Change is in the Air

We will see more 100-degree days in Texas, no matter how many people say, “The hot weather’s done for the year!” while looking at thermometers reading 97 degrees.

But it is that time of year when things seem to change.

I suppose the biggest change for me is, after four years with the big department I’ve worked with at my day job, I started a new job with another department. Same company, but now based in our headquarters building, instead of the building across the highway and down the way.

The work is more involved — or rather, it’s more of a change. It’s documenting things I only understand in surface ways, but the people I work with are great, and years of things I’ve learned bits and pieces about all clicked in an hour and a half with a coworker showing me how a database dumps its content to XML, how the XML posts to various booking engines, and how the booking engines pass that back to the database. (Now you kind of know what I do during my weekdays.)

There’s also updating websites, writing online help, and a trip next month to California to meet the larger part of the team I’m supporting out there. I’ve never been to California, so a week in LA will be nice.

Podcast Changes

Not much is changing with podcasts, but I’m finding myself writing more new stories for Not About Lumberjacks than I thought I would in its first year. This week, I shared one of the first short stories I ever wrote (at least one of the first when I took writing seriously, in my late teens/early 20s).

I know the show can reach a wider audience if I promoted it more, but it was a show created to get me back to short fiction. And at least, for its first year (I started in November last year), I want to focus on making it a thing with 13 good stories and not concern myself with much more than that.

What’s coming next month is shaping up to be one of my favorite things I’ve ever written.

Novel Changes

Nothing really changes, here. Just working on a second draft of the latest book. This time of the year makes me think about the last novel I wrote. While it takes place over five seasons, autumn is where it starts and ends. It won’t feel like autumn for some time in Texas, but what matters to me is that September is right around the corner.

The best three months of the year are on their way…

Personal Changes

Really, no big changes here. The usual routine of work, hanging out with my wife, writing, making podcasts…all those usual things.

I suppose if there’s any change, it’s that I have a stronger desire than usual to retreat from all the noise. Maybe it’s because of the political season, but it’s more than that. I’m skipping out on speaking engagements, other writing offers, attending meetups and conferences.

I want this September to be more quiet than usual. (And the noise I do hear, I want to be from quieter places outside.)

The sound of a canoe paddle breaking the surface of a lake as the sun comes up is much better than all the daily noise that gets in the way of truly good writing…