I can't believe I forgot this

I've tried doing everything right. Be active on social media, have a blog, meet people, be nice, write a kick ass book, write a good query, write a good synopsis, have a website...

What was that last one? Yeah about that... so I have an official website now at DustynMcCormick.com. I suppose it'll do much better if I actually advertise it. Oops. 

So yeah... basically this blog is going to be allow to waste away while the other flourishes... why? Well if you follow this, then you know... I can barely keep up with one let alone two. So what will you find on the website?

You'll find news, I've been trying to keep everyone abreast of my wife's breast cancer news, my publishing news (nothing new on that front though) and other general thoughts that float through my grey matter on a semi-irregular basis.

Pictures... yes what does your soon to be favorite author look like, you'll find out here. (I'm sorry)

Reviews... or right now review anyway.

Also images... or an image anyway... created by one of my favorite artists Allen Childers.

So hop on over, bookmark it, tell your friends, friends of friends, that weird Uncle that everyone tries to stay away from at gatherings... on second thought never mind about the Uncle. Still, spread the news. Comment, interact with me, give me a reason to open a forum or shun the internet forever... whichever floats your boat.

Insert witty title here.

Just a quick update. My wife had surgery today that hopefully dealt a swift blow to her breast cancer and we can put this fight behind us. It's our third round with cancer, if it's over this quickly I will be thrilled.

Now publishing news... none yet. I'm working on perfecting my synopsis for the agents and editor that wanted to see my work. I've received a literary review of one of my short stories from a Russian Professor... it was pretty awesome and made me happier than a puppy with two peters. Something about knowing that a story you wrote moved someone is just super exciting.

To go along with that the same story will now be used as teaching material at the University of Irkutsk in Russia. Which is also über exciting.

Soo... yeah that's basically it. An exciting time with a hell of an emotional roller-coaster but it's well worth the ups and downs.

Until next time my friends... oh and I'll have the review posted here eventually... once I have it scanned.

The good, the bad, and the Dustyn

So I totally failed in my vow to update every week until the Writer's Digest Conference in New York, and I completely failed at posting anything during the conference. Honestly though, if you follow me here, you shouldn't be surprised.

So here's what happened. I learned some interesting things, I met some totally awesome people, and I have two agents and an editor that want to see my book. I won't say I fell in love with New York City but I did get a pretty bad case of lust for New York City.

So what is going on right now?

Well I am working on writing a synopsis for the ones that want to see my stuff. I'm dealing with a health scare with my wife. Truth be told the day I left she got a biopsy to see if she has another form of cancer. I thought about telling the agents I was pitching my book to about it so they would understand my high level of nerves but then I thought I might get pity requests... or worse, look like I was asking for pity, so I kept it to myself.

I'm also waiting to see if Russia is interested in publishing one of my short stories. I started a new job, crushed a finger two days before the conference and am now sporting 3 lovely stitches. Oddly enough I'm optimistic. Or at least, as optimistic as I get.

You see they often say that in life you must take the good with the bad. I have a theory that the harder the bad is, the better the good is. With writing I'm shooting for the moon. So to attain it I should expect to hit rock bottom.

In the end I believe it will all work out in my favor. Of course I also have a belief that I'm part cat as I have a habit of landing on my feet.

Now I'm going to write my synopsis, curse it, rewrite it, probably curse it again, rewrite it again, bang my head on the desk, maybe cry, curse some more and hopefully then write one I feel comfortable with.

I'm also going to work on a new website and will probably move this blog to it... not fully decided on that right now so we'll see.

With any luck I'll have an answer from the University of Moscow before I finalize things so I can put that in my letter... at least if they accept me and send me a contract.

What does all of this mean for my blog? Well, it basically means that I'll probably keep updating with my normal irregularity, I'll apologize, you'll forgive me because I'm awesome, and then we'll both wait for me to decide to ramble again.

For now my friends, I bid you goodnight, happy trails, farewell... yeah I haven't slept much.

I'm here again

If you're reading this hoping for some type of great writing advice or maybe great news about my fledgling career... well I'm going to disappoint you. This is mostly about personal thoughts and feelings I have to get out before my head explodes.

So my wife had a mammogram awhile back and they found something. We don't know anything yet, more tests have to be done. 

That doesn't really sound dramatic I guess but if it is cancer this will be our third fight with cancer. It almost feels like at this point we get to bitch slap cancer and call it our bitch. Maybe look death in the eye and tell him to blow me.

At the same time I have to wonder... how many times can we win this fight? If we lose can I be a single parent? How can I take care of my kids without her?

I'm an over thinker, I'm a worrier, and a bit pessimistic. How's that for getting to know you're soon to be favorite author? So it's a bit of a given that I think about her death. That I think about being a widower in my 30s.

The thing is I feel helpless, like I'm just a passenger on this train and sometimes I'd like to punch the conductor in the throat. Of course I also know that with her other health issues one day widower will become my marriage status... I'd just rather have that be when I'm old, our kids are grown, and hopefully shortly before I'm ready to shuffle off this mortal coil.

I'm not a great husband, but I try my best. Our life isn't wonderful but I like to think we're mostly happy. I'm not a great human being but I try to be as good as I can and I hope to leave the world a better place than I found it... so why does this shit keep happening?

I don't know. I guess we'll keep going. I'll keep pursuing my writing career and just hoping for the best. Fingers crossed this is just a scare. Thanks for reading my ramble.

Oh my god Dustyn where have you been?

Where have I been? I know I promised to try and update weekly. I'm sorry. I'm horrible at this blogging thing... honestly I'm horrible at social media period. Don't believe me? Check out my Twitter or Facebook pages... my Tumbler is a joke.

I know I need to get better and I will... it's just that I don't have much of anything to say... funny isn't it? I can weave a story and write a novel... update people on my life... meh... no news is good news I guess.

So what's going on with me? Well let's see.

1. Through an odd set of circumstances I have a chance at getting one of my short stories translated and published by the University of Moscow.

How did that come about?

Well it all started with meeting a Russian scholar that was visiting here, we connected talking about literature, she read my writing, loved this particular story, shared it with her Grandfather who insists I'm not an American and also says I don't write for a typical American audience (I felt complimented but that's also a downside since I am American and that is my audience). Anyway what with one thing and another my story is apparently floating around the faculty of the University and it may get published by them... So that's pretty cool.

2. I got fired from my paying job. Now I'll be honest, I didn't love my job, only a few people there managed to not irritate me on a daily basis but I did enjoy the paycheck and the insurance. I won't bother you with the details but the firing came about due to an unfortunate set of circumstances that resulted in me having a major case of cranial rectal inversion and well... it was out of my managers hands and I got shit canned. I did screw up, pretty majorly really, but it still rather sucks. So that's not cool.

If you have a job available let me know.

3. I'm having surgery soon. I mean really soon like on June 2nd soon... it's now June 1st.

What am I having done you ask? I'm having a deviated septum fixed, my sinus cavity cleaned out, and my tonsils and adnoids removed. I've been assured that the healing process is going to suck and that I'm probably going to lose 10 pounds.

So pain isn't cool but I'm looking forward to dropping 10 pounds... if I could drop another 50 or so after that I'd be back my high school weight which would make me one sexy S.O.B.

4. Trip to New York is up in the air now. I haven't cancelled it yet but if I don't find a job relatively soon I'm going to have to cancel it and that would completely suck ass.

So as you can see I have been busy and it's been ups and downs like a normal life.

Luckily I'm like I cat. I don't cough up hairballs but I do usually land on my feet. If I land on my face I'm pretty good at getting up and acting like I meant to eat gravel.

So enjoy my friends. I may or may not go into radio silence during my recover but it doesn't matter at this point. You know as well I do that I'll update when I remember.

Four Months

That's right my faithful friends. I have just four months give or take a few days... or weeks... I don't know I'm bad with time. Anyway just four months until I'm in New York trying to impress agents with my brilliance... or confuse them with my bullshit... doesn't really matter to me which works as long as I get an agent... or a contract from an editor... I'm really not picky.

The thing is I'm a bit of an over thinker. So in my head I've already gone over everything that can go wrong, everything that can go right, everything that can seem like it's wrong but is actually right, everything that seems right but is actually wrong, and of course everything that is just okay.

Yes I've pictured myself returning home victorious with an agent eagerly reading my book then hounding editors nonstop to get published, or coming home utterly defeated and questioning my commitment to writing, or coming home anticipating acceptance or rejection, and of course not making it home because the plane has vanished into an alternate dimension like in Stephen King's book "The Langoliers".

I admit that last one isn't very likely but I like to never rule anything out.

This brings me to the problem of being an over thinker and having a countdown to a potentially life altering event. All possibilities get covered and my mind works so furiously on discovering and preparing for any eventuality that I forget to enjoy the present, I forget to start working on my next novel... working title of "Dragon Song" (it's gonna be totally awesome) and forget that four months is both a long and short time.

So what have I been doing to prepare? Well I've been agonizing over whether or not my pitch is good enough. I have a huge fear of public speaking, I'm good at it but it terrifies me and while I always prepare in advance I also always end up just winging it. I've also started stalking every agent that I hope to pitch to. 

It's not all work though. Of course not, all work and no play makes Dustyn a dull boy... or at least irritating as hell with nonstop talking about all of the aforementioned possibilities. So I'm researching agents, and almost as importantly, I'm looking for Irish Pubs near the hotel because well... I'll be in New York, I have Irish roots, how could I not make it a point to at least hit a few Irish pubs in the short time I have?

So dear readers. If any of you are from New York do me a favor and leave comments on your favorite pubs that are near The Roosevelt hotel. Preferably in easy walking distance. My hope is that I can meet an agent, hit it off, and we can work out a deal over drinks listening to awesome Irish music and commiserate the next morning about how much we drank and forever have a funny shared story about staggering back to the hotel and barely being able to find our rooms... alternatively I suppose it's equally possible that we'd get into a drunken argument over the respective impacts of Poe, King, and Lovecraft on the horror genre as we know it and whether or not Twilight has forever ruined the use of vampires in modern fiction, punches will be thrown and stories about me will circulate through agent circles forever preventing me from succeeding as an author in a traditional publishing scenario... or something like that.

Anyway... New York, Irish Pubs, Roosevelt Hotel... Go.

Adjusting to days

So my move from night shift to day shift has come and gone. I'm in the middle of my second week of days. Here is what I have learned.

1. Adjusting my body clock is a bit more difficult than expected. First weeks went fine... so far the second week has seen me going to sleep and waking up at whatever time my body wants unless the alarm wakes me up first.

2. Letting go of night shift is hard. On nights I was by myself, large and in charge... now I'm just a peon... that's not the worst bit though. No the worst bit is that I made many friends of my night customers. Some even have my phone number... they are not happy with my replacement whom I am told has taken to wearing ear buds while helping customers.

3. I still don't like higher ups. They annoy me and slow down the entire work process.

4. Before the switch I had wild dreams of immediately starting work on my next book while continuing to work on publishing the first... I haven't written a damn thing thanks to the screwy sleeping schedule.

5. I'm not sure I like being a daywalker. Or rather. I like it, but I wish my day shift work was similar to my night shift work.

6. Not a fan of coworkers. It's not that I don't like them as people, it's that... with a few exceptions... I don't like having them at work with me. I liked working alone where the only coworker that could irritate me was... well me.

Good lessons I guess. I'm hoping the internal clock will adjust soon and maybe I can get to work writing by next week. With luck.