Sometimes you need to take a break

Apr 22, 2025 9:25 pm

A quick but needed break

I may no longer be an English teacher, but with a couple of kids and a teacher wife, I still operate on a school schedule for the most part.

Since I write largely at home, this poses some challenges (particularly in the summer), but one wonderful thing about leaning into this schedule is that it builds in some natural seasonality. Periods of intense work and more relaxed periods.

After the Kickstarter craziness the last few weeks, taking a week off (mostly) for Spring Break was a nice change of pace.

My family took a quick excursion to Colorado and enjoyed some sunshine and the zoo, before spending some time with family over the Easter holiday.

We spent a good 30 minutes just throwing rocks into this lake...

I was also able to take some time to think, reflect, read, and get more organized.

I am someone who tends toward never stopping, and I've found that I really need these respites to find clarity in the things I'm doing, how to improve, and what to focus more time on.

Time Blocking

One of my biggest takeaways from that reflection (and the first thing I implemented this week) was that I need to get more organized with my day to day tasks.

I'm a big fan of the productivity writer, Cal Newport, author of Deep Work and Slow Productivity (among others), and I finally decided to pick up his Time Blocking Planner.

As a writer, it is fairly vital to my career that I protect chunks of the day for deep focused work.

But as I've expanded into more projects, juggling art commissions across multiple ongoing projects, launching Kickstarters, social media, and so on, I've found it increasingly easy to get pulled in too many directions.

Perhaps you can relate :)

Time Blocking is basically a means of setting intention for each hour of the work day. Could I do this with my own planner? Or just a notebook?

Probably.

But the Time Blocking Planner is nicely organized, and there's always that aspect of having spent money on something that makes you more likely to do it. At any rate, that has certainly been the case for me.

And having established times for things like writing this newsletter, or posting on Instagram, or responding to this artist, has immediately helped my focus while writing and editing books. My most important task.

Speaking of books...

Children of the Gods raised over $51k

The book was funded by exactly 699 backers on Kickstarter, and essentially raised as much as my first two campaigns combined.

Just wow!

Along the way, we unlocked every single Stretch Goal! And even added on a bonus one.

Children of the Gods is going to be truly incredible:

Eight interior illustrations, including one in full color
Foiling, embossed lettering, and UV spot glossing on the dust jacket
Dragon scale endpapers
Ribbon bookmark
Stencil Designed Edges
And a foil-stamped clothbound cover!

A huge, huge thank you to all of you who supported the campaign!

I've said it before and I'll say it again, I am blown away by the support for this book!

And I can't wait for you all to read this book.

Writing Updates

Now that the Kickstarter is wrapped up, I am focused on getting this book finished over the next month.

I'm aiming to send the book to the printer in June, and we've got the audiobook scheduled with Tim Campbell by the middle of June.

So I've got a hard deadline.

The good news is that my editor Sarah loved the book! I've finished up with her edits, and now I'm making my own final pass of revisions.

The story is basically set at this point. This final pass is about ensuring continuity, and tweaking a lot of little things.

My wife is also reading through it at the same time, and she always catches some good things to help with clarity.

I am about 25% finished with this last round of edits, and should wrap up around mid to late May.

After that, I will get back to new words again.

I Opened an Online Bookshop

I've been aiming to do this for quite some time, and I've always wanted to be able to offer SIGNED books and merch and whatnot, so... this is finally happening.

Due to some of the complications of international shipping, I'm only doing this in the US to start, but may expand beyond that in the near future.

Over the past couple of years, I've slowly been shifting more of my focus away from platforms like Amazon and have been trying to make my books available in more ways.

And this is the next step along that path. My new bookshop is set up through Shopify, in order to provide a n optimal shopping experience.

If you're interested in SIGNED SHADOW WATCH BOOKS, head on over and check it out!

Order SIGNED Books!

I've only got Shadow Watch books up so far, but will be adding Pantheon books shortly. And very soon, plan to add things like T-shirts and some other cool items.

So stay tuned :)