by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner
It’s really beginning to sink in that I’m nothing more than an old loser at this point and I need to be more aggressive when it comes to having more than one creative track. My looming 50th birthday is really rattling my cage. I have a very, very narrow window of opportunity to make something of myself before I’m not just an old loser, but an elderly loser.
As such, I’m going spend a few hours every day rooting around the other story concepts I’ve been thinking about for some time. Instead of just being absolutely focused on my first novel, I’m going to force, force myself to think outside the box.
The aim is, of course, that if I have more than one story to pitch agents then that increases my very slight odds of getting published before I’m too old to realize what’s going on.
But it’s a fine balance. I have to keep my focus on this first novel enough that I can continue to build on the momentum I’ve built up with it. I can’t grow so distracted that I don’t get anything done at all.
The great irony would be, of course, that ultimately I get one of these scifi novels I have rolling around in my mind published first after working so hard on this mystery-crime-thriller. Ugh. But at least I will get published in some way before I get dementia and am alone and bitter in a nursing home with no one to come visit me.
