I was dismayed to realise, last week, that it has been just about two months since I actually *wrote* anything on this blog. (It was this post about my battle with the cable company. SPOILER ALERT: after several more increasingly delirious phone calls to retention, we now have an antenna.)
I don't intend to bore you with excuses or self-reflection on why I haven't been writing here a lot lately, because god knows I've done that before and, you know, there's a war in Syria and stuff. Nobody cares about the ins and outs of my weekly time management dilemmas.
Still, here's a list of things you can read now/look forward to later so that you don't feel like I've been totally dropping the writerly ball the last two months*:
(*N.B. writers always drop the ball. Or, we would, if anyone ever passed to us.)
ITEM: my Twitter. Yeah, yeah, I know, it's not exactly voluminous, and it's a total echo chamber, and Franzen says we're all leaking spinal fluid with each character. (Though, hello, has he read his novels? They ALL have like 140 characters.) And I do get wistful sometimes that I can't work a few of my one-liners there into longer, more coherent rants like the pundigrions of old. But in the meantime, that's where you can find the sophomoric jokes I always used to make here, so.
ITEM: my novel. Now, I know what you're thinking. ANDREW, you're thinking. DO YOU THINK I HAVE SOME KIND OF MENTAL BRAIN DAMAGE, ANDREW? YOUR NOVEL BOOK WAS ACCEPTED TO BE PUBLICATED OVER A YEAR AGO. CLEARLY YOU HAVE NOT BEEN WORKING ON IT IN THE LAST TWO MONTHS. Well, no, I haven't been. Not exactly. But many of my waking moments have been devoted to marketing and publicity stuff for the novel, including two brand-new shorter essays that should be getting published sometime in next few months for purposes of raising my online visibility etc. etc. So watch this space.
ITEM: also, actually, really my novel, because I sold the U.K. rights and my publisher there wants more revisions.
ITEM: my second book, which is nowhere near publication or even contract negotiations or even representation, but is — FRABJOUS DAY! — a complete first draft as of two weeks ago.
ITEM: the Ploughsharesblog, which if you ask me is getting better every week. (e.g. this cartoon, which had me LOLing all over the place.)
I have also, I admit, been watching football. But nobody's a saint, right? Except, you know, the New Orleans Saints.
It's good to be back.
I don't intend to bore you with excuses or self-reflection on why I haven't been writing here a lot lately, because god knows I've done that before and, you know, there's a war in Syria and stuff. Nobody cares about the ins and outs of my weekly time management dilemmas.
Still, here's a list of things you can read now/look forward to later so that you don't feel like I've been totally dropping the writerly ball the last two months*:
(*N.B. writers always drop the ball. Or, we would, if anyone ever passed to us.)
ITEM: my Twitter. Yeah, yeah, I know, it's not exactly voluminous, and it's a total echo chamber, and Franzen says we're all leaking spinal fluid with each character. (Though, hello, has he read his novels? They ALL have like 140 characters.) And I do get wistful sometimes that I can't work a few of my one-liners there into longer, more coherent rants like the pundigrions of old. But in the meantime, that's where you can find the sophomoric jokes I always used to make here, so.
ITEM: my novel. Now, I know what you're thinking. ANDREW, you're thinking. DO YOU THINK I HAVE SOME KIND OF MENTAL BRAIN DAMAGE, ANDREW? YOUR NOVEL BOOK WAS ACCEPTED TO BE PUBLICATED OVER A YEAR AGO. CLEARLY YOU HAVE NOT BEEN WORKING ON IT IN THE LAST TWO MONTHS. Well, no, I haven't been. Not exactly. But many of my waking moments have been devoted to marketing and publicity stuff for the novel, including two brand-new shorter essays that should be getting published sometime in next few months for purposes of raising my online visibility etc. etc. So watch this space.
ITEM: also, actually, really my novel, because I sold the U.K. rights and my publisher there wants more revisions.
ITEM: my second book, which is nowhere near publication or even contract negotiations or even representation, but is — FRABJOUS DAY! — a complete first draft as of two weeks ago.
ITEM: the Ploughsharesblog, which if you ask me is getting better every week. (e.g. this cartoon, which had me LOLing all over the place.)
I have also, I admit, been watching football. But nobody's a saint, right? Except, you know, the New Orleans Saints.
It's good to be back.