Soapboxes and Submissions

I feel like I've spent an inordinate amount of time up on my soapbox lately. Mostly this has been due to social and mainstream media being a split between support for France, Lebanon and the Syrian refugees and the frothing-at-the-mouth sectarian bigotry being spouted by the likes of Donald "I Get Closer to Hitler Every Day" Trump. I hate to cite that comparison, but there's a growing reason we're seeing it everywhere. No-one took Hitler all that seriously at first either. I'm just hoping all this pre-genocide type talk thrusts him even further down in the polls as opposed to lifting him up. You know, the way rounding all the illegal Mexicans up and tossing them unceremoniously over his wall at the border seemed to do.

But, occasionally, I have taken the time to step down off of it and away from social media and the TV. Well, actually, my only real contact with the TV is when I pass it on my way to the bathroom or the kitchen. I rarely watch TV on my own (Netflix and YouTube are where I get the bulk of my "Television" and I only call it that because that is the name of the device through which it is being projected at me), and even then it's usually something like HGTV and not anything to do with current events. Sometimes I even get some writing done...you know, when I'm not glued so tightly to Fallout 4 that I spend three straight nights dreaming I'm in dark, dirty rooms and broken buildings trying to determine the best means to slow time or target better and maybe score a headshot (or a sweet grenade hit, as seen in that video).

I have actually made a great deal of progress in a short period of time. Not to say I didn't drag my feet (or ass, or however my reluctance is best described) getting there. When asked what my first novel was about the other day, I only just then figured out how to best describe it in a succinct and direct manner without being too esoteric or going uh and errm a lot. Only just then.

I completed this novel in a period of seven months, spending another year or so editing it. I am currently going over it again just to be sure it is really ready this time to be submitted to agents. Using the query letter I only just wrote this week. This week, during which I've also been working on the sequel that I started right after I finished the first one...two years ago.

So...yeah. I am as legendarily slow a writer as I am a reader. And I don't even have a day job to blame this time. But I'm getting my mojo back...I think. At least, it's beginning to feel much more like when I first embarked on this quest to become an author. Now there's a game I'd very much like to get an achievement in. Hang with me and I might just give the notification when it's popped.