So, it’s the fifth of november, the fifth day of NaNoWriMo. And I hear you asking (and shut up, by the way, you’re deafening me) How the hell is it going? Are you making some progress this year? Does this shirt make me look like I have man-boobs?.

The answers are - Good, yes and kind of, mostly on the left.

Here is a little word count doobie. -

I’m almost caught up to half way through yesterday.

Which means I’m going better than I did last year. (Though the writing is utterly atrocious!)

I’m trying to put a little widget thing on the front page. Not sure if it’s working yet or not. I’ll work it out later.

Well that’s it on the NaNo Front, I’ll catch ya later.

And an even early ToDo for the month Post (for next month).

Usually around this time… Actually - the last day of the month… I go over my months ToDo list and realise that I didn’t do anything at all.

Then the day after that I come back with a whole new ToDo list for the next month.

Exciting isn’t it. I almost peed my pants from all the excitement.

Well I just had a look at my ToDo list for October (Have a look at it here) and I just realised two things.

One - I didn’t do any of numbers 1 through to 7.

Two - I noticed I made a mistake. It reads “My ToDo list for November“ - It was supposed to be for October. I think that explains why I didn’t get anything done. I wrote the list for the wrong month.

That’s my story and I’m sticking to it.

Anyway… My ToDo list for November is simple. It’s one point and one point only.

1 - Write NaNoWriMo Project.

Luckily - the one thing I did do on my October ToDo list was to choose a project for this years NaNo and Write down the plot points.

I then went a step further and wrote out a plot synopsis. I think it came to about 1800 words or there abouts. Then I went even further and extended it a little more. Adding a couple of details and moving some stuff around.

It’s now just short of 3000 words long.

Which is great. The story is a lot clearer in my head and I’ve gotten rid of most of the “Maybe this happens or maybe not…” type stuff. (All except one or two small maybes)

So when November 1st arrives in two days, and I get home from work about midday, I’ll be ready to roll.

All in all, I’m already doing a lot better than I did last year.

I’ll be posting updates as the months rolls along, with little word count doobers and all.

It’s less than a week until NaNo begins and I think I’m actually in danger of being prepared.

Oh-my-Todd!

Over the weekend I wrote a 1864 word synopsis.

I thought I knew the story well before but now… All the space between the plot points I listed the other day seemed to fill themselves in with details I didn’t know about before. Or at least thought were meant to be somewhere else. I watched as everything seemed to sort itself out. Some places which were grey and fuzzy on before, now make sense and are more in order than before. A few new ideas turned up for the party as well.

Everything just seemed to fall into place like a tetris game set on beginner mode.

Here’s a little sneak peak in wordle form -

I was thinking of rewriting it before the end of the week. Flesh the story out a bit further, but I’m worried that it’s a bit overkill. Maybe it is and maybe it isn’t. In a week I’ll be spending a month straight on this and nothing else. I think I’ll spend the week thinking of other things.

bye now.

In ten days NaNoWriMo begins.

Does it?

Yes, It does.

October for me has been the month of “I’ll do it later.” (If you don’t believe me, check the title of my previous post)… November will be the month of “I’m doing it now! Stop bugging me!”

Last year I failed miserably at getting the “novel length“ 50,000 words pumped out but I did get a short story and a whole bunch of ideas out of it.

This year I plan I’m trying it again. For one - it got me writing on a regular basis (for a little while). Two - I did get some great material out of it. (Some I may actually use one day). Three - Three - hmmm… Three - why the hell shouldn’t I?

I’m going to try for the high points this year, hit the 50,000 mark… and maybe more…

(He says, getting ahead of himself.)

The Problem -

Choosing which project to work on. An important choice because I’ll be dedicating the whole month to one project…

Door number one - A story that has been cultivating in my head for six years or so. (For more info search my site for ‘Project Apocalypse’) I scribbled down the plot points the other day and quickly came up with a 24 point list.

If I choose this one I have a plot to follow, plenty of ideas but I may not have a lot of room to move and play around and screw things up.

Door number two - A story that I came up with a few weeks ago. It’s been brewing in my mind but I’m not exactly sure where to take the second half of the story.

I’ll have plenty of room to breathe and have fun writing and creating but because I don’t have the complete plot worked out there’s a chance I’ll get lost and lose focus.

Door number three - A blank slate. Start with nothing and write from there. The pros and cons on this one are similar to the last one except with no starting point or ideas ready.

I’m pretty sure I’m going with door number one at this point. So I’m going to do some more planning, plotting and what not.

By November 1st I’m going to be so ready to write that I’m just going to burst story all over the page.

It’s been almost a whole month now and I’ve done next to naught.

And there’s only one person I can blame for not getting anything done.

Travis the alien. He arrived in our solar system around the beginning of the month and so, most of my time has been spent in an intergalactic battle. The stakes were high, real high. I had already lost five bucks to him and now the stakes were double or nothing. This was life or death stuff.

Darn you Travis!!

It was that and because I did extra shifts at work last week and the fact I bought a Wii… And because I hired out a few movies.

The work alternated between mind-numbingly boring and so busy you slip into automatic and your brain switches off.

The Wii is great. I love playing the tennis on Wii Sports and I downloaded ‘My Life as King’ from the Wiiware and got addicted to that for the last week or so. All in all though - a great purchase (especially since I got it for about half the price it was at the store due to a staff discount and a work bonus in the form of a gift card)

Then, once I’d finished playing My Life as King, I thought I’d finally get down to business with my writing… So I went out and hired some movies. It was dollar tuesday so I hired out five movies. Four of them sucked. The one surprise - Doomsday. I hadn’t heard about it before but the guy at the shop recommended it. Turned out to be pretty awesome with all you could want for a post-apocalypse action movie - Blood, Viruses, A ticking clock, Car chases, gun fights with high-tech battle-wear, a medieval style gladiator fight, a mad max style gang and one hot chick that’ll kick your arse sooner than look at you.

Fun!

Also, somewhere in there I did some spring cleaning and I bought a new video card for my computer. (Although the video card turned out to be incompatible with my computer but for some reason all the screwing around with the video cards made my old card start working right again. So, score!)

I have some more stuff but I’m going to split it onto a seperate entry. Do you know why?

Neither do I.

A little over a year ago I was having trouble finding places for all of my books. So I decided to build my own set. A huge set of shelves with enough room for all of my books and a whole lot more.

(I still have room)

Anyway, it took a lot of effort and considering I got C’s in shop class in highschool, they turned out pretty damn good. Here’s a post from just hours after I finished building them. - Link

Today they are one year old and still standing.

As you can see the shelves have bowed a fraction in the middle. One day I might put supports up but it doesn’t seem to be too urgent.

So, Happy Birthday Mr Shelves!

Seriously, NO TITLE!!

This is due to the fact that I’ve done practically no writing in the last two weeks. (Which may be, in part, because I got Legend of Zelda for my gameboy)… But I choose to blame it on the fact that I’ve been doing some extra hours at work. Damn you work! Damn you to Hell!

Another reason that I haven’t gotten a lot done recently is because I decided to try and write out a synopsis or make some sort of plan for my projects. This came about because of one of my projects.

I’m writing a story based loosely on a computer game I loved as a kid. One of my favourites of all time. It’s mostly just for myself but I’ve been turning out some great material that may be usable later on. But the point is - knowing where the story is going seems to really help with writing it.

So I figure writing out a few thousand words may help give me some direction. (The only problem being - it’s real hard!)

Here’s a little peak at the story anyways, See if you can guess what game it’s based on - It begins in the Janitors closet on a spaceship…

Anyway, I’m having a bit of fun with it.

Another of my projects, one that I started formulating in the last month or so, is coming along nicely. Idea-wise. It’s about a man who was forgotten by his people but not his enemies, and one day they attack. I have good idea of how it begins but after that it gets a bit vague. It needs a lot more planning before I begin to write it.

On non-writing related notes -

I Got a couple of new books. Yay me! - I got Neverwhere by Neil Gaiman (Who incidentally, has recently made it onto my favourite author list.)

I also got myself a copy of Dune. (Another computer game I loved as a kid) It’s a surprise it’s taken me this long to get myself a copy, but there you go.

My TBR shelf is now two titles longer.

Also, it’s been around fifteen years since I’ve wanted to see a new Jean-Claude Van Damme movie but, damn, this looks cool - Link… It seems a little similar to My Name is Bruce. But I’m still going to watch it.

Also, This is pretty cool.

And this one was giggle-worthy too - Link

Also, The devil gave me everything I could ever want and all it cost me was my soul. But in a strange turn of events that involved a misprint on the contracts - The devil is now cutting the bottom off all my shoes. Sucker!

I think there was more. But I can’t remember right now.

P.S. - I’m thinking about getting myself a Wii.

hrmm… Did I say Productive? I meant… Lazy.

I got up late, watched a movie or two, napped on the couch, read a comic, watched Tv… That was my day.

*Stretch and Yawn*

But, as promised (to myself and to all those who don’t read this blog), I’m coming up a ToDo list for this month and planning on sticking to it. This means work everyday and marginally less napping…

Without further ado…

My ToDo list for November -

1. Write everyday… Sounds familiar, right? It’s always been on my todo list and always will. It’s just easier somedays, other days the blank page (or even the next paragraph) just seems too daunting, an impossible to overcome obstacle that stops me from even opening up the file… and those days seem to come more often. But, I’ll be writing everyday now. 1500 words minimum to be exact.
2. Write another Short Story… I’ve been thinking about what to write next. I was thinking about writing a vampire story. Sort of a companion piece to Where Wolf. Maybe.
3. Think of something for Number Three…
4. Write a Doug Update. Or maybe two. I have some plans on the next one but nothing’s written in stone… or at all…
5. I was thinking of recording a reading of one of my stories to put up on the site. I found a little plugin to do it… (although not for the sidebar like I wanted) So, I’ll add that to the list.
6. Win a million dollars on the lotto and lose it again through a combined gambling/drug/alcohol/hobo killing addiction.
7. Learn to play the piano… You don’t need to have one to learn do you?
8. (Late Addition) - Work out what I’m going to write for NaNoWriMo. Do a little plotting and Outlining…

Well, that’s about it. Check back at the end of the month to see which ones I kept to.

And remember Bruce is…

I have no reason for putting that in. I just felt like it.

You may remember at the beginning of the month I made a little To Do list. You may also remember that I’m not the greatest of actually getting shit done.

That being said, Here was my To Do list for september -

1. Write everyday.
2. Finish the current Short Story I’m working on
3. Rewrite the last short story I wrote.
4. Start on novel. Get through a few chapters at least. Let’s say 5.
5. A couple of Doug updates. (I’ve gotten a bit behind on the Doug updating lately).
6. Let’s throw another short story in there just for the hell of it
7. Do other stuff too.

No. 1 - Fail - I tried to do this and managed for the first week or so but it kind of slowed afterwards and I took a number of days here and there and in between.

No. 2 - Pass! - That story I was working on was Where Wolf. I finished it like a mofo! You can read it here

No. 3 - Pass-y fail-y kinda thing That was Out of Reach. I rewrote parts of it but in the end gave up on the total rewrite I planned on. I may get back to that sometime in the future but for now… Meh

No. 4 - Fail… With a capital F!. Five Chapters? What the hell was I thinking?

I did, finally, find a half decent way to begin the novel and it’s slowly moving along which is awesome. but five chapters? I must’ve been nuts!

No. 5 - I’m gonna say pass… Because well… I got one done. So that’s more than nothing. Go here to see.

No. 6 - Fail. There wasn’t any old ideas I felt like working on so I started thinking up some new ones. I considered about writing a story about gay spiders called Arachno-Fabulous, but didn’t get further than the title. There are better ideas in the stew pot, so keep an eye out and an eye in.

No. 7 - Pass. - ‘Cause I did do other stuff. Including fixing up this site and adding a static front page like I’d always intended to do.

There were also some other changes as well, as shown in these before, during and after transformation pictures….

That’s all for now folks. Check back tomorrow when I come up with a really difficult to complete ToDo list for November!