Sunday, August 14, 2022

From the Depths of the Unknown

Emerges an Indie Writer & Book Publisher

It's All Back On with It's All Over Now



It's hard to believe that it has been nearly two whole years since the last time I wrote anything on this blog.

A lot has happened in my life and in the world since the last time I did in November 2020 but one thing that has not happened is me publishing anything. In fact, it has now been over four years since the last time that I committed anything to print. I suppose that's why my last few blog posts (when I was still doing them) had more to do with what was happening in the world at the time. Or whatever random bullshit that spewed out of my mind and found a home on this site. Let's be honest that there has been a fair amount of that over years as well. I am not ashamed of it. In fact, the sheer amount of random bullshit is kind of a point of pride for me.

Lately, I will be honest, my efforts to keep up with these things have been pretty minimal. I even considered (for a very short time) taking an indefinite break from writing. Thankfully, that thought did not stay in my mind for very long. At least not while I have ideas, and I always have ideas. At least, I have so far. This is just the pace that works for me, I suppose. Rest assured, I am living my life thoroughly between in the silences.

I do hope to do more writing on this blog again, but we'll see what happens. I need to knock some cobwebs off -- even though I do plenty of writing for work. That is just not the same thing, though. Sometimes, I still work on short stories, poems, and songs -- everything just takes longer nowadays. I need to do this type of writing occasionally for my soul (if that's a thing), and blogging usually scratches that itch in just the right way if the others things don't or I need to feel inspired, because for some reason blogging about them usually inspires me to work on those other things more.

Also, because I do slowly-but-surely work on the above-mentioned things, I do sometimes have something new to announce -- even if it might seem like it has been a while since the last update. Maybe it has been a while. Okay, it has. Today I actually break my unintional period of silence to write about a couple of developments, publishing-wise.

First, I am still working on my short fiction collection, Xennial. Basically, there are ten stories, and one needs to be finished, then all five of the new ones need to be thoroughly edited and rewritten, then everything needs to be copyedited and proofread. To be honest, a big part of the delay is that these stories aren't particularly timely and I have been working on this collection for what seems like forever so I am kind of burnt out on it. It is pretty much just some 30-something navel-gazing about a time in his life in his twenties that has long since passed. I am definitely going to finish it and publish it, but I am not setting a firm date on it until I am more done with it. It will probably be 2023 or later before it finally goes out. So that will make it a 40-something navel-gazing about a time in his life in his twenties that has been even longer since it passed. That's fine. I have already been working on it for like 12 years, what is another 1-2?

Second, I am focused on publishing a different, albeit much shorter, four-story short fiction collection called It's All Over Now. A bit fatalistic, I know, but it's fitting. See the Gott Press Home Page for a bit longer of a description of it. I am pretty excited to release this collection, which I hope to do in time for the 2022 holiday shopping season. It will definitely take some work on my part. I have to really thoroughly edit and rewrite a couple of these, and then copyedit and proofread all of them, but it's much more doable by the end of 2022 than the other collection. Plus, these stories are a bit more timely. I also have to do all of the cover art and design work for it, but that's not too bad. That part of it is actually pretty fun. I just have to figure out how I want to go about it this time. That is harder, but I do have a few ideas already.

That's okay. I have time to figure that out, because I need to focus on actually finishing it first before I can really safely start that. I actually have a deadline to finish it though (more to come on this soon), so that motivates me to think about it and work on it, and gives me a justifiable reason to complete it other than I just enjoy doing it.

You wouldn't think that it makes a difference but sometimes it just does. Let's see how it goes. Hopefully, more to come soon.