Blog No. 359
Those of you who read this blog semi-regularly know that I actually write these posts on Tuesday and schedule them for Thursday. When I first started doing this weekly, I would try to write them Wednesday night, but most of the time I scrambled on Thursday, at the day job, with an avalanche of people streaming in for angry, yelling, tribunal time. It didn’t work out so well. I chose Tuesday as it’s usually a quiet day at work and it gives me a buffer in case things come up or my schedule changes. Because I write the posts two days early, I sometimes write about things that haven’t happened yet, but are likely (or almost certainly) to happen in the interim. Sometimes it’s a scheduled event, or just a planned meeting. This time, it’s me finishing the first draft of Broadcast Wasteland. Continue reading “The Things Left Behind or Diversify”
I don’t want to keep harping on my whole, 
I’m not sure what to talk about this month (which, I believe is the first time this year). It’s strange. I feel like I’ve done fewer things (and in terms of events, I have) but I’m just as busy. Right now, I’m still charging forward on Broadcast Wasteland. I’m sitting at 27 000 words as of Tuesday (hopefully 29 000 by tonight) and I’m hoping to be sitting at 33 000 by the end of September. I’m not going to be finished, though. The way the story is right now, I think I’m going to be sitting over the 35 000 first draft mark, but I also fell like there is a good 2 – 3000 words just itching to be cut. At least a chapter or two, nearly in their entirety. Maybe. It’s hard to see the whole picture when you’re in the middle of it. So, I’m going to be continuing this mad dash past September and into October. Where I’m going to stop is up to the story. Maybe I just need to hit the 38 000 mark and will be done in the first week. Maybe I’ll burn out and join the circus. Who can tell? 
I suppose this is going to be mostly an update. I’ve so far avoided reviewing the two events that happened early in the month (that were steamrolled by the 
I know it’s technically still summer until the 23rd, but lets be honest. For most of us, the summer ends at the start of September. That’s how I feel, anyway. Since so much of my summer was rooted in self analysis and self criticism, I’m now at the point where I can look back, see how I did, and hopefully, come to some conclusions. The focus in question is my summer slump. Every year from some time in may to usually September (if I’m good) my productivity plummets and I haven’t been able to nail down why. The obvious answer to outdoor-type people is that summer is spent having adventures and enjoying time outside. I am not and outdoor person. Especially not in the melting heat of the summer. So, that was an easy one to rule out. 
I struggled with the descriptions in the tunnels with the sewer dwellers. It was one of the points that had to be edited with every draft until it was functional. It didn’t turn out how I wanted, but at that point, I needed it to make sense to a reader first. Also, getting the characters caught was easy, getting them free was hard. I knew about the scene in the locked room right from the beginning of the first draft, but to find an interesting way to get them free was tough. I feel like I copped out a little, and the mole creature is an obvious ripoff of so many things. The bugs, though. I felt really good about them. I needed to ramp up the stress and an out-of-the-fire threat fit the bill. It gave Dollard some good development too. Next, I had to brainstorm with 
As for the main characters, Reggie is me, Teal is that little (tiny, insignificant) outgoing aspect of myself that I developed from observing other extroverted people that I know (not least of which is my brother, but his personality is very different from Teal). To me, Reggie is uninteresting. He’s my proxy so, I see him as an idealized version of myself, though I tried to make sure he was flawed. I got some flack for his name. I was listening to a lot of 