I can’t believe it’s been a year since Harbingers came out! Amid outlining and drafting and second-guessing and redrafting Book 3 of Sword and Starship, it’s nice to remember that I am actually capable of turning out a decent finished product—and I will, when it’s ready! Not a moment sooner.

My creative process is like carving a statue from marble: I have to chisel through tons of rough language and bad ideas before I get anywhere close to the good stuff. Maybe I’ll get faster at book production as time goes on, maybe I won’t. All I know is, I’m not gonna rush and throw crap out there just for the sake of being “prolific.” Whatever I eventually publish will be my best effort.

Writing Updates:

I drafted a couple more chapters this month, then realized I went the wrong way with them, so I have some rewriting ahead of me. This is totally normal, and in the end I’ll have something better than before. I’ll also be closer to what I consider the “midpoint” of the book. Whether it stays that way or morphs into something else entirely, we’ll see!

Current Goals:

Challenging myself to a day without gadgets. This partially comes from my ongoing study of Stoicism, which encourages you to do without to show yourself how little you actually need; and partially from reading Amusing Ourselves To Death by Neil Postman, which I absolutely recommend to everyone. I’d love to see what happens when I’m forced to go 24 hours without my phone (meh), TV (whatever I don’t watch it), and laptop (AHHH MY WEAKNESS). It seems like a weekend would be best so my work schedule isn’t affected, but then my husband would be forced to experiment along with me (or I’d have to avoid him all day, pretty much). So I could wait for when my husband is traveling—but how could I possibly go a full day without IMing or calling him while he’s out of town? I hope to figure this out soon.

Learning Latin. I’m almost halfway through my introductory book, and I’ve got a couple of “reward” books waiting for me when I finish. I’ve also been using Anki to make flaschcards and review vocab daily. A few more daily habits: conjugating one verb, declining one phrase, and composing one sentence.

Refreshing German. Still reviewing the “Top-Thema” over at Deutsche Welle. Sometimes I feel like I’m cheating because a lot of the vocab is based on words borrowed from English (ex. normal, produzieren), but hey, luck of the draw! I can’t help it if my mother tongue is Germanic.

Preparing for Rome 2018. April’s seriously close now! I’ll be buying some Euros soon, and writing up notes for my cat-sitters. My biggest challenge will be trying to avoid anxiety around (a) leaving Kitty to fend for himself and (b) travel. It’s not flying that gets me, it’s all the stuff surrounding it. Thousands of people have to do their jobs correctly, the weather has to cooperate … oh, and security! The one panic attack of my life happened in the security line at Denver International Airport, when they decided we tested positive for explosives (!!). Apparently this is a possibility if you spend any time in the mountains?! I don’t know, it just sucked.

Later Goals:
Ramp up selling/promotion (after Book 3 is done, possibly later)
Updating my blog’s appearance (eventually, no rush)

That’s all for now! See you next month!