So, you probably have seen I’ve not been on my author page for Facebook for a while. I could blame a lot of things. Anxiety. Depression. Apathy. Fear. Overwatch. This past year has not been kind – a trend I’m seeing in the years since 2014 came to roost. It’s thrown me off my game, but I am, thankfully, starting to feel something that might be a comeback.

With the echo chamber now taking a backseat (mostly clean of Facebook for a week) in my personal life, I’ll now have some time to turn to its more professional uses. My personal page is going to go dark for a bit (maybe forever, still not sure), but my Author Page (probably how you got here) will be remaining up.

One of the things I loved to use Facebook for was to give me a sense of personal accountability. When I was trying to get my weight down, or my diabetes numbers in order, or my stories written, Facebook gave me people to pledge to who I would, in turn, do my best not to let down. With eyes on me to see if I failed, I felt I had better chances.

Whether or not that’s a good thing or a bad thing, it’s what was done, and I feel it’s time perhaps for a little more accountability. I’m going to list my present projects, both active and back-burnered. I want to see them, and honestly, I want someone else to see them too.

So, here’s what’s going on:

Podcasts

• The Most of the Hour Podcast – A joint project between me and my cousins that has entered a conceptual phase. It would be a podcast that would be no less than thirty minutes and no more than fifty minutes. My cousins would have their own components and stories, while mine would focus on a series I’m calling ‘The  Lighthouses.’

Short Stories

• The Challenge Edits – I’ve been working with some good people in a critique group who have helped me over past months to sharpen my stories a little. Some are ready for publication (such as Hoomins) while others (Blackhand) need either to have more work or to even expand into something bigger.
• New Story-A-Week – I’m not writing a lot of new content save for two recent episodes (in need of heavy formatting) of The Lighthouses

Manuscripts

• The Pirates of the DeeCee Beltway – My NaNoWriMo project started in 2011 that got a completed first draft but has sat in revision hell for some time. I started a little editing over the summer and got through a significant portion, but it languished.
• Parked – A NaNoWriMo from 2012 that becomes more and more irrelevant the more I let it sit. I never finished this one, but it had promise. But, it’s only valuable so long as there’s a political relevance to it and history gets changed every day with more to come ahead.
• The Many Labors of Bob – The longer I let this one get away from me, the more different I feel about it. It’s my first completed manuscript, but I feel like it needs some major changes.

Visual

• I have no visual plans at the moment, but with the acquisition of an iPad Pro with a Pencil peripheral, I’m starting to draw more again. I don’t know what it will produce, but I look forward to finding out.

This is what I have at present. And I need to move. I have some time back now. And I need something to focus it on.