Blog Post No. 465
I’m no musician, but music has always played a big role in my life. I really struggle when I don’t have music playing when I sit down to write. I’m sure I’ve mentioned many times that some days I spend as much time choosing what to listen to while I write as I do actually writing. A few times when Adventure Worlds was getting started, I would forget to bring headphones with me when the group got together to write. It seems a little pathetic, but I would really struggle on those days. Eventually, I bought a cheap pare of earbuds to keep in my backpack so that I always have some when I go out writing. (Not that I’ve been able to do that for some time). Continue reading “Writing To Music”
I’m still sitting on the first draft of Snow from a Distant Sky right now. I need to leave enough time between drafts to get nice and critical about my own writing (and to forget a little about what I meant when I wrote awkward sentences so that I can notice and fix them). The trick is not waiting too long and deciding what to do in the mean time. I’ve found that I need at least two weeks between the first and second drafts (though three is better) but I’m still not great with effectively using that down time. Sure, I don’t have to be totally productive at all times. It’s a good thing to take a break and burning out is a real potential problem. My issue is falling out of the routine and picking it back up again. 
It may not be a record for the most words written in the shortest amount of time (I’d have to do math to verify it) but it is a record for the fastest first draft I’ve ever written. In 29 days I managed to write just under 40 000 words and somehow managed to stop writing any more. That is to say, the last three installments in this novella series all went longer that I had intended (some much longer than others). But now it’s early September (
It’s hot outside. Like, seriously hot. Some people have no idea what the part of Canada where I live is like. The area used to be a swamp. In the summers we get heat waves that may look quaint to people who live in more southern climates, but our heat is wet. It sticks to you. When we reach 32 degrees Celsius (about 80 Fahrenheit) it feels like 40 degrees with the humidity (104 F). Again, that doesn’t look like much to someone who sees 120 F in Arizona, but the humidity is a killer. 
Writing is a sprint and a marathon. Each day is the sprint. You sit at your computer and type away, trying to reach a self-imposed goal. Sometimes it’s a struggle with stops and starts. Sometimes you breeze through it in no time and wonder at your own incredible speed. Then, the next day, you do it all over again, and over again, until it’s done. That’s the marathon. The fun part comes when you have other obligations and you have no choice but to force yourself to go fast. Otherwise you sit at your desk late into the night until you finish. Or you don’t finish and everything falls to pieces. 
Since I’ve been called back to the day job, my schedule has fluctuated greatly. I may call my supervisor on one shift with a question and be offered another shift for latter in the week. Since, for the most part, the rest of my schedule consists of writing the first draft of Snow From a Distant Sky (the next novella) I’ve taken every shift that’s come my way. Technically, I have to if I want my income to continue to be supplemented, but I can also get that daily writing in almost any time (though I’ve almost completely lost my late night writing chops since I’ve been getting up so early for most of these shifts). 
I’ve been working on the fifth novella, Snow from a Distant Sky, for a couple of weeks now and I have to say, I’ve enjoyed getting back into writing. I’ve been editing since I finished 
It’s my birthday tomorrow and it’s one of the big milestone years. I haven’t really felt the same kind of excitement for birthdays since high school. Not to say that birthdays make me sad. I just see them as a marker of the years and my years are starting to add up. It’s all relative and as much as age is just a number, there are more battle scars each time the date rolls around. In my mind, I’m the same kid excited to get out of high school, sure that he’ll blossom in university, and bummed out that exams start on his birthday. That’s real, by the way. For all four years of high school, my first exam was on my birthday. 
I was struck with a thought the other day while trolling Youtube for new content. I am a huge Youtube viewer. That is to say, I am a huge viewer of the channels that I like. Some of the content that really grabs my attention is about old technology, vintage computers, and for some reason, radio. There’s something about the service and the technological object themselves. I have an old Realistic short wave radio that used to be my grandfathers. I used to turn it up way too loud (for the little speaker) when I would mow their lawn way back in the day. I have a nice Sony boom box that I use as my computer speakers that I picked up a few years ago. And I also have the tuner on my stereo syste
*Break/Interrupt has been officially released and I’ve started local distribution. If you want a copy, please leave a comment or send me a message. Thanks.*
Ben Van Dongen 