June was a productive month for me. I wrote three successful blog posts over at Prose & Cons, which is where you’ll find my more Internet-friendly writing from this point forward (whereas The Machine Stops will be geared more towards writing updates and reflective meanderings like this one). My Prose & Cons posts include "Fantasy Rocks: 8 Songs Inspired by Fantasy Novels"; "On the Origins of Zombies: 7 Must-See Zombie Films"; and to prove I’m not just a list-making one-trick-pony, "Amazing Author, Horrible Person." All three posts have topped Prose & Cons in site visits, thanks largely to some lively discussions over at Reddit.
In addition to my blogging, I made great headway on the Dreamwielder sequel, The Faceless Enemy, cranking out almost 40k words this last month (a good number for me). I’m down to the last two climatic chapters and am chomping at the bit finish, but unfortunately I’ve been stymied by a glut of summer teaching work the last two weeks. That’s the one downside to being a writer—I’m beholden to work when the work is there. For the majority of June I was productive as hell writing, but equally poor, and those bills started to stack up. When the opportunity for summer teaching work presented itself, I simply couldn’t turn it down. So now, and for at least the next couple of weeks, I’m working at three different schools/tutoring-centers, seven days a week. In the mornings, I tell myself I’ll write at least thousand words on The Faceless Enemy when I get home, but come 8:30pm when I finally stroll in, all I want to do is crack open a beer and relax. But I’m not complaining. I’m happy for the work, just frustrated I’m not finished with the book. It will happen soon, though, and I’ll be looking for a couple of beta readers if anyone is interested.
Until then, I best quit blogging and use what little spare time I have working on The Faceless Enemy. Cheers!
-Garrett Calcaterra
