Did I win, yet?
Apologies for running silent the last few days. I got a good head of steam up on Sons of Dorn on Tuesday, racking up a few thousand words and looking to sprint towards the month's finish. But then Wednesday was muddled by doctor visits for me and my daughter (a routine checkup for her--she's fine--and a follow-up to see if my medications are keeping my blood pressure and cholesterol below the life-threatening levels they had reached--and they seem to be). I was back at my desk by 11AM on Wednesday, ready to get a half-day of writing in, at least. Then I read the news that Philip José Farmer had died. That pretty much took the wind out of my sails.
I won't repeat here all the things I've said about Phil elsewhere (in my blog archives are my first reaction, and a more measured response the next day), but suffice it to say that I didn't get much work done for a couple of days. I didn't even find time to post my tally for Tuesday. Yesterday, I tried to honor Phil in my own way by spending the day writing, but I'd been unable to sleep on Wednesday night, for completely unrelated reasons (I'm blaming a bottle of wine I think had gone bad, but it may have been a stomach flu), and instead spent the day thinking about my career from this point forwards, pausing for a moment to consider just what sort of writer I want to be remembered as. My immediate plans won't be changing, and I'll be continuing in the short term with all of the projects and series I've got in the works, but my emphasis will be shifting over the course of the next year or so, and as much as possible I'm going to be doing more of the kinds of writing I enjoy doing, and probably not as much of the kind that I do just because I think other people will like it.
In any event, I'm sorry that events of the last few weeks have kept me hobbled, unable to fully join the race, and that I wasn't able to demolish the other competitors as was their due. Next time I'll just try that much harder.
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