Tag: day job

Getting away with it

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In Theadia, our two main characters are computer nerds. However, I’m trying to avoid as much techspeak infodumping as I can. Can it be done?

That’s a good question. I mean, I’m basing their work background on my own experience at the Former Day Job — basically working behind the scenes as code checkers to make sure system are working the way they’re supposed to work, and to figure out solutions when they’re not. And believe you me, I did a LOT of that over the fourteen years I was there. And if I learned anything, it’s that there are indeed code geeks out there who are not savants but instead kinda sorta know what they’re doing and hope for the best. That is what the leads in my novel are about: they’re good at it, but it really is all held together with sticky tape and dreams most of the time.

This upcoming project is very much like that: you’re probably not going to see the stock characters of the introvert genius who saves the day, but you’ll definitely see the common citizen who’s hoping it doesn’t all go kerflooey at the worst possible moment. I like the idea that the world is not just imperfect, it’s messy as hell, and we’re all pretending that we have it under control. Theadia is about people who aren’t in charge, but do know what they’re doing. Sort of.

Getting back to the question, I do in fact have a few techspeak infodumping scenes, but they’re not the kind you’re expecting. Again, I based it on my own experience: the most common reason for system failure at my FDJ was either someone making a really stupid mistake upstream (or just plain not knowing what they’re doing), or someone forgetting that what works on the shiny and clean test platform will trip up in the messy and chaotic live platform. I have a few scenes not just explaining this, but having my two mains exploit it. The trick isn’t so much hacking in, it’s not getting caught. And if you know how and where to go…

Year End Review – Where I’m Going

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So. Do I have anything big planned for 2024? Good question.

If you’re talking about writing, sure. I’m hoping to get Queen Ophelia’s War finished and ready for mid-year release, as I’ve mentioned previously. And maybe Theadia as well a little bit later, if I get it prepared in time.

But what about personal things?

I’d mentioned very briefly here that one of my new resolutions is to Slow the F*** Down. Part of this is related to the Day Job, in which I’d fallen into the same damn habit I’d always had with most of my day jobs over the years: always trying to finish everything as quickly as possible. And in this case, considering that I’m back in retail, it meant being a fast checker, helping out as many people as possible, and always stressing out when the lines were long. I fell into the trap of thinking I’d better do it because no one else will, and I’d end up just making more work for myself in the process. I’d finally admitted that maybe I don’t need to be like that, considering nearly everyone else I work with goes at their own (often much slower) speed. Doing this all the time only led to exhaustion and certain managers wondering why I would seem overwhelmed.

I’ve since chosen to Slow the F*** Down at the Day Job, and I’m feeling a lot happier about it. I’ve adjusted responsibilities somewhat and admitted there are times when I should ask for help. I’ve found that there are situations that are Not My Problem. And I’ve admitted there are times when I’m just making more work for myself, whether by overthinking it or giving myself overly high expectations. In the process, I’ve learned to shift certain responsibilities to others when needed, and understanding that, unlike the Former Day Job, there isn’t an OMFGNOW deadline.

I suppose there’s more to it than just the Day Job and the Writing Career going on here, but I don’t have the words for it just yet as I’m still trying to get it straight in my own head. There is indeed a bit of final rewiring of thoughts and emotions going on lately, and that in itself has been a long-game process over the last couple of years that I think is finally coming to a close. A lot of it is about self-confidence and self-trust, but it’s also about reining in those overly high expectations that I’d just mentioned.

So if anything, I think 2024 is going to be about Where I’m Going and Where I’ll Be.

Year End Review – Where I Am, Where I’m Not

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This past year has been a bit different than the past few on multiple levels. I went through a wave of not reading much of anything at all besides manga, graphic novels, and my own works in progress. I put considerable distance between myself and social media. I put a lot of projects aside to let myself focus on the one that needed the most attention. And of course I put my blogs on temporary hiatus.

Not that any of this was particularly a bad thing. In fact they were good things. I needed a mental and emotional vacation to put myself on stable ground once more. I wanted to give myself some time to relax without several looming deadlines, while simultaneously balancing them with the Day Job and its stable yet occasionally fluctuating schedule. I wanted to readjust my life and take it day to day instead of several events and things at once. And most of all, I wanted to get rid of all those distractions so I could remember what I needed to do to focus on said works in progress. Both Theadia and Queen Ophelia’s War are all but done rough-draftwise (they’re missing their endings but I know what to put there), so I disconnected from nearly everything else to focus solely on their revisions.

On a more personal level, I suppose I’d been needing to do a disconnect for some time, considering how many distractions I’d been dealing with. A lot of them were of my own making, whether they were of the ooh shiny or the don’t wanna variety, and given how easily I can fall into both, it was a matter of returning to the old mantra that has yet to prove me wrong: just shut the f*ck up and DO it already. It’s not the dislike of the project or the action, it’s the avoidance of getting started. Once I do start, it’s smooth sailing, simple as that. [Okay, maybe not that smooth and simple, but you get my drift.]

So to answer the entry’s title: where I am, (and) where I’m not?

I am writing and/or revising daily these days, and the output fluctuates. Sometimes it’s a full chapter and other times it’s a few paragraphs, and either one is just fine by me. I’ve been doing some personal writing on the 750Words site to help push me in the right direction. I am about a quarter of the way through revising Queen Ophelia’s War, which is not bad for about a month’s consistent work. I am planning on picking up Theadia once this one is done, or close to done. I am thinking of doing a bit of social media culling and reimagining in the new year. And I am happy where I am in my personal life and writing career!

I am not trying to push myself by doing too many things at once, which can sometimes lead to the return of the don’t wannas. I am not forcing myself to write on demand like I may have in the past, though I am also not sitting here doing nothing while waiting for inspiration to strike, either. I am not letting the Day Job interfere with my writing time, and I am quite proud of that fact. And I am not giving up writing any time soon.

There are other more personal things I am and am not doing, but that’s for another entry!

Checking in: end of year plans

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Oh hey I still have this blog, don’t I? Yes I do!

Hi all, just checking in to let you know that I’m still here, still doing a lot of revision work on Queen Ophelia’s War, and it’s coming along quite nicely. I have a long way to go, but I’m going in the right direction and that’s what really matters. And while I haven’t been blogging, I’ve been thinking about what I’ll be doing here and at Walk in Silence in the coming weeks as 2023 winds down.

Right now my plan is to return here in December to start my end-of-year thoughts and reviews. Whether that will be at my regular twice a week schedule or just once a week depends on a few things.

Firstly, it depends on how busy I am at the Day Job — it is holiday season and I am in retail, after all — and one of my new resolutions is to Slow the F*** Down. [More on that in a future post.] I survived last year’s Q4 quite handily and my commute is still eight blocks long, so I should be able to do two a week. I’m purposely not holding myself to it however, because I don’t really need to force myself now, do I? One a week is a comfortable and doable goal.

Secondly, it depends on how busy I am with work on Queen Ophelia’s War. I’m still planning on this one being my next e-book release to get back on my one-book-a-year release schedule. While I don’t have a set deadline for it at this time, I don’t want to be spending forever on it, either. I still have work on Theadia and a few other open projects as well that are waiting in the wings.

That said, I’ll try to aim for December 1st as my return for this blog. See you then! And thanks for stopping by!

Getting started…eventually

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It’s occurred to me that one of the reasons I haven’t been doing any writing work lately — I mean, aside from focusing on the blogs and some Walk in Silence (the book) work — is that I’ve been working on rewiring my head a bit.

I’ve written here before, many times, that I’ve been too easily and willingly distracted by online things: social media, videos, comics, music, and so on. Over the course of this year I’ve been working on fixing that, and I think I’m finally at the point where I have it all under control. I’m not really giving any of it up, I’m just no longer being passive about it. I’ve been here before, I just want to make it last longer this time out.

So what about these new projects that are just…sitting there, doing nothing? Well, that’s a good question. And I have a plan that I hope will work. It might be a Best Laid Plan or it might actually work, but hey, at least it’s a plan: continue with the compartmentalization strategy.

I’m not assigning myself work here, which is the trap I’ve fallen into before. No, this is merely part of the job of being a writer. So for instance, say I have my first ten minute break of the day at work: my current habit is to head to the break room, have a snack, and screw around on my phone for a few minutes reading social media until it’s time to go back. Sure, it might be just fine on its own…it’s a bit of mental relaxation during a busy day, right?

I’m trying to break myself out of that. Mainly because I’m personally bored with the habit. It doesn’t do much for me anymore. [I mean, unless A texts me a picture of one of our cats. That’s always worth it.] I think about my other coworkers: some of them head outside to the upper parking deck. Some of them do a bit of reading or texting or chat with friends who are also on break.

My plan before was to change it up and go straight into writing something longhand. Hell, I even have a small notebook that fits perfectly in my jacket pocket! But once I’m on break….? Nothing comes. I’m right back there, futzing around online. Which means that I haven’t quite mastered the approach. What I need to do is prepare myself for that ten minute writing session! So how about this: let’s say I’m scheduled for that ten minute break at 10am. So to prepare for that, I can think about what I want to write at that time by, say, 9:45. A fifteen-minute prep time while I’m ringing up customers. I can definitely think about my writing while at the register, I’ve done it loads of times. So by the time I do go on break, I’m ready and prepared to pull out that notebook and do a bit of work!

To change it up, why not change the setting as well? Go up on the roof, head outside, go somewhere for that ten minutes. And I’m sure that by the time I get this preparation down, I can use all that extra time during my half-hour lunch using the same process to add to the word count.

Will it work? Well, who knows? But it’s worth a shot, right?

Work/Life Balance, a year and change later

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I had this past Sunday off from the Day Job and spent it frivolously by heading over to the Mission District to watch Fast X at the Alamo Drafthouse (it’s just about as over the top ridiculous fun as you’d expect). Considering my hours change from week to week, I’m always happy that I (usually) get at least one weekend day off like that.

But what about in general? Back in my days at the Former Day Job, I protected my work/life balance as much as I could. But what about the Present Day Job? Well, thanks to my ten-minute, eight-block commute and average of about 35 hours/five days a week, I’ve got a lot more time to work with than I did at the end of my tenure at the FDJ.

It’s been a year and change since I’ve started at the new place, and things are going pretty good. I’ve mentioned before that I take my sometimes wonky schedule day by day, working around it one way or another. When I have an 11:30am-8pm shift, I’ll get up early and write in the morning. When I have a 6am-2:30pm shift, I let myself have a bit of fun or do errands and get my writing done after dinner. And some days I’ll even write a few notes on scrap paper while at work! This is definitely a change from the FDJ when I had to fight for moments for writing when and wherever I could. [Remember those final days when I realized I could access 750Words on my work laptop and used that as much as I could?]

I’ll admit I have the occasional days when I’m a bit too lazy and/or distracted, but I’m no longer feeling too guilty about that. As long as I get something done by the end of the day, even if it’s just a few paragraphs, that’s all that matters.

Real life inspiration

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There’s a little bit of real life inspiration in pretty much everything I write, and I’m sure that’s true for nearly every writer. Every story I’ve written does have at least one moment, scene or setting based on reality.

I wrote the Bridgetown Trilogy when I was working at the Yankee Candle warehouse, and while there aren’t specifically any scenes that take place in such a location, it did inspire a few ideas. For instance, the brief mention of Hallera, a planet where people live within instead of on its surface, comes from when I worked second shift and would look out from the dock bays into the deserted semi-darkness of the rear lot at 11:30 at night. There’s also a newer character in MU4 whose day job is working behind the scenes at the Bridgetown Nullport. Several names in the trilogy are Tuckerized from former coworkers in one way or another.

It also explains why the trilogy also had a lot of characters whose day jobs weren’t high-status and they specifically enjoyed Life Outside of Work. Those who were high-status were there for a reason, and their jobs tied in with the story in one way or another. Call me blue collar if you will, but those office job characters never really sounded like much fun to write to me. Even Diana Meeks in In My Blue World, who crunched numbers for a living, didn’t necessarily like her job and it’s barely mentioned.

Being that I live on the much quieter northwest side of San Francisco and currently work at a supermarket, I’m sure that the world of retail might make its eventual appearance somewhere in one of my projects, whether it’s MU4 or something else. One might see retail as drone-like as office work — you’re just another easily replaceable number, apparently — but there’s also a much closer connection to the Outside World that office work doesn’t always provide. Interesting and unique customers and locals become inspirations for characters and background crowds the more you interact with them. Vendors and delivery drivers become secondary characters with unsung but important roles that could help you out of a tricky plot twist. Coworkers once again get Tuckerized as street names and, if they’re interested enough (like many of my YC coworkers were), they’ll ask how the story is coming along.

There’s something about being a little closer to a community at this level that helps me feel more connected to the characters I create. There’s a shine to them that pulls me closer, wanting to know more about their personal lives and how they interact and interconnect with others. It might not be as glamorous or as high-paying as some of my previous positions, but I’ve become rich in other ways whenever I embrace that kind of connection, and that makes all the difference to me.

Making that connection

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The hardest thing about writing MU4 so far has been making a personal connection with my characters. I know what I want from them, and I think I know how I want them to evolve, but getting to those points has been fraught with missing by inches.

I also know, this time for a fact, that I’m not trying hard enough. I’m still suffering through waves of the Don’t Wannas with an equal serving of Easily Distracted. I want to write this novel, damn it all, I’m just avoiding working on it, and I’m starting to piss myself off because of it.

If this means I have to take desperate measures, I’ll do it. I’ve already uninstalled or removed several apps from my phone to minimize distraction during Day Job breaks I should be spending less passively. But though I’ve been doing all my actual writing work at home and I do close my web browsers come writing time, I still have too many distractions. If this means unpinning nearly every shortcut from the Task Bar, so be it. Making it harder to open distraction apps usually works for me simply by utilizing the Out of Sight Out of Mind method, and I’d rather not use one of those ‘won’t/can’t open until forty-five minutes pass’ apps if I can help it.

Still — the issue remains that when I am writing, I’m still not quite making that connection. I’m not connecting on that emotional level I’m aiming for. They still feel too distant. And again, that’s a personal issue I have to work through: I have to let myself establish that level, allow myself to take that deep dive. I know I can do it and I’ve done it before.

Eventually I’ll make that connection I’m longing for. I just need to keep trying.

Still here, still writing

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It’s been a couple of weeks, hasn’t it? So what’s been happening in the Mendaihu Universe? Well, aside from the fact that I feel like my writing work is moving at a glacial pace (I always feel that at the start of a project), I’m actually not doing that bad at all. I’m allowing myself to write as few — or as many — words as befits the scene or the session, so some days I’ll get about three hundred words and other days I’ll get closer to seven hundred.

A few things I’ve learned so far:

–I really love writing in this universe. I mean, really love writing it! When I started working on this version, I immediately felt a lot of things click into place: I knew and remembered the universe’s voice intimately, what tone and pace it’s supposed to take. As I’ve said before, I’m not trying to emulate what’s already been written or trying to relive the sessions of the Belfry years, and in doing that I was able to return to that tone and pace naturally.

–I do loves writing me some dialogue. I’ve also been doing a reread of the original trilogy at night as part of the refamiliarization process, and it’s apparent that one of my favorite things about writing fiction is conversations between characters. Sometimes I worry that the scene might stall a little because of it, but my workaround for that it is to keep the characters physically moving somehow. A frustrated Caren will start flailing her arms, an angry Sheila will barely be holding back violent impulses, and Poe will almost always have the urge to light up a cigarette when he gets stressed out. The focus is on the words they’re saying, but I’m also having them react to them in some way.

–My openings are, as always, a hot mess. But on the flip side, I’ve learned to just write them anyway so I can fix them later. All the new scenes so far are a bit weak, but that’s okay! The whole point of writing them is to get the story moving in the right direction.

–I am, as stated earlier, listening to mood-appropriate music just as I did in the Belfry years. Sure, I’m returning to a few classics (I had Beck’s Sea Change on the other day) but I’m also enjoying some newer albums that will surely become a part of the Eden Cycle Soundtrack list. [At the moment I write this, I’m listening to Radio Songs by Blur’s Dave Rowntree and I’m pretty sure this one’s going to be on the playlist for a few months.] Again: not trying to relive the sessions of the Belfry years, merely trying to recapture its vibe and update it. And I think it’s working!

–And lastly, I admit I’m not writing every single day. I’ll take a day off to focus on errands or other important non-writing things. And I’m okay with that, because I know I’ll end up writing again the next day, whether it’s a quick hour’s session before doing a midshift at work or bashing it out after dinner. By not forcing myself, by allowing myself the writing time, the stress of getting it done lowers considerably.

I’m not expecting a quick three-month turnaround. It might take a few months or it might take a year. I’d love to have something out this year, but it definitely won’t be this. I’m taking my time with this one. I’m writing this on my own terms, with the simple aim of writing the stories I truly want to write. I know I’m not going to be a pro writer, I’ve come to terms with that quite some time ago. It’s not the kind of writing I do. But I’m writing something that’s just as intriguing, just as enjoyable and exciting. Something that resonates with me.

And that’s the most important reason.

Note Worthy

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Notes swiftly written on the back of old team schedules

First of all, I do apologize for the terrible pun in the entry title.

When I was writing the Bridgetown Trilogy back in the early 00s, my process was that I’d start the day by utilizing the slower moments of my work day at Yankee Candle by doing a bit of plotting. Nothing too detailed mind you, as these moments usually lasted no longer than five or so minutes before the next wave of boxes came down the conveyor chutes, but I wasn’t looking for detailed to begin with. This was merely doing a bit of planning ahead of a few scenes. I’d think a bit about what I wanted my characters to be doing while I built those pallets of candle boxes and then write it out when I had a minute. And more often than not these scraps of paper were nothing more than the backs of copied labels that we’d tape to the side of our finished pallets.

Then later that evening during my writing sessions in the Belfry I’d take those notes and start elaborating on them. Sometimes I’d use them to the letter, and sometimes I’d actually go in a slightly different direction, but the whole point of these notes was that I’d be prepared for the session instead of sitting there staring at the screen or distracting myself with whatever music I wanted to listen to that night. When I returned to the Trilogy in 2009 to finish the last quarter of The Balance of Light I realized that the best way to go about it was to do the exact same thing: longhand notes followed by typed elaboration.

I used slightly different versions of this process for most of my follow-up novels, but never to the same degree. Most of the notes for Meet the Lidwells! contained personal information about the characters and a detailed discography of the band. Same for In My Blue World: for the most part that was written on the fly with most of the notes merely being character bios. I think part of the reason for this was that working for a bank, even as a back office drone, didn’t really lend much time or brain power for this sort of thing. I figured out alternate ways to write novels, even if I didn’t feel it was quite the same.

So when I recently decided it was time to return to the Mendaihu Universe, I also decided that the best way to play all of this out was to go back to what worked: a bit of note writing while at the Day Job followed by elaboration at home. And being that I’m back in retail, I’m once again able to steal a few personal minutes during breaks and slow times to write, this time using the backs of the previous day’s team schedule we have set up at each register. I have the time and brain power for this sort of thing again, so why not take advantage of it?

So far I’ve gotten myself maybe two or three scenes down that I can work with. I’ll be starting off the fresh new version very soon, and I plan on continuing this note taking throughout the entire project. I’m even thinking there’s a chance I’ll do a bit more Tuckerization, once again using coworkers’ last names somewhere while I keep them updated on the latest fictional drama.

All told, it’s not only great to be back in Bridgetown, but it’s also great to return to a process that worked really well for me.