Intimidation

Wow. Time flies when you're… uh…

If you've been watching Flying Island Press, you know that we're moving FlagShip from every other month and six stories to monthly and more like three stories. It's definitely taking up a lot of my available mind-space. I've also been fighting a bit of depression, lack of a regular day job, and struggling through a Body for Life challenge (I've lost about fifteen pounds over the last two and a half months or so. Three more weeks in the challenge, I think.)

Needless to say, it's been a busy few months. Plus, I am looking at a novel manuscript I wanted to have completely edited by the end of the month which probably isn't going to happen (dagnabit) because I don't know if I can actually pull off what I want to and there's been family health issues and -

And yes, I know. If you want to find an excuse not to write, you can definitely do that. And you eventually have to just decide that you're going to push forward and do something if you really want it. It's easy to turn away if you don't feel like you're seeing immediate results – and if you've got what looks like a massive project staring you in the face. (Hello, book manuscript. How are you today? Me? Oh, I'll be over here brainstorming. Which is another way of saying I'm going to try doing something that looks productive without necessarily putting new words down on a page. Cool with you? Cool.)

I've heard it said (and I'm wanting to attribute this to David Farland, but it could easily have been Tracy Hickman and I couldn't tell you where I saw it) that creativity is easy, but disciplined action was a rare and beautiful thing.

Here's to reaching for rare and beautiful. Which means that I'll be posting a new story here in the next couple days – just have to check where it is in the submissions process (I don't remember if I've submitted this to Asimov's, which has a six-week average response time or something like that – if I have, I'll have to write something new for the site.) And here's to getting a book draft DONE by Balticon.

Which, unfortunately, I will be unable to attend this year. See my lack of regular day job, cited above. And that means I won't be there for DS Breakfast (which I totally look forward to every year). DS Balticon Fans, Consider This Your Fair Warning.