Mark

This manuscript’s almost done. Act 3 is set and we’re quickly approaching the point of no return.

There’s a good chance I’ll never meaningfully publish any of this but I don’t care? This is really fun. Am I doing something wrong to be missing all the “tortured artist” stuff?

#WritingCommunity

Installed my first light switch! All of the basement shared a single switch, not ideal for the bedroom down there. I pulled that light from the circuit and sourced it from an outlet in the room instead.

Nothing caught fire, it worked the first time, and I only needed two bandaids!

I feel accomplished. Our furnace was out. I replaced the thermostat and entire line running to the furnace. I realized a fuse had blown, so I replaced it as well.

Good news - we had heat last night!

Don’t mind the part where the cascading failure was my fault to begin with.

“Anyone can be the president” used to be how we summarized the American Dream. It was a statement about our individual potential for greatness.

Naive? Absolutely, but it was meant to be aspirational.

Now it just describes how low the bar is.

For real though, your covers were my son’s gateway into ska and he’s spread it to his brothers. They started paying attention to your posters and next thing you know we’re going to Streetlight shows together!

Keep doing your thing!

My faith in Hanlon’s Razor is pretty shaken these days.

Spotify hit me with a pretty bangin’ playlist labeled”Dad Rock”

As a dad, who rocks, I think it made a lot of sense.

Okay but someone should have workshopped the whole “skat trick” thing a bit, yeah?

I posted my story on Medium in June and scheduled weekly chapter releases.

I have 1 subscriber.

🎶 Looks like we made it 🎶

#WritingCommunity

I thought I’d ask ChatGPT for help with my writing and right away it misgendered half the cast and went on to describe the setting (a quarry) as a post apocalyptic hellscape on the moon.

I buy digital because my eyes are too bad for print. Knowing I don’t own the content, only a license to it, and that my access to said content is determined by a billion things I don’t control, is disheartening.

I got two rejections within an hour so the only thing getting raptured is my publishing chances 😅

#amquerying

#WIPSnips

The Reclaimed

Chapter 1: init;

One thing I’ve learned over the past crazy week is that maybe I SHOULD ask my partner not to post photos of herself at my casket to the socials.

That depends. Will said products be put into a burrito that will then be put into said face?

And this is how I find the typo lol

#WIPSnips

My guitars are home! Now I understand how all those moms at the SLC airport feel!

But, the first protagonist for maybe 1/4 of the story is “the new guy” who sort of serves as the fish out of water but eventually becomes the rebellion’s spark. That’s when the PoV starts to shift to the town medic, basically a truck driver, a worker, and an old rebel who needs to find hope again.

The protagonist might be a community rather than a single person. Folks are forced into labor under oppressive overlords and are rising up, starting with a single PoV before shifting to others who work to protect friends or push for rebellion.

I planned for 82k because it was where a previous manuscript landed, and that seems like a standard length for the genre.

Beyond that, I’m just letting it grow. It seems to be acting as more of a pacing guide which has been helpful.

Just finished chapter 19 and part two of The Reclaimed. My draft tracker says I’m 45% done, which honestly feels low. I’m not sure the story has or needs another 40k words.

But it’s been a fun story to watch unfold!

#amwriting #writingcommunity

Then 5 minutes later the movers called to say they’re loading up.

Thanks for listening Bluesky gods.

Still waiting for the movers to show up two weeks after we’ve moved in. Pretty tired of sleeping on the floor.

I learned a lot about what not to do next time at least. But at this rate it might have been cheaper to just replace everything.

Me: “Likelihood is a measurement of”

Google suggests: of the likelihood.

🤷‍♂️

I got a manuscript rejection from a real human! It’s an indie publisher who said I should do a couple rounds of revisions then resubmit when they open up again next year.

A “heck yes!” would have been great but I’ll take “almost there” at this point!

We locked ourselves out of our new house. It was a little stressful until I remembered my lock picking lessons from college.

Lock bumping with a key from the same brand saved us a few hundred bucks!

Schrödinger's President was fun until someone had to go and open the golf course.

I can’t wait until the movers get here. I miss my guitars so very much.