I unintentionally took a week off from this site, so we have some catching up to do.

June gave me some much-needed headspace in a lot of different ways. First, we had a destination wedding vacation with some family, but without our kids, which was a really nice change of pace. The boys had fun with my mom for a week, so they also had a change of pace. Then, we had an extended 4th of July holiday in our usual spot with a bunch of my wife’s family, which is a different sort of relaxation.

This all gave me a mental break from work that I’ve been putting off for ages, and also some quality time with my wife, and then also our kids. It also allowed me to do a lot of thinking without the pressure of everyday routines.

Last Month’s Goals

1. Finish three books. Likely:
   • Current read: Star Wars: Tarkin by James Lucena
   • Likely next reads: The Storyteller by Dave Grohl, perhaps The Case-Book of Sherlock Holmes by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle.
2. Finish New Earth? I just need to power through to a fitting ending. I think I just need to be okay with a decent ending, and then come back to it in revisions.
3. Enjoy vacation. Work has been crazy, and a big deployment is happening while I’ll be away, so I’m stressing a bit about that. But this will be a real vacation from everything, so I want to embrace it. I just need to get ready for it, mentally and logistically.

Finish three books?

I finished four books in June, all audiobooks:

• Entangled Life: How Fungi Make Our Worlds, Change Our Minds & Shape Our Futures, by Merlin Sheldrake
• Tarkin by James Luceno, which I reviewed last month
• Among the Beasts and Briars by Ashley Poston, which is worthy of a review
• The Case-Book of Sherlock Holmes by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, which closes out my long trek through The Complete Sherlock Holmes collection on Audible

Honestly, I’ve read so much since late June that I had forgotten which books I had finished just a few weeks ago. Vacation time is also reading time.

Finish New Earth?

No, but I got closer, and then had some distance from the pressures of writing. I thought about writing a lot, and I thought about what I wanted my next steps to be. Not what I thought I should do, or what would be expected of me.

That’s the trap I perpetually fall into — conflating what I think others expect of me with what I actually want for myself.

I won’t go into detail until I take some meaningful action, but a publishing plan is beginning to coalesce in my mind, one that hinges on me getting my self-publishing shit together, and also finishing these books in a reasonable timeframe.

Enjoy vacation?

Yes! We spent a week in Tenerife, Canary Islands for a destination wedding, a trip we had not planned on taking a year ago, but one where we could not pass up the opportunity to celebrate with family and visit somewhere new.

Then we spent six days at a family lakehouse with my wife’s siblings and cousins. The family has grown in the last year+, so our boys have some baby cousins to play with. And our oldest, turning six soon, has come out of his shell in a big way this year, and it was on full display on this vacation, when he tried all sorts of new things without the timidity he often showed as a toddler.

A further thought

Overall, I’ve had a real chance to evaluate my priorities and refocus my attention where it’s needed most. I haven’t had exercise as an explicit goal in a couple months, yet I feel like I’ve been more active more consistently in recent weeks. Even just feeling like I’ve improved in this area is a good step forward.

For the moment, I’m focused on retaining my shifted priorities and not just reverting back to bad habits now that vacation time is over.

Goals for July

1. Read three books. I’ve just finished Childhood’s End by Arthur C. Clarke, so I’m off to a good start.
   • Current reads: The Storyteller: Tales of Life and Music by Dave Grohl, and The End of the Story by Clark Ashton Smith (a collection of his short stories that I will likely pick away at for some time).
   • Likely next reads: A Plague of Giants by Kevin Hearne has long intrigued me, and I feel ready to sink into a proper fantasy series again.
2. Finish New Earth. Yeah, yeah, I know. Just finish it and worry about the ending later.
3. Stay on top of my shifted priorities. This is not the space to detail these, but there are a number of things guiding my attention and focus that I need to stay on top of. Exercise/health is one, but there are others. So the goal is to just stay on top of these things and not allow myself to be weighed down by them this month.

Steve D