Holy Shit, I Signed a For-Serious Novel Contract!!!!!!!!111

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Hell yeah I did.

As of three weeks ago, MFA Thesis Novel, my satire about a grad school writing program, is officially signed and scheduled for publication with Vine Leaves Press in April 2022.  That means that my goal of publishing an actual novel is finally going to become a reality.

MFA Thesis Novel is about a twentysomething writer named Flip Montcalm (who’s definitely not based on me) who enters a grad school writing program (that definitely isn’t based on the one I went to at the University of Nebraska) in the barrens of the Midwest.  However, no one around him seems to like his novel, and in an world of fierce competition, Flip has to figure out how to write something that’s both meaningful and that people will actually like.  It’s a novel about fitting in, starting out as a writer, and the desolate working conditions that thousands of underpaid grad students face every year, along with what it’s like to be a lonely young artist in a strange place.

Plus there’s jokes.  And cursing (fuck yeah!).  And lots of pop culture references. Continue reading »

My Ideal Creative Work Schedule Explained

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I think a LOT about how we structure our days as creative people who have to be self-motivated. It pays to be efficient, and a lot of that efficiency comes from being able to slip into a work routine without a lot of hassle so you can get more done.

However, we also need to work around the realities of real life, which means that making a work schedule requires balancing the way you work best with your particular situation, especially if you have a Day Job.

My work schedule has changed a lot (as has my work situation) since I started keeping this blog almost four years ago (!!!!!!). I’ve worked from home grading standardized test essays, held a full-time office job, spent three months without a Day Job at all, and finally come back to teach in Japan. Each of these stages required adjusting to changing realities so I could make progress on my creative work. Continue reading »

Sometimes I Take on Too Much and Then Screw Up

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Let’s get one thing straight: we all make mistakes, whether it’s in our creative work or at our Day Jobs.  If you think otherwise, you’re living on another planet.

For me, the vast majority of my screwups happen because I take on too much and rush through things.

This wasn’t always the case—when I was younger most of my screwups happened because I was inexperienced, or because I wasn’t organized enough and forgot appointments or deadlines.  I improved the former issue by getting better at things I wanted to do well, and solved the latter by implementing a To-List system that’s served me well for the past nine or so years.

Now, though, I notice a different kind of problem: because I have so much going on, and so much of it coming from different directions, I tend to rush through some tasks so I’ll have more time Continue reading »

Here’s What I’ve Been Working On RIGHT NOW (and have been for the last few months)

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It’s been a while since I updated you on my projects in progress, so I thought I’d change that.

I started posting semi-regular updates on my creative work a few years back both to keep people updated and keep myself accountable.  If I posted that I was working on something, it felt more serious and I’d be more inclined keep working on it so I wouldn’t have to answer to my blog readers and admit that I’d been slacking off—or worse, that I’d given up.

There are a few reasons for my lack of updates—the main one being that I haven’t been working on a novel since finishing my last one well over a year ago, and not having that as a primary focus has felt…distracting.  Without a bigger project to work on Continue reading »

Day Jobs are Great for Earning Small Wins

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Life can be rough, and little boosts help a lot.

Little boosts come in many forms: I get them when I see my friends, enjoy a fun dinner with my family, read an awesome book, or take a scenic bike ride.  Those aren’t the kinds of boosts I’ll be talking about in this post, though.

When I interviewed visual novel artist Miranda Reeder she talked about earning small wins to get her through slow periods.  Because she usually had several bigger projects going at once, taking time away from them to work on something smaller that she could finish and feel good about provided a small win Continue reading »

It’s About Prioritizing: An Interview with Haley Alt

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Haley Alt is a dystopian YA author whose three novels have sold more than 10,000 copies on Amazon under the name H. Alt.  (The first half of her fourth novel, Godless, is available for free on Wattpad.)  She recently moved back to the States after almost eight years in Japan, where she taught English, worked at a travel agency, and promoted sightseeing and did English translation for the town of Tateyama in Toyama.  I met her through my work on the TRAM art and culture zine, and sat down with her at a Starbucks in the suburbs of Toyama City, where we talked about religion, her upcoming move back to America, how scary it is when people actually read your work, and how Tom Cruise helped her sell a lot of eBooks. Continue reading »

Once in a While I Get Really Depressed, and That’s OK

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I went through a pretty rough patch a few weeks ago—like, stay in bed until four o’clock on a Sunday rough, stomach’s so upset you can’t finish your lunch rough, harboring doubts about your entire life’s direction rough.  The worst of this miserable cesspool overcame me for two and a half days (about 54 hours by my count), but its effects lingered for the next two weeks as smaller problems that wouldn’t normally bother me started hitting me hard—and that was all kinds of not fun.

I’d rather not share the specifics of what set off this depressive episode, though in retrospect I’ve realized that it was caused by a lot of different factors, including Day Job problems, personal issues, Coronavirus risks, the fact that it’s fucking cold and murky during the Toyama winter, and Continue reading »

Quick Reminder: I Want to Keep Pushing Myself to Be Better

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It depresses me to think that one day I might look at my life, brush some imaginary dust off my hands, heave an enormous sigh, and announce, “Whelp, this is all there is!  There’s nowhere else I can go, so I might as well keep things exactly the way they are!”

It depresses me even more to think that this could happen while I’m still in my thirties.

I hate the idea of slowing down, smothering your self-development, and ceasing to take on new challenges.  I also hate the idea of complacently, Continue reading »

Sometimes I Procrastinate by Doing Something Productive

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I’ve been really busy for the last, I don’t know, seven or so years, and I’ve been trying to pin down why.  I’ve identified a few different factors that lead to my constant scrambling, which, in no particular order, are…

  1. Wasting time on social media/texting/phone checking when I should be getting shit done
  2. Taking on too many projects
  3. Keeping my schedule intentionally full so I can harness the extra energy that comes from being productive

Number 1 is clearly terrible and I’m actively trying to eradicate any lingering control that social media and my phone have over my time, while Number 2 is a mixed blessing, since more projects = more opportunities.  Number 3, though, can be pretty beneficial, since I feel better and more productive when I’m busy instead of bored. Continue reading »

Working on New Stuff Always Gets Me Excited: Miranda Reeder of Minyan/Harlevin Visual Novels

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Miranda Reeder writes and draws visual novels (kind of like graphic novels, except you play them on the computer) under the name Minyan and the label Harlevin, where she has over 1,400 followers on Itch.io.  Her VNs include Arena Circus, The Pretenders Guild, Mnemonic Devices, and Lilith Hall, and her current project with Fablesoft Studios, Twisted: A Dark Fairytale, raised over $2,300 on Kickstarter in October 2019.

I first met Miranda in Toyama, Japan, where she spent three years in the JET program teaching English.  After leaving Japan she returned to Ohio to pursue a master’s in Japanese translation at Kent State University, and over winter break we talked via Skype about staying motivated, balancing creativity with Day Job work, and sharing her passion with her family. Continue reading »

Why Don’t You Just Self-Publish Your Novels????

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You have no idea how often I get asked this.

The question usually comes up when I’m talking about my writing, how I’ve written two novels already, how I tried for kind of a long time to get my first one published without any luck, queried a bunch of agents about my second one, and am now more actively looking at small presses as a better outlet (entry to come about this one, promise!).

Unfortunately, explaining all this makes it seem like I’m facing a long, hopeless struggle rife with setbacks and failure from which I’ll never emerge victorious.  At this point, the person I’m talking to will respond (or, more likely, interrupt) with a well-meaning question/suggestion that seems like the perfect solution to my problem:

“Have you thought about self-publishing?”

The short answer is Yes, But Not Right Now.  The long answer is more complicated… Continue reading »

Here’s What I’m Working on RIGHT Now (Fall 2019 Edition)

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It helps me a lot to sit down and write about my current projects and creative goals (as opposed to just thinking about them), as well as what kind of progress I’m making toward them. This is a lot more helpful than keeping them in my head, where they swim around in the nebulous stormcloud that is my creative work life so I can’t see them with the proper perspective.

I try to be honest about my progress and setbacks on this blog because I don’t want to fall into a trap of pretending that I’m doing a kick-ass job if that’s not really the case. Pretending you’re doing better than you are is pretty unhelpful because 1) It alienates you from other people you can’t be open with, and 2) It hinders you from actually improving the way you organize your time because you’re living out a kind of fantasy where everything’s going just peachy.

Anyway, enough with the intro: here’s what I’m working on RIGHT NOW: Continue reading »