New Publication: Moving Pictures

Hi, everyone.  Just wanted to give you all a heads up that the latest installment of my Andrew Ursler series - Moving Pictures - is up at Arts Collide.  I hope you all enjoy it.

Promises and Ish

So when the new issue of Carpe Nocturne came out, I dived right in to see my reviews, to let my eyes graze upon the finished product of all my hard work.  The good news was that my review for World War Z did in fact get printed.  The bad news is that my reviews for Double Dead and Stake Land did not.

I'm not bitching and moaning and beating my chest crying, "It's not fair!"  True, I did put in a lot of hard work into those pieces and was looking forward to checking them out, but on the flip side, at least something got published, so I really got no right to complain.  I'm sure there were a number of reasons why they didn't see the finish line.  Maybe the editor forgot to include them.  I know he's had a lot on his plate lately.  Maybe the magazine didn't have enough space for everyone's articles and decisions had to be made about where to trim the fat.

No, I'm not upset with the magazine.  I am upset at me jumping the gun.  When I heard that the Double Dead and Stake Land reviews were slated for publication, I was so excited that I went ahead and told my friends and family.  First printed articles!  Woot woot!  And then I couldn't help but feel a little down when I had nothing to back up all my bragging.

My friend Ashley told me that it's not as unusual as I think.  She's had plenty of pieces endure such fates.  That's just something that happens.

Lesson learned: don't go tooting your horn about an article until you see it in print.

A Kick in the Ass

In the last month, on three separate occasions, people have told me that I'm too hard on myself.  It's starting to turn into one of those "if I had a nickel for every time someone said that to me" kind of deals.

I managed to get a tiny bit of writing done today.  It wasn't even on the day's agenda, but rather work I had to catch up on from yesterday.  I still got today's work to get through, and chances are I'm not going to be able to get to it; not tonight, not with other work that I've got piling on my plate.

And I can't help but hate myself for it.  On the one hand, I'm taking in as much work as I can trying to keep busy.  On the other hand, I'm getting bombarded to the point where others are telling me that they don't want to bombard me.  But not wanting anyone to be disappointed, I take on the work anyways.  Because I'm a dumb-shit.

I love it each morning when I got for a walk or a job.  It helps me think, and today I focused on the question: "How do I manage everything on my plate for efficiently?"

I got three things on my plate right now: the novel (1 hour of work), a short story (half an hour), and the new installment of the Andrew Ursler series (another half-hour).  Two hours altogether that could be messed up because I absentmindedly decide to sleep in or I've got internship work that simply can't be put off.  I could catch up in the evening, but I could also get more internship work, cave in, and spend what free time I had set aside on that rather than writing.

I like to take at least one day a week to veg out and try to get my brain to reset.  Saturdays work pretty well for me.  As much as it pains me to say this, I think the best thing to do is keep track of my writing hours and use that day off as a catch-up day.  In a given week, I have twelve hours of writing to do.  This week, I did four and a half hours so far, so if I get no writing done tomorrow, I'll have several hours to get caught up on Saturday.

That's several hours that could be spent reading, hanging out with friends, or, hell, just eating a shitload of pancakes.  So this isn't a method of punishment.  If I wanted to punish myself, I'd force myself to twice twice as many hours as the ones I missed.  Instead, it's another incentive to get my work done on time so I don't have as much to make up over the weekend.