Tag: personal

Year in Review, Year to Come

Jon ChaissonLeave a comment
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Two down, one to go.  What next?

It’s been quite a busy year here in Spare Oom.

Most of the time was spent focusing on releasing the first edition of The Persistence of Memories as well as cleaning up and releasing the next edition of A Division of Souls.  And once those were taken care of, I focused solely on the Big Galley Edit of The Balance of Light.  As of today I am about one third of the way through transcribing my manual edits to the digital document, which will then be formatted to both e-book and trade paperback.

[Side note: I’m worried that TBoL is still going to be quite a long book, so while it’s going to remain a single e-book, I may have to split it up into two trades just to keep the price and size down.  More on that when I get closer to finishing this portion of the project.]

The Persistence of Memories had an official drop date of 15 April of this year, about six months after the first book.  I haven’t nailed down a specific release date for The Balance of Light yet, but again, the closer we get to the end of this edit, quicker I’ll be able to do so.

All that said, I had to make do without a few other projects in the interim.  I put aside any actual work on future Mendaihu Universe books until this one was finished.  I also put aside any non-MU ideas that have been brewing; I haven’t trunked them, they’re just on hiatus.  In addition to that, I’d also put a temporary stop on my Daily 750 Words exercises.  I wanted to clear my desk and get rid of any extraneous assignments and deadlines so I could focus completely on finishing the Bridgetown Trilogy.

The unprecedented decision, however, was to stop writing poetry.  I’d come to the realization that it had stopped being something useful to me some time ago.  I’d used poetry as a personal experiment for a good few decades: a creative release for my personal dreams, irritations, ponderings, or whatever.  But it hadn’t been that for at least two or three years; it has become less of an outlet and more of a chore, and thus less enjoyable.  So I wrote one last long poem, closed that composition notebook, and filed it away.  I haven’t written one since.  Will I ever pick it up again?  Who knows.  Maybe, but I think I’d need to put some real thought and dedication into that form and do it right this time, instead of the way I used to write it.

*

So.  What’s up for 2017, then?

Aside from releasing The Balance of Light sometime in the early months, who knows.  It’ll be the first time in decades where the Mendaihu Universe (and in particular, these three books) won’t be weighing down on me.  The slate will be fully clean.  For the first time in a LONG time, I’ll be able to fully focus on a completely new project.

I’ll be able to start in on one or more of those Possible Ideas I have on hiatus.  A few more stories in the Mendaihu Universe, for starters.  I don’t have any concrete plans at the moment, where New Projects are concerned, but once I’m ready, I’ll be planning like a fiend.

I would also like to return to the Daily 750 exercise again.  Over the past couple of years it has been a great Word Playground for me, and at least three possible future novel project ideas have come out of it.  And of course, I’d like to return to a stable blogging schedule.  Those things go out the window for everyone at the end of the year, so I’m not beating myself up too much over them not being timely.  Come next year, however, I’m going to make the best effort to stick to it.

I’d also like to practice more on my book cover artwork.  As I keep saying, doing the covers for my Trilogy was an unexpected joy for me, to the point that I could see myself doing cover art as a possible career step.

I do have some Big Plans regarding the business side of my writing career.  In the next year I’ll be making some very big, very important steps towards raising the bar.  [Yes, I know, that’s a business-speak phrase and I can’t stand that kind of talk, but it fits the situation.]  I don’t want to share them just yet, but I’ve been thinking about them and planning them in my head for at least a few years now.  I’d promised myself that 2017 would be the year they will become a reality.  I’ve started giving myself a soft schedule to work with, and will soon be spending some offline time making this business plan work.

And yes, as soon as I’m ready to release these Big Plans upon the world, I’ll let you know!

*

All told, I think 2016 has been a stellar year for me, creatively.  One of the best I’ve ever had.  That’s not to say I wish I’d spent more time and dedication learning how to best sell my creative wares online and make money off it, but I’ve certainly reached goals that have been on my bucket list since I was at least ten years old.  I’ve rarely looked at my sales numbers, but I’m not taking them too seriously for the moment.  I scored a good number of downloads of both books during a month-long sale on Smashwords — a LOT more than I expected to get, to be honest — and while I earned no money, the fact that I did get that many hits meant quite a bit to me.  It meant that I was doing something right.  It meant I was closer to my goals as a professional author than I’d expected.  I now know where I stand, what direction I should head in, and what to expect when I get there.

Which means that 2017 will be the year I step up my game and start making money off of the Dream Job I’ve always wanted since I was a kid.

I’m looking forward to it.

Paying attention to the moving parts

Jon ChaissonLeave a comment
johnny_cash_flipping_the_bird_middle_finger
This number’s going out to American Telephone & Telegraph.

So for most of Friday, I was without the internet due to incompetence and aggressive sales bullshit via AT&T.  [I’m just gonna come out and say that I’ve had little to no problems with them since 2005, but this past week I’ve gotten what has to be the worst customer service I’ve ever had in my life.  We are planning to leave them as soon as it is technically possible.]

I won’t go into too much detail, but I will say that I know exactly what went wrong.  Several things, actually, including:

–Lack of smooth transition.  One would think that going from DSL to fiber optic lines would consist of making sure the wiring was correct, and that your customer has the needed hardware (in this case, the router) before the transition takes place, yes?  In this case, the internet was turned off on Monday morning at 7:30am PT sharp, and the router was not to arrive until late Tuesday afternoon via UPS 2nd Day.

–Call centers with the minimal amount of training possible. I feel for you, call center people.  I do.  I worked in the same position for a year when I moved out here to San Francisco, and it SUCKED.  Not only are you trained minimally, you’re trained to stick to a script (I have no idea how many times I’ve heard the same confirmation questions asked of me verbatim over the course of all those hours).  And when you get a situation like mine, where the script is not going to work, you end up stuttering, trying to steer the conversation back to said script, and the customer will only get more pissed off.

–Interdepartmental conversation consisted of calls cold-transferred and work tickets not cancelled.  After finally fixing the problem after six hours (and talking to far too many people and explaining my issue from the beginning at least twenty times), I got my DSL internet back.

Until Thursday night, when it was turned off again.

The original work ticket to turn off the DSL, which I’d asked them numerous times to be cancelled, was not, and I was without internet for sixteen hours this time.

–And instead of turning it back on this time, they aggressively stated that they could not do so because DSL was going away and I’d need to go to Uverse whether I wanted to or not.  No emergency fix, no admittance of fucking up.  The only reason we gave in is because by that time, we’d signed up for a new carrier (which should hopefully become a reality within the month), and that the both of us needed the internet so we could do our Day Jobs.

*

So.  Why is this on a writing blog?

Because, dear reader, this is what happens when you force yourself to write passages that are doomed to failure and refuse to admit that the story is Just. Not. Working.  The more you try to force a story to conform to flawed logic, the more it’s going to fail.  It doesn’t matter if it’s the best prose you’ve ever written…if it sticks out like a flaming tire fire, the reader is sure to see it the same way.  And you really don’t want that.

I’m guilty of doing this, I’m sure you are too.

But remember: that doesn’t mean that you’ve failed the entire project.  You’ve just failed in one segment of a much larger plot you may be able to save.  Sometimes you have to fail that one really incredibly frustrating, aggravating time…but that also means that you can now restart from a much safer, much stronger and stabler foundation, and that means that if you’ve learned your lesson and move in the right direction this time, you’re bound to come up with something that will make your story a hell of a lot better than it already is.  Sometimes you need to take that one step back to make the two steps forward.

Lesson learned:  Don’t give up completely.  You did not fail.  And if you can see all the places where you went wrong (just as I can see all the places where AT&T went wrong), then you’ll know exactly what to avoid when you start moving forward again.

Go ahead and get pissed off.  Get it out of your system.  But get back up on your feet, dust yourself off, and be that damned thorn in the story’s side until it works for you again.

Fly-by: the internets is broken

Jon ChaissonLeave a comment

Hi folks,

Due to complete and utter incompetence of AT&T in failing to upgrade our internet to Uverse and then failing to reverse the request correctly, and THEN turning off our DSL connection TWICE in one week (because this is what happens when you go purely by work tickets and little to no contact between departments), there will be no post today.

At present I am hoping they get their shit together and make the needed fixes, at least until our new service with a different carrier kicks in later this month.

Hopefully we will be back to normal on Monday.

Paying attention to detail

Jon ChaissonLeave a comment

sasuke-sharingan

I’ve  been thinking about this a lot lately, especially with all the different news (both good and bad) being thrust at us willing readers over the past few weeks.  It’s easy to get lost in the maelstrom, easy to get frustrated and scared and react the only ways we know how in such situations.

As a writer, I’ve tried to train myself to be a bit distant from it all.  Not exactly indifferent, mind you.  Just detached enough so I can keep a calm and open mind.  Too much information and I get overwhelmed.  Too close to the information and I let my emotions get the best of me.  But at the same time…being aware of the multiple threads and knowing how to use them in a positive and/or creative way.

The same can be said with writing novels.  There are quite a lot of moving parts, so it requires a lot of attention.  This is not just about the detail, but how it all interweaves. Plot Point A causes Plot Point B to take place.  Character 1 is affected by Plot Point B and has to take action, causing Plot Point C to unfold, which affects Character 2.  And so on.  However it works for you: index cards, Post-Its, spreadsheets, reams of paper, or your own brain.

Some writers only want to use the barest of detail.  Just enough to tell the story.  And that’s just fine; not every novel needs all that minutiae.  At the same time, there still needs to be attention to detail by the writer.  There has to be that continuity of not just the plot but the characters and the setting.

The downside is that writers can often fall into their own hole of that minutiae.  Getting too lost in the maelstrom of the world building or the overly convoluted plot.  Making every single scene, action or no, the Most Important Event Ever in the story.  I’m guilty of all of these, of course.  I’ve been known to obsess over sections of my work that really don’t need much detail at all.  Sometimes my blog posts go the same way.  Heh.

But anyway, my point is that the trick is to find the balance levels that work for you.  Pay attention to what needs paying attention to, and remember that there’s rarely need for obsession.  Use just enough to create a stable and navigable web where every point has a reason and a destination.  And once you’re done?

Then pull back and view it as a whole.  If you’ve done it right, you’ll have created that much larger piece of art you were aiming for.

What I’m not writing

Jon ChaissonLeave a comment
4th-doctor-nope
NOPE.

It’s probably obvious by now that I don’t write about politics in my fiction, at least not as a major plot point.  [Governmental shenanigans do make a few cameos in the Bridgetown Trilogy, but they’re not used for political intrigue.  It’s used to show how bureaucracy and adherence to rules over logic can cause a hell of a lot of headaches.]

That isn’t to say that I haven’t come close to writing a few politically-tinged stories.  The close I ever got to doing so was an short story idea I’d called “Noah and the Schoolyard,” in which the titular character witnesses a breakdown of order during recess, in which several cliques are formed and eventually start to fight each other.  It’s a too-obvious allegory of the present political weather and I found myself really not wanting to write it after maybe a few hundred words.  An interesting idea, but something I know I’d hate writing, let alone reading later on.  Lesson learned.

This also ties in with my decision during the last election cycle to disengage myself publicly from the peanut gallery.  I’d be contributing little except more white noise to whatever was already out there.  I have my opinions (and they’ll still leak out occasionally on Twitter if I’m all het up about something in particular), but for the most part I keep them offline now.

Are there any other subjects I won’t/can’t/would rather not write about?  Sure.  That’s not to say such things are beneath me, of course.  My main reason for not writing about certain subjects is simply a lack of interest in wanting to do so.  [This does not include stories or plots about gender or race — I’m interested in them, I just don’t want to write them half-assed.  I haven’t used them as plot points, but I have tried to be inclusive to some degree.]  I don’t often write what I love reading.  I’m fascinated by hard SF like Cixin Liu’s current trilogy, but I can’t write that genre to save my life so I’m not going to try.

I guess what I’m saying here is that I know my boundaries.  I’m not beholden to them, and if I so chose, I could figure out how to move beyond them.  On the opposite end of the spectrum, I taught myself early on not to hold back, either.  There are a few scenes in the Trilogy where I pushed myself past my normal comfort zone, because it was needed in the story.  But I wouldn’t do it if there was no reason for it.

Now–on that note, I’ve already voted via early ballot here in San Francisco this past weekend, so all I have to do now is wait out all the damn robocalls that are flooding my answering machine and the fliers that I’m sure even the mailperson hates at this point, and let Tuesday do its thing.  I’m not sure if I have the stomach to sit through the coverage tomorrow night (or to read all the live-tweeting for that matter), but we shall see.

[And for the record, if it isn’t already obvious, I’m definitely 100% With Her.  I have some…issues with Trump, which I’d rather not go into here.]

Keeping myself out of trouble

Jon Chaisson1 Comment
cb-spike-scratch-head
Yeah, I don’t know what I should do with myself either, Spike.

As of tonight, A. will be out of town for nearly the entire month on a business trip.  She’s gone on these trips before, usually going for a week or two at most, but this is the first time in quite a long time that she’s gone for over three weeks.  This includes Thanksgiving!  [Not to worry, folks…I can certainly make do with one of the many local restaurants or cook myself up a turkey breast with a few sides.  I’m not that helpless!]

So what am I to do when I’m the only one in the house for a few weeks?  Well, I’m too old to slide around the floor in my socks and underwear like Tom Cruise (and we don’t have the floors for it anyway).  I’m not about to play hooky around town like Ferris, either.  On the contrary, the worst thing I can do is be a Complete Lazy Ass and not do a damn thing at all, and order out every night.

Seriously, though…I do have plans.  I want to go out and get some exercise, whether it’s walking around the neighborhood or going to the YMCA a few times a week.  And after all that doughnut eating during our vacation, I definitely need to go on a diet, or at least a hell of a lot healthier.  There’s always laundry and housecleaning.  And writingwise, I’m very close to finishing the line edits for The Balance of Light (about 1/8 to go, I think), so that should keep me busy in the evenings.  Plus I’ve got my blogs to keep up.

It does feel a bit weird to be left to my own devices for nearly a full month, but I think I can keep myself from causing any mayhem. 🙂

Realignment

Jon Chaisson1 Comment

anime-pull-yourself-together

Old habits die hard.  Usually the worst ones.

See, I’m not entirely sure what I should be posting about.  I’m worried that I’m starting to blog the same things over and over again.  On the other hand, I’m at the back end of the Bridgetown Trilogy project, so I’m worried I’ll run out of fresh blog ideas.  I JUST DON’T KNOW WHAT TO WRITE, DAMMIT.

See, I’m writing this at 7:30 on a Sunday night, and thanks to my horrible homework habits as a teen, this means that I’m making a right hash of this entry.  Instead of focusing on writing something of interest, I’m thinking of what my Day Job workload will be like now that I’m back from vacation.  I’m thinking about what I’ll need to do for most of November since A will be away on her own work-related trip during that time.  Half of me is thinking, technically…I did say I’d return in November, but tomorrow’s October 31, so I don’t really need to write this.  The other half is thinking, WILL YOU JUST STFU AND WRITE THE DAMN THING ALREADY?

So let’s pull ourselves together here a bit, shall we?

Don’t get me wrong…my writing habits are a hell of a lot better than they used to be.  I’ll give myself a bit of a pass tonight because this was my first day back from a week-long trip (and a night flight that got us back to our apartment near midnight).  I spent most of Sunday afternoon cleaning up a few hundred personal and work emails.  We had to do some grocery shopping today, considering the refrigerator was embarrassingly bare.  And the weird San Francisco weather was sunny cold wet warm overcast rainy who the hell knows and the humidity gave me one hell of a migraine.  Not to mention the irritation of the recent news cycles.  So I’ll forgive myself for being half-assed today and slipping into distraction mode.  My brain has no idea what time or day it is right now.

That said…

What usually happens come Monday morning is that I’m rested up, focused, and ready to go.  The frustration and the stress of Sunday night has been dropped and forgotten.  What remains is renewed dedication to forge ahead and a bit of embarrassed acceptance that all this stress was a bit of a waste of time.

Not every day is gonna be 100%, and that’s A-OK.

Won’t You Come Out to Play

Jon ChaissonLeave a comment
20160925_171357a
Just another day in Spare Oom.

These past few days have been uncharacteristically warm here in San Francisco.  On Sunday it hit 88° F, which is far higher than we here in the Richmond District are used to on any given day, even in the height of summer.

These are the days when I’m just as happy hiding in the cool of our apartment, working on whatever writing project I happen to be dealing with.  Back in my Belfry days, I’d hang out down there because my family’s basement was the coolest part of the house, considering it never got any sun except at the end of the day.  I loved hanging out down there during the summer, listening to tunes and writing away.

Warm days at Arkham West (aka our first apartment in North Beach) were another problem entirely.  Due to our bay windows we’d be getting sunlight all day long and it would get quite toasty if we didn’t close the blinds.  I’d make do with writing on the PC, but some days I’d move to the couch and write there.

Here in Spare Oom, though?  Perfect weather.  The one window faces north so we don’t get direct sun at all, just the breeze off the ocean.  And we’ll sometimes get some absolutely gorgeous sunsets as well.  It never gets hot or muggy in this room.  Sure, it’ll get cold in the winter, but not enough to drive me from getting work done.

I’m usually not one for writing sessions outside of the home, though.  I just feel kind of weird taking up space in a café or a bookstore for hours on end.  It’s not about other people watching me write…it’s more that I’d feel like I’m hogging a seat that one or more people could possibly use instead during the time I’m there.  [That, and I’m usually there for other things, like buying coffee or books.  I don’t feel as bad if I’m sitting somewhere going over the book pile and debating which ones I’ll buy.]

Still, I make sure I get out and enjoy the air now and again.  A. and I try to make a point of going out for a walk on the weekend, even if it’s up to the brewpub at the other end of Clement Street.  We’ll take a walk in Golden Gate Park or the Presidio, both a short walk from our apartment.  We’ll head over to the gym and work out for a bit (during which I’ll be listening to my mp3 player and working out plots in my head while on the treadmill).  We’ll head somewhere for brunch or a late lunch on the weekends as well.

As much as I’d like to be one of those writers hanging out in their workspace for hours on end, writing thousands of words and working on everything under the sun, I do need to exit the house now and again.  Just to remember there’s a world out there.

So that said, we did manage to get outside and walk a bit before the heat and humidity got the better of us and we went back into hiding in the apartment to watch football.  To prove this, I took a panoramic shot from our nearby vista point, Land’s End Trail.  It was so clear we could just about make out Point Reyes in the far distance (it’s around 50 miles north of us, and just about barely visible in the far left horizon in this picture).

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View from the Eagles Point lookout on Land’s End Trail.  I love that this is in our neighborhood.

Perseverance

Jon ChaissonLeave a comment

anime-tired

It’s been a hell of a week.

Day Job system crashes.  Unending emails to work through.  Client fires to put out.  A drive across the Bay for an office visit.  I missed a few writing days.  I’m late in getting this post out.  I’m just about done, and it’s not even noon on Friday yet.

BUT.

I gotta do it.  No way around it.

I gotta write.  I can take a rest day every now and again, but I gotta pick it up again when I’m ready.

Perseverance.  A stubborn will to hit my deadlines.

Even if this post is a half-assed one with yet another anime picture as the header.  Heh.

Still.

Gotta get my work done.

Despite all the roadblocks.  Despite the raving case of the Don’t Wannas.  Despite really needing a beer right now because the Day Job’s been that much of a pain in the ass.

I gotta write.

Because no one else will do it for me.

Spare Oom Unplugged (again)

Jon ChaissonLeave a comment
gravity falls
courtesy of Gravity Falls

Yes, I’d have to say it was definitely a good idea to work longhand with this edit.  The evenings where I’m focusing solely on this project is when I take the binder to the loveseat across the room and settle in.  I’m not chained to the desk, but I can still have the tunage going while I work.

Which brings me to the subject of unplugging again.  It seems every six to eight months I need to unplug from the internet and do some IRL things.  Or more to the point, needing to remind myself to unplug from the internet and do some IRL things.

What this usually means is that, even though I kvetch about it from time to time here at WtBt, I don’t always follow through.  Sometimes I’ll just have a long day at work and want to goof off online and watch cat-drifting gifs all night.  Or I’ll consistently distract myself with the Twitter feed.  Sure, I’ll catch myself and shut down the browser right there and then and do something more productive with my time.

It’s not like I haven’t eased up on the distractions over the last year.  I’m not as passive about them as I used to be.  In fact I’ve become quite tight with my latest writing schedule of practice words, blog entries and exercises, balancing them quite nicely with the Day Job and the regular writing work.

This time out, however, I’m thinking about actively unplugging for a bit.  I mean, doing some serious longhand work, for various reasons:

–Obvious:  Less chance of distraction.
–Health:  Reasons for me to start moving around and getting out of the chair more often.  Also, considering my Day Job is to look at a laptop all day, and following it up by looking at a PC later that evening, I really should give my eyes a break more often.
–Personal:  Sitting with A. instead of hiding away in the back room all day and night.
–Mental:  Focusing solely on the task at hand because, well, it would be the only thing I have at hand.  Also, I have something a little more tangible to work with, rather than having to remember where I was in the document, especially if I’m flipping back and forth.
–Physical:  Handwriting tends to be less straining on my wrists than typing, even with my new PC and its wireless keyboard and mouse.
–And let’s be honest here: when I write new projects longhand, I need to be able to write on the fly.  The habit of editing on the PC is far too ingrained right now, thanks to the Epic Trilogy Editing Seasons.  Once the trilogy project is done, I can reassess.

But yes…it’s one thing to say “I’m thinking of doing [X] to make my work better” or “I’m going to close the browsers now so I can work”, but it’s another to make good on those statements.  And unplugging does seem to be the only way to do this cleanly and efficiently.

Does that mean all my blogs are going on hiatus?  Nope, not this time around.  Those will still be around, as long as I have something to say.  I don’t have to unplug for mental reasons this time.

I just want to be a better writer is all. 🙂