Dzanc you very much...

This week I found out Dzanc Books was not going to be honoring In the Leviathan in its longlist, shortlist, or distinction of actually winning its 2023 novel contest.  And that's okay.  I'm going to keep looking for publishers.  I may revisit the utter lack of self-publishing I've done this year (except for Liz & Pepe, the 2023 Christmas collection for family I just pushed through a moment ago), or who knows?  I have some poetry collections I will probably definitely continue releasing, now that I think of it (and this reminds me that what I should be doing in the minutes ahead is write more of that)...

I of course also want to get back into the actual business of writing, which of course occurred recently with Liz & Pepe (a short work, but the lead was, like its predecessors, generously of novella length), which I kept procrastinating as more of the relevant details surfaced in the thought process.  While I found it easy in recent years to meander through writing projects, or barrel through some or parts of them, I've been in a different mode for much of this year.  I was happy, most of all, to have written Leviathan, which was satisfying on a number of levels, and while I quickly came up with new projects, knew there were older ones, and how I could improve those older ones, I didn't feel the urge to jump on them as I thought I might.  

Sometimes being rejected by a publisher or a contest will plunge me into some form of obvious depression, but that didn't happen this time, which was also an encouraging sign.  It would have been awesome to have a different result, but it was also nice how quickly Dzanc made its deliberations and announcements, and actually quicker than I was expecting.  I would've loved to have been able to write in the pages of Liz that I have a publishing contract for the first time ever, but it was also nice to not be able to, if that makes sense.  

The journey continues.

Did not throw baby out with the bathwater, thank you...

I had my observation for the CDA process a few weeks back, and as such turned in Don't Throw Baby Out with the Bathwater, the professional portfolio I had to put together and previously considered compiling as an actual book (with inserts).  It probably wouldn't have mattered a whole lot how I did it, since the observer (it was a good experience, all considering, don't get me wrong) didn't spend too much time looking at it.  I ended up putting the portfolio in the same fashion as I did the collection I submitted as my thesis for college, a three-holepunch-folder.  Anyway, it was certainly interesting to work on the thing, and I have the CDA test coming up in two weeks, and that will conclude the process, and I will be a slightly more official caregiver as a result.

I have a bunch of projects I am definitely going to probably tackle in the near future.  Before we dig into that let's just acknowledge the pause I've entered in self-publishing.  This is because I submitted In the Leviathan for publication and it feels weird having that floating around at the moment and continuing the slightly less legitimate business that has sold single digits of copies of all the books I've put out in the past decade.  This means a pause for the poetry collections I don't tend to advertise here, and republication of Cloak of Shrouded Men as The Man Comes Around, and A Guide to 52, a project I tackled and abandoned previously but dug back into earlier this summer.  

Not included in that embargo would be the Christmas collections I've been doing for family.  This year's is entitled Liz & Pepe, and I've got all the elements sketched out and will probably begin writing it either in the next few days or when I'm on vacation in another week's time.  Actually, I've more or less been on vacation for most of the past week with Idalia having made its way through town.  I once again got lucky with the hurricane business, although the uncertainty of the experience this time as compared to Ian last year apparently settled my nerves only a little without having to be evacuated this time.  So I sat around waiting to see how things would turn out without really spending the time overly wisely.  Got some reading done.  That's the extent of my achievements, there.

Anyway, as I pretend I'm going to be writing Collider any minute, it occurred to me that I really ought to have the next book in the Danab Cycle in fighting shape, only to discover it absolutely wasn't, and so some of my recent writing escapades was spent revising the outline for The Fateful Lightning.  Surprisingly, I not only figured out how to do so, but a better way to do so not very long later.

All that and The Children's Crusade, which part of me really wants to tackle sooner rather than later, and maybe I really will.  Maybe I'll tackle Liz & Pepe, Collider, and Crusade all before the end of the year.  I've certainly worked on multiple projects simultaneously before!

Sometimes I've dumped a lot of projects into blog posts like this and I Grant Morrisoned them later, but it is absolutely not the intention for any of these.  Writing the Bathwater portfolio was a small but notable task in itself, after Leviathan in the early months of the year, and usually I haven't just launched directly into continuous projects (although I have on occasion, with shorter works, which is what was consuming me the last few years).  I've been pushing upward with wordcounts, getting back into full-length shape, and while there was certainly a period where I tackled that on a yearly basis, the last one remains the messiest thing I've ever written, and even the lost manuscript from the midsection I wouldn't really be happy with today.  So it's good to be at a pause.  I'm okay with it.  Wanting to plunge back in.  But this is not a writer who believes writing regularly means what some think.  Just knowing I have these major projects imminently in the pipeline is exhilarating.

Then there's the business of actually being read...

Still haven't started writing again, but that's okay.

A few weeks back I finally spent time with the Burrito (my niece) again, and the whole experience was wonderful.  I ended up with material for the next Christmas chapbook, just not as I wildly imagined it (actively collaborating with the Burrito, who recently won an award for a poem she wrote, by the way).  The Burrito has a younger brother and sister these days.  Liz & Pepe, as I'm currently imagining the title (and see no reason to consider changing it), is named after my youngest niece (and goddaughter!) and her grandfather, my dad (Pepe is French for grandfather).  

I also cooked up another potential novel-length concept, Whitman.  Haven't yet started writing again, but I keep reminding myself that only a few months ago I finished In the Leviathan, and until the Vella era I typically took much longer breaks between long projects.  I also have Don't Throw Baby Out with the Bathwater, technically a professional development project, that I'll be writing, hoping to publish it via Kindle for a particularly professional result (these tend to end up being three-ring binders when they're done by others).  

I kept telling myself, before the trip, wait on the trip to begin working on Children's Crusade.  And here we are weeks later and I still haven't.  Yesterday was the start of a four-day weekend for Memorial Day, so I certainly have plenty of time to work on writing (which I count these trips to the library, when I do the bulk of my blogging efforts these days, as part of, hoping next, as in right after this, to tackle a sequel to Dead Butlers, the scripting exercise that led to Nine Panel Grid).  (As I write this, I'm seriously considering making it a prose effort and not another script.)  (Anyway, just a relatively minor writing effort, keeping the juices flowing.)

All this and gamely plugging Event Fatigue on Twitter occasionally, hoping some schmo will help spark interest in it.  When I think about how far I am from even a figment of someone's imagination of the traditional publishing life, I sometimes regret that.  But getting to write exactly what I want ain't so bad, either.  It led to Leviathan, which could conceivably change all this.  Who knows?  Stranger things have happened.

EDIT: Wrote the "Man in the Box" thing, in comic book script format.  You can read it here.