It continues

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As always, you never know how much you’ve accumulated until it’s time for you to move. Then it becomes clear that you have a lot more than you remember having. Books that have somehow fallen somewhere into the temporary alternate universe only to surface years later. All kinds of I’ll deal with it later objects that never get dealt with. Gifts, tchotchkes and collectibles that pile up on bookshelves. Things you’ve forgotten you bought and had been looking for. Clothing and other items you’ve used once or twice then forgotten about as they sink further into the back reaches of the closet. And being a writer, there are always, always, hundreds of blank or near-blank notebooks and notepads and unused pens that you’ve been meaning to use for ages.

And when you’ve got a set (or a planned and hopefully set in stone) moving date, it occurs to you that packing isn’t going to be a day long thing as you’d hoped, but a weeks long event that needs order and planning, hundreds of boxes, and loads of tape, Sharpies and packing paper. You start playing 5D chess: you want to move this so you can uncover that which is on top of those things that you know you don’t want and need to sort into recycling, donation or trash. And because you’ve (hopefully) learned your lesson in the past, there will be a method to your madness, and the things you’ve moved temporarily will be placed in a specific place elsewhere in a pile that will then be packed and vaguely labeled as ‘desk stuff’. The recycling and trash are easy, of course — you can just bring them to the bins downstairs. The donation boxes are a bit more tricky, as you’ll need to somehow find a temporary spot to put them until you have a moment to get them down to the car in as few trips as possible and hopefully find a close parking spot at the local Goodwill.

All of this, of course, during your off hours when you’re not working the Day Job. And are most likely working on a half-tank of energy.

*

This has been us the past couple of weeks. Alas, I have fallen slightly behind in the writing work, but I’m allowing it only because this is a life event and not simply slacking. Once the move has taken place and we’ve settled somewhat, I’ll be able to pick up where I left off once the PC and its attendant externals are up and running and the internets are turned on. I can take my time with the unpacking, as long as I keep that consistent and don’t fall into the trap of hiding it in the garage where it will inevitably fall into the I’ll deal with it later dimension once more. I’ve seen too many local garages that are basically I’ve Got Too Much Sh*t storage containers, and I refuse to let that happen to us. After all, I put ‘having a garage’ on my wish list precisely because I want somewhere to park our car when it’s not being used.

Still, if we time this out right (and I think we will), all should fall into place with minimal distraction or distress. Fingers crossed.

Fly-by: A new chapter…?

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Sorry for yet another fly-by, but I’ve been busy with IRL stuff (positive stuff, I promise!) these last couple of weeks, and it’s finally reached a point where things are solidifying into really cool future plans! I’m still being a bit vague about it for the time being until we make it official, but warning you now that my blog schedule might be a bit inconsistent for the next few months because of it.

In the meantime, I’m looking for a new writing nook name. I’ve had the Belfry, Arkham West and Spare Oom. Any suggestions?

Editing and tidying up

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I’m just shy of the halfway point in the Great Trilogy Remaster for A Division of Souls, which is a very good thing. That should leave me quite a lot of time on the back end to give it one more ‘bedtime reread’ (where my mistakes seem to make themselves the most visible) before releasing it out into the world come September.

It’s been ages since I’ve allowed myself to get this close to the Mendaihu Universe to the point where all the right things resonate. I’m using this to my advantage, because this means I know exactly what I was trying to do with the book. This also means that I know exactly where I didn’t quite pull that off. Anytime I find a moment that feels a bit rushed or confusing, too repetitive, or a potential continuity problem, I’m fixing it right there and then.

It’s also a different process than I’ve been used to since I first completed and released the third book in 2017. Whether it’s due to the writing styles or the shorter lengths, my later standalones went through a somewhat different process. I didn’t feel I had to immerse myself that deeply. Not that that was a bad thing, but over the years I began to miss that. Over the next few years I proved to myself that I could write econo, and enjoyed it just as much…but I missed the intensity of the deep dive. The full immersion.

I know, I know…I’ve brought this up a few times here already, but it constantly weighs on my mind while I work on this remaster. Writing the trilogy was such a powerful and life-changing event for me in that my writing chops escalated considerably within the span of just a few years, and it only got better once I started the original revision and self-publication process. Coming back to it again at this time feels like picking up where I left off, and hopefully I’ll be moving ever forward.

Fly-by: things happening

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Good things, mind you, but things IRL that need my attention, so I haven’t been able to spend much time focusing on the blogging this past week. I only have so many brain cells and available spoons before I call it and retire for the evening. Thankfully I am keeping enough of a reserve where I can still spend a lot of time working on the Trilogy Remaster, so that has not fallen by the wayside at all!

Hopefully we’ll be back on track in the next week or so!

Spring Rains and Days Off

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Currently enjoying a few days off from work to recharge the batteries, even if we are experiencing quite the spring storm front. I set this up a few weeks ago when it was obvious that I was feeling overtired and fighting allergies and/or a cold so we don’t plan on doing much of anything except doing a few errands, drinking coffee and bingeing on music or history podcasts. Whatever lets me kick back and relax, yeah?

On the writing front, I’d say I’m about a third of the way through the Great Remaster of A Division of Souls, which means I’m definitely on schedule with time to spare, as long as I keep it up and maybe speed up the process ever so slightly. I’m doing pretty well keeping things on schedule, but it still feels a little erratic to me, especially when I’m still allowing myself to get too distracted by the usual ‘just doing this for a few moments, I’ll be right back to work oh shit how is almost 8pm already’ nonsense. It’s all a part of learning and relearning how to focus.

I am NOT getting sick.

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I refuse to get sick right now, dang it! Especially since we have plans for the weekend!

I’m currently keeping a potential sore throat at bay, and spring allergies are of course making themselves known at the most inopportune times. I’m chugging Airborne and taking Benadryl and even going to bed early these last couple of days. It’s helping as I don’t feel nearly as bad as I did yesterday, but I think that’s also because today’s shift wasn’t nearly as stressful and exhausting.

It’s funny, though, that even when I am sick, I’ll still try to put in a little bit of writing work here in the Belfry. Sometimes it’ll just be a page or two of revision before I give up and start playing with the cats, but as long as it’s forward motion, every little bit helps.

Going outside now and again

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It’s just about springtime here in the Bay Area, which means new plants will be blooming, the days will get brighter and longer, temperatures will rise, and the winter rains will be winding down. This means that we’ll have run out of decent excuses not to go out for a neighborhood walk after A gets off work and I happen to be at home. This also means that I really should start walking to and from work more often instead of taking the car.

As much as I love clocking in and getting a sizeable chunk of ‘remastering’ work done on A Division of Souls, sometimes I forget that I really should head outside and get some fresh air. I mean, sure, we own a treadmill now so we can always use that for exercise, but that’s no excuse when we’ve got an extremely walkable and visually interesting neighborhood. And besides, it’s a great way to clear our heads! It gives A a chance to not think about her inbox, and gives me a chance to step away from whatever I’m working on, providing us both with a bit of calm and clarity.

As an added bonus, it keeps me from doomscrolling, but that’s another post altogether. The point here is that I sometimes need to remind myself that the process of writing also includes not writing. This is the part I always forget: there’s a big ol’ world out there with several different kinds and flavors of experiences and sometimes it’s good just to witness it instead of reading about it. It’s a good habit, and it’s also far healthier.

Fly-by: brb, kinda busy

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WHOOF. It’s been a busy couple of weeks despite the slowdown at the Day Job. I’ve been working multiple midshifts while still managing to squeeze in writing sessions, blog entries and cat distractions, so I’m feeling a bit tired and sleepy. I’m still getting a lot done, but every now and again something needs to temporarily fall by the wayside so I can remain caught up.

I should be back on Monday, thanks for your patience!

Deep dive

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That’s what I’ve been calling it lately: the process I used when originally writing the Bridgetown Trilogy. And it all started because I felt I hadn’t gone far enough with The Phoenix Effect.

By the time I was writing True Faith in 1995, I felt I at least had gotten the hang of the science fiction genre, and had gotten even further two years later with TPE, but at the same time I knew there was something wrong. There didn’t seem to be any issue with the universe I was creating, and I definitely felt that writing dialogue was one of my stronger creative traits…but it still felt off.

It didn’t take me long to figure out that it was the prose itself.

The problem was that my novel didn’t sound like one. It sounded more like an extremely detailed outline. And that had always been a problem with my work then…I thought I had some really neat ideas, but I was definitely failing in the execution of them. There was plenty of action, but my novel read more like a descriptive ‘A happens, B reacts, C happens, D causes a shift, etc.’ and less of an actual story. I resonated deeply with this tale about underground hackers, spiritual magic and otherworldly kinship…but none of that resonance was coming through at all.

So by 2001 or so, while working on TPE‘s revision and slogging my way through its sequel and getting nowhere, I realized that I needed to do something about it. I wanted to do better. I needed to do better. So one afternoon I decided I was going to completely rewrite it. I mean, start from scratch. Tell the whole dang story from Nehalé’s awakening ritual to the end, and do it right.

The only way I knew how to do this at the time was to do a deep dive. Instead of writing in that old outline style, I was going to make damn sure that every single scene resonated with me. It was a bit like method acting, to be honest: become the novel. Figure out why Nehalé did what he did. Understand the actions and reactions of Caren and Poe and everyone else. And don’t just be flippant about it; those actions and reactions were also part of the story, because it was who they were, and the consequences of their actions were also part of it.

By the time I’d gotten about five or six chapters in on this new version, I’d realized I’d only gotten through maybe two chapters of The Phoenix Effect, and this was EXACTLY what I’d been aiming for. So I just kept going, and eventually wrote myself an almost complete trilogy by the spring of 2005.

*

I bring this up now for two reasons:

One, after completing and self-publishing the Bridgetown Trilogy, I knew I had more to learn. I could definitely write doorstop epic novels at that point, now I wanted to prove to myself that I could ‘write econo’ (hat tip to The Minutemen, heh), so I started writing much shorter standalones. I’m quite proud of them all, especially Diwa & Kaffi, which I still feel is my best book to date. Even despite the urge to write the fourth book in the Mendaihu Universe, I wanted to stick with shorter works until I felt confident enough.

Two, it was the writing of the still-unfinished Theadia that made me realize that perhaps I was ready to do another one of those deep dives. This is another book I resonate deeply with…and like the trilogy, another book I feel isn’t quite there yet because it too needs a deep dive. Over the course of 2024 I tried the rewrite method, but somehow it still doesn’t feel complete yet. I still haven’t gone deep enough.

Fast forward to January 2025 and I’m focusing on the Trilogy Remaster and also revisiting the several sounds and words that surrounded its original writing, and I’m struck by another resonance that I’d almost forgotten about: this was how deep I’d gone with the trilogy! It had become a part of my life then, socially and creatively, and I loved every minute of it, and that was something that had been missing from my writing life for far too long, even before the revival of the trilogy in 2009.

As I’d mentioned briefly in last week’s blog entry, I feel I’ve come full circle, having learned several things along the way, and now I’m ready to cast the anchor and say this is where I belong. This is the style I love the most, yet it’s a style I haven’t allowed myself to return to. Or more to the point, I’d almost completely forgotten how to get back there in the first place, and it took several things falling perfectly into place for it to return.

Does this mean that my future novels are going to be epic in length? I can’t answer that because other than MU4 and Theadia, I don’t know where my next ideas might come from. But I can safely say that those two projects, at least, will be a return to the deep dive.

Searching for words

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I’ve finally gotten myself into the daily habit of playing a round of playing Squaredle, an online word search game. I’ve always been a sucker for a good word search (I have a few issues of Penny’s Finest Word Seeks on my desk here in Spare Oom) as I find it both distracting in a positive way, and a good use of brain focus, something I’ve been trying to fix for some time.

I’ll be honest, one of the main reasons is because otherwise I find myself doomscrolling on social media during my break times at the day job. I’ll completely admit that I fall way too easily into that trap, and I’ve been needing to escape it for a while now. I tend to hyperfocus on various things and this game is at least something that gets my mind moving and not my blood pressure. I used to do the same thing back during my college years, buying those same word search magazines from the local CVS as a way to dial back the stress of academia. And now that I think about it, those pre-writing session games of FreeCell did the same job of calming my head and helping me properly shift focus.

Whatever works, yeah?

And speaking of searching for words, while working on the Trilogy Remaster I found myself dusting off my copy of Barbara Ann Kipfer’s Flip Dictionary for the first time in ages, a reference book I’d used several times during the writing of the three books. It was an amusing and pleasant reminder of how much I enjoyed going that extra step of trying to find that perfect word that made my prose just that little bit more exciting. I think I used it during the writing of my other books, but not nearly as much as I did the trilogy, and I’m curious as to why. Perhaps I knew what words I needed, but maybe it was also part of my “writing econo” idea I’d had, keeping the prose a bit more simple and less flowery.

I think what I’m trying to get at is that I feel like I’ve been coming full circle lately in terms of writing. I’ve tried all sorts of different formats, lengths, styles and even reference material, and now I feel it’s time for me to return to the ways I love the most.

It’s part of the learning process, I suppose, and I do love the idea of constantly evolving, but I think I’m also at the point where I can safely put down an anchor and say this is where I belong.