Time does fly when you're not having all that much fun. Just pushing to get through the muggle job, taking hours away from writing because - inflation. Everybody raising prices but cutting back their workers' hours. Yet here we are. In the past year I've spent a lot of time exploring whether or not a novel I've been working on could sell in the Young Adult niche (ugh) and in the meantime sold three short works. The Headless Ghost of Foxfire Creek is available in The Book of Carnacki, the Ghost Finder from Belanger Books. Silver Bess is part of the ongoing Two Thousand Word Terrors online project, and will go live on July 17th. When a Wild Rose Blooms is in the forthcoming anthology Legion Press, which is, to borrow a showbiz phrase, currently in post production.
The household has also churned out a new full length ballet, which led to a commissioned work. Most importantly, we produced a cancer survivor.
Then we said good-bye to our fur baby, Atticus Finch, who, after a successful fourteen year run, dropped the curtain and put on the ghost light.
One minute I'm typing away, unimpaired by cat paws on the keyboard or mouse. The next I'm scrolling adoption sites, looking for another mostly hypoallergenic cat. Though to be honest, Mr. AF Carpenter-Sanchez was not completely Russian Blue, but we all still managed to live together.
I think I became allergic to people. Most writers are, to a certain extent. I, however, got to the point where I couldn't even face working on my own marketing. I find it somewhat gruesome, a task which ought to be left to agents and publishers, but like the muggle job market, the publishing industry now seems to want a finished product at entry level prices. We've all seen those job listings. Entry level. Minimum five years experience required. (Any more years than that and they think they'll be looking at candidates with a finger poised over the send button of their Social Security applications. Which most employers seem to think you qualify for at age forty.)
Now, joining the ranks of market listings for short stories alongside "no monetary payment" come the restricted demographics. Authors must identify as (fill in the niche identity currently trending on social media.)
Yet the stories still demand to be told, so I keep banging them out. Occasionally posting them on a members only workshop, to be mulled over by other tortured souls also banging out stories demanding to be told.
I've been listening to The Mighty Mighty Bosstones lately. A lot. Because when in doubt, Ska! "We might be bruised, but we're not broken. We might be down, but we're not out."