Category: end of year

Just another reminder…!

Jon ChaissonLeave a comment

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

Jon ChaissonLeave a comment

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…?

Jon ChaissonLeave a comment

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!

Jon ChaissonLeave a comment

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

Jon ChaissonLeave a comment

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

Jon ChaissonLeave a comment

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

Jon ChaissonLeave a comment

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!

Begin anew

Jon ChaissonLeave a comment

First things first: END OF YEAR BOOK SALE!

Want some free e-books? My novels are currently available as ‘name your price’ (yes, even free if you want!) over at Smashwords until the end of the year! That’s all three books in the Bridgetown Trilogy, Meet the Lidwells!, In My Blue World, and my newest, Diwa & Kaffi, available in all formats. Go on, you know you want them!

*

This past year definitely felt like a year where I’d put a lot of things to rest. I let things go, things I had to let go of. Made my peace with my past. Disconnected from people and things I felt were toxic, a distraction, or a bad influence. Learned to stop spiraling. Killed off a hell of a lot of old ghosts and habits. Dialed it back. I’d certainly planned it that way from the beginning, to be honest, because I knew I was fully ready to do it. It was time to let them all go.

The plan was to do this throughout 2023, so that when life restarts in 2024, I will truly have a tabula rasa.

Or maybe not exactly a tabula rasa, but a starting point for a new and better life. I mean, I’ve been hinting at that for a few years now, haven’t I? This is the point in time I’ve been working towards for the last several years. It took a lot longer than I’d thought and I had a hell of a lot more to purge and let go of than I’d realized, but I’ve finally seen the end of that. I’ve been spending the last several weeks ready to go and just…

…well, not waiting, but allowing myself a bit of Zen-like peace before I begin anew.

We’ll see where this takes us.

See y’all in 2024!

Year End Review – Resolutions

Jon ChaissonLeave a comment

First things first: END OF YEAR BOOK SALE!

Want some free e-books? My novels are currently available as ‘name your price’ (yes, even free if you want!) over at Smashwords until the end of the year! That’s all three books in the Bridgetown Trilogy, Meet the Lidwells!, In My Blue World, and my newest, Diwa & Kaffi, available in all formats. Go on, you know you want them!

*

Anyway! Resolutions.

I’ve looked at a few of my year-end posts from the last couple of Decembers, and I’d like to think that I’ve made good on quite a few of them over the last year or so. I’ve shaken off a lot of the lingering fears, fixed a lot of bad habits, and given myself a much healthier outlook mentally and emotionally. It was a long time in coming, but I’m glad I’ve finally gotten to where I wanted and needed to be.

Because this means I can move forward with a lot less fear and distraction now.

So what do I have planned for 2024?

Well, writingwise I plan to return to cons! I’ll be at BayCon in Santa Clara on July 4-7 and I hope to be on a few panels and maybe even a few readings. It’s been a good few years since I’ve put myself out there — partly for obvious health reasons, what with Covid and all — but mask in hand and multiple vaccinations, I’ll be ready for it.

I have one, maybe two novels I’d like to release as well, Queen Ophelia’s War and Theadia. Depending on which one gets done and ready first, I will let you all know as soon as they’re ready. And I have one or two entirely new projects I’d like to work on as well. It feels great to be working on projects again after the various delays and hiatuses, to be honest.

But what about the everyday, nonwriting stuff? Well, some of that will remain offline I suppose. I’m making a concerted effort not to be so terminally online via social media, as that’s been the biggest time-suck over the last several years. Most of 2023 was spent relearning how to balance my life both on and offline to a level I’m comfortable with. [It also helps that a certain social media site has been deteriorating at an increasingly rapid pace over the last several months. I’ll be locking down my feed there at the end of the month and hanging out mostly at BlueSky and Threads come 1 January.]

Anything else? Well, I still have a few more days to go before the end of the month here at Welcome to Bridgetown, so I’m sure I’ll be talking about it more soon enough.

Year End Review – Distractions and Detachments

Jon ChaissonLeave a comment

As mentioned over at Walk in Silence, plans have gone just a bit awry this week due to multiple unexpected PC issues, thus sending the new one to the shop and the old one out of closet storage for temporary work. I’m finally catching up on writing work, though access to my music library isn’t all that doable right now. I’m just going to wait until the new PC returns.

Which got me thinking about what’s been bothering me this year: distractions. I’ve been too easily distracted in various parts of my daily life despite my wanting to avoid them. Staring at my phone during work breaks and elsewhere. Carrying around a small notebook to write some of my thoughts I may have but forgetting to do so. Pulling the usual ‘I’ll do it after I finish looking at this for a few minutes’ which invariably wastes a good half hour. Making life choices but putting them off for one reason or another.

I mean, I’m not trying to be one of those crunch-obsessed people that always has to be working every single waking moment, far from it. I’m totally fine with taking time off for fun things and enjoying life in various ways. I’m just tired of being passive and distracted, is all.

Which lends to the other half of this blog title: detachments.

Things I don’t want to do anymore. Things I don’t want anymore. Things I don’t need to be anymore. Letting go of what no longer works and moving on to something new. And right now I know what new directions I’d like to go in. This is about my writing, but it’s also about the personal as well. Life changes are always exciting and terrifying in equal measure to me, because I love the idea of trying out new things on my own and I’m also afraid of completely fucking it all up if it doesn’t work. But if I’ve learned anything in 2023, it’s that I’ve made my peace with some extremely personal things in my past, enough that I have the strength and the will to leave them behind now. To detach from that part of my life once and for all and look forward.

The one thing that’s kept me from doing so in the past is self-made distractions. It’s getting that dopamine rush of playing with my music collection or watching dumb videos on YouTube or reading the latest dumbass thing on social media. Deciding to make needed changes in my life but never getting around to the follow through. I hate that I’ve always been passive about it and yet I do it anyway because of that small rush, and then I feel frustrated for wasting time afterwards. And if I’m going to succeed in stopping those distractions and excuses, I need to detach.

And I’m now at a point where I’m strong enough to do that. And I’ve already started stepping towards that goal.

It’s time to say goodbye to parts of my old passive life once and for all, and embrace the new.

Even if it is terrifying.