Going on Hiatus: Please Stand By

I published my first blog post on June 4, 2013. In the 16 months since I've been able to maintain a daily-blog schedule, with a few exceptions, something I'm rather proud of since I wasn't sure I could do it. In fact, I am rapidly approaching my 500th blog.

However, while writing blogs is fun, my primary goal is to write stories, and despite my best effort my productivity in that respect has been much lower than I would prefer. Not that I've been lazy, but with a 9-hour day-job and a 2-hour hour daily commute, that doesn't leave me much time to write in the evenings, and to date I've been spending that time working on blog posts instead of stories. As well, sometimes I'm too tired in the evening to be very productive, so I can't even get my blogs finished.

That leaves the weekends, but those are also the only time I can get certain life-sustaining chores finished, such as laundry, grocery shopping, house cleaning, and so forth. Add to that an ailing mother I must take care of, and there is little time left for stories, and again I'm often too tired to be creative. Anymore, it seems that the only story writing I can get done is when I sneak in some time at work!

Meanwhile, my life is a mess. Except for temporary odd-jobs, I have been out of work since April of 2011, when I was fired from a web design job for reasons that still seem contrived. I've submitted hundreds of applications, but have had only a few interviews. At each one I felt like I had hit it off and would get the position, only to never hear from them again, and they never returned my calls. The same thing happens when I'm contacted by a recruiter for a possible temp job; they sound excited and eager to work with me at first, but after an initial conversation I hear nothing more and they refuse to return my calls. The only jobs I have been able to get are pretty much fit only for trained monkeys.

And to add insult to injury, I still can't get any of my stories professionally published. I've been writing and submitting for 35 years; you would think that in all that time some editor somewhere would like one of my stories well enough to give me a chance, but it's never happened.

Well, it almost happened, once, but then her publisher overrode her and said no, using an excuse that was so flimsy I can only describe it as insulting to the intelligence of a bedbug.

What really rankles is "friends" who promise to help, then never follow through.

Bottom line: the only success I've had in the last 3 years has been through self-publishing, and that's because I don't have to rely on anyone else to help me. Since I published my first story on May 28, 2013, I've had 32,000 copies of my ebooks downloaded. That's 32,000 people more than would have seen my work if I had waited until being published traditionally.

Unfortunately, to self-publish, I have to have finished stories. With a few exceptions, I have pretty much exhausted my reserve of completed stories, which means I have to write more. And I haven't been able to find the time lately, as I've explained above. I do have maybe a dozen stories that are very close to being finished, but time I should have spent on them I've spent on my blog instead.

So I have decided to suspend writing daily blog posts for the time being, so I can concentrate on my stories instead. That doesn't mean I won't publish in my blog at all. I want to continue the series I've started -- story tropes, the Dreamlands Bestiary, the Pliocene Adventure, ancient Roman culture -- and I plan to continue to post synopses. But it does mean that I probably won't post more than two blogs a week.

How long I will be on hiatus will depend upon how long it takes me to complete my stories. My goal is to have at least the short stories finished by the end of the year, and maybe one of the novels. After that, I will re-evaluate where I stand.

In any event, I want to thank everyone who has read my blog, to apologize for any disappointment, and to encourage you to stay tuned for news of my new stories.