A fork in the road

Despite slacka indications to the contrary I really do have intentions of working to get a book sold to someone this year. With an eye toward that goal I have decided to split my blog into two parts.

The Writing Excuses guys were talking last week about marketing yourself as an author on the Internet. While trying not to sound pretentious by referring to myself as an author, I decided that part of their advice made a lot of sense. They said that if you were going to blog, you should take a close look at what is posted on your blog, especially if you are an "aspiring" author. If agents or publishers that you are trying to sell your book to Google you and see a lot of rants and personal posts on your blog, is that something you would want them to see? Is it professional?

I decided to treat my writing like a job--not as an extension of my personal time, but as a part-time vocation that is as separate from my family life and my personal posts as my day job is. I don't post about my regular job on my blog. You never know who's going to surf in; there's no sense taking the chance that a post about work is read and misinterpreted. I decided to treat my writing the same way.

Rather than stop blogging about my writing, though, I created a new blog. I copied all the posts from this blog that deal with writing--the Mother's Daughter posts, the NaNoWriMo updates, the Brandon Sanderson and Patrick Rothfuss paeans, the word count anxiety, all of it--to my new blog and deleted them from this one.

As a result, this here blog is now going to deal with my family life and any other stories I want to tell or rants I want to emit. You'll see pictures, videos, birthday wishes, high school reminisces, and (possibly) the occasional haiku. You'll see everything, that is, that you've always seen here, but you won't see any updates on my writing. I'll let you know when I start something new and keep a progress meter posted, but for in-depth coverage you'll have to check out the new site.

The new blog is at http://sambrady.wordpress.com/. Set a bookmark. I was going to set it up at Blogger, but the sambrady username was taken and I really wanted to use my own name for the blog (again, for potential marketing purposes). I was going to do it at Livejournal--even went so far as to grab the available sambrady userid--then remembered that I came to Blogger in the first place because I didn't like Livejournal's blog entry interface. I went and looked at it again, since it's been a few years since I used it. Still didn't like it. So I checked out Wordpress. I like it well enough to use it. I don't think it's quite as intuitive as Blogger, but I like it better than LJ, so there you go.

The name of the new blog is The Chronicles of Sov. Sov is the name of the nation that my stories are set in. The word "Chronicles" in the title means simply that I will be chronicling the creation of stories set in Sov. It has nothing to do with Benjamin Temko. There will be no Kia dealerships nor BMV offices in Sov.

At this moment all that is up at the new site is the material I have moved over from this blog. You've seen it before, but I invite you to click over anyway and check out the new surroundings. Hit me with a comment when you get there so I'll know you've been by. New postings will begin whenever I start revisions on Silvershield, which will hopefully be soon. Please keep checking both blogs, to see what is up with the Brady Bunch, in Sandy Springs as well as in Sov.

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Grandma

I've been a blogslacker lately. I have good reasons and bad reasons. I've been getting caught up on Battlestar Galactica and 24, I've been re-reading the Mistborn books, and I'm developing a Facebook addiction that gets me into trouble with my wife from time to time when she starts to feel neglected. Depending on your perspective, those reasons are some combination of good and bad. The main reason I haven't done much blogging lately, though, is that we've been spending a lot of our time cheering for Darlene's mom. I've dropped some hints about her status from time to time, but today things went a long way towards getting cleared up, so I thought the time was right to sit and write about it.

A few weeks ago she had a biopsy run on some tissue in her throat. She had been complaining of strep-like symptoms but antibiotics weren't doing anything so the doctor ordered more tests. The biopsy turned up some malignant tissue in the area around her tonsil. We were told it was a stage one carcinoma and low-grade worrying began. An MRI was scheduled a couple of weeks ago but was unable to be completed due to her claustrophobia. She just couldn't bring herself to get into the MRI tube. It was too tight. She tried hard, though, and we were proud of her. They were able to run a CAT scan last Monday and the results came back last Friday.

The news was about the best we could have hoped for. The cancer is apparently confined to one of her tonsils, although there is a lymph node they're a little suspicious of. We found out today that they've scheduled her for surgery on February 24th to remove the tonsil and the lymph node (which they will immediately biopsy). She will require five weeks of radiation treatment--not chemo, just radiation. Due to her age and the location of the cancer they want to make sure the risk of spread is lessened as much as possible. We're all relieved the news was good and everyone is making plans to be at her side when she comes out of surgery on the 24th.

She's had a lot of prayers go up on her behalf--three churches that I know of have her on their prayer lists, and we've been sending them up every chance we get--but we'll gladly take more. If you're the praying kind, remember her in your prayers over the next couple of weeks as she prepares for her surgery. If you're not the praying type, send some good thoughts or healing energy, or whatever support you can muster. We'll take all the help and positivity we can get. We love you, Grandma!

That's all for now. Look me up on Facebook if you haven't already and always remember to support your local bloggers.