And last bit of rest before intense packing and prep for tomorrow. Hope you all love this episode as much as I do so far!
Tag Archives: blogging
Find your own kind of brilliance
Warning: posting this from my Android phone. Who knows what kind of silly shenanigans will follow?
Short summary of my day, better known as The Movening: I got very little done compared to my goals. This is thanks to me finding a groundhog’s dwelling with my foot, falling back on my left leg, and spraining my ankle quite badly. It’s been a symphony of swearing today. The ankle in question is bundled up neatly in an AirCast. It still really hurts.
I also started rereading Stardust for the hundredth time. There’s something in the magic of Neil Gaiman’s writing that fills me with such a yearning to get off my ass and do some of my own writing. The moving mentality I have seems to blot that out a fair bit, sadly.
And then there are the inevitable pangs of envy. Wanting to be able to create something as fantastically brilliant of my own. Lindsey, beta-reader extraordinaire and terrific writer, told me Joshua Harkin and the Wicked Nightmare King read like a collaboration between Neil Gaiman and the author of Howl’s Moving Castle. That is, without a doubt, some of the highest praise I have ever received, but it also got me thinking.
There’s nothing wrong with never achieving Neil Gaiman or Terry Pratchett level brilliance. No matter how much I try, I won’t. What I will, I suspect, eventually manage is to create my own kind of brilliance. Even if it’s never on a massive scale, it’ll be me and the creative style that is entirely mine. That’s something I hope all creative folks can embrace.
Find what you do well. Make it brilliant. Make it your own. Love it and pour your soul into it, and then rip it apart and fix it until you reach such a point where you can’t bear to look at your work anymore. Let it rest, and do it again.
Above all else, be happy with creating something. There are so many other, similar artists out there, but none of them are exactly the same.
Finding balance in work and play
Today was a suitable counter-balance to yesterday, I think. I cut the grass at my new apartment, moved a good deal of things in (though there are still many box-loads to go, I’m afraid), and decorated a little. It certainly was no day of playing World of Warcraft and relaxing in my current home, but not every day can be like that (I mean, they could but I would end up very unemployed, very fat, and quite unhappy, among other things), and so the work was both a necessary evil and a nice change of pace.
However, as far as daily balances of work and play (or leisure or whatever) go, I am not particularly good at finding such a nice equilibrium. Some days are very work-oriented, with me accomplishing a great deal of productive tasks. By nighttime on those days, I am tired but I feel fulfilled. It’s all very positive, really, ignoring the exhaustion and that there are some such days I still feel like I fell short of where I should have been. There are other, very similar days, when I have shirked responsibility in favor of relaxing and recovering. Days filled with video games, movies, books, and so on. They don’t really serve a practical purpose, but they leave me feeling rejuvenated and prepared for the next day of hard work.
It’s very possible to make those two days into a daily thing. I realize this is all very “hey, that’s obvious” territory, but I excel at the obvious.
What I’m talking about in this case is a total revamp of my schedule as I know it. It’s probably going to be Hell for a while, but I think if I can pull it off that it will provide me with tremendous benefits. That’s what I’m going for here, by the way. A Phil who can find a daily balance of hard work and relaxation time in the face of working eight hours five days a week and trying to become a writer, all while pretending very well at being a responsible adult. A lot of this will revolve around me making a number of relatively large changes over however long it takes, and I imagine it will involve a great deal of swearing along the way. Continue reading
The good, the bad, and the ugly of down-time
Well-known fact: I have poor time-management skills for someone who works a 40+ hour a week job but also wants to become a relatively well-known writer. Or maybe it’s a little-known fact for some of you, in which case I’ll take a moment and appreciate my good fortune that not all of my readers readily identify me as a terrible, lazy slacker.
Let me ruin that for you. I came home from my first day back at work and napped, off and on, for about two hours. My body doesn’t always appreciate naps, but it seemed like a particularly necessary evil tonight for some reason. Probably because not being at work for eleven days and then returning after a day of furniture shopping makes for a rather tired person who can’t stop thinking “I need a vacation”. During my vacation, which had been filled with plans of creative time while Jason worked and potentially drunken shenanigans while we hung out, I accomplished far less than I had hoped to during my plotting of said vacation. My world-building for the still-unnamed novel project found some good points here and there, and a couple characters were really fleshed out more than I could have hoped. However, this was not nearly what I envisioned myself getting done.
I’m only somewhat okay with calling this more of a success than a failure, if only because failure seems to indicate there was absolutely no movement towards my goals (which included writing multiple short stories, sending them off for consideration, and accomplishing a great deal towards the page count of the previously mentioned novel project). I can’t, even in my magnificent self-loathing, call last week a complete failure, anyway. Continue reading
Being a quasi-responsible adult
Today was more productive than I expected, but also not even kind of productive because I failed to actually do the things I wanted to in favor of other tasks. It would be very easy to point out there’s quite a few hours left to the day, yes, but I would probably say something very unkind in response. I’ve hit that post-vacation wall of “I need a vacation to recover from my vacation”, which is only made more upsetting by my impending return to work tomorrow.
What I’ll probably do is break out the notebook and resume the world-building I should’ve gotten more done with this past week as some sort of compensation. I say this, but I also took over half an hour to write two sentences in this post because I keep yawning. And getting distracted (which is more the fault of my sad, nearly nonexistent attention span).
In light of what I didn’t get done today, I feel like I should at least sort of brag about what I did accomplish. It’s sort of a big deal, if only for me. Brianne and I went out on a great quest this afternoon. A quest (I keep trying to type that out as question instead, which might be a sign I’m too sleepy to really function as a person) to buy new living room furniture. It started off as an attempt to replace the two hulking recliner couches that we have presently, as they are heavy, quite battered, and sure as Hell not making the move to our new apartment with us. Also: I’m moving for the second time in less than two years, but that’s not really the focus of this post. Continue reading
Post-travel, pre-travel lull
I’m back in Carnegie after having a fantastic weekend at Intervention, and I’ve got enough down-time to prepare myself for the trip to Chicago. Sort of. I’m still screaming like Hell on the inside, as I’ve never driven that far before. Ever.
I consider it a great adventure, but I also know it’s probably going to be pretty taxing. What I do know is I have an abundance of hope for my time in Chicago in terms of how much creative stuff I’ll get accomplished. We’ll see how much I accomplish versus how much more self-loathing I’ve banked by the end of the week. Continue reading
One Hundred–Ah, screw it. My vacation adventures begin tomorrow!
Today’s been a damn good day for me. That statement overlooks how I spent work in a haze, half-asleep, for reasons unknown. Naturally such comments require explanation, and I’m happy to provide it. If only I could type without it coming out like I’m rolling my face along the keyboard.
I promised some playlists, and I’ll be following through on that for tonight’s post. Why? Because I haven’t packed a single article of anything yet, which is probably not ideal since I leave tomorrow. I also only made one playlist/CD so far, so I’m a pretty tremendous failure in that regard, too. However, I did send off my signed contract with Cary Press and I am tremendously excited to really dig into work on my first published novel. Expect lots of fun from here on out, folks. Continue reading
One Hundred Days of Blogging – Day Thirty-Nine
I’m convinced that days off of work are not governed by the same space-time laws that are in play every other day of the week. They go by way too fast when they shouldn’t, and drag out when it’s time to focus on things like cleaning or important paperwork or whatever.
On the plus side, I did take a terrific walk tonight with Brianne. It was relatively cool out, but not unpleasantly so, and it was enough to get my brain going on various topics relating to creative things.
We’ve established by now that when my brain gets going on things that it can go to negative places. However, that negativity is a pretty powerful starting point for me to put my problem solving skills to good use. So I guess it’s a lose-win situation. Something like that.
However, all things are eclipsed by next weekend and Intervention. After that, I’m making my first major road trip to Chicago for some quality time with my best friend Jason. This upcoming vacation, I think, will be a much-needed break, and I’m hoping it will yield a good deal of productivity on my part (on top of seeing movies and enjoying good liquor with friends).
Tonight’s post, however, relates back to some of my thinking from my walk. It should provide some insight into how my brain works, and so I caution readers to potentially step away while retreat is still possible. Continue reading
One Hundred Days of Blogging – Day Thirty-Six
Today was busy, eventful, and generally good.
However, I’m also entirely okay saying this post is being used as a cheat-day for the sake of focusing on creative writing projects. And because I just had a thirteen hour work-day, and I don’t have an idea I like enough to bother. Especially after the last two turned out so unfortunately.
On one hand, I’m really excited I have a book on its way to being published (FYI: it’s Joshua Harkin and the Wicked Nightmare King, which shouldn’t be surprising).
In closing, I have a question for you all (or at least those of you who comment…so a select few, I guess). How does Joshua Harkin and the Wicked Nightmare King sound as an official book one title? I know I’ve had it listed on the Joshua’s Nightmares page for a while, but I want to know what people think.
Wishing everyone a happy, productive hump day, I guess.
Sixty-four (just like one of Nintendo’s best, most carpal tunnel syndrome-furthering systems) days remaining.
One Hundred Days of Blogging – Day Thirty-Four
Today can jump off a cliff into shark-infested waters already. Holy shit. It’s been dreadful. I could easily go on about why today was one of many miserable Mondays I’ve experienced as of late (I still maintain we revoke Monday’s status as a day of the week until it gets its act together). I’m going to focus on the positive instead.
For instance: I replaced the handle set-up for my downstairs toilet today. I realize this doesn’t sound like much, but it’s the first time I’ve ever had to do such a thing. Problems like that had a way of fixing themselves at home, or so I seemed to think (the joke is my stepdad got stuck dealing with all of these issues). I’m one minor home repair closer to being a proper, responsible adult. Sort of.
Time for real talk. I’m really freaking hungry, and today was almost bad enough for me to justify using the word hangry. Almost. It sounds too stupid to really justify. Instead of dancing around, I’m getting to the topic now. And then I’ve got an actual fiction writing project for while I wait to hear back from Cary Press in regards to my latest round of what I assume are stupid questions. Continue reading
Phil's Misadventures In Fiction 