Hey, folks. It’s…been a while since I’ve updated here. Yeah, yeah, I know, I said I’d do it sooner, more frequently, all that jazz. At this point, all I can say is I got caught up in the various joys and stresses of life; this summer has been a busy one, and with how busy it’s been, certain things (like the blog) have been pushed to the wayside.

But now I’m back, for the moment at least. So what’s been going on? Well, to be frank, writing has been a challenge lately. These last few months, I’ve mostly worked on Usi and the Kosan rewrite: and while I have finally started getting somewhere on the rewrite, I sort of hit a wall again on Usi, and had to take a step back from it for a couple weeks.

Anyone who keeps up with these updates will know this isn’t a new thing. For me, writing a book all the way through with no speed bumps or roadblocks is rare. This one’s been frustrating, though, both because it’s been a while since I actually finished a book, and because I had just started working on Usi again, like, a month ago. Maybe not even. But as I sat down and started hacking my way through it again, I…well, I don’t know. The words just stopped coming.

Now, usually, the thing to do when that happens is to step away for a bit and work on something else. And that’s what I did: my original plan was to work on the Kosan rewrite and Usi at the same time, but with Usi temporarily on the backburner, I switched my attention to the Kosan rewrite. And although that’s gone a bit better, I still haven’t made the kind of progress I’d like. Part of it might just be the usual summer doldrums: after all, my writing almost always slows down in the summertime. And this summer has, despite my best intentions, been more of the same.

But I’ve also just felt worse about my writing lately. Frankly, it doesn’t feel like I’ve made much progress since reading A Song of Ice and Fire two years ago and having that fire lit beneath me again. Not only haven’t I had anything published, the thought of even getting published is starting to feel far-off, abstract, almost absurd. More and more, I’ve been wondering again whether I’ve been wasting my time with writing, whether these books I’ve been writing really have any potential at all. I mean, yeah, I know nobody writes a good first draft. I know every writer starts off writing crap. I know the publishing industry is incredibly hard to break into. But I’ve been doing this for 14 years now. Half my life, I’ve been chasing this dream. And I have close to nothing to show for it.

I don’t know. Could be part of my problem is I’m getting too caught up in writing something publishable, and not focusing enough on writing something fun. That’s part of the reason I decided to write an outline for the rest of Usi Book 1 before I start working on the actual prose again: that way, I can make sure I at least have a structure that makes some sense before I get back into the weeds. The fact Usi 1 is so gigantic might make this an even better idea: we’ll see once the outline is finished and I’m back trying to get a first draft done. Early results are promising, though: I was working on the outline a bit today, and the part I did came together OK. So I guess there’s that.

Well, I hope my return wasn’t too much of a buzzkill. I’ll try to post here more regularly again going forward, but knowing my life’ll get even busier in the next few months, I can’t promise anything. My real hope—my goal, even—is for my next post to be just a bit more positive.

But for now, that’s where I’m at.

Until next time,

Have fun, stay safe, keep reading!