It seems sheepish to pop in and just say, “Hey, long time, no see.” There has been a lot going on since my last post. Two months is a great deal of time for a weekly blog to go dark. I’ll explain everything below, but in an attempt at normalcy, let’s handle some of the basics.
Drawing from the Well
I was quiet, but not idle, at least not the entire time. I’ve almost finished the fourth of five arcs. I was reminded recently that I’ve been working on this book for two years already, editing it for half that time. I want to accelerate. There’s still a lot of work to be done, but the initial review is almost complete. Here’s where we stand:
Page 221/292
109,567/147,838 Words
Filling the Well
I’ve read a fair amount these last two months, but I’m still a book behind pace. Again, things are not normal right now. Here’s what I’ve read:
- Too Like the Lightning by Ada Palmer
- Dragonflight by Anne McCaffrey
- The White Dragon by Anne McCaffrey
- Dragonquest by Anne McCaffrey
- The Dragonriders of Pern by Anne McCaffrey
- The Anatomy of Story by John Truby
- The City Stained Raid by Sam Sykes
- You’re My I.T. by Charlie N. Holmberg
- Two-Damage My Heart by Charlie N. Holmberg
These were all various levels of enjoyable and for different reasons. I won’t bore you with brief reviews of all of them. That said, I’m chewing through Realm Breaker by Victoria Aveyard right now which is great so far. I’m also still working on Stone of Tears by Terry Goodkind. I’m reading that one in eBook format so it’s taking much longer than audiobooks, obviously. It’s great and has me asking so many questions about what’s coming next. Full List
78/105 for #ProjectBookworm2023
Well Chat
The day I posted my last blog post, I found out I was being eliminated from my job. It was a hard truth to face. Frankly, I didn’t at first. Who would? It took me a couple of days to even come to terms with it. It still doesn’t feel real all these weeks later. This wasn’t because of anything I did, but rather I was caught up in a huge wave of layoffs of thousands of people. After off-loading all the information I thought would be helpful to my replacement and my team leads, I started on the next chapter.
Since then, I’ve been all over the place. I took time to update my resume for the first time in eight years (that’s too long, in case you’re curious). Then I started sending it out everywhere I could. I tapped business contacts to try to find something. I worked with my wife’s business, my catering connections, and some random odd jobs to keep myself busy and keep some extra cash coming in. It has worked pretty well to fill the time between rounds of applications. I’ve had some interviews and hope to know what the next chapter is very soon.
How did this affect me mentally and creatively? You can probably guess that things bottomed out pretty hard. I fought the feelings of failure often. I hold them off well now…most of the time. Again, once I know the next step, that should go by the wayside. I couldn’t write a word for weeks. I couldn’t even face creativity. I went into crisis mode. Once I established a temporary new normal of a lot of work, I was able to create again. That’s why I’ve made any progress at all.
The creative spark is back, if a bit dimmer than before. It’s growing. Ideas have come and I feel like the refinements on Book III are better than ever. Maybe this has been a cleansing fire in more ways than one. Sometimes, it’s the only way to clear the way and get particularly stubborn seeds to open.
I don’t have any advice here. If you’re going through something like this or have before, your story is probably very different than mine. We all have to find our path through the dark forest. I finally feel strong enough to return to the blog and social media. I hope to use that to give myself some more structure to return to normal as…things develop. I’ll let you know when I land somewhere, in case you’re curious. In the meantime, I’ll keep working on the book and hopefully have bigger updates more often. Thanks for sticking around. Be well.
May the tide carry you to safer shores.
BSG