So what was that? Eight months? Quite a siesta, even for me, so what happened?
I had a really good Christmas, writing-wise. Lots of stuff I was really happy with. I wrote a couple of shorts and a started work on a sequel to Regarding Avalon. Early mornings and late nights.
And I missed Christmas 🙁
Not of all of it (I watched a lot of telly) but I did miss the important parts (the family stuff) and I think a lot of that was down to the early mornings and late nights hammering at this very keyboard. I guess when you’re working full-time, you tend to use the holiday to make as much headway as you can, instead of actually taking a holiday.
I decided that while intensity was a good thing, I needed to get away from the screen and do something else for a while: focus on family, get the real career moving again. Just do more stuff basically, and get out of the mindset that dedication ≠ 24/7 in front of a screen (it shouldn’t for any job, really).
So I took some time off from writing about artificial life so I could try some of the real thing. And the most surprising thing I discovered was that it’s a lot harder not to write than I thought.
I’m not kidding; it takes real discipline. :-/