Newsletter January 2009
Hello everyone,
Happy New Year! I hope you all had a great 2008 and are looking forward to a better 2009. I know I am. Each day with Abby brings new fun and bodily fluid spills. I'm still feeling overwhelmed, but she has learned to say "da da" and occasionally "daddy" when she wants me, so I guess I can cowboy up and deal with the tough times (e.g. diapers filled with post-digestion carrots). We continue to read lots of books to her, and her new favorite is Pajama Time!
On the writing side of things, I didn't accomplish much in December. I wrote some on Legacy Engineer (the Sci Fi novel), but between work travel, holidays, and Abby, I didn't have so much energy to spend writing. Now that 2009 is here, I plan to get back to the writing.
I realize that with Abby as my new favorite hobby, I have to let some of my others fall to the back burner, and I have to be ruthless and focus on one or two rather than spread myself thin, but don't worry, writing made the cut. I have several short stories that are ready to be shopped around, and two novels in the writing/editing stages. I have to decide if I want to edit Journey to the East (modern fantasy in China) or Legacy Engineer. One of the goals of JttE was to explore the experience of being a Chinese/Caucasian Hapa, so now that Abby is here, I'm leaning towards editing that. Also, editing is easier to do in short chunks of time when you are tired. When I compose new story under those conditions, it often turns out poorly. Short stories are another good option. We'll see what happened when we return next month.
I did manage to bring another creative endeavor to a new level last month: game making. I created a whole party game from idea to beta in about a day. I haven't had a chance to test it though, but my gamer friends seemed to like the idea. That one is pretty light and fluffy though. I also have a more complicated strategy game that I created and beta tested back in 2007. I hadn't thought about it in a while because it seemed to have some fundamental flaws, but last month, in a flash of insight, I reworked the cards and rules and came up with a streamlined version of the game. I have created a new beta version of that game as well, so it is ready to be tested. Now I need to get my friends to play it so we can find and fix the flaws. Now that the new version of that is complete, I can turn my creativity back to writing.
On the reading side of things, I read Perdido Street Station by China Mieville. I love/hate this book. Well, maybe it is more of a like/dislike. I wasn't so drawn in by the characters or plot, but the setting is amazing. The plot is basically an excuse for him to give you a tour around this crazy fantasy steam-era London-ish city. I love the place. The thing I hate is that a lot of what he describes so eloquently is exactly the way I pictured the city that is the setting of A Clockwork Murder (my free novel up on my website). I hate it because he did such a better job at describing it than I did. No, I'm not going to rewrite ACM, but I am going to reread and analyze Perdido Street Station so I can see how he did it, and I'm going to try to do that with my current two projects.
Until next month, stay warm and read a good book!
--Todd
PS. I just learned something writing related that I had to share. Voices is up for a Reader's Choice award at the Preditors and Editors web site. If you read it and liked it, please go vote here:
http://www.critters.org/predpoll/antho.shtml
Until next month, stay warm and read a good book!
Voting ends on Jan 14th.
Wish us luck!