Blog Post No. 408
I’ve been seriously trying to be a writer since 2013 when Adventure Worlds was founded and the group of us wrote bad short stories and tried to edit each others work without really knowing what we were doing. Even back then, I’ve always struggled with writing over the summer. I’ve never been sure exactly why. Other people have offered reasonable suggestions ranging from spending more time outside and/or vacations to the general atmosphere of the season. I’ve never thought those reasons really fit my situation though. I don’t usually go on vacation other than maybe a weekend visiting friends or a day trip to an amusement park and I’m not a big fan of summer because it’s hot and I am a wuss who can’t handle it. Continue reading “The Summer Slump”
Over the last few weeks, or just over a month or so (time gets muddled with the holidays involved) I was reading over the latest manuscript of a friend and fellow local author. I’m not sure if it was an edit, a beta read, a review, or what. I just read it over, giving my opinion and made a few suggestions, and she seemed to think they were helpful. I hope so, because the book is good and I can’t wait for it to come out now. Also, it was brought to my attention (from a kind and anonymous commenters) that 
It is technically (or more accurately, literally) a new year right now. 2019 is happening, but if you’ve paid any attention, you’ll know my end of the year is the closest post to January 10th, so I’m not quite there yet. That’s a good thing, though. That means that I get to spend this post talking about the 
Last week I was invited to a last minute event at 
After a less than stellar summer of writing, I managed to pick things up over the last few months. Christian and I were both coming to the end of our individual projects, so we made an effort to get together when we could and work. I managed to get the first draft of Neon Heart done that way. I put that aside for a few weeks in order to start my novel and give myself some time and space from the novella so I can be very critical when I went back to it. I intended to hit it hard starting on December first (putting the novel aside for the month and getting back to it in the new year. The problem with that plan is that, not only am I really lazy, but the day job decided that I shouldn’t be aloud to do anything but work there (and suffer). 
I have officially started to write the Invasion Novel. Right from the first chapter I had some issues. I hope it’s just a bit of beginning a new book shakes, because I would hate to think I’m going to spend the next, however many thousands of words, second guessing every decision I make. I think I’ve solved the issue for now, but that’s based on my concept being a successful one. I have some interesting half chapters that are very different from the rest of the book that are designed to give me some fun interludes and to fill in some gaps in the complicated history. In order to get that history in without resorting to a lot of flashbacks or info dumps, I had to start the story a little earlier than I expected. That means the opening line (the one that was the basis for the whole story) has to be the opening to a later chapter. 
Good news everyone! The first draft of The Neon Heart is done. It’s the second book in my Novella series, but it’s pushing the outer boundaries at 43 000 words. Considering 
A bunch of my last posts have been all about The Neon Heart, the second book in my Novella Series. With most of my events done for the year, it’s what I’ve been spending my time on most. I am so close to finishing the first draft that I can taste it (though the word count just keeps growing). I’m eager to get it done so I can spend as much time as possible in the editing stage, and so I can finally start my next novel. I do have a potential ChiSeries reading in Peterborough on Nov 15th, but it hasn’t been finalized yet, so I’m not counting on it happening. Other than that, I’ve been pouring a bunch of time and energy into the last 
Last weekend was 
I was hoping to be able to say that I was finished the first draft of The Neon Heart by this post, but as you can guess, I’m not quite there yet. I’ve been getting some really good writing in with a couple of regular meetings with Christian each week, but with a load of other things on my plate (surprise, surprise) and some bad habits from another summer of slacking, I haven’t quite gotten there yet. One of the reasons is that the story is getting a bit longer than anticipated. Not by much, but when I started, I was planning on somewhere between thirty and thirty-five thousand words. the first draft is going to be more than that, but that’s a good thing. The story is dictating the length and the extra word count gives me more room to cut in the edits. It does mean that I’m not finished, though. I would have liked to be finished by now. 
Ben Van Dongen 