First, I’ll give a brief overview of what I’ve been up to writing-wise for the past two years.
Anyway, when I started this blog way back in 2011, I had just been back into writing for about six months since retiring. Since I was writing full time, I had plans to make the blog like a lot of other ones by writers—from the famous to the obscure--that I enjoyed reading. You know, lots of updates on my writing projects, but also amusing little anecdotes about the life of a writer, the Cons I’d attended, my coffee intake, what have you.
I more or less did this for the first year, but even being semi-retired, I found I have only so much writing in my tank per day, thus taking time to update the blog sort of took away from the writing time. For that reason, it sort of fell by the wayside. But, in some ways I sort of miss it, so perhaps 2019 will be the year we resuscitate the old writing blog—at least on a small scale. Not that it’s getting a ton if eyes on it, but I do like going back to the old posts from time to time as a trip down memory line.
So, what have I been up to, writing-wise, since the last post? Well, I’ve been mainly working on novels. I’ve gone through about four drafts of the European travel novel I wrote in 2016, polishing it up to a point where I hope I can get it out there. I’ve also worked a bit more on a couple of my older novel projects, the ones listed in the ‘In the Works’ section of this blog. They’re still in various states of disarray, but hopefully...someday.
You may have noticed I haven’t mentioned short fiction. Well, you’re right. When I got back into writing upon retirement back in 2010, I was writing mainly short fiction. This went on until about 2012, when I moved over to novels. The main reason for this is two-fold. One, I felt I had done about all I could do with short pieces—I found it easy to break into the amateur and semi-pro markets, but the pros really proved a tough nut to crack. I did make a pro sale, and I figure if I’ve kept at it long enough, I might crack some of the top-level markets, but to work years at this for a short or two just seemed a bit dreadful. I figured the time was better spent on crafting and marketing novels. The other part of that two-fold reason is that I find that for a really good short story the amount of would building required takes me almost as much time as it does for the beginnings of a novel. That’s a lot of work for the ephemeral nature of short fiction.
Anyway, for better or worse, I’ve thrown my lot in with novel writing. It has been slow going, but I think I’ll untimely have something more substantial on my hands.
I have managed a few flash pieces now and then, a form of writing that I do indeed love. Most have found a home over at Every Day Fiction, a market that has been quite kind to me. They published three of my flash pieces last year.
So, that’s about it on the writing front.
Otherwise it’s life as usual. Since my last post was a farewell to our cat of almost twenty years, I’ll close with a note that we have two new cats in our lives now, two twin sisters named Gidget and Selina Kyle.
A few obligatory cute cat pics of them will follow. And on that note, until next time,
Cheers!
Chris
Gidget and Selina the day we brought them home--Ten weeks old.
Two years later--They're all grown up but sill like to cuddle up together.
