Shhhh.... don't tell anyone!

Hi, my name is Evan and I have a history of starting blogs and then abandoning them. I'm taking another shot at it here, but I'm just not going to tell anyone until I've managed a month or so of regular updates. That way I don't disappoint anyone if I can't actually do the thing.
I'm a writer, a publisher, and a person who reads a lot, and this blog is just going to be updates and thoughts on those things. I like hearing about other writers' processes, and their thoughts about they things they read, and I think everyone and especially writers like to hear about what goes on in publishers' heads. I'm at different spots in working on two very different novels, so probably I'll talk a lot about what and how I'm doing with those. Also, y'know, full time job, chronic illness, two adorable and amazing cats, something about balancing writing and real life.
I re-read books as audiobooks a lot, so probably I'll have stuff to say about that even if all there is to say on the writing and publishing fronts is "I accomplished nothing today."
Anyway, I finished re-listening to Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban today. Something that's struck me listening to it, and to Chamber of Secrets, is how technically transparent they are. In a good way, like one of those penny-squishing machines that's encased in clear plastic so you can see all the gears. In CoS, people are described as being, seeming, or feeling petrified about 10 times before anyone actually gets petrified by the basilisk. It's not subtle. In PoA, there's a bit where Harry goes into the post office in Hogsmead as far as I can tell just to foreshadow the fact that tiny owls are a thing that exist? Tiny owls are not what you might call a critical plot development, but another one shows up at the very end and PoA takes the trouble to prepare us for it. In 3, 4, and I think 5 and 6 as well, we see adult wizards using spells in the first few chapters that are going to be especially important for Our Heroes in the course of that book. I could do a detailed technical analysis of how well put together the third book is, and at some point I might, but my thing here is just how easy it is to see the moving parts. And that's great because almost my entire age group, writers included, has read them. In a field with a remarkable dearth of common technical vocabulary and in the way of coherent pedagogy, the simplicity and transparency of the Harry Potter books gives us a shared thing we can learn from and point to. There's value in reading things that do this stuff more complexly, certainly, but a developing writer can't actually skip steps by reading and analyzing harder books, and not everything has to be done as subtly or minimally as possible. Gus laughing before Hazel hears the joke in The Fault in Our Stars is a harder kind of thing to know how to do than the "petrified" thing, but it's not necessarily better writing. It's not worse writing either, of course. Bad writing is a real thing, but what constitutes good writing depends on context and audience. This will likely be a Theme. That was even less subtle foreshadowing than what Harry Potter uses. I really want to teach a writing class.
Anyway two other things I did today we're vaguebooking about someone's lack of professionalism (not in the writing world), and emailing someone else to let them know that I had barely started something I said would be done two months ago and I had no idea when it would actually be done. Everyone is doing their best with limited resources. This will likely also be a Theme.