November Update: NaNoWriMo

Ugh, this is only the third post this year. I would start with some big, philosophical heartfelt communication about writing and creativity and discipline, but I think that’s mainly what the other two were. I’m tired of doing that (though I bet this post shifts toward that in the end).

So here is where we are.

FayTown Calling continues. Writing progress is painfully slow, mainly due to inconsistency. It’s been a busy year, my job, wife’s nursing school, the progeny, blah, blah, blah. Look, if you have read this blog at all, you know I’m busy and that’s why the second novel still hasn’t come out. All those things are true (though my wife is now officially done with school and I COULD NOT BE PROUDER!!!) but it’s real easy to use life as an excuse. I wish I could say all my free time was going toward writing, but it’s not.

I can find time, it’s just about discipline.

So, here’s how I’m going to deal with that. The keyword of the month is accountability. It’s embarrassing for me to be writing a post like this again, with publication still well over the horizon, but it’s a lot easier to do it when it’s only the third time this year, and that’s exactly why I’ve done it that way. It’s much easier to come on here and throw up a post with a bad status update every few months, vs keeping a daily tally.

Part of the original function of my blogging, and the website in general, was to serve as a log, so that I could record progress and make that information available to any who might be interested. High level, it’s a lot harder for me to not write if I am making said lack of writing a matter of public record.

Which sucks, but accountability usually does.

It being November, a month well known in our circles as National Novel Writing Month (an event I have always wanted to participate in), I thought it would be the best time to start with this.

So this post will go up roughly two in the morning on Nov. 1st (something like that, not sure how Daylight Savings will affect it) and my goal will be to write sometime Sunday. But whatever I do, or don’t do, there will be an update by tomorrow night. That will continue, these updates. Can’t guarantee they’ll be long, whether I’ve done a lot or not, but it’ll help in forming the habit and keep this on my radar.

All of this is intended on finishing out the month with a solid draft of FayTown Calling. I can’t even say where it is right now, but I know I’ve got some work to do. If I don’t finish, I’ll keep going.

Every day.

That’s a big promise, one I am very uncomfortable making. Not even really sure how I’m going to do it. Work hasn’t gotten slower, and all of the things I’ve referenced keep going, plus the holidays. But that’s my goal and I’m going to do everything I can to get as close to it as possible.

So here comes the philosophy damnit. I’ve used this before, and I don’t know that the attribution is correct, but it hangs over my computer at work and it’s one of the most important things I’ve ever heard. I’d rather fail trying to succeed, than keep ignoring this and let this continue to slip by.

“The greater danger for most of us lies not in setting our aim too high and falling short; but in setting our aim too low, and achieving our mark.” – Michelangelo

FayTown Calling is only the second Virgil book, and I have at least five other stories for him planned. A few of those, I know probably aren’t even sequential, that is, I know they are later in Virgil’s story and there will be other books I haven’t thought of yet beforehand. There are scenes I have thought of for years that I don’t even know where they fall, characters waiting to be created, villians ready to rise, and a world ready to be explored.

I don’t want to always be getting around to it.

So I’ll end with this.

See you tomorrow.

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