Going Forward

I’ve been somewhat quiet of late because I’m deciding on how I want to handle my public brand going forward.

When I was working on my MFA, this site and blog were a part of the program. I didn’t need to do as much for it as I did (or, technically, even do most of it at all). But now I need to get serious about what I’m doing as a writer.

The Changes

That includes making a shift to a couple different things. For one thing, I’ve opened a community on Locals. It’ll let people connect directly with me if they want to, and serve as a consolidation of all sorts of news and other goings-on.

This blog is going to be updated twice weekly, on Tuesdays and Thursdays. I hope to keep the quality of posts high while slightly reducing the overall amount of output.

When I have a new piece out somewhere significant, I’ll post a link to it as a separate post, regardless of schedule. I’m not going to focus on Fiction Fridays, because while I’m trying to keep up on writing fiction my move from micro and short fiction to novels has made it very difficult for me to juggle that. When there’s something cool and fun to read, I’ll point to it (or post it) here.

One reason for this reduction is that I want to focus more heavily on series which may require me to do some research and brushing up on material, and I just don’t know that I can commit to do that at the same pace that I was able to when I was a full-time student.

Another reason for it is that I need to be focusing on my other content, both freelancing and independent writing. I’ve got something like five projects going right now if we don’t include blogging, so that just adds up quickly. I’d like to get to the point where I actually finish a project every four months or so, and while I’ve been on track to do that if we average out across the year I want to make it more of a “I finish and release a project every four months on the month, not as a glut at the end of the year” thing.

I also want to focus on making videos/podcasts for Odysee and Locals. That entails focusing more effort on that, including writing scripts and the various work that requires.

When to Expect Aspects of Sand and other Fiction

I’ve still been working on Aspects of Sand from a planning stage, though I’ve hit something of a writing block with regards to getting into the text itself. I hope to have the next chapter out tomorrow. Then I will keep releasing three chapters a week until I finish Zefra’s story.

After that, I plan to start revisions on Daughter of Spades, and I think this will be the last major revision pass. I’ll be going in and giving the side characters a little more identity in their focal chapters. Other than that, there are small stylistic adjustments to make throughout the novel.

I was thinking that I might wait and release Daughter of Spades as part of its trilogy set: King of Graves, Daughter of Spades, and Orphan Son. Titles are, of course, still works in progress.

But there are too many variables. I have swathes of Orphan Son drafted and the core story is plotted out, though there are parts of it that are going to change because of things in Daughter of Spades. This isn’t a continuity issue; the characters have been stable the whole time. But there are things I’ve cut and prodded, so Orphan Son might depend on King of Graves coming out first, which would be rough because King of Graves is inexistent other than some back-of-napkin notes.

“But Kyle, Aren’t You Also Working On Nonfiction?”

Yes.

My book on pacifism, Heroism and Pacifism, is going to be wrapped up around the end of the month, hopefully. That’s not necessarily relevant to my core audience, but I feel like it’s an important idea that people don’t understand in the current day and I want to bring it to people.

Then there’s Herding Your Cats. I swear, as much as the concepts for that book seem clear in my head they keep shifting and twisting as I go to the page.

I have rarely had so many issues writing anything. It’s not that I’m unqualified, or that I’m burned out, or that I hate the work.

It’s just oxymoronic because I feel like the more I know and the more I learn the harder it is to write it.

I had hoped to finish it by the end of 2020. Now I hope to finish it by the end of 2021. It’s targeted for 20,000 words, how hard can it be?

Honestly, the exercises have been the hard part. I don’t want to be overly derivative, but I want to include things that work.

Figuring that out is the sweet spot.

Wrapping Up

I’m not going anywhere, so watch this space.