Hello?
*pokes head out*
Anyone here?
First, let me blow the dust off this place.
Holy crap, I'm blogging! Wow, this post has been a long time coming. I've actually been pondering when to get out a blog post for a couple of weeks and I'm just coming off a 90-minute writing stint on Spirit Hackers. I'm going to try to keep this blog post somewhat short because while my posts have been few and very far between, I think long ones are a bitch to read, so I'm gonna try to keep it brief.
NaNoWriMo: This year I actually participated in National Novel Writing Month and I will say it was a spectacular failure for me. My grand total was 2,928 words, which is lightyears short of the 50,000 word goal. I really only wrote in three sessions and due to my work schedule I had no opportunities to get into the social aspect of the experience with meeting people and participating in write-ins.
Looking back on NaNo, my biggest enemy was time and also a lack of planning. I didn't have a plot until November 7th and even then it was just an idea. There was no outline and nothing else. The bottom line: I had no story. I knew it would be a near-impossible task but now I know that unless you go into November with guns-a-blazing and enough ammunition you won't get far. I'll likely try NaNo again next year and see what happens.
Spirit Hackers: Contrary to (my imagined) popular belief, Spirit Hackers has not been abandoned and I have been getting words down into it. Granted it's been slow as a snail but writing is writing. I haven't forgotten about my old friend and I still believe in the story. I still believe that this can be a successful novel and something that has the potential to sell.
So here's the overall breakdown of the book's progress: As of my last update to this blog's sidebar the book was at 30 pages with a word count of 11,395 words. Based on Scrivener's stats, the book currently stands at 49 pages with a word count of 18,448. Now of course I've gotten writing done here and there since that last update so this jump is a compilation of many sessions. Today's session was a good one though at 1,421 words, which is 10% of that updated word count. It's up to chapter 12, which is probably a quarter-done right now.
The story still has legs and looks good. I'm still hopeful that once it's eventually finished, things will move a lot faster and I can get it edited, out to some betas and then submitted for agents & publishers.
Podcasting: My podcast The Geekcast is still going strong after it's re-launch back in February. I've moved into two episodes a week with two separate co-hosts to make it easier. While the show takes up a bunch of time, it's much easier to do with other people rather than solo, which is how I did it for three years. I think writing is similar to that where you don't have anyone to rely on or to hold you accountable. As a solo enterprise, writing has those pitfalls of self-discipline, which for me is rough.
Alright, so that's it for now. I'm hoping to slowly get back into updating this place more often than every four months but like everything else, we'll see how that goes. If anyone still checks into this place and reads this post, I want to thank you for believing in me and for sharing in my experience.
Be well.