Update for the end of August/first of September

Busy.

Another open-ended project landed in my lap last week, so I have three projects spanning September and October.

I'm reading again. Nothing heavy. Reading Eragon, and while I agree it's somewhat of a rip-off of several older fantasy series (Pern, for the most part), I have to admit it's a pretty damn good read for coming from a 15 year old kid. With that being said...the writing is fairly atrocious, and he makes mention of the fact that the book underwent heavy restructuring at the hands of his mother and then again with a professional editor, but the story itself is entertaining.

So entertaining that I caught myself the other day 30 minutes past my break, still engrossed in the story. It's true what they say...if there's a diamond in the rough, a good editor will be able to polish that sucker up until it shines.

With that being said...we are ordering some books this month. I'm going to be ordering Brandon Sanderson's trilogy, as well as the Book of the New Sun, by Gene Wolfe. Amazingly enough I've never read anything by the man, despite him being considered one of the greatest writers of the 20th century. I've been doing a lot of research in the past few weeks on refinement of my style as I continue to evolve, and I figure this man is well worth my time, given the credentials he has and the amount of respect he has earned among his peers, despite lacking best-seller status.

Short story revisions are on the order for September. I have one that's been sitting for 8 weeks. I have two other short stories I started last year that I want to finish up. I had a long talk with Evy and...you guessed it...I'm probably pushing back my personal deadline on the novel from Christmas to an undecided time. Why?

Firstly, my writing career is doing great. I've got more work than I can shake a stick at. I'm happy to be doing what it is that I always wanted to be doing. Even though it's not fiction, which is my primary desire, I have to admit that I'm making great money doing what I do, which is mostly content work with a little bit of journalism thrown in for fun. I've got several short stories in circulation. I have outlines for 4 novels for this series, and I'm 11 chapters into the first book, or around 75k words, including the prologue. I'm not in a rush. I'm not a starving artist desperate for a sale. I've sold a couple of short stories, I have more in circulation, and I'm sure they will sell eventually. In the meantime I'd rather focus on further refinement of my style so I can make this first book as good as it can possibly be.

It would be stupid of me to focus more on fiction and less on the paying work right now, especially given the fact that the entire world is a recession, yet I'm blessed with an over-abundance of work. And it's not like I don't enjoy what it is I'm doing...I've been blessed to have clients that are wonderful to work for. I'm getting to write about food, wine, travel, games, and other things which are hobbies for me, so it's really not work at all...it's simply getting paid to write about the things I enjoy in life in the first place.

So while there's no doubt that fiction--specifically fantasy and science-fiction--is my long-term goal, I see no reason to rush. I'm successful at what I do, there's no doubt about that, and I'm extremely grateful for the opportunities I've been awarded. I've had close to half a dozen talks with Evy about the subject and I've come to the conclusion that while I'm going to keep working on the novel in my spare time, it would be better for me to further refine my style with another year's worth of short stories or so while continuing to build my resume through content and journalism writing.

At the end of the day I'm still a writer, regardless of the genre I happen to working in.