Category: blogging

Lockdown Reloaded

Greetings from Melbourne.
Ain’t this fun?

*takes long pull from bottle of bourbon*
*looks out into the darkness*

Well, looks like we’ll be stuck here for a while. May as well catch up, maybe talk about some lockdown reads.

—

Speaking of lockdown reads, sales of The Obituarist 3 are… like, okay? Good? Bad? I don’t know, I just work here.

Let me add up the data – looks like 21 copies sold (on Amazon and Smashwords) since launch in early May, which means about… 40 Aussie bucks in revenue? As opposed to the $450 I spent on editing and cover design?

Yeah, well, so it goes. It’s a good book, but its market is limited. (Possibly just to people who know me.) I could probably generate more sales if I did more promotion, but we’re in the middle of a pandemic and a global struggle to confront systemic institutional racism. No-one needs me distracting people from what really matters by tweeting about a book.

It’s written, it’s out there, people will find it. Maybe tell your friends about the series if they want lockdown reads. That’s enough marketing from me.

(I really should update the site page, though. Maybe next week.)

—

And speaking of lockdown reads, let’s talk about games. Games that involve reading and writing (so educational)!

Thousand Year Old Vampire is a solo journaling RPG by Tim Hutchings, and if you’re like me-from-last-month then that concept might need a little unpacking.

The game presents a conceptual framework – you’re a vampire that lives so long that they can’t retain their memories – and then provides you with a large series of writing prompts (most of which have mechanical impacts as well). Rolling dice to navigate through the prompts, you write journal entries to record events while also translating that into your vampire’s unstable set of memories. Eventually you reach an ending, and have an epistolary narrative that you can read, share or just think about when you want to be sad.

While accurate, that description glosses over two key points:

This game is brilliant, with a fantastic mix of simple mechanisms and evocative prompts that constantly push you to generate dark, emotionally engaging stories.
This game makes writing fun, something I generally find inconceivable. My playthrough, telling the story of the fallen Ukrainian nun Penelopa, was some of the most playful joy I’ve gained from my own writing in maybe a decade.

Whether you’re a writer or a gamer (or both), there’s so much here to direct your creativity into fascinating stories while also enjoying solo lockdown fun. The PDF is cheap; the print book is apparently gorgeous but will cost you a mortgage payment in shipping right now. You do you – just make sure to pick it up.

—

And speaking of lockdown reads, let’s talk about a TV show, yes I know that’s a terrible segue.

I finally started watching She-Ra and the Princesses of Power on Netflix, and it’s as good as people have been saying for the last couple of years – a smart, savvy, energetic science-fantasy cartoon that never takes itself too lightly or too seriously, and is just crammed full of awesome teenage girl characters demonstrating agency.

(The plotting and worldbuilding is maybe a little uneven at times, but that is not why you watch a show like this.)

From a YA writer’s point-of-view, the most compelling part of the show is the way it establishes and develops character. The foundation of She-Ra‘s characterisation is love and friendship – presented not just as a positive force, but also as something that can go bad, fall short or distract from what matters. Everything in the show has its foundation in that core, and it’s an amazing demonstration of how you can use the common emotional understandings of your (largely teenage) audience as a way to express complexities and tensions that that audience will connect with.

Also, it’s pretty queer. And we need more queer TV.

Go binge this over a couple of weekends while you’re bouncing around lockdown – there’s a lot to learn from it and a lot of feelings to be felt. And goddamnit, I would die for Scorpia. She just wants to be loved.

—

And speaking of lockdown reads (shut up okay), how about you don’t read that self-serving bullshit screed that JK Rowling and a gaggle of alt-right fuck-knuckles published last week, whinging about cancel culture?

Here’s this blog’s position on all that:

‘Cancel culture’ is just what privileged people call ‘facing the consequences of my actions’ or possibly ‘being criticised because I used my power and influence to yell my fuckin’ garbage opinions all over the internet’.

Boo fuckin’ hoo, JK; go spew your transphobic white noise into the bowlful of £100 bills you have for breakfast every morning.

One of the few positives to this unending trash fire we now live in is that as the boundaries of polite society fall into the abyss, more and more people are looking around and saying, ‘wait, no, FUCK THIS SHIT, I won’t have it any more’, and calling people out on how they contribute to the problem. Whether it’s Rowling being hateful trash, Warren Ellis being a serial predator upon and betrayer of women (something I’m pretty fuckin’ upset about) or, I dunno, the entire corrupt system of police power and control in the world’s most powerful nation, we’ve had enough. Get in the fuckin’ bin with you.

Here’s a mission statement: if I ever get into a position where I a) have power and b) abuse it, y’all have my permission to cancel me harder and faster than Australia’s Naughtiest Home Videos.

…not that that seems likely if I don’t write more books.

*takes long drag on cigarette*
*coughs up a lung, throws half-finished cancer stick in the bin*

I should probably do that, then.

Stay safe, friends.

blogging obituarist

Slowpocalyse thoughts

William Gibson once said, ‘The future is already here — it’s just not very evenly distributed’. I’ve been thinking about that quote a lot in the last few days. About how it was framed as uneven access to positive change, but applies just as well to negative change; about how a grim version of the future might land in some parts of the world, but need time to spread out and take over the rest. How we can feel safe and secure, far away from danger, until suddenly we’re not.

I’ve also been thinking about the way the setting of the Mad Max films changes over the course of the series. In the first film, Max is a highway patrol officer, a cop in a functioning society (albeit one that’s doing it rough, and where eating tinned dog food is just fine). Then the setting – the world, society, environment, notions of what’s ‘normal’ – keeps sliding further and further into the abyss, each new film showing us an Australia that’s more broken, more ruined, more lost. Madder and madder within a man’s lifetime.

…yeah, my head’s not really in a great place, as you can probably tell. It’s my birthday; I’m 49 today. It’s not starting off as being the most enjoyable age, so far.

—

Fiction involving apocalypses tends to paint them as all-or nothing. If they’re something coming in the future, then they’re something to be averted or prevented. If they occurred in the past they look monolithic, their fine details unimportant.

It’s different when it’s apocalypse right now, when things are falling apart around us in real time. From inside the slowpocalypse we can see the uneven rate and intensity of collapse, the highs and lows, the gradually widening cracks in the foundations of our world.

But then again, maybe that means we have a window of opportunity to do something about it. Because if the End Times aren’t a monolithic moment but a protracted and uneven decline, there are lots of opportunities for optimism, for working together, for helping each other, for making a difference. To move just that little bit faster than the apocalypse before it’s done and dusted.

Right now it’s very difficult to consider what life will be like when I’m 50, whether my life or literally everyone else’s. But I guess we’ll all work it out together.

We have to.

—

NON-DEPRESSING OBITUARIST 3 UPDATE:

It’s still finished!
I reread the MS after a week of mental downtime and revised a few things that weren’t working.
The revised MS is now with my alpha readers, and I’m hoping to get feedback from them in 2-3 weeks.
The cover is done! I was hoping to share it with you folks today, but I’m still waiting on the final files. Should be able to splash it around this week.
Unless things go disastrously wrong – and that’s a caveat for pretty much everyone and everything right now – we’re still on track to publish in late April.

So stay tuned! For as long as that remains possible!

blogging obituarist writing

Five’ll get you twenty

Right, it’s been a while between drinks. But rather than dwell on all that, let’s start the new year by focusing on the important things.

That was the year that was

Looking back at previous blog entries, I tend to be bitter this time of year, and ready to discard the past 12 months to the dustbin of history.

2016: it sucked and I got the depression
2017: ‘die screaming, year of fuck’
2018: I literally got a tattoo saying ‘I am going to make it through this year if it kills me’

And now 2019, arguably the most horribilus of this last set of annus, is over and done with. Thank fuck. My 2019 wasn’t all that great but vanishes into nothingness when considering those folks whose homes and families burned, sank, exploded or were doomed to suffer Brexit after all. Let’s respect their survival by jettisoning 2019 and moving forward to a year that… okay, it’s going to have a lot of problems, but perhaps we can handle them together.

State of the Patrick

Blimey, that was a bit self-indulgent, wasn’t it? Sorry, I haven’t had much sleep.

As noted, I encountered a few challenges last year – suddenly moving house, suddenly changing not just job but career (still writing/editing, no longer publishing), health problems, the relentless grind of getting old, Australia electing a happyclapper sociopath as friggin’ PM, the slow erosion of my attention span, the feeling that all creative work is pointless because we’ll all be dead in a few more years… you know, shit like that.

Yet despite all that, I’m actually pretty upbeat! Not about Earth and humanity, of course – we’re facing a global crisis that we have to overcome or go extinct. But personally, I’m starting 2020 with a less stressful job, more energy and enthusiasm most days, more time for writing & reading and more determination to finish the projects I’ve started, and to move on to new ones and finish them too.

That determination may sound pretty fundamental to the notion of being a writer, but believe me, it’s been hard for me to find for the last few years. Having a positive mindset in my arsenal should make a big difference to, you know, writing some damn books.

Writing some damn books

I had three writing project goals at the start of last year: finish and self-publish The Obituarist 3, completing the novella trilogy; do a major revision pass through Raven’s Blood to address feedback, then start shopping the MS to agents again; and to start work on a new YA urban fantasy wrestling series that I still haven’t named.

I met exactly none of those goals.

But that’s not to say I didn’t make an effort. After a shaky start to the year for reasons, I continued working on The Obituarist 3, since that was already partially written. I won’t claim that I worked on it steadily, but I put in time nearly every week – yet despite that, progress was slow. The first Obituarist novella was written at a cracking pace, one 1000-ish-words chapter each night; now it was taking well over a week to put a chapter together, and I often wasn’t fully satisfied with the finished pieces.

But I kept pushing at it, hoping that I could at least finish the foundation draft by New Year’s Eve. I got close to that milestone, and I could have met it – except that, one day and a few chapters from the end, the story just stopped working. I knew where the plot needed to go, and I could see a path of how to get to that point, but it was a bad path, paved with unconvincing character decisions and lacking the right thematic, uh, let’s say tollgates.

Stymied with my goal in sight, I chewed the problem over during a hot, insomniac night, and realised the problem at 3am – I’d screwed up a third of the book. Specifically, I’d screwed up the mystery plotline running through the story, while focusing all my attention on the thriller plotline and coming up with smartarse lines to repost on Twitter. The roadblock was the point where the two plotlines finally connected – or failed to connect. They felt like they belonged in different books, anchored in different characters who made different emotional choices.

It’s a hot mess.

But understanding a problem is the first step to fixing it, and last night I worked out a solution. Not a quick & easy solution, mind you – I have to write a couple of new chapters in the first half of the book, tweak every other chapter, and rethink the motivations and decisions of several major characters. Still, less work than chucking it all out and starting again, and less terrible than writing a book that even I thought was crap.

Once that’s done in 2-3 weeks (maybe), there’s still taking in editorial and alpha reader feedback, formatting the final MS for e-readers, sorting out the cover (I need a new designer) and working through the Amazon/Smashwords self-pub process. I figure the book should be out around… early April?

After that, it’s Raven’s Blood time; that book need to be 10% punchier and 20% smoochier. Will see how that process begins before predicting outcomes, timelines and next projects.

Oh, and there’s this thing.

Passage through Bloglandia

‘Dead’ is too strong, but I do think the blogging medium has been pretty badly wounded by social media and podcasting. It can survive, but it’ll take effort.

This specific blog may not be quite dead, but it’s been on life support for years, edging closer and closer to the point where its children pull the plug despite euthanasia being illegal, and hang on I’m sorry this metaphor has gotten away from me.

Anyway, it’s long past time that I make a decision about whether this blog continues, and I actually put in some effort to writing more than four posts a year, or whether I shutter it, focus the PODcom site on project blurbs and sales links, and just spray my fragmented meandering bullshit on Facebook and Twitter from now on.

Ultimately, though, it’s not my decision, gentle reader – it’s yours, assuming that a) you exist and b) you have a strong opinion on the matter. If you meet both those criteria, please leave a comment and share your thoughts. If you neither care nor exist – and frankly, I suspect the audience of this site is 99% imaginary – then your silence will speak for you.

Wait, sorry, that sounded creepy

2020 – time for the Guru

It’s 2020, gang.

Let’s make it science fiction rather than hindsight.

blogging obituarist

This year

I’ve been listening to The Mountain Goats a lot this year.

I discovered them very late – only a couple of years ago, when I was told about their wrestling-themed album Beat the Champ. I checked it out because, you know, wrestling, and I found a lot to like, so I started dipping my toes in some of their other works.

Still, it’s only been in the last few weeks that I went further into their back catalogue, and only about a week ago when I listened to their 2005 album The Sunset Tree, and the song ‘This Year’. Like a lot of John Darnielle’s songs, it’s autobiographical to some extent, and based in surviving life with his abusive stepfather. (Given my own father issues, it’s no wonder his songs strike a chord with me.)

Anyway, the song has a short but powerful chorus:

I am going to make it
through this year
if it kills me

That got into my head. And wouldn’t come out.

On Thursday, four days ago, I found out that the Melbourne Writers Festival was running a literary tattoo parlour over the weekend.

And forty hours later, this happened.

—

The last couple of years have been rough for me. 2017 was pretty much lost to depression and self-doubt; 2018 has been lost to day-job workload, which has dropped slightly since July but not as much as I had hoped. That’s two years where I’ve struggled to find the motivation or energy to do any writing; two years where I’ve been contemplating whether it’s worth bothering to write any more at all.

The anti-depressants helped – I’ve stopped taking them now, but I haven’t fallen back into that hole and I don’t think I will again. The prospect of a less insane workload has helped, even though it hasn’t arrived yet.

And I think this will help. Having a pocket pep-talk that I can look to, day after day, in case I need it. Which I probably will.

—

But it’s not only that.

For a long time I’ve been hung up on ideas of preparedness and perfection. I’ve told myself that there’s no point in writing right at the moment, because I need to get the idea right, do more research, find the voice – hold back, don’t rush, wait a while. And that’s led to doing nothing much in 2018 except being indecisive, playing video games and going to bed early.

Then I went from zero to new tattoo in less than two days, and a tattoo of lyrics I’d heard only recently at that. Which reminded me that I don’t have to hold back until everything is perfect; sometimes right now is better than perfect. And it reminded me that I can actually be decisive – that I like being decisive, and getting shit done.

I like it more than stasis, that’s for fucking sure.

In the immortal words of actual cannibal Shia Labeouf:

—

I’d love to say ‘no more faffing about, back to writing immediately!’, but that’s not how it works. I still have a ludicrous workload to manage until at least the end of November, and there are too many days when I literally don’t have time to write.

But there are also days when I have some time. And I’m ready to use that time.

The Obituarist III has been half-done for god, too freakin’ long now. I probably need about 30-odd hours to finish the core draft, then another 10-15 hours of revision and polishing once my editor and readers are done with it. That’s not so long that I can’t get it done before the end of the year.

So that’s the new plan. And I’m going to keep quiet on here until that plan comes through – there’s not much value in sporadic low-content blogging before that point, after all. Not when I could use that time to get the job done.

—

I think this is it for new tattoos for a while, and for Mountain Goats tatts in particular. I don’t want to be one of those guys who’s just too into The Mountain Goats. You know the type.

But still.

I’m going to make it through this year.

If it kills me.

blogging

Calling an early halt to 2016

Post author By Patrick
Post date October 11, 2016
1 Comment on Calling an early halt to 2016

I don’t get depressed.

I was depressed for most of this year.

Both of these things are true.

—

I don’t get depressed. Except when I do, like everyone does; when I get sad or down or lost in a funk for a while. That’s not proper depression, that’s not the clinical kind that actually matters and is hard and needs treatment and understanding, the kind many of my friends and loved ones suffer from. I don’t dignify my brief, occasional moodiness by calling it ‘depression’; I just get into a funk for a bit and then forget about it the next day.

Or, alternatively, fall into a hole for eight months and never realise I’m in it.

—

My own emotions are a bit of a mystery to me. Again, not in any kind of clinical or on-the-spectrum way; I just don’t pay too much attention to them. I’m generally either vaguely perky or I’m not, and I’m too focused on external things to be all that attentive to (or even interested in) internal states.

So when I get depressed, I don’t usually realise it until afterwards. Which isn’t that big a deal when I’m mopey for a couple of hours. When it’s 200+ days… that’s more complicated.

—

I think we can all agree that 2016 has been a cunt of a year.

Without getting into boring details… yeah, mine too.

—

There are writers who work best when they’re depressed.

I am absolutely not one of them.

I’ve written pretty much sweet-FA this year.

Guess how that made me feel.

—

Also, it was dark, it was cold, my knee hurt, my back aches, it got really hard to access American Netflix, waaaahhhhhh

—

And then, a couple of days into September, I realised I was in a hole. It suddenly hit me: oh man, I’ve been depressed all year.

Which was basically the first sign that I’d stopped being depressed – or had, at least, begun the process of ceasing being depressed.

I only become self-aware when I’m chipper. I’m like the world’s shittest AI.

—

Maybe you feel like this too.

If you do, it’s okay to acknowledge it. It’s okay to ask for help. It’s okay to forgive yourself.

It’s okay to be better at this than I am.

Please, for your sake, be better at this than I am.

—

What’s the point of all this fragmentary introspection?

It’s to say that it’s been a tough year, and that I’ve not accomplished much. (I wrote about this a while back, when I was still pretty deep into The Funk.) It’s become a lot easier for me lately – new job that I enjoy, good times with friends, it’s not cold and dark and raining every fucking day – but I’m not entirely out of the hole yet. Most of the way up, yeah, but my legs are still dangling down into the void. Just a little.

So now that I’m aware there’s a problem, it’s time for me to focus on a little self-care for the rest of the year, to maybe try some of the things Delilah Dawson has talked about as ways to combat depression. And that probably means taking a break from writing – or trying to write, and failing, and getting sad and angry at myself for failing – for a month or two. To build up my strength and energy again, rather than feel sapped and achy whenever I sit down in the Writing Bungalow of a night.

Which also means taking a break from blogging for a month or two. Because none of us need more irregular waffle about stories, wrestling and maybe something I saw on TV.

—

What to do between now and January 2017? Get some exercise. Lose a little weight. Head over to the US for about three weeks with my wife to visit family and see the sights of Portland and San Francisco. Pick up a freaking book and read it, goddamnit (because oh yeah, my ability to concentrate on reading vanishes when I’m depressed). Live a little.

And when I resurface, I have three things on my to-do list:

Shop Raven’s Blood around agents until I finally find a home for it and the whole Ghost Raven series. (I’ve been doing that, but I’ll do it better.)
Plot, plan and take the first steps on a new project, the YA wrestling-urban-fantasy series I’ve been alluding to lately, something I’m currently thinking of as ‘The Squared Circle’ (name almost guaranteed to change).
Write something short, fun and punchy to get my juices (eww) flowing again.

I think we all know what that last one means. Let me paint you a picture:

The Obituarist III: Delete Your Account

—

And with that – yeah, taking a break. Remembering how all this works again.

I hope I see all y’all on the other side in a couple of months.

Don’t let them catch you riding dirty.

blogging

No-one puts Bloggy in the corner

Post author By Patrick
Post date April 10, 2016
2 Comments on No-one puts Bloggy in the corner

Okay, let’s talk turkey.

This blog’s been pretty crap for the last year. Maybe the last couple of years.

Not very coincidentally, the last couple of years have had their difficulties, and it’s been hard to manage all the demands on my time, energy and good spirits. When there are ten things that need attention during a week, and nine of them involve the day job, completing a book or the people I love, it’s just too easy for item #10 -‘write a blog post that doesn’t suck’ – to get dropped into the too-hard basket.

I put too many things in that damn basket. It’s less a basket and more a dumpster.

But I’m tired of throwing things aside. I’m tired of giving up on tasks that I’ve set myself because I decide that I suddenly have something better to do. I’m tired of writing throwaway posts full of hollow ‘wisdom’ that no-one reads or bothers to comment on.

I’m tired – so, so tired – of my weaksauce bullshit.

—

So here’s the deal.

One blog post, once a week, Sunday nights (Melbourne time).

One blog post, once a week, that’s about something that’s actually interesting, not just housekeeping. Something that I can actually talk about engagingly and meaningfully, rather than just being open questions and neophyte big-noting.

One blog post, once a week, that people might actually read.

…and it’ll probably have silly pictures, yes.

Ironically, this particular post? A bit light on content. I’ve got a project deadline, and I can’t devote too much time tonight to blogging. This is more like the introduction to a period of greater quality, rather than the quality itself. A blog preface, maybe.

But come back next Sunday, when that project’s wrapped up and I have a head full of OPINIONS. Opinions and uncredited images sourced from around the web.

I’ll try to make it worth it.

—

On a semi-related note, I went through my blog list on Feedly last week and cleared out a few blogs that had gone silent over the last couple of years. And now I am left with a much-diminished set of writing blogs that I follow – Chuck Wendig, Peter Ball, Foz Meadows, some fellow hopeful-up-and-comers. The rest have shuffled off to, I dunno, maybe Instagram. Or finishing books.

So if anyone’s reading this, let me know – what other writers have blogs that you follow? And what makes them worth your attention?

blogging ghost raven

Transmission resumed

…and we’re back.

—

NEWSFLASH: House-hunting and moving are THE WORST. Like, worse than leprosy.

Okay, maybe not, but they’re sure as hell time-consuming. The last two months have locked me into a space where all I did was a) look at houses on real estate apps, b) text real estate app listings to my wife, often while she was sitting next to me, c) look at houses and be disappointed, and finally d) put everything we owned into boxes into a feverish yet determined rush. That left me no time for writing books, writing blog posts, writing emails or even getting drunk.

And come on, I can get drunk ANYTIME.

—

But the great national nightmare is over, and we are living in a new house. It’s a bit more off-the-beaten-track than we used to be, with fewer bars and cafes within walking distance, and yeah, I miss being able to go to the cinema on 90 seconds’ notice, whether or not I ever used that dread power.

On the other hand we have a library room, the tram isn’t far away, and there’s a back yard that the dog is slowly realising is there for him to roll around in.

Also? I HAVE A WRITING SHED.

…okay, technically it’s a writing bungalow. And the writing part is currently playing second fiddle to the storing-boxes-full-of-stuff part. But damnit, I now have a detached office where I can go to write books, complain about the cold and scowl artistically, so suck it Wendig, you’re not so special.

Ahem.

I know it doesn’t look like much right now, but once we move some boxes, install a coffee plunger and hook up the smoke machine it’ll be so rad, bro.

—

As for what I’m doing in my shed?

Not a huge amount just yet, as there’s still a lot of unpacking and furniture assemblage that needs doing. But once we have some bookcases out and can cram them full of stuff, I’ll have enough physical and mental space to get back to work properly.

First job? Taking another revision pass through Raven’s Blood, because it’s not quite where it needs to be just yet, and I could do about 50% more with it if it was about 5% better. Once I finish doing that, it’s back to work on Raven’s Bones, and seeing if I can fit more fantasy superhero action into the story without all the seams bursting.

On top of that, blog posts! Honest. It’s time to get back on the regular posting wagon, and I swear to you, my adoring (or at least patient) public, that the long and terrible silence is finally over.

…but not right now, ‘cos I have to put together a futon.

Ciao for now.

SHED.

appearances blogging

And we’re back

*yawn*

*stretch*

*checks alarm clock*

OH HELL, I OVERSLEPT

…I mean, here I am, back just as promised!

So, did you miss me?

It’s been a hectic emotional rollercoaster, these last two months, full of doing stuff and learning things and not blogging. But my batteries have recharged, my notepad is full of ideas for blog posts (one of which just says ‘Doom Cock’, but I’m sure it’ll make sense eventually) and I have news and opinions to share once more. I’m glad that y’all hung around during the downtime.

So, let’s have a quick essay on what I did on my winter holidays.

I wrote stuff! Which is good, as that was the whole point of taking the break. I worked on Raven’s Blood, which is still behind where I would like it to be, but I’m very happy with the material I’m writing – so if I take more time but create a more polished draft, that’s probably a win. I’d still like to have it finished or close to finished by the time GenreCon comes around in October, though. I also did other writerly things, such as a freelance editing project and creating some wikis for various time-wasting nonsense activities.

I appeared at PAX Australia! I thought our panel on writing RPGs would get about 10 people, but it was more like 200 and another 50-odd standing outside. Crazy! I think it went well, and the feedback was very positive, so that was great. Overall I was pretty impressed with PAX – well, at least as far as the space and support they gave for tabletop gaming. Most of the videogame stuff left me cold, and I agree with Ben McKenzie that a lot more needs to be done to improve the stance PAX and the Penny Arcade founders take on problematic elements in gaming. PAX was also where I announced my return to the world of RPG writing, as I’ll be working on a product for a setting dear to my heart over the next few months or so. More details to come soon!

I also appeared at the helm of @WritersRotation – a curated Twitter account where a different writer tweets each week. That was fun, and hopefully some of the account’s followers will come by the blog and check out what I’m like on an ongoing basis. (Spoilers: drunk and full of excuses, mostly.)

I read some cool books! Specifically, I read Nick Harkaway’s Angelmaker, which is just a wonderful absurd romp, a riot of London crooks, aging spies, robot bees, pulp adventure and the uncertainty principle. I also read Margo Lanagan’s Sea Hearts, which is just about the exact opposite – an emotionally wrenching story about spurned and idolised women, long grudges and longer sadness, and one of the most moving and gruelling stories I’ve read in a long time. And YA at that – kids these days start the hard stuff young. And I started Chuck Wendig’s The Blue Blazes, read a bunch of comics, saw some adequate films (and one goddamn awful one), watched cartoons… you know, the usual stuff.

I quit my day job! Not to write full-time, no – one day, yes, but not today. Instead I’m moving on after seven years – seven years! – in educational publishing to a new and exciting role in… well, in educational publishing, but of a different type and for a different market. It’s a big move, and in many ways a difficult one; you don’t work in one place for so long without putting down roots. Still, I’m really pumped for the new job, which starts in two weeks. Here’s hoping that a) I enjoy it, b) they decide to keep me and c) it leaves me with the time and energy for writing.

I lived my life! I ran some games, I saw some shows, I drank some drinks. You know, quotidian stuff like that. And I learned that our cat’s health is fading. That wasn’t such good news, and it’s been hard for all of us here to accept that and make decisions about what to do about it. He’s still with us – he’s sitting on my lap right now – but he won’t be at some point. Which is also part of living life, I guess. So it goes.

Stories begin. Stories end. Stories go on.

And on that note, this story is done for the evening. It’s good to be back on the word wagon. Thanks for sticking with the ride.

blogging

Incremental as anything

This site is coming along slowly – more slowly than it probably should, I dare say, but I’m getting there.

The main addition at this point is the information on Hotel Flamingo on the Books page. If you don’t know about my mosaic e-novella, go there and find out about it. And come on, buy a copy, baby needs a new pair of shoes. Cheap shoes.

I’m hoping that by the end of the week I’ll be able to add the anthology Godheads and Other Stories to that page. All that remains is to finish the last story, which I’m working on, and to receive the cover from the designer, who I need to check in with tomorrow. If the final cover is still a way off, well, I might put together some sort of underwhelming placeholder for the time being, just so I can get the book up by Saturday morning. We shall see.

I’m currently debating whether to add info about my old RPG credits to that page. I don’t get any royalties from them, so listing them with links won’t make me any cash, but it might help demonstrate that I’m a real writer, honest. Or it might not. Still contemplating that.

I might also try to get a stand-alone story or two up on the Downloads page, which is currently empty. I’ve got some flash fiction that could be fun.

But all that has to wait for a little while. Tonight I’m donning my freelancer cap and writing about beer. Which is a subject close to my heart.

If you’ve got suggestions about things I could add, feel free to leave a comment. Preferably not one of those spam ones I’ve been deleting for the last couple of days. Such industrious little things they are.
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blogging

Day Zero

Post author By Patrick
Post date May 22, 2011
7 Comments on Day Zero

So. Here we are.

I’ve been keeping a LiveJournal for about 9 years, and I used to think that was enough. And there was a time when that was enough. But times change, and if I want to be taken seriously as a writer – and on reflection, yeah, I think I do – then that means my own site, my own domain name, my own platform.

It’s something I’ve been considering for a while, and given my laziness I would have probably continued contemplating it for another year, but I got the domain name and hosting/design services as a present for my birthday, and that was enough to finally get me off my arse.

(Huge thanks to Josh and Peter from Soupgiant for putting all this together for me. You guys rock.)

Now that I have it, what do I do with it? Well, I’m working that out. At first I thought I’d move all my online activity to this spot, but on reflection that seems too extreme. There’s nothing wrong with diversifying, and we tend to use different tools for different jobs. (Unless it’s an iPhone, which is apparently meant to do everything.) So I’m probably going to keep my LJ going for more personal/social stuff. Then there’s Twitter for fast communication, Facebook for… okay, I’m not really sure what I use Facebook for at the moment, and other outlets for other stuff.

But this here? This is for being the professional (or at least semi-professional) writer dude. It might take me a while to work out what to put here, where to put it, and how to tweak the layout, but bear with me. It’ll shake out soon enough. I hope.

If you have suggestions as to what to do here, where to put things, better colours to use for the page… whatever, I’m all ears.

(Incidentally, I figure most everyone reading this knows me or at least knows of me. If you have no idea who I am and just discovered this blog by accident or through curiousity, you can find out more about me in the Biography page.)
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