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.