’ll plan out in the new year.

In the meantime, I’ll be spending the next month taking stock in what I’ve done this year, continuing with the Theadia project, and deciding what I’ll be working on next.

A little end of year cleaning house

I’m usually good at keeping things tidy around the house — inquisitive and/or destructive cats aside — but every now and again things pile up. There’s shredding to be done, we’ve suddenly accumulated a large pile of books to be donated, or shipping boxes that have only since been used by cats for shredding purposes, or what have you. Eventually I’ll decide that a cleaning session is in order.

I even need to go through my emails lately. I’m usually good at those, because Sundays are when I go through them while I’m running all the PC cleaning programs, but sometimes I lag behind. This usually happens when my Day Job schedule encroaches on the time I usually do the home cleaning. Point is, I’ve gotten myself on several mailing lists somehow and it’s clear that I’m only reading maybe about a quarter of them, if that. I’ll need to go through those soon enough.

Writingwise? Well, for the most part I keep my files well organized on my Dropbox account so I know where everything is. But over the course of the year, things can pile up. Pictures I’ve transferred from my camera and my phone, image scans, work-related paperwork, things like that…some of those don’t have a specific home and end up in a File These Away At Some Point folder. Do I need to keep them? Probably not. Some I can save, but most of them I can probably delete.

I don’t think I have any stagnant projects that need refiling, as far as I know. A few backburner items (which are rightly sorted in the Backburner Projects folder) but other than that, I haven’t made any major decisions to trunk anything lately. Which is a good thing, I suppose.

Either way, I like doing this at the end of the year as part of my process to start the next year fresh and clean!