Follow me on Twitter
Error: Twitter did not respond. Please wait a few minutes and refresh this page.
Meta
-
Recent Posts
Categories
- Academia
- Blog Business
- Choose Your Own Romance
- Choose Your Own Sci-Fi
- Cities of Luna
- Commentary & Musing
- Felt Tips
- Guest Blog Posts
- Incorporeum
- Interviews
- Kingdom Come
- Liftport
- NaNoWriMo
- Published Works
- Real Science
- ROW80
- SciFi Q of the Day
- Short Stories and Samples
- Star Trek
- SyFy Question of the Day
- Uncategorized
- Wikimedia
- Write on Edge
- Writing
Archives
- August 2018
- February 2018
- January 2018
- December 2017
- November 2017
- October 2017
- September 2017
- August 2017
- July 2017
- June 2017
- May 2017
- April 2017
- March 2017
- February 2017
- January 2017
- December 2016
- November 2016
- October 2016
- September 2016
- August 2016
- July 2016
- June 2016
- May 2016
- April 2016
- March 2016
- February 2016
- January 2016
- December 2015
- November 2015
- October 2015
- September 2015
- August 2015
- July 2015
- June 2015
- May 2015
- April 2015
- March 2015
- February 2015
- January 2015
- December 2014
- November 2014
- October 2014
- September 2014
- August 2014
- July 2014
- June 2014
- May 2014
- April 2014
- March 2014
- February 2014
- January 2014
- December 2013
- November 2013
- October 2013
- September 2013
- August 2013
- July 2013
- June 2013
- May 2013
- April 2013
- March 2013
- February 2013
- January 2013
- December 2012
- November 2012
- October 2012
- September 2012
- August 2012
- July 2012
- June 2012
- May 2012
- April 2012
- March 2012
- February 2012
- January 2012
- December 2011
- November 2011
- October 2011
- September 2011
- August 2011
- July 2011
- June 2011
- May 2011
- April 2011
- March 2011
Tweets
Error: Twitter did not respond. Please wait a few minutes and refresh this page.
White Knot
Google Plus
(function() { var po = document.createElement('script'); po.type = 'text/javascript'; po.async = true; po.src = 'https://apis.google.com/js/plusone.js'; var s = document.getElementsByTagName('script')[0]; s.parentNode.insertBefore(po, s); })();
The Abandoned Blog
Every Spring I teach Spreadsheets and Databases to college freshmen. A few days ago I gave my students their final exam and turned in final grades. I have also been sick for the past three weeks, which has made the end of the school year much more difficult than usual.
I made a conscious decision to let the blog go for a while. Teaching was a commitment that took precedence over writing, at least temporarily. I’m still deciding when/whether to give up the teaching gig to concentrate on my writing career. The phrase “don’t quit your dayjob” echoes in my ears.
I was about to call this post “I need to stop moving my own cheese….” then I realized that I already have a blog post, from August 22, 2012, titled “Who Moved My Cheese?” Yes, in that post, I also talked about being sick, that time with a perforated ear drum and Bronchitis. This time it’s an Upper Respiratory Infection, and on my doctor’s recommendation, I’m recovering without antibiotics. It’s not pretty.
In addition to neglecting the blog, I also let go of my daily writing habit. It hurts, but it was necessary. I followed through with a couple of deadlines, and I was able to temporarily postpone an editing commitment (an anthology where all the authors are editing for each other) as well as an interview (I’m being interviewed about writers and mental illness.)
Now, about that cheese…
A year and a half ago I confessed to abandoning The Kingdom Come Stories in favor of the Pangalactic Sojourners. A few months ago, I did the opposite. Essentially, I moved my own cheese. But I did so for good reasons… PG was stalled and needed something I couldn’t yet grasp. I took advice from Tiffany Reisz and chose one story that I thought would be a good first novel, then prepared to polish and query it. (Let’s not get into the self-pub’ing debate here. Tis not for me.) That story was my 2013 NaNoWriMo project, and I’m quite proud of it. It is necessary for me to let go of a rough draft after it’s finished so I can read through it and make a round of edits before handing it to Beta readers. This is hard for me to do, but I turned my attention to another Kingdom Come story (Under the Radar) and then my attention turned to my teaching commitment.
We’re several weeks into this round of #ROW80, and now that the semester is over I can re-establish my writing goals. However, I am still sick and light-headed, so I’m not going to dive in too deeply yet. I did do Friday Flash today, but I have yet to look at my new editorial commitments. I have two short stories accepted for anothos that are in the editing stages, so those deadlines take precedence. I need to stay true to Tiffany’s advice and give most of my attention to edits of Jublilation of the Southern Cross and Hearthsong.
And I need to get healthy. Because none of this is going to happen if I’m still coughing so hard I can’t think.
Like this:
Related
About AmyBeth Inverness
A writer by birth, a redhead by choice.