Alas, Poor Audience

So, from the rather... arctic response to my last post, I guess that I have lost whatever audience I once had. I suppose that it's only fair. I did disappear for an entire summer.

So, update time.

Obviously, the summer was not the orgy of writing and blogging that I hoped it would be. I was rather put off my game in the last week, after school ended. You might have read about it in the news - remember how an airplane crashed on the East Coast, killing the pilot, his wife, their teenage daughter, and her friend?

Those were my aunt, uncle, and cousin.

My grandfather - the husband of the woman whose daughter, son-in-law, and granddaughter were killed - died a much less remarkable death three weeks later.

Nothing about the catastrophes that befell my family actually prevented me from writing, but it made it a lot easier to retreat into somewhat less complicated pass-times like sleeping, hanging out with the Abigail, and painting tiny plastic spacemen (TPSMs for short). The fact that I ended up flying back and forth between here and the East Coast four times (half of them for funerals), getting a DVT in my leg in the process, didn't help any.

I wish I could report that I eventually rose to the challenge, like one of those guys who wins a Double NaNo despite having twins, losing his job, and being hit by a bicycle messenger carrying a duffel bag full of contraband weasels.

But, nah, I painted TPSMs and slept.

The Abigail tells me that it was ok - that I had the grieving process that I had to have - but I still feel like I dropped the ball. Or, to be somewhat more fair to myself, there was this totally awesome ball that I could have picked up, but instead I let it lie there. Is that ok? Sure. But it's not exceptional, and exceptional is what I want to be.

What am I working on right now?

Despite the creatively lame summer, I did manage to produce several short story ideas that I am currently attempting to realize in a rather slow and lazy way. I am also gearing up for National Novel Writing Month; I've picked my novel and am currently gathering my notes and preparing for war. I have decided to take advantage of the somewhat less formal NaNoEdMo to complete one of this summer's neglected projects: getting Knights of the Land fully re-written and ready to shop around with agents.

As for this blog, well, I plant to pick up where I left off. The blogging will commence anew, with new and better posts, more frequent and more interesting links, and cooler creative prompts! The universe is the limit at the new and improved (read: same thing, just more enthusiastic) Burning Zeppelin Experience!

*Cue fireworks; a teenage demon appears, prods me with her pitchfork and says "back to grading you heinous slacker!"*