Well. It’s been a while.
Look, I have some excuses. I went into more depth over at Patreon because that’s more private, but the big thing is I got married! (Check out my wife’s writing here and I will try to get her to update her website a bit…) And I’ve been working a lot, and I just started a grad class. My reading and writing slowed A LOT, unfortunately.
It’s spring break right now, which means I’m in Indiana visiting my family. We went to the Columbus Zoo on the way out here, which is MASSIVE and we got to see koalas and manatees! We also spent a day with my mom at the Indianapolis Zoo, which always has a special place in my heart.
Her name is Katie.
Anyway, it’s hard for me to find something to focus on with writing. Do I want to keep submitting a poem I believe in? Do I want to write more poems to pair with it? Should I go back to my novel? Should I write an essay for this newsletter or Patreon? Is the goal to get an agent or do I want to submit to small presses? Make some more zines? And then there are those books I was going to review…
I think the problem is I tend to focus too much on the product, rather than the process. I want to have written, rather than write.
And there are things I can’t really write about, either, because of where my head is. My adult WIP features a character overcoming something I’m still overcoming myself, for instance.
Well, I wrote that and then I readied two poems for submission and wrote a draft of another. Sometimes you just have to do things.
Here’s to writing more, I guess. I know I say this every time. But I think taking a class on top of work has opened up to me how much time I have and how to balance it, so I hope when the class ends, I can do that with writing.
I’m also slowly transitioning to my marriage-inspired pen name. That probably can’t happen completely until the summer. Stay tuned.
Do you have some tedious work that needs to be done?
So, I really enjoy some tedious work like copyediting (as an English teacher, I know so many grammar rules, and I used to help copyedit when I worked in newspapers) and transcription. And with the summer approaching, opening up my time, I thought I would try seeing if I could find some gig work in this area.
Some things I’ve already been contacted about are transcribing audio and formatting the style of something already written.
My rates are flexible. If you are interested, you can reply to this email!
Some things keeping me going
Bears in Trees, a favorite little band of mine, are re-recording an EP of theirs I rather like (listen to “Starting Fires,” one of their best songs!). Their first release from it is “Life’s a Beach” and it rules as a re-record.
Old Doctor Who episodes were recovered and just released! You can watch them on YouTube here and here. Hopefully they upload the rest of the orphan episodes soon, but I have my sources so I will be going through this 12-part serial, reconstructions and all, since it’s one of the ones I never “saw.” I might put thoughts on Patreon?
I’ve seen the new Pixar movie Hoppers twice, and it’s a delight!
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