I started work on Aconite Braid on September the 14th, 2020. I finished my second revision draft (second draft of the revisions) on September the 13th.
I didn’t plan for that, but the synchronicity pleases me.
It has been a very weird year with a lot of changes – some absolutely enormous, some small. Change is the constant in life, really – things change and we find ways to adapt. Sometimes I am quite frightened of change, but so far things are alright. Sort of.
Sort of.
Part of my job here, so far as I see it, is putting on rose-coloured glasses and presenting things in the best light, rather than getting bogged down in sharing my anxieties and fears in clogging detail. You ever have those days where something happens and you freeze up, tense, and just can’t relax and let that tension go for a day, sometimes two? That’s happening a lot. But things are, in fact, alright. Scary, but alright.
Some elements of my living situation are starting to look a little more secure, things getting a little more organized… a lot to be positive about, even without putting on the rose-coloured glasses.
I got my developmental edits on Aconite Braid back from Jon Oliver, and the news is good. Apparently a year’s effort has resulted in a solid piece of writing and while I’m still waiting on some feedback from friends, it looks like integrating the fixes and line edits is going to be a day or two’s work. And then I need to find an agent.
Finding an agent, though? It was pretty scary last time I tried it for Dog Country, back when. Even if things are more secure and stable, there’s still the possibility of things getting precarious. And so on.
The point being, I am working very, very hard on maintaining the balance that lets me keep stepping forward. And while a ton of my focus is on how I keep that balance, and I don’t have much to talk about outside of that, I am very much looking forward to sharing more good news with you and sharing creative things.
In the meanwhile, I’m going to work on my balance and investigate the feasibility of getting one of those tightrope walking poles while I work on getting Aconite Braid ready to sell. In between all that I am starting to peck at Born Under A Bad sign – a work about Troy the mouse, partly assembled from material cut from Dog Country, figuring out the tangle of bureaucratic red tape I am occasionally ensnared by, and daydreaming about that space opera I have planned out.
Thank you for your support. It makes the job of figuring out how to stay balanced a lot easier.
More news next month, hopefully of the good and creative kind! (Possibly with an actual peek at this thing I’ve been writing for a year!)
