Mad Poet Files

I wrote Battlehymn with a vague inkling of where it might be headed. I borrowed from a number of places including LDS scriptures, the works of John Ringo, Macross Frontier, etc. And I wrote it pretty quick – it was a NaNoWriMo novel, after all, and the whole think clocks in just north of 60k words.

I finally sat down and wrote a good chunk of what’s left in book 2 – Lamentations tonight. (Yeah, I know, the goal was 3k a day, I’m a week behind, I know. That’s still what I’m shooting for. Which will get harder starting Monday when I start a new contract job for a few months.)

It’s day one. Yes, it’s an arbitrary distinction, but it’s one I am wholeheartedly embracing.

After taking a look at my writing goals for this year, here’s what I’m doing. I’m erasing the Google Docs tracker that you see in the sidebar, and re-assessing my goals. As for a bare word count goal for the year, I’m setting that at 750,000 (which including my NaNo books I’ve done in years past, will put me at 1,000,000 words). And if I allow for Sundays off and a two week vacation, that means that starting today, I should be writing 2,500 words per work day. (There’s a very slight buffer there, but 2500 becomes the new baseline. Which after reading Michael Moorcock’s “Death is No Obstacle” is pretty small potatoes. Moorcock’s normal writing day is 15,000 words. (I’m hoping by the end of the year to be able to put up 5k on a regular basis.)

Saw it again last night. Had a crazy idea that maybe I could record the audio, because there were some good lines in there that aren’t in the original, at least I don’t remember them in there – the bit about small acts being what holds back the darkness, for an example – but in the end I decided not to do that. After all, it’s just not cricket.

In Which I Speak Of The Year Soon Over (And There is Much Rejoicing at its Demise)

The less said about 2012, the better. It’s been one of the hardest, most difficult, most disappointing, frustrating, miserable years I have had the misfortune to suffer through. On both a professional and a personal level, 2012 has been challenging.

That’s not to say it’s been without bright spots. Most notably as far as anyone reading this is concerned, this is the year I finally let one of my novels out into the wild, and everyone who’s heard it / read it seems to like it and seems to want more. So there’s that.

Seriously, I have no idea why you’re even listening to this today. You should be writing.

Ahead or behind, this is your last day to participate in this year’s NaNoWriMo. So, two last pieces of advice.

#1. Don’t submit this first draft anyplace. Seriously, ANY PLACE. Take some time, then re-write the heck out of it, polish it as much as you know how… THEN submit it. Seriously. That’s what I’m going to do.

Two days left.

You know the drill. It’s serious business.

But first, be entertaining! (or no one will pay attention to your sooper serious stuff!)

GSG NaNo Gaiden 2012 - Ep 29 [ 4:02 ] Play Now | Play in Popup | Download

Earlier today, I posted this GSG NaNo Gaiden Podcast episode that references Travis S. Taylor, and some of the things he said at a recent Huntsville TEDx conference regarding quantum mechanics, perception, the way the brain works, and the possibility that your thoughts could have an impact on the universe around you. And when you combine that with some things that have been going on in my personal church service, my work search, my writing, and what I’ve been reading from Michael Moorcock, hearing from Merlin Mann podcasts, etc… well, let’s just say that I seem to be picking up a lot of the same vibe coming from several disparate sources. It has me tripping out a little bit.

And, yeah, Taylor’s speech could be interpreted as total vindication for Battlehymn being harder science fiction than I may have originally thought, but that’s a little beside the point. I’m going to take the space here to work through this for my own edification, though I heartily expect everyone else to kind of skip this.

RAMBLING DISCOURSE BEGINS… NOW!

Your focus determines your reality. And what a storyteller does may have more impact than I had previously imagined.

The TEDx talk I mention here is at Doc Taylor’s website: doctravis.com.

Maybe it’s the combination of reading a LOT of Michael Moorcock’s views, but coupled with this talk, my mind was a bit blown last night.

Moorcock says “The medium is, to an important extent, the message, so if you’re trying to change the message you are sometimes forced to change the medium.” Breitbart (yeah, THAT Breitbart) says Hollywood is more important than Washington. And now this whole brain / quantum computer / entanglement stuff… it’s a lot to noodle.

Four days remain. By the end of today, you should be 45,009 words in to your new book.

As I said last time, I am just an amateur. Yes, I’m the ML for my area, but it’s not like that imbues me with special writer-advice powers. Yes, I’m five for five in NaNoWriMo books, but that doesn’t make me an expert or anything.

Day 26. You should be 43,342 words in to your new book. But if you’re not, do not despair. I’ve been reading my brand new copy of “Michael Moorcock: Death is No Obstacle” – a series of interviews between him and Colin Greenland (seriously, I am SO STOKED to have this you have no idea).

Anyway, in chapter one, Moorcock says that back in the day, he would write about 15,000 words in a day. So… yeah. He would pop one of these things out in a week or less. Had the thing down to a science – a science to which he added plentiful art. But that’s Moorcock.