Blog Post No. 357
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? Continue reading “Septem-blur”
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 
As September approaches and my focus shifts to the next book in The Synthetic Albatross Novella Series, I’ve been thinking more and more about my previous novellas. Then, I realized that I hadn’t done a behind the writing for Neon Heart (or I did and I forgot). So, I figured, now would be a good time for one. A long time ago, I didn’t really like reading that much. I would enjoy certain books and when I found one that tickled my fancy, I would devour it, but getting me to read wasn’t easy. Then one day, when I was watching Blade Runner for probably the fifth or sixth time, I noticed at the end of the credits that it was based off of a book. (I’m getting somewhere, just stick with me). I had read some Star Wars books, but other than my love for sci-fi movies and television, I didn’t really know much about the genre. (The literary genre at least). The book at the end of the movie was called, Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep, and trying to get a copy of that thing when the only bookstore I knew of was the Coles at the mall was not easy. I had to endure countless bad jokes and confused faces. 
Remember when everything even remotely related to the internet had to have a lowercase ‘e’ in front of it? Then Apple made the ‘i’ a thing and we’re still feeling the backlash from that. It’s all a moot point, though. I just wrote the title and it struck me that we’ll be stuck with eBook for the foreseeable future. 