Gautham: Bill Gauthier.com

Hello, friends.

Summer vacation has finally arrived. About seven weeks of—checks notes—writing and recovering. I’ll be writing more about some thoughts about this summer’s break in today’s essay. Right now, though, I have more important business to handle.

Today, Pamela and I celebrate 17 years married. We got together in 2007 and married in 2009. How anyone can spend longer than an hour in the same room as me is beyond my capabilities but Pamela somehow does it. Anyway, happy anniversary, baby! Let me know when you read this and then I’ll touch your bum.

Welcome to the 179^th installment of Gauthic Times, the newsletter about my writing, my life, and choices. If you’re a reader who subscribes via Substack, my website, or Patreon, your encouragement helps motivate me. I’m not breaking any records but I’m thankful to have any audience.

Thank you.

Supporting creators is so important right now. As such, I would love if you became a paid-Patron on my Patreon.

Support the arts and this writing journey…

Paid-Patrons get exclusive daily check-ins about works-in-progress including the actual names of my works-in-progress and not just codenames. I also show art that I do.

You can also buy me a coffee through Ko-Fi. 

The Monster in the Closet is out now! Order it here!

You can also grab my novel Echoes on the Pond, my collection Catalysts, or my novellas Alice on the Shelf and Shadowed if you haven’t already. And if you’ve read them, please consider leaving a review on Amazon or Goodreads, and wherever else books are sold and reviewed.

You could also read the first draft of Four Moons on Patreon. It’s a werewolf story and I think it’s fun. It is a first draft, though. If you’re interested, Patrons at the $5 tier and above have access but there is also a way to buy into the whole book for $13.99. You don’t have to be a long-term Patron for that second option.

***

School (the Day Job) got out Tuesday and I spent the first three days taking my father to appointments, attending my own appointments, and trying to wrap my mind around things. I worked a little on the synopsis for Project: Amusement Park, did more research on synopses and query letters, and spent time thinking about which project to work on and when. Since a lot of this is in today’s essay, I won’t go into details here, but I feel like I’m on a good path for the summer. Or will be.

***

***

Summer has arrived. More importantly, summer vacation has arrived. I could point out that as a teacher in the 21^st century, summer vacation has more to do with recovery than anything else. I’ve come to believe that in my Day Job teaching, I’m working several jobs at once and they’re all tough. So when summer vacation begins, I’m trying to regain the balance that was lost over the school year and actually devote time to my true calling of writing. This year, I feel a little overwhelmed. There are a bunch of things I need and want to do so I’m spending this week’s essay trying to make sense of it and coming to decisions. That’s one of many reasons why I write; to make sense of the mess that’s in my head.

There are two major projects that are needing specific things so I’ll start there. Project: Amusement Park needs to be marketed to agents/publishers. As I worked this past week on the synopsis, I came to realize I may need to do another draft. I realized that if I change chapter 1 to a prologue and make chapter 2 to chapter 1, I shift things just a little bit and might be able to center the narrative a little more, which would mean more cutting. At 176,100 words (655 manuscript pages), the book should probably be trimmed a little more. I mean, it’s a goddamn masterpiece, but, y’know. Seriously, though, while I love the novel, it could probably be trimmed a little. So not only would I like to try to continue querying the novel, I may also do another quick draft. I will try to decide on that in the next week or two.

Then there’s Four Moons, the novel that I serialized on Patreon as I wrote it. I need to do a second (which is really kind of a third) draft. I’ve printed the book out and put it in a binder. I’ll begin the editing/rewriting this week. The novel is shorter than Project: Amusement Park and a different kind of book, one that runs more on adrenaline and pacing, so it may be a quicker revision.

I would also like to continue revising and submitting short stories and maybe even write a few new ones. I have a backlog of short stories that have never been seen by another’s eyes (as well as a few that have been read by friends) that I’ve been sitting on. I’d like to try to clean them up and get them out the door. We’ll see.

I have two new projects I’d like to start this summer, too. One is a memoir and one is Project: Nightmares, which I’ve written about here before. The second project is especially interesting and calling to me.

My website is a mess and I need to clean it. I may be hiring someone to help with that but money is tight. Luckily, the person I know who might help I may be able to get on a discount. That said, I found a template last night that I kind of like. So I’ll talk to my maybe-web-person and see what they think and go from there.

There’s also the newsletter, Patreon, and whatever other thing I can do to help get my work out there and my thoughts down here.

I other words, a lot. It’s overwhelming.

I’ve spent the last few days, my first few days of summer vacation, trying to wrap my mind around all of it. Where do I start? How do I start? With everything I listed above I still have a lot bouncing around my head that I think could be cool. And I didn’t even mention all the personal things like fixing up the apartment, being with my family, and—oh, yeah—resting.

I think I may have created a schedule.

I looked at how other writers do it, read a bunch of articles, downloaded some spreadsheets, looked for my own daily planner spreadsheet, and came up with this:

• Mornings are new composition and revisions.
• Afternoons are business.
• After dinner is whatever.

That’s it right now. No hourly schedule where I block out what I’m doing and when. No bullet journals separated by colors. I have a plain writing tablet pad that I can put things down on and the hope that I can manage this. I have six or seven weeks of vacation and that’s not a lot. To try and come up with a schedule that was more robust would be a little bit of overkill. I also would like to be able to carry some semblance of this schedule into the next school year with modifications accommodating the soul-sucking life of teaching.

I feel good about this plan. I’m hoping life will allow me to stick with it. And by life, I don’t just mean outside happenings but also the doubts, fears, and depression in my own head. Either way, it’s good to have even the flimsiest of safety nets as I traverse this particular tightrope.

Here goes nothing. Or everything.

***

This week I finished reading J. Lincoln Fenn’s novel The Nightmarchers. It’s an atmospheric journey of fear, heartbreak, generational pain, and loss. The novel gets under the skin and festers, much like the issues the characters face. Fenn’s writing brings the reader right in and unsettles. Very much recommended.

***

That’s this week’s newsletter. Thank you so much for subscribing, reading, and for your support. Be safe out there, friends.

If you’d like to be a part of making my dream of creating full-time a reality, become a Patron on my Patreon, which has a lot more information about my works-in-progress and the books I’ll be querying, including titles and some simple, non-spoiler details.

Don’t forget to share this newsletter with others and consider a paid subscription.

You can also tip/donate on Ko-Fi.

Get my novels The Monster in the Closet and Echoes on the Pond, my collection Catalysts, and my novellas Alice on the Shelf and Shadowed!

If you haven’t left a review on Amazon, Goodreads, or anyplace else for the books, particularly The Monster in the Closet and Echoes on the Pond, please consider doing so. This greatly helps.

Thank you for subscribing!