R J Theodore

author of science fiction / fantasy / steampunk

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You are here: Home / Blather / It’s not all hard work

It’s not all hard work

January 30, 2018 by R J Theodore

There are shenanigans and plans in the works around here!

Still from our Conversations on Craft videoOn Thursday, Colin Coyle of Parvus Press emceed a Conversation on Craft between the lovely Karen Osborne and me which aired via Facebook Live. It was a great chat and it was over way too fast! It’ll eventually live on the Parvus site, but for now you can check out the replay on Facebook.

 

Writers Shed (aka “The Containment Unit”)

Other fun stuff is shed-related. I don’t have super big announcements, but it’s been on my mind so I’ll share all my boopin’ around.

I can’t stop thinking about how this will get laid out…

Shed planning

I’m only planning my half of the shed, of course. My husband agreed to play host to the HVAC on the wall because he’ll care more about the chill in the Summer, and he’s going to have the paper and art supplies on his side which need to benefit from the wall unit’s dehumidifying effects. I’m probably a little overboard with the outlets (magenta in the top-down view) but there will be SO many things to plug in, at least on my side!

What I’ve done here is used our existing office furniture, though I’ve taken it all apart and I’m fitting the low cabinets wherever I want rather than as designed with the pre-drilled holes. So that’ll be custom in a way but saving on cost.

The wall shelves are IKEA floating shelves for books and such. I will wait until I see everything in place before I decide how many shelves I want to put up. Floor plans don’t always give you a proper concept of how ‘crowded’ a space will be. I’ll already be squeezing in past that end cabinet, bruising my hip no doubt. If it’s bigger than it looks like it will be, though, I’d love to put some shelves on the wall behind me.

Another consideration I have to make is for acoustic baffling. With that peaked ceiling there’s extra risk of sound bouncing about, so there’s the curtain behind my desk (which may or may not be the raptor skull curtain I use now). Any artwork I put up will probably be printed on fabric and hung as an acoustic panel in addition to artwork.

I’d like to put waffle baffle behind my monitors, maybe behind hinged “shutters” of art, for what it’s worth, which will also limit the shelves (but anything behind the monitors would be pretty hard to get to anyway).

So that’s the plan thus far! We’ll likely receive the shed delivery in April, and will need to finish it before we can move into it.

  • Wiring/Fixtures (and inspections)
  • Door hardware/Surveillance equipment
  • Interior partition, Lofts & Insulation
  • Paint/Finishing
  • Flooring
  • HVAC installation
  • Break down furniture and relocate it
  • Custom adjustments to fill in gaps
  • Assemble/Hang acoustic panels

Oh, and of course I’ll be promoting Flotsam’s release around the same time. I’m nothing if not ambitious!

Writing-wise, I’ve been writing and revising self-reflective essays for my blog tour. I was very uncomfortable writing about myself and my writing, but it’s gotten easier. I don’t know if I’m more comfortable with it, or if certain essays are tougher than others. I’ve finished four essays, I have one to revise, and three more to draft. There are also email pitches to finalize and begin sending out. Then write the essays for any of those that are accepted.

Following that, I will dive back into Phantom Traveler Season One, which has a completed arc outlined. I need to figure out how the season will arc over the 12 episodes (or if I should break it into 24 episodes and release one every other week instead of once per month. It won’t affect how much I write, but I’m starting to think the episodes could be longer, and that will affect where I insert rests.

I’ve been finishing books!

I finished N.K. Jemisin’s The Fifth Season, which is very good and I look forward to reading the following books (but after I break to read a few stand-alones or series conclusions).

I also listened to Martha Wells’s All Systems Red (Ironically I’m all about jumping on the next Murderbot diary entries, screw stand-alones!)

I finished No Higher Ground by Roman Godzich, a fellow writer from my local group. An actual stand-alone.

Next I picked up Valence by Jennifer Foehner Wells, continuing (but not concluding) the Confluence series which I discovered in 2016.

Up next on Audible is The Seventh Bride by T. Kingfisher (Ursula K Vernon, whose Digger has always been a favorite).

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Filed Under: Blather, Marketing, Process, Self-Publishing, Writing Tagged With: artists, brainwaves, consistency, creative process, Flotsam, library writing programs, life, marketing, parvus, pitching, process, reading, Science Fiction, shed, writer's life, writing groups

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