On Initial Obstacles and a New Interview

So for the past three weeks or so I've been trying to get the beginning of Social Contract written. I say trying because it seems like I keep running into some kind of mental block.

It's hard to figure out why that is at the moment. Maybe with Wolfhound's success, I'm a bit worried about branching out into another type of story. Like I won't be able to duplicate my success if I don't stick with the same formula. Or maybe I'm just juggling too many projects again; between the Kingsley copy edit, somes revisions on other stuff and the emergency room, I don't seem to have a lot of time to spare. Another possibility is that I've simply exhausted myself again. I wrote four books in thirty nine weeks last year, and that kind of a pace can leave a mark. Maybe I just need to slow down? Or maybe this is going to turn out like another New Realm, and I'll have to cut my losses. Then again, I always have trouble with beginnings, so...

Dilemmas like these seem to be part of a writing career. Sometimes the problems and obstacles aren't as cut and dried as they would be in another career. As I continue to write, though, I think I will get better at identifying them and resolving them. For now, I think I just have a bit too much on my plate, mixed in with a bit of plain old fatigue. My focus is going to shift a little so that I can clear some of that away. Then maybe I can return my progress on new words to my usual, semi-berserk pace.

Oh! Also, I have an interview up! It is over at Sarah M Eden's blog. It was a lot of fun to do that one, and I hope you enjoy it too. In any case, I have just two chapters left to revise and Kingsley will be ready. Come on, focus...

Another Interview Up+On Early Christmas Commercials

So I've got another interview up, this time at Michele Ashman Belle's blog. I think it turned out pretty well, so go take a look.

So the other day I was watching TV during my lunch break--a luxury of working in the emergency room I suppose--and I found myself confronted by an age old enemy of mine. No, not the political ranting which now somehow occupies two thirds of any given preelection year. No, not people who hate videogames, or label nerds as an enemy of society. No, not even the spectre of bad sitcoms or repetitive drama shows disturbed my evening meal. It was a far older enemy that has haunted me more each coming year.

I speak, of course, of the pre-Thanksgiving Christmas commercial.

It may be that my feelings on this subject are tainted by the bias I picked up living in Massachusetts and Connecticut. There, Thanksgiving is a holiday you actually celebrate and everything, rather than a temporary gluttonous pause before launching into the shopping furor we know as Christmas. I like Thanksgiving. I like the memories I have from childhood of pumpkin pie and going over what I'm grateful for in my life. I think it is a tradition our society dearly needs to preserve. Yet each year it falls more and more by the wayside as Christmas tries to swallow November whole--having already polished off December of course.

The worst part about it is that it only gets worse from here. Holiday shows start taking the place of regular episodes, often just recycled stuff from the eighties. Songs I rarely want to hear before mid-December start repeating on the radios (is anyone else disturbed that we haven't had a new Christmas song since like the fifties?) and doesn't stop until they've squeezed every last drop of Holiday cheer out of it. The whole thing has gotten so overblown that it all begins to feel hollow.

This scourge has grown worse with the passing of time. I have not even had the opportunity to enjoy my traditional turkey and Pilgrim imagery, and I already have a bunch of idiots prancing to Christmas carols and telling me to buy something. My dear wife might consider me something of a Grinch when it comes to disliking these things. Maybe she's right, but it won't stop me from crying out indignantly when It's the Most Wonderful Time, to Buy Stuff gets butchered by another commercial in early November. Because trust me, at this point, somebody needs to.

Aaannnnd that's my curmudgeonly rant quota for the month. Happy Holidays!