Crossover Point
This whole summer has flown by for me. I know a lot of it has been dealing with sick cats and a sick partner and a sick, well, me. But still... how the hell is it September? I wanted to have so many things done by now.
Speaking of which, a weird thing to start off. Probably more thought-provoking for me than you. As of last week (as I’m writing this), I’ve been a full-time fiction writer longer than I worked in the film industry.
Which is freakin’ bizarre.
I realized this crossover point (for lack of a better term) was coming up back in April after a random Bluesky exchange with Chuck Wendig. It didn’t make a lot of sense then, either. I mean, I can read a calendar, I can do the math (pretty sure I can, anyway), it is what it is. These are the dates. This number is now bigger than that number. Facts.
At the same time, the film industry was most of my twenties and thirties. It was so much of my life for so long. It just feels impossible to think I could’ve been telling stories (and making money at it) longer than I was working on other people’s stories (and so often getting frustrated when they were being told poorly).
I think it’s a two pronged thing. One, I think, is getting older. Not the first person to point out when you’re young the years streeeeeeeeeeeetch out, but as you get older it feels like they go by faster and faster. Someone once shared the idea that its because as we get older, a year is a smaller and smaller percentage of our lives. My thirties don’t seem that long ago, ergo, I can’t have been writing professionally for that long.
The other thing I think is, personally, I tend to go into a bit of denial when things go well. I have impostor syndrome in so many different parts of my life. Get lucky, get happy, get successful? Probably not going to last. Probably not even real. So it’s easy for me to push away the fact that I’m actually making a living—a fairly good living—doing the thing I’ve wanted to do pretty much since I was six years old. Because that can’t possibly be true. Especially not many-years true.
Anyway, happy belated crossover day to me—the guy who’s now been a full time writer longer than any other job he’s had in his life.
(take that. Miss Goodell, sixth grade English—my stupid stories DID amount to something)
Speaking of work...
Okay, my editor’s currently going over God’s Junk Drawer and hoping to have notes and suggestions to me in early October. There’s also been some talk about possibly trimming/ tightening it a tiny bit just for production reasons. This is something I’ve had to deal with before, and it’s just one of those reality of business things. Books cost money to make (in the sense of printing, raw materials, etc) and bigger books cost more to make than smaller books. And sometimes the cost of that book can jump up because of just one page. I write about it once on the ranty writing blog, if you care about such things.
Less than fifty pages left in this draft of TOS, which should time out perfectly with the God’s Junk Drawer edits. Last time I mentioned unsnarling a few knots, and that’s meant a bit of reorganizing and rewriting. The book’s also fifteen pages longer now, so in a way that last page is getting farther away.
Got to do some edits on a little dream project I think I mentioned back in... June? More on that soon.
An anthology I’ve got a story in, Combat Monsters: Untold Tales of WWII, is up for preorder in all the usual places. It comes out February 11th. My story’s another Carter & Kraft tale called “The Night Crew.” If you’ve read any of their other stories, this one fits in right between “Banner of the Bent Cross” and “Projekt: Maria.”
What else have I got for you...?
Cool Stuff I’ve Been Watching
We got a one-month Hulu trial just so we could watch some more of Only Murders in the Building. We’re almost done with season three. John Oliver’s had some nice pieces lately. I feel like I’m mostly waiting for all the fall/winter shows to start (and holiday movies).
Cool Stuff I’ve Been Reading
What If... Loki Was Worthy is a very fun book by Madeline Roux and a very nice examination of Asgard’s favorite (?) adopted son. Several heartstrings tugged, with lots of cameos and easter eggs. I got to read advanced copy of Coyote Run by Lilith Saintcrow and it’s freakin fantastic (out early next year, I believe).
Cool New Toys
Not a heck of a lot. Honestly, I’ve mostly just been opening things because a lot of stuff has sort of been piling up in the office and the summer has left me feeling very drained (remember when we were kids and summer was fun...?). A friend of mine did 3D print me a 6” scale Ravage (the Decepticon jaguar) which is pretty cool.
Okay I think that’s it for now. Thank you, as always, for reading. Next time we should have much more to talk about.
