Blog No. 211
I’m about to hit the end of the first draft of my first novel, and I’ve been inclined to look back on the whole thing. It’s the season for looking back (being the end of the year and all) and I’m coming up on a whole year of writing this thing, so a look back seems fitting. I’ve been consciously not looking back for most of the year, as I didn’t want to be sucked into doing an edit before I actually finish (slipping into a cycle that prevents me from finishing and consumes my mortal soul). I’m getting really close now though, so I think it’s safe to take a peak at one element of the story—the protagonist. While I’ve admitted it before, I fight against the reality that my main character isn’t the most original. Continue reading “Trope-a-Dope”
I don’t want to jump the gun with that title. I don’t expect to have another update until January, but if you’ve spent any time reading this blog, you know I can’t be trusted. The fact is, I’m getting so close to finishing the first draft of Pilot that I don’t know if I it would be worth doing another update of it. While I’ll be thrilled that I finished (long than planned, but here we are) and I’m sure I’ll want to share it with the world, if it’s too close to now, it would feel weird. Maybe? But I’ve been holding off on an update and I don’t think I can’t wait much longer, so I don’t want to just wait until I’m done. (Even thought I probably just should). I’ve gone too far now anyway, so I’ll just keep plugging forward! Tally Ho! 
I love road trips. Even taking a two-hour jaunt to London (Ontario) for a day sounds like a good idea for me. I love driving, I’m cool being a co-pilot, and I’ll even rock the back seat. I just enjoy the trip. Not sure if it’s the movement, or the moving, or what, but it’s a good time. Bookapalooza was my second out-of-town event ever and (it being in Whitby) the furthest one to boot. Needless to say, I was looking forward to the trip (even if I had to share a room with Christian). 
Last week’s post got to least amount of views of all my posts in the last three years. I suspect it was the title. It felt wrong as I was typing it, but I couldn’t manage to get anything better. Maybe a generic title would have done the trick, or maybe that wasn’t the issue at all. Either way, that was a disappointment. Thankfully, the same info is available under the events tab. So, when you’re done here, you should go check that out. Also, while last week’s post was about events, I failed to mention the slew of events I am eagerly anticipating that have nothing to do with me (other than me attending). 
I’m worried that I’m going to mess this one up and forget something, because I seem to have a lot of events on the horizon. Often I’ll go to one or two a month (I try to get at least that regularly) and sometimes an opportunity arises and I’ll take on a third, but this is starting to get exciting. Events are being planned as far out as February, which seems farther than it actually is, but that’s still only four months. Plus there may be one or two private things happening where it’s an event for me, but you aren’t invited. 
I work up on Sunday morning and knew something wasn’t right. My weekend had been the culmination of two solid weeks of work (no time off for good behaviour, or writing). Lots of terrible thing happened that had no choice but to be dealt with. Friday night was seven hours of crap that stuck to me through Saturday morning for my back-to-back shifts. While I managed to get a solid chunk of text written Friday morning, nothing was getting done on Saturday. As soon as I got home from my thankfully easier shift (minus having to mop the floors as the cleaners failed to do for the umpteenth time) I took a much needed nap and prepped all my stuff for Sundays RetroRama. No time for love Doctor Jones. I did my best to get to bed early Saturday night, knowing what was in store for me. 
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 