Friday, November 30, 2012

This Is What I'm Doing: The Looking Down The Barrel of December 2012 Edition

There are always slings and arrows. Sometimes they bounce off our armour, sometimes we get by with the nicks, bruises and superficial contusions of outrageous fortune, and sometimes they hit us in sensitive spots. All of which is to say: It’s been an interesting month.

It started on a high: Through the generosity of some dear friends to whom I’m very grateful (and my wonderful partner Sarah, who handled our kids solo while I was out of the picture all weekend), I was able to attend the 2012 World Fantasy Convention. I met amazing people, learned a lot, had funny, fascinating and/or profound conversations, enjoyed some damn good beer, and got firehosed with books. Oh, and I kind of broke a panel on diversity in YA fantasy. It was a good time.

I embarked on NaNoWriMo with high hopes considerable ambitions, and while I didn’t “win” (I didn’t write 50,000 words in thirty days, not even close), I did have my least-unsuccessful NaNoWriMo ever, which is something to be proud of. Going forward, though, I think I might need to accept that November is a really bad month for me, personally, to try to do Big Pushes on Big Projects.

I got another rejection. The short story I consider the best one I’ve ever written is now also the most-rejected, although to be fair that’s mostly because it’s the one I keep submitting to publications.

I continued to let my novel rest while my Beta Readers did their beta reading. I’ve heard back that two of them have finished it, and one sent me comments by email. I’m going to meet with the other, sometime next week I hope, to benefit from her insight. There are four more readers who I expect to hear from over the next couple of weeks. Then I’ll let the comments simmer while I finish some other projects, before returning to the novel some time in early 2013.

The big trouble, this month, the reason that I had to put some things on hold, was a family health problem. Everyone is fine now, and all I suffered myself was worry, sympathy and a bit of schedule disruption. I would of course rather not have had this problem at all, but I trust everyone reading this will agree that when it did happen, the only possible thing I could do was put some of my personal business on hold so I could pitch in and do my part to help. That’s why I lost some of the forward momentum on NaNoWriMo, and also on going to the gym. That’s nothing, on balance. It could have been so much worse, for so much longer. I’m glad things (and people!) are better, and I should be able to pick up and make quite a bit of progress before the further, more fun and happy disruptions of the holiday season are upon us.

That anticipated progress, over December will be all about finishing this year’s business. That’s the Next Novel and the script for the comic, as well as some advance planning for a big project coming up in early 2013, that I will not discuss now because it’s still in such a preliminary stage. When it is ready to share, you need not fear that I’ll be shy about announcing it. And announcing it, and announcing it, and then announcing it just to be on the safe side.

And after that, it’ll be time for my annual New Year’s Revolutions, and the challenges and adventures that 2013 will bring.

I’m looking forward to sharing them with you.