My writing retreat earlier this summer felt scattered, like I was keeping pace on a larger collection of projects than usual. Turns out, it was of a piece with the entire summer. Life has been busy, and I’ve been okay with that. I may not have settled down with a single big project, but I’ve kept my toes wet in everything I felt I needed to (including the ocean).
Now, as fall approaches, I’m organizing my goals and preparing for a more regular work schedule (finally). I’m stoking the flames on my ongoing projects and getting ready to launch a couple new ones.
It seems like as good a time as any to take a look at what I’m working on now, and what I want to do by the end of the year.
The ADHD Homestead
This is supposed to be the year of diversifying my income from The ADHD Homestead. I’m really picky about how I monetize the blog, which means I don’t make a ton of money from it. My priority is and always has been creating quality content to support my readers and community.
That said, I have a few exciting ideas in the works. While I wait on a paperback edition of Order from Chaos, I’m promoting the book in various ways around the web (I’ll share them as they come).
I’m also struggling with the fact that the Big New Thing my readers seem to want is also something I want: an app. I have so many ideas, and so many reasons I want this as a hobby project. On the other hand, there are plenty of reasons not to do it. I’ll be doing some soul-searching — and probably some light coding — this fall to try to find the best way forward.
In the meantime, if you want to follow The ADHD Homestead, you can find the blog at www.ADHDhomestead.net, subscribe to the monthly ADHDgram, or join the conversation on the Facebook page.
Other non-fiction
I’ve enjoyed my weekly writing advice column for Inkitt more than I expected to. It forces me to think about a different writing craft topic every week and articulate what makes good fiction stand out. It’s also nice to write for a blog I don’t own, especially since the subject matter is relevant to my other work. I appreciate being forced to consider topics I wouldn’t have thought about otherwise.
Aside from Inkitt, I’ve been thinking about my social media presence and how I might be more intentional with it. For now, I hang out on Twitter, Instagram, and my Facebook pages. I also send my weekly Write Life email, which has felt like a fun return to the personal blogging I did back in the early 2000s.
Fiction
With the Order from Chaos release at the end of May, followed by summer vacation and just keeping up with my blog writing, my fiction has felt…stalled.
Thanks to my critique group, I reopened a couple of short stories that have gotten form rejections from literary journals. One of them feels like it’s headed in a great direction. I’d love to see it find a home this fall.
While on vacation in June, I had a traumatizing dream about boxing Driving Forces: putting the manuscript away and halting all efforts to publish it. I spent some time pondering that dream and wondering if there was any wisdom to it. The truth is, I love the story. I love the characters, and I want other people to get a chance to meet them. Being named a #RevPit runner-up gave me hope that my book could find a home someday, that it may be almost there. I’ve considered self-publishing, but I have doubts about self-pubbing a manuscript that hasn’t proven commercially viable. For now, I’ve entered the BookLife Prize competition, if only for the critic feedback promised to every entrant. Maybe I’ll begin querying again in the fall.
Another funny thing about this summer: for the first time, remaining a fiction writer feels like a choice I have to make. I’m getting money and validation for my non-fiction. No one would begrudge me the right to focus solely on that. And yet, I’ve been writing stories since kindergarten. I can’t imagine my life without fiction in it. Fiction writing has never been about money or acclaim or readers. It’s something I do for myself.
To that end, no matter what happens to Driving Forces — and I think it’s a good book, regardless of whether an agent or a Big Five publisher ever thinks it’s worth printing — it’s time to start a new novel. And as luck would have it, I finally settled on an idea I feel excited about.
It’s all coming together for September
As some of my non-fiction work enters maintenance mode — I’m not writing a brand-new non-fiction book this fall like I was in 2017 — and my son returns to school in September, I’m excited to open up a few new opportunities. I’m feeling cautiously hopeful about having a new novel manuscript finished sometime in January. I’ll probably continue querying Driving Forces even as I write a new book. With any luck, I’ll get to change gears with a little non-writing work for The ADHD Homestead. Most of all, I’ll continue to write, write, write. Every day.
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