THE GOLDEN AGE (~2009-2019)
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After college and entering the workforce, things definitely changed for a bit, but not as much as I expected at first. My first desk job— working the drive thru at a bank— actually gave me bits and pieces of time to crank out words. If things were slow and my drawer was in good shape, there was nothing really to do. It was in this time period that I first discovered NaNoWriMo and put out my first novel. (The REALLY bad one). 

Honestly, I can safely say that 2009-2019 was, so far, my golden age of writing. I was cranking out thousands of words most days. I definitely hit my first million words somewhere in there… my guess would be around 2013, if not earlier, honestly. I’ve never calculated and couldn’t if I wanted to. But I’d say definitely by then, I was well and truly past a million words.

It was my job after I left the bank that really blossomed things, and that happened in the middle of 2011. I started working at a call center, and it had… amenities. A cafeteria, a very nice on-site employee gym with showers, a “relaxation room” with a couple couches and a white noise machine. It was honestly kinda like being on campus again. I practically lived there for seven years. I also got into the best shape of my life… briefly… until work stress stole it from me. 

But I digress. By this time, I had a laptop and a lot of habits. I’d get up at, no kidding, 4:15 in the morning, drive the 50ish minutes to the call center to get a good parking spot and be there when the gym opened at 5:30. I’d get in at least an hour workout, get a shower, and have breakfast, all usually before 7 or 7:15. My work shift usually was 8-5 or 9-6, so the rest of that time was my writing time. 

Even better was when I got a promotion that took me to a different department, OFF the phones. It was still busying work, but this gave me the freedom to listen to music while I processed things, and my playlists got old pretty quick (this was in the days of iPods). So I started seeking other audio input. I found podcasts, podiobooks, and eventually audiobooks. Many podcasts I listened to were fiction based or about writing, and I eventually started one of my own that ran from 2014-2020, The Melting Potcast (RIP).

It was also somewhere in here that I had multiple 10,000+ word days. I almost had a 20,000-word day, but… that was a rough day. 

And the words were not that great. It was in here where… well, I’ve talked about NaNoWriMo before and what it taught me. I switched to quality over quantity in here.

In 2016, I got ANOTHER promotion to another offline department, and this was one that was even less work-intense. It was a monitoring hub for a bunch of nationwide call center departments, and unless there was a crisis going on, there was actually little to do. A lot of my coworkers spent their time reading, studying for certifications, all kinds of stuff. 

I generally did this: first couple hours, writing. I usually had some sort of goal: a chapter or two, a plot point, editing, something like that. Once I got through it… I usually started chainmailing, because it was in 2015 that that craft finally came barreling into my life. I was still cranking out a good thousand words on a good day. It was also during this time that most of my published works came out: Starsigns, Criminal From Birth, and The Deadly Studies being the most notable.

In early 2018, I got the bad news: the call center was closing. It was going to be relocate, take a BIG demotion and go back on the phones in a different department (but at a call center closer to home), or take severance.

I took severance. I lost my gym, my power naps, and all the easy writing time I’d been enjoying for the last few years. It was… very different, I’ll say. 

June was a lot more wild than I expected.
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Short Story (working title “Recalled”) - Officially on the back burner. I put what I have so far up on here. I won’t be tracking this story anymore.

Criminal From Birth sequel - Still with editor. It’s been rough. Still mulling over the title.

LitRPG book (working title Subscription Life) - Chapter one rewrite is done, and first shot at chapter two is done and it’s ready to be rewritten. Chapter one ended at 3266, and chapter two is at 1199, so I did 3229 words for the month.

June’s schedule got insane again rather unexpectedly. Not complaining. It was really good. July is the last wild month I SHOULD have through the end of the year. Some travel days will be cutting into my writing time, so there’s that to worry about. But August does bring back D&D time, so there will be that too.

What I’ve been working on has been good though. Slow is smooth, smooth is fast, right?

Collaboration Project - I need to get in touch with my author friend and get working on this.

My writing habits are… not at their best right now. I guess… I’d kinda like to tell you a story about my writing habits and how things have been over the years.
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THE BEGINNING (~1995-2008) 

I started writing in middle school. I was very much the precocious child, one of the “smart” kids or nerds. I was in elementary, middle, and most of high school through the 90s, very much in the hayday of putting all the “weird” kids in the Gifted program. I was in Gifted starting in 2nd grade. Of course, now I realize it’s where public schools put a lot of the neurodivergent kids. My classmates then, I recognize now as various functional autists, with plenty of ADHD sprinkled in. Turned out I was autistic, but anyway. I mention this just to illustrate that school itself was… not really much of a challenge for me. I was never skipped grades, though I was one of the youngest in my class (I turned 18 2.5 months after graduating high school). However, I was also one of the well-behaved kids. I didn’t and still don’t like confrontation. My autism very much manifests with strenuous rules of conduct and behavior. So I got very good at entertaining myself in class when bored.

In middle school that entertainment became writing. It persisted through most of high school and college. If I was in class and had already managed to do my homework or in-class assignments, I was writing. It wasn’t until I was in my gap year between high school and college that I finally got a dedicated desktop computer of my own, and I started typing rather than hand-writing everything. Yeah, I’m that old. 
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That computer got me through college, and if I wasn’t in class/rehearsal or at a recital (oh the joys of music majors) then I was… probably reading or writing. Between classes, it was reading, since I didn’t have a laptop, but in my dorm room, it was usually writing. 

So, a writer buddy of mine whom I’ve worked with before reached out to me yesterday, mostly to chat. However, it being the two of us, naturally we started talking writing. Long story short, we were discussing our current projects (mine being my LitRPG novel and his being book 15 in his urban fantasy series) and the idea came up between us to do a collaborative work again.

It’s been ages since I’ve worked with him, so naturally I started getting the brain juices going. He suggested science fiction as a genre, since we both dabble in it but haven’t done a lot to focus on it. I suggested a format: correspondence between two characters over relativity-necessary timelapses. The thought mostly stemmed from my irregular schedule, trying to think of something that would be manageable to eke out time for. But I also have tried collaborations before, and one of the places where I most notice issues for me is writing style. Unless one person is focusing on the writing, things can get distorted due to multiple writing styles between authors. Even if one goes back and rewrites everything to be cohesive… it’s still something I wanted to avoid. So two different people corresponding… that would make more sense.

Our brainstorm developed from there and… I think we’re going to at least give it a shot. We have basic framework, basic plot, and even a friggin’ working title already. 

So… I guess we’ll see!

"Stalker" is one I wrote back in college and... from what I can gather from my files and stuff, it was written during a short period around 2004-2005 when there was a tiny community of people doing a writing contest called "First Line Fiction." Each month-- or it might have been weekly, but I don't think it was-- the competition runner put up a single sentence. It was meant to be the first line of the story. I believe the word limit was 500, so these were flash fiction stories.

Once the submission period was up, each contestant was given a few other entries to rank. I'm wanting to say it was 3-5 entries. So it was a ranked voting/point system. The winner got like $50 or $100. I won once with the first story I did there, "Triple Homicide on Train FA-7."

"Stalker" wasn't a submission for the FLF contest. But I do know it was inspired by one of the first lines. How do I know? Because I have another story, "Pickup at The Join" that has the same first line, and it's less than 500 words. That was my entry for that contest.

"Stalker" is what I did when I didn't have the word count limit. Still flash fiction, but not short enough for the contest.

Anyway, enjoy!
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“She’s a local. The number’s in our area code.”

“What makes you think she’s a ‘she’?”

“Who else would text you this late on a Tuesday to tell you you’re cute? Unless you came out while we were at the club this weekend and didn’t tell me.”

Cal opened his phone and pulled up the text again. You’re a hottie. “Beats me,” he said, snapping the phone shut again. “How drunk did I get?”

Monty shrugged. “You think I remember how drunk you got? I was the one who passed out, remember? After throwing up in your lap on the bus home.”

Cal did remember. Nasty. He hadn’t even tried to clean those pants-- just threw them away. “So I probably gave my number to someone. Maybe a few someones… and now one of them is actually texting me.”

“I thought girls usually called.”

“This is the texting age.”

“Maybe she's a hottie. You tend to have pretty good taste, even when you’re drunk.” Monty grinned. “Text her back. Ask if she has a sister.”

“I don’t even know who she is!”

“Why should that stop you?”

He shook his head, stuffing his phone into his pocket. “I’m not going to do anything. If she-- whoever she is-- isn’t just messing with me, she’ll text again. Maybe then I might reply.”

Cal’s phone vibrated, rattling against the glass of water on his nightstand. The clinking woke him up. 

New Text Message

He flipped it open and opted not too look at it right away. Instead he checked the time. 2:57 stared at him. Cursing, he opened the text, looking first at the number. It was the same one.

​On my mind on my mind!

Grumbling, he closed the phone and went back to sleep.

Monty stared at the screen on Cal’s phone, looking at the texts Cal had saved in the memory, all from that same local number. “They were all sent late, like after midnight.”

“Except for that first one. That one was at quarter till. Big difference, I know.”

“She’s texted you almost every night for three weeks. And you’ve done what?”

Cal shrugged. “Been jerked out of sleep for every damned one of them.”

Monty thrust the phone at him, pushing it into his chest. “I’m telling you, this girl’s got a thing for you. Text her back!”

“No way, man! This is kinda creeping me out at this point. I mean, look at some of those last ones. Check the one from Monday.”

Sighing, Monty opened the phone and pulled up the text. “Baby you there? I like tomatoes and bagels,” he read aloud, trying hard not to laugh and making a strangled snorting sound instead.

"She does sound hot.”

“This isn't funny, Monty. I’m starting to get weirded out by this. I mean, I haven’t answered a one of her texts, but she keeps texting me almost every night.”

In Monty’s hands, Cal’s phone began to vibrate. “I’ll check it,” he said, flipping it open. Cal peered over his shoulder.

My pockets are greasy.

“What’s that supposed to mean? Some new weird stalker pickup line?”

The phone vibrated again. Sorry baby I forgot something.

Again. There’s a taco in there.
Ow! Stop it!
I’m stealing your pillow.

The phone was receiving texts faster than they could read them.

C’mon let’s go upstairs.
I’ll tell u when i’m finished.
u don’t like me
nononono

“I think she just lost it,” Monty said. “I’m calling her.”

“Monty, don’t!”

Cal heard the phone ring three times before a voice picked up. “Hello?” She didn't sound to alert.

“Yeah, hi. Um… I keep getting texts from this number. Really weird ones. Mind explaining?”

There was a pause, and Cal heard a yawn on the other end of the line. “Who is this?”

“Cal.“ Monty made a face at Cal as he said his name.

“I don’t know a Cal.”

“I think we might have met at The Cave, on Third Avenue, maybe three weeks ago? I can't think of anywhere else I might have given out my number.”

“Oh! Oh my god, I’m sorry! I think… have I been texting you?”

Monty rolled his eyes. “That’s kind of what I said.”

“Oh, I'm sorry. I… I’ve been known to sleep-text. I’ll delete your number.”

Before Monty could respond, she hung up the line. Monty slammed the phone into Cal’s hands. “Guess you’ll have to find a new secret admirer, bro.”

May was hectic but productive. I mean seriously.

Short Story (working title “Recalled”) - Officially on the back burner. I’ll probably put what I have on the Patreon at some point for you guys to take a look at.

Criminal From Birth sequel - Still with editor. It’s been rough. Still mulling over the title.

LitRPG book (working title Subscription Life) - That serious rewrite of chapter one is well underway! Well, let me back up. Last month I had 1445 words written on draft 1 on chapter 1. I got that up to 2159 and completed it, then started the second draft. Second draft is up to 1236 words, and compared to the first draft, I’m only about 1/3 of the way through!

June’s schedule settled down some, so it won’t be quite as insane and I should be able to dedicate more time to writing, especially since I’ll be on GM break from my usual D&D gig. I’m really finally starting to sink into Subscription Life, getting that itch. 

I believe I’ve touched on this subject a few times, but I wanted to make sure I actually went into it a little bit.

A lot of advice given to writers is to read. Read, read, read. Always be reading, along with writing. 

That’s good advice. But what the heck am I supposed to be reading? Fiction like what I’m writing? Stuff unlike it? Academic papers on psychology? Blog posts on writing?

The short answer is… well, yes. In everything you read, there is going to be at least a little something you can take from it that will make you a better writer.

Granted, everything isn’t going to have the same value for you, but there is always SOME value.
Read fiction that is like yours. I mean seriously. How are you going to write science fiction if you’ve never read anything science fiction before? What kinds of things will your space marines get up to that makes no sense if you haven’t gotten any sort of military experience, or at least gotten some idea what space marines do? How is your magic system going to stand up to scrutiny when you’ve never experienced one from another author? Or a dozen?

Oh no, but then I’ll be derivative of everything I’ve read! Yeah, that’s not how this works. You can always learn what you don’t like about other systems and writers, too. Just because you know how magic works in this world or that, or how space marines work in this universe, it doesn’t mean you have to copy them. There are no rules, but there can be precedents. You can strip layers and pieces off works that have come first, twist other things, completely replace some, and you have your own system. But I bet you may have also come across ideas and uses for resources (like magic or technology) that you never would have considered before. And that’s just scratching the surface.

Read stuff unlike your fiction, too! Seriously. Read histories if you write urban fantasy. Read romance if you write science fiction. Read horror if you write romance. There are tons of writing techniques, plot devices, all kinds of things you can learn from crossing genres. On the small, simple level, your fantasy might have some scary moments. Having read horror can help you on a meta level, knowing how to increase tension to instill dread and fear. Having read romance, your space marine commander can woo his love interest or seduce the enemy commander or alien overlord or whatever.

Academic papers? Yeah, read them! If they interest you, why not? But from a writing standpoint, they’ll definitely teach you specific vocabulary, how to emotionlessly get things across, and there’s always the use of subject matter. I recently did a post on writing what you know. This ties into it. Have interest in cell reproduction? I’m sure you can find ways to incorporate that into fiction somehow. It could be inspiration for an alien race, or a disease that affects magic users, or the basis for a monster. Your specific interests can help inform what you write.

There’s even value in reading very, VERY bad writing. I’ve slogged through more than a few stories and books that were horrible. Poorly edited, not at all fleshed out, just… bad. Sometimes there are lessons to learn in how not to write things. I’ve learned what kinds of things to look for as red flags in my writing mechanics themselves. I’ve seen great ideas executed so poorly it’s a real shame… and I’ve taken away lessons from them. Like how too much self-insertion turns into mental masturbation no one else will get anything from. How trying to hide self-insertion fantasy by making the subject of the book “You” rather than I or an actual main character is just as awful. I’ve read a romance where the majority of adjectives for anatomy are the same couple words… and I’ve learned how NOT to narrow my vocabulary that way. I’ve also read narratives where the author clearly used a thesaurus on far too many of their words in an attempt to sound smart. That backfires a lot. It becomes too much about the individual words then, rather than the whole sentence or paragraph.

Am I perfect? Far from it. I’m still learning. Always am. You should be, too. 
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Read. Read widely. You may not get a whole lot for your horror novel by reading that study on window and door glass energy efficiency, but you might. 

We hear this advice a lot. Write what you know. But what is it supposed to mean? Are people who read modern fiction, set in the present day, doomed to only write the same sort of stories? Are those how enjoy memoirs only allowed to write their own memoir? Or is it something more stringent? You’re a straight white man, so your characters must only be the same? You have spent your career working fast food, so your settings have to be fast food joints?

Fuck that.

First of all, your average person is going to know a lot more than you (or perhaps even they) might realize. We all live in our own little worlds, and they are as varied as the people themselves are. None are the same, though the greater Venn diagrams are complex. My older brother and I had the same locational upbringing. We share a knowledge of the setting we grew up in. Many of the same people are in our shared world… but so much else is different. We both have some musical education, for example, some chemistry. But I pursued further musical education, and he’s a chemical engineer. Already, our “what you know” baskets have changed. He has a wife and children; I do not. That doesn’t stop me from writing characters who are married or who have children.

It goes on from there. But it is so much more complex. Were the two of us given the same sort of basic plot idea, our interests and experiences would have us interpret it differently, create the world of our novels differently.

So what the hell does “write what you know” mean?

It means you have so much at your disposal that no one can write what you can. It means that you have a special combination of knowledge that you can absolutely tap into for a good story.
I’m going to super simplify things here, but let’s put this in terms of something I often come across in my reading and writing: magic systems.

I, by dint of my musical education mentioned earlier, would have a pretty easy time centering a magic system around one of my interests/hobbies. Music. I’m also a chainmailer. I could build a system around that. The metals involved, the dynamics of the weave pattern, how the two mesh: metal and weave. 

Crap, I’m giving myself ideas.

But what inspired this post was another book I recently read for the second time: Babel by R. F. Kuang. Kuang’s magic system in Babel is deeply based in linguistics, specifically the imprecise nature of translation. That’s not something I would even slightly be able to pull off. I enjoy languages, but nowhere near the depth of what it would take to develop a novel like this was.

Once I started thinking about that, how that is a very good basis for “write what you know” it made me think about what wonders are really possible. Imagine a fashionista’s take on a clothing- or jewelry-based magic system. A sleight-of-hand enthusiast’s take on political machinations in a scheming peerage. What could a gourmet chef do with a sci-fi setting, and how would that differ from a line cook’s take, or a caterer’s or baker’s?

The varied interests and skills people have, those earned through curiosity or necessity, give every one of us a unique perspective that could do wonders in the written world. It doesn’t have to be limiting in the slightest; you don’t ONLY have to write what you know.

But your passions equip you to write your own story, one that only you can pull off. One piece of random, “useless” trivia you know has the potential to spawn the basis of a magnificent piece of writing.

Of course there will still be research to do. There is always more to know. But when you’re passionate about what you’re writing, it shows, and you can bring others along with you on it. 
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So write what you know. Don’t hold back your excitement for it. Insects, candy making, agriculture, engineering, whatever it is that has your attention is worth a story.

April was again, very lean, but again, what words I did get out were good.
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Short Story (working title “Recalled”) - I think I’m leaving this one on the burner for now. Once I get some time and revisit, I’ll either finish it or maybe put up what I have for your opinions.

Criminal From Birth sequel - Still with editor. It’s been rough. Still mulling over the title.

LitRPG book (working title Subscription Life) - This (and blog posts and D&D) are where most of my writing effort has gone this month. Not as much as I wanted, but good ones. I’m working on the first chapter, feeling out my main character, and I’m liking it so far. I’ve gotten 1445 words written on it! This is going to need some serious rewrite, but I’ve been enjoying doing these immediate rewrites to really set things up properly, get into the details early.

Here comes May. It’s gonna get nuts heading into the latter half of the month and into June. Wish me luck!

I legit don’t know where March went. Between a sudden theatre tech gig that took up most of a week and prepping for con season to really get going, I didn’t manage as much writing as I wanted, but I’ll say the writing I did do was good.

Short Story (working title “Recalled”) - No updates this month. Still at around 1800 words. Crap. This makes two months in a row. I’m at the point I need to go reread what I’ve already done and decide if I actually want to pursue anymore.

Criminal From Birth sequel - Still with editor. It’s been rough. I might have a title though.  Still haven’t decided.

LitRPG book (working title Subscription Life) - I only managed to write one more scene, though once again, I wrote it twice. First version was 448 words, second was 781 and again, so much better. More full.

So we’ll say 1224 written on it. I need to do better. My time is about to be at a premium come May, so I really hope to make April better for word-making.