Sabbatical Update 6: The Struggle Continues

January felt like a very dynamic month. If you had asked me on any given day how I felt things were going, I’d have growled and looked for a cave to retreat to, but in retrospect, I think the month turned out better than it felt along the way.

At least, until a car accident at the end of it derailed everything, because this sabbatical is cursed.

Shaping the day

I started getting up early to write—despite never having been a morning person—because it was the most immediate solution for securing some creative solitude for generating new work. And with this anchor set, a more consistent rhythm for the rest of the day is slowly starting to take shape.

I’m finding my work brain taking three forms that guide that shape: creative, editorial, and admin.

Creative is most accessible in the early morning, partially because of the aforementioned solitude, but also because of its temporal proximity to unconsciousness; it turns out that fuzzy not-quite-awake feeling right after rolling out of bed means I’m not yet blocked by my conscious brain screaming about schedules and to-do lists. That time is crucial for generative work; it’s often the only time I can get brand new work done in the entire day.

Editorial and admin are more flexible through the late morning and afternoon. Editorial still requires a measure of peace for focusing, but it doesn’t rely on access to the unconscious in the same way as pure creative, so it can happen during times when the rest of the household is present, but calm. And admin works best during times of higher interruption, because most of admin is rote process execution that’s easy(ish) to get back on track.

There is one problem: since I started getting up earlier, the wake time for the rest of the household started creeping earlier as well, so that early-morning space I briefly managed to open up is rapidly closing again. I guess I need to find a different solution.

Writing progress

I’m pretty close to wrapping Briarcliff (working title), my horror short that goes hard on environmental storytelling to explore one man’s desperate sacrifice to a prehistoric supernatural force. This piece has evolved significantly from the version my Hugo House workshop cohort critiqued back in November, and I think it’s gotten a lot more focused and has really found its voice.

I also spent some time sharpening the outline for The Deep (working title), my cosmic horror story about a deep sea salvage dive’s encounter with a force beyond human understanding. (Yes, the malevolent mathematics are still present.) Drafting this piece will be my primary focus in February, and I’m really excited about it!

I decided to pull my third work in progress, Justicars (working title), off the list, because it’s close enough to one of my novel concepts that it makes more sense to merge them. The resulting project will probably come back around later, but I’ve got something else in the queue for my first long-form work this year, and I’m not quite ready to talk about that one yet.

The car accident

My mom got in a car accident near the end of the month and fractured her sternum, so Brianne and I dropped everything and went to Utah to provide support.

Flying on no notice is heinously expensive, so we opted to drive. The weather held for our trip there, but near the end of our stay a multi-day storm front formed across most of the Pacific Northwest, delaying our return significantly. I had taken my tablet in hopes of getting at least a little bit of writing done, but the demands of the trip left me with no downtime at all, blowing the end of my writing schedule for January and derailing the schedule for February before it even started.

It’s fortunate that, due to being on sabbatical, we had the flexibility to respond to my mom’s emergency at all, and I’m glad we were able to offer the support we did. Now that we’re back home, though, I’m trying to play catch-up while feeling extremely physically and emotionally exhausted from this unexpected outlay of time and energy.

Next up

I was supposed to have the final draft for Briarcliff done by the end of January, but the trip to Utah threw that off, so now that’s the first thing on my list to get done ASAP.

The first draft of The Deep is my main creative focus for February. I’m also working on a novel outline this month, as well as some early concepts for other stories that should land later this year.

I’ve been thinking a lot about self-publishing, and I’ve started learning that pipeline. I may write more here about that decision and process in the coming weeks.

Short notes

In January I joined the Author’s Guild and the Alliance of Independent Authors.

I recently picked up a Boox Go 10.3 e-ink tablet. It’s a killer device for platform-agnostic reading—including, but not limited to, Kindle books—and for portable writing. A more detailed post about my setup and workflow is coming soon.

I’m still looking out for new game dev or tech employment, either on a full-time or contract basis. Here are my resume and my LinkedIn.