Two years ago when I was picking out components for my new bicycle, I had several seats to choose from: The Glide Rider, the Tush Cushion, and the Prostate Bombarder. For the life of me, I can’t remember why I made the choice I did.
But! Now that my job is gone my bus pass is gone, too, so out comes the bike. Yesterday was my first actual pedal ride to the gym (in the dark, ‘natch, because of the time change) and it felt more than a little like punishment. Too bad we’re in a recession or I’d pressure the city to repave those bike paths. Still, it’s good to have worked out (tense choice deliberate), and afterwards I was a couple blocks from my regular Starbucks and library, letting me to a little post-exercise writing. I even met my daily goal and returned home well before my wife had to leave for work.
The downside of all this is that yesterday, for the first time in years–and I wasn’t planning to talk about this, but I’m all about the honesty–I wore sweat pants outside my home.
Yeah, it’s true. Not even a week after I left my job and I’ve already surrendered to fashion lameness. By Christmas I expect to be lazing around the coffee shop all day wearing a green velour track suit with my face half-shaved because I got bored partway through. It’s inevitable.
I’m not online all that much, though. Sorry if I’m not commenting on your posts–I’m falling way behind in my reading.
Things are good. Today or tomorrow I’m hoping to have the boy snap a photo of me in my new home office dress code. I’m sure it would make my former co-workers burn with jealousy.
Maybe I missed the post, but what made you decide to quit your day job in the first place? Did you hit a turning point with your writing career that made you have to choose between the writing career and the day job (which, based on your posts, doesn’t sound like a career that you wanted much to do with)?
Also, I’m guessing you’re working on more stuff beyond the Twenty Palaces series. Have you sold any other books or series (that you can talk about)?
Quitting the day job had nothing to do with my writing and everything to do with the day job. It had become impossible. I have a post about it started and saved in draft here on my blog, but I don’t know when I’ll get to it. Maybe never. But my writing isn’t taking off or anything. It’s really more about our homeschooling and giving my wife time to paint.
I’m working on a non-Twenty Palaces book right now. It’s tagged as “The Auntie Mame Files” in my tag system, and you can get an idea what it’s like from that, I hope. It hasn’t been sold yet, though. I’m still putting together a package for my agent.
Sounds like you had a pretty miserable job. Are you going to be doing more of the homeschooling each day?
As for AMF, it sounds more like straight-up fiction rather than genre fiction. Is that the case or are there genre elements to it (i.e. supernatural stuff, plotting similar to what you see in thrillers and mysteries, etc.)?
No, it’s urban fantasy, but with Mame Dennis in the Harry Dresden role. The magic is different, of course, and so are the supernatural creatures, but I’m a big fan of mysteries and have been using mystery structure for it.
It’s going to be lighter fare than the 20P books, and hopefully will be a little funny. We’ll see if it sells.
Oh dear god, I LOVE Auntie Mame :) I hope this gets published. You are drawing on the original with Rosalind Russell as inspiration, yes? The snotty nephew would be a great foil.
Don’t worry, you’ll soon get used to the bike seat. Problem comes when you don’t ride often, then the muscles have to start all over again. Look into the padded shorts/tights, can really make a difference if you’re in the saddle for any length of time.
I’m afraid the book will be more Auntie Mame adjacent that Mame herself. The switch of genres means a lot of things will have to be changed to the characters.
I hope it’s still fun, though.