I am sitting at my desk and trying to corral all the projects on my immediate to-do list, which I’ve allowed to get slightly out of control. That was to be expected this week, so I’ve largely run with the wolves, but I’m not sure it would be a good idea to carry this level of chaos past the weekend.
The most urgent is doing the final checks on Eight Minutes of Usable Daylight, which will roll out fro the short fiction lab early next week and therefore has a narrow window in which to make last-minute changes.
Almost as urgent is getting a new chapter redrafted in Warhol Sleeping, which is proving to be a slower process than I’d originally anticipated.
My original goal with Warhol Sleeping was putting out a 25,000 word novella on November 30; now I’ve got seven chapters left on the revision list, after which I expect the final book to be closer to a short novel of 40,000 words released in early 2019.
After that, there is a small knot of work that surrounds my conference paper for next year–transforming the research into a coherent talk, making sure I’ve got everything booked and all the forms filled out properly for the university funding.
That knot needs to be untangled rather urgently, because it’s full of the things I do not like doing. Too many processes I don’t yet understand, too many stakes that are left ambiguous.
Everything after the knot is a series of low-key projects waiting their turn: the next two stories for the Short Fiction Lab, a boxing novella in space, an urban fantasy novella, plus some updates of older work and getting print editions together for all of the books Brian Jar put out over the last twelve months.
Also, cleaning off my desk, which is starting to feel like it’s waiting for the opportunity collapse and wipe us both out:
CURRENT LISTENING: Beastie Boys, Watcha Want?
CURRENT READING: Magic Hours: Essays on Creators and Creating, Tom Bissell
TO DO LIST: In need of updating
EMAIL: 61 emails in need of attention
