Update

It's September 25, 2012, and I no longer live in Kansas City. I'm now a professor at a university in the Deep South. I don't have a blog anymore, but I tweet every once in a while @90milesoutofatl.

I wrote an essay about an experience I had after my first book came out, and another about how I came to terms with not being a Christian. I've gotten back into record collecting. I write about music at Spork and Decoder.

Shoot me an email. I'd love to hear from you.

No neenin

Allie and I call the Internet the neenernet and we call surfing neening.

I've just imposed a rule of not neenin' before noon each day. Not even checking email is allowed.

I just decided enough is enough. Every freaking day I get on just to check for messages and I wind up getting sucked in, looking around for something interesting, not finding anything, and, worst of all, not writing. So no more.

Now when I wake up the first thing I do is turn on Freedom and set it so I can't get online until lunch time.

It's amazing how much it clears my mind and allows me to focus on what's really important.

affs

I've recently started doing daily affirmations. Yes, those kinds of affirmations. Except I don't do them in front of a mirror.

No, I'm not ashamed to admit it. Not really.

Here's the thing: They work!

Seriously, I've noticed a marked improvement in the areas of my life that I've targeted with affirmations. One of those areas is writing. I've been doing an affirmation everyday about my novel. And I think I'm going to add another one about essays.

For what it's worth...

Begin again

Time to dust off this blog again. It's probably the best way to keep my relatives apprised of what's going on with me. So here goes...

I had an essay accepted by Pleiades today.  That's a big goal -- published by a lit journal -- accomplished a little more quickly than I thought it would be.

The weird thing is I re-read the essay and I thought it was awful. I got all down on myself for being a bad writer.

Writing is really ridiculous, isn't it?

Things are going great for me. In addition to this lit journal milestone, I got hired to to teach at the New Letter's writing conference. I'm making progress on my novel.

But still, I flog myself.

I'd be concerned if I didn't know this is all too common.

new year's resloutions

Last year, I listed the these resolutions on this blog:

1. Sell a book.
2. Run injury free.
3. Do The Weekend Novelist.
4. Make this blog worthy of a top ten list.

I only succeeded in one - run injury free.

Not that I didn't try to make resolution #1 come true. I tried mighty hard. I wrote two proposals and even switched agents. No luck.

As for resolution #3. That book's kind of lame.

I did, however, start a novel this year. And my top resolution for the coming year is to finish it. I think I'll be able to accomplish that quite easily.

Which brings us to resolution #4. I gave that a pretty good shot. I had a couple of cool ideas. But I couldn't follow through on them because I was so busy with grad school and whatnot.

I did, however, start writing for another website, and that's working out pretty well. I've hit some good stories and I've got a steadily growing readership.

And, unlike this blog, I actually get paid for it.

So with that, I think it's time to say good bye to this here KC Soil thing. I'll keep it up here online. And, who knows, maybe I'll find a need for it again. But for now, it just doesn't quite fit with my life. For the two or three of you out there who like it, all I can say is, sorry.

Now, for 2010:

1. Write a novel
2. Run injury free
3. Finish the kitchen
   

lovin life

I'm amazed at how much fun I'm having writing fiction.

Longtime readers of this blog (grandma) will recall that I often whine about the difficulties of writing. I've likened it to digging ditches. I've written at least a half dozen posts about how I have to trick myself into writing everyday.

But since I've started this book, I can't wait to get back to it each morning. And when I'm at it, I stay at it. And sometimes I even come back to it in the afternoon, which I almost never did before.

Plus, when I'm not writing, I'm thinking about it. Playing around ideas. Jotting notes down in my journal.

Why did I put this off for so long?

(I've got 19 pages written so far. About a tenth of the way through, I figure.)

out of the bag