April 2021

 It's April, and writing has been slow. Not for lack of ideas or motivation. I have been very busy at work, and at the end of the day, when I have a minute to do some writing, my brain is tired. It happens. 

What have I been working on, though? 

Well, I made some progress on a short story called the Last Automator. It was inspired by some aspects of my daytime work and a NYTimes article. 

The Robots Are Coming for Phil in Accounting - https://www.nytimes.com/2021/03/06/business/the-robots-are-coming-for-phil-in-accounting.html

It's about the automation of business functions previously thought we might not be able to automate. Surprise!, just about anything can be automated. Even the act of identifying what you might want to be automated is in the process of being automated. 

It's a bit dystopian but explores a world where one person is left to trigger the automations, and they don't show up to work one day. It has been a fun story to think about, but it's slow to write. 

I also spent some time editing the book I published a few years ago. I cleaned up some of the apparent typos that made it into the first edition and added an afterword. I didn't change too much, but some of the stuff was bugging me. There is a good chance there are some lingering typos, but it's better than it was. You can pick it up here if you are interested. https://www.amazon.com/Good-Meal-Shawn-Patrick-White/dp/1497362911/ref=tmm_pap_swatch_0?_encoding=UTF8&qid=1619287985&sr=1-1 

Lastly, I have tried to be more active in the Twitter writing community and growing my followers. As I type that, I realize how lame that sounds, and no one should be spending time on Twitter or social media when they should be writing, but this is part of my plan I started at the beginning of the year. 

The plan involves writing a blog post every month and getting a good following on Twitter. I am hoping that when I do publish something else, there is a fair about people interested. If I reach out to an agent for representation, I have something besides writing that I can show them. Not that the writing should not stand on its own, but there are so many books being written that everyone needs more.

This is a photo of the pink moon from last night. 



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