My name is Yennaedo Balloo.
I have a full time job in Business Development. I have a dog. I have friends. I love writing. When I’ve had a long day at work, I get home and sit at my desk and write to unwind. When I’ve had a great day, I celebrate by writing (with a glass of scotch). If it’s a normal day, I continue that by keeping up with my writing routine.
I use this space to share progress on projects underway (which you can see summaries of in the Novels section ), as well as my thoughts on writing both from a technical approach to an emotional/spiritual one (those can be found in the On Writing section).
I’ll be using it to share material as I draft new novels. My genre of writing bounces around some. There’s some inward looking genre fiction (Beneath the Wood and Of Unicorns & Satellites), but there’s some fun to be had as well (Five Talents).
This is a testament to dedication to the craft and art even when you have the excuse of a long day at the office behind you, or the easy alternative of a TV, video games, or aimless internet wandering in front of you. This is about choosing to sit at the desk when I could instead slouch on the couch.
My goal is to make my writing and stories celebrations of life and everything in it. From the joy to the sadness, adventures to minutiae – it all adds up in the grand formula of anyone’s lifetime. There are things you are guaranteed to take and appreciate from life, but the irony? That’s always been optional.
Questions, concerns or possible topics you’d like my discussion or thoughts on? Feel free to contact at optional.irony@gmail.com, or follow me on my Twitter @Optional_Irony
You have a lot of good advice that I find to be very inspirational. A lot of the challenges in writing you cover under On Writing are things I find myself faced with when I try to write, especially the post about motivation!
Thank you, I’m honored that it resonates with you! Finding motivation to not only write, but also to outline, edit, rewrite and continually improve one’s work is always a challenge. It’s a misconception that art should just “flow,” sometimes we need to conquer ourselves to produce it and that struggle makes it all the more important to continue working at it with discipline until it’s in a state where we can say that it is as good as we can make it, it is the story I wanted to tell, it is finished. Keep at it, and stay in touch!