Work queue is behaving badly. It’s doing that thing where I knock off one task and it seems to gain about five or six new items instead of going down by one. I should still manage to get through it all, but only if I can continue to funnel incoming requests through email/tasks on our helpdesk/direct messages. Phone calls are so anti-productive it hurts. To be frank, if I had any say in the matter, I don’t think I’d even have a phone number given out. I’d hand it to people whom I felt would benefit from a clarifying call, and then change the number right after. Pity that’s about the least practical idea I’ve had all day.
Fortunately I saved my practical ideas for TWR which got a 1,400 word infusion today on my break and is starting to feel like a real story. I’m squarely in the fun and games now and it’s so fun to explore the lore that has been behind closed doors until now. In its own way, this book is both a chain of easter eggs for the rest of the series, and also the glue that brings the strands together before one of the largest confrontations of the whole arc, the next story in line. And it’s doing all that whilst featuring some pretty epic scenes and conflict itself.
Aside from my main series though, I need to start writing more short stories. I’ve looked up a few contests that look interesting, and I need to start sending off what I already can and writing a few more that I don’t already have. My short story ‘The Rope Broke’ should with a bit of polish be a good shout for a few, though might be too heavy for some. ‘A Planet Named George’ feels more like a novella than a short story but it might work better as the latter, if only to focus the plot more on the whirlwind romance. And of course, I can expand on my ‘Living Earth mythos’ for a few short horror stories, and adapt the existing ones too.
What I need most of all is a plan. A mentor wouldn’t go amiss either, but that is something I cannot afford to pay for right now, and sure as heck don’t seem to have much luck attracting one from altruism. Or you know, I could stop making excuses and get on with it…
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