Category: future plans

Getting myself back up to speed

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I’d used that phrase in my previous post to talk about my ‘little fun personal project’ at the 750 Words site mainly to confirm that I have in fact been doing some writing during vacation this past week. Said project is nothing of major import, just an MU-related exercise where I’m going through the “legacy soundtrack” list as well as my writing chronology list. It’s half putting things in order and half clarifying the dates of events — something I mentioned in a few posts last month.

But the most important reason behind this project is to get myself comfortable with a daily writing regimen again.

Aha! you say. Don’t you already have one? Well, not really. I have a schedule, and a very loose one at that. It’s more of a daily reminder of ‘as long as I do something today’ and that’s it. And right now it’s this ‘little fun personal project’ with a vague reminder to work on the Trilogy Remaster. It’s just phase one of a much more detailed plan going on here.

Over the years, I’ve tried to force myself into a daily writing regimen, and every single time I fail for one reason or another. It’s happened so many times I now call them Best Laid Plans. So this time out I thought I’d come at it from a different angle: I’ve often described my writing process as similar to a musician’s, so I figured that maybe I should do so once more:

Sometimes your sessions need to focus on practicing scales instead of wracking your brain trying to come up with a new melody every time.

In revisiting the legacy soundtrack and the writing chronology of the Mendaihu Universe, I was able to revisit how I was able to pull it off in the first place without trying to emulate it in the present. That was always the weak point: emulation. Trying to relive the moment with vibes, I suppose. No, I had to look at it a different way. What was going on in my life when I wrote the Bridgetown Trilogy? [Answer found: working at the candle warehouse and turning my personal life around.] When did I quit trying to rewrite The Phoenix Effect and start A Division of Souls? [Answer found: June 2000, in the waning months of my record store job.] Why did it work so well then? [Answer found: a stable schedule, positive life events and a dedicated personal work space.]

So the next question is: how can what I discovered here be used in some way with future writing sessions? That is, without it once again falling into ‘trying to relive the moment with vibes’?

Well, that answer’s yet to come, and it hinges on whatever new writing project I work on next. I won’t know until I get there. But what I do know is how to properly implement what I’ve learned recently, and I think (and hope) that will make all the difference.

A Personal Q&A

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Q: So, what have you been up to this week?
A: Not too much, really. I’ve been on a well-earned vacation and we’ve been taking it day by day. Going for walks, doing a bit of shopping and cleaning, watching a movie (Wildwood, which I highly recommend) or two (we’re going to see Godzilla Minus Zero today), visiting the zoo. And sleeping in, which has definitely helped us relax and rest up.

Q: So…you haven’t been writing, then?
A: On the contrary, I’ve been keeping up with my daily 750Words. I’m currently doing a little fun personal project on it to get myself back up to speed. As I’ve recently finished up all the work on the Remaster for The Persistence of Memories, the only thing I need to do there is take a little time in the next few days to upload it to Smashwords/Draft2Digital and make sure the layout is up to my standards. (And maybe purchase a few physical author copies just to have them on hand.) The blog entries have been kind of light this week, but that’s by design.

Q: Any idea what you’ll work on next?
A: Officially, next is the Remaster work for The Balance of Light which is probably going to need a lot of TLC so it might take a while. But on the creative end of things, I’ve got two projects I’m contemplating: a fourth book in the Mendaihu Universe, or a complete rewrite (and I mean complete this time, not a revision like the previous attempts) of Theadia.

Q: Which of course begs the question…what if a new and promising idea surfaces?
A: As always, it depends. If a standalone idea resonates deeply enough with me that it demands my full attention, it might skip to the front of the line. I don’t see that happening, but I’ll keep my options open.

Q: Obligatory music question: what are you listening to right now during your writing sessions?
A: In Purgatory by World News is getting some seriously heavy rotation these days. It’s one of my favorite albums of the year right now and I highly recommend it. The new Fontaines DC record Dopamine Chamber is quite excellent as well, as is Mud by Remi Wolf, Common Primitives by Andy Bell (Ride) and Masal, Violins by Blondshell and Ride Lonesome by Beck.

Q: Obligatory cat question: how are the kitties doing?
A: Jules and Cali are doing just fine, thanks for asking! They’ve been their usual silly selves and have been waking us up at 5am regardless of our sleeping in this week.

Q: Obligatory personal question: how about those election results earlier this week?
A: WHOOF! Yeah, I’d figured there would be a bit of red-to-blue switching, but I don’t think anyone had any idea there would be this much. I just…kept happening throughout the evening. I’d been in the office working on stuff and A was in the living room constantly keeping me updated. I won’t go into personal detail here, other than that it was a long-awaited and much-needed sea change, and I’m hoping it continues in this positive direction.

Q: Back to writing — what else is on your mind right now?
A: I keep wanting to get back to journaling but I keep forgetting to because I’ve been distracted by other projects I’ve been working on. It’s not important, but I think it’s something I should get back to, if only just to strengthen the boundaries between my creative work, my personal thoughts and so on. I’m trying to create a stable and workable writing regimen these days, and in the process I remind myself to take it one day at a time. Keep it enjoyable and not worry about what’s not in my control just yet.

Q: Sounds like you’ve been having a good week! Anything else you’d like to add?
A: Nah, I’m good! I’m back to work next week so I’m thinking I’d better prepare myself for that as well. But I’m not going to stress out over it, though. See you next Monday, then?

Q: Works for me. I’ll bring the tea and apple cider donuts.
A: Sweet!

Writing during vacation?

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I’m looking forward to next week as we’ll both be on a well-earned week’s vacation just before the hijinks of Q4 really start kicking in at our respective jobs. Neither of us have any real plans other than perhaps a day trip to see the in-laws or gallivant around the city for an afternoon, weather permitting. We just want a bit of downtime where we can sleep in, enjoy ourselves and not have to rush.

Which of course brings up the question: will I get any writing work done then?

I suppose it depends on what we end up doing on any of those days, and whether I decide to set aside an hour or so for it. This week is reserved for some of the last minute prep work for the Remaster release of The Persistence of Memories — adjusting the hyperlinks, any last minute cleanup, uploading the files and ensuring the layout works, and setting a drop date. Stuff that I can easily do in a few days at most.

But do I have anything planned after that? Well, I have been toying with a few ideas for both Theadia and the fourth Mendaihu Universe books, and this would be a great time to spend a bit of time fleshing those ideas out and seeing if they work. I’m not going to force it, but I would like to at least make an effort when I’m already planning on keeping the blogs updated and the daily words going.

I mean, I’ve done it plenty of times before. I worked on the outline for Meet the Lidwells! in a tiny little room in Earls Court during one of our trips to London. I did bit of rereading of my daily words while looking for some project-related stuff while staying overnight in Mendocino. And I’m always up for doing some in-bed reading of my current project as a wind-down from the day’s events. So it’s not as if I don’t have time; like I said, it’s all about making the effort.

What’s next…?

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A good question, that. With Theadia on the back burner until further notice, the only other project I have on deck is the remaster of The Balance of Light, thus completing the Trilogy Remaster. After that, I’ve got nothing planned. I’ve been sort of hyping myself into writing another Mendaihu Universe book or two, however. And I’ve also been thinking about reviving Walk in Silence (the book) one more time in hopes that it’ll stick this time.

Truth be told, I’m fine with not worrying too much about it these days. The older I get, the less I feel the need to Do All The Things Right Now Before It’s Too Late, and I think that’s a good and healthy thing. I’ve always had a habit of constantly being in motion until I run out of mental or emotional gas, not to mention having a secondary habit of people-pleasing to a self-defeating extent. I’m at an age where it’s time to listen to what my body and mind are telling me. And right now they’re telling me that now is probably a good time to give these two projects some much-needed and long-delayed attention.

The issue with these two possibilities is that they both have repeatedly suffered from being shifted aside, whether because of writer’s block, personal situations or shifting priorities. I’ve never given up on them, they just remained on the back burner. But these days, I’ve given them both a rethink and realized what I’d been doing wrong all this time: lack of immersion. With WiS it was a lack of a solid direction that kept me from going deeper into the book I wanted to write; I had at least two or three different versions I wanted to try but never decided which one would prove the best. And with MU4, every version felt like I was just trying to emulate the mood and the ambience of the Bridgetown Trilogy without actually going all that deep into the universe.

What’s different this time? Well, time and age have mellowed me out a bit, I suppose, but I think it’s also that I’ve left both on the backburner for several years at this point, and approaching them now feels different. I think I have a clearer idea on how to each of them need to be handled. With MU4, it has to do with remembering how I started writing The Phoenix Effect in the first place: a new story with a new goal, and let it all evolve and expand organically instead of shoehorning it into place. With WiS, a recent conversation with a coworker about alternative rock inspired me to follow a new direction that had been floating around my brain for the last couple of months. And most importantly, I realized that the best way to do all of this is the same way I came back to these blogs and returning to my daily 750Words a few months ago: just do the damn thing already and stop overthinking it.

I still have no idea if any of it will pan out, but I’d like to think these projects are still worth the try.

Remaster Status: on schedule

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While I haven’t decided on a specific release date for the Remastered Edition for The Persistence of Memories, I can say that I’m still on schedule. I’m about halfway through, which is where I expected to be at this point. Not bad for a month and a half’s worth of work! It does help that I had an easy time of this one to begin with, so there aren’t too many issues to focus on. If I keep up with this schedule, I should be ready for a late fall release. I’ll have a more concrete date in mind once I get closer to the end.

I’m thinking, though, that if I do start the RE for The Balance of Light in 2027, that one might take some time to finish. It was the toughest of the three and I think it still needs a bit more TLC to make it a better book. Nothing as terrible as the original revision when I first self-published it. (I cut a lot from that one, quite possibly 15-30k…the final draft was a beast.) There’s also the fact that I’d like to think about what I’d like to work on next, be it a return to Theadia or finally starting on the next Mendaihu Universe book. Either way…we shall see.

For now, I’m just going to focus on the present.

Theadia: So what happens now?

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Soon after I wrote last Friday’s post on Thursday evening, I thought I’d give the duology idea a try.

As soon as I found a perfect cut-off point a few chapters previous, I cut everything after that, typed out ‘to be continued’, and pasted those into a new Word document and saved as Theadia II. The change was palpable: I no longer felt that sense of constriction, like I needed to bring this story to a conclusion now. Just like I’d expected: it gave me breathing room, and also gave me more space to come up with what comes after answering the defining question of this project: if you could…would you do the right thing? I’d always felt that while I could conceivably wrap up the novel with our heroes winning the day yet still dealing with the fallout that comes after, I was always constantly worried that I wouldn’t give it enough time and space to happen. Like I’d said previously: I wouldn’t be happy with the ending.

So where am I at now? Well, considering that one of the main plot threads was the growing dread of Nima Federation forcibly reannexing the world and station of FairIsle and taking away their hard-earned freedom, I now have the ability to examine that a bit further. Perhaps they reannex, perhaps they don’t, but that threat has lingered in one form or another since FairIsle gained their independence. And now the threat is about to enter local space. This opens up a lot of interesting ideas, and not just one regarding near-space battles. This project has always been about the civilians and not the military, so it suggests all sorts of things: levels of patriotism, grief and loss, fear and uncertainty, compassion and bigotry. And those are extremely important reasons for Theadia (the collective) to exist. It’s what has driven them all this time, and continues to drive them into this second book.

I’m still not sure if turning this into a duology will work, but I will say that I listened to my instincts, and I’m glad I did.

Vacationing

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I mean, anything to avoid finishing this dang novel, right? Heh.

Seriously though…we’ll be taking this week off from the Day Jobs to relax a bit, see a few local sights, do some shopping, do a bit of long-needed cleaning and other house errands, visit the dentist to fix a cap (which I am doing this morning), and catch up on some much-needed sleep. And somewhere in there, I will try to make a concerted effort to plan out the rest of Theadia.

I’ve accepted that I am now at the very same point I was at with The Balance of Light: I need to finish this novel once and for all, I just need to figure out how to do it. Which means that I’ll have to spend an afternoon or two here in the office working out a planned outline, just as I did with that previous novel. I’ve got a vague idea of how it should end, but the getting there is eluding me. Well, maybe not eluding, perhaps I’m really just playing the old avoidance game. Whether that’s because I’m worried that I’ll duff the ending or that I’m already itching to move onto something else, the fact remains: I need to finish this damn thing!

I have also made it a point to start working on a few non-writing projects and catching up on some long-delayed house-related things as well. I have a few pieces of framed art that are still sitting in the office that need hanging. I have a garage storage room that needs rearranging. I have several bins of writing that have been sitting in said garage for a year that really should be more organized considering I’d stuffed them in there with no real organization other than ‘get it packed because we’re moving soon’. And I have a few art notebooks (both digital and non) that are gathering dust on my desk that I want to crack open.

Oh, and there are also all these books in my TBR pile that keep getting ignored due to my nightly ingestion of online manga (not that I’m wasting time with that, just that I’m leaving no time for reading anything else in the process). I’m going to need work on that a bit. I should also do another book purge…not that I have a ton of them like I used to (I got rid of a TON just before our move), but there are some titles I’m willing to part with and donate to one of the few sidewalk book libraries in our neighborhood. Perhaps I need to create a Read This NOW pile — not just ones I’ll get rid of afterwards, but ones I’ve been wanting to read as well — and get cracking.

But most importantly…? It’s my vacation. Time to slow down and enjoy it while it lasts.

Year Begin: Heading into 2026

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Let’s start with the things I’d like to do in 2026:

— I would like to complete and release Theadia next year, most likely during third or fourth quarter of the year. I still need to finish it, and I also need to revise it and figure out a cover for it. I’ll spend maybe a couple of weeks flitting around on the photo sites to see if I can find something that works, but I’d also like to look into seeing if I can commission an artist for it. I spent a good number of years working on this project and I’m quite proud of it, so I’d rather not drop the ball and half-ass the end result. It’s an important story for me, and I’d love for you all to read it and enjoy it.

— Will I have time to work on the Remaster for The Persistence of Memories, as originally planned? That’s a good question. I think I will, considering this one needed the least amount of work. If I recall, most of the work it did need will be for clarity or tightening up. I also might give it a newer cover. While it looks good on the physical copy, it doesn’t quite translate as well digitally. I’ll have to do some more work on that. I think I pulled one or two pictures back in the day that I liked, but I’ll see if I can find something similar that’s much more intriguing.

— I’m not going to worry too much about coming up with any new projects, especially since I have the two above to focus on. However, my plan is to keep my options open via the 750Words site. Whether it’s outtakes, MU-related ideas or just something that crossed my mind that day, I’d like to see where that takes me. I think I’ve come to the point in my creative career where I don’t feel too worried about running out of ideas, because I’ve proven to myself that was never the case. It’s always been about outer frustrations intruding into my creative life, whether it was job related or personal, and I’ve learned how to keep them separate. It still takes time and practice to keep that in place, but I’m aware of it and that’s the most important thing.

— Again, I do plan to expand my creative outlets by returning to art and music. If I’ve learned anything over the years, it’s in the approach. I tend to freeze up if I force myself to do anything creative because it either feels like an assignment or an impenetrable wall. And if I approach it from that angle, then I first have to cast my creative mind aside to work past it, thus defeating the purpose. So how am I going to work this out in the new year? By taking a much simpler route: just pick up the tool and see where it takes me. It doesn’t always have to come from inspiration, sometimes it will just come from interest or curiosity. I’m curious to see what I can come up with on my guitar if I used alternate tunings. I’d like to see if I can get better at comic art. The approach is all about wanting to do it, not forcing myself to do it.

— And on a personal level, how do I want to live my life? I’ve made so many changes over the years, positive ones that needed to be taken, and now I’m at a point where I can move forward with the least amount of resistance. Where do I want to go? What do I want to do? What have I wanted to do? It doesn’t feel nearly as daunting as it used to, and that’s by design. I acknowledge the work it took that got me to this point, and now I’m allowed to keep moving in the right direction.

**

Sure, I’ve had my down moments. Times when I fell, times when I broke. But in 2025, I picked myself back up enough times that it no longer feels painful. I still feel the frustration, but now I know I can accept it each time and keep moving despite those down times. I can face the fears now. I can face the uncertainty. And that makes looking forward so much easier and clearer.

Here’s to wishing everyone a special and uplifting 2026!

Year End: Moving Forward

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I’ll be honest, I’ve spent most of December half-assing it.

I mean, I’ve gotten a lot done with Theadia. I managed to not only figure out a snag that was bothering me for the last few months, but the solution was so simple that it feels like a huge weight was taken off my shoulders. This in turn is helping me get through the various WRITE THIS LATER scenes a lot quicker, much to my relief.

I’ve been pretty consistent with the blog entries here and at Walk in Silence. And I’ve also been doing a really good job of keeping up with my daily words at 750Words, with only the occasional “cheat day” (in which I paste an older entry from this blog and comment what’s changed since then) here and there. I’ve been doing that on purpose as a dry run to get myself in shape for consistency starting next year.

Thing is, I probably could be doing more. I could be further along with Theadia, and I definitely need to get my butt in gear with the remaster for The Persistence of Memories. I haven’t picked up my guitars in a bit, I’ve been forgetting to update the personal journal, and I definitely haven’t done any art in far too long.

Still, I’m not about to beat myself up about all that. Not anymore, anyway. I’ve retaught myself not to focus on the failures, and instead focus on picking myself up and continuing when it eventually does happen. Call it a bit of self-awareness, a bit of Zen balance, whatever it might be. I know, I’ve tried this approach in the past and it always ends in tears, but that’s the point: accept that failures occur, pick myself up and dust myself off, and keep going.

I do have plans for 2026, of course. But that will be in the final entry, coming next Monday! See you then!

Year End: Moving Office

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I suppose I could start this entry with an exasperated how the hells is it December already??, but really, I’m not that surprised at all. It’s been a busy year all around.

One of the biggest changes of 2025 was our moving to our new home, and one we own rather than rent at that. To be honest, I’m still trying to wrap my head around that. There’s a sense of permanence going on that I am very much not used to. Aside from my family’s house, every other place I’ve lived in has always been a rented apartment, so it’s taking time for me to accept that we’re allowed to make changes (or not!) if we so choose. I am also greatly amused at how many quarters I can amass over time now that we own our own washer/dryer unit, and how much room our shared office has now that most of my old writings and whatnot are down in our garage storage.

Speaking of a shared office, I’m glad I chose to take the ‘clean slate’ option when we moved everything in, because Spare Oom was getting a mite bit crowded with our mutual book collection and all my writing-related stuff. I was also feeling a bit boxed in by the strict schedule I’d placed upon myself. While the whiteboard calendar had long been a source of inspiration to keep me going, it had also turned into a bit of a chain around my ankle. It all had started feeling like an assignment rather than a a craft that I enjoyed.

So when I got everything plugged in and turned on at the New Digs, I gave myself a fresh start. I didn’t do any blogging, journaling or daily words for a couple of months, instead focusing on the most important projects, Theadia and the Trilogy Remaster. I took my time deciding what decorations to put up, as I didn’t want another collage of stickers and silly things poking holes in the pristine white walls. I didn’t even update my notebook calendar with any notes like I normally would. I merely wanted to reset my priorities and find a bit of clarity.

And now here we are months later. The remastered A Division of Souls is out in the wild, Theadia is back up and running, and I’m even back to blogging and daily words. I only journal occasionally these days, as I don’t feel the need to make it a daily thing at the moment. I feel less disconnected from the world as well, considering the office’s windows overlook the street we live on, and I’m not as far away from A as I used to be. And of course we have both cat trees in here, so Juli and Cali are frequent visitors and distractors!

More to come…