Morning, Patreon fam. Happy Caturday. Today’s image is one of those rare pictures where both cats are in the same general vicinity, pretending they like each other. Long time readers who remember how quickly things fell apart when we adopted the tiny ball of terror (aka the one in the front) will know how rare these shots are. As predicted, my “I can totally do this” writing schedule fell apart the moment the world resumed its normal operations this week. I had a four-meeting day on Friday, and a lot of mentoring work throughout, although I’ve still been chugging along on new projects. There’s a new story drafted, two new stories half-drafted, and one-third of a new Shackelton Job entry produced. Not bad for a week with intermittent writing time and a lot of distractions.
In the meantime, I’ve also processed a hundred and twenty-seven Brain Jar Press submissions which flooded in over new years courtesy of a “how to get published” blog putting a spotlight on our guidelines. We normally get about two subs a week, so it was a bit of a hell storm that’s dominated my free time this week. I then wrote a Threads series about Submission Guidelines based upon the experience, which promptly went insane and got a terrifying number of comments in twenty-four hours. So it’s been a chaotic and unpredictable week where things I didn’t expect to require a lot of attention suddenly demanded a lot.
THE ART OF MISE-EN-PLACE
I’ve been re-reading Darn Charnas Work Clean (now reprinted under the title Everything In Its Place), while also reading Michael Ruhlman’s The Making Of A Chef. Both have me thinking about systems and workflow and where processes fall apart, while also giving me a framework for thinking about how I’ll get all the stuff I’m behind on out the door.
While this week’s been hectic, all this system-thinking and focus on processes has ensured it hasn’t been particularly stressful. Huge chunks of necessary work got done, and projects I didn’t expect to advance (*cough* Eclectic Projects 5*cough*) actually made it out the door. Usually I feel like advancing on one project means leaving another to lag, and while I definitely didn’t meet my writing goals this week, I don’t feel like I’m lagging yet because I kept making progress on them. I’ve been going back to old habits that really help, like cleaning and straightening my desk every morning and focusing on keeping my inbox clear rather than letting email build up (I cleared 300+ emails on Tuesday, which isn’t much for some, but felt like a millstone dragging me under given my usual preference for keeping inputs clear). I’ve been working to Greet the Day and Slow My Processes Down to Get Things Done Faster.
All of which has helped have one of the best work-weeks I’ve had in a long, long while. The start of the year is a great time to check out Charnas’ book. I’m pretty sure my re-reads are into the double digits, but it always seems to help.
WARHOL SLEEPING
The second act of the Warhol Sleeping serial kicks off this coming Friday, but keep an eye out for a special interstitial entry tomorrow morning. Warhol Sleeping is a bit of a fix-up novel aand the middle part of this week’s entry, where the RPD are in the intercom, is actually one of the first stories to earn me money as a writer. Alas, it sold to a small Canadian magazine who paid a cent a word, then cut the cheque in American dollars. This created a logistical paper trail for my bank, which meant depositing the cheque would have cost me three times what it was worth in fees, so I ultimately didn’t get paid for the gig. Writing careers were very different before PayPal became a thing.
THE SHACKELTON JOB
The Shackleton Job returned this week with a new format. Originally this serial was going to be a haphazard thing, little vignettes of pulp fiction maximalism that took shape around a series of writing prompts. This made perfect sene for the way my writing was going back during the days of 2022, when I wrote things around long shifts at the Writers Festival office, but I felt myself craving more direction and focus.
It didn’t help that I’d started reading copies of old pulp magazines at the Internet Archive, actually looking at how the pulps managed their serial content. Far from being long-running, un-ending things they’d typically get them over and done with in four issues, delivering readers a 15,000 word chunk every issue. In my weaker moments I daydream about actually doing that with Eclectic Projects, bumping the word counts up 65,000 per month and mimicking the pulp format with one novella, one-or-two serial works, and a bunch of stories every month.
Definitely beyond my reach with my available time at the moment, but it got me thinking about doing more with the serial format, and ultimately led us to the current approach. Talulah’s adventures are working towards a definite end-point now, roughly designed to coincide with the end of this year’s run of magazines. Should producing Eclectic Projects prove unsustainable long-term, it’ll mean there’s a point I can cut things off without leaving a story unfinished. Should it prove something that will keep going, I can start a new Talulah Wyndham-Pryce serial to occupy that spot in the magazine. Currently writing the coming week’s entry and working to get a little ahead of the posting schedule.
ECLECTIC PROJECTS 006
With issue 5 live and available for sale, attention turns to the upcoming February issue of the magazine. The fiction side of this one is largely done at this stage, but I’ve still got a non-fiction spot to fill. Still a little behind my timelines, but not egregiously so. If I can get the next Shackleton and the non-fiction piece drafted this week, I’ll be in good shape .
BRAIN JAR PRESS
Over on the publishing side of my career, we’re gearing up for the first announcements of 2024. The reprint of Joanne Anderton’s The Bone Chime Song and Other Stories is available for pre-order now, and I’m doing the final design and title development work on a vampire project from Jason Nahrung. There’s a strong 90s vibe to Jason’s project, which makes it an interesting challenge to design a cover for it.