For most of this year, yes, I have been quiet. I, purposely, set myself on a course for advancing my career. I spent a good deal of time focused on doing the work, AT work. In the end it paid off and recently I took a promotion that I had been working so hard for. In doing so, I did set my personal hobbies and quests aside for the time being. Many of which involving Alice the Fifth. Alice is dear to me, and I want to get this one right. I need her to be as tight and perfect as can be, in order to submit to publishers and literary agents.

With the new position at work, I now have hour lunch breaks, where in the past it has been half hours. That, suddenly, has provided me with a dedicated hour a day to work on editing and tweaking and cutting down Alice’s word count. Turns out lit agents kinda frown upon 125,000 word modern feminist sci-fi novels. Need to cut about 30,000 words to get to where we need to be. So, I’m doing that daily on my lunch breaks for the last two weeks. It seems to be going well. I am getting ruthless with the editing and rewrites in ways I never have before. It’s doing wonders for my writing.

I’ve also taken up mountain biking, on a regular basis. It’s fun exercise and it gets me out exploring the world. The bike, I bought with money won from a contest in that said day job, so it all ties in nicely. There is actually a very long, personal story that ties in with the photo above that I will have to sit down and write another entry just dedicated to that.

My television watching has somewhat slowed down. I feel like I’ve watched all the good stuff and have been at a loss for other things to watch. Once in a while I will come back to True Detective Season 1. Fargo Season 2. Breaking Bad. But, mostly, I’ve taken back to reading. I’m going through a couple novels a month. That’s good for the writer inside. And, lately, at night, I decided that after twenty years, I wanted to get back into, and up to date with comic books. I’m enjoying the modern runs of Cable, Daredevil, Avengers, Old Man Logan. I’m enjoying reading a book or two before bed each night instead of the television.

That’s what I’ve been up to. Maybe I’ll write the story of my biking adventure tomorrow.