Author: foozzzball

From last month’s mentions – managed to nail down the ‘narrative’ outline, now, finally, able to tackle the novella/short story I wanted to writing dealing with the opening of Quicker than Blood.This ‘writing season’, running through to September, is intended to be a mix of flexible and planned. I have some goals lined up –… Continue reading It May Be Time To Speed Up?

So, where am I, two weeks-ish on from last time?Quite a lot more progress on re-plotting Quicker than Blood – some of the major plot issues I had, previously, seem to have been solved, and more scenes and elements are feeling integral to the plot rather than like general asides.Currently I’m pushing that through the… Continue reading April’s March onwards.

It’s hard to know where to start this missive, since a lot’s been afoot.I think we’ll start with the amusing/tragic aspect. You may remember I set out on this quest to pursue novellas/short stories as a way of unsticking my difficulties with Quicker than Blood? So after starting the second novella/short story (I am not… Continue reading Marching into a chunk of April.

A funicular, if you are not familiar with the word, is an inclined railway that runs up a slope. There are some technical minutia around cables and counterbalancing, but the point is that, like Sisyphus, a funicular is constantly struggling to push its burden uphill.Writing ‘VVV’ has been a lot like that. At the moment… Continue reading Funicular February

As you can tell (by this being late, again – though less late than last month!), things are still a little tricky over here.I have been working on my burnout, but burnout is innately something you need to ... not work at? I have a book on learning how to relax (Rest: why you get… Continue reading Catching up to January

Having had a few holiday slowdown type events, this has been delayed. So, let me belatedly wish you all a very happy end of/start of year. For a lot of people, it’s shaping up to be another tough one.On my end it’s been a series of struggles, with some slippage tied to that burnout, some… Continue reading December Delectations

No news. Still getting my shit together. Still having revelations that will result in better books – including discovering a resource tracking organized crime with a ton of interesting reports on the subject. ( I started here: https://globalinitiative.net/analysis/russia-drug-trade-organized-crime/ )I am more convinced that I am suffering from, and recovering from Burnout, and am working my way… Continue reading November Nibbles

Lanterns are both a light at the end of the tunnel, and, y’know. A thing that burns.And I think I’ve pushed myself into burnout, albeit, not quite so severely as I might have if I wasn’t paying attention to myself.I think I’ve caught it early, and I already show signs of recovery – lots of… Continue reading October Lanterns

As my quirky three-seasons-a-year writing season kicks off, Quicker than Blood is back in motion.I am managing to stick to drafting more days than not, though it is an uphill struggle at the moment. I will admit, though, it looks like I’m doing great if we count the material I’m recycling back in from previous… Continue reading Driving in September

So this is going to be a relatively short Patreon update.Last month, to continue last month’s metaphor about ‘driving the car’ being like writing, and ‘wrenching under the hood’ being getting things ready for writing, was all wrenches, no drive.But that does mean this month could, should, might, be driving again after a very long… Continue reading An August Vehicle (Maybe)

I would like to quote, in full, a message left by the musician and artist T-Pain in response to a query on reddit, linked to here, https://www.reddit.com/r/musicians/comments/1dcvyu4/comment/l86v3xd/ ‘I’ve seen multiple people mention the life as an artist as miserable/draining, whereas it is the dream for many people. What is it really like?’ T-Pain responds: ‘It’s like getting your… Continue reading Juliability and writing Euphoria.

So, my pre-writing process looks roughly like the following.Step 1: I gather up a bunch of loose notes about small stuff – ‘Character falls alseep on a bus’, say.Step 2: I turn those loose gathered notes into a rough outline, which will generally have a ton of notes attached, formatted as if I was trying… Continue reading June so Jejune

I have needed to spend a ridiculous amount of time on mental health stuff this past month, although – let me make this clear – not in a, like... bad, I am suffering, sort of way.Circumstances have meant I’ve needed to dig into some personally tricky stuff, but as I disassemble the puzzle pieces of… Continue reading It May be time to slow down.

As mentioned last month, I’ve been looking into ways of re-organizing the novel in progress, Quicker than Blood. That has borne some frit, but I am still noodling around with it in the midst of a mix of occasional setbacks and successes.Right now, the most successful looking version of what I want to do involves… Continue reading Reengineering April

Yes, yes, I know, to clear up the confusion caused by jests and japes, March came to its conclusion over the weekend, April is now in session.So, last month I mentioned mental conditioning and pacing yourself for big creative tasks.Right now I’m implementing those thoughts, somewhat successfully, by reminding myself that focus is a little… Continue reading It’s actually March. (April Fool’s!)

Hmm. That February we just got past felt fractionally longer than most Februaries. How mysterious.Japes aside, this past month I’ve definitely been running into a few tricky little things around keeping myself working at a reasonable pace.See, in my head, I think I can crank out 3000 words or so a day – this is… Continue reading February of Focus