My Writing Life in 2016

Whew. Is it 2016 already? Man, time flies. So, let’s get right down to it. What are my plans for writing this year? Here they are, broken down into some bite-size chunks. As always, these goals are realistic and “Epictetusian” (not relying on others or outside influences to be accomplished. For example the goal: “Get 2 of My Stories Published” doesn’t cut it.).

1. Go to 2 Cons.
My plan last year to go to three Cons, alas, was too ambitious. This year I’m hoping to go to two. One down south, and one up north. I usually go to RavenCon, but would also like to go to one up north (maybe in Philadelphia?). I’ll keep you guys posted on where I decide to go.

2. Blog Changes
Life is short, art is long. So, in that spirit, going to make a couple of changes to ye olde blog this year. I’m going to be changing two things.

First, I will be writing shorter, telegraphic posts. Just updates on my writing or random thoughts on stuff. This means that some of my longer-form blog posts will become less frequent (stuff like Rare B Sides and The Craft will become fewer and further between), but not necessarily go away.

Second, I want to write about more than just writing fiction. That will remain the focus of the blog. But I feel I want to pull back the lens a bit, show more of the general landscape. Though we’re introverts, writers are also products of their time and place and have to deal with other human beings, like it or not. Grappling with their particular time and place has also produced some great writing. So what does it mean for this blog? It means I might write on modern art, then on Turkish politics before switching back to a post on writing fiction. I want to make sure the blog stays fun to write and doesn’t go stale and I think pulling out the lens will help do this.

3. Write What I Want.
I made big progress on this last year. I’m writing a piece right now that I really love, although I know it has dubious marketing potential (kinda like most of my stuff, actually). It’s increasingly and vitally important to me to write stuff I want to write. I think I had this backwards before, writing stuff I wanted to write, but that had to have a marketing/publishing/genre angle. I’m done with that now. I’m at peace. I realize my stuff will be very hard to cram into a genre. That it’s not really literary fiction. Or speculative fiction…or science fiction…Or horror…or fantasy. It touches on all those genres and is influenced by all of them, but doesn’t partake in any of them, per se. And I’m totally fine with that…I’m going to keep writing what I want—regardless of length, genre or subject matter—Marketers be damned.

There. Is that better?

Oh! And Happy New Year, Everyone! I wish you all health, happiness and some serious accomplishments in 2016!

Until Next Time,

Darius

By the way, that shot up there is of the “London City” café/bar in Buenos Aires. If I could write anywhere in the world, it would probably be there. I like to imagine I’m sitting  there in downtown Buenos Aires watching all the people go by, when I’m writing in my local Starbucks…I can dream, can’t I?