Chapter 87: In Which I Discuss A Month

It's September 15th. That means I've been in Louisiana exactly a month.

I have no idea when life got so frantic. The day I touched down I moved to a horse farm. Next day was English department orientation. Four days later school started. Fifteen days later, I moved from the horse farm to somewhere closer to campus. Started taking three classes. Started teaching two classes. Yes, I am a bona fide college prof now. Pretty cray-cray. I made progress on my audiobook. Did an editing job, wrote an article for Weird Fiction Review, renewed my passport, and somehow found the time to watch massive amounts of Leiji Matsumoto anime.

BTW, nicest people down at UL. When was the last time your office mate gave you a bike? When was the last time the head of your department gave you sheets for your bed?

For some reason, I thought moving down South would make life less of a marathon. It's the same hustle as always. I've come to figure out that's just the way I work. It doesn't seem a lot as you're doing it, but looking back, there's much you can accomplish in a month. Even with school taking up so much time, I made progress on all sorts of other things.

I'm trying to pace the different projects I work on. I have an anthology submission to be completed in the next 15 days. October will be dedicated to a short story and a novella. November? I guess we'll see.

What else did I complete between August 15th and Septembr 15th?

Hard Times Blues

Done.

Let me repeat that.

DONE.

Just turned in to my publisher the completed manuscript for HARD TIMES BLUES, my second story collection. Two years (or more, in some cases) of short story work. 69, 171 words. It will be released in December in double novel format with ONCE UPON A BODY by Christine Stoddard. Expect all sorts of promotional goodness down the line.

Ghosts. Elves. Dragons. Prophets. Sorcerors. Zombies. This new book definitely ups the fantasy quotient from JDS, which was itself pretty fantastical. Now that I think about it, JDS also had dragons. I think the tagline for my bibliography should be: "Expect dragons." You'll never go wrong.

This new book is stories of high adventure. High stakes. High emotion. My characters go through some pretty intense scenarios, but there's always that element of the sublime. These are stories about anger, dissatisfaction, about not fitting in. About finding what you value in a society that wants to prescribe your values. It's also my most experimental work, dabbling into poetic forms here and there.

There have been so many blown deadlines on this project. So many false starts and dead ends. And what do I have at the end of the day? Another book. So worth it. I can't wait to go on tour.