Future Plans

I’ve come to face facts. I haven’t been able to sit and work on any stories in over a year. Complications from my day job have tied me down both in and out of work. What little free time is taken by things that need to be done for home and family, or simply taken by exhaustion. I have multiple certifications to obtain, work orders to keep up on, and have other responsibilities to keep up with on top of that.

There is a light at the end of the tunnel, although it’s a very long tunnel.

I’m planning retirement from my current day job in four years. That’ll mark my 25th year and I’m getting out early. This isn’t just so that I can focus more on side projects and writing, there’s a variety of other contributing factors, but I plan to get back into writing afterward and continuing my existing stories as well as a few other one-offs.

I’ll still be working of course. I don’t see writing as ever becoming a solid source of income, it’s more of a passion. I’ll find something smaller and part-time. I don’t want something that will drag me down and require the dedication that I currently struggle to provide.

So here’s looking toward the spring of 2024! I’m hoping that something new will be coming out around that time.

Finished with another book! (original post August 25, 2016)

The first book of the Devastated Earth series now has a complete first draft! I’m handing it over to a friend today along with the first book of the New Empire series for a preliminary review. While he’s doing that I’m going to reread the New Empire volume one and check for grammar/spelling errors. I’d like to think that a professional editor would be in the future, but money is very tight right now. My progress with these two books may just stall after that.

But I do have a stand-alone book to write. The outline is complete and I basically just have to type it all out. This could take some time of course, but it has more completed ahead of time than the other two had. Depending on how long my review of the other two take I may just hold this book off as a NaNoWriMo project. Only time will tell.

In other news I’ve been playing with my Raspberry Pi’s a lot more. This website is now being hosted on one, which has become a part of the home network. It has a nightly backup, weekly restart, and SFTP capability. Through this project I’ve learned a lot more about Linux (especially the command prompt). I’ve also put some more touches on my Pi Calendar (an older Raspberry model B+ that hangs in the den).

The best part of this setup is if the power flickers, or fails the Pi puts almost no strain on my UPS. My big PLEX/file server shuts down after one minute and the routers, modem, and Pi just keep chugging along. Unless it’s left unattended for some time the website stays up and running.

That’s it for now. Good day and safe travels!