Still alive!

I can’t believe that it has been so long since I updated this blog. I’m so sorry! It has been months, and whenever I think of it in those terms, my brain says, “Months? Nah, it can’t be… oh, it is. Damn.”

Every time I have thought about writing something for this blog lately, I’ve had the desire and intention to write a post but the time has just slipped away from me. Even now, I’m writing this on the train on the way home, taking a break from writing actual fiction.

So, what have I been up to? It has been a packed, crazy few months. Let’s see if I can summarise my recent journeys in fiction and writing, and catch up to now.

November was NaNoWriMo, as it always is for me. Not just because of the challenge itself, but also because I’m a Municipal Liaison for this region. That means: prowling the forum with encouragement and aid for my faithful, madly-typing wrimos; organising and running events all over the city; putting together prizes and competitions; working full time at my day job; and, oh, writing a novel.

NaNo 2011 was a weird one. Usually, our numbers swell progressively from year to year, as word of the madness spreads and more lemmings leap off the novelling cliff into the wordcrafting updrafts. 2011, though, saw our event attendance drop, which worried my co-ML and me at first. We did everything we could think of to spread the word and it did pick up through the month (usually, it drops off!). Overall, we were really happy with how it went. We met a pile of new friends and had a blast, and we’ve got stacks of ideas to make NaNo 2012 bigger and better yet.

I managed to slide over the 50,000-word line without much problem, too! Despite everything that was going on, the writing came easily and quickly for me. I can’t say how much of a relief that was!

I used half of the NaNo wordcount target to finish off the second book of Starwalker, which has just finished posting (phew!). It was great to get ahead of the curve for a change!

Once that was drafted, I moved on to a project that has been tickling in the back of my brain for a while now. It’s a novel (rather than a serial), it’s steampunk, there are kinda-sorta vampires (I struggle to take ‘straight’ vampires seriously), and the central protagonist is a librarian. It’s possibly the first in a trilogy, as it links in with another story that I’ve been toying with for ages, though I’m still working out how they play together in the sandpit. I’m having lots of fun with it, though.

The end of NaNo was a relief: I was glad to put it to bed, but sad too. It’s a wild ride and I’m always more than ready for a rest when it’s done! A lot of December was spent recovering, as well as catching up on my day job, madly preparing for the more mundane events (like Christmas), and attempting to keep up a little momentum on my writing.

The two projects I worked on through NaNo have kept me busy since November ended. When I haven’t been editing and polishing Starwalker for posting, I’ve been writing the steampunk. The latter is up to 70,000 words and still going strong; there’s quite a long way to go there yet. I’m hoping I’m over the halfway point, but I don’t like to restrict myself; we’ll see where it goes.

Now that Book 2 of Starwalker has finished (more on that in another post soon!), I’ve decided to take a bit of a break before delving into Book 3. There is a third project that I’ve been struggling to get to, so I’ve decided to dedicate February to making a dent in it: editing the Apocalypse Blog for ebook release.

I’m up to the second book (of the main trilogy; that is, not counting the prequel). It’s over 100,000 words now and it’ll be even bigger by the time I’m finished. I’m hoping to get through all of Book 2 in the next month, so both of my other projects are on hiatus until 29th February.

It’s a bit of a gamble. The most dangerous thing for my writing is for me to take a break, because I find it so difficult to pick up a project mid-way through after I’ve put it down. That’s one reason why web serials work so well for me: they have additional pressure for me to keep the momentum up; and having people reading and waiting for the end pushes me to get there. So, Starwalker readers, don’t fear: I’ll pick that story up again. Getting back into the steampunk will be harder, though.

It will be worth it. I really want to get more of the Apocalypse Blog out (I’ve been getting emails asking me when more of it is going to be released in ebooks!). I want to get all three books edited and polished, and maybe look at doing a set of short stories related to it (I have plans for that somewhere). The short stories will depend on my other commitments once the ebooks are out of the way, though.

I’m certainly not short on plans. There’s so much I want to do! Starwalker and related spin-offs (I’m not going to say now just how many kernels of ideas there are already growing in the Starwalker universe). AB ebooks and spin-offs. The steampunk series.

Well, fingers crossed, I’ll get to it all before too long. Life, health, and work permitting!

I’m still battling with my health on a daily basis. Stress at the day job coupled with a general decline of my energy levels makes summoning up the creative juices so much harder these days (that’s why I am finally writing this blog post, because I’m not quite feeling up to thinking about story this afternoon).

We’ve got a big deadline at work coming up in April, and I think things are going to be rocky for me until that passes. Such is the fun of being a team leader. I’m hoping that things will improve after then, but I’m becoming more and more sure that I’d really like more of my mental energy focussed on my creative writing. It’s where my heart lives, and I have so little energy to go around these days. Those who know me know that I have a habit of picking up responsibilities, though, and I don’t know how easy letting go will be. I guess we’ll see about that.

In the meantime, I hope to not let it hold me back. I’ve had CFS for years now and I’m not putting my life on hold in the hopes it’ll get better soon. Push through and carry on, as always.

I have an ambitious year ahead of me: AB ebook releases; Book 3 of Starwalker; submitting the steampunk for publication; more NaNo organisation. It’s entirely possible that I’ll be arranging a writer’s retreat weekend for this November, too. It’ll be hard work but so worth it!

I’m still here; I’m still writing. It’s hard going right now but I’ll get there. Here’s to aiming high!

Retrospective: 2010

2010 has been a strange year. Wonderful and frustating, with progress both backwards and forwards. I haven’t done many things that I had hoped and planned to do, but it hasn’t all been disappointment.

Achieved this year:

• Got Starwalker up and running, and completed Book 1. When I started it, I had no idea how much actual story I had to play with. I had 12 ‘chapters’ planned out and had only got through 6 when the 100,000-word mark arrived. The arc worked out nicely, so that became Book 1. Book 2 looks like it’ll only take up the next 2 planned ‘chapters’ (!!!), so it seems that I’ve got lots of material to play with for that particular story. Which means: yes, there will be a Book 3.
• Started some Starwalker shorts. Got some good ideas lined up here and the groundwork done. Some previews are available – now all I need to do is go back and finish them all off. Ahem.
• NaNoWriMo – got my 50,000 words done, and did some bewildering ML-stuff at the same time. My co-ML and I had some ambitious plans, added a few things in on the fly, and had a fantastic time. It was bigger and better than 2009, and it all went swimmingly. I was left feeling awesome, and completely drained.
• Creative Writing Group is still going strong. We had a hiccup in the middle of the year when our venue decided it couldn’t host us any more, but now we have a new home and it’s all looking good.

Things I didn’t manage:

• Posting Starwalker three times a week. I dropped it to one post a week to give myself a bit of a breather, and haven’t managed to get back up to three posts a week. Even with a pile of NaNo material to use, editing and sorting out the posts in time to get them up three times a week just hasn’t happened.
• Apocalypse Blog shorts. I promised to do them. I have half of one written, but just haven’t got back to it in months. I am disappointed by this, and I do hope to get back to it at some point. To everyone who has been waiting for them: I’m sorry. It is still on my list. Really sorry. :(
• AB e-books. I am most of the way through editing the first ‘book’ of AB, but various other commitments have got in the way. I will have to attack this again soon.
• Merchandise. My potential avenue for this is struggling to get off the ground, and it hasn’t happened. Delayed but not forgotten or given up on.
• Getting business cards and doing more self-marketing. I had hoped to put myself out there a bit more, get some AB/SW t-shirts and go to cons to spread the word some more. Hand out business cards and bookmarks. Still struggling to sort out the graphics/design for these, though. It is still on my list of things to do.
• WorldCon. Work interfered and I had to be here for a major deadline, so I couldn’t go down to the event in Melbourne. Poot.
• Novel edit/submit. Haven’t even picked it up. Part of this has been the weight of webfic stuff I’ve been doing, but it also needs something more. I’m not sure what that ‘something’ is yet, but it is percolating in the back of my brain. Once I find that elusive missing piece, I will go back to it, but it’s not something that can be rushed.
• Other random blogfic. Yeah, didn’t get to this either. Starwalker has sucked up a lot of my creative time this year, and the angel-based blogfic has a lot of prelim work needed before it can start. With my energy levels as they are at the moment, this one won’t get going until SW is well and truly finished!
• More writing tips posts. I haven’t been posting on this blog anywhere near enough, and with nothing like the amount of ‘tips’ posts that I had hoped to do.

Without trying to make excuses, I will offer some explanations. I think the main one has been my health – I simply haven’t been as well this year as I was in 2009. The CFS is becoming more of a problem, and while I’m seeking specialist help, I still haven’t found the meds that will help kick it back out of my way.

It’s like trying to think through treacle, only not as sweet. Exhaustion is a weight on creative thinking, and I’ve had to push hard to get through some weeks and create something entertaining, for me and my readers. I don’t like that the CFS gets in my way, but I also can’t deny it or pretend it isn’t there, as much as I’d like to. Sadly, this isn’t something I can do a lot about – no more than I’m doing already, anyway. Just keep slogging on, I guess.

The other major factor this year is my work. Since my promotion in late 2009, I’ve had to take on the management of a small team with very little preparation or training, and carry it through a number of changes. Everything has changed, from our deadlines, to our format, to our management, to the structure of the entire R&D department, to the company we work for (we got bought out last month). Between picking up all the things that we’ve done previously and making it work with all the new stuff coming at us… it has been stressful. And busy. And crazy. And yes, very distracting.

I’ve had good stuff come up too. I managed to pull together some threads of various plots and characters I’ve been tossing around for a while. I have plans for the Starwalker universe that will take it beyond the story of the ship. There’s the possibility of a whole offshoot into another facet of that world, and that’s exciting. One particular character that I’ve been playing around with for about 10 years now has morphed in just the right way to fit in. And there’s a plotline that almost got started back in 2008 in a different project that I think I can make work in Starry’s world, too. Plus, of course, there’s the villain shorts that I’ll be working on in the new year, too.

I should probably come up with a name for the universe, to tie all these pieces together. Hmm.

Another couple of ideas have also recently come together, marrying up another long-standing character idea with a previously-separate world concept, with some aspects inspired by other fiction that I’ll mash in for good measure. That one has some background work to go yet, but I managed to get some outline notes down during NaNo (when I was burned out on Starwalker and needed to bulk out my wordcount), and I know I’ve got enough plot for three full story-arcs.

In short: I’m not going to run out of things to write anytime soon.

I’ll post more about my immediate plans in my ‘what I want to do in 2011′ post, which I’m sure will turn up sometime in the next few days. In the meantime… 2010? You were hard work. You weren’t all that I hoped you’d be, but I had high hopes to start with. I achieved some of what I set out to do, and I’m not disappointed with what I ended up with.

Here’s hoping that I can climb a little higher next year.

Monthly write-ins

I had so much great feedback on the NaNoWriMo write-ins this year, and so many people sad to see them stop, that I let myself get talked into running a write-in every month next year.

Clearly, I don’t have enough to do in my life already. ;) But I’m looking forward to it, and it’s getting lots of interest even though it doesn’t start until January. And hey, maybe I’ll get more of my own writing done!

Things are looking good. I have the Nightowls set to help me edit the first book of Starwalker next year (and I’ll be giving them feedback on their novels, too), and I’m sorting through the stuff I wrote for NaNo this year. Book 2 is fun! Who knows, maybe I’ll be able to get up to date soon.

Anyway, back to the grindstone. Looking forward to next year, stuffed full of writery fun!

Writing like crazy: this year’s NaNoWriMo

I can’t believe it’s nearly the end of November and I haven’t talked about NaNoWriMo yet! I need to get better at updating this blog. Bad me, no biscuit.

This is my fourth year taking part in NaNoWriMo. For those of you unfamiliar with it, it’s a mad challenge to write 50,000 words in November. It’s the best fun, completely exhausting, and wonderful for ploughing through that project you’ve been putting off all year.

Of course, I crank the pressure up to a hundred by acting as an ML (Municipal Liaison) and organising all the local events and get-togethers. Yes, on top of working full-time, writing 50,000 words, and dealing with my CFS. Yes, I’m nuts.

This year, the turnout has been astounding. Over 950 people in my region for me to look after, and event attendance is up to double what it was last year. It’s all a bit bewildering at times, but we’re making it all work and having a great time doing it. I’ve met so many new people that my ability to retain names is completely retarded, and I caught up with lots of familiar faces from previous NaNos.

My co-ML and I have been ambitious this year, organising prizes and competitions and all kinds of extra stuff for the writers in our region. We’ve had several write-ins every week, all over the city and surrounding areas, and big BBQs to organise.

We even had one write-in on the local trains, travelling around the city, collecting writers as we went and writing like mad. It was hilarious and everyone enjoyed themselves, and I actually got quite a bit written. Definitely one we’ll try again, and I have another idea for a similar roving write-in for next year.

The past few weeks have been a blur of organising, travelling, working, and running events, but it’s all gone great so far! What’s terrifying it that I think we might try to top it next year. At which point I suspect my head might explode.

On the actual writing side, things have been more mixed for me. Due to the crazy schedule I’ve been keeping, I’ve wound up having blitz writing days, and then gaps when I was catching my breath or too tired to form sentences.

I had a pretty clear idea about what I wanted to do this year. The timing actually worked out pretty well for me – I finished the first book of Starwalker early in October, and took a break in the lead-up to the NaNo madness, and then ploughed into Book 2 on 1st November.

But when I got into the meat of the first section of Book 2 (nominally named ‘Slave’), I realised that I hadn’t planned it out anywhere as much as I would have liked. Normally this isn’t a problem – I work a lot of stuff out as I go and see where it all takes me. But with the momentum of NaNo behind me, driving me to up that wordcount, I didn’t have time to stop and ponder. And because the bulk of my writing (in fact, all of it so far) has been done away from an internet connection, I couldn’t stop and research the little details like what star system they are visiting next.

It isn’t going to plan. Just like Book 1, Book 2 has six sections or chapters planned out. I’m almost to 50,ooo words and I haven’t finished the Slave section yet. I had to stop a week or so ago and go back, adding in notes about things I wanted to put in or change. Book 1 was just over 100,000 words.

Yet again, it looks like the story is not taking the shape I thought it would. And, actually, that’s fine. When I realised where it was all going, I took a pause to think about it, and I think it’s all just fine. ‘Slave’ looks like it will end up being the majority of Book 2, along with the section that is due to follow it. Which leaves the remaining four planned sections for Book 3.

Holy crap, there’s going to be a Book 3.

With that decided, I now have lots of scope to go back and fill things out. I will probably end up breaking down ‘Slave’ into several smaller parts, but that’s something I’ll worry about later. Right now, I’m excited to hit the NaNo target, so that I can go back and edit the guts out of what I’ve got. And by ‘edit’, I mean ‘rewrite and expand’. And fill in the details that I had left, like the names of new characters and that star system that I still have to look up.

And, just to be annoying, I heard of a magazine that wants horror scifi stories. Which got my overactive imagination going, and so I’ve been working on that when I get too braindead on the main Starwalker run. The story I’m working on is set in the Starwalker universe and connected to the events in Book 2. Never done horror before, so this is a new endeavour for me.

In all, I am doing okay, and looking forward to December. I have the last two days of November off work, and can’t wait to sleep, recuperate, and come back at it all fresh.

Video: novelling talk

I think I have managed to make this work! Here’s the video of my novelling talk, all 45mins of it. I believe the sound is crappy, but make of it what you will. 

If you want to see the presentation I was using, you can download it here (warning: in Office 2007 format).

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Download Video

Novelling talk

As those of you who follow me on Twitter or Facebook will know, I gave a talk on novelling at my work recently. The kind lady who organised it emailed me a few days before to ask ‘do I mind if she videos the talk’? Caught flat-footed, I couldn’t think of a good reason to say ‘HELL NO’ like I wanted to, and now there is proof.

The talk went well! I had well over 30 people come along, and lots of questions. It was more fun than I was expecting, but about as terrifying as I thought it would be. Especially when the head of my entire department came along to sit in. They’re all good people, so I was fine once I got into it. Public speaking is not exactly my forte.

The video is huge – 200MB – and 45 minutes long. YouTube apparently doesn’t like anything over 10 minutes and flickr doesn’t like anything over 8MB. I am looking into self-hosting the thing, and will link to it on here as soon as it is ready. Apparently the sound isn’t so good, but I’ll let you make of it what you will.

Will post again when the video is all uploaded and good to go, hopefully with happy embedding/links.

Change of plan

I’ve been doing a lot of thinking over the past couple of weeks. Things have not been going well for me, and if I’m honest, I’m struggling.

There are a lot of reasons for it. Work is stressful and I’m constantly fighting to keep all the balls in the air there. I’m managing more people, more projects, and tighter deadlines than we’ve had before. I’m still learning what the hell I’m supposed to be doing half the time, and every time I turn around, the goalposts have shifted six inches to the left. We’re doing all right, we’re still on-track, but that’s only because I’m busting my ass trying to make sure that’s where we are. I like clear goals. I like to know what I’m aiming for. I do not like playing catchup, especially not when it’s someone else’s fault.

There are also family-related factors at play that I don’t particularly want to get into. Let’s just say that it’s another source of concern, but not one I can do anything about (which is probably worse) except be there for them. It’s frustrating.

And then, once I’ve dealt with all of that, there’s my writing. I’m falling behind with everything. Organising my writing groups is simple – a couple of emails a month each (I have two groups), turn up and pretend to be competent, and enjoy the company and conversation. Easy, right? At the moment, it’s one more thing that I have to worry about, and the other week I started to seriously consider stopping them. Or at least one of them. But then I go to a meeting and I love it. It’s so worth it. It’s the bits in between, sending out the emails and having it niggling at the back of my head, all ‘don’t forget about this!’ Those are the parts that wear on me.

Starwalker is going really well. I keep meaning to post updates on this blog, but it’s yet another thing that I just don’t get to these days. Last month, SW had over 1,000 visitors. As in, different people, all coming to the site to read it. One thousand. And the feedback I get is amazing. People are talking about it. They’re getting excited about the storylines, and attached to the characters. I feel so lucky when I see that! I look at the stats and the comments and I’m all: “Wow. People like my stuff.” It’s a lot to get my head around!

It’s the hardest thing I’ve ever written. I’m going to all these new places with it, juggling and adjusting things as I go to make sure it hangs together, trying to get the physics right enough to be convincing. So far, it’s all working great! I have all of these plans for it, so many avenues still to travel down. It’s exciting, but it’s hard.

I think the difficult parts aren’t entirely down to SW itself. It’s everything else that gets in the way. It’s shifting mental gears whenever I sit down to write, trying to put all the job-related and other stuff aside for long enough to focus. It’s sitting down on the train for twenty minutes at a time and trying to get part of a post down. It’s giving up three evenings a week to pull a post together, edit it into something coherent, and get it posted. And more than anything else, it’s the exhaustion.

Chronic Fatigue Syndrome – it is the bane of my life, once again. All of that stuff I’m juggling makes me stressed, and stress makes the CFS worse, and then I get exhausted and that makes it more difficult to deal with the stressful stuff. Fun, huh? It has been bad (and getting worse) for the last couple of months. I keep trying to take some time off, take a break, catch my breath, and that works in tiny portions. Unless it puts me behind with everything (which it usually does), in which case I have to bust my ass to catch up again, and I wind up exactly where I started – exhausted and struggling to keep up.

Last year, I set my sights high. I didn’t do everything I aimed to do, but I did most of it and I came out of it all feeling really good about how it went. This year, I didn’t set myself targets that were anything near as ambitious, I’m not doing everything I aimed to, and I’m still failing. A week ago, I had that thought, the one that says ‘something has to give’. I’ve been here before, looking at myself in a downwards spiral, and unless I change things, I’m not going to get out of it until I hit bottom and have to stop doing everything. That was five years ago, and it was a lot worse than it is now before I realised how close and inevitable that bottom really was. Funnily enough, the key stress- and frustration-factor then was my job, too.

That, sadly, isn’t something I can change. It’ll get better eventually and now is not the time to change jobs. I am in a really good position; the best one I’ve ever been in, professionally. I’m doing well, despite all the crap I’m handling. And more than anything else, I need the stability of that place right now.

And, dammit, I don’t give up on shit easily. It’s probably part of what’s made me so sick – I should have done this a while ago – but having dealt with chronic conditions of one kind or other my whole life, I’m stubborn when it comes to this kind of thing getting in my way. There’s a part of me that suspects I should take a proper break from all the extra things in my life – the writing groups, the blogfic, the novel that’s waiting for me to edit it, the Apocalypse Blog stuff that I promised to do this year. But even as badly as I’m doing right now, I’m not ready to go quite that far. Like I said, I’m stubborn about this kind of thing.

But I have to change something. I need some way to get back on my feet. Right now, I feel like I’m failing at everything, even though it probably doesn’t look like I am. I’m told that it doesn’t show in SW yet – but it will. A post was due up yesterday and I haven’t even started it yet. I’m so exhausted that it’s difficult to think straight enough to write this, let alone slide my brain into Starry and try to step forward with her story.

I’m not going to do yesterday’s post. I’m not going to force it and have it come out half-assed. It’s time to be realistic and cut back. I thought three posts a week would be easy, but when the CFS is this bad, it’s too much. I’ve been tossing around the idea of dropping down to two posts, but I have to be honest with myself – that’s not enough. I’m not going to stop Starwalker – mostly because it will be incredibly difficult to start again if I do that – but I am going to bring it down to one post a week. Take a proper breather in it. Not permanently, but long enough for me to sort the rest of my life out. I’m not sure how long that will be yet.

I don’t know how this will affect the real-time aspect of Starwalker, but I’ll deal with it if and when it becomes a problem. I still love the story and its characters. I’m still excited about sharing it with everyone. Hell, the other day, I was pondering an old storyline I created a few years ago and realised that it would fit into the SW world perfectly. My original planned plot just got extended by another story arc. I am still committed to making this story work and won’t let this CFS screw it up completely.

So there you have it. I’m not giving up, not stopping. But I do need to step back for a while. I’ll aim to post on Wednesdays, I think, because by the end of the week I’m usually so tired I can hardly see straight. I still have to look at the other things in my life and see what I can do about them. I need to fix some non-writing-related factors as well, like the exercise I’m not doing and how often I can’t be bothered to cook. They’re next on my list.  I have some time booked off work coming up, too, and hopefully that will help me get on top of things a bit.

Wish me luck - I think I’m gonna need it – and watch this space!

Forward thinking

With the Apocalypse Blog running headlong towards its conclusion, I have been turning my brain to the brightening question: what next?

Some of you may know that I’ve had another blogfic knocking around in my brain for most of the year. As often happens when I dive into something new, ideas clamour for attention. When I was getting into the groove of AB and loving it, I asked myself ‘what else can I do with this format?’ And an answer came immediately to mind. I have held off doing anything with that idea, because I wanted to remain focussed on AB and get that done before something else distracted me.

More recently, I’ve had another couple of ideas crop up, one with a story attached and the other more of a character and concept. These are both blogfic-type ideas as well. They’re not very well-formed, but one might take shape soonish if I have the time.

There are some other things that I have been putting aside in order to focus on AB as well. The post-a-day schedule really hampered by ability to get any other writing done, and the novel I wrote last year has fallen by the wayside. I’d like to get back to it, edit and redraft it, and start to do something with it. I also have a short story that I stopped halfway through (I can’t remember why – I think I hit a snag with it), and I want to get that finished too.

And because I’m a glutton for punishment, I am not quite ready to say goodbye to AB forever once the new year rolls around.

So, things I have lined up for the next year:

• Novel – edit/redraft. Aim to submit.
• Apocalypse Blog -
  • Finishes 31st December 2009.
  • e-book it – need to look at how, where, etc. Also need to decide whether/how much I should edit it.
  • Shorts – short stories showcasing different cast members. Masterson, Jersey, Bree – I think I can do these without any problems. At some point, I might look at the Seekers’ future, too.
  • Merchandise – design and make available (?).
• Other blogfic -
  • Starwalker – a ship’s log, told by the ship. Site is halfway done, planning is partly done, needs some work to nail down cast and details. Posting 2-3 times per week (none of this every day craziness!).
  • A smite-happy angel in a Hawaiian shirt. Earth suddenly cut off from Heaven and Hell. Ahhh, handflappy. Yeah, that’s all I have right now. Tentative name: Earthwalker.
• Short stories – various. Finish that outstanding one! This one is definitely a maybe.
• Do more writing tips posts.

Hmm. It’s a lot, looking at it like that. I get tired just thinking about it all. The first thing I have to do is finish up AB. It’s a struggle at the moment – I still have over a week left to write, and it’s hard to find the time and energy with everything else going on right now.

In my original planning, I had hoped to be having a break right now. AB was supposed to have been finished off in November, leaving me a couple of weeks of December to myself as a break, and then a couple of weeks of planning for the next one. AB would post itself up until the end of the year, and by the time 1st January rolled around, I’d be ready to start posting the new blogfic. Perfect.

Yeah, that hasn’t happened. I’m still writing, editing and posting AB. I’m still rushed off my feet with everything. My head is reeling with everything I have to get done, and I am never going to get everything (anything?) prepared for the next blogfic before the beginning of 2010. Considering how painful it is to write and post with no kind of buffer, I don’t want to start the next one without at least a week or two’s posts in-hand. Preferably two weeks’ worth.

I’m the only one setting these schedules for myself. And you know what? I don’t need to punish myself with them. So I’m going to take January off. I’m going to take that month to do my planning, set up the site/s, build up a buffer of posts, and get myself ready to dive into the rest of the year. I need a chance to get my feet under me before I set off running again.

So that’s the plan. Get through the next week and a half, collapse, then catch my breath and start the craziness all over again. With slightly more planning and maybe a trace less crazy. Who knows?

You gotta try, right?

Kicking off NaNoWriMo

Wheee. Well, it’s 2nd November and I’m way overdue with a post about this. My poor chronicle of my writing activities is sadly lagging behind my reality.

As many of you will know, November means NaNoWriMo for writers. Crazy wordthrashing for one month out of the year, possibly resulting in a manuscript to spend the following 11 months editing before you start it all over again. It’s nuts, it’s fun, and there’s a great community that get involved.

Needless to say, I’m doing it this year. And as for the past two years, I’m also MLing (ML = Municipal Liaison = crazy person who not only tries to write a novel in a month, but also organises events and competitions for the local writers also involved). Thank goodness, I have some solid help this year and don’t have to do it all myself.

So, of course, we got all ambitious and have arranged all kinds of things. Goodie bags for giving out to writers. Sponsorship from local business to get prizes for the competitions we want to run. Two (or more!) write-ins a week. I was even interviewed on the local radio! (Terrifying, by the way, and thankfully not live.)

That’s one reason why the last couple of weeks have been nuts, as I’ve been trying to do my part in getting all of the pieces together. That, and a family reunion at which I was expected to show my face a lot around work and other commitments. Oh, and I had to keep up the Apocalypse Blog posting.

The good news is that it’s all working fine. We had the big Kick-Off Party on Saturday (I had to do public speaking and wrangle 50+ slightly loony writers) and an astounding write-in yesterday. Everything seems to be falling into place. I haven’t missed an AB post and am set to never miss another one again.

I paused and pondered this year’s NaNo a while ago, and knew that I would never be able to handle another writing project this year, especially not one as concentrated and life-sucking as a NaNo novel. NaNo is all about diving in and running with something, and that doesn’t work when you have to stop and write 700-1200 words a day for something else.

So I looked at my stats for AB and the goal I set myself when I started it. It runs to around 25,000 words per month (and more than that lately – I think my posts are creeping longer again), and I have two months to go. It’s not rocket science to work out that I have a NaNo novel left to write right there. So why make things difficult for myself?

This year’s NaNo effort is therefore going into writing the final instalment of the Apocalypse Blog. I’m going to steam through November and December’s posts and bring the whole thing to a sweeping (and hopefully half-decent) conclusion. Whee! What could possibly be better than that?

Of course, I didn’t realise until after I was committed to it that there might be a flaw or two in my plan. First of all, I’m in a rhythm with the blog – one post a day, lalala, off I go. I have to double that – okay, I can do that. No problem.

Secondly, I have to edit. I realised this yesterday, and this presents a couple of extra NaNo-related challenges. You see, you’re not supposed to edit during November – it’s all about pushing past the urge to edit and just writing anyway. Whoops.

Editing reduces my actual writing time, as I have to read over and edit posts before they go up (I always do this, of course, I had just forgotten that it would also apply during November). I often cut things out when I edit, which will impact my wordcount.

Because these posts are going up live (as ‘finished’ articles), I can’t pad them out with extra babbling and tangents. I also can’t use other NaNo wordcount-raising tactics, like throwing in extra adjectives or avoiding the use of contractions.

Not only do I have to write 50,000 words, I have to make it coherent and of a quality decent enough to post. And I’m pernickety about these kinds of things. It’s possible that my attempt to make NaNo easier for myself this year has, in fact, made it a rather different challenge. Whoops.

Oh well! I’m off to a good start (today wasn’t so great, wordcount-wise, but I’m ahead of the target so far), and hopefully things will fall into place more solidly soon. I know where I’m going (mostly) and have a couple of days to get my head down before I have to deal with work again.

Wish me luck! And good luck to all of you out there also attempting this wonderful challenge.

Moving, shaking, writing

Wow, I haven’t posted here at all yet this month. It’s been a weird week and a half, and I’m sneaking this in on the sly.

I made a snap decision last week. It was because of a lot of things - which I won’t go into - but I think it’s the right decision. It’s time for me to get my own place.

At the moment, I’m sharing with my folks, mostly so that I can save enough money to buy a house. Now is the perfect time to buy, but I don’t have anywhere near enough money to do that. I look at the bills I’ll be facing, and unless I want to live in a shoebox at the arse-end of a grotty apartment building, it’s just too much. And I don’t want to live in a shoebox, or in an apartment building. I’d rather the place wasn’t grotty either, kthx.

Which leaves renting. By far the cheaper option, and it means I can afford a house of the type and size I want, in a reasonable location. It’ll give me much more time to save up for that eventual house that will belong to me. It’s a plan.

I was so wound up that I went a little bit nuts last week, and I got myself a list of places to look at on the weekend. Only one of them was remotely what I wanted – a bit smaller than I’d hoped, but clean and nice, and a little bit kooky. Turned my application in this week, and now I’m waiting for a response. Hopefully I’ll hear by the end of today (looking unlikely now), or tomorrow at the latest.

So I’m a bit caught up in the notion of moving to a new house, filling it with furniture, getting everything set up, and not going crazy in the process. I’m also running on the edges of exhaustion at the moment, which is not helping.

I meant to do some work on the novel on the weekend, but wound up procrastinating and gaming instead. It just seemed like Too Much at the time. Hopefully I’ll get to at least a little bit of it tonight – I’m determined not to let it slide any more. If this moving business takes over my life for the next few weeks, I’ll never get the damn thing done. And I want to get it done. It’s a good story! I think I could sell it, if I can only get it done already.

I am managing to keep up with the Apocalypse Blog posting – thank goodness for my train commute. I’m trying to get my head down this week to cover this weekend’s posts, so that I can go furniture-hunting. Moving shouldn’t interfere with the blogfic too much, as long as it doesn’t take too long to get the internet connection turned on. (I’ll have to wait for the bed before I can move in properly anyway.) I’m going to have to work extra-strictly in the meantime to build up some buffer, just in case.

In other news, I had an interesting meeting with my boss and team leader this afternoon. I can’t say what it was about yet (I have been sworn to secrecy), but it was good news (for me). Things are going to get interesting in some ways, and easier in others. If ever there was a time I needed some good news, now was it!

Also, my Creative Writing Group has its first Author Talk tomorrow. Marriane de Pierres is coming to chat with us! How cool is that? Maybe I should put together some probing questions for her. Or maybe I’ll just go along and make stuff up like I usually do. I’m looking forward to it – hopefully we’ll get a good turnout!

Wish me luck!