Blog No. 215
Here we are on the other side of a year (my busiest one yet). It’s been a slow and steady slog with nary a misstep. Once again I have managed to write a post a week for the whole year. This makes number four in a row, and number three with out a flub. It’s an accomplishment not often desired and even more rarely achieved. Still, when you set a goal, no matter how unimportant it may be, it’s a good feeling to come through in the end. I didn’t let myself down. At least not with the blog posts. In fact, I managed to have my best numbers of the year! Most views (by a little bit) and most visitors (by a ton)! Continue reading “Yearly Recap ATTACK!”
Last week, I was on a bit of a tear with my novel. I was catching up after a couple of less than stellar months. It was a good feeling. I was getting things together for the long haul. Now, after a busy week of work (and really busy weekend) and too many tasks left for too long. To top it all off, I have the dreaded layout to finish. A huge jumble of micro tasks assembled into one element that, when one task is finished, it screws up something else, leading to a never ending stream of necessary fixes and adjustments. Like I said last week, it’s a doozy. I promised myself that I wouldn’t let it interfere with my writing, and I was partially successful. The writing related tasks didn’t disrupt my flow, but work, more basement construction, and a last minute invite to help out in a music video did. 
In January, I decided to stop writing the book I was working on and started writing another one. The idea was that I would be able to knock out 40 000 words in a few months and have myself a finished novella. It took me until the end of July to reach my original goal, but by then, the story was nowhere near done. I shifted gears and from then on I’ve called the story a novel (or short novel) and had the intention of hitting 60 000 words. From the beginning of August (sitting at near 40 000 words) to the end of September, I struggled to get another 10 000 words. It was a rough time. I did poorly. 
A while ago, no one knows exactly when (unless you were to do a cursory look on line) a principal in Belgium started a facbook group. She had too many books to fit on a shelf, so she hid some around her city and posted hints to the group as to where they could be found. It took off like crazy. There were international news stories about it (which is how I found out about it). The idea isn’t new. Geo cashing has been around for decades, and I’ve even heard about specifically hidden books around cities before. Still, it’s a neat idea, so a couple of writer friends and I stole it. 
Ben Van Dongen 