Saturday, September 14, 2013

Official Release Date Change for Out in the Garage / Re-release Date Set for Tales from the Fringes

While I certainly don't want to disappoint anyone, I am going to push back the release of my novel, Out in the Garage, to over Christmas Break, which will give me the time I will need to focus on school and also finish the novel and proofread it thoroughly.  This way I can network more and promote it more and use the re-release of my short story collection to build something of an audience.

It's important for me to do this right: my classwork, my class I'm teaching, and my thesis are all very important, and I need to build my C.V. and get some articles published and try to do another conference or two, if I can, if there are any that fit my area of growing expertise.  I do feel like I am doing a good job, and things are going really well, and I am learning a lot.  I really need to focus on doing everything I need to meet my next goals.  Anyways, it's important to keep my priorities in order and to give myself plenty of time to accomplish all of my goals.  '

Sometimes it's hard to be patient, but I am confident in the direction I am going, both with my career and my creative writing pursuits.  I am not worried about changing my mind about the direction I am going with Out in the Garage, and I am actually almost done with the rewrite (only thirty more pages, which is about one-eighth left to do).  Then I will spend plenty of time proofreading for typos and any little grammatical things I might need to tweak for clarity.  If there is anything Tales from the Fringes has taught me, it is that I can never be too thorough.

The Official Release Date of Out in the Garage is set to be Tuesday, January 14 (which, I believe, would be my Grandpa's 75th birthday).  Tales from the Fringes will be re-released on Friday, October 18.

Friday, September 13, 2013

UPDATE:

Since I am re-releasing it soon, I am, for a short period of time, taking Tales from the Fringes off-sale.  It shouldn't take too long to put it back on-sale, and I will announce it as soon as it happens.  This is so I can improve the files with my updates and expand my e-book distribution.  I am considering postponing releasing my novel until December, because, the way things are going with school, I might need that extra time to get it thoroughly proofread.

Sunday, September 8, 2013

Product Placement.

More often than not, if I am home, and I am more often than not, then more often than not I am in my office.  If I am more often than not home and in my office then I am usually blasting music, whether it's from my own vast collection, or I am checking out new stuff on either Spotify or Soundcloud, or watching Youtube, or listening to my own recordings and measuring them up, or playing guitar to get better, to relieve stress, and compose more songs.

Currently, I am listening to Spotify, and I am finding some good stuff on here, but I am not completely sold on what I am currently listen to, Givers, "Noche Nada".  It's on Avett Brothers radio, and, to be honest, I am not completely sold on it, either.  I am just curmudgeonly like that, though.  I do like plenty of other new music like No Age, and Cold War Kids just came on and I am liking it.  Still, nothing beats revisiting the classics, which lately has consisted of a lot of the Replacements, more and more often.

Although, when I am reading, it is almost always techno or classical.  And with that, I shall leave you, better, but only if you have clicked on that last link.


Saturday, September 7, 2013

Breaking Free

Freshman papers are not fun to read.  It is tedious and sometimes frustrating -- but also at times rewarding. No matter how bad it may be, it will ALWAYS be better than grilling food, making burritos, flipping burgers, working in a factory, working in warehouses...  It's important to keep it in perspective.

At least I can sit here, in my home office, in the air conditioning, with any music that I want, surrounded by my favorite things, books, guitars, and CDs, challenging myself to be better and to try and help these students become better writers.  If they don't take it seriously, it's not my problem, but I feel pretty lucky in that most of my class seems to take it seriously.  They genuinely seem like a good group of people, and I think this is going to be a great semester.

We are all still getting to know one another, and I am still assessing their individual strengths and weaknesses, but I don't think I am going to have many problems -- if the first two weeks are any indication.  I know I need to work on explaining concepts better, and getting them to force me to explain them better.  I can already tell a difference from the first common writing assignment papers to the first drafts -- for the most part -- and that might just be because it is a more interesting topic, but I can tell they are at least thinking more about what they are writing.

The more that I think about it, the more that it dawns on me, that I am truly lucky to be doing what I enjoy doing for a living -- even if I am at the beginning stages of it.  I think back to even just a month ago how miserable I was, and how much I hated my life, and my life now couldn't be more different.  Sure, it's challenging and sometimes frustrating, and it takes up a lot of my time, but there is not much else I would rather be doing right now.

I am still working on getting better at time management, and sometimes I have a hard time forcing myself to do schoolwork, but, I am getting better, and, more often than not, doing what I need to be doing, and I have faith in myself that I will continue working on this and getting better at it -- I mean, I am still able to get plenty of sleep each night, so I must not be doing too badly.

I do wish I had more time spend with my wife, my friends, and my family, but they are all very supportive, so I am pretty lucky in that regard.  While I work, I just have to keep in mind, that the more I work I put in now, the more time I will be able to spend with them later.  It's hard, and frustrating, but I know it will be worth it, and that I will be able to find a good-paying job -- I just have to keep working hard and being smart about the decision that I make.  It's amazing how much work it takes to get to the simple life.