Friday, March 14, 2014

Where In the World is Shaun?

I'm move (again!) so I've been a little busy.  About a year and a half ago, I quit my job of 7 years, and Matt and I picked up and moved to Fort Lauderdale.  I started a new job, Matt transferred within his company, and we thought we'd give it a go.

Turns out we're not Fort Lauderdale people.  Our first apartment was so horrible that we began counting the days until we could leave before we'd even been there a month.  Constant invasions of millipedes, leaky patio roofs, cats pooping in the yard, neighbors who sang all night, neighbors with a baby that quite literally cried until after midnight every day.  The traffic was terrible, the people were rude, it was so crowded.  After our lease was up, we moved a little farther west to a beautiful new high rise.  We love the building and the apartment, but still can't stand the people.  Just yesterday, a guy making an illegal U-turn nearly crashed into my car as I was making a right hand turn, and then proceeded to chase me into the turn lane, pull up beside me and call me a lot of names I'd rather not repeat.  I wish I could say that kind of thing is uncommon.  It's gotten to the point where I get home Friday, park my car, and refuse to leave the apartment for the entire weekend.

So when Matt got the chance to take a promotion back in our old town, we jumped at the chance.  I wasn't happy about leaving my job, but I was in danger of becoming a shut in.  Luckily, when I tried to resign, my wonderful boss offered to let me work from home.  I'd still have to go into the office a couple of times a month, but my IT work is mostly project oriented.  Plus, I'd have more freedom to work on my writing projects because I wouldn't be so tied to an 8-5 schedule.  Frankly, it's the best of all possible outcomes.  I'm feeling very blessed to have such a wonderful boss.

So the last couple of weeks has been house-hunting, packing, and trying to get everything in order. I don't plan to move for a long, long time.

In other happenings, GRIM came out.  Readers seem to really be enjoying my take on The Pied Piper, which I'm absolutely thrilled about.  I was so intimidated to be in an anthology with so many amazing writers.  Retelling a fairytale isn't easy, especially after I decided to do a sci-fi retelling.  I wanted to keep the spirit of the story but really play with it.  Based on the reactions, I succeed, which just makes me over-the-moon happy.

March is already half-over!  But as great as 2014 has been, I can't wait for 2015.  The Five Stages of Andrew Brawley is less than a year away!  I got to see the cover, and I have to tell you that it is absolutely brilliant.  Regina Flath is the genius behind the design, and she deserves major kudos for coming up with a design that absolutely captures the spirit of the book.  I can't wait to be able to show you.

The writing has been going better.  I had a spell of creative confusion, but I seem to have gotten over it finally and have lots of projects in various states of writing.  When things are happening, they seem to take so very long, but when they arrive, it seems like they happened quickly.  Take the Veronica Mars movie that released today.  I was a backer, and proud to be on.  When I signed up for the Kickstarter, I thought the movie would never come out.  Today, as I watched it, it seemed like only yesterday that I'd backed it.  It was wonderful, by the way.  Exactly what I wanted from a VMars movie.  I couldn't have asked for more.

Okay, well, back to packing, back to writing, back to getting out of this hellhole called Fort Lauderdale and returning to a place where it doesn't take 45 minutes to drive 10 miles.

3 comments:

  1. Hope all goes well, I just read The Deathday Letter and absolutely loved it. :D

    ReplyDelete

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