Summer Heat

July 1, 2025 by Nathan 5 Comments

We’ve moved into summer, officially. The period where we celebrate days when the temp only reaches 90F. Yet there’s some encouraging news this month.

Status

The Wizards Cat
The sprints didn’t last long, but something else happened. I just started writing spontaneously. Keeping the file open on the desktop. Yesterday I wrote for about an hour before I realized what I was doing. Felt good. Natural. Like maybe … no. I won’t jinx it.

Everything Else
Still on hold. I’ve had glimmers of Ishmael and Zoya stories peeking out around the edges. It will be good to get back together with them eventually.

What Am I Reading?

The most significant reading has been Paul Loomans’s I’ve Got Time. It’s not a book I’d recommend for entertainment but it has really helped me rebuilding my practice. It’s working (as evidenced by the recent writing) but it will take some (pardon the expression) time.

Book of the month? I spent a lot of time with Cássio Ferreira’s Hidden Class: Handyman series. It hit all the right buttons for me with a doofus turning his life around by playing in virtual reality. Fun, occasionally funny. A bit silly at times but I enjoyed the first three volumes.

It might not be your cup of joe, but maybe grab a sample and give it a try. You might like it.

A young man dressed in gray clothing with a headband holding his hair back spins clay on a potter's wheel.

About the Newsletter
I’m still publishing it on the 15th of the month. You don’t need to subscribe to get a mid-month update from me. You can find them archived on my newsletter’s public page at Kit.

Looking Forward

Reading the Loomans book has helped me re-organize my daily routine by making it less about “getting things done” and more about “letting things happen.” Like the writing. Letting it happen instead of making a production of it.

I might have been over-thinking it. Trying to hard to make it happen. Loomans has me rethinking the way I organize everything. I’ve shuffled my morning around to minimize the distractions. Making the first couple of hours of the day flow comfortably instead of rushing, pushing to get things done as soon as possible so I can do whatever. The things I want to get done, get done. I still have my checklist but it’s a safety belt against ADHD instead of a rigid set of commands.

I feel like I can breathe again after much too long.

Will it work for awhile? Probably. I’m still working through the 7 lessons.

Will it last? Time will tell.

Until next month, crew, safe voyage.

– N

June Bugs

June 2, 2025 by Nathan 14 Comments

May didn’t go well, in spite of a reasonably good start. Too much going on beyond my control.

Status

The Wizards Cat
I’ve started word sprints again. They’re one of the best tools I have for getting things flowing. Mostly in fits and starts but it’s more start than fit. Fingers crossed for the rest of the month

Everything Else
Still virtually frozen in storage. I have no idea what project I’ll take on after this Cat starts prowling, but everything will be on the table again.

What Am I Reading?

I stumbled on some early Michael Chatfield a couple of weeks ago. His Emerilia series whet my appetite for litRPG after getting started with Matt Dinniman’s Dominion of Blades. I’ve been through a couple of his other litRPG series but finding an early space opera made my month.

The Recruitment Rise of the Free Fleet, book 1 of the Free Fleet series, starts when Earth gets invaded by alien slavers, capturing our hero, James Cook and his merry band of top tier video gamers on the cusp of their championship game. The story and universe unfolds, step by step, as Cook and his fellow slaves become trained up as cannon fodder for their captors, a group calling themselves the Planetary Defense Force.

This series is straight up Big Guns and Bigger Ships military/space opera in a sprawling universe. Much war. Many set backs. Ships cracked, broken, boarded, and exploded.

If you can handle the warfare, you might like this series as much as I do.

Maybe grab a sample and see what you think.

A large, blocky space ship looking battered and beaten on flies toward the viewer. A blue planet looms in the background while a small fighter-style ship zooms toward the mothership

Looking Forward

Slow progress is still progress. I keep looking for that spark that has me fighting to get back to the keyboard and push the story ahead. So far, each spark has fizzled. I’m still writing something every day. Sometimes not much more than a few hundred words but they count. The word sprints show improvement, albeit irregular, but I’ll take it.

I’m my own biggest obstacle these days, but with some help from my friends and the support of people like you, I think there might still be a chance I can finish this book before I kick the bucket.

Fingers crossed.

Until next month, safe voyage.

-N

Come What May

May 1, 2025 by Nathan 9 Comments

I’m getting the mojo back. It’s a slow process but it is a process and it’s working.

Status

The Wizards Cat
The story grows a little bit almost every day. I’m still looking for the spark that turns my little candle into a bonfire but the fact that I’ve kept it growing most of the month keeps me coming back to it.

Everything Else
All the long form fiction stuff – more science fiction, more fantasy, different formats (notably the audiobooks for Tanyth), are all on hiatus. Virtually frozen in storage against the time when I can think about them again. Not my wish, but a simple recognition that I’ve gotten very limited in my ability to process multiple projects with any kind of reliability.

What Am I Reading?

I ripped through Eric Ugland’s “The Good Guys” series. Fifteen volumes in a couple of weeks. LitRPG and highly recommended but that niche is an acquired taste that many of you don’t share.

More pertinent, I also read the first three volumes of J J Green’s Space Colony One series. I picked them up as a virtual boxed set and plowed through them in about 4 days. The story concerns what happens when a generational starship finally makes landfall on a habitable planet after six generations in space, the successes and failures. Balancing on a genetic knife edge as they struggle to maintain a viable gene pool.

It starts very slow. Some of the characters get little more than a sketch. A couple are as cardboard as Leon Rosset. It’s slow enough I was tempted to DNF, but I’m glad I went through to the end of volume 3, and not just because I’m cheap and already owned it.

I felt like Green’s storytelling picked up as the series continued. The plot’s careful weaving in the first book became more engaging the deeper I got into the story. Ethan and Cariad, the two main characters, took on more depth. I became more invested in the story as I went along and will be going back to pick up volumes 4-6 when I get a chance.

But don’t take my word for it. I’d suggest you grab a sample but the box set is free as of this writing. Maybe check it out for yourself.

A 3-d representation of the three books in the series appear as if bound in a green box. The front of the box shows a space ship zooming toward the viewer.

Looking Forward

I know I say this every month but the story really is coming along. I’m closing in on the halfway mark, finally. I’m not sure how the story ends, but I have a feel for where it’s going and how it might get there. I just need the energy to get it done.

Perhaps more important, I’m feeling better than I have in, well, years. I’m still not 100%. Maybe this is my new 100%, I don’t know. I’m more optimistic about this story than I have been in a while. All I can do is keep plugging away.

Eventually, it’ll get there and we can all move on to something else.

Until next month, safe voyage.

-N