The Penultimate

Current Project: Writing Black Badge Season 2

% Complete: 96

Yesterday was an odd day and it felt like no matter how much I was sitting here writing the word count wasn't budging. I kept pushing though, and by late in the night I'd hit 2800 words, which was pretty good. Thursday could've been a better day than that, but I had a long work assignment for the paper and knew I had all day Friday to finish, so I didn't press too hard. I'm about 3/4 done with the finale episode, and will be finishing it up this evening. I'm so ready to be done!

Other stuff

Nothing really. I wish the Texas Rangers would stop losing. They picked a terrible time in the season to go on a losing streak, and they need to play their best the next three days or that spells trouble for us. So go Rangers!

I'm off to write!

Step Twelve

Current Project: Writing Black Badge Season 2

% Complete: 92

Yesterday was a very productive day, which came as a nice surprise. I only had a few hours of sleep, had to work the first part of the day, fell asleep at the keyboard in the afternoon, went to my family's house for a few hours for dinner, and I still somehow managed 3600 words. I broke it into two writing sessions. From 3pm to about 4:15pm I was asleep at the computer, but from 4:15pm until 5:30 I wrote 1500 words and finished episode 11. Then later last night I got moving on episode twelve, the season 2 finale, and wrote 2100 words.

I was really pleased with how episode 11 finished up. In a book full of dark happenings, this may've been the darkest of them all. I was unsure on how it was going to work, so it was a relief to write it and feel like it played out perfectly. And then to start the finale, I can't tell you how good that felt. Weirdly, I think the finale will be one of the shorter episodes. I'm usually a "go out with a double sized episode" kind of guy, but unless something balloons unexpectedly, it looks like the finale will run a bit shorter than the average episode. Which is fine with me. The book's on track for low to mid 70,000 on the overall word count, and that's not including all of the bonus material we'll be packing into it.

Other Stuff

Nothing really. Just excited to be this close to the finish line. I've got work tonight covering a big football scrimmage/fundraiser thing, but I'm writing a little before and a little afterwards, all in preparation for finishing on Friday. Getting it done on time should be easy enough and barring complications I'll be celebrating at some point tomorrow night.

The Very Big Night

Current Project: Writing Black Badge Season 2

% Complete: 89

For how busy of a day it became yesterday, I actually managed to do a good job of keeping the word count solid. I wrote 2200 words, spread over two separate writing sessions. I watched my nephews for a few hours in the afternoon, then wrote, then spent the evening hours covering City Council for the newspaper. I got home and wrote that, finishing around midnight, and I jumped into more Black Badge. Council is extremely draining, so it was nice to power past that and get some quality writing done.

Other stuff

It was a huge night for my newspaper. We've been in business for a little over 5 years. The other local newspaper in this area has been in business for like 70 years. So you can imagine the uphill fight it's been for us to gain credibility and acknowledgment. Well, we're not the red-headed stepchild anymore. Last night the City Council voted to elevate The Grizzly Detail (that's the paper I write for, for those that don't know) to the status of Official Newspaper of the City of White Settlement. They didn't take the title away from the other paper, so now there are two official papers here, but I really don't even care, because this is a huge victory for us. We're a tiny operation, with just 3 people on our main staff (that includes me). The division of labor can be weighty sometimes, and each of us wear about twenty different hats, from writers to photographers to deliverymen to web designers to whatever else we need to be. We've worked so hard to get to where we're at, and to get the recognition last night and to have the council put their support behind us (well, 4 of the 5, one voted against us, hahaha), it's so rewarding.

Being the Official Newspaper means that we'll now receive every notice that the City is legally obligated to place in the paper. They have to do this all the time, from ordinance notices to bid announcements, they put in ads constantly. Ads are the only revenue stream for a newspaper, and securing this new source of ads is a big boost for us.

I'm not going to lie, I feel like we've deserved this distinction for a while now. We turn around city news insanely fast, and my bosses give me the freedom to be a storyteller. They allow me to craft things like City Council coverage into a narrative, alive with quotes and supporting information. We've gone above and beyond in this city, and we just kept our heads down, ignored the negativity, ignored the attacks that came against us, and focused on doing what we're passionate about. Informing the citizens about the important things going on in their world. I'm insanely proud of what we've accomplished, and I feel like this is a huge validation for us.

So yeah, as you can tell, I'm really pumped up about this. It makes me want to work even harder, to get even better, and to show this community on a weekly basis why they should be proud to have us as their Official Newspaper.

Quietly marching forward

Current Project: Writing Black Badge Season 2

% Complete: 87

Yesterday was an oddly calm day for me, as my roommate lives on a cycle of strange and ever shifting bedtimes, and yesterday saw him go to bed at like 2pm. That meant an empty and silent house for me to exist in, and while it was certainly nice, it was also a little weird.

As far as writing goes, I had a really good day that I wish had been really great. I wrote 3700 words, which is a really big day, no doubt, but not quite as huge as I had been hoping for. I totally spaced about an assignment for the newspaper, so 2 hours of my prime writing time was spent doing that instead of working on Black Badge. But, the writing flowed pretty well, so no real complaints. I'm halfway through episode 11 and I'm really pleased with how the story is playing out, so that's all that matters. I should have enough time to still reach my goal of being done by the end of Friday.

Other stuff

Tonight's got the potential to be pretty big for my newspaper, so I'm getting a little nervous about that. Maybe I'm reading too much into it, but there's a City Council action that pertains to us that could be a big deal. It's sure to be a crazy meeting, but my boss will be there which is always nice. It's usually just me, so it's nice to have the big cheese there to act as a shield.

Hopefully the meeting and the fallout isn't too insane, as I'd love to get in another writing session after I come home and finish the council coverage. I don't think I've ever successfully come home on a Tuesday, written the council coverage, and then turned around and wrote fiction. Council is so draining that by the time I'm done putting it together I just need to veg out for a few hours and then crash. But, I've never been on a mad dash to finish a novel after council either, so maybe tonight I can work through the post council crash and get some more Black Badge written. We shall see.

That's about it. Yesterday I also went to the bank and to the grocery store, cooked some tacos and took out the trash, watched the Rangers beat the Red Sox while I wrote (I've mastered the art of watching baseball AND writing at the same time, it's just a shame it took me 95% of the season to figure it out), and.... I guess that's it? No, I also watched a movie. "Something Borrowed", because yes, I do love romantic comedies and I'm not ashamed to admit it. It was really good, and not as "paint by numbers" as most films of that genre are, although it did confirm my longheld belief that Kate Hudson is the absolute worst actress. If she and Cameron Diaz where in a movie together the TV would just break so that it wouldn't have to live through the terrible act of projecting their terrible performances onto the screen. So yeah, I obviously have strong feelings about it.

Hope the week is treating everyone well or good or both, depending on how much you care about proper grammar.

Ending on a high note

Current Project: Writing Black Badge Season 2

% Complete: 83

After bemoaning the weekend, I ended it on a high note. 3300 words were written to close out episode 10, and to top it off I was done before 10pm, which is about 4 hours sooner than most of my writing sessions have been ending over the past few weeks. With just two episodes left to go the sun suddenly shines brighter and the heavy workload of the rest of the year seems a little less intimidating.

Other stuff

Being done at 10pm afforded me to do something that was far overdue, and that was clean. For a little over a week I'd migrated to my secondary workstation in the living room, abandoning my primary computer in my bedroom to the avalanche of notebooks and paperwork that had overtaken the desk. So I spent a few hours getting the bedroom whipped into shape, and then also had to do some straightening in the living room as I set it back to how it should normally be. The final result was a much happier life, as I hate living with clutter. The room's in great shape now, and I'm back on my beloved neon green keyboard in front of my widescreen 32 inch monitor.

The Black Badge Season 2 deadline is by the end of Friday, so today's already been filled with one writing session and I'll get another one in after dinner. Tuesday night, Wednesday morning and Thursday night are all full this week, so my big writing gains will need to be made today (I'm already making great progress there) and Friday. My hopes are to finish episode 11 Wednesday afternoon, then immediately start episode 12. Friday will be an all out writing marathon, and I'll either finish on time or die trying. It's been a while since I had to push it to the limit, and in a sick way I'm kind of looking forward to it. Or maybe I'll make much better progress than expected Tues/Wed/Thurs and Friday won't have to be too brutal. We'll know soon enough!

Still hatin' on the weekend

Current Project: Writing Black Badge Season 2

% Complete: 80

As expected, I got no writing done on Black Badge yesterday, which is a bit maddening. It was not a totally lost day, however, as I got most of my newspaper writing done, built a pretty cool new feature for the newspaper website, read more of a book I'm reading, had dinner with my family, and accomplished a few long overdue Hall Brothers administrative type things. I had a contract to send out and finally got that done and sent out, and then I wrote the back cover text for one of our upcoming novel releases. I've started to really enjoy writing the back covers for books and I think I'm getting pretty good at it, so it was great to get this one locked down. I'll triple check it today and then send it to the cover designer extraordinaire Paul Milligan who is in the process of designing the cover already.

Other Stuff

I'm finishing up newspaper work right now and then will spend the rest of my day finishing Black Badge episode 10. I went over the next few months of Hall Brothers business with my brother last night and boy, the rest of this year is so packed for us. If I didn't have novels to write in the midst of all of it, it wouldn't be so bad, but I do and so it is. The good news is that I'll have a month or so where I can take a breather in March of 2012, so I've got that to look forward to, hahaha.

My problem is that I'm focusing on everything at once, which is always overwhelming. But like last night when I did that contract and the back cover text, when I can break things down into just one at a time it's not nearly as bad. But for right now I'm complaining. I just need to finish Black Badge and then there will be a few weeks of editing and outlining where I can take a little break, so that will be nice. I'm also really looking forward to my twin nephews birthday in a few weeks. There might be something big happening with our newspaper this next week too, so I'm anxious to learn more about that.

Anyways, life is busy, but full and awesome. Looking forward to tomorrow, when I plan on hiding out in the house all day and working on Black Badge episode 11. I'm trying to get finished by the end of Friday night, and it's going to take a big push to meet that goal, but it'll feel so good to be done! Completing a novel is one of the best feelings in the world, an almost indescribable rush of accomplishment that you have to have felt to really understand. It's nice being close enough to where I can start thinking about that bright white light and the end of this long and harrowing tunnel.

I hate weekends

Current Project: Writing Black Badge Season 2

% Complete: 80

Considering that yesterday turned into a shopping bonanza, I still got a decent amount of writing done. My budget isn't too pleased that I finally wandered into some closing Border's bookstores, but I'm happy about it. Although I did feel like a vulture, picking at the carcass of something that matters to me. Bookstores closing is a bad, bad, thing, and I felt kind of crappy profiting (well, saving money, whatever) off of it, but I guess that's life.

I didn't actually start writing until around 11:00 pm, which is a bad time to start. But I did get 1600 words written, and finished the second scene in episode 10. It was another down scene, which is how I refer to scenes that don't include crazy action. Black Badge contains very few down scenes, so I try to have fun with them and pack them with more character interaction than "Look out!" or "I'm out of bullets!", hahaha. I'd love to finish this episode today, but I don't think I can, for reasons I'll get into below.

Other Stuff

I hate weekends. Imagine if your entire workweek was shoved into two days, add in an overnight second job, and you'll understand my Saturdays/Sundays. Sure, I have work during the week like sports coverages and city meetings and such, but the bulk of my work is done on the weekend. And I pretty much hate it. Everyone else I know has weekends off, which makes my weekends worse. Like this weekend, I've got a friend in town from Oklahoma, but he can only hang out today. I've got to write all day, and when the night comes I have to head out to do my second job, which means I pretty much will never be free on a Saturday.

But, oh well. My job is amazing, super awesome, and my life is amazing, super awesome. So I'm done complaining.

Not much else to talk about. Of the six books I bought yesterday, all six are sequels to books I already own, which I thought was kind of funny. I watched Point Break today while I was working. It's like the 75th time I've seen that movie, and I love it dearly each and every viewing. I've also sat through most of Spiderman too, which sadly I have to say doesn't hold up very well. I loved that movie a lot originally, but re-watching it is a little painful. It's so over the top cheesy and the effects don't hold up at all and the costumes are awful and yeah, I'm just not that much of a fan of it anymore I guess.

Alright, back to work, then having dinner with my family, then back to work, then off to my other work, then back home to get back to work, then back to work tomorrow morning through all day tomorrow, and hopefully back to work on Black Badge tomorrow night to finish up episode 10.

The rare day off

Current Project: Writing Black Badge Season 2

% Complete: 77

Yesterday was a rare off day for me, but one I definitely needed. I had a big word count of ZERO for the first time in a while, but I didn't feel too bad about it. It was nice to rest my left wrist, as its been a little agitated lately from my marathon writing sessions. And it was nice to spend the day with my family, talking with the grownups and goofing off with my nephews, who are hilarious and awesome and wonderful.

Other Stuff:

Today was pretty awesome. I had my work/shopping adventure in Arlington, which was nice. Football in the morning, Frye's Electronics for lunch, and then a double feature of movies at the Arlington Studio Movie Grill. Saw Fright Night and Conan and really liked them both, with Fright Night edging out Conan.

Tonight I plan on getting another scene done on Black Badge episode 10, and that's about it! Hope you're all having a great start to your weekend!

Calm Before the Storm

Not much going on today. Getting ready to head over to my family's house for our weekly family night, which is always wonderful.

Current Project: Writing Black Badge Season 2

% Complete: 77

I was planning on yesterday being an easy day, shooting for 1500 or 1200 words, something in that range. It took me a while to edit episodes 8 and 9, and it was already getting a little later by the time I started writing episode 10. After two straight days of pedal to the metal writing, yesterday was a slow crawl. But I hate ending a session in the middle of a scene, so I crawled on and on and on, through the fantastic Rangers game, and into the deep night. Finally around 2am I finished, hitting 2200 words for the day and closing out scene 1 of episode 10. It was a better word count than I had been hoping for, so that was good.

Other stuff

Not much else to share today. I've got a busy weekend ahead of me, kicking off with a football scrimmage in the morning which will be followed by a day of shopping and hanging out in Arlington, which I'm really looking forward to. I've got a lot of newspaper stuff to do this weekend, so it'll be something of a struggle to get time in on finishing Black Badge, but I'll make it happen.

I am struggling for an idea for the bonus short story to go in the season 2 collected edition. The first season I used it as an epilogue to the season, Scrolls I used it to tell a completely separate story, and with The Bond we used it to launch a side character into his own thing. I kind of want to do something different this time, but I'm just not sure what. I've got a week or so to figure it out, so maybe something will come to me.

I've also been thinking more about my new novel idea, and wondering when it is that I would work in another novel during the year. I want to do it, because this idea is fantastic and dark and wonderful and weird, I'm just not positive when I'd write it, as my year is pretty filled up with writing and editing and such. But it's on my mind, and sooner or later I think it'll break through and demand to be written.

And that's it. I hope everyone is having a great day!

Follow the Leader

I don't blog nearly as much as most of my favorite authors do. Self promotion 101 for authors is to have a strong online presence, a way to connect with your readers. Usually when I blog it's to overshare about my life, and not anything too terribly related to my writing. But, my writing is something I'm deeply passionate about, and it's what I spend a huge amount of my time doing, so why wouldn't I blog about it? So here we go, in what I'll try (but may fail) to make a much more regular thing.

Current Project = Writing Black Badge Season 2

% Complete = 75

The past few days have seen huge progress on Black Badge Season 2. I completed episode 8 on Monday, then started episode 9 later that night. All in all it was a 4700 word day, which is almost double my usual average of 2500. Then yesterday I completed episode 9, writing an additional 4400 words for a 9k+ two day total, which is really good.

If you're thinking "Hey, isn't Black Badge Season 2 supposed to debut on hallbrosentertainment.com in just 26 days? Then why the heck are you still writing it?" you're not alone, because I think that a lot these days too. I'm not taking a long time to write it, I took a long time before STARTING to write it. It's an important distinction for me, as I pride myself on being fast with projects, but it's not that important of a distinction when it comes to the fact that it really needs to get done soon.

As for the story itself, it's sailing along beautifully. I'm really amazed at the amount of growth the characters are having over this season, and pleased to see them maturing and changing and making working on a sequel everything I always dreamed it could be.

For today's goals, I'll be doing my quick edits on episodes 8 and 9, and then starting episode 10. I'm not planning on writing much on 10 tonight, that way I can give my sore pinkie (pinky?) finger a day off. I'm hoping for 1500 words or so, and the overall goal is to be first draft done by Friday Aug 26.

Other Stuff

Received the proof copy for Martin T. Ingham's "West of the Warlock" today and it looks so gorgeous. Once again our cover designer Paul Milligan has knocked it out of the park, as the book is just fantastic in every way. Martin created what is perhaps the most entertaining story I've read in many years, and while you're welcome and encouraged to read it for free as it runs episodically over on the Hall Brothers website, trust me when I say you're going to want the collected edition. So many extras, and just an amazing book to own so you can read it again and again.

On a personal level, I'm doing fantastic. High school is back in session, which means my summer off from sports coverages is over. I'll be at a HS football scrimmage on Friday morning, a Volleyball tournament on Saturday morning, and from there the sports coverage rollercoaster carries on. I love football, but the season is extremely intensive and I almost always end up getting sick towards the end of it or right after it. I'd love to avoid that this year.

You'd think I'd be dreading the return of sports, but I'm not. I get to go back to doing photography, which I really enjoy, and getting to watch a ton of sporting events for free is a pretty good way to make a living in the world.

Beyond that, I'm doing flantastic. About to watch the Texas Rangers, I'm reading a new book called Sandman Slim, I'll be spending the day tomorrow with my family, I came up with an amazingly awesome idea for a new novel yesterday, life's good for sure.

The Offer

So a few weekends ago I posted cryptic Facebook messages about how super stressed I was. At the time I didn't want to talk about what was going on, but now that my decision has been made, I'll share. I was approached by another newspaper and they wanted me to leave The Grizzly Detail and come work for them. It was a weird position to be in, and I was very honored that this organization thought highly enough of me to seek me out and try to hire me. It was really difficult for me, because I'm a few things. Number one is loyal. When I fall in with someone, I tend to adopt a "ride till we die" attitude. My bosses at The Grizzly took a big chance on me five years ago. I was unemployed, had no print journalism experience, and no college to back up my claims that I really could do the job. And yet they brought me on, and ever since it's been full speed ahead. They've never told me no, never said "you can't do that", and never tied me down to just doing one thing. They made me a partner, and together we've built something special.

The second thing I am is very routine oriented. Creative types are usually very freewheeling, but I'm not really. I like my life to run a certain way. I like that I see movies on Friday morning, hang with my family all day Thursday, work Wednesday morning, cover Football games on Friday night. I get comfortable in routines and I hate the idea of them changing.

Ultimately I turned down the offer. I feel good about the decision, and I feel good about how it all got handled. In the end, it came down to the fact that I'm not done where I'm at yet. I've grown by leaps and bounds in my time with The Grizzly Detail, and I've had a chance to help the company grow along the way. We've made a difference, sometimes a small one, a few times a big one, and I don't feel like I'm done growing with this company. The newspaper industry isn't exactly thriving these days, and maybe I turned down the one and only offer I'll ever get. It's amazing to be presented with opportunities, and it's a true honor to have them brought to you instead of having to seek them out. It humbled me and inspired me to keep doing what I'm doing, because it seems to be working. And I'm happy with my life, and that works for me too.

So yeah, a whole lot of stress, a lot of consultations with friends and family, and a big life decision to stick where I am. It was handled well, and I'm still on good terms with that organization. That's good, because no one knows what the future holds, but for the present, I'm happy where I'm at. I believe in what we've built, what we continue to build, and the work we're putting out on a weekly basis. The day I'm not, I'm gone, but that day's not today, and I don't think it'll be any time soon either.