"It's been a while since I last posted."
I've begun to realize that I say this quite often, usually paired with a "Sorry for making you wait so long," or whatever phrasing I use to make it slightly different from the last time I said it. And you know what? If I truly can't keep a consistent schedule according to society's standards of how a "good little blogger" must perform, then I don't see the point in continuing this idiocy and pretending that I can. So screw it. I'll post when I feel like it.
On a similar note, I'm fed up with the whole "traditional publishing" thing. I actually wrote another post some months ago about how I was going to take a long break from blogging and writing, because the writing business is just so irritating. I never posted it, though, because there was some other sensitive information in it that I didn't want to write about until it was confirmed. And now, it's confirmed.
So, a couple of updates. First of all, I'm a father now. My little tater tot was born last week, after many, many hours of nightmarish labor. His name is Anduril Elessar Enoch Appleby (my wife only allowed me to give him two middle names, though I was going to use more; I wanted to see how many middle names I could give him before somebody told me to stop, but I guess doing social experiments at my child's expense is a bit cruel). Anyway, here's a picture for those of you with working eyes (if you're blind, you can skip ahead):
As you can see, he's already skeptical of social norms.
On another note, I've decided to entirely change my career path. My work recently offered me a position as an IT technician, which I accepted (although I knew nothing about IT before I started). I'm currently working on online training for that role, trying to absorb oodles of information in a very small amount of time while working on small projects on the side (not to mention, I'm still managing Central Supply). Thus, my writing and other activities have slowed down.
Speaking of writing, I mentioned that I had been planning on stopping writing for a while, because of the new job, the Child, and my general fed-up-ness with the professional writing world. Well, that idea has kind of changed now.
Yes, I am still fed up with the writing world. After spending a fair amount of time trying to integrate myself into the "#WritingCommunity" on Twitter, in addition to maintaining a solid presence on other social medias (for marketing purposes), I've decided that I really don't like it. All this copy/paste shameless self-promotion makes me sick. I'd rather spend my time conducting universes than brainstorming my next witty tweet.
And the fact that my book "Uhyre Means Monster" has been edited and revised to the point where the story and characters are becoming boring and overdone in my eyes tells me that it's time to stop this poppycock. I'm no longer submitting it to agents, and I'm not going to self-publish it. It will simply exist in the Void.
Actually, if you'd like to read the book (which I think is pretty polished, all things considered), you're welcome to contact me, and I'll send it to you. But it will not be available for general consumption. Just keep in mind, the sequel may never be completed.
However, I have started to write a new book, using all the new writing techniques I picked up from that one how-to book I read a while back. We'll see where that goes, but I have more hope for this one than for the previous.
In my opinion, writing should be something I enjoy - something that I do, not because an agent or publisher told me to, but because I want to. Thus, I'm circling back to my original feelings on this topic and ditching traditional publishing in favor of just writing for fun.
Some may say that by dropping out of the publication race, I'm wasting my potential, but I counter that by saying that "potential" doesn't exist. "Potential" is an imagined future created by everyone who wants to live vicariously through you instead of doing the hard work themselves. In actuality, the only person who can truly create your future is you. So that's what I'm gonna do.
Also, I said I'd share more poetry with you at some point, so here's another one of my poems (which was published in the Student Literary Arts Magazine at college):
"New Home, Western WA"
The back yard is less grass,
more Douglas fir
sword ferns
poison oak
salal bushes
Oregon grape
red huckleberry
Western red cedar
vine maple
English ivy
salmonberry
Bracken ferns
bull thistle
Western hemlock
buttercups
In the center, a greenhouse:
sheets of white plastic tarped over
metal conduit and pressure-treated lumber,
empty.
We set an old, leather loveseat in the center
so we can sit and listen to the rain,
looking up and
imagining the stars.
- Tyler
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