There is a book I recall from school: Of Mice and Men. I remember that it was supposedly a gripping portrayal of how planning alone is not the same as execution. ‘Supposedly,’ because I’ve never read it.

Sadly, the one line I thought I remembered from the book was actually from a poem from my great-grandmother’s favorite poet, and the basis of the book. Probably could’ve gotten a better grade on those homework assignments if I had known that.

The line simply reads:

The best laid schemes o’ mice an’ men / Gang aft agley

Robert Burns

I’m told that the last part is typically translated ‘often go awry.’ But it seems even in this, I can say it makes a fitting application. Allegory was lost on me in my youth, so with a title like Of Mice and Men, I would assume the main characters were in the rodent family, with competing factions seeking dominance over a given domicile. Only to fail in this endeavor as a result of factors outside their control. This is why you benefit from reading the actual book, rather than drawing conclusions based solely on the title; because you’ll probably be wrong about the contents.

But that’s not why I used the reference. While I did misunderstand the premise of the novella, I didn’t misunderstand the point: How that even carefully laid plans can fail in spectacular, or even mundane ways.

This blog for example. I haven’t forgotten to write my blog. I fact, I’ve been trying to figure out how to do that since the first of this year (2019). I had really only prepared and planned through May, and that was because everything that would follow would be more focused on my next book (even more than now). A problem arose in this planning: I needed to finish the book.

At first, everything was going smoothly. I had time to write the blog, and still complete the edits to my book. Most of what I had left was cosmetic. Dotting eyes and crossing tees (really weird to write that expression…). Then, I realized that there were more substantial edits, of a sort that would be difficult to simply breeze through and move on. Some edits were such that I was forced to rewrite some aspects because I wasn’t aware of how actions in the first book would influence events in the second.

And I finally realized that 14-year-old kid did not sweat the details sufficiently. So, I made an executive decision to be a little more heavy-handed in my edits. I don’t know what he was thinking about to miss some of these things.

And that was in March, when I was supposed to be handing my layout back with my final approvals so I could start setting things up for pre-publication sales opportunities to readers, with a mid-May release.

As you can guess by now, I’m not there yet. My goal is basically ‘this year,’ and anything more specific than that is ambition outstripping ability.

This also means I will need to find more time to spend on the book itself, and while I would like to tell everyone that I am flush with sufficient leisure time to simply shift things around. May I remind everyone that I do this for a living:

This is a little different than less physically demanding jobs, though every job has its issues. Otherwise, they would just be hobbies that pay well.

I hope to share with you where I am in the weeks (and likely months) to come. It will just not be quite as often. Let’s start with this time next month, and see how my time is doing then. Thanks to everyone for your support as always.

As a parting gesture, I hope to make another blog this month to outline what I’ve blogged about, sorting the ‘Me’ from me, and sorting the various aspects of the book(s) into the themes they cover. Along with updating some of the tags for the blogs to better describe the contents. I realize now that I don’t think I made them very clear, and I’ll try to reconcile that. And yes, I did finish chapter 6 to add to the collection. I just lost it once again. Once I’ve found it, I’ll add it so everyone can read this installment of the first book. I probably won’t get any more added as I have the second to finish writing, and I might be changing some things after I publish this kid’s book.

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