Tac Anderson's Blog, page 3

2022, My Year In Books

By the time the year ends, I will have finished 60 books. You can see all the books here on my Goodreads Reading Challenge. That’s the most books I’ve ever read in a year. I started the year with my usual goal of 20 (I usually read about 28, but this is supposed to be a fun challenge, so I set the bar low), but when I hit that goal a few months into the year, I doubled my goal to 40. I didn’t bother updating the goal again when I broke that.

The next closest was when I read 53 books in 2012. That was the year we lived in London and all that time on the Tube and on trains added up to a lot of books read. There’s some key differences between 2012 and this year. In 2012, I read physical or Kindle versions of all of those books. I didn’t listen to any audio books. This year, most of my books were audio books. In 2012 all the books I read were first time books. This year, I re-read a lot of books I previously read. I almost never re-read books. There’s so many books I want to read, I never felt like I had the time to go back and re-read books. Listening to books, makes revisiting some old favorites an easier option.

Since my last post a month ago where I said I was going to be posting more, I haven’t done that, so I thought doing some book reviews over the next few days/weeks would be a good way to do that. Don’t worry, I won’t post about all 60 books, but I’ll hit some of the highlights.

Rebooting the Blog

It’s been four months since I published The Man Who Killed The Man Who Killed Putin (which you can read for free), and I’ve been really quiet over here. Sorry about that. I’ve also not made much progress on my second novel, the sequel to Super-Borg Dies. Lots of really good reasons for that, but it boils down to, “Life.”

I’ve started and stopped several attempts to start writing and I’m at that point where I was with my first book, where I’m more than halfway done and the structure has come unravelled. I know where I need to go, but the road ahead has become all tangled. So today I went back to outlining. Hopefully, I’ll finish the new outline tomorrow - which mostly comprises putting what I already have in an outline and figure out what’s missing, or more likely, what’s unnecessary.

In other restructuring news, with all the hubbub over the new Billionaire CEO of Twitter I’ve decided that it’s time to go back to basics. I’m going to start regularly writing here on my blog and see if I can’t make the social part of Tumblr (which this blog is hosted on) work for me again by cleaning up who and what tags I’m following. I also plan to restart my newsletter (for the hundredth time). You can sign up for that if you’d like. I’ve also been going through and unsubscribing from every email and newsletter subscription I don’t read and making sure that the ones I do want to read don’t get buried amidst the chaff.

I also plan to turn comments back on this blog. Not sure if anyone will use them, but I at least want people to have that option and not have to rely on the other social platforms for commentary. I may have to update my theme and other stuff, but I’ll figure that out.

I promise to write more soon. Cheers.

An unexpected story

[tl;dr: you can go read my new story for free over here.]

I didn’t expect to write a novelette this year. I was over 50k words into my second book when Russia invaded.

I am a child of the 80s. I turned eight in 1980 and eighteen in 1990. I’m about as Gen X as they get. When the war in Ukraine broke out, I felt an anxiety I haven’t felt since I was a child. This was different from the growing anxiety we’ve all carried with us for the last several years. This was the long-buried anxiety of a ten-year-old child walking to school and looking up at the sky, wondering if the nukes would come today. This was the anxiety of a fourteen-year-old who had just watched The Morning After and couldn’t sleep at night. This was a Gen X, Cold War, anxiety.

So, I dealt with it the only way I could think of — I started to write. Ever since I published Super-Borg Dies in December 2020, I’ve been working on the second book (currently titled Angel Monster Hunter), but I was too distracted to keep working on it. I needed an outlet for this anxiety. I remembered my character from Super-Borg Dies, Sam, who was Kyle Lopez’s Russian roommate. My brain naturally drew a line from the events still happening today in Ukraine to the undetermined point of time in the future where my book takes place. And I kept writing. It was very cathartic.

This was meant to be a short story, but the words kept coming. At over thirteen-thousand words, this is technically in novelette territory — but I’m not sure that distinction means anything in the world of self-publishing. This story stands on its own from Super-Borg Dies (SBD), so you need not have read it to read this story. If you have read SBD, then this will hopefully add more to that world for you to enjoy.

I was nervous about publishing this because I didn’t want to seem like I was being exploitative or opportunistic at the expense of the people of Ukraine. I have a deep love and support for Ukrainians and their plight. That’s why I’ve both made this story free on my site, and published it so I can donate all proceeds to charity.

I hope you enjoy this, and it motivates you to do what you can to help the people in Ukraine.

Here’s one of the main reasons I think company executives...

Here’s one of the main reasons I think company executives are so eager to get people into the office. Yes, there’s a trust issue, and yes they want to get the value out of fixed cost assets (office space), but I think there’s a more fundamental reason.

An office environment favors a certain type of personality; those who thrive with lots of interaction and collaboration (e.g. extroverts) and can handle lots of interruptions to their work (neuronormatives). People who thrive in that environment rise to leadership.

Most leaders who excelled in an office environment can’t imagine that others might not. And even if they can, their success was built on having their teams close at hand, so they’re likely really struggling with remote work so they want their people back in the office.

As someone who is an extrovert, but neurodivergent (ADHD) I like the collaboration aspect of an office but always struggled with the interruptions. So for me working remote has been good for my focus but I’ve had to compensate for the collaboration piece.

I think we’ll see a lot of companies embrace a hybrid option whose in office frequency will probably vary by team, ranging from a few days a week to once a month. I think we’ll also see people start to gravitate towards companies that support their personality preference.

If you are someone who really needs an office environment, that will exist for you, likely at traditional or big companies. If you are someone who thrives in a remote environment, that will be more of an option than it was before, likely at smaller tech companies (aka startups).

As an amateur cultural anthropologist, I’m excited to watch how this shift impacts companies, especially those who find a way to make it a strategic advantage.

5 Things I learned While Being Unemployed

After nearly 9 years at Amazon I left to join Viome. I knew joining a startup was risky, but I was excited for the challenge. Things didn’t work out at Viome and we parted ways after 9 months. Next week I start a new job (more on that later) ending nearly 3 months of unemployment. Being unemployed is hard and stressful. There’s this ticking clock and employers work according to their own timeline, not yours. Here are some things I learned about how to handle being unemployed. Feel free to add your own.

1) When leaving a job before having another (voluntarily or not) you should have at least 6 months of financial runway so you can hold out for the right job, rather than just taking something because you need the paycheck. This doesn’t need to be cash in the bank, it could be stocks or some other form of liquid asset. Most people don’t have this and you really should.

2) As soon as you find yourself out of work, cancel or downgrade every subscription that you don’t need. Your first priority needs to be extending your runway as long as possible. Everything is a subscription these days and I bet most of don’t even know how many subscriptions you’re still paying for that you don’t need. Not just the multitude of streaming options you could definitely reduce, but what about productivity apps, or how many content subscriptions do you have (e.g. news papers, magazines or Patreon), or Amazon Prime, or how many parked domains do you have that you’re never going to get to (let’s be real). Cancel, pause, or downgrade everything that’s non-essential.

3) Finding a job is a job, and it’s exhausting. Treat it like a job, get up, get dressed, and have a set number of hours in your day that you’re going to work on it. But then stop working and try to relax. I found it really helpful to have something else I could do that allowed me to stay productive and take my mind off job searching. For me, it was working on my second book. For others, it might be those house projects you’ve been putting off, or volunteering. Volunteering is a great thing to do to help you appreciate what you have.

4) Apply for everything that might be a fit. Finding a job, even in today’s market, is a numbers game. You’ll be surprised how many jobs you qualify for (and how many you don’t). This will also highlight areas and in your professional development you could work on. As an example, while I have lots of B2C and DTC experience, my B2B experience is pretty dated. Part of the reason I chose my next job is that I can leverage my DTC while expanding my B2B.

5) My last tip is to take care of your mental health. Whatever you do to keep yourself sane (exercise, meditate, etc.), double up on it. You’re going to need it. Reach out to friends and catch up. Not only is your network a great place for job leads, but you’re going to need that extra human connection and friendship when things get low.

I have other thoughts I’ll share later. Feel free to share your thoughts in the comments.

Hard Science Fiction - What’s so hard about it?

I’ve been giving away the Kindle version of my book for free all week. I was really pleased that my book started making several of Amazon’s free Top 100 lists, and reached #4 on the Hard Science Fiction list. They have dozens of sub-genres just for sci-fi. Besides Hard Science Fiction the other two lists that I regularly showed up in the top 20 were, Science Fiction Action, and Dystopian Science Fiction. (As a total side note, there is a lot of romance/erotic fiction in almost all of the subgenres lists on Amazon and I find it somewhat childishly ironic that Hard Science Fiction was one of the categories that did not. (Yes, I’m immature.))

Sci-Fi Action seems pretty straightforward. Most people know what Dystopian fiction is. But a lot of people asked me what Hard Science Fiction was.

The traditionally accepted definition of Hard Science Fiction is that it’s a category of sci-fi characterized by concern for scientific accuracy and logic. Now that “concern” can leave a lot of wiggle room. Some people like Andy Weir and Neal Stephenson, are very concerned. Some people find their books can be overwhelming with the amount of science fact in their science fiction. Other people like William Gibson, while concerned with the accuracy of their science, are more concerned with the possibilities of what science could do, not what it can do. By that I mean when William Gibson coined the term cyberspace in his book Burning Chrome, and imagined a digital alternate reality well before Facebook rebranded as Meta, he wasn’t concerned with how that would happen exactly. Contract that with Neal Stephenson’s Seveneves, where humanity has to escape to space for a few thousand years, by the time you finish reading that you feel like you could build and pilot a spacecraft.

In both cases, I think it’s the possibilities of science and the logic that need to make sense and the fidelity of the science fact is negotiable.

I personally fall more into the William Gibson camp in my own writing.

One Year After Publishing

It’s really hard to believe that I published Super-Borg Dies last December. I remember at the time thinking that surely we would be nearing the end of the pandemic soon. At this rate, I may end up publishing my next book during the pandemic. I sure hope not though, because I’m at least another year away from that.

I’ve been pleased with sales of the first book. Not huge, but consistent. I’ve had book sales every month of the year. That’s been the kind of surprising thing. Especially because I’ve done almost zero marketing (I know, the cobbler’s kids, and all that). I do plan to spend some work on marketing - at least updating the Amazon book pages with some reviews and new about the book, etc. Maybe do some more, but really my main focus (when I’m focused on being an author) is writing the second book. My strategy has always been to get the first series out before I really focus on marketing.

As for an update on the second book. I had originally set an audacious goal to publish it this year. Weeellllllll……that didn’t happen. Not even close. Taking a new job at a high growth start-up doesn’t leave you a lot of time to write. A month ago I was only 20k words into the first draft of the book. The good news is that as of today, I’m over 42k words into the first draft. The bad news is that I was let go of the company I went to work for. I posted about it here, and it’s all good. It wasn’t a great fit, and it sure has helped my writing productivity.

While I didn’t get as much writing done as I would have liked, I did get a lot of reading done (38 books). I almost doubled my reading goal (28 books). You can see all the books I read and the reviews on Goodreads. A large number of those were audio books, because I was going back to an office with my last job, so I had some commute time to kill again.

Sorry it’s been so long since I’ve posted, but I promise to try and be better. But I’m really trying to get the first draft of my book done so that’s still my priority. Wish me luck.

To the authors who encouraged and inspired me to write my first book.

A version of this appears in the acknowledgements section of my book, Super-Borg Dies, but there was so much more I wanted to say about each author that made little sense to put into an acknowledgements section, so I’m expanding on it more here.

I want to thank all the authors who took the time to pass on advice, answer my many questions, or just be really cool.

William Hertling and I worked together at HP. He was the first person I knew to write a book and self publish it. You should check out his first book Avagardo Corp (the first book in the Singularity Series). He then continued to write and publish several books (Kill Process is the first book in the Kill Chain series). Will answered all of my questions and was super helpful. He’s the one who first got me interested in self-publishing.

Eliot Peper is a prolific writer. Since 2014 he has published two trilogies and three standalone novels. Bandwidth is the first book in the Analog series and a great place to start, but I think my two favorite books are Cumulus and Neon Fever Dream. Eliot is an amazing individual who has shared so much over the years. He’s jumped on calls to answer my questions and is really the one who solidified for me my self-publishing path. Eliot is very active online and on his blog (be sure to sign up for his newsletter). Someday I hope to meet him IRL.

Nick Harkaway is the kind of writer I know I could never be, but I hold up as an unattainable example that keeps me striving to be better. Nick loves to write, and he loves words, and that joy comes through in his writing. He is a pleasure to read. After picking up his first book, Gone-Away World I fell in love with the mad and brilliant story telling. I then found him online (he was and is fairly active on Twitter) and proceeded to digitally stalk him for years - which he endured with grace. Then when we moved to London, not only did he have lunch with me but was kind enough to invite Jen and I to the book launch party for Angelmaker. Jen and I have a select few authors which we both love and read, and we have different favorites, but if you were to make a Venn diagram of the authors and books we both love, Nick and Angelmaker would be the center of that diagram. I also highly recommend Tigerman and if you’re up for a Gordian knot of a read, Gnomon.

While in London I came across Tom Pollock and The City’s Son (the first book in the Skyscraper Throne series). He also endured my digital stalking and after I moved back to the US I continued to order his books from the UK. When he found out that I had ordered his book from Goldsboros in London to have it shipped to the states (it wasn’t available in the states yet) he went down and signed my copy with a special message.

When I woked at IMDb we would bring a boat to San Diego Comic-Con and do celebrity interviews for several days. We would also have these really lavish parties for our sponsors and any celebrities we could get to show up. I always ended up on the bottow deck of the boat trying to escape the noise and crowds. This is where I eneded up talking to Andy Weir (The Martian), who hung out with me and talked about board games and described the economics of the Moon’s society for his yet to be released next book, Artemis. The amount of work that Andy puts into the back story of his books, but never actually make it into the book is astounding. It taught me that so much of writing isn’t actually about writing.

Do you know that Zombie Rom-Com movie, Warm Bodies? Did you know it was based on a book by Isaac Marion? And did you know that there’s a whole series of books? Well I did, and I was a huge fan. Isaac is a Seattle local and often attends Emerald City ComicCon. One year my daughter and I went and got my book signed by him and he was really cool. As we walked away my daughter (whos seen me interact with celebrities before) said, “Wow, I’ve never seen you fan boy out before.” Celebrities don’t make me geek out, but authors do. Isaac and the Warm Bodies series have had a difficult journey and watching him persevere as a writer has been encouraging.

Lastly, I love getting to meet authors. All authors I’ve met are gratious and appreciative of getting to meet their fans, but not all continue to engage with thier readers online, and I don’t expect them to. But that’s why I find it extra encouraging when authors do. Ramez Naam (the Nexus Trilogy), Wesley Chu (The Lives of Tao series), and Ben Aaronovitch (the Rivers of London series) not only were kind, and took the time to talk to me at events, but they have continued to stay engaged online, which is just real cool. Oh yeah, and they’re all amazing authors.

To the authors who encouraged and inspired me to write my first book. A version of this appears in...

To the authors who encouraged and inspired me to write my first book.

A version of this appears in the acknowledgements section of my book, Super-Borg Dies, but there was so much more I wanted to say about each author that made little sense to put into an acknowledgements section, so I’m expanding on it more here.

I want to thank all the authors who took the time to pass on advice, answer my many questions, or just be really cool.

William Hertling and I worked together at HP. He was the first person I knew to write a book and self publish it. You should check out his first book Avagardo Corp (the first book in the Singularity Series). He then continued to write and publish several books (Kill Process is the first book in the Kill Chain series). Will answered all of my questions and was super helpful. He’s the one who first got me interested in self-publishing.

Eliot Peper is a prolific writer. Since 2014 he has published two trilogies and three standalone novels. Bandwidth is the first book in the Analog series and a great place to start, but I think my two favorite books are Cumulus and Neon Fever Dream. Eliot is an amazing individual who has shared so much over the years. He’s jumped on calls to answer my questions and is really the one who solidified for me my self-publishing path. Eliot is very active online and on his blog (be sure to sign up for his newsletter). Someday I hope to meet him IRL.

Nick Harkaway is the kind of writer I know I could never be, but I hold up as an unattainable example that keeps me striving to be better. Nick loves to write, and he loves words, and that joy comes through in his writing. He is a pleasure to read. After picking up his first book, Gone-Away World I fell in love with the mad and brilliant story telling. I then found him online (he was and is fairly active on Twitter) and proceeded to digitally stalk him for years - which he endured with grace. Then when we moved to London, not only did he have lunch with me but was kind enough to invite Jen and I to the book launch party for Angelmaker. Jen and I have a select few authors which we both love and read, and we have different favorites, but if you were to make a Venn diagram of the authors and books we both love, Nick and Angelmaker would be the center of that diagram. I also highly recommend Tigerman and if you’re up for a Gordian knot of a read, Gnomon.

While in London I came across Tom Pollock and The City’s Son (the first book in the Skyscraper Throne series). He also endured my digital stalking and after I moved back to the US I continued to order his books from the UK. When he found out that I had ordered his book from Goldsboros in London to have it shipped to the states (it wasn’t available in the states yet) he went down and signed my copy with a special message.

When I woked at IMDb we would bring a boat to San Diego Comic-Con and do celebrity interviews for several days. We would also have these really lavish parties for our sponsors and any celebrities we could get to show up. I always ended up on the bottow deck of the boat trying to escape the noise and crowds. This is where I eneded up talking to Andy Weir (The Martian), who hung out with me and talked about board games and described the economics of the Moon’s society for his yet to be released next book, Artemis. The amount of work that Andy puts into the back story of his books, but never actually make it into the book is astounding. It taught me that so much of writing isn’t actually about writing.

Do you know that Zombie Rom-Com movie, Warm Bodies? Did you know it was based on a book by Isaac Marion? And did you know that there’s a whole series of books? Well I did, and I was a huge fan. Isaac is a Seattle local and often attends Emerald City ComicCon. One year my daughter and I went and got my book signed by him and he was really cool. As we walked away my daughter (whos seen me interact with celebrities before) said, “Wow, I’ve never seen you fan boy out before.” Celebrities don’t make me geek out, but authors do. Isaac and the Warm Bodies series have had a difficult journey and watching him persevere as a writer has been encouraging.

Lastly, I love getting to meet authors. All authors I’ve met are gratious and appreciative of getting to meet their fans, but not all continue to engage with thier readers online, and I don’t expect them to. But that’s why I find it extra encouraging when authors do. Ramez Naam (the Nexus Trilogy), Wesley Chu (The Lives of Tao series), and Ben Aaronovitch (the Rivers of London series) not only were kind, and took the time to talk to me at events, but they have continued to stay engaged online, which is just real cool. Oh yeah, and they’re all amazing authors.

I’m an unemployed self-published author.

Okay, I’m only unemployed by choice and it’s only for a week. But I did leave Amazon working there after almost 9 years. That was pretty big. And I am a self-published author and decided to take this “week off” to give my labor of love some long overdue attention and to get back into my second novel.

BTW, Super-Borg Dies is on sale right now.

Where has the year gone? April is almost over, which means 1/3 of the year is over! I ended 2020 on an oddly productive streak, thinking that 2021 would be even more productive. It hasn’t started turned out that way, so far. Q1 of 2021 was nuts. Just total chaos for me. Not bad chaos, necessarily, but not great chaos. So, how do I decide to deal with that chaos? I quit my job to join a startup, of course. (More on that in the near future.)

With this big change, I’m hoping to do a personal reset. First and foremost, I need to do the things I know I need to to do to take care of myself. For me that means sticking to my schedules - asleep by 11, up by 5, followed by study and exercise - and tracking my calories. I also need to get back into the habit of working on my book every day, even if it’s just an hour. That’s going to be hard starting a new job, but that’s partly why I’m taking this week off, so I can do some planning and preparations.

Wish me luck, and I hope your year is going well.