Status: Friday, 3 September, 2021

LOCATION: Windsor, Brisbane, Australia.

THE QUICK-AND-DIRTY NEWS

• Just launched the print editions of Not Quite The End Of The World Just Yet.
• Preparing to launch pre-orders for a chapbook collection of microfiction from Sean Williams — stay tuned for details next week

CURRENT INBOX: 38 (Gah!)

WORKING ON

• Finishing Median Survival Time, a science fiction novella produced for my PhD thesis. Two chapters left to go on the current draft, and it’s an emotional project to finish. It was first derailed by my father’s death in March 2019, and there hasn’t been much “normal” time to get back on track since then.
• Final page proofs of the Exile print release, scheduled for the end of this month.
• Working the title development process for a series of fairy tale retellings Brian Jar Press will be releasing in 2022. Covers exist in rough form and rough layouts are progressing, which means I’m up to writing the cover synopsis for each.
• Catching up on the structural editorial of a horror novella we’ve picked up.
• Drafting contracts for a series of fantasy novellas I’m really excited about.

THINKING ABOUT

• Sites of online engagement and how to play by your own rules, rather than the expectations of a platform. I did some early thinking and experimenting with this back in March of 2019, logged in the post Who Gets To Monetize Your Spare Minutes Of Attention.
• The impending pivot when my small business grant ends and decisions need to be made about Brain Jar, the PhD, and the basic mechanics or paying rent. Debating whether it’s better to seek out additional freelance work and keep more control over my schedule, or seek out a part-time job that’s divorced from the writing and publishing field.
• The cover design options for the next round of Writer Chaps books. The series has grown more ambitious and less unified in its covers, and I’ll either need to double down on that or pare back to a clearer set of motifs.

READING

• Luanne G Smith’s The Vine Witch, which starts with a woman breaking the curse that turned her into a toad because the man who laid it didn’t account for the debilitating effects of poison upon magic.
• Cal Newport’s Digital Minimalism and Mike Monteiro’s Ruined By Design – both re-reads, but two books that have shaped the way I think about being intentional in online spaces. They’re useful touchstones when it feels like I’ve slipped away from that.

LISTENING TO

• The Kaiser Cheif’s Employment, especially the trilogy of I Predict A Riot, Every Day I Love You Less & Less, and Na-Na-Na-Na-Naaa, which is an incredible wake-up call first thing in the morning.

WATCHING

• AEW Dynamite and Rampage, following along on the pro-wrestling return of CM Punk after seven years away from the business. It’s hard to explain exactly how important this is to non-wrestling fans, but imagine your favourite writer “retired” seven years ago because the publishing industry burned them out at the height of their career. Then they made an unexpected return thanks to a plucky small press that gave them a platform and the freedom to do
• what they liked.

STATUS OF THE ADMIRAL

Trying to eat the bookmark ribbon on my bullet journal.