This and That.

The writer life is a little quiet at the moment. I'm struggling with procrastination, and it's been nothing but rejections for a while.

I'm not sure if I wholly believe in writer's block, but I certainly can understand what stress, the fear of failure, constant rejection, and troughs of activity does to a head. It can be a lonely existence as a writer, and sometimes you can really get stuck inside your head.

But I keep reminding myself that I'm way better than I was before eighteen months ago, and the last five months have been pretty rough and I've managed to keep going. 

So here's the hard truth, though I hate to admit it: I haven't written any new words in two weeks. For some stupid reason the rejections are getting to me, and trunking some stories has effected my mood way more than I thought it would.

I'm at the bottom of a motivation trough, hoping for something good to pull me back up, whether it's creative inspiration or a sale. And what's two weeks out of all this time I've been writing? I've talked myself past the problem before, I'll get back on that horse very soon. I'm my own cheerleader and professional butt-kicker, and I kick my own butt hard.

Luckily, to keep me looking forward I have a few things I'm anticipating:

• A story going live at Expanded Horizons in the near future.
• A story going live at Khimairal Ink. This has been delayed, but I have every faith the e-zine are doing their best to get their next issue out.
• A story going live at Luna Station Quarterly very soon. My profile is already available at the site.
• Stories sitting in the slush piles of venues I hold in great esteem, and am looking forward to their reply.

And in other news, here's something to wrap your head around - 'Tales For Canterbury' is now available at the Christchurch Public Library, the Auckland Public Library, and the Dunedin Public Library. If you find it at your local library, let me know. For truth. I'm not on a boat...I'm in a library!