(Personal) What’s Up in February?

Now that January has been put to bed, it’s time to look ahead into the next month. What does a successful February look like for me?

For one thing, I’m glad that this month should be a lot quieter than the last one. It gives me time to take a breath, regroup and figure out a few things for the spring and summer. Looking further ahead, there’s a lot to prepare for: the dearest husband will be going out of town in April, and I’d like to have a revamped Oak’s Home campaign ready and waiting for him when he comes back; I’ll be taking a number of trips later this year, though I really need to decide where — Wisconsin for an annual gathering of friends, or WorldCon in Kansas City, or Rainfurrest in Spokane, or my sister-in-law’s wedding (assuming I’m invited) in Arkansas? Dates, expense, time off and all kinds of other things need to be sorted out and hammered down. Making sure I’ve taken the time to prepare for this makes it easier to plan for everything else down the stretch.

But that’s later; this is now. So here are my biggest priorities for the month.

The Jackalope Serial Company
My Patreon for serialized erotic fiction got off to a shaky start last month, and I’d like to work hard on it to make sure that doesn’t happen again. With any sort of regularly-updating story, communication and engagement with your audience is key, so I’ve bundled that in to my weekly task list for the JSC now — every Monday, there’ll be a brief note about what my patrons can expect in the week or two ahead.

There’s also the matter of making sure The Cult of Maximus is written. Last month (and most of this one), I’ve been flying by the seat of my pants. I’d like to take the time to really plot out the next couple of chapters and write as much as I can so I can build a small buffer. This cuts down on interruptions, and being ahead of the curve means that I can double back and edit the weekly parts into a chapter a bit more easily. Having lead time to get things done is never a bad thing, right?

Beyond that, I need to sign up for a streaming service and buy a webcam in order to make writing streams or Internet hangouts a reality. And it would be nice to come up with polls for patrons contributing at the “input” level while The Cult of Maximus is going. Since this particular serial was designed to take us through 2016, it’ll be a little while before anyone gets to vote on the next one.

So: write as much of The Cult of Maximus as I can to get ahead of the release schedule, and work on making the patron rewards more consistent and clear. That’s what I hope to have accomplished by March 1st.

Other Writing
The People of Colo(u)r Destroy Science Fiction deadline is THIS MONTH, and so I need to write “The Tourist” and have it critiqued for a revision edit quick and in a hurry. Frith willing, the short story will be finished this weekend, sent to the writing group for notes and revised by right after Valentine’s Day. This is the fastest turnaround for a story I’ve ever attempted, but I would kick myself if I didn’t submit something — not just a story, but something I felt had a chance of getting in.

Once that’s done and my stomach is in knots waiting for a response, I can move on to the commission for a generous donor to last year’s Clarion Write-A-Thon. That’s been a long time coming — not as long as the commissioner for “A Stable Love” thank goodness — but still long enough. I’d like to have that work take me through the back half of the month, with an eye towards finishing a rough draft by early March.

So: biggest priority is making sure “The Tourist” is submission-ready by the Feb. 19th deadline, and I’ve at made progress on short story #4.

Reading
JM Horse convinced me to double-back and re-read Steppenwolf by Hermann Hesse, and I’m excited to jump into that. I’d like to have that (book 3 of 20 to read this year) knocked out by the end of the month. I’d also like to write reviews for the Apocalypse Triptych and Kindred by Octavia Butler, to go up here, Amazon and GoodReads.

My friends loaned me Dungeons and Dragons 5th Edition a few months ago, and I’d really like to start in on that so I can decide whether or not to buy my own copy of the hard-covers. I’ve been considering changing my Oak’s Home Pathfinder game to a system that feels like it’s fighting me less (like D&D5e or FATE), but any shift in system feels like a dealbreaker to at least one of my players.

Of course, there’s also my growing stack of comics to run through — I’ll start taking a few with me to work so I can read a few pages while waiting for queries or processes to finish. Most importantly, I want to cultivate a habit of reading; it’s not something that I’ve prioritized for a long time, and I want to change that as much as possible.

So: read Steppenwolf, catch up on my comics, and dive in to D&D 5th edition.

Other Things
Writing and reading take precedence right now, but I’d also like to re-dedicate myself to taking better care of my body. I’ve had a…distant relationship with it and that needs to change. I’d like to be more mindful of it — I’m not just a brain floating through space, and the body isn’t just there to support my thoughts and make sure I continue to think. Eating better, exercising, grooming and looking after my health are all things I’ll be trying to do a better job with, though it’s not quite with the same focus I’ll be trying to tackle everything else.