Notes from the Multiverse

I've been sort of obsessed with curating my online persona ever since my first novel was published. I've been cognizant, every time I think about posting something, that I could be saying something dumb enough to lose readers.

But the reality is, my audience is pretty small. And most of them will probably never read this particular blog. So why bother hiding myself?

I've got some issues. Let's talk about one of them...

I need to have control over my own life. I spent a large portion of my life under the thumb of some pretty awful people. And even when I was rescued from that, I never really felt "in control" of my own destiny. So even now, in my 50s, I spend an awful lot of energy trying to maintain autonomy in some way.

This sometimes is useful, but often it leads me to stupid decisions. When it's combined with Depression, it can lead to downright damaging actions and decisions. Case in point: I've managed to fuck my credit card up. I'm well below my max balance, but I'm well above where I should be. I had it almost paid off in 2021, and now I've added several thousand to the balance in the last three years, so it's back to a stupidly high balance that is costing me. And I never told my wife until last night--so that's a thing that's caused me damage, both internal and external, as I broke her trust that I would not do something so stupid again (I've done this before).

I don't think my wife would have a problem with me trying to maintain my control over my world, or my autonomy. She even said last night that if I'd spent the money outright, from our checking, over the same time period, she'd not be as bothered by it. But doing it on a credit card? That's a fuckup.

I need to find better ways.

1. Still waiting for edits/cover stuff for book 3

2. NewBook is still being worked on, but the work is slow, because everything is slow. See item #3

3. Depression sucks. It's been sucking all of my energy, and leaving me with very little left. And since my life consists of 3 different "jobs," each of them taking a lot of energy to manage, none of them are getting a lot of power to their individual systems.

4. Nevertheless, I persist. Apologies.

In terms of "author footprint," I have: 

1. A Professional Site, with Blog
2. Twitter
3. Instagram/Facebook
4. Author Newsletter
5. This place

And I'm not doing justice to any of them. 

I'm barely ever on Twitter, though I do pay attention to it. I just miss a lot, either because of the Day Job (teaching doesn't leave much time in the day for that), or because I'm busy with life. I don't really feel badly about that, it's just what is. 

My author site, I feel bad about. I've begun SO MANY blog posts and then stopped, because I just didn't know if I really wanted to say those things. And I'm really torn on how much of my true self to put Out There anyway. I'm not enough of a name to attract much attention, and the days of blogs are pretty much over, anyway, so is it really worth sweating over? 

I'm barely on Facebook or Instagram anymore; my Instagram is where I do more lurking than I do posting. I'm really too old to give a crap about Insta. 

My newsletter has all of 28 people subscribed to it, and short of doing things I feel are kind of underhanded (Subscribe for a chance to win! Win what? They've already got my books or they wouldn't be there! And I can't afford to do some kind of crazy prize), I can't figure out for the life of me how to grow it to a point where I'd feel it was worth posting except when there's news to share. 

And then there's this place, which is more for ME than anyone else, but of course I let friends see this. 

I kind of want to do a post on my new project. I've got a map to show off, and some facts about the world to share, that might--MIGHT--interest some people, but I don't know which of my outlets would be best for that, or which might get more engagement. And I kind of hate that I'm even thinking about this, because what I should be doing is working on the book itself. 

Other social media sites are becoming more and more disappointing. So I've decided to come back to Dreamwidth.

In truth, I'll probably use this a few times a week, for ongoing chronicles of the writing/teaching life, as well as general musings about life. But I'll also probably cross-post between this and my "author blog" on my website at least occasionally.

Anyone at all can follow; I tend to filter heavily when I'm going to say something I don't think is for general consumption, so don't worry, you won't come on here and find me talking about, oh, my sex life, or something, unless you opted in to that filter--and nobody has, at least not since I moved this journal here from Livejournal. I'm not even sure why I have that filter; it's probably a leftover from when I was much younger and more willing to spill all my soul into the void.

On that note: If you go exploring in the archives, you'll probably find all manner of stupid shite I said at some point. A lot of it is no longer relevant, much is no longer how I feel. And there is SO. Much. Drama. I've left it there as a chronicle of the past, but I may go through at some point and lock down a lot of it. Anyway, don't come at me for shit I said when I was 25; I was a dumbass and it's been two and a half decades. There is a lot of evidence of learning in this thing, and not all of it is pretty.

When I attended Viable Paradise 17, back in 2013, I got a massive shot of "YES, YOU COULD BE A PROFESSIONAL WRITER OF FICTION" juice. And that kept me going, when I got home, so that it took me about another year to finish the book, even accounting for all the rewrites required by what I'd learned at VP.

At that point, my self-confidence was flagging. Surely, this book sucked. Nothing any of the pros at VP had said about the book, or about my skill, was real. They were just being nice. So I sent the book out to Beta, and while I got some feedback that was critical of elements of the book, most of them were also quite complimentary, with a running comment being variations of "If I'd bought this in a bookstore, I'd consider it money well spent." That renewed my self-belief, and I spent a few months rewriting and editing quite happily, and polished it up. Then I sent it out to agents.

I've talked before about how the agent submission process is long and often debilitating. Nothing has changed. And so, my "Writer self-belief" is now at an all-time low. And I'm finding myself working on a new project, but unable to actually write. I've got an outline; I know the shape of the plot... and it's going precisely nowhere.

I am realizing that I am a writer who needs semi-regular bolstering of my belief in myself. Which is lame, but there it is. I need to do more writing-related activities, at least once a year or so, to keep my belief in this path going. Otherwise I crawl into a hole and stop writing, which drives me insane. I want to write. I maybe even need to write. But if I'm not doing it, I lose the thread.

I seriously need to figure out how to link my Wordpress, where I do most of my blogging these days, so it will cross-post to my LJ.

Anyway. The first draft of the book was completed a month or so back. You'll notice I shortened the word count. That's mostly because I'm trying not to psyche myself into thinking I MUST have 100K words; but also I know that SF first novels are often less than that.



Anyway, I've begun revisions, and then I'll be looking for Betas, probably from my lovely classmates from Viable Paradise 17, and perhaps an outlier or two. Then a final polish incorporating what notes from the beta readers I find useful, and then I'll start hammering my ego flat by submitting it to agents and possibly to Tor Books, if they're open to subs at that time and if I decide my ego can handle a Tor editor saying no without an agent as go-between.

Yep. I hit the halfway point of the STORY a few weeks back, but now I've hit the 1/2 wordcount mark. Mind you, the final project might be less; I tend to overwrite. And of course this is just first draft, and some of what I've written might have to go. But still.

I've become so disillusioned with Facebook it isn't pretty. And in any case, I never intended Facebook to take over my online life. So I'm doing what some of my friends do--FB is there for quick notes and silliness, and keeping in touch with family. This place is for my longer thoughts, but primarily it's for the stuff I don't want to put on my wordpress blog, which is, until such time as I decide I won't be publishing, destined to be my "author persona blog," and so I don't put some of my thoughts there. I'm looking into getting the Wordpress stuff posted here as well.

Anyway. I found out there is a thing called Diet Caffeine-free Dr Pepper. And I found some in my local supermarket (one of the few benefits of our west coast superstores is that one can find practically anything in their cavernous inventories). And it's pretty good. I won't be buying it all the time, because health, but when I need/want soda, it's a good choice.

I'm back writing again, after a hiatus of about a week. A scene was kicking my ass, but it's done now. I'll probably make it better in draft 2, but for now, it's finished. Onward!

My brother, who was born in California but has not lived here for many years, keeps calling California "Cali." This is not a thing Californians call our state, but it's apparently pretty common elsewhere. It grates on my nerves almost as much as when people call my native city "Frisco." Grrrr.

Got both a new, very nice bicycle for my birthday, and an Xbox One. Both are awesome. Played Titanfall for a while last night; it was way more fun than I expected.

Very excited about the new wave of Starfighter Combat sims that are coming in the next year. Of course, that means I'll need to build or buy a new PC. Not hurrying on that score though. Mostly for budget reasons, but also because I need to write more than I need to fly. For now.

Had an appt with my cardiologist today. That's probably part of the reason I'm feeling so out of sorts lately.

Anyway, it was OK, except that my dosage was increased (due to the afib episode in April), and if I have another one he's going to add a new med to the treatment plan.

The bad part was that I now cannot have caffeine. Decaf tea is OK; but otherwise I can't have iced tea, or coffee drinks (some of which I actually like), or chai (unless it's decaf).

And, of course, no more Dr Pepper. Which is painful, because Dr Pepper (and recently diet Dr Pepper) is my favorite soda ever. I love the stuff so damned much. Ah well. Health before taste. Good thing I like Root Beer, I guess, though I think I'll likely be drinking WAY less soda even after the diet is over.

He specifically said I can't have chocolate. I've never been much of a chocolate lover anyway, but at least now I have an excuse to shut up the folks who hear I don't want it and act like it's some kind of sin that I don't really like it.

I've been mostly-gone from LJ for a long while, and I'm mostly on my "professional" blog now (scare quotes because I'm still just an aspiring pro). But I'm giving some serious thought to coming back to LJ at least a bit, and letting my Facebook die. We'll see.

Progress on book:

So there's that. The feedback from Viable Paradise has helped a lot, and the writing advice from matociquala and skzbrust has enabled me to blast through some stuff that wasn't working for me.

Still reading as much as I can, still writing as much as I can. I want to get this damn story finished. Every time I start to tell myself that my story sucks, I remind myself that three writers and two editors who are all respected in the field praised the writing, and though they all had advice on how to improve it, they all insisted it was entertaining and good.

Mind you, it only helps a little. Then I remind myself that James D. Macdonald, a man with something like 30 books under his belt, still suffers critical self-doubt. And then I pull my pants up and get moving again.