That makes sense in my head, anyway. This blog is best described as being updated “semi-occasionally,” as I seem to only come back to it once in a while. Usually this means I’ve got something I’ve been thinking about that doesn’t fit in a tweet, or hidden under layers of metaphor in a piece of fiction.
So it’s sort of amusing to me right now that I’ve lately been neglecting the blog because I’ve been writing a lot of other stuff. 2019’s been a pretty good year for me productivity-wise as far as writing goes. Through most of spring and early summer I was working on a new novel. I’m at about 60k words into it right now but paused it in August to work on a few short stories.
A few opportunities for shorts came up that I just had to jump on, and I’m glad I did. Three stories, two of which I was invited to submit, and the last was a blind submission. One of the stories sold already, and I’m really excited about seeing it in a book full of stories by some of my favorite authors. Another story was given a tentative thumbs up by the editor, and it’s looking like it’ll probably be accepted. The third story for the blind submission I don’t expect to hear anything back on until at least December. It was for a themed anthology, and even if it doesn’t make it in, I think it’s a good story. I’m happy with it either way.
And while all that was happening, I had the opportunity to read excerpts from one of my stories at a few different venues. In early October, I got together with some friends from the local chapter of the Horror Writers’ Association, and read at SF Lit Crawl. That was a blast. Honestly, reading in front of people terrifies me, but the audience and my co-authors were super supportive, and it was a great time.
Now, going back to that novel I was working on. Honestly, I feel like I was a little bit stuck at the moment I stopped. All the threads of the mysterious plot were starting to converge, but I wasn’t 100% sure of how to take them into the next stage of the story. But when I started working on those shorts, what I found was that my thoughts returned to the novel time and again. The knots started to unravel, and things became clear.
I’ve found the same thing happens when I go for a run or hike. When I’m stuck on something, mulling over options and getting frustrated, often it helps a lot just to change gears, work on something completely different.
That being said, I am now looking forward to getting back to the novel. I’ve a clear idea of where it’s going, and how to get there. Just a matter of getting the ball rolling again.