Season's Greetings

From the Speakers: FINE AGAIN by Seether
Just Read: BETTER by Atul Gawande--Great ideas about performance: diligence, doing right, and ingenuity. Translates nicely to writing, I'd say.
Reading Now: WIZARD'S FIRST RULE by Terry Goodkind

Writing, for me, has proven to be seasonal. In the summer, I'm much more inclined to write longer pieces. Winter brings about an urge to work on description; I tend to write lugubriously dense, slow-paced stories during the colder months.

But when the weather changes daily--either getting cooler and burning or rusting the leaves, or getting warmer and making everything outdoors bigger and fuller--I get into this mood where I have to write as much as I can on as many different stories as I can. More ideas occur to me during spring and autumn--I don't know why, but if I did you can guarantee I'd be milking those reasons year round.

It's kind of nice. It's well-known that autumn is a great season for literature, for sitting outside and watching the leaves change with a good book. Nature does great things for creative minds.

I've recently completed one of the longest short-stories I've ever written. It's 18,600 words, which I believe classifies it as a "novelette". It also classifies it as unsalable, but I'll ignore that little fact and enjoy the accomplishment of it. Now, bring on the autumn: long stories on the back burner while I churn out a high quantity of (hopefully high quality) short stories.

If that means lots of publications to follow soon, you'll be the first to know.

PS--If you were wondering, the water damage at my apartment is 100% cleared up. The poison ivy on my leg could learn a lesson.