aka Your Annual Post
You know, it’s not that I don’t write posts, it’s that I don’t write here. Microblogging took over my brain and it doesn’t much see the point of longform blogging anymore, even if it does like to go back and read the long posts later on.
What I’m saying is: it likes the result, but not the effort. Kind of like exercise.
Anyway: hey, another story sold to the usual haunt! “Payment in Kind” was sold to Feuds, and will be released November 2024. It was inspired by the Luddites and Brian Merchant’s Blood in the Machine, which you should read! There are parallels to the tech industry, which I coincidentally work in! I will say not much more, as it is a short story and I could only say so much.
Oh it is also a Lelia and Lyle story. No fancy shenanigans: it’s set in the past. The idea is they’re traveling together. It makes sense, I swear. Look, I’m the writer, I get to pull this shit, it’s what I do.
Also, I was really quite ill while I wrote this thing. I had a lingering cough that left me with multi-week, extended migraines and insomnia and every day I woke up quite miserable and contemplating if I needed to work on my will. I ended up in clinic half-crying and if you know me it takes a lot to get me to a doctor and begging for help. Good news: we got it sorted out! Also, seasonal allergies can really be that bad, really.
See if you can detect any of this in the final work! I bet you can!
As usual, I wrote way more than I published. There are about 30,000 words on the cutting room floor. It’s a little nuts, but that’s the process.
Hopefully by next year I am writing from a dedicated office. Though I like my current sunny corner, it’s open concept and my brain is not fond of all this…dead space. We’re getting a house with a room dedicated just to me and my computer and my brain and I kind of hope it helps.
Also hopefully by next year we have my ADHD diagnosis on a better lock. Uhhhh. That’s new as of two weeks ago. I dunno. I’ve been coping for 45+ years with it, so we’ll see. But I would love to get some relief from shepherding the pinball machine in my skull.
One final thing are the songs I played on repeat in the final writing stages of “Payment in Kind”. There are two!! this year!!: what I wrote while doing the actual main guts writing (Bayside, of course) and what I wrote while doing page proofs (Chappell Roan). Enjoy.
