Unpacking Failure
I celebrated finishing NaNoWriMo last year, so it is just as fair to dissect what happened that I failed this year. I can break it down to two factors:
1. Being unprepared
I started the month with a vague outline of an idea, and never really managed to find my footing. I did manage to write a nearly thousand-word . . .
The Identity Blindspot
One of the weirdest things that happen as you get older is that you begin to realize that your self-perception isn't quite correct. Depending on your self-awareness, this ranges from having to accept unpleasant truths to having a full-on identity crisis as you begin to unpack how little you know yourself.
I . . .
Slacking For Self-Care
It's not been a great month for writing time, between sickness and a big update at the day job. So this one is going up late, and things aren't looking good for a triumphant NaNoWriMo.
The term self-care gets stuffed with a lot of connotations of middle-aged rich people in spas with eucalyptus oil, cucumbers on the . . .
Just Keep Typing
National Novel Writing Month is a challenge every year where people try to pen a novel in just thirty days. I managed to finish mine last year at like 4 AM on December 1st; I rounded it up to mission accomplished.
I dug out an old idea of mine that had been sitting in a notebook and am setting out today to get . . .
Book Review - Red Rising By Pierce Brown
I found out about Pierce Brown through the MacStories guys. So I wasn't really sure what I was getting into beyond the basic gist of the book. When I first started reading, I found myself in that familiar YA territory. A well-worn mix of heavy-handed metaphors, large dumps of exposition, and very understandable rules and factions. I . . .
Creativity and Planning
My Hobonichi notebook has become a place to do a quick bit of writing every day. I write a page or so with text of varying sizes depending on my motivation. I pair that with an actual attempt to document my day in Day One. These routines are meant to keep me writing even when I don’t get a lot of time to do anything . . .
Book Review: Fall; or Dodge, In Hell By Neal Stephenson
Friday went a little sideways on time, and I found that it was already almost midnight by the time I got a few minutes to upload this post. Decided that it made a little more sense to wait until Monday.
I have to admire that Neal Stephenson has created an entire science fiction world to serve as framing stories for fantasy novels . . .