It took a few weeks, but spring has finally hit me with the full force of its sunshine and optimism. I plum forgot to update the blog last week, and so much has been keeping me busy, it is hard to remember everything I ought to tell you.

I was in Vegas a week ago, supporting my fantastic friend, Kyle Eschen in a performance he did out there. Kyle is a magician. Kyle is the greatest magician. You will be seeing and hearing a lot about him in the next few months from me, because he’s one of the greatest artists I’ve ever found in my own generation. I would tell you about his amazing project, but I signed release forms that made me promise not to talk about it yet…

I would also tell you about Las Vegas, but it was terrible. I was sick. Zaq got sick. Everything besides Kyle’s performance (which was wonderful) was absolutely awful. The hotel was full of broken drawers, a bad bed, flaking shower, and no microwave. Everything was simultaneously expensive and cheap, nothing was easy to do or get to except for slot machines, and all the people paid to walk around half-naked just looked tired and sad.

I had much more fun buying art this week.

My groovy landlord buddy friend told me on my birthday that I could spend my month’s rent decorating the house. A month later, I finally got around to running around town to buy art, and I’m really happy with everything I bought.

I think the wood in-lays are Polynesian, but I’m  not sure. They’re very beautiful, but could use a little polishing before they go p on the wall. The “flora and avian” painting set is going to work wonderfully in the dining room, I think. The impressionist piece is a print of Vincent Van Gough’s “Field With Green Corn” painting, and the abstract work is an erotic piece by Marcel Duchamp entitled “Nude Descending Staircase No. 2” Scandalous.

While Zaq was out of state visiting his family for two weeks, I took some time to draft 12,500 words of a new project, which I’m now doing for Camp NaNoWriMo, hoping to get the whole manuscript up to 50,000 words by the end of the month and completely drafted by the end of May. This new book is exactly the book I need to be writing now to really push myself and grow as an author, as well as an emotional human being. Stay tuned…

In some senses, it’s probably the worst thing I could do to start giving my focus and passion to writing a story that nobody yet wants or will see when my debut novel is coming out in a matter of weeks…but honestly, this project is keeping me sane. Publishing is an intense process, and even more so when you consider that marketing a book can very easily turn into a 60+ hour per week workload for an author. I’ve been pushing hard to get The Neverland Wars off the ground and give it some momentum. Frankly, it’s starting to burn me out.

Three weeks before book release is not a good time to burn out.

I appreciate everyone’s help and all the interest people are expressing, but I need to make sure I nurture my love of writing right now so I don’t forget what this is all about. I got into this game because I loved telling stories, and I can’t lose sight of that just because I’m putting so much work into selling stories at the moment. Creating new content is the only way for me to stay present in why I’m jumping through all these crazy business hoops in the first place.