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The Annual Update Anniversary

So, last year when I jokingly wrote that I was doing an annual update, little did I know that was prophetic.

Now, here we are in 2024 and I’m doing an update in February! Less than a year since my last post! Incredible!

Well, time to catch you all up on the life and times since May 2023, and away we go!

Family Life:

Things appear to be going well all aside from the bloody budget crunching thanks to the insane interest rates at the moment. I know we’re faring better than most, so I won’t complain about it too much. That being said, my son is a lover of books and his attention span is growing for bigger books. He’s two, but his highest interest is the trio of choose-your-own-adventure novels I brought home. He wasn’t a huge fan of the haunted house one (I do fun voices, but I chose to do spookier ones for that), but the Dino Time Travel and Build Your Own Robot stories have been a big hit. Maybe he’ll be more into sci-fi!

Work Life:

I still have the shop and it’s going great! I am absolutely still loving the job, but I know I have a challenging conversation coming up in regards to renewing the lease. As I don’t want to move it, I’m hoping the landlord comes to the party as she said she prefers long-term tenants as opposed to a revolving door or vacancy. Seriously though, running a bookshop has been a dream of mine and it feels weird to actually be living it!

Reading Life:

For 2023 I managed 156 books through reading and audiobooks. What an incredible year! Some of the highlights I had from last year: Discovered Anthony Horowitz (then interacted with him on Twitter!), read more Indigenous authors than ever before, picked up a physical copy of Zen in the Art of Writing by Ray Bradbury (SIGNED!), and found myself crying (Before the Coffee Gets Cold), laughing (The Duke & I, romance/biting wit!), confused (The Three Body Problem, first book to make me feel too stupid to read it) and downright concerned for the author (The Eulogy, seriously though, someone go hug her!). I’ve set a LOFTY goal of 200 books this year, and I’m on track halfway through my 21st read!

Writing Life:

The whole reason this blog exists. Writing. Last year, I managed to rack up a few decent things for the old writing CV. In 2023 I managed to get showcased twice on the Australian Writers’ Centre’s #FuriousFiction competition with a long listing earlier in the year too. This follows on from my win in April 2021, and I’ve already managed a longlisting in January this year!

I also placed second in Storyfest’s writing competition which is an excellent win (especially since it was a modified story for a specific publication the year before last). The best part about this is it gives me a bit more confidence that I can write outside the #FuriousFiction competitions and it netted me a gift card for books and a voucher for classes!

In Writing in general, I’m still working on my rewrite of Jefferson (the book now known as The Magician’s Curse). Rewriting for point of view, editing for tense and pronouns, and ensuring the story still holds up has been my biggest challenge yet. Aside from that though I’ve just finished February’s #FuriousFiction, I have a short story about a cat on submission, another story to short édition, and a longer story on sub to Aurealis. So, all in all, I’m putting myself out there and more people are seeing my work than ever.

 

And that brings us to the end of yet another annual update! If you’re lucky, you may end up with a second post before the end of the year, but don’t count on it! I have some other news I’ll be sitting on for a little bit longer, so we will see how that pans out for the midyear! For now, back to writing/editing!

I Have No Recollection Of This Place

It’s been a while (too long), so I thought I’d share a few things that have happened recently!

First, my short story “Untitled” was long-listed in the Australian Writers’ Centre’s Furious Fiction competition! This is a competition I have won previously, so to get mentioned again is an honor. Also, unfortunately, my title was not actually planned to be untitled, but I always name the story at the end and send it through. Because I was submitting while tired, I neglected to do that and only realized after the bar began loading after hitting submit. A silly mistake and a lesson learned.

Aside from that, tomorrow will mark six months of working for myself as the owner of Anne’s Second Hand Book Shop in Nowra. Time truly flies when you’re having fun and I don’t feel like I’ve worked a day in the past six months! This has also had the subsequent side effect of reading more, A LOT MORE, as I am on my 66th book this year. To put that in perspective, that is six books more than my previous FIVE years of reading. I. Am. Loving. It.

On the writing front, aside from short story competitions (which I am getting more confident with), I am back to working on my novel, The Magician’s Curse. You’ll note I’ve dropped the name of the main character and this comes off the back of a structural decision to follow both Jefferson and Gabriel and since it’s not just Jefferson’s story anymore, I dropped his name. It very much is still his story (after all, he’s the protagonist of future books) but without the focus on him, the title works better as it is. I’m excited about the latest edit, to say the least.

Anyway, my boy has already woken from his nap but know that I’m not dead and writing is still very much a passion and goal of mine! Talk to you all again soon!

The (Apparently) Annual Update

Let’s start by saying that things don’t always go according to plan.

If you’re looking for many words of inspiration, you won’t find them here. No, instead you’ll find a plethora of reasons as to why I have been unable to get published. I’ll skip through them and cut straight to the chase, I needed a breather.

You see, writing is a labor of love and self-abuse. You write something you love, then you make it look like you meant to write it the way that you did. Then you tidy up your grammar, make vital cuts, and rewrite until your fingers ache. At some point, I think I began to tell myself that my story wasn’t up to scratch, that despite all of the fantastic and glorious feedback I’d received, somehow my book was awful.

So I edited it.

Then edited some more.

I cut a character; a dangerous game when you’ve written two novels set after book one.

I did this until I finally backed away after rejection #(Still in double digits somewhere) and just stepped away from submitting to agents. Then, I stepped away from the book completely. I stepped away from writing completely.

I changed careers, loving my new job when they suddenly announced a change that will dramatically affect my work/life balance. I put my head in my hands and I felt my pulse race. Not again. I ran my fingers through what little hair I do have. Not again.

Now I sit on the precipice of yet another decision. Stick with the new job and sacrifice 6 hours a week with my son? Or find work elsewhere as the company is refusing to budge on their decision.

Whatever happens, I opened the door to my writing room once again and peered in, a physical and visual representation of my mind. Books stacked every which way. A half-finished wooden globe beckoning to be finished. Two hourglasses sit, mocking the time I’m wasting. I sit the three new books I bought from work on a pile and move globe pieces from my usual writing chair.

***

Odd to come back to a half written post a few months later.

No, I’m still not published. No, I still haven’t gotten back into my writing routine.

However…

I’ve made a deal with a fellow writer to help push her to add more to her manuscript in preparation for a Varuna Fellowship next year. I’m going to edit at ten times whatever she writes. Yes, I hate myself that much. But also, she has stretch goals including me cutting and rewriting chapters. If she keeps ahead of target, I’ll keep pushing like I’ve got a month to live. Essentially, if she finished above 30,000 words, I should have edited and rewritten a brand new draft of my book next month. Don’t worry everyone… the energy drinks are on the way. So is the printed and bound manuscript I’ve ordered for such an occasion. Made me feel good when Officeworks called to say the book was too big for the thermal binding. Then I also started sweating. NaNoWriMo is more NaNoEdMo for me. I just hope I survive.

Also, because trying to edit and rewrite a novel isn’t enough, me and my wife are looking into buying a secondhand bookshop. It’s been on the cards to run our own business for a long time and we always put things off like buying property, investing, skipped over buying a business not too long ago, and now… here we are. This may not be the exact opportunity we’ve been looking for, but it also very well may. Anyway, for now I’ll be editing… if I get a chance, I’ll try and pop by here at least a little bit more frequently!

Times Are A Changin’

Wow, it’s 2021. How did that happen?

It’s been quite some time since I updated anything to this website or my blog and mainly that is because last year sucked the life out of me. Living in Australia has been excellent in regards to COVID and its issues, but working retail during everything that happened left me an empty shell of a man. Just to recap:

January 2020 – Bushfires

February 2020 – Floods

March 2020 – Coronavirus & Stocktake

April 2020 – Coronavirus

May 2020 – Turned 35, oh and Coronavirus

June 2020 – End of Financial Year Sale (Xmas in June really) and Coronavirus

July 2020 – Coronavirus

August 2020 – Coronavirus

September 2020 – Stocktake and Coronavirus

October 2020 – Coronavirus

November 2020 – Coronavirus, Cyber Friday Sales, Xmas Prep

December 2020 – Xmas… and Coronavirus

During last year I had four COVID tests, a health scare (my doctor found a mass in my abdomen that she was worried was lymphoma), aggressive and abusive customers for the entirety of the COVID times and on top of it all found out my wife was pregnant. To say 2020 was a rollercoaster would be an understatement. Maybe one where in the first minute the security gives way and you spend the rest of the ride simply clutching on. FUN TIMES.

As for writing, I truly feel like my soul took a beating this past year. I began questioning what I was doing with my life. I considered going into politics (I couldn’t do worse, right?). I submitted to a bunch of publishers and got a manuscript assessment; positive feedback, no takers though. I wrote eighty thousand words into book three and then my brain simply broke and I have barely written a thing since. I can’t focus. I barely get to the computer. Even this post is an attempt to get back into writing when and where I can.

This year has started off with a bang with the birth of my firstborn though! He’s super cute and going pretty well. The view from where I sit on the floor has my wife and two dogs sound asleep on the bed and my son swaddled and sleeping soundly. If you want to know what a view of the world looks like, that’s the most succinct one I can provide.

The trouble is now I must decide whether I continue working on Jefferson and Gabriel’s story or if I simply shelve it for now and write something else. There is another idea in the back of my mind for middle grade and it does tie into my world, so… maybe? I just don’t know at the moment. Although the cover artists for middle grade books are absolutely killing it, they look way more interesting than some stupid “The SOMETHING of SOMETHING and SOMETHING” titles. GIVE ME A BREAK.

Anyway, I suppose this post is just to make sure the website still works and to let you know I am still alive with the dream of being a writer. But with my wife on maternity leave, a newborn, and a full time job, sometimes dreams take a bit of a back burner. Hopefully this post is a return to some semblance of writing regularly.

Thanks for sticking around!

Sincerely, TJ Edwards