(I watched the original Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory with Baz today. He enjoyed it. I still appreciate the genius of Gene Wilder. Still don’t like the “You stole Fizzy Lifting Drink” crap, though.)
During the past week Kay and i have had some good conversations with Jaym and Natania about their taking over the Crossed Genres magazine. I’ve been feeling paranoid from the beginning, mainly because CG is our 2nd baby and it’s led to a world of friendships, colleagues, respect, passion and motivation I never expected. But I’m gradually getting more at ease with the idea, in no small part thanks to seeing that we’re putting it into competent and enthusiastic hands.
This has caused me to start thinking about what my schedule will look like once CG is removed from it. Of course I’ll still have fiction editing for SiMF (and the occasional post); my share of publishing A Festival of Skeletons, Crossed Genres Year Two and Broken Slate; editing the Subversion anthology I’m in the process of putting together, and finding a publisher for it; and various other recurring projects next year. But there will be time that I wasn’t expecting to have, probably starting around December/January, and I intend to use it for writing.
I have so many ideas that have been put on hold in various stages of development. I’ve really enjoyed discovering my talent for (and love of) being an editor/publisher, but I’m really starting to miss writing, a lot. I’m only about 5-6 years removed from when I was writing 250,000-300,000 words per year, and while I don’t expect to reach that level again (consistently, anyway), I enjoy writing and want to get back to it.
Of course, first I have to survive October/November, which may end up being, quite literally, the busiest time in my life. It’s going to be very exciting – We’ve got the preorder/Kickstarter drive for Festival, and then the official release (okay that’s technically December 1); the building and release of our oversized Characters of Color issue of CG; the first couple months of SiMF fiction; ; finalizing CGY2 and getting ARCs to reviewers; hunting a cover artist and selecting stories for my Subversion antho (and then start editing it); and transitioning things into Jaym & Natania’s hands. Amongst other things. But my days are going to be absolutely PACKED.
Part of me just wants to run for the hills. But then I wouldn’t be around to see all those amazing things come to fruition, so fuck that noise. Besides, for all the insanely hard work and constant state of low-grade panic (sometimes not so low-grade), I’m having so much damn fun with it all.
And that spare time that I’m anticipating for writing? Kay’s been talking about a project of hers that’s even got me excited for her. And I have a lot more ideas of how to fill up that time for myself.
Someone stop me before I over-commit again!