State of the writer:

June did not cooperate with me. Health and work meant that I had to take a longer than expected break from writing. Now all my momentum is out the window. I’m trying to find it again, but re-starting from a full stop is difficult. I’m still not feeling great, and it doesn’t help things, but it’s starting to get better.

On my mind lately:

Maybe I’ve been been on the internet so long that I’ve become one of those grumpy old people that yells about change. I’ve had several discussions with friends lately about how the internet felt like it fell apart after Google’s RSS reader was discontinued, and blogs pretty much disappeared as a main source of community on the internet.

I still like blogging, because it allows me to be slightly more eloquent than on Twitter, which isn’t the best medium for anything more than a sound bite. Instagram, is very good for the visually inclined, and quickly sharing bits of moods or emotional truths. But I don’t think either quite replaces blogging.

I’m not sure why newsletters are being promoted as a must have these days, when my inboxes are overflowing, and the newsletters I subscribe to (no matter how entertaining they are) mostly they just get deleted.

Now we have subscription fee everything including newsletters, or Patreons for podcasts and extra short stories. I don’t begrudge anyone for the hustle, because it’s damned hard making a living in the arts! But I don’t have unlimited funds to support everyone I’d like to support (not even my friends), and I don’t have enough time to enjoy it all.

I don’t know. Maybe it feels like you have more control when something is not shared publicly with the masses like a blog is? Is that why newsletters are a thing now? On the other hand, I think my archives here feel like an archive of my life, and growth, and the changes over the years. There’s something to be said for the persistence of information: it can be both good and bad. In the meantime, I’m just going to keep at this, because I enjoy it.

Links on the state of diversity in kidlit:

• YA Twitter Can Be Toxic, But It Also Points Out Real Problems ~ Finally a great discussion about diversity in YA and what has been happening in the industry over the past few years.
• Diversity in Children’s Books 2018 Infographic ~ Disheartening to see that animals/other were more represented than all categories of non-white characters in children’s books put together. Note: this infographic does not reflect the authorship of these books, only the subject matter.
• Another infographic on the authorship of stories based on the stats here. ~ Also pretty dismal.
• Even more infographics including one on LGBTQA+ representation in 2017.

I’m so happy there has been some positive change, and that discussions are happening in the industry, but there’s such a long way to go before all kids get to see themselves as the heroes of their own stories.

Writing

I’m halfway through the rewrite, and it’s going amazingly well. I’m stripping out so many plot points, but my word count is probably double what it was. I think it’s because I finally committed myself to a horror as a genre, which is a far cry from the original sci-fi beginnings of this story.

It’s taken 6 painful drafts to get to this point, and when this is done, I will still need to do a round of line edits before I send it out for round 2 reads. As they say, you only learn how to write the book you are writing. Every book feels harder than before, instead of easier. Every book also feels more dangerously ambitious. I may have bitten off more than I can chew, but I want to try this anyway.

Life Lately

So writing has been the highlight of my days lately. In truth, most of the posts that have gone up here were pre-written a long time ago.

I have not been well. I hardly have the energy for conversation, and my inboxes have grown gnarly branches I long to prune. I’m hoping for some relief soon, but until then, things will be a lot more quiet on my side.