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 »

Every Job is a Real Job as Long as It Pays Real Money

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I hate it when people use the term “real job” to describe a certain type of employment.  Like, what do people even mean when they say this?  If some jobs are “real jobs,” are the rest of the jobs out there “fake jobs?”  How about “unreal jobs?”  “Pretend jobs?”

I’ve sometimes asked people to describe what they meant by “real job” and each time, without exception, the person found themselves at a loss for words.  Being full-time seemed to have something to do with it, but not all full-time jobs were “real jobs.”  Paying out a lot of money also seemed to make certain kinds of jobs “real,” but that wasn’t the whole story.  Was a “real job” one where you took your responsibilities seriously?  Not really, since I know a lot of people who don’t take their so-called “real jobs” seriously at all.  Or was it a job that leads to a bigger career?  That description falls short too, Continue reading »

When You’re Busy, You Get More Done

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This week’s post is going to seem obvious, but it’s actually worth some thought.

Last week I had a few things to do, but not too much—my To-Do list was nice and short with no looming deadlines and plenty of time to work on long-term projects.  As a result, I took my evenings at a slower pace, didn’t work any late nights, and read a few hundred pages of John Steinbeck’s East of Eden (a badass novel full of savage beatings and do-it-yourself abortions that makes The Grapes of Wrath look like a kids book).

It was a pretty chill week, and as it went on I found myself taking longer breaks, scrolling through more social media, and just plain staring into space when I could have been working—or at least doing something I enjoyed. Continue reading »

How I Think About Money Now That I’m Out of Debt

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Last week something happened that should have been a momentous, once-in-a-lifetime experience.  It should have led to endless celebrations and singing from rooftops and cavorting drunkenly naked through the streets in ecstatic glee at this thing I’d been looking forward to for well over a decade and a half.

I am now completely debt free.

Paying off that final loan should have caused me to get really excited, but it didn’t—it just felt like making a regular bank transfer.  Maybe the anticlimax was partly because I won’t get to mark the big zero down on my net worth spreadsheet until next month, or maybe it was because I made the payment Continue reading »

Good Work Will Find Its Way: An Interview with Author Jonathan Face

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Jonathan Face is a computer programmer by day and the author of Catharsis, a horror novel set in a small New Hampshire town, which has over 28,000 downloads on Amazon. He’s also the author of The Remnants Part I and II, and most recently, Odd Tales, a collection of short fiction.  We grew up in the same small town of Warner, New Hampshire, and he graduated from the same high school as me a few years before I got there.  We met for the first time when I was back in the state and sat down at his parents’ dining room table to talk about minimum wage jobs, self-publishing, job security, and being open with your coworkers about your writing life. Continue reading »

Whiteboard Visual Organizers Are Awesome: Part 2

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Last week I wrote about my new whiteboard organizational system and how it’s helped me divide my goals, projects, and daily life habits into different categories so I can keep track of what I’m working on.  In addition, by giving each category a rating from 1 to 10, I can easily see how well I’m doing in each category, and what needs improving.

The categories I made are going to look different than the categories you might be thinking about for your own goals and projects.  Several of mine are Japan-specific, and a few are specific to my goals as a writer.  I’m listing them here so you can get an idea of what I’m trying to improve in my own life, but also so you might get some ideas for how to sort your own future goals.  In no particular order: Continue reading »