Storyslinger No. 1-23

News: January 2023

Photo by Erwan Hesry on Unsplash

News

Happy New Year! Welcome to 2023!

You know what that means? Resolutions, right? It’s time to join a gym, lose some weight, learn a new language, start playing a new sport. Or is it?

I’m not convinced that making resolutions the old fashioned American New Year’s way is what really works. But I’ll talk more about that next month. What’s been on my mind lately is not how much I’ve failed over the past year (a lot), but rather how much I’ve accomplished.

Humans are really good at identifying faults. We’re hardwired through evolution to find things that don’t work and fix them or come up with solutions for them. But how often do we sit down and catalog what we’ve done well? That’s my challenge for all of us this week. Sit down with a pen and notebook and start listing the stuff you kicked ass at in 2022. What did you accomplish? What goals did you achieve? What good habits did you create—or which bad ones did you successfully overcome?

Before we beat ourselves up about how much we need to change and fix in our lives, let’s at least take five minutes to pat ourselves on the back for kicking butt in a ton of ways last year.

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Writing

As I work toward releasing my stories on Substack this year, I asked you all to take a poll about which genre you prefer reading. The results were pretty clear:

• 50% of you prefer science fiction.

• 25% of you prefer thrillers.

• 25% of you prefer literature.

Surprisingly, not one of you chose romance. Are none of you falling deeply in love every day? Meeting that perfect someone as soon as you roll over in bed and open your eyes? Am I the only one?

I will definitely continue working on my military romance series, A Fort Magruder Romance. But I will also focus more on science fiction this year—and not just because of this poll. I also really enjoy reading and writing sci-fi.

I started this writing life with the idea that I would write across all genres that I enjoy—and I still plan to do that. But I also want to write stories that folks want to read, so with sci-fi trending generally (and here specifically), I’m happy to focus on the story ideas I’ve had sitting in my Idea Drawer. I almost want to do another poll to see which one you think I should work on next, but for now I’m just going to tell you a little about them.

A Million Light-Years (series)

In a distant future where our very existence is threatened, future humans build one-way time travel and send people back in time to try and correct the errors that led to our impending extinction. The gray aliens at Roswell? Future humans. Weird depictions of spacecraft in ancient Egyptian hieroglyphics and Mayan pictograms? Future humans. The lost city of Atlantis and a pre-Ice Age advanced civilization? Future humans. The first book, Ghosts of Us, brings us face-to-face with the kind of xenophobia we would experience meeting future humans who have evolved into something very different from us—and the godlike reverence we would hold for their abilities and technology.

The Wold (series)

An immortal man from Earth travels an immense distance across space to another galaxy where he lands on a planet in the middle of a global war. The forces of good and evil battle one another using medieval weapons and magic. The man is received as a god for his amazing technology, but he runs into trouble in the first book, Battle of Azurel Pass, when he is asked to become a king and lead one side to victory.

Rangers of the Republic (series)

In a post-apocalyptic United States, the Republic of New Texaco is administered and protected by a group of highly trained paramilitary soldiers called Rangers. A mashup of western and sci-fi, the series follows one Ranger as she passes through the phases of Ranger life: first as a Seeker in training, then as a Ranger protecting the citizenry, later as a Mentor training new Seekers, and finally as Judge, administering the Republic.

I’m really excited about these three series (and the other stories I have planned). I just need to get to work!

Thoughts

I want to leave you with something I’ve been working on as a lead-in to the New Year. I’ve gotten into some good habits during 2022 (getting up early, taking cold showers, writing daily), but one thing I don’t do consistently (and really want to) is journaling.

I’m going to build the journaling habit in small bites this year. Here’s what I’m going to do:

• Get a new journal and nice pen.

• Set aside ten minutes every morning for journaling.

• Set a reminder on a digital device.

• Put my journal and pen on my desk ready to go.

And finally, I’m going to employ the KISS principle (Keep It Simple, Silly) and just enter the minimal stuff as I get started. To me, the four essentials in a journal entry are:

1. Today’s date.

2. One thing I’m grateful for.

3. One thing I did well in the last 24 hours.

4. And one thing I could have done better.

So, that’s my plan—and I’m sticking to it!

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Once again, welcome to the New Year. Please leave comments or send me questions. I really want to hear from you. Please share and if you’re not a subscriber, consider signing up.

Thanks for being part of the journey!