I have no real progress to report this month, which included the tail end of our Christmas break and a whole mess of viruses in a row. Since starting daycare, Beatrix has enjoyed few weeks without a stuffy nose, cough, or fever, and these symptoms invariably pass through the whole family. This is all normal, unfortunately; just part of her little immune system catching up to the rest of the world.
Progress report II
I’d like to say it feels good to be writing again, but that would need several qualifiers to ring true. Writing with purpose is like the difference between flirting and getting it on. When you flirt, it’s fun and your heart races and she seems to be digging it, but it can all fall apart with one wrong move. When you’re getting it on, you know the score.
Vanity
The 21st century talks a good game about self-love, self-actualization, making time for oneself, etc. Maybe that's different from vanity, or maybe it's dressing it up so we don't feel guilty about taking pride in our work, appearance, or private desires. Regarding my literary attempts to outlive my own life, or even shaving my head, vanity is a sin I freely own up to.
Confessions of a smut merchant
When I started writing smut in 2016, the Romance genre accounted for 23% of the total fiction market. Self-publishing had never been easier, and the standards of the consumer were, to put it kindly, unexacting. See, when it comes to writing erotica, it's not so much how you write but what you write about. Proper grammar and punctuation are a plus, but the real money is in finding the kinks, crafting a compelling hook, and making sure everyone gets an HEA (happily ever after).
Progress report
In the eight years between the completion of Working Class Villain and this gray and grizzled morning, I have poked and prodded and started and stopped four major writing projects. Other ideas have come and gone and been scribbled down and discarded (my file cabinets are full of folders that contain single phrases on folded napkins and indecipherable cursive scribblings on yellow legal paper), but these four are the ones I always come back to.
What hath god wrought?
When you write for a living, it’s sometimes easier to remember certain eras by what you were working on than by the actual date. I don’t remember when precisely I moved back to California, but I do remember I was staying with my brother in Mission Viejo when I wrote a short story from the perspective of Maxwell’s Silver Hammer. (I thought I was very clever; my partner at the time thought it was a waste of time. Time has proven her right.)