The ground is covered in a sheet of snow, I have four
half-drunk bottles of wine in my kitchen, and I keep scribbling out 2015 and
correcting it to 2016. Seems like an average New Year to me. Although I’m
really hoping not. I’m hoping for a kick-ass New Year this time around, and it
appears to not be sucking totally right now (Knock on wood.).
Now, I’m going to give a hat tip to the elephant in the room
before I continue on with things that are a little more fun. The third Evenstad
Media book is coming, I promise.
There was a bit of a snafu on the production side of things, so it’s going to
be a bit delayed. Good news for anyone who needs to catch up, but bad news for
anyone who’s been waiting for this one to release, so I do apologize. At the very
latest, it’ll be out by mid-February, but a lot sooner if I get my way.
So, what about the year going forward? Well, Evenstad four
is also on the docket, though I’m keeping it pretty well under my hat right
now. Details will come when we get closer to the actual release date for that
one (Some time this summer, unless gremlins gum up the works on this one, too.
Here’s hoping not.). And, with The King Jester Trilogy totally finished at long
last, I’ll be able to give some more focus to other ideas. Old ideas. Pretty
ideas.
If you’ve been here for a while with me, you might remember the odd
mention of Rings of Treachery here and there over the years. Well, it still
exists, but I’ve vowed that I’m going to put it out this year, come hell or
high water. In the interest of full disclosure, it’s currently out on
submission with a publisher, so I should hear back within a few months…
hopefully. If that works out, then I might have to bend a little on my
schedule. Let’s say ‘published or contracted’ this year instead, yeah?
After that, depending on the phases of the moons and what
the chicken intestines tell me (Or, you know, whatever I feel like), I could
pick up a number of other projects. I have an old book about puppets that’s
been weighing on my mind lately (Though that may just be because the puppet
army is taking over Radcon this year…). Or I might turn to something a little
less well-formed and see where that leads me, in the end. It’s really open.
That’s what happens when a series closes off. Something that’s sort of filled
your attention for months on end is finally gone, and you begin to see past it
to what you can do next. Completely the opposite of reading a series. Then you
just sort of feel lost and hungry for more books that don’t exist.
Or maybe that’s just me.
I’ll also be picking up on writing short stories again so I
can spread tiny versions of my writing far and wide. Kind of like a plague, but
slightly less deadly. Very slightly.
And when it comes to things in a non-writing sense, I’ve
made some decisions about the year ahead as well. The main one is to have less
anger and negativity. I tend to get rather upset with people, but it does me no
good. So I’m working on it. Not to say I’ll turn all peaceful—anger is still an
emotion and it’s still useful—but I’ll be more careful with how it comes out,
and evaluate it more. See if it’s doing anything, or if it’s just causing me
pain.
I’m also going to return to some of my other passions (This is where the part when the sharing begins. First and last warning.). I consider
2015 the year where I sort of got lost. There was really a lot of turmoil going
on in my psyche at that point. I’d put back on all the weight I’d lost and shot
back over 300 pounds. I wasn’t reading. I was even angrier than usual. I’d just
moved away from most of my friends and family (It was really a good decision,
but still. It’s hard no matter what.). I was readjusting, and things just
started to drop off. I wasn’t
reading anymore. I wasn’t singing anymore. I hadn’t played trombone in months
and months. And eventually, that started to encroach on my writing. I hated
doing it.
Eventually, I figured that I hated doing the actual writing
work because I wasn’t doing anything else for myself. I used to say ‘If I’m not
singing, then I know that something’s wrong.’ Except I ignored that advice and
kept digging through the writing. The more I did it without anything else going
on, the more I just hated doing it. And when I hated it, I hated myself a little more. The writing didn't suffer, just me.
Well, suffice it to say that’s over and done with, now. I’m
not a New Year’s resolution kind of person, but I made some this year. Read
more. Sing more. Make time for things that I’m passionate about. I still
haven’t gotten around to belly dancing with any regularity again (Working on
it.) and my trombone has only been out of the case once or twice in the past
few weeks (And one of those times was to clean and oil it, so…), but it’s going
to come. I’m determined not to fall into the Swamp of Sadness again this year.
Stupid horse…
So that’s my uncomfortable level of sharing. How about you?
Are you taking 2016 as a chance to get shit back on track, or are you just
going to continue to rock the socks off life? Let me know.
Voss
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