Marc Rivers, Author

Greetings! It’s been a while. I’ll confess upfront that this post’s title is misleading. This just happens to be the seventh post on my author blog and I couldn’t think of anything more clever or relevant.

I’ve barely scratched the visual art itch since I last talked to you all. I did find a bunch of Bob Ross episodes online, so at least there’s that. Life is just busy, you know? Plus, my job is the source of a lot of stress and anxiety for me right now, so it can be difficult to switch into “creative” mode at night. But rather than make excuses, I’ll try this month to make art instead.

I said that I’ve barely scratched the visual art itch because I’ve been making modest progress on my novel. Among the accomplishments I’ve made (beyond simply hammering out words) was realizing that the first three chapters of my first draft really ought to have been five chapters. Not that I added content, mind you. No, it’s just that I had crammed too much into each chapter and they were also ending in not-at-all the right places. So I broke them up in more sensible spots and happened to end up with five reasonable chapters where once there had been three overstuffed ones. (I can already tell the current chapter I’m redrafting will need to be broken up for much the same reasons.)

Oh, I also finished another short story, this one not set in Estéa, nor even in the fantasy genre at all. It’s called A Deal Is a Deal and you can read it here. It’s a cozy little story about one man’s long-awaited conversation with Death. Hopefully you enjoy it.

Changing topics, I’m pretty sure one of the writing groups I belong to has withered and died. So it goes. But the other one that’s been meeting more regularly has actually expanded its schedule from once a month to twice monthly! So, huzzah. It’s the first time I’ve been part of a regular writing group, so this is an exciting development for me.

I don’t know that I have much else to add at this time. I know that it’s been a while since my last post and I’ve made upwards of half a dozen of you wait too long for not much of an update. The next one will come sooner, I promise.

Until then, look after one another and always say “no” to fascism in all of its many forms. (Maybe someday I’ll use this space to spill digital ink on my thoughts, as a Christian, of why Christian Nationalism is unequivocally a terrible thing and should be resisted at all costs.)

-Marc