Spinwork Blog

My God. Holidays at Starbucks were made to murder both customers and baristas. The last five days has consisted of some of the most maddening hours I’ve ever spent at this job. Rushes have started lasting all day, from 8AM to 5PM, with intermittent swells before and after. I’ve even noticed it as a customer. Those of you who follow my twitter will know I had numerous occasions today where I had people’s butts shoved in my face for minutes on end. Not cool. Even if growing up on the New York City subways have me partially used to it.

The other day I finished something that’s been driving me starkers since mid-November, that being finally finding a good, solid opening to Cloudnigh. People who read the IF version may or may not know how much I hated the original opening. If I have one pet-peeve, it’s protagonists that give an impression of emotional patheticism–which Roman did, uncharacteristically so. After much attempting to soften what I had, and then fretting over it, I finally  broke down and wrote a new first chapter. I’m fairly happy with the result–again, shocking, since I hate first chapters.

Now that I’ve got a solid foundation, my effort can now go into editing the remainder of my material–my goal is five chapters as a buffer–and then getting things going. I’ve been toying with web designs and the like in my spare time, and leaning towards a brown-grey themed design (Matt’s artwork asks for it). We’ll see how that goes in the long run. I’m not sure how long it’ll be before I have something up, but I’m aiming for late January, early February. I’ve also got some Spinwork related changes coming down the pike, but that’s another update.

So, it’s the new year now, meaning I should have some new years resolutions. Yeah. Well, I do–don’t get me wrong–but nothing really worth discussing on a writing blog–losing weight and eating better is among them–but nothing writing-related that I’d call a resolution. 2009 has been the best year for writing for me since 2004/2005, and that’s saying a lot for me. I finished a draft of Lanternfly, which still continues to mature and grow in my mind even though its been 2 months since I did any work on it, worked on and off on Shadower throughout the year, and fixed my sights on Cloudnigh. Its hard to believe I’ve been working on the story for eight months–exclusively, for four. In short, there’s nothing I want to accomplish in this year that I can’t from setting realistic goals and just keep walking.

In other news, I’ve started reading Anna Karenina, which has induced many orgasms of joy. Tolstoy was one smart mother fucker when it came to people. I can’t count the number of times while reading I found myself laughing and thinking, “I’VE THOUGHT THAT WAY,” and “I KNOW PEOPLE LIKE THAT,” which seems to be the pinnacle reaction to my reading lately. Its so incredible how writers from the fucking 1800s are seeing the same sort of human traits I’ve picked up on with the people I’ve known. I’d always thought that when a society evolves, the mannerism did so too, which in retrospect, I guess is sort of naive. No–people seem to have had the same “shoulds” and “oh-god-fucks” and “ZOMFG WHY?” now as they did then, if not made a little bit more insecure and unstable by the 21st century’s marketing and media machine.

Things go swimmingly–so off I swim. Thanks for reading!

Spinner Books & Reading, Cloudnigh, Musings & Rants, Site-related 2010, Anna Karenina, Cloudnigh, Lanternfly, New Years 2010, ranting, Starbucks, work

It’s about 10:30 in the morning and it feels like its about midnight. Chalk it up to my World Issues professor deciding it would be a good idea to watch Wall-E at 8:00 in the morning instead of a final. Not that I’m complaining–Wall-E’s one of my all-time favorite movies, but one I like to watch after a long Saturday, or when I want to wallow in the movie’s unique atmosphere, not just after waking up from an involuntary all-nighter. The upside is I’m currently blessed with that clarity that comes with 2AM writing sessions, where everything makes that sleepy kind of sense and you’re less inhibited to pursue your muse through the pearly avenues of her perpetual acid trip.

I finally finished Atlas Shrugged last night after a near three-month struggle. I say struggle because Atlas isn’t one of those books you read–it’s one you excavate with heavy explosives. Where the effort in reading it was is difficult to say. It’s a long sucker, to be certain (1168 pages), complete with everything I was taught not to do as a writer–from long, expository passages (60 pages, long) to dragging explanations of character’s morals, sexualities, and stoicism against emotional trauma. Still, when it pulled me in, it pulled me in good, and hundreds of pages would fly by in a blink. I wouldn’t quite say its a page-turner, because there are times I had to reread entire passages with a feeling of, “wait, what the fuck did he/she just say?” The reward of being able to fist-pump on my favorite characters in the end was amazing, though (DANNESKJOLD! REARDEN!).

The book is, without question, one of the most intense, overwrought, annoying, hair-tearing, scalp-shredding, bitter-laughter inducing, inspiring, life-changing books I’ve ever read. There’s something masochistic about reestablishing my reading habit with two, 200,000+ word books in quick succession–books that have earned me groans of “you’re reading Ayn Rand? But she’s so conservative/republican/economically fascist/idealist/reactionary, and her prose sucks.” I don’t read books for their agenda. Every writer has an agenda. I have an agenda. I don’t force it down peoples’ throats, and I don’t swallow when writers try to force theirs down mine.

Virtually every criticism I’ve heard about both Atlas and Fountainhead focused on Rand’s views, and I agree. Rand is an idealist, and her opinion is conservative past realism. Her prose is clunky–although, in her defense, English wasn’t her first language–and not something I’d recommend to someone looking to improve their writing. What hooked me was her focus on character and her portrayals of the ideal man (and woman, in the case of Dagny Taggart), which, although hyperbolic and utopian as the rest of Rand’s themes, had enough “real” for me to latch onto, and sufficient “unreal” for me to suspend my disbelief. In a way, I think it was that hyperbole that drew me in. You can learn a lot from exaggeration. After all, it’s more or less the core of comedy. Apparently it works well in fiction, too.

In the end, its difficult to put into words just what the effect was. There were a lot of parts in the book where I’d read a scene or speech and be like, “I FEEL LIKE THAT SOMETIMES,” or “DAMNIT, I’VE HAD PEOPLE PULL THAT ON ME,” or at times, be  awed that such a complex story could be held together with such ostensible simplicity. Maybe the message and the meaning is meant to be mine alone.

That said, I’m continuing my reading extravaganza. I don’t know what I’m going to read next, but I like blogging about it. It gives me something to talk about that isn’t creatively whorish and expository (a use for this blog!). On my list right now are Slaughterhouse-Five, Anna Karenina, Les Miserables, Scarlett Letter and Stranger in a Strange Land. I should also look into finishing Snow Crash, but I haven’t been in the mood for sci-fi lately.

My semester’s over as of yesterday, closed with a read-and-edit of my friend Will’s book, Imperium, which he’s been working on about as long as I’ve been working on Hellion. It’s been really interesting seeing where he’s come from and gone with his stuff, and I’m really starting to see his story and concepts coming together, which is exciting. I’m just hoping he sticks to it. *stern look*

With the semester closed, the time’s come to do more work on Cloudnigh, which continues to stumble and swell in the relative semblance of growth. I haven’t done any actual writing on it in a few days, as the story seems to be demanding some background notes. Its sort of nice that I can finally identify the feeling of “what the fuck am I doing?” as a reminder to check my notes and see what I’m actually trying to say. When I look at the inspiration of my process, its sort of weird to see where I’ve drawn it from: Ayn Rand, Jonathon Stroud, Phillip Pullman, J.K. Rowling, Herman Melville, Fred Gallagher, my dad. I guess I make it work in my own way. Only now am I starting to realize how adaptable you have to be to plan a project. I’ve approached Cloudnigh in such a different way than I approached Lanternfly.

In that vein, I’m still working on Lanternfly–not as actively as I used to, but still. I’ve got a long term plan for that, and for Shadower. The gig right now is trying to execute Cloudnigh as best I can and see what comes of it as an online project. I’m finally at this place of relative confidence (90% acceptance of failure, 5% raw excitement, 5% stubbornness) where I can start to realistically plot out my course for the next year. With luck, that course will be Cloudnigh.

We shall see.

Thanks for reading!

Spinner Books & Reading, Cloudnigh, Daily Blogging, Hellion, Shadower 2009, Atlas Shrugged, ayn rand, Cloudnigh, fountainhead, Hellion, inspirating, Lanternfly, Rants, reading, reading list, Shadower

I’d been wondering who I’d have to sleep with to get some time to myself lately to sit down and blog about the happenings of the last couple weeks. Honestly, though, if sleeping with people was what it took to get some peace of mind from all the crap going on in my real life lately, the list would be pretty long–the CEO of Starbucks, various officials at Greyhound, the president of Champlain College, among others. Given half of those are probably twice my age, that’s probably not happening in any literal or metaphorical stretch of the imagination. I mean, aside from the fact that “sex for peace” really doesn’t work as is…

Anyway.

On Monday, October 5th, I finally had my Independent Study panel for Lanternfly. Given this was actually supposed to take place back in the last week of April, and then May, and then August–we were all sighing a massive “finally” about getting it over with. The panel convened over 114 pages (50,000 words roughly) of the 700 page (170,000) manuscript, which I had to select based on plot relevance. It was an interesting process, actually–especially since I have a tendency to over-write, and I hadn’t actually gotten around to editing anything. Rumor has it my screams of anguish are still ricocheting off the walls in Starbucks.

After much deliberation, printing shit, and twiddling my thumbs until my fingerprints wore off to the point where I needed skin grafts, the day finally came. Unfortunately, it also came on one of those off days where I’d been working since 7 in the morning, and had pulled in all-nighter the night before, leaving me to stagger into the panel over-caffeinated, mentally shot and smelling like an espresso bar. Fortunately it wasn’t as horrifying an experience as I’d thought. My good friend Will Ryan was there, as well as Erik, along with Tim Brookes, the head of the Professional Writing program. Over the course of an hour, we made short work of the manuscript, as I talked about the concepts, what I’d learned about my process and the like.

First and foremost, I have learned it is completely impossible for me to draft work on a deadline. I thought I could waltz in and write and come out with relatively decent material at the other end–yeah, wrong. Quantity of pages a week? Yeah, bad idea. Oh yeah, and minimalized concepualization and not editing a bit during the process to make sure I’m standing on a good foundation plot-wise? Epic fail. So I think it’s suffice to say pages-a-day are leaving my process–which isn’t really a new idea to me (I’d been skeptical about that since March). Other than that, the rest of the stuff was also stuff I’d figured out over the course of the study–don’t take three pages to walk ten feet, and so on.

By the end of the panel, I had a pretty clear picture of what my road forward with Lanternfly would be. Without a doubt, it was the most helpful hour of my college career. I’m pretty happy with the grade on it–even though I firmly believe even if I’d failed, it still would have been a successful course–and even though I pretty much have to start Lanternfly from scratch, I’m more excited than ever about the story and the way forward. A little weird, maybe, but I consider it an excuse to do a better job. =)

Ultimately, the panel was the perfect crossroad for something I’ve been considering for a while. More and more lately I’m beginning to realize being online has been more of a hindrance than help to my writing–and where I’ve been considering online publication for a while, I think it would be a health-hazard at this point to subject myself (and my work) to something like that. Perhaps its the age of the people I’ve been spending my time around–and don’t get me wrong, there are some great writers scattered in all these ones and zeroes–or maybe it’s mechanical and wholly uninspired nature of the online writing communities out there. Regardless, I’m realizing I get absolutely no joy from talking about the shit I write. Actually, 90% of the time, I feel like I’m bastardizing my process and the work itself. I understand there are people out there who are interested in my work, or–God knows why–respect me for what I do, or how I do it. Believe me, I thank everyone who’s ever given my shit, this blog, or any of my sites a glance from the bottom of my heart. Writing has never been about publishing for me, but being a storyteller, and I think it’s now time to listen to that part of myself and take a step back for a bit.

I’m going to keep working on Lanternfly, and eventually, I’m going to publish it. I think for now, the thought’s going to go towards writing and making a way for myself.

Thanks for reading everyone, and I’ll see you around now and again. =)

Spinner Hellion, IS 2009 Internet, IS2009, Lanternfly, Panel

In my last entry, I mentioned I was having trouble getting started on the second draft of Lanternfly. That hasn’t changed all that much in actual work I’ve done. Seems like every time I take more than a month off a project, I have to go through this period of reorientation where I need to remember just what it is the fuck I was doing with the book and all that. I’m still plodding through scratch outlines and bitties, trying to find a place to cut some things, and other places to expand.

On the whole, I think my focus has been trying to find a systematic, yet flexible way to work. One of my biggest problems is the tendency to get extremely frustrated and berate myself–which there has been an unhealthy abundance of lately. I don’t know, maybe I feel like I should be better at this after having done it nearly four times. Yeah, no.

So, to counter this, I’ve looked into some methods that will hopefully make my process a little easier, and also help improve the content and quality of my writing. The first thing I’ve done is trying to set aside time to write every day, in spite of my job. Another big problem I’ve run into is that I’m apparently a pretty good closer, meaning that’s what I get scheduled for the majority of the time. Given our store closes at 10:30 (mind you, the last freaking place on Church Street that doesn’t serve alcohol), and most of my shifts being 7-8 hours, I’m usually left with the late hours, which is usually when the most dicking off happens. So, I’ve started doing what is probably the most unthinkable I’ve ever undertaken in my life: I’ve started going to bed early and waking up at eight in the morning.

Those who know me personally know that I am by no means a morning person, and I’m almost infamous for being the only screen name on after 3AM on some nights. The downside of going to bed at dawn and waking up at 1, 2, 3PM is that absolutely no writing gets done, and that usually grinds at me after a while. So far I’ve had a little bit of trouble with it–my first morning, I missed the shot by about two hours. This morning it took me a half hour. We’re getting there, but slowly. Then there’s the problem of the sun in Starbucks acting like a laser and melting anything that sits in my seat before 11:30A. I’ll work on it.

The other new thing I’ve been doing is looking into research for Lanternfly. Now, I’m not a particularly good researcher. To be brutally honest, when it comes to writing, it’s the last thing I want to do. At the same time, I know its something my work really NEEDS to be what I want it to be. So, this morning, I sat down and made a laundry list of crap I need to look up to build on reality. I wound up with about a page of stuff–everything from flower arrangements to Apartheid, mopeds, Native American tribes and the British school system. In a way, I’m really happy I did it, and I even started looking up books on a few subjects. Maybe when I get adjusted to this new schedule, I’ll hop off to the library and see what I can find there.

I’m pretty sure there are going to be days where I’m absolutely going to hate this, but this is after all what I want to do for a living and my process is almost as important as the writing. Just gotta stick to it.

Thanks for reading!

P.S. The series title has been changed from Hellion to Evercoil. I’m not sure if this will be a permanent change, but it seems the best at the moment ^^;

Spinner Daily Blogging, Hellion draft 2, Evercoil, Lanternfly, laundry list, new methods, organization

I tend to learn something new about my process every day, even when I don’t write. Weirdly enough, I’m starting to think the times I’m writing and the times I’m not are equally important. At the moment, I’ve been wrestling with that feeling of utter stupidity I have from looking at the first draft of Lanternfly and going, “what next?”

Truth be told, I have a crystal-clear image of what I need to do, how I want to go about doing it–but I can’t. I don’t know if its that I took so much out of myself just getting the manuscript done, or that I’ll dig in and discover I actually hate what I’ve been working on for what’s going on (technically) five years. Whatever it is, I’m in this limbo of, “oh, come the fuck on, Ben,” and “eh… it’ll pass.” Maybe this whole process is like a diet, where you’ll always start it “tomorrow.”

Well, I’m technically on a diet right now, and that’s going terribly (in fact, the only thing I’ve managed to hold together is biking to and from work every day). I’m also stuck working full time at work this week, which also marks my one year anniversary at this job. All my shifts are closes, which means I literally have no time to anything other than wake up, go to work, make however-many hundreds of lattes, go home, and dick around until I have to do it all over again.

Of course, I COULD not dick off and actually plug in my flash drive and open up the manuscript, or at least crack my journal and get some concepts done. I COULD write down those ideas I’ve been batting around in my head for the last three days about book two and where that might be going. Or I could continue to sit here and get down on myself about *FINALLY* finishing a book after two years of being a recluse until I could actually get a workable idea rolling.

What I think I’m learning is that this part–just like starting the actual book, is probably a lot harder than it is. I’m gonna hem, I’m gonna haw, but at some point I’m just gonna quit my whining, knuckle down and do it. It’s not like I’m completely void of time. Seriously, I could have turned out some serious material in the time I just wasted on LOST (even though the words “wasted” and “LOST” can’t be used in the same sentence).

So, that said, sleep, and tomorrow–writing. If not, I give my ghost-readers every license to kill me.

Thanks for reading.

Spinner Daily Blogging, Hellion 2009, Hellion Book 2, Lanternfly, LOST, procrastination, work

Lately I’ve found myself being distracted by a bunch of fresh ideas that have nothing to do with Lanternfly. I guess that’s good–a fresh story, a fresh perspective, something different. Yet I can’t help the feeling that by pursuing them I’m engaging in some maritial affair. On the one hand, it means I’ve finally settled on Lanternfly as my project. On the other, some of these ideas are kind of good. There’s one I’m actually kicking around on the back burner that I might do a bit of work on in my spare time–the concept of spare time being relative beneath the concept of impending 30 weekly hours of latte-fest.

This new idea, though, is a lot more microcosmic in comparison to my other work. What I find interesting about it is that it hinges on observation, yet doesn’t make the narrator an irrelevant character. I don’t think I can elaborate any more than that, the story still being in its infancy and all. At the moment, I’m calling the story Leophim. I’ve got a little bit written. We’ll see what happens with that.

In other news, all I’m really trying to do is get back onboard draft two of Lanternfly. That I may be enmeshed in this part of the process for a year or more isn’t all that helpful. Apparently, the worst of this is over and I’ll actually enjoy this. Then again, I do have a lot of ground-up rewriting on the beginning and ending, at least three characters I still only partially understand, and about 30-40,000 words to cut. Uguu.

At least I’m going home tomorrow! Weeee~. ^_^

Thanks for reading.

Spinner Daily Blogging, Hellion, Leophim 2009, draft 2, Lanternfly, Leophim, summer, work

A week as has passed since I finished the first draft of Lanternfly and I’m really surprised by how empty I feel without something to do every day. This has got to be the first (and longest) period in the past two years where I haven’t gone to some cafe and sat down to write. When it wasn’t Lanternfly, it was Endoflux, or a short story of some kind, and one of my many tangent projects, and if it wasn’t actual writing, it was conceptualizing. The other day I sat down to look at all the material I have and its sort of shocking–especially the amount of stuff I did in 2007 that *wasn’t* actual writing. Not that I did much of anything writing-related in 2007, but… ah.

According to Erik, the fun part starts with editing. Not that the last 170,000 words weren’t fun, or anything, but the entire effort of actually writing something that I’d eventually have to edit was sort of like coaxing myself to jump off a cliff. In fact, a good portion of the process this time around was writing with editing in mind. I don’t know when, but I came to a point where I just went “fuck it” and started banging away. That really made all the difference, and that’s when I really started having fun.

Now that I think about it, I’m really looking forward to editing, especially since it means I get to revisit and reexplore many of my characters. It also means learning more about the drafting process, and how much room I can give myself in the initial writing. The biggest problem I ran into in the independent study was toward the end where I ran out of time to develop the concepts and characters of the chapters I was about to write. The last three, while decently written, are a complete mess and a prime example of what happens when you don’t space out the bones you throw readers. There’s also the first three, which were when I thought I was writing a story about some girl whose father worked on steam engines in Quebec City and the relationship with the girl’s mother made her run away up there. Well, I still wound up in Quebec City–nearly wound up in Germany, however the fuck that came about–but with a very different story

Something I noticed in writing is that not all the characters came to me fully formed at the end. In fact, one particular character, one who actually used to be the protagonist of the whole damn series, and will assume that role later, is the worst off. In fact, I pretty much ignored his development completely in the first draft just because I had no idea “how much” the reader needed. Now that I’ve got the book down, I’m thinking, I’m hoping, that I can go back and tinker with him a bit and get him how I want. That’s the glorious thing about the drafting process is you can consciously allow a few of these. Or at least, that’s what I think right now. Maybe I’ll wind up revisiting him and shoot myself a quarter chapter after his introduction or something. Fuck.

Last Friday, I had my last meeting with Erik about the independent study. Idiot that I am, I was half asleep through most of it being that I was up late doing things that one should not do when they have to be awake at 9AM. One of the best parts about working with him has been the manner of his encouragement, and caution of holes I could possibly fall into while writing. I think the most important question he asked me was sometime right after we started and he asked why making dreams concrete was important. I sort of sat there for a minute and was like, “wait… what?” And then realized he’d hit on something I hadn’t thought about directly. I had thought about it, but in that really abstract way you do when you’re hashing out an idea and want to leave the specifics out for the time being. In the end, that conversation helped me come up with a pretty important bit of info, and I was able to write merrily again.

There was also a lot of good reading over the course of the study. The two that affected me the most are the ones he gave me about character and the idea of the villain as a catalyst as they taught me to view my characters and my antagonist as humans and not devices. It opened my eyes to a lot of possibilities, not just for the book, but for the series as a whole that I’m really eager to explore.

I could write a million more things about this, and how much fun I had on the first draft of Lanternfly, but I’d be getting ahead of myself. After all, the book’s not done yet and I still have a lot of stuff left to do before I can let anyone read it. What I’m going to do now is enjoy the rest of my “writing vacation,” finish out the semester, see my family and then kick back into things again. And make lattes. Can’t forget the lattes.

Thanks for reading!

Spinner Daily Blogging, Endoflux Theory, Hellion, IS 2009, Short Works 2007, draft one, Erik, IS2009, Lanternfly, Rants, school

A little bit ago, I polished off the last page of Lanternfly for the time being.  I’m waaaay, waaaay too exhausted to go on any long drabble about the book. I think its abundantly clear to me that this is just one of the initial steps in banging out the story and that I hope the road to a proverbial finished product is just as fun as these last 14  months have been (Jesus Christ–that’s twice as long as it took me to write the original).

What comes next?

First, I gotta get done with school. Then, I begin the part where I go through and journal-enter like mad for a bit about what everything is, if its needed and what absolutely sucks… write additional scenes (in this case being about 6  chapters from scratch and one plotline). Then… we’ll see! =)

Thanks for following guys. The journey’s not over!

Thanks for reading.

Spinner Daily Blogging, Hellion, IS 2009 draft one, IS2009, Lanternfly

Writing dramatic structure into an extended piece of writing is one of the most excruciating aspects of the process for me. When you look at it, two, or even five pages a day, five days a week is such a pain. You start, you stop, you laugh, you cry, you go through monsoons of inspiration and salty droughts while your life breezes on around you and your unconscious, the refuse filtering through the cracks.

I don’t pretend to have an unconscious any more or less complex or vulnerable than the next jack, but there’s something annoying about being on the precipice of finishing the first major milestone in the process and hitting a brick wall. Its not the first time this has happened to me. Writing my third book, Shadower, saw me hit a rather profound pile of this about six paragraphs from the end, stalling me two months. You gotta wonder if it’s you in moments like this, especially when you run into it on two separate occasions in two very different books two years apart.

For those who follow my twitter will know chapter 25 was a bit of a pain in the ass to write. Anyone who’s racing to finish something for whatever reason will know how giant a deadline looks when you’ve gotta redo a part of the peice three times. I guess I can chalk that up as another learning experience–rewriting a full 15  pages 3 times in 48 hours. Its not that I don’t know what I’m writing–or that my muse is an emotionally disturbed, bipolar slumbitch who requires heavily bribery to operate properly–but that there’s so much other shit going on. Papers, projects, more papers, housing selection, class selection, half the people at work bailing for new jobs. it weighs on you after a while.  But this is where stubbornness comes in to play, I’m learning, and although I probably won’t get 26 done til Thursday night, I know I can get everything settled by Sunday. Just gotta push, push, push.

I’m happy to say that Lanternfly has held together as a  much better than any of my other efforts. Its not perfect by any means, and it won’t be for a long while, but the story’s there, and I feel like its definitely workable into something I can finally finish and show people. I feel like I’ve finally found a process I can parry with–one that hasn’t evolved all that much since the Writing a Novel Guide I posted sometime ago (minus the outline bit). There are still things to tweak (I’m not sure if my going a draft without any sort of edits are going to work in the long run–I have a lot of shit to rework in this book), but I’m liking the majority of what I’ve set down. Also, Advanced Creative Writing has been very helpful with research methods. I hope to keep that going.

In other news, my 22nd birthday was on Tuesday. I’m at that age now where birthdays have really lost their charm. People keep asking me if I did anything special. Aside from jury duty forms (FUCK), and a nice card from my grandmother, I endured two classes and went to a Hibachi place with my friends where the chef set onions on fire and sculpted a dollop of rice into a stunted choad with balls. Maybe when I’m 25, or 30, I’ll do something exciting. For now, I’d like to focus on graduating.

Thanks for reading.

Spinner Daily Blogging, Hellion, IS 2009, Shadower IS2009, Lanternfly, Shadower

I’m finally getting to the point where I can officially begin freaking out about my Lanternfly deadline. As of right now, I am in the groove  to get the book done sometime in the next 2-3 weeks. In that time, I also have a 12 page paper to write for a class, on top of other assignments. That, and my work schedule is glorious enough to make me want to obliterate large, preferrably uninhabited portions of the Midwest using a very powerful rocket launcher.

So in short, here comes the stress.

Lanternfly on the other hand, is really sailing. I finished the 22nd chapter tonight of what is probably going to wind up being 26 chapters (27 if I somehow wind up needing more space to pull off the ending). Averaging 2 chapters a week, as I have been consistantly through March, this is more than doable. The only problem is–well–that I’m going to have to go into relative seclusion to do it. I’m even contemplating finding some other cafe to write in, as the amount of people that bother me is starting to rise, on purpose or not.  I’ve always had to deal with idiots who seem to think my writing is some trite hobby I have to keep myself busy, and those are really the last people I want around as I throw down the end.

Maybe I should invest in a tazer. Or a bodyguard. Or something.

All I can really say is how overwhelming well the story is going for the speed I’m writing it. It’s taken me by complete surprise that I can manage a pace like this without the writing being terrible in every facet or not coming. Maybe something will blow up and I’ll get hung up on 23, or something. I dunno. I don’t think that will happen.

I may not be around much in the next couple weeks as I get this out. One thing’s for damn sure. Y’all will know when it’s done ^_^

Thanks for reading!

Spinner Daily Blogging, Hellion, IS 2009 IS2009, Lanternfly, work-load